If by "respected", you mean putting a bullet in the head of anyone opposing their power base, rewarding their cronies and living the high life with champagne and women, while the people are starving, then sure: the Castros are extremely respected. General Aladeen would definitely pay his respects.
ITTL, being a communist is a much more dirtier word than OTL, and Castro's cronies realize that their best chance of survival was a pivot to the US. OTL, the "special period" of the 1990s in Cuba with hunger and unrest could easily have gotten to this point, but it didn't in no small measure due to the fact that while trade with Russia was down (from some 7bn$ in 1989 to 0,7bn$ in 1994), it wasn't out. ITTL, we are likely talking about this being 0.
Of course, the coup does happen very neatly in an orderly fashion. Instead of this going like OTL Romania, then it could just as easily have gone like OTL Libya, e.g. a protracted civil war.