IRL#1

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/39528.stm

This is an online BBC news article, obviously produced by the British Broadcasting Company, although the reporter/journalist or whoever wrote the article specifically is not listed.
It connects to what we're studying in class because, while this is not current news (the article is from 1997), it gives an example of another nation that became a single-party state, and by studying how Cuba came to that place of being controlled by the Communists, we would be able to farther verify our views on whether or not there is a specific set of circumstances which lead to single-party states (if Cuba shared similar or different circumstances compared to Germany, Russia, and China that led to it becoming a single-party state).
Something that could be considered a limitation for learning about single-party states from this source is that Britain is a capitalist, non-single-party state and therefore could present Cuba's situation and the response of the Communist Cuban government in a negative light, or their BBC "correspondent in Havana" could be sending them information that speaks badly about the actions of the government.
The greatest limitation of using this source is that it does not really, in itself, help to answer our questions about the RISE of single party states, it simply gives us another nation's example, but then I used that to do a little research about the circumstances Cuba was in before becoming a single-party state...

This site is a Wikidot for IB history, which is probably maintained by people like the people who maintain Wikipedia, so... I would want to do more research definitely (perhaps from a few of the sites listed on this page: http://www.casahistoria.net/cuba.htm#Background to Castro´s revolution: ) before I entrusted my life based on this information (especially since there are typos on the page which doesn't speak great things about its professionalism), but for now I'm willing to trust the basic ideas of what it says since they sound pretty familiar and I don't have time right now to go looking up every detail... This "enhances" our learning by providing a new example and details about single party states.

link: http://ibhistory.wikidot.com/the-rise-and-rule-of-single-party-states

Information from site that relates to what we're studying in class:
factors/circumstances in Cuba: (common with Germany, Russia, and China: -foreign influence (USA) -sucky economy -sort of lost war [Cuban missile crisis of 1962]), (unique to Cuba: lack of reliable democratic system)