"I'm bound to think that way to an extent cem as I've been employed by the British Establishment since the age of 21 and I happen to believe that the system in use here, while far from perfect, is about as workable as it gets in this modern world"
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I'm afraid past experiences and the govt precautions on recurring problems proved the situation to be the reverse 
"Just the type of sympathisers I referred to, however if you're saying that Cuba allowed herself to be manipulated in this way to give support to the USSR in their cold war against the US I couldn't agree with that."
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actually this was not an allowance to be manipulated.. it was a precaution to stop US invasion..which they already tried before and failed..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis
however they were successful to kill Che in Bolivia
after whole intelligence unit ran for him.. 
here the question is : if the system were that successful why want to kill Che which soon will be failed in their opinion ?"In my view the
quid pro quo for Soviet aid at the time was the acquiescence of the regime to Soviet 'requests' to base missiles on the island.
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The phrase 'there's no such thing as a free lunch' also works well in Russian."
noun, plural quid pro quos or quids pro quo
Something given or taken in exchange for something else.
Etymology
From Latin quid (what) pro (for) quo (what), something for something.
Usage
"As is now known, `back-channel' negotiations achieved a quid pro quo. In return for Russian offensive missiles not being placed in Cuba, President Kennedy would remove Jupiter missiles from Turkey and promise not to topple Fidel Castro's communist regime militarily." — Ronald H Carpenter, When the Right Words Counted, Naval History (Annapolis, Maryland), Oct 2001. and of course there still the question remains how they stop the ships in internationals waters ?
"individuals and institutions that operate within its boundaries have the freedom, imagination and incentive to go forward to achieve new things."
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freedom word I'm afraid does not reflect its meaning if used with this system..
of course the situations under capitalism is widely different .. in UK you may not feel that bad, but in other countries the violent face is frequently visible..
and sorry to remind even in UK some long years ago your fathers and olders like him faced the worse side..
for long years of struggle in British lands bring UK to this point which also must be noted..
"The communist system as operated in the well known countries (former USSR, China, North Korea and so on) led to stagnancy and deprivation for the majority of people who lived under its influence (except for the ruling elite of course"
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as similiar in Cuba example , those countries already have those conditions which they tried to solve with their new system.. if not, their future were already be darkened by capitalist system as seen in many examples of the past..
my country in the past divided , invaded with real military force..we were lucky we could survive.. but the price was really high.. and now still whole country is in struggle.. because for capitalist system its never enough, it always wants more and more.. 
believe me I can tell many pages of stories of people living the trouble just because that monster system .."This leads me to believe that communism didn't
work in the very countries that practiced and attempted to perfect it. Why? - Perhaps because it's because it’s a fundamentally flawed system where the masses are controlled by the few - rather like the capitalist system. "
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nope.. while capitalist system is trying to squeeze their neck and they were spending most of their time and money (for weapons) to defend their self against
capitalism they dont have the luck 