ABSTRACT
The United States Executive Branch, its agencies and congressionally funded organizations, as well as private organizations, should understand that attempts to overly politicize their activities in a transitional Cuba will likely backfire, to the advantage of the successor to the Partido Comunista de Cuba (PCC). The more people are involved in free market economics, the less support is likely to be given to the PCC successor. The future "new style" PCC will remain the largest Cuban political party, with an electoral base among older people, bureaucrats, professionals, and industrial workers. The very nature of communism requires concentration of Cuba economic activity in large units— hence "industrialization" from Stalin to Mao to Ceausescu to Fidel Castro. Cuba is "different" or "similar" to other former communist regimes, there are a number of aspects related to the political culture of all post-communist transitions, which are likely to be present in Cuba as well.
