Next, flashing footage of Lenin, Burke explained that tourists weren't seeing the revolutionaries inspired by him. The change in Cuba, Burke clarified, "is not being spread by Christian men, it is being spread by revolutionaries." The thaw that came 50 years later, though, owes much to the efforts of Pope Francis, who wrote letters to President Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro urging them to mend the relationship between the two countries.

But before all that, the specter of danger in Castro's rise to power transitioned from the philosophical to the physical. Citing reports of Soviet fighter jets flying above Cuba, Burke explained that "Soviet technicians are at work building hard missile launching sites which could cover every part of the United States."

In his landmark speech on Wednesday, President Obama injected his own biography into the narrative of strained American and Cuban ties.

I was born in 1961—just over two years after Fidel Castro took power in Cuba, and just a few months after the Bay of Pigs invasion, which tried to overthrow his regime. Over the next several decades, the relationship between our countries played out against the backdrop of the Cold War, and America’s steadfast opposition to communism.

As the president intimated, Americans' predictions of what would come of the conflict with Cuba would have a way of being both very wrong and very right.

"Cuba is not Russia," Burke explained. "With today's weapons, that country, that island, could not only be overrun, it could be wiped out in minutes. But Cuba is like Russia in the sense that bullets and counterrevolution are no better solution today for the problems of land reform, economic reform, and exploding populations than they were 43 years ago in Russia."

Cuba, of course, was not overrun in a matter of minutes. However, the basic human rights championed by those who fought to bring Fidel Castro to power also never came to pass in Cuban society.

Ultimately, Burke concluded, "It will not be communism that wins the world, it will be democracy that loses it." In Cuba, we all may have split the difference.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.