Every revolution ends up bolstering the very system that it seeks to terminate. The French Revolution toppled a weak king, Louis XVI, only to crown a mighty emperor, Napoleon. The Mexican Revolution replaced the 31-year dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz with the 70-plus-year rule of one political party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party. And the epitaph of the Bolshevik Revolution was written by the capitalism it thought would be buried next to the czar.

Fidel Castro cannot escape this Ananke, or fate of revolutions. In a Cuba destroyed by his own, he can only purr seductively for the return of that demonic ``Yankee imperialism'' he has banished, exorcised and hoped to erase from history.

``Capitalism fills me with disgust ,'' he has said more than once, ``and imperialism with hate. Never again will foreign tourism come to corrupt our people. Stuff your dollars; the revolution doesn't need them. Socialism or death!''

Once, Castro sought to ignite a hundred Vietnams all over the continent. But the winds of capitalism proved too strong for Cuba and the Soviet Union and left both in economic ruin. Today Castro welcomes the dollar, applauds tourism and solicits the north. The president of Cuba's parliament asserted the other day that North Americans are intelligent, that their investments would be protected and that Fidel's death would not change that.

Many capitalists, amassing great fortunes and leftist leanings, are tailor-made for Cuban propaganda. They vault over their millions to embrace Castro, some fantasizing about the ultimate copulation: a magnificent Havana hotel, ``the Che Guevara'' with a catchy slogan ``The right place to meet the Left.'' Hollywood royalty would flock to it and be greeted by their hero, Castro.

Capitalist fascination with Leftist posturing has helped foster one of the century's most-curious phenomena. With more than 40 years of merciless rule, jails full of people who dared to think, incalculable violations of human rights under his belt, Fidel Castro is still admired by the people he most detests.

Much of the ``imperialist press,'' which Castro keeps out of Cuba, is undulating to Havana's beat. Time magazine named him ``the winner'' when ``his'' team beat the Baltimore Orioles. National Geographic celebrated the reconstruction of Old Havana with a photo of kids around the stamp of Che Guevara promising to follow in his footsteps (to failure and death perhaps). And The Washington Post lamented that Castro can't receive U. S. aid in his ``war on drugs'' because a group of Florida legislators, supported by many Cuban Americans, opposed any softening toward Castro. The Post article ignored Castro's forcibly dissolved partnership with Panama's once drug-rich strongman Manuel Noriega and his current involvement with Colombian drug lords.