The 1st of January 1959 represented a fundamental turning point in the history and politics of Cuba, one which would ultimately alter and define the character of the small Caribbean island.  It was on this day, that Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and their 26th of July revolutionary movement dethroned the dictator General Batista after years of civil unrest. 

Despite gaining popular support as a charismatic and patriotic democrat, who wanted to overthrow a cruel dictator, reinstate the 1940 Constitution and restore free elections, Castro’s lust for power culminated in him ruling a one-party communist state for roughly 50 years.  The legacy of his time in power has been almost interchangeable with that of the regime that came before him. 

The divisive leader has split opinions across the globe regarding the success of Cuban socialism.  His supporters on the left are keen to highlight the successes of the welfare state that was implemented during the early days of the revolutionary government.  They are eager to praise the dictator’s character, commending him for his paternalism, staunch anti-imperial stance and determined resistance to a harsh US trade embargo.  Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau, a family friend of the Castros, even referred to him as a ‘legendary’ revolutionary and a ‘remarkable leader.’

These comments raised eyebrows, and rightly so.  

The minor successes of the Cuban welfare state are surely undermined by Castro’s and the communists’ inexcusable and woeful human rights record combined with his inept management of a faltering economy.  

Within only a mere 134 days in office, Castro had sentenced 600 citizens linked to the Batista regime to death through the revolutionary courts.  Moreover, throughout his 49 years in power, he arrested, tortured and executed countless numbers of political dissidents, typically charged with the almost satirical crime of ‘disrespecting the leaders of the revolution.’  A report from the University of Hawaii estimates that the official death toll of the Castro regime ranges from 30,000-140,000.  This study was conducted in only 1987, with still 20 years to go before Castro finally relinquished power.

This is an indefensibly high death count for a so-called paternalistic leader who believed that the world ‘must establish a new world order based on justice, on equity and on peace.’  He also stated that ‘capitalism has neither the capacity, nor the morality, nor the ethics to solve the problems of poverty.’  Regardless of your political beliefs, whether you support socialism or oppose it, for Fidel Castro to attempt to take the moral high ground is somewhat ironic at best.

Despite his claims, Castro’s Marxist-Leninist economic policies of vast nationalisation, wealth redistribution, land reform and central planning did not work in solving poverty either.  It left the average Cuban far poorer than what they ought to have been.  GDP per capita when Castro took charge in 1959 stood at $2,067, by 1999 it was a mere $2,307 (Maddison, March 2010).  To put this in context, during this same period, the American dominated Puerto Rico jumped from $3,239 to $13,738.

In the context of the Cold War, the Cuban economy was able to survive, just about, because of its dependence on trade and subsidies with and from the USSR.  Soviet subsidies between 1986-1990 averaged $4.3bn per year and constituted 21.2% of the Cuban Gross National Product.  

Far from Castro’s fiery anti-imperialist and nationalistic rhetoric, it appeared to the outsider that Cuba had simply become another colony of the Soviet super-power.  Castro’s socialist regime could not, it appeared, survive on its own.

Therefore, it was this reliance that left the one-dimensional agrarian Cuban economy in dire straits by 1991.  The collapse of the Eastern Bloc during the late 80s and early 90s meant that Cuba lost 80% of its trading partners and essential subsidies. 

The inevitable outcome of this?  Cuban short-run economic growth contracted by 33% as imports fell by 75% between 1990-93 as Cuba entered the so-called ‘Special Period in a Time of Peace,’ and the average Cuban suffered greatly as a result.

Unsurprisingly, the Cuban socialist system was not able to cater for even the basic needs of its people.  Cubans suffered from chronic food shortages; low, stagnant wages and abject poverty.  Food production fell by 40% during this time, as the average Cuban lost as much as 12 pounds in weight.  The average wage, already low, fell to less than $20 a month.  

Modest economic reforms since then have kept the communist nation from experiencing the widespread civil unrest seen in the Eastern Bloc.  However, the country is still extremely poor in all respects.  A comparison with former communist nation Albania, highlights the ineptness of the socialist central planning in Cuba.  Albania, in terms of GDP per capita, was poorer than Cuba in 1991, ($1,836 vs $2,590) yet a simple market-orientated switch in economic policy meant that by 2010 their average standard of living had tripled to $5,375 (Maddison, March 2010).

Even Fidel Castro in 2010, having now relinquished his monopoly control of Cuban politics to his brother (Raúl), recognised that ‘the Cuban [economic] model doesn’t even work for us anymore.’  

It is debatable whether it ever did.

Fidel Castro’s insistence on communist policy had led the Cuban people into disarray for half a century.  Hence, upon his retirement and subsequent death, it was inevitable that reform would occur – just as it had done following the demise of Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam and Mao Zedong in China.

Since 2010, Raúl Castro, his successor Miguel Díaz Canel and the Communist Party have introduced a series of these reforms in an attempt to revitalise the Cuban economy by attracting entrepreneurs and foreign investment especially in their tourism industry.  

The most significant of these reforms to date came on Saturday, February 6th, 2021 when Labour Minister Marta Elena Feito Cabrera announced that the Cuban government would open up its economy to private entrepreneurs in most sectors.  The government now permits private enterprise in over 2,000 economic activities, with only 124 areas reserved for state control.  Previous to this, 600,000 Cubans (13% of the population) worked in the private sector in one of 127 permitted careers, mostly including small businesses and the tourism industry.  

The move was prompted, if not forced, by the economic fallout caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to a 11% contraction in Cuban GDP and a 33% reduction in imports in 2020.  The pandemic hit the fragile Cuban economy - still railing from the Trump administrations tough trade embargo - particularly hard due to its dependence on the private tourist sector, which saw an 80% decrease in visitors.

Long overdue, but surely welcomed, is this fundamental shift in Cuban economic policy the final nail in the coffin of Fidel Castro’s socialist Cuban legacy of failure?

Not quite yet.  

Whilst the reform is significant, it is clear that the Cuban government aren’t willing to abandon Castroism and their revolutionary heritage just yet.  They are even keen to avoid the uttering of the phrase ‘private sector’, instead referring to it as the ‘non-state sector.’  However, perhaps the COVID-19 pandemic has provided the much-needed impetus for the Cuban Communist party to accept the systemic failures of their economic system and their consistent failure to provide for their citizens.  It is time for Cuba to continue to renounce the short-comings and hypocrisy of Castroism and take steps to abandon it.

Will Cutlan-Smyth