Imperial Russian peasants literally ran around burning and massacring villages of minorities, lynching intellectuals, and literally worshiped the Tsar as Jesus' literal second-in-command on earth. If Lenin and the bolsheviks could turn a backwards backwater barbaric empire into a industrialized powerhouse standing equal to the western capitalists states in a generation, then thinking America is somehow unique and distinct from the Tsarist Empire and all other empires that have and do exist, then I can say nothing else than you are committing the same error of American Exceptionalism that Stalin denounced in 1929.

That is not just a spontaneous evil that emerged from anglo-saxon blood or whatever (as much as people meme it so, which is fine). It is very plainly a product of the same forces who Fidel is talking about misusing science and technology misusing education and public media and education itself. Not that there would be zero anti-intellectualism in a socialist society, but there would be much less without these endless campaigns promoting it paired with extremely poor education standards and accessibility.

Idealism doesn't mean having optimism or literal ideals, it's about believing ideas are before matter, such as believing in something supernatural as the explanation for material phenomena.

It is idealism, but on the other hand… He also did lead a successful revolution and then successfully defended that revolution for decades from the full might of the US empire, so I certainly don't think it would be blind idealism in his case.