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What the Hell is Happening in Cuba?
As protests and economic downturn shake down the Marxist-Leninist ruled island, analyzing the economic, social, and political history of Cuba can help shed light on its condition.
By Hector Miranda Plaza, July 16, 2021
Image Credit: Yamil Lage/Getty Images
On July 11, thousands of protesters marched in Cuba against a lack of political freedoms and frustration at a lack of improvement in material conditions. They were followed by thousands more pro-government counter protesters which expressed support for the government, and in some cases by police crackdown.
Many critics of the Cuban government abroad have used the rise of these rare protests as evidence of an inevitable “fall of communism”, while others have gone as far as to claim that these protests were manufactured by the CIA and foreign actors. To understand the protests, however, one first has to understand the nature of the Cuban government, how it came to be, and where it is now.
In 1952, the United States backed a coup of the democratically elected government by Fulgencio Batista, a military officer and former president of Cuba. During his rule, the inequalities between the few rich citizens of the cities and the many farmers and workers of the countryside deepened, with malnourishment, drastic poverty, and unemployment being commonplace.
He allowed for American businesses to seize the economy of the country, with 90% of mines, 40% of all sugar production, a quarter of all bank deposits and more being owned by American interests. Tourism boomed, which for the average Cuban only resulted in a sharp rise in organized crime, prostitution, destructive gambling, and unruly foreigners roaming the streets. As a cherry on top, Batista embezzled millions from the state, and instituted a brutal regime of repression and censorship against political opposition.
On December 2, 1956, socialist soldiers of the rebel Movimiento 26 Julio led by Fidel Castro landed on the shores of Cuba to begin an uprising against Batista and the government. Despite being initially attacked by government forces, those that survived the attack regrouped and set their headquarters by the Sierra Maestra mountains.
Made up of a broad coalition of liberals, socialists, trade unionists, and students, Fidel Castro’s Cuban Revolution deposed Fulgencio Batista’s dictatorial regime. Harold Valentine/AP
Recruiting from the impoverished rural peasantry, they held back large offensives by Batista’s forces despite being heavily outnumbered and outgunned. In cities, they played a key role in organizing worker’s strikes and aiding other anti-Batista organizations. As they began to gain control of more territory in the Cuban countryside, they began to introduce services such as literacy programs, medical facilities, and more to the then-impoverished farmer class.
After more than two years of fighting, organizing, strikes, and sabotage, on January 1, 1959, Fulgencio Batista fled the island, and celebrations by the anti-Batista forces promptly ensued throughout the island.
In the following years, Castro and the left consolidated power in the island, forming the Communnist Party of Cuba and creating a unitary Marxist-Leninist semi-presidential republic.
The drafting of the constitution saw revisions from thousands of ordinary citizens participating in meetings open to public participation. Because of this inclusive drafting process, the final constitution was passed in a referendum with a 98% turnout, and with 99.02% approval; it guaranteed the right to education, to healthcare, to work, and to worship.
The constitution also provides a quasi freedom of speech and of assembly, so long as doing so is "in keeping with the objectives of socialist society”, and the media is state owned. Although at first the Communist Party of Cuba was the only legal party allowed, other parties were legalized in a 1992 amendment to the constitution. Elections are required to be nonpartisan, and membership in Communist Party, or any other party, is neither mandatory nor required for elections.
While the President and Prime Minister are not directly elected, as they are chosen by the National Assembly, all other local, municipal, and national positions in decision making are. Voting is done by secret ballot, and all have the right to monitor the vote counting process.
This does not mean, however, that Cuba is a haven of representative government. While half of the candidates for national elections are nominated directly by citizens of each municipality, the other half is nominated by assemblies headed by, among other groups, the Comités de Defensa de la Revolución (CDR).
Known as “Committees for the Defense of the Revolution” in English, they are a collection of neighborhood councils which are organized at the local, municipal, and national levels. Although they provide many services, such as helping improve education, cleaning up streets, and aiding in distribution of medical supplies, they are also criticized for their role in subverting government opposition and for various human rights violations.
Since over 8 million of Cuba’s citizens are members of these councils, they often serve to garner information on personal beliefs, and to notify the government on them. Even if an opposition candidate were to be nominated, all candidates must be approved by a National Candidature Commission, which partly assesses your eligibility to run based on your “revolutionary history”.
Additionally, the Cuban government has its own secret police, or at least something akin to it. The Dirección General de Inteligencia, or the General Directorate of Intelligence (DGI), was established in 1961 with the help of the KGB to serve as the intelligence and counter-subversive branch of the government. They not only operate abroad, but also play an important role in suppressing anti-government sentiment through intimidation, infiltration, and assassination in a way comparable to the FBI’s anti-opposition programs. Taken as a whole, it is estimated that the Cuban government killed more than 4,000 political dissidents, and imprisoned thousands more. To this day, Cuba continues to have the highest incarceration rate in all of the Caribbean.
As the Cold War began to heat up, Cuba found itself isolated in the American continent. The Cuban government began to implement agrarian reforms, in which the state seized the lands, facilities, and properties of ultra wealthy Cubans and American corporations. By the end of the reforms, around 70% of farmland was owned by the state, which it primarily used to grow sugar which would be exported to fund development. While the plan was mostly a success, it inadvertently resulted in an increase of food import dependency.
With the backing of the Soviet Union, Cuba’s economy saw consistent growth despite being at odds with and interference from the United States. Arch Ritter
As a result of these reforms, Cubans which previously found themselves in positions of wealth, power, or land ownership, known by supporters of the revolution as gusanos, fled the island for Florida. Additionally, the United States, in retaliation to this redistribution, reacted by imposing a unilateral embargo over the island and severely punished any companies doing business on the island.
With the US being the only large developed power in the Americas, Cuba’s ability to import necessary goods in bulk and at a cheap price was destroyed, making them reliant on the Soviet Union for most trade. For the remainder of the Cold War, this did not change. Despite a crippling trade ban, however, Cuba still saw a drastic increase in the standard of living.
From 1960-1990, life expectancy rose from 64 to 75, GDP shot up from $5.7 billion to $28.6 billion, and gross national income more than tripled. To this day, Cuba has lower infant and adult mortality and slightly higher life expectancy than even the US.
Following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Cuba’s largest trading partner, the Cuban economy collapsed in a similar way that it did in most of the former Warsaw Pact. To make matters worse, the price of one of Cuba’s main exports, sugar, dropped significantly during this period, drying up much of the country’s income.
Known as the Special Period, the economic crisis that followed turned into a famine; GDP dropped by 35%, the calories the average Cuban consumed per day dropped from over 3000 a day to around 2100, many fled the crisis in the island in makeshift barges, oil imports nosedived, and a total collapse of the Cuban standard of living was only avoided thanks to a robust social safety net.
In the following years, the government would implement a mass austerity, eliminating 13 ministries, slashing the defense budget by more than 85%, and rationing supplies, while increasing social spending. In the agricultural sector, the government liberalized food production, resulting in an increased variety of goods available, and shifted agricultural focuses from mechanized production to localized production in more sustainable small scale farms.
In many state owned sectors, which suffered from inefficiencies caused by an inflexible central management structure, subsidies were lowered. Most importantly, tourism was liberalized, foreign investment was allowed in limited amounts, and the US Dollar was legalized. This, combined with the legalization of self-employment, resulted in the eventual recovery of the Cuban economy, with GDP beginning to grow again by 1994, and a return to pre-crisis GDP levels being seen by 2005. However, since most of this growth was in tourism and other service sectors, manufacturing, which previously made up a quarter of GDP, and sugar production did not recover, as Cuba still had few export partners due to sanctions.
Fast forward to the current day, and much has changed. Since 2013, Cubans have had freedom of movement, and a 2019 constitutional amendment was passed to not only recognize private property, but also a free market. In addition to this, Raul and Fidel Castro, in 2010, declared that centralization no longer worked for Cuba, and that a transition to a decentralized and co-operative economy should begin. Even the state firms which remain under government management have gained much more autonomy from the central government.
In recent times, Cuba has begun to move away from state planning and has slowly dipped its toes into cooperative and private economies. Yamil Lage/Getty Images
What has not changed, however, are two things: firstly, the Cuban government continues to control media in the country, and has limited or shut down internet access to suppress dissident voices on multiple occasions.
Secondly, and perhaps more egregiously, the American embargo continues to choke the Cuban economy. The continuation has cost more than $130 billion dollars to Cuba, which skyrockets to nearly one trillion dollars when taking into account the devaluation of the dollar. Not only has it affected trade with the US, but also with the rest of the world as the American government prohibits any companies that do business in the US to do so in Cuba. This effectively makes it impossible for any businesses, even those not from the US, to contribute to the Cuban economy. Even the US is affected by it negatively, as the US loses $1.2 billion dollars every year due to it. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Cuba saw a recession which resulted in an 11% drop in GDP. This, combined with the embargo and the still felt aftershock of the Special Period, has magnified the economic downturn.
The protests in Cuba will inevitably be exaggerated by both the government and media in the United States, even at the cost of lost revenue, since their class interests domestically are threatened by seeing a socialist country prosper. Many media reports have falsely labeled pictures and videos of counter-protesters holding pro-government signs and pro-government flags as evidence of an overwhelming antigovernmental consensus on the island, and Republican politicians have used it as a means to galvanize sentiment against anything deemed sufficiently “socialist”.
Even with this being said, though, the grievances of Cubans are legitimate, with many suffering from a lack of freedom of press and expression, and widespread economic strife due to the pandemic and an overbearing embargo. So, then, what can we do to help?
We must recognize that the Cuban fight is theirs alone. Neither the United States nor any other country has the right to interfere in their affairs. The embargo must be lifted, not just to ease the Cuban people’s suffering but also to give them the resources necessary to create change.
This is very important to support, especially since many of the Cubans who left the island have taken the increasingly militant view that the US should send troops to intervene. This would not only cause more unnecessary suffering among the Cuban people, but would also entangle America in another costly foreign conflict.
As some one on the left, I can say that the Cuban government has had many successes in the face of American intervention and blockade. However, it has had just as many shortcomings, most egregiously in its treatment of dissidents, its track record of a lack of political representation, and a public sector still dominated by the state.
Even when you consider the Cuban government’s illiberal tendencies, though, the threat of foreign intervention in the form of sanctions and a potential invasion is still the largest threat to the Cuban people. The government of Cuba is the business of Cubans, not ours, and is up to us outside of Cuba to do our part in halting imperialist interventions from the US so that those in Cuba can build a future for themselves.