Despite all the revisionist painting (especially by self loathing, history ignorant American millennials) of Castro as some kind of benign socialist leader who made Cuba a "better" place during his half century plus brutal reign over the tiny nation, he was a tyrant who jailed and murdered uncounted "dissidents" who even voiced criticism of his rule. There was no "freedom of the press" and religious persecution was rampant. Cuba has consistently been noted by groups such as the UN and Amnesty International as a top 10 worst human rights offender. In quick order, Castro became that which he overthrew - in fact, he became much worse.
Prior to Castro overthrowing previous dictator Batista, Cuba, the most developed country in Latin America before the revolution, became relatively less developed and even more dependent on outside powers after the revolution, first on the Soviet Union, then on Venezuela. Cuba, by very nature of it's size and geography can never be a self-sustaining country especially under any form of socialism without massive imports and commerce.
It was his hand that led the country to embrace the Soviet handouts in the late 50's and 60's which in turn allowed Russia to stage nuclear missiles on the island putting the world the closest it's ever been to global nuclear war. This is what led to expanding the US trade embargo. And it should be noted that there was no physical (ie: warships surrounding the country, etc) blockade after the Cuban Missile Crisis ended, only the US trade embargo which didn't prevent Cuba from importing goods from other countries such as Russia and South America. It should also be noted, that despite the embargo, the US is still about the 6th highest exporter of goods to Cuba, mostly humanitarian commerce.
There is a reason that millions of Cuban refugees braved (and sometimes died) fleeing the country on makeshift boats to come to the US and it wasn't due to the wonderful free health care and education Cuba offered.
There is no room for revisionist history to absolve Castro. It falls along the lines of "Hitler started out good for Germany because he built roads and industry" or "Pablo Escobar built some schools, housing for the poor, and a few soccer fields and thus was a hero to the people."
With any luck, the rest of Castro's family will die or at least fall from positions of power in the coming decade.
