International "progressives" -- those sad cases -- still venerate Fidel Castro. If Raul does indeed become the face of the regime, we may catch something of a break. Raul Castro lacks his brother's charisma and pizzazz. He isn't a personality capable of jiving mass audiences with the rhetoric of "hope" and utopianism. Raul, in fact, has the dull snake eyes of a secret policeman who gets his jollies with a truncheon.

There's a reason for that. During his brother's five decades of rule, Raul has bossed Cuba's "security apparatus" (i.e., the secret police). Fidel handled the media and manifestoes; Raul commanded the thugs and kept the crumbling jail of an island locked tight.

But back to the "progressives." "Progressive" in this sense is another word damaged by Marxist autocrats and various other political authoritarians. For 50 years, the language of leftist "progressives" dovetailed quite well with Stalinism. They gave Red fascism its international political cover. Bad habit explains some of the international leftists' ludicrous admiration for Fidel.

Castro's real progressive appeal, however, is hatred for America. This is why so many of the old Cold War progressive left quickly became apologists for al-Qaida's mass murder -- Osama Bin Laden has the anti-American bilge down pat.

Now, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, a former right-wing military officer, claims Castro's mantle. The anti-Americans love him. Chavez' "Chavismo" combines machismo, socialism, Caudilloism, populism, anti-Americanism and oil money. Chavez, however, doesn't command the podium and television cameras like Fidel in his prime. Castro squandered his charisma and political talent; Chavez is squandering Venezuela's petro-dollars.

And what comes next for the failed state of Cuba? Fidel's painfully long political finale has damaged economic institutions, exacerbated ethnic tensions between "white" Cubans and Afro-Cubans (black and overwhelmingly poor), and created a generation of alienated, disenfranchised youth. Raul's regency could be a time of transition, as the regime attempts a Chinese communist-like economic liberalization without political liberalization. This will enrich the Cuban Army and Communist Party elites, but do damned little for everyone else.