It is strange how socialist republics turn into hereditary monarchies.

No doubt the spontaneous choice of the proletariat just happens to coincide with close blood relationship to the previous leader.

So it is no surprise that Cuba’s Assembly of People’s Power – honestly, they really do call themselves that – could find no better successor to Castro than the dying dictator’s 76-year old kid bother, Raul.

Even the Great Survivor has had to accept that he cannot beat death. One wonders if the tiny part of him that is not brainwashed by his own bombast also realises his system will die with him. Handing power to his brother while he still can is his last attempt to prolong his authority.

It will not work. Like Eastern Europe, Cuba will be freed by economics, not revolution.

Cuba was once America’s playground and will be again. Indeed, the business opportunities are greater than ever – too great to resist.

The people in the best position to exploit those opportunities are the current leaders. This has no doubt already occurred to the brightest of them. They will have seen how party bureaucrats became oligarchs in Russia and the managers of state businesses in Eastern Europe became their owners when they were privatised.

They may also be looking at the Chinese model, which combines the economic strength of the free market with continued political control by the Communist Party.

The entrepreneurs who can befriend these bright bureaucrats will be the first into Cuba – and could become very wealthy indeed.