Of course the USA supported Fidel...he was a far more decent alternative to Batista, even in American minds until he kicked out the Mafia, the American-owned casinos, the whorehouses, and the big sugar companies and other big corporations! Uh-oh! That offended a lot of very rich people in the USA, people who have major influence on American foreign policy, people who used to vacation and gamble in Cuba and get drunk and screw Cuban prostitutes. Never mind that Castro gave the land back to ordinary Cubans, and gave them schools and doctors...it took money out of American organized crime and American corporate hands. That meant Castro had suddenly become an outlaw in American eyes.

$$$Money$$$ was all that mattered in that decision.

When Castro went to New York, he was expecting to find friends in the US government. They wouldn't even talk to him. That's when he turned to the only other big backer in town...without whom he could not survive...the Russians.

It was inevitable that he would, having been given the cold shoulder by the USA.

I'm not particularly in favor of Communism, no. Neither am I particularly in favor of Fascism which incorporates laissez-faire capitalism, drug-dealing, and rampant crime...which is what you have in many small countries which cooperate with American interests. In either case you get a police state. In the case of American allies, you get a police state with no social safety net and absolutely no hope for the poor.

I live in a country which has the good sense to mix socialism and capitalism to some extent, which is the best way to go. Both socialism and capitalism have many good aspects, and there is absolutely no reason to cling 100% to one or the other when you can have both.

Castro was driven into the arms of the Russians, because a bunch of rich lobbyists and crooks in the USA got offended when he nationalized their holdings. He could have been an American ally, and have been a socialist with no conflict of interest whatsoever. All you had to do was tell the Mafia and the United Sugar Company and a few other such rich criminal clowns to shut up and take their losses.

Let me ask your last question back to you, Old Guy. Do you know what happens when someone in a Latin American fascist capitalist country that is an ally of America finds fault with their great leader? The dissidents that get executed are the lucky ones.