Word: communistically
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...then-girlfriend Jillian; he cannot conceive of marriage as a possibility in the wake of political disaster. This is the only perspective the novel presents. Though Gessen implicitly acknowledges that this perspective is flawed and at times ridiculous (as when Mark likens his sexual fumblings to the German communist Karl Liebnicht’s failed revolution), he presents no alternative. Even at the end of the novel, in 2008, the fictional Keith still thinks in political terms: his friends’ weddings are insignificant because “the Bush years were winding down disgracefully, the Iraq war was lost...
...younger brother Raul met at a Houston hotel for a showdown. Fidel was touring the U.S. to win support for his revolution; but Raul, according to the book After Fidel by former CIA analyst Brian Latell, insisted they ditch the gringos and accelerate plans to make Cuba a communist island. The argument got so loud and heated in their suite that aides in adjoining rooms couldn't sleep. The next morning, however, the brothers emerged as chummy as ever - and went on, of course, to communize Cuba...
...problems, leaving Raul to become the government's new No. 1 two months ago. Since then, Raul, 76, has ordered a series of small but significant economic reforms, from letting Cubans own cell phones to allowing farmers to till their own land - ideas that Fidel doesn't always find communist kosher. In a brief article published this week in the government mouthpiece Granma, Fidel takes issue with the idea, posited recently by a Cuban columnist in another official newspaper, that Raul's changes are progress compared to the more restrictive and collectivist ways of the past...
...essay - which warns Cubans to "meditate hard" on the policy changes and avoid "shameful concessions" - is the latest step in a strange sibling dance. Though long considered a hard-line communist, whose enemies accuse him of overseeing summary executions of soldiers loyal to former right-wing Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista in the revolution's early days, Raul is considerably more pragmatic than the obdurately ideological Fidel. His encouragement of limited market-oriented policies like foreign investment in tourism helped see Cuba through its frightening "special period" after the island's lavish Soviet aid vanished in the 1990s...
Raul is widely expected to announce deeper changes during a speech on May 1, which is Labor Day for much of the world and a sacred date on the communist calendar. Since greater agricultural efficiency is regarded as his priority, some analysts say he might permit foreign investment in that sector as well. He may also allow Cubans to travel abroad freely and open the door to wider entrepreneurship in Cuba, letting business owners hire employees other than immediate family members and set their own prices...