[ClaireSolt]

I can think of lots of examples of people who wanted to liberalize tyrannical regimes gradually. but I can think of no successes. Those who try meet the fate of Nicholas and Alexandra. Revolutions are messy and unpredictable, to be sure, but a little freedom just doesn't cut it.

[Rockingham]

As odd as it may sound, even the tyrannical Russian Czarist regime was reforming, probably successfully, until Stolypin's resignation in 1911 and WW I in 1914. Nicholas and Alexander were tragic figures but, with peace and reforms, they might have survived had Czarism evolved into a liberal constitutional monarchy. More recently, the Boer regime in South Africa reformed and permitted Black majority rule, and there are some other examples of tyrannies reforming.

The problem with communist regimes is that they regard party control as irreversible, which makes them corrupt and almost always inflexible. Even so, the East European revolutions of 1989 and the Russian Revolution of 1991 were remarkably peaceful because the legitimacy of those regimes had thoroughly evaporated. When the crunch came, the armed forces were unwilling to enforce or permit the bloody repression required to keep the communists in power.

Fidel has rejected the Chinese model of economic liberalization as too risky. Successors may try it, but the US will almost certainly insist on free elections, civil rights, protections for exiles who return, and resolution of expropriated property claims. The best chance for a post-Castro communist regime is to find a pliable dissident who will head a transitional government in return for peace, amnesty for communists, and retention of their personal wealth. If so, as in East Europe, the more agile excommunists will then run the place for five or ten years or so after Castro is gone.