Hugh

I think Cuba's version of socialism is closer to communism than our UK definition of "socialism" (imho)
Encarta
"In 1959 a guerrilla force commanded by Fidel Castro, a leftist revolutionary, unseated Cuba’s dictatorial ruler Fulgencio Batista in the Cuban Revolution. In 1961 Castro declared himself a Marxist-Leninist and pronounced Cuba a socialist country, the first in the Western Hemisphere. Castro allied Cuba with the Soviet Union and gave the Soviets the right to station intelligence units and dock their naval vessels in Cuba. The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, triggered by the installation of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, brought Havana and Moscow into an even more enthusiastic partnership. Within several years, Cuba had acquired the trappings of a communist state. Although Castro had not been a member of Cuba’s communist party (the Socialist People’s Party, or PSP, established in 1925), in 1961 he forced a merger of the PSP and his own political group, the 26th of July Movement. In 1965 the merged party was renamed the Communist Party of Cuba."