Cuba

Cuba. This island is known everywhere in the world. Everybody knows such names as Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Also Cuba is associated with Caribbean crisis, which had frightened both the U.S.A. and USSR. That’s all that common person knows about this land and nation famous for specific culture and interesting history (especially of the 20th century). Cuba has always been a region of American interests in the Caribbean Sea and its 45-year resistance against capitalism (in fact – American politics) impresses everyone, even person hostile to Cuban regime. That’s why before having a closer look on the gains of Cuban revolution it’s important to give the general characteristics of Cuba in the politics of the modern world. It’s important to explore the reasons of Cuban revolution as well in order to better understand it’s purposes and the results in economical and social sphere that were achieved by Castro’s government after the revolution was over. In this question it’s also important to pay attention to the relations of Cuba with foreign countries and with the USA particularly.
Cuban influence on worlds politics during the Cold War and nowadays is important and worth paying attention to. Cuba is still one of the last Communist countries of the world.
The revolution of 1958 had a lot of problems to be solved by the main were social and economical. The situation of Cuba in 1950ies was not pretty much different from any of the Latin America states, but still the poverty level was huge. Cuba was totally dependent upon foreign capitals and was an agricultural supplier of the USA. Before answering the question about the changes in political, economical and social sphere which were achieved after revolution it’s important to identify the main reasons which led to the revolution and which directed the future destiny of the country.
Many years have past, Communism had a great success but it died after Soviet Union collapsed. Now China and Vietnam try to democratize and capitalize own economics. Only Cuba and North Korea are still devoted to Communism. But even there we can find some ideas of capitalism. The majority of Socialistic revolutions (older and younger that Cuban) are history already. Some scientists admit that Cuban revolution took place in the most complicated situation and practically had no chance to come true. But Cubans proved their moral strength and they still succeed protecting the Revolution. Cuban revolution created the first Socialistic state in this part of Earth. Now I’ll try to find out why Cuban Revolution of 1958 was inevitable. Also it is very interesting and worth studying that Cuba was not the most developed country of Latin America and many people explain the Revolution with Fidels charisma, Russian success and American miscalculations. As historian Jules Benjamin in his book “The United States and Cuba” wrote, United States and Cuba had always very uneasy relations.
Cuba had a very tragic history before the middle of the 20th century. Spanish and later – American influence was not good for this island nation. We cannot name American influence of that time democratic because United States and owners of different companies considered Cuba as a colony. This influenced future revolution a lot.
Let us analyze Cuban economics and American influence on this island country.
The basic sphere of pre-Revolutionary Cuban economics, as all historians say including Marifeli Perez-Stable in the book “The Cuban Revolution”, was producing sugar for export to the United States. 25% of best lands, 36 big and well-equipped sugar plants belonged to United Fruit and other American corporations. They produced 42% of sugar. Another 58% were produceв by Cubans but were also controlled by Americans.
But sugar was not the only sphere of American monopolies interests. They controlled 23% of industry, 90% of electrical and telephone infrastructure, 50% of railways. For example telephone and telegraph belonged to the filial of ATT. Electricity and lands in some provinces belonged to Cuban American Sugar Company. These two companies were connected through Morgan bank group and received support from Department of State and CIA.
National Cuban capitalists were associated with American capital and had interests both in Cuba and Miami. Different American companies wished to have a filial on this island involving some part of Cuban capital. So, the whole infrastructure of the island, industry and other spheres of national economics were leaded by the United States.
Cuban historian Tablada admitted that in 1950-ies Cuba had developed road infrastructure, developed telephone, telegraph, television and radio.
Cubans didn’t like that and wanted to rule themselves in their country and work only for their native land. The majority of Cuban population was peasants and the main reason according to this fact was shortage of land. Local landowners and American corporations had bought state and private lands in the beginning of 20th century for very low prices, so the majority of population was left with no land. Some of them had to become workers there; some captured state land in the mountains that were very bad to plant anything on. People who were considered peasants had neither equipment nor electricity. They didn’t have any schools and hospitals, lived in terrible poverty. Any private owner of land could loose his land if some coffee company loved his land in the mountains. Such “owners” were considered “independent”. Other peasants didn’t have even such “independence”. According to the contract concluded with sugar or tobacco company peasant had to pay rent payment, sell all goods only to this company and take different credits.
Monopolies bought their production for an extremely low prices and this was making peasants and their families poor.
Some companies or real landowners never concluded any treaties with peasants to be able to drive away them anytime they wanted. When Fidel Castro was incarcerated in jail he said in the court that 200 thousands of Cubans had no any land to feed their families and 30 thousand of caballeros of best lands belonged to monopolies but were empty and nobody planted anything on them.
The majority of Cuban population was getting poorer every passing year. If to compare average income of every family in 1955 and the same income in 1945, we can figure out that it had lessened in 2 times. If to look at the same income of average family in the USA we’ll see that it was 5 times more. The situation in Cuba was very complicated and government did nothing to help own nation to live and work, to feed own families and raise national economics.
Catholic University Union provided different social researches in 1956-1957 and here are the results: about 33,5% of those who could and wanted to work were jobless, only 4% of them could afford themselves eating meat, 1%- fish, 11% – milk, 3%-bread, only 57% of Cuban citizens were literate and 6% had water supply at home. These figures horrify today but that happened not that long ago – less than 50 years ago. It is hard to believe that in 20th century people living several miles away from Miami lived practically in Middle Ages and their conditions of life, attitude to human were the same.
Not that long ago Raul Castro – Fidels brother and now – Minister of Defense, said during some interview that when being a child he remembered his fathers small farm surrounded by American sugar and Nickel corporations and wondered what belonged to Cubans in Cuba.
But Cuba was not only a huge sugar plantation. It became a region famous for its industry of entertainment, which included sex-tourism. Our President George W. Bush played attention to this problem, which takes place now as he thinks. Many rich people from the United States of America and some other countries visited Cuba to play different games of a chance and satisfy their sexual desires. No one nation could submit this.
American monopolists and oligarchs turned Cuba into dependent territory, not a colony but dependent because of profitable regime ruled from the offices of these monopolies. Mafia created a system of total corruption, which was spread on the government, political parties and professional unions. The power was provided not only using legal methods. Cuba suffered a lot from numerous terrorist formations supported by different important officials and criminal leaders.
New government had to solve all the existing problems and its first purpose was not to loose the trust of the nation. They promised reforms and they had to achieve them. No doubt the major reforms had to be made in economics and social sphere. Cuban government expropriated property from rich landowners, nationalized all enterprises and property that was in the possessions of foreigners. But to build new economics was quite difficult, to establish new relations look for the solutions of economical problems, economical isolation was impossible when there were thousands and millions of hungry, poor people. That’s why the major focus of new government was to improve living conditions of majority of population. No wonder that even economical reforms had a social character as they were directed to satisfy the basic needs of common people. Peasants got the land, but not in the private property, as all the land belonged to the state, but to a collective property and formed collective farms. Anyways this solution was better than unbearable conditions of labor on the plantations of landowners, as the majority didn’t even have small homesteads. Workers got better conditions of labor, social protection and free medical care. In fact the reform in housing sector, medical and health care sector and in education was very progressive for the country. Here comes a question: how a small agricultural country with undeveloped market, with undeveloped trade relations and which was in deep economical crisis could achieve such social gains. The answer is simple: the assistance from the “big brother” Soviet Union. The experts estimate that Soviet Union had subsidized more than 50 billion dollars to Cuban economics and to Cuban social sector.
Soviet Union and the members of Warsaw Pact agreed to buy Cuban goods for higher prices to support Cuban economics, Soviet Union sold oil for lower prices to Cuba and in this way Cuban government had funds for the reforming country’s infrastructure.
Actually social changes were achieved by the gains of property that was left after expropriation. Poor workers were resettled to bigger houses, as there were established quotas on the limits of private property, on housing in fact quotas on everything. Lots of Cubans lost a considerable part of their possessions; on the other hand it was shared with other people. These utopian communistic ideas were effective during the first years after revolution.
Cuban medical care was reorganized, was perfectly subsidized so that it became universally available. Hospitals were established in all remote parts of the country. By the assistance of soviet medical workers Cuba was able to eliminate the epidemics of tropical diseases: such as malaria, fever, typhoid and others. Cuba got a chance to develop its pharmaceutical industry, and ability to prepare national medical personnel first abroad mainly in Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and later in Cuban institutions of higher learning.
Education was reorganized as well. If before the revolution Cuba was one of the poorest countries of Latin America with nearly the lowest level of literacy, then after the revolution, illiteracy was nearly illuminated. Educational reform made education universally available for representatives of the poorest groups of the country. In the preparation of professionals Cuba again was aided by the countries-members of Warsaw pact. Future Cuban professional got education in best universities of Russia, Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
New government had established new legislature that guaranteed the right to work and get worthy conditions of life. Since 1960ies Cuban workers and simply employees got the real state protection of labor and bearable conditions of work. Already the fact that worked for the good of their motherland, not for the good of foreign companies made their life enthusiastic and full of optimism.
Cuban revolution also solved the problem of women’s emancipation, as women gained the rights as men had. British journal “Cuban C” proposes the following statistics:
Women in education: 49.5% of the total number of universities graduates and 62% from the total number of students in institutions of higher learning
Employment: 22% of workers; 65% of technicians; 87% of administrators; 54% in service sector; 33.5% of managers;
In government: 35% of seats in parliament; 16% in the state’s council; 18% of ministers; 22% of secondary ministers; 61% of public prosecutors;49% of judges; 47% of judges in the supreme court
Besides statistics about women’s participation there is general statistics about Cuban society:
Average life duration: women-78 years, men –74 years (even higher than in some of the developed European countries)
Children death rate 6.3 on 1000 new-borns (the lowest in Latin America, before 1958 it was one of the highest in Latin America)
Access to education and medical care is free, in addition Cuban medical care offers special programs for psychic rehabilitation, early childhood education (from the age of 3 months and to the school age) for a symbolic fee.
Total protection of motherhood, government subsidizes women workers who take vocation for baby care to the age of 1 year with keeping a workplace and salary.
So as we can see the results of social changes are great, Cubans of Batista’s regime could only dream about such gains. This article promised by Fidel and Cuban revolutionaries was fulfilled perfectly. It helped Castro’s regime to preserve support of the population and control all social processes even during the years of economic stagnation and crisis. What is more important is that Castro’s government was able to keep these social services functioning even during the years of economical crisis. As we can see that Cuban revolution had changed the social conditions of Cuban people, lets now have a look on gains of government in economical sphere.
Victories in economics were not so obvious. It’s enough to say that Cuban leaders who came to power had no views about economics; they had no concept about the ways it had to develop. The following fact about Che Guevara tells a lot. As Cuba refused from cooperation with major capitalist world it became dependent upon the imports of socialist European countries. The imported goods had concentrated in the seaports of Havana, and the problem had to be solved. One of the American economists, who was in Cuba suggested Che Guevara to build huge warehouses for keeping imported goods in them. Che Guevara asked one of the Marxist economists about the best way to solve the question and they told that warehouses would create additional value to goods, as the result they’ll become more expensive. The argument of American economist based on common sense appeared to be unpersuasive for the Ministry of economics and the warehouses were not constructed. Later, after several years passed Soviet Union forced Cuba to build ware houses, as the goods began to spoil and Countries-donors were loosing huge sums. By the way, the seaport warehouses were built on the funds of the Soviet Union. As it was told the export of Cuban sugar was a hidden form of subsiding Cuban economics. But still this cooperation didn’t bring any impressive results, and didn’t develop Cuban economical potential. Fuel, wheat, fish, machines, machine tools, industrial equipment everything was imported from abroad, and at the same time there was no stimulus for the development of Cuban products. Government didn’t create favorable conditions for the development of industry, which would satisfy Cuban internal markets. When saying that it didn’t create favorable conditions for Cuban industry I mean that it didn’t interfere deeply into this problem, as only government had the rights to direct the development of industry, build enterprises and develop country’s infrastructure, there was no real power in the hands of common people as they didn’t have funds enough and didn’t have the right for creating own businesses.
As a result country’s economical system was very weak and the country remained to be poor. Of course the conditions that were established by Castro’s regime were more favorable for Cuban nation, as Cuba gained the right to manage its property independently. The goods, and capitals were not exported in such huge sizes as it was during Batista’s regime and in previous years. Country had got the right to direct its development and be independent from the will of world capitalism in the face of the USA. No wonder that nationalization of property and expropriation of lands from landowners had resulted in new funds available for government and for improvement of life conditions of Cubans. The support of government by Cubans, still wasn’t long, the euphoria of revolution was pretty soon over, as Cuban government appeared to be unable to solve many of the economical problems and caused a pro-longed economical stagnation of the country. The country appeared to be disable to solve the problem of massive poverty and the problem of low salaries and so-called “equality” when everyone was poor, when simple workers go the salaries sometime even higher than qualified engineers and scientists, and when the profession of taxi-driver appear to be the most profitable, as they could earn money by transporting tourists. But still even tourist business, the main article of “alive” currency (American dollars) or cash was not fully exploited, as Cuban tourism appeared to be in great decline after Fidel took power. Fidel’s government didn’t agree to start a war on double fronts from one side to support the “survivals of capitalism in the face of tourist industry, which was directed on the tourists from capitalist world” and on the other hand to build socialism. They decided to be fair in achieving this goal, to be ideologically fair. The result was tragic- the whole Cuban nation lost. Country’s poor economics failed to provide with decent life style the population and to show its internal crisis it’s enough to mention that annual carnivals on the Three Kings day, a great catholic holiday especially for Cubans were cancelled because of difficult economical situation.
Only in middle eighties Cuban economics started to show the signs of common sense and signs of its market orientation. Cuban government began to subsidize money to explore potential oilfields, metal deposits and what is more important it began to subsidize national economics, as a result series of enterprises that substituted imported goods were constructed. Not surprising that their construction was as well funded by European socialist countries and predominantly by Soviet Union. But a rapid collapse of the Soviet Union and the change of political nearly of all countries members of Warsaw pact left Cuban economics to the harsh realities of economical crisis. During 1989-1992 there appeared rough decrease of sugar export, as Soviet Union and eastern European countries refused to buy it, which meant not only the stop of hidden subsidizing of Cuba but at the same time the decrease of Cuban profits from export in general. The transition to the free currency settings (to dollar settings) greatly limited the economical potentials of Cuba for the purchase of oil products, industrial equipment, customer goods and food-stuff on former market of the countries members of Warsaw pact. If to talk by the language of numbers the goods exchange of Cuba in 1993 with former socialist counties reduced to the level of 15% of the 1988. Moreover former allies factually joined the USA in economical blockade of the “island of freedom”, which wasn’t even done by Western Europe and Canada. Russia even refused to sell oil for dollars. Cuban economics was stroked. Industry was left without fuel, energy, equipment, and agriculture without fertilizers. It reduced the produced of sugar, tobacco and during the years of 1989-1993 the production of national gross product nearly on one third. Nevertheless the government of Fidel Castro nearly performed an exploit getting country out of economical crisis, as Cuba was able to adopt the changes and transform its economics. Cuba had signed important international treaties with countries of Latin America and major European states that guarantee fair and effective goods exchange, it also had become the member of world trading organization (as we know Russia and all former Soviet republics are not equal members of this organization), Cuba expanded private sector of economics and allowed self-employment of its citizens. Farmers also received privileges ad became the owners of land, even working on collective and cooperative farms. Tourist sector of economics began to rapidly develop, guarantying import of “cash” to the country.
Government also made further concessions, it allowed foreign investors to invest money to Cuban industry, tourism and agriculture, establishing “free economical zones” in major seaports of the country, which boosted the development of trade, goods exchange and established a new article of income to Cuban economics.
Making a conclusion we should take into consideration that economics and social infrastructure of the country are mutually connected and are integral components of each other. It’s impossible to look on countries social sector without taking into consideration the economics, which funds it. But for Cuba this concept appeared to be inapplicable as well as for former socialist states. They wanted to establish a “heaven” from the side of the government by providing the population with social protection and insurance, but at the same time keeping the whole country nearly at the poverty line. Factually every one appeared to be equal and have a protection from the state, but they could enjoy the gains of the country only on its territory being alienated from the whole world. Social protection was achieved by making everyone equal, making everyone a unit of the authoritarian regime, with equal opportunities and equal rights, separating and alienating country from the rest of the world.
Time had shown that these practices fail as the power of the global community, the power of international market relations and market economy is stronger than the power of authoritarian regimes.
But still we should admit that Cuban revolution was completed as it had realized the main purposes to liberate the country from foreign capitalism, to return property to the people and to establish bearable conditions for people. Cuba remains and nowadays one of the few states with protected societies in Latin America, with free education, free medical care and labor protection. These gains remained even during the harsh years of economical blockade and guaranteed social stability. Many historians call Cuban revolution as a socialist revolution and we should agree that most of all it was social and it changed the society, it changed the attitude of government to the society as Castro’s government, despite its vices and deficiencies in economical management and violation of human rights, was able to guarantee the realization of hope of Cuban nation, which suffered for centuries, and it was a hope of country’s independence and bearable life of Cuban nation. The results of first years after Cuban revolution proved that, but the harsh realities of modern world, of global market changed the economical orientation of the country making it oriented on international markets and if so changing its structure by higher participation of private sector.