Twilight of a false god ... .

Listening to Wagner this afternoon I was put in mind of the twilight of the great false god of the last century.

Though the fall of the Soviet Union occurred just a few years ago, it already seems like an event from a remote and entirely different time.

Communism didn't just collapse. It vanished as if it had been a bad dream, not a powerful totalitarian system that terrorized its subject peoples and menaced its geopolitical rivals. As an idea Communism exercised a serpent like fascination -- a way to build a new Jerusalem without recourse to anything other than humanity.

But as with the first offer to 'be like G-d' Communism was false. The idea of Communism and Humanity perfected died with the system it had affirmed but in some places the idea's death took time coming.

Probably the last truly Communist nation on earth, Cuba, looks to abandon that faith soon, possibly tonight. In a major speech, see story below, President Raul Castro will announce the end of "excessive prohibitions" in Cuban life.

There won't be an end as in, say, Romania and the public discourse will continue to mention Marx, at least for a time, but the end is still the end.

Perhaps there will be enough change to allow the next US President to abandon the (clearly failed) policy of sanctions against Cuba. Regardless, within ten years Cuba will be post-Communist (it may not be very nice; China is post-Communist but hardly a democracy. Still China today is a great leap forward from the days of Mao).

See excerpts from a Globe online story below:

Full story:

http://m.avantgo.com/ui?ag_url=52616e646f6d4956cd90ac7612b827c64ed7f26734f214dde125532007e903a3397f377df126d3d5b0a6b275c387d419c1af1f4d3e8e336bb4fa382a90e3aba33fb7a31982b361e21420ac89987ea14c&ag_channel=4179&showNav=0&ms=globeandmail

HAVANA — President Raul Castro will mark the 55th anniversary of the start of the Cuban revolution on Saturday with a speech to a nation waiting to hear how far and how fast he plans to go in reforming the island's struggling state-run economy.

Since taking over from ailing older brother Fidel Castro, Raul Castro, 77, has pushed through reforms large and small that have raised expectations for improvement in one of the world's last communist states.

Cubans, hungry for more, have speculated he could announce anything from immigration reform making it easier to travel to changes that would allow them to more freely buy and sell cars and homes.

Most of the speculation is based on Castro's promise earlier this year to remove "excessive prohibitions" in Cuban life.