And the former Communist governments of the Warsaw Bloc, including the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, dropped command economies at about the same time, 1990-91. Unlike China and Vietnam, these European countries mostly stopped calling themselves "Communist" too.
Therefore, it has taken that much longer - another 20 years - for the Castro brothers in Cuba to figure out that they should join the parade. See this Associated Press article in Yahoo News which indicates Cuba may have finally caught on...sort of, a little bit.
Do you suppose they will share these belated insights with their buddies in Latin America: Hugo Chavez, Danny Ortega, Evo Morales, and Rafael Correa? I doubt it.
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Countries that free their markets but try to hold onto the "Communist" label face an awkward dilemma. They say to their people that a free market for goods and services is positive, but a free market for political ideas is not. That is a hard sell.
