WE ARE CUBA!

Copyright © 2020 Helen Yaffe

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 CONTENTS

List of Figures and Tables

Acknowledgements

Introduction ‘¡Somos Cuba! ¡Somos Continuidad!’

1 The Challenge of (Socialist) Development

2 Surviving the Crisis: The Special Period

3 Fidel Castro’s Citizens’ Army: The Battle of Ideas

4 Power to the People: The Energy Revolution

5 The Curious Case of Cuba’s Biotech Revolution

6 Cuban Medical Internationalism: An Army of White Coats

7 Cuba and the United States: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose?

8 Raúl Castro’s Reforms: Socialist Efficiency or Capitalist Opening?

9 The Cuban Tightrope: Between the Plan and the Market

10 Surviving into the Post-rapprochement Period

Interviews and Selected Talks

Notes

Further Reading

Index
 LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Figure 1 Goods exports structure

Figure 2 Unemployment and real GDP growth

Table 1 Key areas of research and investigation from the 1960s to the 1980s

Table 2 Centres, ministries and programmes established in the 1990s to pursue alternative
energies

Table 3 Stocks of renewable energy in 2017

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book owes its existence to the Cuban people whose principled intransigence and
revolutionary resilience sustained their system into the post-Soviet world. I am grateful to the
Cubans who gave me interviews and answered my questions with patience and candour; to those
who did talks and presentations which they allowed me to record; and to those who shared their
analysis and materials. I thank the individuals and institutions in Cuba who facilitated my
research: Vilma Hidalgo, Vice-Rector of Research at the University of Havana; Raúl Rodríguez
and Ernesto Domingo López in the Centre for Hemispheric and United States Studies, which is
attached to the same university; Jesús Pastor García Brigos and the Institute of Philosophy in the
Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment; and Kenia Serrano, formerly president of
the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples. My time in Cuba is always enriched by my
family and friends on the island, a crowd which has grown each time I return.
The research carried out in Cuba was facilitated by the support of individuals and with
funding from academic institutions in Britain. At the London School of Economics (LSE), Nick
Kitchen collaborated to secure seed funding from an Institute of Global Affairs/Rockefeller fund,
which took me to Havana to carry out the first set of interviews in December 2016 and to New
York in March 2017. As a Visiting Fellow at LSE’s Latin America and Caribbean Centre
(LACC), I contributed to two academic seminars hosted by the University of Havana, in summer
2017 and December 2018, which provided further opportunities for research and for expanding
my networks in Cuba. I am grateful to LACC director Gareth Jones and to Álvaro Méndez, co-
director of the LSE’s Global South Unit, for facilitating my participation. Michael Maisel, who,
prior to studying a master’s degree at LSE, worked for the coalition Engage Cuba in the United
States, invited me to join the excellent programme of talks he organised in Havana for LSE
students in spring 2018.
I am also grateful to Ray Stokes and all my colleagues in Economic and Social History
(ESH) at the University of Glasgow, where I began as a Lecturer in January 2018. ESH funding
took me to Cuba in spring 2018 and freed me from other responsibilities so that I could complete
the manuscript in 2019. All academics know how precious, and how rare, these windows of
concentrated time are. Special thanks are due to Malcolm Nicholson, recently retired Professor of
the History of Medicine in ESH, for commenting on drafts of both medicine-related chapters,
and to Professor Reinaldo Funes Monzote, Cuban environmental historian and President of the
Cuban Society for the History of Science and Technology, for doing likewise with the chapter on
the Energy Revolution. Ann Yaffe accompanied me through the process with enthusiasm,
patience and a deep compassion for the subject, while David Yaffe and Paul Bullock cast their
critical eyes over the manuscript.
My appreciation goes to John Kirk, Cuba expert and professor at Dalhousie University, for
sharing his publications and sources; he is among a group of non-Cuban scholars with the
integrity to go against the grain to generate a more balanced discourse in Cuba studies.
Recognition is due to the peer reviewers of this manuscript whose comments pushed me to
sharpen my arguments. I am indebted to Taiba Batool for launching me on this book-writing
project before her departure from Yale University Press, leaving me in the capable hands of
Julian Loose and the great team there. It has been a pleasure to work with them.
It has been a long journey, exhausting and exhilarating, and I am grateful for the support I
have received from friends and compañeros/as in Britain and around the world and, most
decisively, for the love, intelligence and encouragement of my family which has borne me
through it.

INTRODUCTION
‘¡SOMOS CUBA! ¡SOMOS CONTINUIDAD!’

A crowd gathers in the bright sun in front of a multi-coloured colonnade on a main street in the
city of Pinar del Rio, capital of Cuba’s westernmost province. There is an air of excitement,
some chanting and dozens of arms extended with smart phones to capture the occasion for social
media. It is not one of the many international celebrities who have recently visited the island that
draws their attention. It is not Fidel or Raúl Castro, or any other veteran of the Cuban
Revolution. They are meeting their new president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, who strides confidently
down the middle of the road, shaking hands and kissing cheeks, lightly flanked by security
guards in short-sleeved guayabera shirts. ‘He is following the steps of our Comandante,’ a
woman tells the reporter from Latin American broadcaster Telesur. ‘Meeting with the people, to
know what people think, to know how people live. A wonderful experience, I actually shook
hands with him. I feel very happy and very lucky.’1 Over her shoulder another woman nods
emphatically with her lips puckered in agreement. The comparison is intended: ‘We are Cuba!
We are continuity!’ is the slogan adopted by Díaz-Canel and others in contemporary Cuba to
demonstrate their enduring commitment to the socialist revolution.2
It is mid-September 2018 and, since becoming president in the spring, Díaz-Canel has
plunged in among the Cuban people, across the length and depth of the island, visiting
workplaces, communities, schools and other centres. He has urged all Cuban leaders to get closer
to the people, and to ensure that local development strategies relate to each community’s culture
and history, to the aspirations, motivations and opinions of local people. Implementation, he has
pointed out, will depend on their support and participation.3 In Pinar de Rio, a province famous
for its tobacco production, the president visited a fruit canning factory, an agricultural
polytechnic institute, a store for construction materials, and held meetings in the Provincial
Assembly of Peoples’ Power, where he was told about problems obstructing economic progress
and social programmes. ‘He is demonstrating that he is one of the people,’ agrees another young
man in the street, ‘that he is someone who is addressing problems, the situation, the things that
most concern Cuban society. I think that is most important.’ The tall, grey-haired Díaz-Canel
leans in close to address a circle of Cuban women: ‘There are things that can be solved quickly;
and there are other things that we will be proposing in our economic plan from next year,’ he
explains.
‘Next year’ is 2019: it marks 60 years of Cuba’s revolutionary government. The Revolution
is older than the new head of state. President Díaz-Canel is entirely a product of Cuban
socialism. He is the son of a mechanic and a school teacher, born in April 1960 in Placetas, a
small city in central Cuba founded by Spanish colonists in 1861 as a sugar town and known as
‘the villa of the laurels’ for its wild laurel trees. As a beneficiary of Cuba’s free, universal
education policy, in 1982 Díaz-Canel graduated in engineering at the Central University of Las
Villas, where, in 1959, Che Guevara had declared that the university ‘should paint itself the
colour of workers and peasants . . . the colour of the people, because the university is the asset of
no one but the people of Cuba’.4 After three years of mandatory military service in Cuba’s
Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) Díaz-Canel returned to his alma mater to teach. He went on
an internationalist mission to Sandinista Nicaragua in 1987, and the same year joined the Union
of Young Communists (UJC). Soon he was second secretary of the UJC’s National Office in
Havana and in 1993, the hardest year of Cuba’s post-Soviet economic crisis, Díaz-Canel joined
the Cuban Communist Party (CCP). One year later, he was leading the party in his home
province of Villa Clara. He subsequently transferred to the same role in Holguin province, later
being nominated as the government’s Minister of Higher Education, then Vice President of the
Council of Ministers, and then First Vice President in 2013 – the first person born after the
Revolution elected to that position.
In April 2018, with a not-quite unanimous vote from the National Assembly of People’s
Power, he took over from Raúl Castro as President of the Council of State, a post which was
redesignated as President of the Republic in the new Constitution, which was approved in
February 2019.5 His ascendency is one of history’s conundrums solved: the end of the Castro
reign did not signal the end of the Cuban Revolution.6
For years, students of Cuba were conditioned to believe that the Revolution’s trajectory
could only be understood by reference to Fidel Castro’s biology or psychology. Then Fidel ailed,
he resigned, he died, but the Revolution lived on. Raúl Castro took over. He was referred to as
the ‘brother’, as if that explained his governance; the ‘reformer’, as if a peaceful transition to
capitalism was assured. Raúl came, he reformed, he resigned, and the socialist system prevailed.
So, if it wasn’t the ‘Castro-brothers’ who explained the endurance of the system, then other
factors must account for its survival into the post-Soviet world. Have we been too distracted by
all the talk about what the Revolution was doing wrong to enquire about what it was getting right
and how?
For 60 years, Cuba has defied expectations and flouted the rules. It is a country of
contradictions: a poor country with world-leading human development indicators; a small island
that mobilises the world’s largest international humanitarian assistance; a weak and dependent
economy which has survived economic crises and the United States blockade; anachronistic but
innovative; formally ostracised, but with millions of ardent defenders around the world. Despite
meeting most of the Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations in 2015, Cuba’s
development strategy is not upheld as an example.7 These contradictions require explanation.
‘Cuba is a mystery,’ Isabel Allende, Director of the Higher Institute for International Relations,
told me in Havana, ‘it is true, but you have to try to understand that mystery.’8
Historians like anniversaries: they help to mark the passage of time and to provide
perspective to its passing. 2019 marked 60 years since the Rebel Army seized power from the
Cuban dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista; but at the halfway point was another useful marker. It
was 30 years since Fidel Castro publicly declared that, were the Soviet Union to disintegrate, the
Cuban Revolution would endure. He said that on 26 July 1989, 18 months before the USSR
collapsed and four months prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall.9 For three decades, the survival of
Cuban socialism was attributed to Soviet aid. Today, the Revolution has existed in the post-
Soviet world for longer than it did under the Soviet sphere of influence. How on earth did Cuban
socialism survive?
This book begins to tell that story: how Cuba’s revolutionary people survived into a post-
Soviet world. It traces the historical roots of contemporary developments, extending the focus of
my previous book, Che Guevara: The Economics of Revolution, about Guevara’s contribution to
Cuba’s economic transformation and to socialist political economy debates in the early 1960s.10
Each area examined here shows how decisions made in a period of crisis and isolation since the
late 1980s onwards have shaped Cuba into the twenty-first century in the realms of development
strategy, medical science, energy, ecology and the environment, culture and education. Many of
these developments have taken place ‘under the radar’, astonishing outsiders such as Dr Kelvin
Lee, Chair of Immunology at a New York cancer centre, who described the achievements of
Cuban biotechnology as ‘unexpected and very exciting’.11
By emphasising political aspects, many scholars of Cuba have inevitably focused on Fidel
and Raúl Castro, or on ‘dissidents’, ‘entrepreneurs’ or other sectoral interests. This book,
however, frames the discussion of contemporary Cuba in relation to both its political economy
and its economic history. It focuses not just on the policy, but on the restraints and conditions
that shaped each course of action and the motivations, agendas and goals behind them. It brings
out an essential element that has been understated in most commentary on Cuba: the level of
engagement by the population in evaluating, critiquing and amending policy changes and
proposed reforms, through representative channels, public forums, national consultations and
referenda. Therein lies the voice of the revolutionary people. In socialist Cuba, the relationship
between the ‘government’ and the ‘people’, through their organisations, is extremely permeable.
Cuban socialism has survived with the backing of the revolutionary people and failure to
recognise this leads to distortions and misconstructions about the legitimacy of the revolutionary
government and the balance of power.
This is not to deny the indefatigable leadership and authority of Fidel Castro, and the
subsequent dominance of Raúl Castro, which the following chapters elucidate. But as military
historian Hal Klepak has pointed out, ‘neither the FAR [Revolutionary Armed Forces] nor even
important police resources were ever needed in an internal security role’ to quell civil unrest.12
The projects the Castros initiated were dependent on their ability to get the Cuban people behind
them. Hence the need to constantly go to the people, to explain, urge, debate and win consent in
order to mobilise people to action.
 The label ‘revolutionary people’ in the title of this book does not just mean communist
militants, government leaders and state administrators. It includes the communities and
‘ordinary’ Cubans who just got on with the art of living, pulling together through the Special
Period of economic crisis: the city dwellers who became urban farmers to provide food for
themselves and their neighbours; the ‘disconnected’ youth who became the Citizens’ Army in
the Battle of Ideas; the environmentalists pursuing sustainable development and renewable
energies; the medical personnel who left behind their homes and families to serve the world’s
poorest and most neglected communities; the medical scientists who worked tirelessly to produce
medicines the island could not import because of the United States blockade or the international
market price; the social scientists who warned policy-makers that Cubans were being left behind
in the drive for efficiency; and the millions of Cubans who turned out time and time again to
debate the proposed policies and reforms which would affect them. But the label ‘revolutionary
people’ can also include the malcontents and critics of government policy, those who ‘pilfer’
state resources, work illegally or live off foreigners, the self-employed and private farmers, the
marginalised youth without work or study. In the cycle of revolutionary regeneration any of
these groups can and have been reincorporated into the socialist project, as this book shows.
Cuban political scientist Rafael Hernández complained: ‘Cuba is not the transfiguration of a
doctrine, nor the reification of a totalitarian philosophy. It is a country. Little is written and even
less is published about this real country.’13 My endeavour is to write about Cuba as a ‘real
country’, without the cynicism or condescension that characterises so much of what is written
about the island by outsiders, and to highlight episodes and developments about which little is
known outside Cuba, except perhaps by well-informed solidarity activists and specialists in those
areas.14 These episodes include the Battle of Ideas from 2000, the Energy Revolution from 2005,
the acceleration of Cuban medical internationalism and the development of Cuba’s
biotechnology sector. I am also concerned with the political economy of development in
different stages: during the period of ‘Rectification’ in the late 1980s; the economic crisis of the
1990s known as the ‘Special Period’; reforms from 2008 under Raúl Castro’s mandate; and more
contemporary debates over economic efficiency and social justice. Today, the socialist
development path is in the balance and, whilst being wary of attempts to predict the future,
history can help us assess the internal and external factors which will determine the outcome.
The information is drawn from speeches and articles, documents, scientific, technical and
financial reports, data sets, and books and articles about Cuba read over many years, in English
and Spanish.15
As it is written for a broader audience, this book avoids some academic conventions. There
is little examination of the existing literature or analysis of debates within that. Specific
references are given to texts from which I have drawn directly, but without expansive lists of
previous publications by the scholars cited. Clearly a far broader body of work has been
consulted over the years in which I have studied Cuba, including classic texts in the field which
have contributed to my knowledge and shaped my analysis, even if they are not cited.
In addition, for each chapter I sought interviews with Cuban leaders, thinkers and activists:
insiders who could give a Cuban perspective to each story. For example, I had the inside view of
the Battle of Ideas from Cubans who were youth leaders closely identified with the era: Hassan
Pérez, President of the Federation of University Students (FEU); Kenia Serrano, another national
FEU leader; and Enrique Gómez, First Secretary of the Union of Young Communists (UJC) in
Havana. Regarding the Energy Revolution, I talked to scientists who are leading advocates of
renewable energies and sustainable development: Luis Bérriz, President of Cubasolar, and
Alfredo Curbelo Alonso from Cubaenergía. For Cuban medical internationalism, I spoke to Jorge
Pérez Ávila, former director of Cuba’s hospital for tropical diseases, the IPK, which has been
central to Cuba’s overseas medical interventions: he prepared Cuban doctors for their mission to
combat Ebola in West Africa in 2014–15. Concerning Cuban biotechnology, I consulted Agustín
Lage Dávila, then director of the Centre for Molecular Immunology (CIM), a key character in
Cuba’s biotechnology story, and Dr Kelvin Lee, the US medical scientist cited above.
Regarding relations between Cuba and the United States, in Havana I interviewed two top
Cuban negotiators who had led official and secret talks with the US: Ricardo Alarcón, who
headed Cuba’s US policy from 1962, holding top posts in both the Cuban government and the
United Nations, including as President of Cuba’s National Assembly for 20 years from 1993; and
Josefina Vidal, who led the island’s US policy from 2013, handling the secret negotiations with
the Obama administration which led to the brief rapprochement announced by the Cuban and US
presidents on 17 December 2014. Vidal is now Cuba’s Ambassador to Canada. In New York, I
met with Cuba’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Anayansi Rodríguez Camejo, who returned
to Havana in January 2019 to serve as Vice Minister of Foreign Relations. With regard to Cuba’s
broader international relations, I spoke with Isabel Allende, cited above, and Alberto Navarro,
the European Union’s High Representative (Ambassador) in Havana.
For the economic history and political economy chapters on the challenge of development
and Rectification, the Special Period, Raúl’s reforms and the contemporary Cuban tightrope, I
consulted Cuban economists, sociologists, political scientists and other specialists, including José
Luis Rodríguez, Minister of the Economy from 1998 to 2009, and a former Vice President of the
Council of Ministers and member of the Council of State.16
To object that because the interviewees have links to the government of Cuba they are
somehow distinct from ‘ordinary people’ is to impose a false dichotomy.17 The political
representatives, heads of scientific institutions, youth leaders and others whose voices are
represented here do not hail from an elite or aristocracy any more than Díaz-Canel does. Over the
years in Cuba I have visited the homes of former ministers, of diplomats, political leaders,
intellectuals and other professionals who live in ‘ordinary’ homes lacking luxury, and who share
the daily deprivations of their neighbours. As state sector employees, many of my interviewees
receive low salaries, even by Cuban standards, notwithstanding their qualifications and the
responsibilities of their post. In summer 2019, employees in the political organisations of
People’s Power and a group in public administration received their first pay rise since 2005.18
Before the Revolution, Allende told me, her family’s ‘big dream’ was for her to work as a
secretary in the US-owned Cuban Electric Company. Instead she attended university, became an
ambassador and is today director of an important institute which trains diplomats and academics.
‘I am not a millionaire, I do not have any of that, but from the point of view of what I did in my
life . . . Could that have happened before the Revolution? No. That is due exclusively to the
Revolution.’19 Likewise, Pérez, the son of a bus driver, became the head of a world-renowned
medical institution. These are ‘ordinary’ people given the opportunity to do extraordinary things
by the Cuban system. Given that the state controls most institutions and organisations in Cuba, it
would be difficult indeed to find people in significant roles, contributing to Cuban development,
who have no links to the government.
I have also drawn on previous interviews carried out with leading veterans of the Cuban
revolution, compañeros of Che Guevara in the field of industry, and with the former president of
Ecuador, Rafael Correa. In addition, I consulted non-Cubans from foreign interests dealing with
Cuba.20 I also benefited from the insights of non-Cuban specialists on the country, particularly
for the final chapter concerning the Trump administration’s Cuba policy.21
The analysis also draws on my own experiences of visiting and living in Cuba frequently
since the mid-1990s when I first stayed on the island as a teenager with my sister, who is two
years my senior. This was an austere time during the Special Period; we saw how Cubans dug
deep to survive, as individuals and as a socialist society. It was a transformative experience. I
have returned to the island regularly: for world festivals, solidarity brigades, research trips and
field work, personal visits, academic seminars and more research trips.
Our first trip to Cuba from Britain turned everything we knew on its head, introducing us to
new precepts and concepts, values and priorities, social relations and hierarchies, aspirations and
cultural norms, means and ends. The experience taught me the value of an ‘immanent critique’:
instead of judging socialist Cuba based on the internal logic of the capitalist system, greater
insight and appreciation are possible by evaluating the island on the basis of its own strategic
objectives, while acknowledging the challenges the island has faced. Scholars of Cuba,
particularly from the Cubanologist school of interpretation, have so often struggled to explain or
account for developments in Cuba precisely because they fail to engage with the Cuban
Revolution on its own terms. The issue is ideological, an aspect of the political confrontation
between capitalism and socialism.
The key tenets of Cubanology are that the revolution of 1959 represented a rupture; and
Fidel and Raúl Castro have personally dominated domestic and foreign policy since, denying
Cuban democracy and repressing civil society. Thanks to their mismanagement of the economy,
growth since 1959 has been negligible. They simply replaced pre-revolutionary dependency on
the United States with dependence on the Soviet Union until its collapse in 1991, and
subsequently on Venezuela.22 These ideas have shaped international political and media
discourse on Cuba.
The caricature is problematic. First, because it obstructs our ability to see clearly what goes
on in Cuba and, by depicting the Cuban people as an amorphous and pacified mass, fails to
account for the Revolution’s endurance and achievements. Second, because it is premised on
neoclassical economic assumptions, which entail abstraction, a negation of history and ‘path-
dependence’.23 By stressing economic policy over economic restraints, critics have shifted
responsibility for Cuba’s poverty on to ‘the Castros’ without implicating successive US
administrations that have imposed the suffocating US blockade. The crippling effect of the
blockade on every sector in Cuba has been ignored or dismissed by many commentators who
blame shortages and inefficiencies on ‘mismanagement’ or even cynically credit it with keeping
the Castros in power.24 In the developing world there is greater appreciation for Cuba’s
revolutionary resilience. In 2009, then president of Ecuador Rafael Correa told me: ‘It is
impossible to judge the success or failure of the Cuban model without considering the [US]
blockade, a blockade that has lasted for 50 years. Ecuador would not survive for five months
with that blockade.’25
Third, poverty and material deprivation were not introduced to Cuba with the socialist
Revolution: they have been structurally inherent since the island was ‘discovered’ by Christopher
Columbus. Fourth, the accepted discourse hides political bias behind a veil of objectivity. Cuban-
American sociologist Nelson Valdés complained that: ‘The literature on Cuba has been
permeated by so much political polemic that scholars have preferred to remain silent about the
method they have utilized or the paradigm guiding their investigation and analytical logic.’26
This is clearly seen on the issues of democracy and human rights, both of which are
contested terms. Put simply, observers who accept parliamentary liberalism – the form of
political organisation preferred in the advanced capitalist countries – as synonymous with
‘democracy’ will find it missing in Cuba and conclude that there is no democracy on the island.
There is no need here for either a gratuitous censure of socialist Cuba for the absence of
multiparty elections, nor for a defensive foray into explaining how the Cuban system of
participative democracy actually functions. Many scholars of Cuba have addressed this question
quite adequately.27 Likewise, addressing the issue of human rights involves philosophical
questions about the nature of freedom: from what, to do what, for whom? The United Nation’s
Declaration of Human Rights recognises two distinct sets of rights: ‘economic, social and
cultural rights’ and ‘civil rights and political liberties’, without prioritising either set morally or
legally.28 The extent to which these rights are entirely congruent is another debate. Liberal
capitalist countries, most vociferously the United States, highlight civil rights and political
liberties, while socialist Cuba prioritises economic, social and cultural rights. The choice is
determined by which rights are compatible with the economic system.
For the Cuban Revolution, the commitments to social justice and independence are integral,
not supplementary, components of the revolutionary project.29 Failure to understand or accept
this facilitates a narrative about economic ‘mismanagement’ and ‘inefficiency’. ‘The social
objective of the economy is not growth for the sake of growth, but for the social implication of
that growth,’ insists Geidys Fundora Nevot, a young Cuban doctoral student I interviewed.30
‘Growth is a condition for development, but it is not development,’ adds former Cuban Economy
Minister José Luis Rodríguez.31 Indeed, the government avoids certain measures of improving
efficiency or gross domestic product (GDP) that would be harmful to the well-being of the
majority of the population. As US academic Al Campbell points out: ‘This different goal clearly
has the potential to cause Cuban policy-makers to act differently than their capitalist counterparts
would.’32 So it is problematic to apply the yardsticks of capitalist economics, focusing on GDP
growth or money-wages per day, to measure ‘success’ or ‘failure’ of the Cuban economy, while
paying little attention to the social and political priorities of the island’s development.33

SPECULATION ABOUT CUBAN SOCIALISM

Following the restoration of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States in summer
2015, Havana became the place to be for veteran rock bands, pop stars, politicians, film-makers
and the fashion industry. President Obama visited Cuba in March 2016, followed swiftly by the
British Foreign Secretary, the French president and other European ministers. They were trailing
behind Russian, Chinese and Latin American heads of state. The sharp edges of the US blockade
were chipped away through licences for trade and investment issued to US companies by the
Obama administration.
Meanwhile, since 2008, major internal developments have been underway in Cuba: the
distribution of 2 million hectares of state land to private farmers; the Guidelines for Updating the
Economic and Social Model, approved in 2011 and updated in 2016, reduced state control of the
economy and cut government spending; the Mariel Special Development Zone and a new
Foreign Investment Law of 2014 sought to channel foreign capital into Cuba; hundreds of
thousands of workers were transferred from state jobs to cooperatives and self-employment,
prompting a rise in remittances and the emergence of private enterprises; and Cubans were
permitted to sell their homes and cars on an open domestic market for the first time in thirty
years.
While the Cuban government insists that these measures are necessary to preserve the
socialist Revolution, the process has led many commentators to conclude that, intentionally or
not, Cuba is reintroducing capitalism. Where does the truth lie? The market openings gave US
policy-makers a pretext to initiate a change in US–Cuba policy under the Obama administration,
while the anticipation of western policy-makers, analysts and academics was evidenced in the
plethora of conferences and publications on ‘Raúl Castro’s reforms’. There was speculation
about whether we were witnessing an Eastern European style transition to capitalism, or a
gradual economic liberalisation under existing centralised state structures, the ‘Chinese model’.
Like a castle made of sand, rapprochement was washed away with the Trump
administration’s default to hostility. But the Cuban reforms continued, hesitantly, in fits and
starts, leaving many to wonder if Raúl Castro had pulled the reins in before dismounting the
horse. Now Díaz-Canel is responsible for overseeing the extremely complex process of
‘updating’ the Cuban system. The reforms are an economic imperative but also constitute a
political risk. They create expectations and interest groups which will exert increasing pressure
on the socialist system for further concessions to market forces. These challenges will be
explored in the following chapters from the perspective of the revolutionary people of Cuba who,
ultimately, will have to meet them.
Chapter 1 locates Cuban economic history and post-1959 political economy in relation to
the ‘challenge of development’ faced by all underdeveloped or developing countries: how do
they receive the capital they need to be able to invest in domestic developments and social
welfare for their people without jeopardising their sovereignty? The lack of consensus among
Cuban revolutionaries about how to overcome the structural components of the island’s
underdevelopment, whilst in transition to socialism and facing hostility from US imperialism,
explains why the economic management system has been changed so frequently, even prior to
the Soviet collapse. Decisive measures were taken during the period known as the Rectification
from the mid-1980s, which pulled Cuba back from the Soviet model and arguably contributed to
the survival of Cuban socialism. The Cuba which emerged in the post-Soviet world was
determined by the policies and constraints faced in these earlier periods and the lessons drawn
from them.
Chapter 2, on the Special Period, shows how the economy was restructured for reinsertion
into global capitalist markets without relinquishing socialism, while the planning system was
restored and adapted to the new conditions. The disintegration of the USSR could not eliminate
the island’s structural dependence on foreign trade but forced it to find new partners.34 The
chapter discusses the grave socioeconomic impacts of the crisis, the measures taken to alleviate
them and the enduring impact of those measures on the island’s social fabric. It explains how
state farms were handed over to cooperatives and families to work, while agricultural production
shifted to organic farming, revitalising traditional techniques, and an urban gardening movement
emerged.
Chapter 3 explains how the struggle to return the little shipwrecked Cuban boy Elián
González to his father grew into the Battle of Ideas, catalysing ambitious socioeconomic and
educational programmes with youth as the principle protagonists and beneficiaries. In the face of
escalating US hostility, the Battle of Ideas sought to strengthen socialist consciousness whilst
tackling material deprivation on the island. Chapter 4, on the Energy Revolution, explains how
efficient new power generators were installed in a ‘distributed’ system, replacing worn-out
Soviet power stations, while old durable goods were replaced with energy-saving equipment. It
discusses the programmes underway to promote greater energy efficiency and renewable
energies, and shows how research into these technologies began far earlier than assumed.
Chapter 5, on medical science, describes how science and technology were prioritised, even
when the budget was tight, to find endogenous solutions to domestic problems and to the scarcity
manufactured by the US blockade. Cuban advances in biotechnology have placed it at the
forefront of an emerging global field for the first time in the island’s economic history.
Chapter 6, on medical internationalism, shows how the nature of Cuban internationalism
shifted from military to medical missions, as hundreds of thousands of Cuban health care
professionals travelled to impoverished communities throughout the world and tens of thousands
of foreigners were trained or treated on the island. It describes how a new export strategy was
forged to reap the benefits of the Revolution’s investments in health care and education.
Chapter 7, on Cuba–US relations, shows how the island withstood renewed hostility from the
United States and its allies, determined to see the demise of Cuban socialism in the post-Soviet
era, and how the island broke out of its political and economic isolation following the collapse of
the socialist bloc, building new alliances which in turn generated pressure for a change in US
policy on Cuba, at least until Trump entered the Oval Office.
Chapter 8 provides an account of the reforms introduced under Raúl Castro’s mandate
from 2007, framing the measures in terms of the problems they were intended to address and the
results attained. It shows how the reforms sought to improve efficiency and productivity,
opening a space for market mechanisms within the socialist framework. It highlights the national
and sectoral debates that accompanied the process, encompassing the entire population, seeking
consensus to legitimise the new measures. Chapter 9 discusses the contradictions being
introduced into Cuban socialism with the reform process, and the debates and critiques they have
fuelled. It highlights the role of investigators and policy-makers who kept checking who had
been left behind, devising targeted programmes of assistance, and reigning in economic
‘progress’ when it sacrificed social justice. Chapter 10 was added as the book was being edited
to incorporate the return to hostility under the Trump administration, particularly from early
2019. As Cuba enters a renewed period of difficulties, the developments outlined over the
following chapters will be decisive if the socialist Revolution is to survive into the post-
rapprochement period.

THE CHALLENGE OF (SOCIALIST) DEVELOPMENT

How do countries develop? Is the operation of the free market or state action decisive? Where
can developing countries get the capital they need to invest in domestic infrastructure and social
welfare? This is particularly problematic for smaller economies with a limited capacity for
domestic accumulation. How can foreign capital be obtained under conditions that do not
obstruct such development or undermine sovereignty? How can international trade be used to
produce a surplus in a global economy which, many argue, tends towards unequal terms of
trade? These are among the pivotal dilemmas facing the majority of the world’s nations, those
labelled as developing, emerging, underdeveloped, less developed, Third World, global south, or
low- and medium-income countries, among other expressions. There are many descriptors for
these countries, and even more theories explaining their ‘backwardness’ relative to the first
industrialised nations.1
Different ideologies and schools of interpretation have produced divergent formulas to
address the challenge of development: from classical and neoclassical theories of free markets
and comparative advantage in international trade;2 to Karl Marx’s observations about the impact
of the capitalist countries on their colonies;3 to Marxist–Leninist theories about imperialist
exploitation (which serve as a guide to revolutionary political action);4 to Latin American
‘structuralism’ from the 1940s, which described the unequal terms of international trade between
the industrialised ‘centre’ and the primary product-exporting ‘periphery’ countries; to more
radical dependency theories of the 1960s and 1970s, concerned with ‘metropolis’ exploitation of
the ‘satellite’, the ‘development of underdevelopment’ and its impact on social structure in the
periphery;5 to the ‘Dual Sector Model’, which explains development in terms of the transition of
the labour force between subsistence (agricultural) and capitalist sectors of the domestic
economy; to Gerschenkron’s theory about the active role for government and large banks in
addressing economic backwardness; and to Walt Rostow’s anti-communist stages of economic
growth in which all countries follow the path of the industrialised nations to ‘high mass
consumption’. Fundamentally, these theories of the development process can be juxtaposed by
the function they assign to the state, versus the market, in the development process.
More recently, economic historians concerned with why the former Spanish colonies of
Latin America were ‘left behind’ the former British territories of the United States and Canada
have debated alternative explanations: initial environmental or geographical factors (‘factor
endowments’ such as climate and agriculture, and the availability of land, labour and capital); the
institutional legacy of colonialism (British institutions and laws implemented in North America,
versus Iberian institutions and laws in Central and South America); and embedded inequality
(resulting from the subjugation of indigenous peoples, the importation of enslaved Africans and
the enduring control over power and policy by a small oligarchic elite). However, this debate
tends to stay within the framework of neoclassical economics, adopting its key assumptions that
free markets, private property and individual material incentives generate efficient economic
outcomes. Meanwhile, the enduring impact of imperialism barely features.6
For the Cuban revolutionaries of the 1950s, US imperialism was the principle explanation
for the island’s structural weaknesses. US economist Edward Boorstein opened his account of
working as an adviser to the Cuban government in the early 1960s by asserting that US
imperialism had locked Cuba into a structure of underdeveloped, mono-crop dependency:

The central fact about the Cuban economy before the Revolution was neither its one-crop
concentration on sugar, nor the monopoly of most of the agricultural land by huge latifundia
[plantations], nor the weakness of national industry, nor any other such specific
characteristic. Until the Revolution, the central fact about the Cuban economy was its
domination by American monopolies – by American imperialism. It was from imperialist
domination that the specific characteristics flowed. Unless this is recognized, the Cuban
revolution cannot be understood.7

Thus, the Revolution of 1959 faced two real alternatives: it could renounce all fundamental
changes, beyond expelling the dictator Fulgencio Batista, so that it would be acceptable to
Washington; or it could pursue the deep structural changes necessary to address the island’s
socioeconomic ills and dependent development, which would bring hostility from the United
States.8 That is, it either operated within the limits imposed by Cuba’s subordination to the
United States, at most bolstering Cuban national capital, or it broke that dependant relationship
and built real sovereignty, confronting both US imperialist interests and the Cuban ‘bourgeoisie’
which was allied to them. The Cubans opted for the latter, initially under the banner of Fidel
Castro’s Moncada Programme and subsequently adopting socialism as the only viable
alternative. The revolutionary government expropriated the private sector and adopted a centrally
planned economy and state ownership because they perceived that path to offer the best answer
to Cuba’s historical development challenges. However, the commitment to operate within a
socialist paradigm implied additional restraints and complications, particularly in the context of
the Cold War and given both the island’s structural dependence on, and geographical proximity
to, the world’s leading capitalist power.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT IN CUBA9

The United States’ historical determination to colonise Cuba had a strong economic and political
rationale before it occupied the island in 1898. The Cuban sugar industry was globally dominant
by the 1820s and attracted capital accumulated in the United States seeking profitable sources for
investment. In 1823, when US president James Monroe announced the ‘Monroe Doctrine’,
staking a claim for control over the Americas to the exclusion of European powers, the US
Secretary of State John Quincy Adams wrote that Cuba, like a ripe apple, should gravitate
naturally to the US when cut off from Spain.10 Throughout the nineteenth century the notion that
the United States must annex Cuba was a recurring theme; in 1848, President James K. Polk’s
offer to buy the island for USD 100,000,000 was rejected by Spain.11
A network of US companies was formed to operate with and on the island. Thousands of
US citizens established residence in Cuba as investors, traders and corporate representatives,
increasingly influencing the island’s economy and augmenting Cuba’s importance for US elites
and vice versa. Meanwhile the destruction of property and commerce during the Cuban
Independence Wars (1868–1878, 1879–1880 and 1895–1898), and the embargo ordered in 1869
by the Spanish government for any person associated with the independence struggle, opened
space for increasing US ownership in Cuba. By the 1870s, 75 per cent of Cuban sugar was
shipped to the United States.12 In 1895, the total value of US investments in Cuba was estimated
at USD 95 million.13
Hence, the economic relationship between Cuba and the US was determined by the logic of
the expansion of US corporate capitalism, or emerging imperialism, and the subordination of
Cuban industries to its interests. Absorbing Cuban estates and factories at an increasing rate was
part of the expansion of the vertical integration of productive processes under corporate
management, a trade mark of US capitalism and a major factor in its transition to a hegemonic
position. From the geopolitical perspective, Cuba was in a key location to serve as a base to
protect New Orleans and Florida, and to control Central America and the interoceanic
communication vital for the US economy. Building a power structure in the region was a
necessary step in the process of transforming the United States into the centre of the world
system. Thus US strategic imperatives were to wrest control of Cuba from Spain and stop other
European powers from establishing control of the island. The war with Spain and the occupation
of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and a few Pacific islands were elements of this strategy.
In 1898, when Spain was losing control of Cuba to the independence movement, the United
States intervened, effectively preventing the triumph of a social revolution. The United States
subsequently managed the construction of a Cuban Republic in which the traditional elites,
threatened by the radicalism of the intended independence, maintained a privileged position.14
The Cuban oligarchy was willingly incorporated as a subordinated component in a US-centred
power structure, becoming in the process a key tool in producing and reproducing US hegemony.
The Republic of Cuba which came into being in 1902 was shaped by mechanisms created to
secure US domination over the new nation – namely the Platt Amendment, which was
incorporated into US law and the new Cuban constitution, in return for granting Cuba
‘independence’. It set up US control over Cuba’s foreign relations and public finances,
established two US military bases on the island and gave the US the right to intervene in Cuba
when it chose. Hero of the independence movement General Juan Gualberto Gómez said it
‘reduced the independence and sovereignty of the Cuban Republic to a myth’.15 Under its
provisions, US troops returned to the island from 1906 to 1909, again in 1912, and from 1917 to
1923.
Domination over the Cuban economy was reinforced through the Trade Reciprocity Treaty
of 1904, which granted Cuban agricultural products exported to the United States a 20 per cent
tariff discount. In exchange, a long list of US goods received up to 40 per cent tariff discount in
Cuba. By the 1920s, US companies controlled two-thirds of Cuba’s sugar production. US banks
made huge loans to Cuban sugar producers, generating the speculative boom known as the
‘Dance of the Millions’. When this collapsed, the US banks foreclosed passing the assets into
United States ownership.16 By 1929, US investments in Cuba had soared to USD 919 million, 62
per cent of which was invested in agriculture, mainly the sugar industry.17 The majority of
imports flowing into Cuba came from the United States, including 95 per cent of capital goods
and 100 per cent of spare parts.18
With the Great Depression, US capital retracted and the Cuban sugar industry increasingly
fell into domestic ownership. Between 1929 and 1932, falling prices and output saw the peso
value of Cuban sugar production collapse from around USD 200 million to USD 40 million. The
impact on Cuba was traumatic, leading to a period of political upheaval: strikes took place and
workers’ ‘soviets’ were established in sugar mills throughout the island, culminating in the
overthrow of General Gerardo Machado’s dictatorship with the Revolution of 1933 and the
‘Sergeant’s Revolt’, which brought Batista to the centre stage for the first time. In January 1934
Batista, in coordination with US envoy Sumner Wells, removed President Ramón Grau San
Martín and his progressive One Hundred Day Government. In May that year, the US government
introduced a quota system for controlling sugar imports, under which Cuba was allocated a
percentage of total US imports.19 This acted as an instrument of political and economic control
over the Cuban government as the quota could be, and was, adjusted.
Cuba was the largest producer and exporter of sugar in the world; sugar production and all
its by-products accounted for 86 per cent of Cuban exports in the late 1940s, 80 per cent of
which were shipped to the United States. Sugar companies controlled 75 per cent of the arable
land, half of which they left fallow, and employed a quarter of Cuba’s workforce, but only
25,000 full time, with up to 500,000 workers hired for the labour-intensive harvest lasting two to
four months and afterwards dismissed for the tiempo muerto (dead season). Poverty,
unemployment and underemployment were inherent aspects of the island’s sugar-dominated
society, forcing an army of unemployed workers to sell its labour cheaply as cane cutters.20
After the Second World War the Cuban sugar industry was stagnant; the US-imposed sugar
quota acted as a disincentive to investment while sugar workers resisted attempts at
mechanisation. Thus, when US investment poured back into Cuba it was channelled principally
into public utilities and to a lesser extent into petroleum, manufacturing, mining and other
industries.21 Consequently, in the 1950s Cuba’s power, railway, highway, port and
communications facilities were among the most developed in Latin America.22 Cuba was the
third greatest recipient of US direct investments in Latin America, receiving USD 713 million of
direct investment in 1955. US investors controlled 90 per cent of the telephone and electric
services, 50 per cent of public service railways and 40 per cent in raw sugar production.23
After seizing power in a military coup, once again with US support, in 1952, the dictator
Fulgencio Batista encouraged foreign investment in the mining sector, in tourism, on public
work projects and in the cattle industry. But this increase in foreign investment did not mean that
the Cuban economy was ‘taking off’ with capitalist development.24 For example, oil refineries
owned by Standard Oil, Texaco and Shell, which together added over USD 50 million per year to
Cuban output statistics, employed fewer than 3,000 people, and the majority of their higher
positions were held by foreigners.25 Most of the wealth from foreign corporations was
repatriated. As French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre remarked: ‘What I took to be signs of
wealth, were, in fact, signs of dependence and poverty. At each ringing of the telephone, at each
twinkling of neon, a small piece of a dollar left the island and formed, on the American
continent, a whole dollar with the other pieces which were waiting for it.’26 Meanwhile, less than
20 per cent of imports were consumed by the mass of the people – mainly foodstuffs and
medicines – while the remaining 80 per cent, which totalled USD 770 million in 1957, went to
Cuban elites and large corporations.27
From a development perspective, the most striking phenomenon of Cuba’s economy was
the inequality between the conspicuous consumption of Havana and the rest of the island. In
1957, the Catholic University Association reported: ‘Havana is living in extraordinary prosperity
while rural areas, especially wage workers, are living in unbelievably stagnant, miserable, and
desperate conditions.’28 Nearly 35 per cent of the working population was unemployed. ‘The
specter of unemployment affects all thinking on labor and manpower problems in Cuba,’ noted a
US government report, adding that ‘Cuba has been fortunate that chronic unemployment has not
created a more critical situation.’29 Only 3 per cent of rural Cubans owned the land they worked
and the average annual income of the largely rural population was USD 91 – one-eighth of that
in Mississippi, the US’s poorest state. Inevitably, given massive unemployment, low salaries and
little access to land, only 4 per cent of Cubans in the rural areas ate meat, only 1 per cent ate fish,
3 per cent ate bread, 11 per cent had milk after weaning and less than 20 per cent ate eggs.30
More than 75 per cent of rural dwellings were wooden huts, and only 2 per cent of rural Cubans
had running water and 9 per cent had electricity.31 Some 24 per cent of the population was
illiterate, life expectancy was 59 years and infant mortality was 60 per 1,000 live births.32 Racist
discrimination was rife and institutionalised.

THE CHALLENGE OF SOCIALIST DEVELOPMENT

The new revolutionary government seized power, formally on 1 January 1959, but incrementally
over the following months as old institutions were dismantled and replaced by new ones, and as
the old elites were replaced by inexperienced and unqualified young revolutionaries who took
over as the managers and administrators of the country. The new government had only national
savings and tax revenues to draw on for investments, severely limiting the capacity for public
spending and private investments. Wealthy Cubans were leaving the island, taking their deposits
and taxes with them. How was the new government going to carry out the ambitious
socioeconomic reforms outlined in the Moncada Programme without financial resources?
Moreover, it had to do so while transforming the economy to address the island’s historic
dependence on sugar and on trade, as well as endemic unemployment and socioeconomic
deprivation, whilst inverting the balance of power in favour of the impoverished classes.
1959–1962 was a tumultuous period during which the country experienced nationalisations,
an almost complete shift in trade relations, the introduction of state planning, new institutions,
new social-relations of production, the mass exodus of managers and professionals, imposition of
the US blockade, sabotage and terrorism, invasion and the threat of nuclear conflagration. The
revolutionary government’s first redistributional measures spurred a period of economic growth,
but by 1962–3 national output and worker productivity began to decline as the shocks of
profound structural change set in. This was also the result of the rash implementation of policies
whose consequences had not been fully analysed. For example, eager to industrialise their way
out of mono-crop dependency, the revolutionary government neglected the sugar harvest, but the
fall in export earnings, exacerbated by the US blockade, reduced Cuba’s capacity to import the
raw materials and spare parts required for industry. Labour shortages in the countryside led to
increased reliance on voluntary labour for agricultural work.
The challenge for revolutionary Cuba was to solve these practical problems within the
broader framework of a socialist transition: to increase productive capacity and labour
productivity in conditions of underdevelopment and in transition to socialism, without over-
reliance on capitalist mechanisms (market forces, the profit motive, competition, material
incentives) that undermine the formation of a new consciousness and social relations that are
integral to socialism. But what strategies are best to build socialism in a blockaded and trade-
dependent island? How can production and productivity be stimulated while maintaining a
development process focused on human well-being? How can growth be obtained alongside
equity and social justice? Who should own and who should control production and distribution?
What should be the balance between private and social accumulation – the plan versus the
market – are they complementary or contradictory? What democratic structures should exist?
What is the role of culture and consciousness?
Consensus on these issues has never been achieved in Cuba. The debate, which is as old as
the Revolution, continues today, as discussed in Chapter 9. The search for solutions to these
questions explains why so many different approaches to economic management have been
adopted under the Revolution, five different systems in the first three decades alone: the
Budgetary Finance System, the Auto-Financing System, the Registry System, the Soviet
Planning and Management System and the ‘Campaign of Rectification of Errors and Negative
Tendencies’, known as Rectification.33 Each system reframed the relationship between market
mechanisms and the state plan in accordance with the economic and political imperatives of the
period and international conditions.34

EARLY 1960s: CHE GUEVARA REBELS AGAINST THE SOVIET MODEL

As Minister of Industries from February 1961, Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara developed a unique
system of economic management for the socialist transition known as the Budgetary Finance
System.35 It was the fruit of a dynamic interaction between theory and practice, emerging first as
a practical measure to solve concrete problems in industry, but gaining a theoretical base as he
studied Marx’s analysis of the capitalist system, engaged in contemporary socialist political
economy debates and investigated the technological and administrative apparatus of the capitalist
corporations nationalised in Cuba. Guevara used the Budgetary Finance System to test his
assertion that it was possible and necessary to raise consciousness and productivity
simultaneously, even in an underdeveloped country, in the process of socialist construction. He
believed that failure to do so, focusing exclusively on economic development fostered through
market mechanisms, would lead to the restoration of capitalism.36 On this basis he criticised the
Soviet’s ‘hybrid’ system as socialism with capitalist elements. This lacked the efficiency of the
‘free market’, with its aggressive fight for profits, because the state plan and legally defined
relations of production prevented exploitation and capitalist accumulation, whilst also failing to
foster the collective consciousness in workers which Guevara believed was a precondition for
socialism and communism.
Meanwhile, other Cuban ministers and planners rejected the audacity of Guevara’s
challenge to Soviet orthodoxy, opting to adopt the tried and tested Soviet economic management
system, known in Cuba either as Economic Calculus or the Auto-Financing System. They
blamed the economic deterioration of 1962–3 on what they saw as excessive centralisation and
the lack of financial incentives to individuals and enterprises associated with Guevara’s
economic management model. This was the period that saw increasing integration into the
socialist bloc via trade and human exchange: Cuban students went to Eastern Europe on
scholarships while the socialist countries sent technicians and economists to Cuba. Socialist bloc
advisers advocated the Soviet’s Auto-Financing System with decentralisation and financial
autonomy for enterprises, which functioned as independent accounting units responsible for their
own profits and losses and, in the case of the National Institute for Agrarian Reform (INRA),
was similar to the khozraschet model of cooperative farms in the USSR.
Thus, as the dust settled in the early 1960s, revolutionary Cuba had two competing
economic management systems, operating under one Central Planning Board (JUCEPLAN), one
central bank and one treasury. Guevara’s Budgetary Finance System operated in the Ministry of
Industries (MININD), the Ministry of Transportation and the Ministry of Sugar, founded in
1964. The Auto-Financing System was implemented in INRA and the Ministry of Foreign Trade.
All ministries received a state budget allocated by JUCEPLAN, but the economic management
system they applied had practical implications affecting their organisational structures, policies,
the financial relations between state institutions, relations between producers and consumers, and
so on.37
This introduced operational contradictions within the new revolutionary state and created
the institutional conditions for what became known retrospectively as the ‘Great Debate’ about
which economic management system was appropriate to Cuban conditions.38 The dispute was
aired openly through institutional journals where articles by participants met retort or support
from other contributors. However, it also took place internally at the highest levels. Tirso Saenz,
one of Guevara’s deputies in MININD, told me that witnessing arguments on the government’s
Economic Commission and the Council of Ministers was ‘like watching a boxing match’.39
Defending the Auto-Financing System corner was Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, pro-Soviet
communist leader and head of INRA. Guevara was the challenger in the Budgetary Finance
System corner. The Great Debate established a tradition of open discussion, within the socialist
paradigm, in the search for solutions, consensus and legitimacy. The two sides of the debate have
also served as a reference for understanding the pendulum swing of alternative systems between
the ‘plan’ and the ‘market’ since then.

LATE 1960s: MISINTERPRETING GUEVARA’S SYSTEM

There were neither winners nor losers in the Great Debate. It ended when Guevara departed from
Cuba in 1965. However, in 1967, both systems were supplanted with a new Registry System
which was implemented across the economy. From April 1967, the state budget was eliminated,
while charges and payments between ministries and enterprises were abolished and replaced with
a system of ‘economic records’. In 1968, the correlation between production and remuneration
was severed, and the last forms of taxation abolished. University studies in socialist political
economy and public accounts were closed down. In March 1968, the Great Revolutionary
Offensive was launched to put an end to the non-agricultural private sector. Over 58,000 small
private businesses were nationalised within one month – they too joined the Registry System.
Cuba’s then president, Oswaldo Dorticos, claimed this system was consistent with
Guevara’s economic ideas. In reality, it abandoned key premises of the Budgetary Finance
System: economic analysis, cost controls, and the focus on productivity and efficiency. A
member of JUCEPLAN at that time, Alfredo González Gutiérrez, told me that to associate the
Registry System with Guevara ‘is a great historical injustice, because if there was someone in
this country who was concerned for costs and for efficiency it was Che’.40 As Minister of
Transport, Faure Chómon Mediavilla was among those instructed to implement the Registry
System. Chómon had been a co-founder of the Revolutionary Directorate, one of the three main
revolutionary organisations which overthrew Batista’s dictatorship on 1 January 1959. He
described how: ‘Everyone made their own interpretation of how to apply the basic elements of
the Registry System. Many interpreted it incorrectly deciding that they could produce without
concern for costs . . . At that time we did not fully understand Che’s ideas and the compañeros
who proposed the System did not prepare specialists in the productive and services sectors of the
country. It was pure idealism in which, logically, Che’s absence was felt.’41
 Reflecting on this period from the mid-1970s, Fidel Castro said that the failure to analyse
whether the Budgetary Finance System or Auto-Financing System was most appropriate in Cuba
led to the ‘less correct decision’ of inventing a new system. ‘When it might have seemed as
though we were drawing nearer to communist forms of production and distribution, we were
actually pulling away from correct methods for the previous construction of socialism.’42 The
annual budgets could not be monitored or controlled. One consequence was that during the mass
mobilisation of labour for the campaign to harvest 10 million tons of sugar in 1970, the
disruption to other sectors of the Cuban economy resulting from the drain of resources was not
sufficiently perceived or monitored. Fidel Castro had staked a lot on a record-breaking harvest
and when the result fell short, and with the rest of the economy approaching chaos, he consented
to the adoption of the Soviet Planning and Management System, which Guevara had opposed, to
reverse the fall in production and productivity and reintroduce economic controls.

1970s TO 1980s: THE CUBAN–SOVIET EMBRACE

Implementing the Soviet Planning and Management System would enable Cuba to become a full
member of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA), the trading body for the
Soviet bloc countries. This would formalise the international trade and exchange already taking
place between Cuba and other CMEA members, and permit longer-term contracts on the basis of
complementary national plans. It integrated Cuba fully into the socialist bloc international
division of labour, as a producer and exporter of sugar, nickel and citrus, and an importer of fuel
and food. In 1976 a beneficial bilateral deal with the Soviets indexed the prices of imports and
exports between the two countries to counter the deteriorating terms of trade – a global
phenomenon between industrialised countries and the global south. According to the Cuban
economist who became the Minister of the Economy and Planning in the mid- 1990s, José Luis
Rodríguez: ‘This gave Cuba fair treatment for the first time in the history of its foreign trade.’43
The result was a 50 per cent growth in Cuba’s purchasing power, compared to world market
prices. When we discussed this in Havana, Rodriguez said that Cuba resisted pressure to follow
the ‘heavy industries’ development model promoted within CMEA and, from the 1980s, sought
to develop branches that were not priorities for the Soviet bloc, mainly biotechnology and
computing. ‘It was not an easy task, because Cuba had interests in developing several branches
that were not priorities of CMEA.’44
According to some critics, Cuba’s integration into the socialist bloc simply substituted the
island’s pre-1959 dependence on the United States for dependence on the USSR. Responding to
that view in 1973, US Marxist Paul Sweezy outlined how the relationship with the Soviet states
was different: ‘The Russians do not own any Cuban enterprises or means of production, and their
economic support of Cuba takes the form of grants and loans.’45 Likewise, many commentators
dismissed the Revolution’s economic and social welfare achievements as merely the fruit of
Soviet subsidies, a notion refuted by US economist Andrew Zimbalist:

First . . . the magnitude of this aid is vastly overstated by false methodology. Second, even
if the exaggerated aid figures were accepted, on a per capita basis Cuba would still be
getting less in [CMEA] aid than many other Latin America economies receive in western
aid. Third, if one is attempting to disentangle the sources of Cuban growth and to isolate its
domestic and foreign components, it is hardly sufficient to consider only the beneficial
effects of Soviet aid. One must also consider the monumental and ongoing costs to Cuba of
the US blockade.46

Rodríguez agreed that ‘the higher prices only partially offset the economic damage to Cuba
caused by the US blockade, losses that amounted to USD 30 billion by 1990’. The prices were
also beneficial for the USSR, he pointed out, below the cost of domestic production or imports
on the international market. ‘The large nickel deposits the Soviets had were in the Arctic circle,’
he explained, ‘getting nickel out in those conditions would have cost a lot more than buying the
mineral from Cuba.’ Likewise, getting citrus from Cuba was cheaper than importing it from
Morocco.47 Others have pointed out most sugar trade internationally was under preferential
agreements: the United States pre-1959 sugar quota had a premium 80 per cent over the world
market price, while Soviet prices for Cuban sugar were not so high compared with British prices
for sugar imported from the Caribbean.48
The Cubans implemented a ‘slightly simplified version’ of the Soviet system which had
operated prior to the Soviet reforms in the 1960s. ‘Well, this model introduced order to the
Cuban economy,’ says Rodríguez: ‘The national accounts were revised, a new planning system
was created, and it had a number of positive aspects.’49 In 1978 non-agricultural self-
employment was first permitted and more flexible regulations were introduced in the early
1980s, with permission for state entities to hire such workers. Private enterprise emerged,
including small manufacturers who sold products to state enterprises, set up their own shops,
obtained raw materials, used machinery and hired workers to expand production and distribution.
Some 10,000 private truck owners transported products from the manufacturers and private
farms, and even carried passengers, for example to the beach on Sundays. However, self-
employment peaked at just 1.2 per cent of the labour force.50
In 1980 private farmers’ markets were established, with unregulated prices, and in 1982
foreign direct investment was legalised and a more decentralised state enterprise management
system was introduced. Private housing construction and sales were authorised. Of the nearly
400,000 housing units built from 1981 to 1986, 63 per cent were constructed privately by the
people.51 The economic results were positive, with an annual average growth of 7.3 per cent
between 1981 and 1985 (compared to Latin American GDP which fell by almost 10 per cent
between 1981 and 1984) and with high rates of investment and relative growth of the industrial
sector. Marginal industrial sectors, such as electronics, were expanded and new ones were
established, including biotechnology and, less successfully, computing.52
Cubans of a certain age recall this period with nostalgia as a time of plenty and rising
standards of living. Isabel Allende, Director of the Higher Institution of International Relations,
recalled: ‘I lived that prosperity in the 1980s . . . People had money and people went on holidays.
There were no tourists here. The hotels were for Cubans . . . We went on our honeymoon with
money. I went to the Hotel Seville, I went to the Hotel Capri, I went to the Hotel International in
Varadero. A hotel cost 20 pesos a room.’53 Salaries rose, especially for skilled workers, leading
to increased consumption, while social security and housing improved.54 Workers received
multiple workplace ‘motivation bonuses’ for over-completion of production ‘norms’ or standard
output. Meanwhile, the benefits of state investments in social welfare since the early days were
being reaped, as Cuban welfare indicators soared to first world standards, surpassing many Latin
American and industrialised socialist countries in key indicators such as life expectancy and
infant mortality.
Despite the economic benefits, problems also emerged, including immense bureaucracy and
‘excessive’ material incentives, which Rodríguez described as placing a ‘heavy burden’ on the
Cuban economy. ‘Incentives’ schemes overlapped, so workers were rewarded several times for
the same tasks: for example, for over-fulfilment of the plan, and again if it was an export good. It
cost too much and generated the tendency in entities to focus on activities which provided the
most incentives or gave most material prizes.’55 It was derailing socialist production and
corrupting socialist consciousness and social relations.
Fidel Castro viewed developments with growing unease. One of Guevara’s closest
collaborators in the Ministry of Industries, Edison Velázquez, attributed this partly to Guevara’s
forewarning that the Soviet’s ‘hybrid system’ threatened the return of capitalism: ‘Fidel is not
stupid and he had a lot of affinity with Che . . . He began to prepare for events. He couldn’t say it
publicly because we were receiving everything from the Russians, but he prepared financial
reserves for when the Soviets disappeared, otherwise we would not have been able to survive the
collapse.’56
Already in 1980, Fidel Castro was warning the Cuban people about the spread of ‘bad
habits’ and a mechanistic approach to socialist construction:

Perhaps it was felt that the institutionalisation of the country’s socialist legality, the creation
 of People’s Power [system of representation] and the progressive implementation of the
Economic Planning and Management System would, in themselves, perform miracles and
then everything would get much better automatically without the essential, basic efforts of
man.57

Political work was being subordinated to economic mechanisms, he believed, negating the role
of the Communist Party, and generating a mechanical approach to socialist transformation.58 The
growth of private activities by private farmers, street vendors, middlemen, truck drivers, small
manufacturers, personal-service workers and house-builders in the first half of the 1980s was
leading to the creation of ‘a wealthy class in Cuba, as large or larger than the bourgeoisie which
the Revolution expropriated’, complained Fidel Castro. This ‘new stratum of rich people’ had
money to buy everything, and created inequalities and irritation in the population. He cited
examples of people earning between 30,000 and 150,000 pesos a year, labelling them a ‘new
bourgeoisie with capitalist attitudes’, this ‘spoiled lumpenproletariat [who were] corrupting the
masses’.59 In 1982, the state cracked down on ‘abuses’ in the private farmers’ markets:
exorbitant prices unaffordable to low-income groups, excessive middleperson profits, resources
diverted from the state sector. But by 1984 the private markets had flourished again, at greater
expense to the state sector.60
Thus, from 1984, before Mikhail Gorbachev became the Soviet premier and launched
glasnost and perestroika, Fidel Castro began seeking consensus within Cuba to reform the
system. The purpose? To rectify ‘the errors and negative tendencies’ associated with the Soviet
system. Essentially, it was a parting of ways: as the Soviets were liberalising, opening up to
market mechanisms, the Cubans were radicalising, falling back on the plan and political
mechanisms.

THE SOVIETISATION THESIS

The ‘stages of the revolution’ narrative about post-1959 Cuba describes the 1970s to the mid-
1980s as the ‘Sovietisation’ period because of the economic integration described. However, in
domestic politics and in foreign policy, the Cuban Revolution demonstrated greater
independence and political radicalism. In 1976 the Organs of People’s Power were set up,
significantly improving grassroots representation and participation in decision-making. The new
system incorporated a non-party system of delegate elections.61 Accountability was embedded
into the system, with delegates expected to ‘render accounts’ at regular intervals to their
constituents, who had the right to recall. To prevent the emergence of career or professional
politicians, delegates continued in their existing employment with no change in salary.62 The
local budgets for People’s Power grew from 21 per cent of the total state budget in 1978 to 33
per cent in 1984. This compared to a budget for local administration in the Soviet Union of 17.1
per cent.63
Meanwhile, as material incentives were increasingly emphasised domestically, appeals to
‘revolutionary consciousness’ saw thousands of Cuban medics, soldiers, educators and
development aid workers volunteer for tough missions in poverty stricken, far-flung places,
particularly in Africa, as Chapter 6 outlines. From 1975, Cuban military and civilian
professionals poured into newly independent Angola to defend it from the invading armed forces
of apartheid South Africa. At the Angolan president’s invitation, some 36,000 Cuban soldiers
and 200 Cuban healthcare workers served in Angola between November 1975 and March 1976.
This was an independent foreign policy initiative which, by 1991, had seen altogether 350,000
Cuban soldiers and civilians serve in Angola.64

MID-1980s – RECTIFICATION: THE CUBAN REVOLUTION FORGES ITS OWN PATH

Rectification came with a party programme and a long-range development plan. It was the
Revolution’s fifth new political and economic management system. Within a few years it was
swept aside by the Special Period as the struggle for survival in the post-Soviet world took
precedence. Nonetheless, Rectification is important for the clues it holds about how and why the
Cuban Revolution outlived the Soviet bloc. Was it responsible for extricating Cuban socialism
from the line of falling dominoes? It certainly demonstrates the disposition of the Cuban
leadership to take the island on an independent path and to preserve the historic commitment to
sovereignty and social justice, dating back to the late nineteenth-century independence
movements, even at the expense of economic growth.
In 1984, a ‘Central Group’ was set up with top government and party leaders to take over
functions from the Central Planning Board (JUCEPLAN), including those of investment and
trade planning.65 The Central Group modified the 1985 economic plan and took leadership over
preparing the plan for 1986 to 1990 and subsequent annual plans. Fidel Castro met with state
enterprise directors in Havana to discuss the problems identified.
The issue came to a head in 1986 with the third Congress of the Cuban Communist Party
(CCP) in February when the Rectification of Errors and Negative Tendencies was officially
launched. Two major themes emerged in the Congress debate: the growing gap between party
leaders and rank and file members, and the deterioration in export performance and economic
efficiency of the Cuban economy.66 Dramatically, it was decided to defer the Congress session
for ten months to enable more time for a broader consultation about the roots of the problems
and the nature of the new approach to economic management that was to replace the Soviet
Planning and Management System. Debates took place in local branches of the Communist Party
and the Union of Young Communists, and in workplaces. From these debates emerged thousands
of proposals, ideas and suggestions, hundreds of which were approved and incorporated into the
Communist Party programme. The deferred session of the Congress met between 28 November
and 2 December 1986. Clearly exhilarated by the process, Fidel Castro described it as ‘possibly
one of the best political meetings we have witnessed throughout the history of the Revolution’.67
The process of Rectification was in full throttle.
Were the Cuban people surprised by the ‘ferocity of the official criticisms of the economy’
given the previous decade of growth and rising living standards?68 What were the errors and
negative tendencies it was introduced to address? On 8 October 1987 in Pinar del Rio, Cuba’s
westernmost province, at a special event to mark the twentieth anniversary of Che Guevara’s
death, Fidel Castro cited the contemporary transgressions that ‘would have horrified Che’.
Voluntary work had become almost a formalism; a swamp of bureaucracy had emerged, along
with inflated payrolls, anachronistic norms, tricks and lies. There were companies that were
profitable because they stole, that fulfilled the plan and distributed prizes for fulfilling the plan in
‘values’ but not in supplies, that produced for profit, not in order to meet production needs.
Monetary bonuses for surpassing work norms were designed to be easy, so that: ‘on certain
occasions, almost all of the workers met them twice and three times’. Bonuses were paid without
regard to increased or terminated production. Workers were corrupted by the pursuit of money,
even moving jobs in pursuit of the highest incentives. He slammed a group of companies,
‘plagued by shoddy capitalists – as we call them – who are playing with capitalism . . . forgetting
about the country, forgetting the town, forgetting about the quality, because the quality did not
matter at all, but the heap of money. . .’ He concluded:

I’m telling the truth, Che would have been horrified, because those roads will never lead to
communism, those roads lead to all the vices and all the alienations of capitalism. Those
roads, I repeat, and Che knew this very well, would never lead to the construction of a true
socialism, as a previous stage and transition to communism.69

Under the Soviet Planning and Management System, production was directed towards tasks that
were awarded higher ‘values’ for the purpose of calculating results, instead of being directed
towards the completion of goods or projects. The pursuit of material awards was undermining
the social function of production. So, for example, because under the plan for construction the
work of moving earth and erecting columns were afforded higher ‘values’ than other activities,
buildings were not being finished. Construction teams were directed to complete ‘tasks’, not
works. Fidel Castro raged about the thousands of millions of peso invested:
 Fourteen years to build a hotel! Fourteen years burying bars, sand, stone, cement, rubber,
fuel, work force, before a single penny came into the country through the use of the hotel.
Eleven years to finish our hospital here in Pinar del Río! It is true that it was finally
finished, and with quality, but things like that should never happen again.70

There was nothing socialist or revolutionary about this state of affairs.

In the 1970s, specialist contingents of workers had been formed, the so-called
‘microbrigades’, to build houses, schools and medical institutions at speed and with flexibility.
These were eliminated with the introduction of the Soviet Planning and Management System;
dismantled, according to Fidel, by theoreticians and technocrats who did not believe in man, but
who were committed to market mechanisms. ‘Thus, there was no longer any force to build
houses in the capital; with problems accumulating, tens of thousands of houses propped up and at
risk of collapsing and sacrificing lives.’71
These practices contributed towards the economic stagnation which had begun, in the mid-
1980s, to replace the growth of the previous period. The slowdown was also largely due to
external economic factors which in turn exposed Cuba’s continuing structural weaknesses:
foreign debt, falling revenues from sugar exports and deteriorating terms of trade with the USSR.

EXTERNAL PROBLEMS

In 1984, Cuba’s overall trade deficit increased by a record 155 per cent and international reserves
fell by 21 per cent.72 To arrest this deterioration, imports were reduced, exports promoted,
import substitution pursued and efforts made to reduce the island’s dependence on the Soviet
Union and CMEA, particularly by increasing domestic oil production. There was also Cuba’s
external debt to deal with. In the early 1960s, Cuba pulled out of the International Monetary
Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. With US pressure on
its capitalist allies to isolate Cuba, the government struggled to get access to credit in hard
currency. Most loans were obtained on favourable terms from the socialist countries. However,
the 1970s oil shocks and the accumulation of ‘petrodollars’ in private European banks changed
the scenario for Cuba.73 With the massive spike in private loans to developing countries, even
Cuba could tap into these funds. ‘With the push to recycle petrodollars in the 1970s,’ explains
Rodríguez, ‘Cuba also was able to obtain significant financing from capitalist countries.’74 The
second oil shock from 1979 led to steeply rising deficits for non-oil producing developing
countries exacerbated by the US interest rate hike and appreciation of the US dollar, leading to
an explosion of outstanding debt in developing countries – from USD 68 billion in 1970 to USD
546 billion by 1982. By 1985, foreign debt in Latin America alone had soared to over USD 360
billion.75
Cuba was also now exposed; its external debt in convertible currency rose from USD 291
million in 1969 to USD 2.9 billion by August 1982. The government successfully renegotiated
with the Paris Club of debtors for a manageable repayment plan between 1982 and 1986; this
represented 36 per cent of the island’s convertible currency debt. However, in 1986 the Paris
Club began to demand adjustments to Cuba’s internal financial policy. Cuba rejected their
demands and broke off negotiations. Consequently, ‘We stopped receiving credits from more or
less “normal” organisations from 1986’ explained Rodriguez.76 By 1989 the debt in convertible
currency had risen to over USD 6 billion because of the devaluation of the Cuban peso against
the US dollar in 1986, the very high interest rates (and priority repayment terms) Cuba had to
pay for the small amounts of credit in convertible currency it still obtained, and the relatively
weak performance of the Cuban economy in the second half of the 1980s.77
In the mid-1980s, Fidel Castro was vociferously calling for a complete cancellation of the
‘unpayable’ debt, or a debt strike by the developing nations. ‘The formula proposed by Cuba is
simple, understandable and perfectly feasible: that the governments of the developed creditor
countries assume the debts of the Third World countries, with their own banks, and that 12 per
cent of what is now invested in military expenditures be used to pay off the debts.’78
Meanwhile, in 1983, the Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev shredded the defence guarantee,
operative since the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, that Soviet armed forces would defend
Cuba.79 This, together with the ratcheting up of aggression under the US presidency of Ronald
Reagan from 1981, saw the Cuban government double the share of the state budget allocated to
‘defence and international order’ from 5.4 per cent in 1980 to 10.8 per cent in 1988.80 As head of
the Cuban armed forces, Raúl Castro began to reorganise Cuban defence along the lines of a
people’s war to resist a possible US attack.81
In 1985, Gorbachev took over as premier of the Soviet Union and the following year began
to terminate all special deals between the USSR and other socialist countries. This included
unilaterally ending the indexing between Cuban exports and USSR exports; the price paid for
Cuban sugar exports was cut from 900 peso per ton to 850 (5.5 per cent). The international
market price of sugar, at which Cuba sold a small proportion of its exports, had also plummeted
after 1981. Soviet payments for Cuban nickel were similarly reduced, seriously impacting the
island’s revenues. Cuba suffered a 21 per cent decrease in terms of trade with the USSR.
Exchange earnings fell by 50 per cent. Fidel Castro sought accommodation: in 1987 he went to
the USSR and signed a communique with Gorbachev expressing mutual satisfaction over
relations. Two years later in Havana, Gorbachev signed a 24-year ‘Treaty of Friendship and Co-
operation’ in Havana. It was not worth the paper it was written on.
The situation in CMEA was described as ‘critical’ by Rodríguez who represented Cuba at
the institution’s meetings. The other member states proposed to follow the Soviet example and
move to world market prices. ‘This was being proposed in CMEA!’ he exclaims. The Cuban
representatives argued strongly against these proposals. ‘I remember well the last meeting of the
CMEA that took place in Czechoslovakia in 1991; the representatives of other countries
practically paid no attention to the discussion, they started reading newspapers, chatting over
here and over there. There was total decomposition. There was practically no CMEA – there was
no commitment, none!’82 In August 1990, the USSR announced that trade and economic
relations in general were to be conducted in free currency and at market prices from 1991. The
decision was unilateral. The fate of CMEA was sealed. ‘We jumped from preferential prices to
market prices, from roubles to dollars. For Cuba this was a rupture, practically a cataclysm,’
explains Rodríguez.83 Cuba faced the additional burden of the US blockade to obstruct trade and
access to financial resources. As a consequence, during Rectification the Cuban system
underwent changes to the internal management system and its foreign economic relations
simultaneously. The accumulation of all these factors produced a serious financial contraction
between 1986 and 1990.

RECTIFYING CUBAN SOCIALISM

The journalist and historian of Cuba Richard Gott explained that:

The new programme addressed three problems: the immediate need to deal with the foreign
exchange crisis; the longer term need to restructure the economy to reduce the country’s
dependence on exports; and a more controversial and political need to rectify the previous
strategy, replacing material incentives with the moral incentives once advocated by Che
Guevara. The first and second problems involved technical solutions: the service of foreign
debt was suspended, mechanisms were devised to re-establish centralised control of foreign
trade and a campaign to promote non-traditional exports was started, as was an austerity
programme.84

The third problem was a political one.

The ‘austerity’ programmes involved cuts in government spending: a reduction on state
subsidies for electricity, transport and food, reduced food and textile supplies, cuts in meal
provisions for government employees and ‘rationalisation’ of nursery meals, cuts in rural school
transport, cuts in television broadcasting and a reduction in the interference caused by workplace
meetings, sport and recreation. There were also cuts for state officials’ quotas of petrol, cars,
expenses and hard currency spending money whilst abroad.85
 The Cuban state began to recentralise control over the economy, affording it greater
capacity to economise on the use of foreign exchange and bring existing investment projects to
completion.86 In 1986, the private farmers’ markets were closed down and farmers were
instructed to sell produce to the state collective agencies (called acopio). A programme was
introduced to increase state-controlled domestic food production, with the aim of both
substituting food imports with locally grown produce and replacing the private farmers’ markets’
with food sold directly to the population at lower prices via state-run farmers’ markets. By 1989,
the growth of state markets had more than compensated for the loss of the private ones.87 Private
manufacturers and street vendors were stopped. In 1988 the National Assembly modified the
housing law to curb profiteering by making the state a compulsory partner in the buying and
selling of homes.88 Homes could now be exchanged under a system of ‘permuta’, with monetary
compensation levels for differences in value determined by the state. Three million labour
‘norms’ and 14,000 job grades were revised.89 Wages were increased, by 10 per cent for the
lowest income bracket, which constituted 5 per cent of the workforce; pensions were raised for
most of Cuba’s pensioners – some 725,000 people. In 1988, 1,500 economists visited 370 loss-
making state enterprises to seek solutions to high production costs and low efficiency.90
An important component of the Rectification process, explains Rodríguez, ‘was to develop
policies that addressed the deeper issue of searching for a more balanced means of managing the
economy that combined economic mechanisms with appropriate political mobilization of
workers’.91 Essentially, it involved a return to Guevarista notions about moral incentives,
consciousness and political participation, including the return to voluntary labour.92 In 1987,
around 12 per cent of the workforce (some 436,000 Cubans) carried out 40 hours of voluntary
labour each.93
The construction microbrigades were resurrected to deal with the serious backlog of social
infrastructure and residential housing needed by the population. In 1987, state entities (factories,
enterprises or offices) were asked to send excess personnel to join them; one in eight workers
were considered to be superfluous. Their colleagues who stayed put were expected to maintain
output and meet the plan, despite the reduction in personnel, inevitably raising individual
productivity in those workplaces. Each microbrigade had around 40 members, some full-time
and others participating after the work day or at weekends. The state reimbursed the factory with
the salary of the microbrigadistas, but instead of working 5 or 6 hours in their usual workplace,
the microbrigadistas worked 10 or 12 hours a day, raising their own productivity and completing
projects with a social function – mainly housing, but also nurseries, healthcare facilities, special
schools and so on. Half of the housing units built went to the enterprises for their own workers.
The state distributed the rest.
In October 1987, Fidel Castro announced that there were already 20,000 microbrigadistas
in Havana. Sardonically, he declared: ‘Our shoddy capitalists cannot say that their enterprises are
being ruined; on the contrary, they can say: “they are helping the company, I am producing with
30, 40, 50 less men, I spend less salary”. They can say “I will be profitable, or I will be less
unprofitable, I will distribute more prizes and bonuses now since I have reduced the salary
expense”.’ As a result of the microbrigades, he claimed, ‘so many extraordinarily useful things
are being done today, and the State promotes all these works without spending a penny more on
salary’.94
Hammering the point, he stated:

You could ask the mercachifleros (market-lovers), the shoddy capitalists, those who have
blind faith in the mechanisms and categories of capitalism: Could they perform that
miracle? Could they build 20,000 homes in the capital without spending one penny more in
salary? Could they build 50 nurseries in a year without a penny more in salary? When
before that only 5 were planned for the 5-year period and they were not built, and when
19,500 mothers were waiting for a nursery that would never arrive because at the pace, the
rhythm at which that enrolment capacity would be reached – we would need 100 years! By
which time they would have died long ago.95

He declared that in 2 years 100 nurseries would be built in Havana and in 3 years over 300
would be built throughout the island, increasing childcare places to 70,000 or 80,000 without
spending a penny more on salaries.96
Rectification also saw an acceleration in the transformation of private farms into
cooperatives which had begun in 1977 with the Agricultural Production Cooperatives (CPAs),
set up for private farmers who voluntarily joined lands and resources in order to raise efficiency.
By late 1987, 71 per cent of non-sugar private farms had been be converted into collective forms;
the proportion of the labour force made up by small private farmers had fallen slightly to 2.9 per
cent.97
Cuba experienced some success at diversifying its trade and partners. The share of sugar
and its by-products in Cuba’s total exports declined from nearly 86 per cent in 1979 to just over
74 per cent in 1987.98 On the assumption that relations with the USSR would continue to
deteriorate, the government decided to open up to tourism in 1986, despite being wary of its
social and political costs.99 In 1988, the first joint venture with foreign capital was established,
six years after the foreign investment law had entered the statute books. Annual average growth
fluctuated in the second half of the 1980s, but the average between 1986 and 1989, when the
Special Period was launched, was 0.6 per cent.100 With the subsequent collapse of the Soviet
bloc, obliterating 86 per cent of Cuba’s trade and investment, things could only get worse.
 In 1988, in the midst of Rectification, the People’s Councils, a new institutional form of
grassroots participation and engagement, were piloted before being rolled out nationally four
years later. And, also in 1988, Fidel Castro inaugurated the Neighbourhood Transformation
Workshops in Havana, organised by the Group for the Comprehensive Development of the
Capital. The Workshops gathered half a dozen professionals, including architects, planners,
social workers, to identify the main problems (usually housing) in their location and mobilise the
neighbourhood and outside resources to address them.101 This demonstrated an approach which
became essential to monitor the state of Cuban communities, maintain a dialogue between them
and state institutions and help direct resources to get them through the Special Period of
economic crisis.

RECTIFICATION: A STEP TOWARDS SURVIVAL?

Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez apparently once said that the explanation for Cuba
is that Fidel Castro is both head of the government and leader of the opposition: a fitting
description for his role during Rectification. Did pulling away from the Soviet model prevent
Cuba falling into ‘the dustbin of twentieth-century socialist experiments’?102 The emphasis on
political mobilisation, on socialism as a conscious process of construction and self-
transformation, the renewal of the link between the Cuban Communist Party and the people,
were all key elements which pulled the revolutionary people of Cuba through the Special Period
of economic crisis in the post-Soviet world. Had Fidel Castro not kicked back against the
elevation of the profit motive and material incentives, how would the Revolution have fared
when there was hardly a peso to spend on basic salaries, let alone incentives, and with the fiscal
deficit rising to 35 per cent of GDP by 1992?103 Had the state not endeavoured to substitute the
private farmers’ markets with state markets after 1986, would the hunger experienced by Cubans
in the early 1990s have actually meant starvation? Had the most corrupt members of the Cuban
Communist Party not been purged, had Fidel Castro not harangued Party militants, insisting that
workers were at the centre of the socialist Revolution, might not the revolutionary people have
turned on their leaders in revolt? Had Rectification not undermined the material basis of the
rising ‘new rich’, could their economic clout have manifested as political opposition, a counter-
revolution? Had Cuba not introduced tourism and biotechnology, begun diversifying trade
partners and exports, initiating foreign investment, increasing its international reserves, would
the economic catastrophe that resulted from the collapse of the Soviet bloc have been enough to
tip the Revolution over the edge? Rectification reaffirmed the Cuban resolve to turn to state
action, not market exchanges, as the best solution to Cuba’s historical development challenges.
In doing so it highlighted one of the durable paradoxes of the Cuban Revolution: relative
political stability and resilience, along with continual reinvention and change.104
The process of Rectification may well explain why Cuban socialism was in a position to
withstand the collapse of socialist regimes in the USSR and Eastern Europe, but to understand
how the revolutionary people survived in a post-Soviet world we need to look at what happened
during the ‘Special Period in Time of Peace’.

SURVIVING THE CRISIS

THE SPECIAL PERIOD

Dusk was falling when Cuba’s Commander in Chief took the podium in Agramonte Square,
Camaguey, in summer 1989. Thousands of Cubans had gathered, despite the evening drizzle, for
the annual 26 July celebration. Fidel Castro began by commenting on the threat of rain, a
metaphor for the stormy times he foresaw ahead. Noting that US president George H. W. Bush
had recently visited Poland and Hungary and was speaking in triumphant terms about the end of
socialism, he declared: ‘If we were to wake up tomorrow or any other day to the news that there
had been a large-scale civil war in the USSR, and even if we were to wake up and learn that the
USSR had disintegrated – something that we hope never happens – even under those
circumstances, Cuba and the Cuban Revolution would continue struggling and resisting.’
Nobody expected the Cuban Revolution to survive if the socialist world disappeared, he
admitted, foreseeing a total blockade of the island that would not allow ‘even a litre of fuel to
enter, nor a morsel of food [to] enter the country’. In such a scenario, he affirmed, ‘we know we
would resist . . . In the event of invasion or occupation of the country by Yankee troops, we
know how we could resist, how we could fight, and what we would do . . . we learned a long
time ago how to count only on our own strength.’1
José Luis Rodríguez described Fidel Castro’s words on that day as like a ‘lightning bolt in a
clear sky’. At that time, Rodríguez studied the Soviet Union at Cuba’s Centre for Research into
the World Economy (Centro de Investigaciones de la Economía Mundial – CIEM).2 Despite his
expertise, he told me that ‘no one expected things to reach that point’. Events were fast moving,
however. ‘First to go was Poland in August 1989, one month after Fidel Castro spoke. In
November 1989 it was the Berlin Wall. And then we had the domino effect among the countries
of Eastern Europe, and the crisis of the USSR accelerated.’3 On 19 August 1990, the Communist
Party’s daily newspaper Granma informed readers that the USSR had failed to deliver a number
of essential contracted imports, especially oil, and that consequently a Special Period of
extraordinary measures would be implemented to face the pending crisis.4
Thus, the island lurched into what is euphemistically known as the Special Period in Time
of Peace, or the ‘Special Period’ for short. This implied a kind of war-footing, or crisis
management, without military confrontation. While the Special Period is commonly described as
a consequence of the disintegration of the USSR, it was actually introduced 16 months prior to
that in response to Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev gradually withdrawing military and
economic cooperation with the island. Gorbachev’s successor from summer 1991, Boris Yeltsin,
was completely hostile to Cuba. The socialist trading bloc, the Council for Mutual Economic
Assistance (CMEA), was dismantled in autumn 1991.
The very survival of the socialist system was at stake. Cubans dug deep to find what they
needed to survive, as individuals and as a socialist society. ‘The whole community helped each
other,’ my teenage sister Susan wrote in 1994 after staying with a poor Cuban family in
Marianao, just outside central Havana. ‘But they’re finding it harder to survive and to keep up
their good will – it’s the grinding point now, after five years of the Special Period. The black
market is the only way to survive as rations decrease. There’s hardly any food in the shops, to
buy with pesos, and the monthly rations aren’t enough.’5 She described run-down buildings,
street vendors everywhere, people selling homemade cakes, neighbours sharing a single tap of
running water, growing class divisions based on access to dollars. The situation had slightly
improved by autumn 1995 when, aged 18, I went to live in Cuba with my big sister until summer
1996. Like our Cuban neighbours, we sweated through 10-hour electricity blackouts, had our
water supply switched off, cycled around Havana, hitch-hiked between provinces, breakfasted on
stale bread rolls, lost weight, wearily wandered through near-empty farmers’ markets, held on to
plastic bags and biros like special possessions. Even with hard currency we struggled to find
supplies.6
From the outset, the Cuban government ruled out the option of a transition to capitalism.
Remaining socialist meant retaining a planned economy; it meant maintaining ‘los logros’,
welfare achievements, of the Revolution in health, education, public infrastructure and social
services. But how to achieve this when the economy is in free fall, the US blockade is tightened
and the island is politically isolated? The closer the Special Period is examined, the more
remarkable the Revolution’s survival into a post-Soviet world appears.
From the comfort of wealthy, consumerist countries, many commentators have struggled to
accept or appreciate that, while the Cuban people suffered extremely difficult conditions, most
Cubans did not seek the restoration of capitalism. Despite the scarcity and exasperation at
inequalities introduced via access to dollars, ‘they were prepared to live with it’, as my sister
observed. She noted that Cubans with better housing and more resources ‘were more anti-Fidel
and more angry at their current economic situation’ than poorer Cubans. ‘I was surprised how
pro-Fidel many people without access to dollars were – they realise it’s worth preserving the
things they have.’7
In 1995, a university teacher invited Susan and me to give a talk to university students,
historically a sector from more privileged backgrounds. We wrote about the experience: ‘It was
immediately obvious that they had a selective [positive] image of capitalism . . . They
acknowledged the benefits of Cuban socialism but saw the introduction of capitalism as a means
of regaining the circumstances they had lost [since the onset of the Special Period].’ Meanwhile,
the workers we spoke to in factories, schools or on the newly created cooperative farms remained
committed. We asked some young workers in Coppelia ice-cream factory if they were prepared
to accept capitalism: ‘They told us they would not because they would lose everything – their
jobs, social provisions and their dignity. One female engineer of 26, the head technician in the
factory of 167 workers, told us: “I don’t want capitalism, not even as a gift!”’8
Explaining the lack of notebooks for the pending school term, a primary school head
teacher told us that ‘the few resources we have are always shared equally between everyone’ and
was proud to point out that ‘not one school in the country has been closed, and educators have
tried to . . . elevate the quality of education’. The doctor at a children’s day-care centre
highlighted the importance of international solidarity and donations from other countries: ‘We
are blockaded but not isolated,’ and another worker said the ‘majority of Cubans will continue to
fight so as to preserve and save all the gains of the revolution and freedom we have now’.
Referring to the recent economic reforms, a farmer at one of the new agricultural cooperatives
created out of state land told us: ‘Some people thought that because of the changes Cuba would
leave socialism. But this is a real revolution and real independence.’ Our report concluded: ‘Life
in Cuba has begun to improve. Through our visits we have seen the determination of most of the
Cuban people to overcome the current crisis and accept these changes in order to preserve the
gains of the revolution.’9
Rodríguez attributes this resilience to political consciousness:

a strong commitment to national sovereignty with an understanding of the benefits thirty

years of the socialist Revolution had brought to Cuba in comparison with neighbouring
third-world countries. This awareness was at the heart of the population’s ability to tolerate
extremely difficult economic conditions while remaining committed to building socialism,
which they saw as the only road to authentic economic and social development in a world
dominated by large capitalist powers and as necessary to maintain real national
 sovereignty.10

Cubans were close witnesses to the devastation wreaked on Latin American populations during
the military regimes which swept over the region from the 1970s and the neoliberal ‘lost decade’
of the 1980s to the 1990s. And, vitally important, in the front trench was Fidel Castro, cajoling,
explaining, persuading, warning and rousing the revolutionary people of Cuba.
The Special Period became an enduring feature of Cuban reality. The austerity and
restraints that characterised it became the norm for Cubans on the island, while millions of
Cubans born since the 1980s are too young to understand the nostalgia of the older generation
whose personal narratives are divided into the pre-Special Period time of plenty and post-Soviet
life of sacrifice since then. This chapter portrays the wide-ranging trauma incurred in the
economic, social, political, cultural and agricultural realms, examining how Cubans responded to
such an intense crisis and with what results. This recent past has moulded Cuban development;
deep scars have been left on the fabric of Cuban life, but the calamity also impelled innovative
advances which have shaped Cuba on its voyage into the future. Thus, developments in
contemporary Cuba can only be fully understood with reference to both the crisis and the
measures taken to address it.
There is no consensus about when the Special Period ended or, indeed, to what extent it has
ended. However, new campaigns and projects began to define the Cuban experience with the
Battle of Ideas initiated in 2000, so this chapter recounts how the Cuban Revolution survived up
to the turn of the Millennium.

THE STATE OF THE CUBAN ECONOMY IN 1990

The structure of the Cuban economy made it particularly vulnerable to the collapse of the
socialist bloc and the USSR.11 Cuba was among the most state-controlled economies in the
Soviet bloc, with a rigid planning system, state ownership of most enterprises and only a handful
of joint ventures between Cuban state and foreign firms.12 One-fifth of the agricultural sector
was in the hands of small private farmers and cooperatives and a tiny proportion of workers were
self-employed, some 15,000 people. The state controlled prices and the financial sector, and had
a monopoly on foreign trade. Cuba was heavily dependent on CMEA for trade and finance, most
of which came from the USSR. CMEA supplied over 87 per cent of Cuba’s imports and took
over 86 per cent of its exports. Sugar accounted for 80 per cent of export earnings in 1990 and
Cuba received three times the world market price within CMEA – generous, but a massive
disincentive to diversify internal production and exports.13 The island was heavily dependent on
imports, including for 90 per cent of its oil needs, 80 per cent of its machinery and equipment
and two-thirds of its foodstuffs. Oil and food imports accounted for 40 per cent of total import
spending in 1990. Cuba’s GDP per capita was below the CMEA average.14
Relations with CMEA had disguised internal structural problems in the Cuban economy and
protected the island from the impact of the US blockade. Prior to that, Cuban access to the latest
technologies developed in capitalist countries may have been frustrated, but the population could
meet its basic needs through imports from CMEA. Almost overnight, Cuba became fully
dependent on an international capitalist market dominated by a hostile superpower, the United
States. The US blockade constituted a severe, additional economic constraint. According to
Cuban estimates, it cost the island USD 15 billion dollars just between 1990 and 1995.15 Hoping
to topple the Revolution, the United States tightened the screws, approving three new punitive
laws in 1990, 1992 and 1996 to strengthen the blockade, and expanding its extraterritorial
imposition to prevent trade and financial relations between Cuba and the rest of the world, as
outlined in Chapter 7.16 This was the triumphant moment of western capitalism, described by US
scholar Francis Fukuyama as ‘the end of history’; few countries or companies could afford to
defy US mandates in the world economy.

IMMEDIATE IMPACT

The extent of the crises cannot be overstated. GDP fell 35 per cent in three years, the scale of
collapse usually associated with war, famine or a natural disaster. Between 1990 and 1993,
manufacturing capacity was down by up to 90 per cent, construction down 74 per cent and
agriculture 47 per cent. Overall imports fell by 75 per cent; imports of machinery and
transportation equipment fell by 91 per cent, manufactured products by 70 per cent, fuels and
lubricants by 65 per cent and food and oils by 51 per cent. Government spending nose-dived, on
investment by 86 per cent, and on defence by 70 per cent. State administration was slashed with
the elimination of 15 ministries. Real wages fell 50 per cent between 1989 and 1993 and both
household consumption and average calorie intake fell by one-third.17
Meanwhile, nominal spending on health and welfare payments was maintained and there
was a steep rise in the burden of subsidies to ensure the population’s supply of basic goods and
to protect employment. To shield Cubans from the shock, the government kept official prices,
wages and the exchange rate fixed. Spending above their means was unsustainable, but it was
also politically essential. Inevitably, with expenditure outstripping revenue, the fiscal deficit rose
dramatically, from 10 per cent of GDP in 1990 to around 33 per cent in 1993.18 This was the cost
of preserving the socialist character of the Revolution. The government had no access to external
finance and no domestic financial market. The deficit was fully monetised.19
By 1992, oil imports from Russia were reduced to a trickle: 1 million tons, down from 13
million tons imported from the USSR in 1989.20 After that, not a drop of Russian oil was
delivered. What country can operate without fuel? Inevitably, as Rodríguez says, ‘This created
an enormous crisis from 1992; blackouts, factories paralysed.’21 Investment projects were
abandoned, fuel allocations cut and public transport slashed. The planning system was thrown
into chaos; supplies failed to arrive and enterprises had to stretch resources or concoct
alternatives. Long-term planning was abandoned, although by 1993 medium-range planning
resumed and proved essential in harvesting scarce resources and directing them to mitigate the
social crisis through the distribution of materials, welfare and employment.22 With production
reduced and workers kept on the payroll, absenteeism soared and productivity nose-dived. The
informal economy ballooned, creating opportunities and incentives for black market activities
and for pilfering goods from the state sector. The greatest immediate beneficiaries were those
engaged in illegal activities or in receipt of remittances from émigré families. The informal
sector undermined the government’s control over the allocation of scare goods and services.
The value of the Cuban peso (CUP) collapsed. With official prices fixed, the poorest
Cubans suffered a reduction in the supply of state-allocated basic goods and services, but were
not affected by price rises. In the informal economy, the value of the CUP fell by 95 per cent
between 1990 and 1993, so the small proportion of Cubans who principally bought goods in hard
currency faced a CUP inflation rate of around 2,000 per cent.23

‘RESOLVIENDO’

The Cuban government responded to the crisis with emergency mobilisation to facilitate an
organised collective response, a set of stabilisation policies and economic restructuring. In 1990,
the Economic Defence Exercise involved factories, offices, households, schools and hospitals in
rehearsing emergency responses to the loss of electricity and water supplies.24 In December
1990, a Food Programme was launched to expand local food production for self-provisioning. In
December 1991, the ‘forum for spare parts’ was re-established, 30 years after its creation by Che
Guevara in the Ministry of Industries, for sharing local initiatives to recycle machinery and make
substitutes for imported spare parts. In January 1992, an Energy Plan instructed households,
enterprises and local authorities to cut fuel consumption. Agriculture was restructured and
organic and urban farming introduced, as discussed below. Foreign trade was decentralised and
many state exporting enterprises became self-financing, responsible for sourcing and paying for
imports directly through export sales. Their surpluses were still used by the state to fund social
services and imports for non-exporting productive enterprises. Decentralisation went further with
new public stockholding companies set up to circumvent the US blockade.25 The Communist
Party was mobilised to organise a politically coherent response to the crisis.
 Outside Cuba, economists argued that economic collapse was imminent and transition to
capitalism inevitable. As Cuba’s fiscal deficit soared, an informal delegation of IMF officials
who visited the island concluded, in October 1993, that the ‘time frame for decisive action’ was
up to six months and warned of hyperinflationary catastrophe if the required stabilisation
measures were not introduced.26 However, the Cuban government did not impose any package of
reforms until seven months later, in May 1994, following months of nationwide debate to seek
approval among the Cuban people. The much espoused ‘shock therapy’ was rejected outright.

MARKET MECHANISMS AND DE-DOLLARISATION

‘We cannot guide ourselves by the criterion of what we like or dislike, but rather what is and is
not useful for the nation and the people . . . We have said that we are introducing elements of
capitalism in our system, in our economy, that is a fact. We have talked even of the
consequences that we see from the use of such mechanisms. Yes, we are doing it,’ announced
Fidel Castro in 1995.27
Measures introduced between 1990 and 1994 sought to open space for market mechanisms
to reactivate the economy but without renouncing its socialist tenets. Liberalising and stabilising
reforms included: legalising the US dollar, fiscal adjustment, joint ventures with foreign capital,
expanding tourism, converting state farms into cooperatives, opening private farmers’ markets,
and increasing self-employment, all of which are discussed below. ‘All these measures,’ explains
Rodríguez, ‘had clearly designed economic and political objectives that constrained their
application: they would meet those objectives and go no further . . . the measures were always to
be controlled so that they would not develop a momentum of their own that would gradually
reintroduce capitalism, as the opponents of the Revolution hoped.’28 Subsequent regulations in
the 2000s that withdrew or modified many of these reforms vindicate Rodríguez’s assertion.29
At his annual 26 July speech in 1993, the worst year of the Special Period, Fidel Castro
announced that foreign currencies, specifically the US dollar, would be legalised.30 Possession of
the US dollar had been prohibited in Cuba since 1979. He made his distaste clear, warning of
emerging inequalities as those in receipt of remittances would enjoy ‘privileges that the rest do
not have’, something ‘we are not used to’.31 The black market use of the dollar was so
widespread by 1993 that the government had concluded that prohibition was unworkable.
Legalisation would transfer the benefits of using the dollar from individuals to the state, so
everyone could benefit. It was a necessary component for opening up the tourism industry and
harvesting dollars from tourists. Furthermore, with so many Cubans having relatives in the
United States, the inflow from remittances could bolster the ailing economy. However,
remittances also exacerbated historically rooted racial and class inequalities, as most recipients
were white and better off, with relatives who had left in earlier, more politically motivated waves
of emigration and were well established in the United States, or Europe, with adequate resources
to send money back to Cuba.
US dollar transactions were permitted in the domestic economy and for personal use. Most
basic necessities continued to be purchased in CUP, but luxury goods and supplementary basic
goods available outside the ration card allotment were sold at ‘hard-currency collection shops’
(tiendas recaudadoras de divisas), known as ‘dollar shops’, at prices that included steep taxes.32
Remittances fostered consumerism and the CCP Central Committee warned of the ‘ideological
contamination’ introduced via dollars.33 ‘Cubans can now hold dollars,’ wrote my sister in 1994,
‘but they get secondary treatment in tourist shops. They’re not allowed into hotels alone . . .
mistaken for a Cuban I was sent to the back of the queue . . . they felt it’s hard to be treated as
second class citizens in their own country, but understood it was the only way to save Cuba in
the face of the increasingly hard-line blockade.’34
Throughout the island, the government set up state-run ‘exchange houses’ (known as
cadecas) which adopted the informal exchange rate of CUP 150 = USD 1 at the outset in
February 1994. By mid-1996 this gap had fallen to CUP 18 = USD 1, and subsequently stabilised
around CUP 24 to USD 1. The recovery of the CUP had an immediate impact on relative
incomes, as the CUP value of USD 100 a month was reduced from 50 times to 10 times the
average wage between 1994 and 1996.35
In the enterprise sector, accounting and exchange operations continued to function with an
official exchange rate of CUP 1 to USD 1. This became problematic because it obscured losses
and surpluses from their accounts, and removed incentives to increase exports. The enterprises’
economic results appeared the same whether their produce was sold internally for CUP or
exported for hard currency, even though the monetary value to the Cuban government was
significantly different. For example, if a cigar factory sells 100 cigars for CUP 5 each within
Cuba, it earns CUP 500 or USD 20. However, if it exports 100 cigars for USD 5 each, it earns
USD 500. Foreign exchange transactions, meanwhile, continued to be controlled by the state and
its trading enterprises.
In 1994, the Cuban government introduced a new convertible Cuban peso (CUC) to
substitute the US dollar for use in Cuba at an exchange rate of one to one. The CUC was printed
and controlled by the Cuban Central Bank. Gradually, use of CUCs outstripped US dollars,
which were removed from circulation in 2004. The dual currency remained, however; dollars
could be received and held but had to be exchanged for CUC to be spent in Cuba.
The dual currency divided the economy into two parts. Which branch any Cuban operated
within depended on whether their income was exclusively from a state salary paid in CUP or
they had access to dollars or CUC. Many Cubans had a foot in each sector. A Foreign Currency
Incentive System allowed some workers to receive part of their pay in CUC.36 By 1998, 35 per
cent of Cuban workers received some remuneration in CUC.
Legalising the dollar deflated the black market and significantly increased hard currency
inflows, which Cuba needed to operate on the international market.37 The government scooped
up hard currency through taxes and dividends from sales in state-owned US dollar shops. Sales
mirrored the growth in remittances, which were estimated at between USD 400 and USD 800
million per year.38 The dual currency also reassured foreign investors considering entering the
Cuban market as they would be insulated from problems with the domestic currency.39
However, it also entrenched inequality and broke the link between work and remuneration.
Incomes no longer depended on skill level, or the quantity or quality of formal work. Those with
access to dollars could buy subsidised peso goods for a fraction of their market price and
consume additional goods from dollar shops. Those dependent on peso incomes could not afford
non-subsidised markets. State workers, including the most highly skilled, earned the lowest
incomes.

NEW AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVES

In 1993, state ownership of arable land was reduced from 75 per cent to 33 per cent as state land
was distributed to workplaces and public institutions – enabling them to produce food for their
own cafeterias and sell it cheaply to their workers – and to cooperatives and individuals. By
1996, over 43,000 individuals had been given land to farm in ‘usufruct’, a rent-free loan
conditional on productive use.40 Most state land, however, was converted into Basic Units of
Cooperative Production (UBPCs), incorporating 272,400 members and occupying 42 per cent of
the arable land by 1997; it was the first time since the Agrarian Reform Law of 1959 that the
state had transferred land to the non-state sector.41
As cooperatives, the UBPC’s retained a social character. They received land in usufruct, but
owned what they produced. The state controlled the allocation of inputs and supervised
employment. The UBPCs were obliged to sell set quotas to state entities at fixed prices, but from
1994 could sell surpluses in farmers’ markets. Converting unprofitable and heavily subsidised
state farms into cooperatives was intended to provide incentives to increase production in the
context of food scarcity. Following the restructuring of land tenure, there were ten different
forms of agricultural organisation in Cuba: four kinds of state farms, two types of collective non-
state farms, three forms of individual non-state farms, and the mixed sector of joint ventures with
foreign partners.42 Foreign capital was only permitted in the state sector.
Despite the changes, Cuba’s agricultural performance remained insufficient to enable a
significant reduction in food imports. The reluctant introduction of the farmers’ markets in 1994
was an additional incentive to increase food production during the Special Period.

FARMERS’ MARKETS

The private farmers’ markets, opened in 1980 to sell directly to Cuban consumers, had fostered
the emergence of unproductive ‘middlemen’ who hiked up prices. Vehemently opposed by Fidel
Castro, the markets were closed in 1986 during Rectification, as explained in Chapter 1. In the
context of food scarcity in the early 1990s it was proposed to reopen them. The option was
rejected at the Fourth Congress of the CCP in 1991 and the National Assembly of December
1993. Then, in September 1994, Raúl Castro suddenly announced that farmers’ markets would
be re-established.43 It was a measure of desperation, coming one month after the (only) violent
anti-government protest in Havana, which is described below. Farmers could sell produce
surplus to their state quotas, an incentive to increase production. The markets were heavily
regulated, inspected and taxed, with price restrictions to avoid the price hikes of the 1980s.44
Competing state markets were established, including military-run ones, which undercut prices in
the private markets. By March 1995, around 20 per cent of all agricultural products were sold
through farmers’ markets; informal exchange and prices had fallen.45 Prices in the farmers’
markets more than halved in the first five years. Nonetheless, food purchases could still account
for two-thirds of the average Cuban salary by 2000.46

SELF-EMPLOYMENT

In September 1993, the number of activities in which Cubans could be self-employed was raised
from 41 to 158. Licences were strictly controlled by the Ministry of Labour and renewed every
two years. Priority was given to retirees, the disabled and the poorest applicants.47 Self-
employment shot up from 15,000 people to 208,000 within three years, sliding down to 157,000
by 2000 – around 4 per cent of the workforce. It offered a vocation to workers the state could no
longer employ, tasked them with providing services the state could no longer offer, and
formalised part of the informal economy so it could be taxed and regulated. Rodríguez explains:
‘Legalising, regulating and taxing their employment meant that instead of these individuals being
the only beneficiaries of their illegal economic activity, all of society would benefit’.48 Self-
employed workers paid one-third of their income in taxes. Income tax had been abolished for a
generation in Cuba, now the state had to quickly re-establish a taxation apparatus.
Where did the self-employed get their supplies? The state had a monopoly on foreign trade
but did not offer wholesale provision to the non-state sector. As Morris points out, the self-
employed largely depended on the informal economy for supplies in the form of goods stolen
from the state, diverted from the subsidised distribution system or brought into the country by
visitors. Effectively the state was unwillingly subsidising the self-employed, who generally had
far higher incomes than workers in the state sector. In 2003, the self-employed earned nearly five
times more, after tax, than workers in the state sector.49
Following the national consultation of 1993, measures were taken to improve the country’s
fiscal balance without introducing severe cuts to ‘los logros’ (welfare programmes) of the
Revolution. Subsidies to unprofitable enterprises were reduced, from CUP 5.4 billion in 1993 to
less than CUP 800 million in 1995. The prices of, and tariffs on, some non-essential goods and
services, such as tobacco and alcohol, were raised, generating a two-thirds growth in total
revenue from sales taxes (an increase of CUP 2.7 billion). The new tax system also raised
revenues for the state.50 Cuba’s fiscal balance was quickly restored, so that, from 1996, spending
was allowed to rise in line with revenues.51 By 1999, Cuba’s budget deficit had fallen to 2.4 per
cent of GDP, from 33 per cent five years earlier.52

FOREIGN INVESTMENT

Foreign investment is a particularly politically charged issue in Cuba. In the 1950s, US investors
had controlled 90 per cent of the telephone and electric services, 50 per cent of public service
railways and 40 per cent of raw sugar production.53 In opposing foreign control, the
revolutionary organisations of the 1950s bound the question of national sovereignty to anti-
imperialism. In 1960, foreign properties, mostly of US interests, were nationalised. The Cuban
Constitution of 1976 established that all land belongs to the state, except farmers’ small holdings
and agricultural cooperatives. In 1982, foreign investment was legalised, but only for joint
ventures with the Cuban state, and it was another six years until the first mixed enterprise was
established.
With the collapse of CMEA, Cuba had to turn to foreign investors for capital to replace
depleted infrastructure and equipment. Raising capital from bonds and stocks was ruled out as
they would expose the economy to international financial manipulation, especially given US
economic aggression.54 Foreign direct investment (FDI) was the cheapest way to raise capital
and the only source available to Cuba, which is outside the IMF, the World Bank and other
international financial institutions.55 Thus, FDI was the only form of private capital inflow
permitted. However, since 1986 there had been a moratorium on foreign debt repayments in
freely convertible currency. Recognising that it would be difficult to secure FDI without
renewing these debt repayments, the Fourth Congress of the CCP in 1991 agreed to seek
negotiations to reschedule Cuban debt.56
Despite little progress being made in rescheduling existing debts, by late 1991 fifty joint
ventures had already been set up and foreign investors were keen to enter what they assumed
would be the next post-communist emerging market. It was possible to negotiate FDI contracts
under the radar of the US blockade, which threatened legal action and fines levied against
investors anywhere in the world. In July 1992 the Cuban Constitution was amended to state that
mandatory state ownership applied only to the ‘fundamental means of production’. Privatisation
of public assets remained ruled out; only joint ventures with Cuban state companies were
permitted. ‘To ensure adherence to the economic development and national sovereignty
objectives, each business deal was approved on a case-by-case basis [by the Council of Ministers
or its Executive Committee], the subsurface and marine property rights of the Cuban state were
reserved, and forms of economic association that would not compromise the sovereignty of
national assets were extensively used,’ explained Cuban economist Nancy Quiñones.57 Foreign
partners were expected to contribute the capital, new markets or technology and expertise, which
Cuba lacked. FDI was to be controlled within the framework of the national development plan.
In September 1995 a new investment law codified the new framework.
An employment agency was set up for Cubans working in joint ventures with foreign
enterprises. Foreign partners paid state enterprises in hard currency, but Cuban workers received
their salary, mostly in CUP, from the state. There were other perks, however: ‘Access to
technology, office supplies, and comforts (such as air conditioning) . . . firms would often award
workers with needed “extras” that were hard to come by during the Special Period, such as
clothes, toiletries and some specialty foods . . . [some] enterprises offered workers – both under
the table and legally – at least part of their salaries in dollars,’ wrote Miren Uriarte in a report for
Oxfam.58 Corruption increased with the penetration of foreign businesses and hard currency.
In 1997, the Fifth Congress of the CCP endorsed the existing policy, but reiterated that
health, education and the defence sectors were out of bounds to foreign capital. With experience,
Cuban negotiators imposed increasingly demanding criteria on foreign investors and there was a
strategic shift away from less profitable contracts with smaller companies, or those considered
insufficiently beneficial, towards larger, more capital-intensive projects, for example in mining,
energy and infrastructure. Effectively this limited the sphere of operation of capitalist
mechanisms introduced via foreign capital, diminishing their impact on Cubans as producers and
consumers, whilst simultaneously strengthening the state’s economic resources based on higher
value-generating activities. Net FDI inflows were substantial, totalling USD 1.93 billion between
1993 and 2000 according to official figures.59 Contracts came from Spain (23 per cent of
contracts), Canada (19 per cent), Italy (9 per cent), France (4 per cent), demonstrating Cuba’s
success in diversifying trade partners.60 The first 100 per cent foreign-owned enterprise was a
Panamanian power plant. Joint ventures transferred technology, managerial skills and business
knowledge to Cuba, all of which were essential for operating in the capitalist world market. The
potential was massively obstructed by the US blockade, and the impact largely restricted to
industries and products related to international trade, such as nickel, oil and tourism.
Despite having one of the world’s three largest reserves of nickel, the collapse of CMEA
resulted in a 60 per cent fall in Cuba’s nickel earnings between 1990 and 1993. To reverse this,
in December 1994, the Cuban government signed a joint venture with Canadian company
Sherritt International, which provided capital and the new technology required to modernise,
upgrade and expand industrial capacity. Nickel production and earnings were restored to pre-
crisis levels within two years and were 50 per cent higher by 2000.61 By then, Sherritt
International had formed another joint venture with Cuba’s state oil company, CUPET, to raise
domestic oil production, which met only 6 per cent of the island’s domestic needs in 1990. Oil
imports accounted for 38 per cent of total import spending in 1994, thus import substitution was
urgent to save scarce hard currency. Sherritt provided the cleaner technology which the
government required to exploit its oil reserves without contaminating the nearby tourist resort of
Varadero. By 2000, domestic oil production met over 35 per cent of Cuba’s needs in oil and gas,
saving some USD 850 million in import costs.62
For many Cubans, the pre-1959 tourism industry symbolised the island’s humiliating semi-
colonial status, facilitating exploitation, prostitution, gambling, corruption and racism. While
there was little enthusiasm for developing tourism, there were strong incentives to do so. First
was the attractiveness of Cuba as a destination; second, the sector is less capital-intensive than
other options and generates rapid returns on investment bringing in foreign exchange and
attracting foreign capital to build the industry more quickly than Cuba’s capital resources would
allow; third, it provides substantial employment. So the industry was begun in earnest and
between 1998 and 2003 tourism was Cuba’s largest source of foreign revenue. Gross revenue in
2000 from the tourist industry alone accounted for 40 per cent of total earnings from goods and
services.63 The sector diversified to foster health, solidarity, cultural and eco-tourism. Within the
decade, tourist arrivals had soared from less than 250,000 to nearly 2 million despite the US
government maintaining its ban on tourism in Cuba.64
Direct foreign ownership proved to be a red line for the Cubans: a proposed law giving
foreign investors ownership rights in Cuba was rejected after consultation with trade unions and
CCP members in 2000.65 Meanwhile, the lifespan of four free trade zones established between
1997 and 1998 to foster and diversify manufacturing for export and provide employment was cut
short after it was found, in 2004, that only 1 in 15 participating companies were manufacturing
enterprises. The zones were redesignated as ‘development zones’ promoting productive, rather
than commercial, activity, and non-productive companies operating there were closed down or
moved away.66
 ECONOMIC RESTRUCTURING

‘Qualitatively, in less than twenty years the Cuban economy radically transformed itself,’ wrote
Cuban economist Quiñones.67 While resisting a transition to capitalism, the Cuban government
undertook a major structural transformation of the economy. The island had to be reinserted into
the global economy on the basis of new export products and markets developed almost from
scratch, with restricted access to external financing and with the US blockade strengthened.
Within one decade sugar exports fell as a proportion of all goods’ exported from 80 per cent to
26.7 per cent, and to just 4 per cent of all exports when services are included.68 Sugar was
replaced by mining, tobacco and medical products.69 The export of Cuban services soared, from
10 per cent of total exports in 1990 to 70 per cent by 2005.70 Initially this was due to tourism, a
service export, but from the early 2000s, the export of medical and other professional services,
mainly to Venezuela, soared.71 Simultaneously, the shift in trade partners was almost total. In
one decade, Cuban exports to non-CMEA countries increased from 10 per cent to 90 per cent of
total exports.
The banking and finance system was restructured to facilitate the introduction of market
mechanisms domestically and interaction with international capitalist markets.72 One of the few
financial experts with experience in global financial markets, Francisco Soberon, was appointed
head of the National Bank of Cuba in 1994. In 1997, this became the Central Bank and a new
financial system was established with a set of ‘autonomous’ state-owned banking corporations,
competing for business domestically and able to form joint ventures with foreign partners. The
overdue debt was placed on the books of a separate bank, so the new ones started with a clean
slate.73
 Figure 1. Goods exports structure74

The shift from the Material Product System of national accounts, used by the socialist
planned economies, to the United Nations System of National Accounts, with profit and loss and
GDP measurements, required extensive retraining for ministry officials and enterprise managers.
Subsidies to enterprises had been cut by up to 90 per cent, leaving many without capital,
equipment, energy and inputs. A group of enterprises were transformed into semi-autonomous
profit-seeking state corporations open to FDI. In August 1998, the Enterprise Perfection System
(EPS) of economic management expanded nationally. This had been developed within the
Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (MINFAR) enterprises during Rectification.
Enterprises had to meet a checklist of specific modern operational criteria. They had greater
autonomy in planning and securing imports, while the old Central Planning Board (JUCEPLAN)
was replaced in 1995 with a new slimmed down Ministry of the Economy and Planning, with
half the number of employees.
 EMPLOYMENT

The importance of employment in revolutionary Cuba is more than an economic question. First
of all, low monetary wages do not determine the standard of living, or level of consumption,
because the state provides and heavily subsidises so much of what in most countries must be
purchased with a wage.75 Second, in the context of socialism, the political and social functions of
employment are as, if not more, significant than the remuneration. Work is a means of political
participation, of contributing to social development and of distributing social benefits.
Employment facilitates an individual’s links to society. This explains the decision, during the
Special Period, to avoid mass redundancies. With most workers in the state sector, the
government had tight control over employment, but policy had to be coordinated with the
important national trade union confederation (Central de Trabajadores de Cuba, or CTC), which
brings together 19 formerly independent trade unions, representing almost all workers. Cuban
trade unions have leverage over policy.
The decision was taken to keep state workers on the payroll, or temporarily laid off on 60
per cent of their salaries until alternative employment could be found. The burgeoning tourism
industry absorbed excess workers, including employees of the armed forces and the Communist
Party, the first institutions to undergo severe cuts. Spending on the military was halved between
1989 and 1993, with personnel slashed to one-fifth by the end of the decade.76 Military historian
Hal Klepak explains: ‘Air force pilots were given tasks as pilots for tourist firms, army drivers
for car hire companies, and naval personnel for yacht hire. More officers were sent to rapid
courses in management techniques before being sent to head companies.’77 The number of
central government administrative bodies was cut from 50 to 30.78
Inevitably, with workers kept on payrolls while production ground down, labour
productivity plummeted, except in sectors where FDI raised efficiency, such as tourism and
nickel. Equipment no longer attainable was replaced by manpower in some sectors, such as
agriculture and health. Incredibly, between 1990 and 1993, while GDP fell 35 per cent,
employment in Cuba actually rose by 40,000 and the official unemployment rate fell from 5.4 to
4.3 per cent.79
This unprecedented profile (shown in the graph below), unlikely to be seen in any capitalist
economy, can only be understood in terms of the function of employment in a socialist country.
The policy also mitigated against internal migration.80 Salaries necessarily remained very low, to
facilitate near-full employment. This acted as an incentive for Cubans to enter either the informal
economy or the formal non-state sector; employment in the latter rose to 22.5 per cent of total
employment by 2000.81
 Figure 2. Unemployment and real GDP growth

Women are invariably most adversely affected by austerity. Many Cuban women left
employment because they considered the cost of getting to work and the increased burden of
domestic tasks outweighed any salary incentives.82 In 1995, the Federation of Cuban Women
(FMC) began training courses in economics for women. A specialist in the women’s economy,
Blanca Munster, explained: ‘We realised that women themselves had to be transformed, women
themselves had to be trained . . . From women intellectuals to farmers, to industrial workers – we
have seen a radical change and a new kind of involvement in the transformation process: they are
more active, not passive subjects.’83 Child labour never emerged, although by hassling tourists
for money in the street a child could take home more in one day than their parents’ state salary in
one month.84 ‘Children kept asking us for chewing-gum and baseball caps in the streets,’ wrote
my sister in 1994, noting that it was not food they asked for, but ‘the kind of commodities they
thought tourists would have’.85
Cuba’s economic contraction was halted and reversed by 1994. The fiscal deficit was
reduced from 33 per cent in 1993 to around 2 per cent by 1996 and access liquidity was rapidly
reduced.86 Growth averaged 4 per cent in the second half of the 1990s.87 Still, living standards
had not recovered their 1990 level by the end of the decade, productive capacity, infrastructure
and public services had been crippled, and the dual economy and price distortions had skewed
incentives and entrenched inequalities. The economic contraction generated a social crisis. Cuts
in food consumption, utility supplies, basic goods and transport led to malnutrition, emigration,
inequality and illegality. However, the allocation of basic goods and the labour market continued
to operate under a central plan, delivered through existing state institutions to alleviate the crisis.

THE SOCIAL SPHERE

‘Where Cuba differed from other countries undergoing liberalising reforms, was the political will
to shield the population from the most pernicious of these effects as well as from the impact of
the crisis itself,’ observed Uriarte. ‘Cubans sought to maintain the basic values of the Cuban
social policy: universality, equitable access, and government control.’88
Compelled by conditions, the Cuban revolutionary government had introduced the ration, or
libreta, in March 1962 and for nearly thirty years it provided the basic basket of goods at highly
subsidised prices that were affordable even to the poorest Cubans. During the Special Period, the
content of the libreta was slashed and by 1993 nutritional intake had dropped by one-third per
person and the average adult lost 5.5kg in weight.89 Half of all children aged between 6 and 12
years suffered from iron deficiency, according to UNICEF. However, the most severe weight
loss was experienced by those who could most tolerate it; so, while the proportion of the
population underweight rose from 8 per cent in 1991 to 10.3 per cent in 1995, the fall in obesity
was sharper: from 14.3 per cent of the population to 7.2 per cent by 1995.90 The silver lining was
a decline in diabetes and heart disease accompanying that weight loss.91 While hunger was
widespread, state distribution of resources and services prevented starvation. There was,
however, a 50 per cent increase in deaths from infectious diseases (tuberculosis, typhoid and
diarrhoea) and parasites between 1990 and 1993.92 Immune systems were weakened by
malnutrition, producing an epidemic of neuropathy which hampered the vision and affected the
legs of over 50,000 Cubans.93
Housing construction and repairs were paralysed. Deteriorating conditions and
overcrowding became a feature of life, particularly in Havana where growing families draped
curtains across a single room to provide the semblance of privacy. Regular electricity blackouts
lasted 8 to 12 hours, leaving families in the dark and humid heat without air fans, televisions or
working fridges. Students did homework by candlelight, when candles could be found. The
immense stress all this placed on families is evident in the sudden rise in divorce as the crisis
peaked.94 To avoid fatalities, architects visited all buildings, ready to move families out of
houses in danger of imminent collapse. Living there at this time, we would occasionally notice
the skyline had changed after a building collapsed, although we never heard of casualties.
Public transport was decimated in cities and rural areas. Cubans walked miles to work and
back under the searing sun. The government imported 1.2 million Chinese bicycles and
manufactured half a million more, distributing them to a Caribbean population with no tradition
of cycling. Professionals, party officials, factory workers – everyone got to work on a bike. It
was not unusual to see two policemen, workmates or a family of four balanced on the frames and
back wheel racks.95 An official system of collective hitch-hiking, or carpooling, was established;
state-owned vehicles were obliged to pick up passengers at highway junctions. Less formal
hitching became a way of life throughout the country; hitchers lined the main roads in Havana
waiting for a ride. Old trucks were converted into buses with metal benches and steps welded
onto the back. In cities, trucks were melded with buses, to make the famous camel buses, which
could cram in 300 people. In small towns and cities, people turned to horses for transportation.
Always resourceful, Cubans increasingly sought imaginative solutions to scarcity and need,
known as inventos: ‘Nothing was wasted . . . old construction nails were straightened for reuse;
every scrap of wood was saved . . . “No es facil” (it’s not easy), a favourite phrase, took on a
whole new meaning.’96 As a substitute for toilet roll, which was often scarce or too expensive,
most Cubans used the daily newspapers or ripped out pages from old books. Plastic bags, pens,
notebooks were precious resources and knowledgeable foreign visitors brought them, along with
soap, toothpaste and multivitamins, for Cuban friends.
It was in the context of this deprivation that thousands of Cubans risked the choppy, shark-
infested waters in makeshift rafts (balsas) to reach the United States, where Cuban immigrants
held a privileged status. In 1990, 467 Cuban rafters were picked up at sea by the US Coastguard.
In 1993, 3,656 rafters were picked up. In the summer of 1994, thousands of Cubans launched
themselves into the precarious waters. On 5 August that year, two policemen were killed
stopping hijackers from seizing a ferry in Havana harbour, sparking the most significant anti-
government demonstration in Cuba since 1959. Crowds gathered on the Malecon, the broad
esplanade, roadway and seawall that runs along the Havana coast. My sister happened to be there
and reported: ‘We heard people smashing windows, and police shooting into the air to disperse
the crowd. When we came back, there were two groups of maybe 600 people. One group was
those who’d had enough of the problems – there’d been a real tension in Havana, and it was as if
it had burst. The others were workers from the rural areas who’d parked their vans in the streets
to stop too much movement and were all set to stop the trouble. The police were there, but
participated less than the workers . . . It was all shown on television.’97 The event became known
as the ‘Maleconazo’.
Fidel Castro headed to the scene, ordering his bodyguards not to fire.98 Footage shows him
addressing the crowd: ‘We are in a Special Period . . . one of the most difficult periods of our
history. Why? Because we’ve been left alone to confront imperialism. Alone. What is needed to
confront imperialism alone?’ People in the street and on balconies shout ‘unity’, Fidel continues:
‘It requires unity. It requires courage. It will need patriotism, it requires revolutionary spirit.
Because a weak people, a cowardly people, surrenders and returns to slavery. But a dignified
people, a courageous people, like ours, does not surrender, will never return to slavery.’99 That
same day, Fidel Castro called on the people to come out in remembrance of the policemen who
had been killed. ‘So on the Sunday morning the CDR (Committees for Defence of the
Revolution) across the road got the whole community around and we went down there with
thousands of other people, young and old,’ my sister wrote.100
Following another deadly hijacking several days later, Fidel Castro announced that Cuban
police would no longer stop people leaving Cuba unless they were hijacking boats or planes.
LeoGrande and Kornbluh explain what happened next: ‘Now free to go, Cubans streamed to the
beaches with small boats, rafts, inner tubes, and cars outfitted with pontoons in place of tires, to
set out on the perilous ocean journey. Their numbers were staggering . . . the balsero crisis was
under way.’101 The US administration panicked about the influx and announced that, for the first
time since the 1960s, Cuban rafters picked up at sea would not be immediately permitted into the
United States. Instead they were to be taken to the US Naval Base in occupied Guantanamo Bay
to be processed. The announcement failed to halt the exodus. In early September 1994, the
United States and Cuban governments reached an agreement to halt the crisis. The United States
would issue 20,000 visas annually for Cubans to travel to the United States legally, plus 6,000
additional visas to Cubans on the long waiting list, and Cuba would restore its coastguard
operations to prevent illegal departures from the island.102
The rafters’ crisis took Cuba’s most impatient and restless citizens, mostly young males, off
the island. Over 45,000 Cubans arrived in the United States between 1990 and 1994, including
those processed through Guantanamo Naval Base, plus 15,675 who travelled to the US with a
temporary visa but never returned.103 However, the Maleconazo and the rafter crisis never
spiralled into a political revolt as military historian Hal Klepak pointed out, ‘Neither the FAR
[Revolutionary Armed Forces] nor even important police resources were ever needed in an
internal security role.’104 A decisive factor was a 34 per cent increase in the share of Cuba’s
GDP spent throughout the 1990s on social programmes, cushioning the population from the
worst effects of economic crisis.105

ALLEVIATING THE SOCIAL CRISIS

From the outset, the revolutionary government’s response to the crisis put social need at the
centre. The Food and Nutrition Surveillance System (Sistema de Vigilancia Alimentario y
Nutricional) monitored nutrition, allocated supplementary rations, and maintained a network for
mothers and babies after a slight rise in low-birth-weight babies was detected from 1992 and of
pregnant women with insufficient weight gain during pregnancy.106 State welfare agencies
worked within the new Peoples’ Councils (Consejos Populares), established in 1991, to identify
‘at risk’ households and individuals in order to administer relief programmes.107
While GDP contracted by one-third, total government spending rose from an already high
68 per cent to 90 per cent of GDP between 1990 and 1993. Spending on social security and
welfare increased by 29 per cent between 1990 and 1994.108 There was a rise in subsidies for
employment protection and food security. The prices of essential goods were fixed, despite the
shortages, and the cost of the ration was affordable even to those on minimum social security
allowance. In 1994 my sister recorded that: ‘On ration day there was a carnival atmosphere. I
was woken up early, given a glass of water and sugar, and we went by bike to pick up the
allowance of bread, coffee, sugar and other goods. It was also washing day, because the ration of
soap had come.’109
In the 1930s, Cuba had been among the first Latin American countries to introduce a state
pension. Under the revolutionary government this was completely state funded. The retirement
age was 55 for women and 60 for men. There were also disability pensions. By 1995, some 1.35
million Cubans were receiving a state pension, over 12 per cent of the population, and it was
raised from CUP 83 in 1990 to CUP 107 in 1997, so the decline in real terms was less steep than
for those earning wages. The government also provided targeted social assistance through cash
subsidies and special services to the most vulnerable sectors of society.110
Cubans are proud to say that no school or hospital was closed during the Special Period.
Nonetheless, the structural conditions of public infrastructure deteriorated in the absence of
construction materials and investment funds. Medical equipment broke or became obsolete,
medicines and disinfectants were scarce. An effort was made to compensate for this with
increased medical personnel. Health spending rose 13 per cent and 15,380 medical professionals
joined the service between 1990 and 1994, raising the doctor to patient ratio from 1 for every 276
inhabitants to 1 for every 202. Between 1990 and 2003, the number of Cuban doctors increased
by 76 per cent, dentists by 46 per cent, and nurses by 16 per cent.111 Remarkably, infant
mortality declined from 10.7 per 1,000 in 1990 to 7.2 in 1999, while life expectancy rose from
75 to 75.6 years despite the crisis.112 Meanwhile, education spending declined by 18 per cent,
leading to falling school attendance and a reduction in the numbers of teaching staff; university
enrolment fell from 21 per cent in 1990 to 12 per cent in 1996.113 In two years, 1993 to 1994, 8
per cent of teachers left education for the tourist industry.114

INEQUALITY AND ILLEGALITY

The principles of Cuba Socialista were eroded by a palpable rise in inequality, crime, prostitution
and individualism. While the majority of the population suffered a fall in their standard of living,
a minority benefited from the market openings. They were not Communist Party or military
officials, nor bureaucrats; the highest paid officials could afford little beyond the basic basket.
Prior to the Special Period, Cuba’s highest salaries, earned by professionals such as doctors or
engineers, were 4.5 times those of the lowest-paid workers.115 During the crises, however, as
Cuban economist Vallejo wrote, ‘The most negatively affected segments of the population were
precisely those most connected with the essence of Cuban socialism.’116 The monetary value of
their qualifications fell, causing dissatisfaction and frustration.117 Many highly qualified Cubans
left their professions for jobs with access to CUCs and a higher level of consumption such as
tourism, taxi driving, the black market or joint ventures. The beneficiaries were those operating
in the informal sector and those with access to hard currency. By 1993, a Cuban receiving USD
100 a month in remittances could exchange their income for 40 times the average nominal
monthly peso income. A black-marketer could earn ten or more times this amount – a massive
incentive to operate illegally.118 The result was socioeconomic fragmentation and the emergence
of new social groups with high levels of income and consumption relative to the average levels
in the population.119
Legislation was introduced to limit the potentially destructive impact of the material
competition entering Cuban relationships at the grassroots level and to prevent exploitation or
the accumulation of capital. For example, to prevent the emergence of a sex-tourism industry,
Cubans were prohibited from staying in hard currency hotels unless married to a foreigner. The
phenomenon of illegal and semi-legal activities known as jineterismo became widespread in
tourist destinations as ‘hustlers’ and opportunists sought hard currency or consumption goods
from tourists. This became conflated with prostitution, which also spiked. While alarming, these
activities were effectively tolerated by the state, the police and the population. A new decree in
August 1997 criminalised pimping, but not prostitution: ‘A person who sells his or her body will
not be punished, but those making personal gain or benefiting in any way from acts of
prostitution will face sanctions.’120 The problem of pimping was exposed in the daily newspaper
of the Union of Young Communists (UJC), Juventud Rebelde. The Cuban Women’s Federation
(FMC) and Committees for Defence of the Revolution (CDR) worked with prostitutes to retrain
and reintegrate them to their home communities; it was estimated that 70 per cent of those in
Havana came from other provinces.121 Those suspected of being in Havana to work as prostitutes
or otherwise hustle tourists were often asked by police to show their identity cards to reveal their
permanent place of residence. This was part of an attempt to stem the tide of internal migration
and prevent illegality, but it also led to accusations of police harassment and discrimination.

CULTURE SHOCK
Since its beginning, wrote the US poet and writer Margaret Randall, Cuba’s revolutionary
government invested in, and nurtured participation in, the arts, establishing cultural houses in
every town and city. ‘Cuba,’ she says ‘fought the US cultural blockade with the same tenacity it
fought its diplomatic and economic counterparts. It established important cultural institutions,
hosted conferences and symposiums and invited intellectuals and artists from around the world
to visit the island, and supported its own creative minds.’122 Cuban artists were insulated from
the pressures of commercialisation through state support. Cuban director, Gerardo Chijona,
described Cuban filmmakers as ‘the spoiled children of Latin American cinema’.123 The state
guaranteed financial backing for cinema production, including salaries, while affording creators a
degree of autonomy. The situation was replicated throughout the arts.
During the Special Period, cutbacks in state support and resources, along with the
introduction of market mechanisms, impacted upon Cuban culture. ‘Filmmakers with no
experience in the funding process outside the state subsidy system had to adapt, learning to
navigate international partnership and financing systems,’ explained Cristina Venegas.124 The
proliferation of hard currency and tourism shaped sexual and business relationships and was
reflected in emigration and remittances. The question of ownership over Cuban cultural identity
was complicated with a growing diaspora benefiting from the globally rising popularity of that
identity. In 1997, the Buena Vista Social Club album was released by US and British music
producers to worldwide acclaim; it starred an ensemble of ‘forgotten’ Cuban musicians
resurrecting music from pre-revolutionary Cuba. Cuban music had found an international
mainstream market.
Writing about Cuban culture in the Special Period, Hernández-Reguant referred to
‘Havana’s new showbiz elite’ that had emerged with the increasing marketisation of culture,
while artists and artisans were among those who ‘got richer’ by being ‘plugged into transnational
economic networks’.125 In the state-owned publishing sector, the sudden and severe lack of
resources saw an implosion of publications. A tension emerged between ‘true literature’ and
‘literary tourism’ for voyeuristic consumption by foreigners. Even the increase of religious
observance over the Special Period was partly connected to the new economic openings,
according to Kevin Delgado who observed that the practice of Santería (an Afro-Cuban religious
tradition) in cities was particularly subject to commercialisation, as ‘some Cubans convert
spiritual and cultural capital into financial capital’.126 When foreigners paid to participate,
financial exchanges commodified the practices of Santería. Meanwhile, the emerging Cuban hip
hop movement was given space to breathe by the new young Minister of Culture Abel Prieto,
who bought the ‘counter-culture’ into the Cuban cultural mainstream with state support for
forums and artists.127 Prieto afforded Cuban artists more autonomy in licensing their works
abroad and travelling internationally, and in promoting art and culture which could be
understood as critical or challenging to the status quo.

FROM INDUSTRIALISED AGRICULTURE TO URBAN AND ORGANIC FARMING

By the 1980s, Cuban agriculture was the most industrialised in Latin America, using more
fertiliser proportionally than the United States. The island had adopted the ‘Green Revolution’, a
model of mechanised agriculture practised on its predominant state-farms, relying on natural-
gas-based fertilisers, oil-based pesticides and diesel-powered machinery, almost all of which
were imported. The island used 90,000 tractors.128 Yields were high, but production was directed
towards exports (sugar, tobacco and citrus), while two-thirds of foodstuffs consumed by Cubans
were imported.129 Under this model, the island was unable to feed its own population. And then
the crisis hit.
The dramatic fall in imports, including fuel, agrochemicals, agricultural equipment, spare
parts, seeds, animal feed and vaccines, had a catastrophic impact on food production, which fell
to 55 per cent of pre-crisis levels by 1994.130 Food imports were also halved. How was the island
to feed itself? Even when families had food, electricity blackouts rendered fridges useless for
preserving it.
The first goal was to keep the population alive. This was facilitated by the existing means of
distribution: the ration book, reduced but maintained, and vias sociales (social means), including
free meals in workplaces and health and educational facilities. By the end of the decade, the
libreta provided two to three weeks of basic consumption based on United Nations minimum
monthly caloric intake, with subsidised food in workplaces raising this from three to four
weeks.131 Vulnerable groups received additional or specialised supplements. While food imports
and formal food production halved, average calorie intake fell one-third between 1990 and 1993.
The disproportional decrease reveals that informal food production and markets had
expanded.132
While their tractors rusted without fuel or parts, Cuban farmers returned to the use of oxen
for turning soil and planting crops. Experienced older farmers set up training schools and in just
over one year most cooperatives had someone training in the use and breeding of oxen.133 Cuban
research centres had begun studying sustainable agriculture before the crisis, so the state quickly
channelled this work into replacing the chemical inputs no longer available with locally
produced biopesticides and biofertilizers.134 In 1961, the Association of Small Farmers had been
set up to organise, represent and assist farmers in the non-state sector, providing training,
resources and sharing new approaches. In 1996, it added ‘sustainability’ to its goals and
promoted agro-ecological farming techniques nationwide.
 ORGANIC AND URBAN FARMS

Visiting the Armed Forces Horticultural Enterprise in December 1987, Raúl Castro had been
impressed by how ‘the engineer Anita’ was growing vegetables without using petrochemicals.
Anita had constructed an ‘organopónico’; a rectangular walled construction, thirty metres by one
metre containing raised beds of a mixture of soil and organic materials. The method was
subsequently adopted in armed forces’ facilities.135 The first civilian organopónico was set up in
Havana four years later, just after the breakup of the USSR.136 Organopónicos are a Cuban
invention, ideal for growing crops on poor soils in small urban spaces, be they building sites,
vacant lots, roadsides or sloping lands. The raised beds can produce vegetables all year round
and achieve good yields.137
Meanwhile, Cubans without prior experience took over vacant land in the city to grow food,
launching the local ‘urban gardening’ movement, which saw parcels of wasteland, many
informally used as rubbish dumps, transformed into lush green productive areas. In city gardens
the soil is planted directly. The process brought neighbours together and, subsequently, gave
purpose and employment to thousands. Cubans converted their own backyards to grow fruit,
vegetables and condiments and raise small animals, such as poultry. Cubans without access to
land, or time to cultivate it, began growing food on balconies and rooftops.138 The government
endorsed the movement, encouraging its expansion and providing training to improve yields.139
In 1994, an Urban Agriculture Department (UAD) was formed to work with provincial and
municipal organisations to secure an adequate and sustainable supply of food to urban areas,
particularly Havana. The UAD aimed to provide fresh, low-cost, healthy food, encourage
community activities, create a safe urban atmosphere, generate employment and economic
growth, and to reduce energy and oil usage, pollution and waste output.140 The motto was
‘produce while learning, teach while producing, and learn while teaching’.141 An urban
agriculture representative from the Ministry of Agriculture was incorporated into every one of
Cuba’s 1,400 Peoples’ Councils. The use of agrochemicals in urban gardens was prohibited by
law.
Among the most successful organopónicos was Vivero Alamar, created in 1997 on
abandoned wasteland 8 kilometres east of Havana’s centre. Monty Don, the BBC television
presenter of Gardeners’ World, described the Alamar organopónico as a vision of heaven,
‘wonderful vegetables grown organically, it looks beautiful, people all working together from the
community, growing them, earning a living, eating them and caring about it’.142
Havana led the way and, in 1998, the National Urban Agriculture Group was set up to
promote local food self-sufficiency nationally. Urban agriculture programmes had 28 sub-
programmes, in crops, animal husbandry, organic manures, seeds, irrigation and drainage,
marketing and technical education. Within 12 years, 350,000 new, paying and productive jobs
(some 7 per cent of the workforce) were created through those programmes, including for
retirees, mothers or young people, who would otherwise have been unemployed.143 Being local
and smaller scale, urban agriculture minimised machinery use and reduced transport costs. The
idea was ‘food production in the neighbourhood, by the neighbourhood and for the
neighbourhood’. The quantity of land cultivated and yields rose quickly. Production of
vegetables and fresh herbs jumped a thousand-fold from 4,000 tons in 1994 to 4.2 million in
2005. The produce was sold directly to consumers from local stands and farmers’ markets. Tons
of food were donated to schools, old peoples’ homes, maternity homes, other local social
institutions and neighbours in need. The savings made with the switch to organic vegetables was
estimated to be USD 39.5 million per tonne of produce, while the cost of pest control fell to 9 per
cent of its previous level.144 By the early 2000s Cuba was exporting biopesticides and
biofertilisers to Latin America.
By 2006, when Cuba was recognised as the only nation in the world living sustainably, 80
per cent of the island’s agricultural production was organic and the annual use of chemical
pesticides had fallen from 21,000 tonnes in the 1980s to 1,000 tonnes (a 95 per cent reduction),
with petrochemicals used only in sugar, potatoes and tobacco production.145 Researcher Sinan
Knoot concluded that Cuba had become the only country in the world to produce most of its food
locally, employing agro-ecological techniques for production.146 Urban agriculture accounted for
nearly 15 per cent of national agriculture, occupied 87,000 acres of land and was meeting over
50 per cent of the total vegetable needs of Havana’s population of 2.2 million inhabitants.147 In
smaller cities and towns, urban agriculture met 80 to 100 per cent of the population’s fruit and
vegetable requirements. Calorie intake had recovered its pre-crisis level by 1999 and continued
to rise. Monty Don concluded: ‘The Cubans have created a working model for the future we all
face. In the middle of a large city, with practically no money and no resources, they are
producing fresh, organic fruit and vegetables by and for local communities, not industrially, but
in the garden.’148

POLITICAL PARTICIPATION AND COMMUNITY MOBILISATION

The Cuban leadership recognised that survival of the Cuban Revolution depended on securing
commitment to the socialist project from the general population. That commitment, and the
sacrifices implied, could not be induced through repression. The leadership could draw on three
decades of voluntary mass participation in revolutionary transformation, from the literacy
campaign of 1961 to Cuba’s military role in Angola. The bond between ‘the people’ and the state
had to be strengthened; political, military and bureaucratic cadres could not become an elite
detached from the masses and their daily suffering. Policy-makers must share in the hardships.
And they did, as I witnessed first-hand.
A dual process was developed involving both the creation and expansion of existing
community and grassroots organisations, alongside increasing public participation in official
policy-making processes. Peoples’ Councils and Transformation Workshops were new
community-based organisations which worked alongside existing grassroots institutions to
mobilise social support, particularly in urban areas. Uriarte observed, for example, how the CDR
provided recreation at the block level and organised community clean-up, while the FMC
distributed vitamins to every household and advised on how to cook meals with limited
ingredients. ‘Mass organizations also participated in the prevention of crimes and delinquency at
the community level by activating the neighbourhood watch and organizing activities for youth.
This continuous work at the community level is clearly an important element that allowed Cuba,
and especially Havana, to weather the crisis,’ she wrote.149 In Havana, Neighbourhood
Transformation Workshops encouraged community participation in addressing specific
neighbourhood problems, mobilising local and outside resources in projects involving
construction, environmental issues, small-scale economic development projects and social
service activities. By 2002, Havana had 20 Transformation Workshops.
In 1991, new People’s Councils were set up as ‘aggressive advocates of local issues’ in
every neighbourhood.150 Members were volunteers, local delegates elected directly by their
neighbours, and local representatives from the main economic, social and political institutions,
including the CDRs and FMC. Council delegates elected their own president, who worked as a
full-time employee, investigating problems and bringing them up for discussion and resolution.
The Councils had a reputation for efficiency, managing and alleviating the impact of the crisis,
restoring a sense of community to the tattered fabric of Cuban neighbourhoods. In 1992, the
Constitution was amended so that the people ratified delegates to the National Assembly, who
required over 50 per cent for approval.
The Fourth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party (CCP) in October 1991 was preceded
by six months of nationwide debates about economic policy: discussions were organised in
hundreds of local and workplace CCP branches, in meetings organised by the new Peoples’
Councils and at the national congresses of the UJC and National Association of Small Farmers
(ANAP) in April and May 1991. Three and a half million Cubans participated.151 This became
the modus operandi, extensive public consultations prior to significant economic reforms.152 It
was repeated with ‘Workers’ Parliaments’ established between January and March 1994, prior to
the National Assembly, which introduced important economic reforms. Three million workers
(85 per cent of the workforce) met in multiple sessions in 80,000 workplaces to discuss the
issues their delegates would debate.153 The Workers’ Parliaments shaped the reforms that were
subsequently implemented, for example rejecting the proposal to impose income taxes or social
security contributions on state employees.
As a member of the National Committee of the Federation of University Students (FEU)
between 1993 and 1998, Kenia Serrano recounted how student leaders were also consulted. Once
the reforms had been prepared, she said, ‘the Comandante called the leaders of FEU from around
the country to the Convention Palace to sit down with him and other government Ministers. He
then asked them to explain to us the measures that would be taken and asked us to give our
opinions.’ Serrano lived with 16 other FEU leaders and younger students from the Federation of
Middle School Students (FEEM) in a student house in Havana. Fidel Castro frequently visited
the students, she recalled, often turning up at dawn. ‘Fidel was always reflecting with us about
the causes of the crisis in the socialist camp and he was very concerned that our generation
should understand why the socialist camp had fallen.’154
Throughout the Special Period, as Cuban economist Rita Castiñeiras García notes:

Discussions concerning fairly severe and fundamental government-proposed economic belt-

tightening measures were organised in neighbourhoods and workplaces throughout the
country. These heavily attended meetings led to large numbers of revisions to the original
proposals. But beyond that, they represented a step towards making men and women into
the subjects, not the objects, of the process of social development.155

This unique participatory process created some sense of public ownership of policy, contributing
towards the acceptance of economic reforms and their consequences.

DEEP SCARS OF THE SPECIAL PERIOD

A report by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) circulated on 1 August 1993
concluded that Fidel Castro’s government was likely to fall within the next few years. It
recognised the devastating impact of the collapse of CMEA: ‘Food shortages and distribution
problems have caused malnutrition and disease, and the difficulties of subsisting will intensify.’
The analysts predicted ‘regime-threatening instability’ occurring at any time’.156 By the end of
the decade, however, Cuban socialism had survived the Special Period. Its economic structures
had been radically transformed, the social structure had stratified and its international relations
had entirely shifted. The scars were deep and indelible. Survival had entailed the introduction of
market mechanisms which had intensified the contradictions between the plan and the market
that are inherent to the process of socialist transition. Cuban policy-makers were fully aware of
these tensions, but saw no alternatives in the context, as Rodríguez explained:
 Adopting market mechanisms while failing to understand that they contradict socialism
would propel Cuba towards capitalism. At the same time, market mechanisms are necessary
in socialism as long as the forces of production are insufficient for the collective nature of
labor to express itself without mediation. Failure to understand this, particularly in the
specific context of a small open economy in crisis in a world thoroughly dominated by
capitalism, would have led Cuba to reject the market mechanism necessary to survive its
economic crisis and hence also would have brought about the end of its revolutionary
project.157

Put crudely, it was a case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Cuba cautiously opened to foreign capital, restructured the economy, integrated into the
global capitalist market, joined international trade bodies, including the World Trade
Organization in 1995 and the Latin American Integration Association in 1999. Fidel Castro
temporarily ditched his military fatigues, donning a business suit in international forums. The
Cubans fought hard against the extension of the extraterritorial character of the US blockade, and
against a campaign of terrorism directed by Cuban exiles and former CIA operatives, who
targeted the island’s burgeoning tourism industry, as shown in Chapter 7. At the turn of the
century, the region was swept up by the ‘Pink Tide’ of progressive left governments, bolstering
Cuba’s economic and political relations with Latin America, providing greater room for
manoeuvre and augmenting Cuba’s regional and global influence.
The measures implemented to mitigate the impact of the crisis on the island’s population,
saw its key human development indicators improve. In 1999, Cuba was ranked fifth best out of
92 developing countries in terms of human poverty – astonishing given how the economic crisis
had impoverished the country.158 The measures taken to aid economic recovery and to protect
the population from the human costs of the Special Period generated new contradictions whose
resolution was necessarily postponed, in many cases until the present. For example, the decision
to protect employment generated the cycle of low productivity, low salaries and low incentives
which remains today. Changes to the employment structure announced in 2010 were designed to
break this cycle by reducing the number of state employees and expanding the non-state sector.
That measure led in turn to the need to legalise private business, as discussed in Chapters 8 and
9. The dual currency has endured for a quarter of a century, despite plans for monetary
reunification, entrenching inequalities and further breaking the correlation between work and
remuneration, social contribution and reward. While some of these economic measures endured,
the most severe deterioration of Cubans’ standard of living was addressed much earlier during
the Battle of Ideas launched with the new millennium, and the focus of the next chapter.
 3

FIDEL CASTRO’S CITIZENS’ ARMY

THE BATTLE OF IDEAS

The shocking photo flashed around the world. A child’s small terrified face peers out from a
wardrobe and over the arm of a man who clutches him. A United States federal agent in a helmet
and body armour points an automatic rifle close to the boy’s chest. I see the image on a small,
wall-mounted television in the rural town of Caimanera, a place particularly sensitive to the
activities of the US military as the Cuban town closest to the US Naval Base which occupies
Guantanamo Bay. Around me there is a wave of collective horror, relief and anticipation. The
child is Cuban: he is Elián González and the story of the struggle over his custody has become
big international news over the previous months. On one level, this is just a tragic tale of a
divided family, a distressing maternal death, a traumatised boy and a complex custody battle. But
if ever there was a story that proved that the personal is political, this is it. Within the United
States, the battle over Elián González was to lose sympathy for Cuban exile groups; around the
world it galvanised international support for Cuba, and on the island it snowballed into a
nationwide, redemptive Battle of Ideas, which came to define the post-2000 era, and was
characterised by the programmes for young social workers and teachers examined in this chapter.
Cuba’s revolutionary people had survived into the post-Soviet world, but the vision of
social justice and equity had been warped with the economic reforms reluctantly introduced.
Fidel Castro launched the Battle of Ideas to reconsolidate socialist principles and redefine
‘progress’ in revolutionary Cuba. Progress was not economic liberalisation, but its retraction.
Progress was strengthening state control over the economy, de-dollarisation and government
programmes to reduce socioeconomic inequalities. Progress was to reduce private investment
from capitalist corporations in favour of bilateral projects with fraternal states such as China and
Venezuela. It was opposing neoliberal free trade by creating an alternative trade and cooperation
bloc within the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA).
The Battle of Ideas invoked a return to Che Guevara’s concept that education and culture
are essential to create commitment to socialism, but that these remain abstract if the standard of
living does not alleviate daily concerns for survival. Material improvements should not be
achieved by promoting market exchanges and encouraging private enterprise, but by central
planning, state control over finances and state investment in skills training and education,
fostering industry, exploiting endogenous resources and investing in research and development.1
The Battle of Ideas cultivated new revolutionary protagonists, drawn from the youngest,
poorest and most racially diverse sections of Cuban society, and incorporated them into a
‘Citizens’ Army’ to combat the Revolution’s enemies within (the ‘new rich’) and without
(imperialism). It bore Cubans through the perilous era of the United States Bush presidency, with
its wars and occupations, threats and impositions (see Chapter 7). Having ditched the business
suit for his guerrilla uniform, Fidel Castro was back at the helm and this era bears his stamp. In
response to internal pressure from Oswaldo Paya’s Christian Liberation Movement and external
aggression from the Bush administration, in June 2002 8 million people, almost the entire
electorate, approved a constitutional modification that made the socialist system irrevocable.2
The mass, voluntary mobilisation of this period was reminiscent of the revolutionary fervour of
the early 1960s. The story of how and why the battle for Elián González became the Battle of
Ideas is told in this chapter.

THE BATTLE FOR ELIÁN GONZÁLEZ

Elián González was five years old on 22 November 1999 when his mother, Elizabeth Brotons
Rodríguez, took him on an aluminium fishing boat with a faulty engine, setting out at 4 a.m., in a
bid to reach the United States. They left from their home town, Cardenas, in Matanzas province,
two hour’s drive east from Havana. Elizabeth’s boyfriend and a dozen others were on board.3 It
was a perilous journey that tens of thousands of Cubans had risked, and an unknown number had
not survived. After two days the engine failed, a storm raged and the boat filled with water. Elián
was placed in a truck inner tube for safety and drifted out at sea, being rescued on 25 November
by two US fishermen, who handed him over to the US Coastguard.4 Only two other passengers
survived; his mother and her boyfriend were not among them.
Elián’s parents were divorced and his father, Juan Miguel González Quintana, was
remarried with a new baby boy, but still cared for Elián. Discovering that his ex-wife had taken
his son, without his knowledge, Juan Miguel alerted his uncle in Miami, Lázaro González. The
United States law known as ‘wet-foot, dry-foot’ stipulated that Cubans found at sea (with ‘wet
feet’) must be repatriated but those who made it to shore, or crossed the Mexican border (with
‘dry feet’), were granted US residency. Elián and the other survivors should have been sent back
to Cuba. Instead, after a day in hospital, US authorities handed him over to Lázaro González in
Miami. Against his father’s wishes, and backed up by the powerful Cuban American National
Foundation (CANF), Cuban-American politicians and the right-wing Miami exile-community,
Elián’s great-uncle declared that he should stay in the United States.5
On 27 November, Juan Miguel faxed Cuba’s Foreign Minister requesting help to return his
son.6 He had every right: international law decrees that a child is the charge of their parents. The
Ministry immediately contacted the US Interest Section in Havana (the substitute for an
Embassy) stating that the father of the little boy found at sea was demanding his immediate
return. The next day, the Union of Young Communists (UJC) daily newspaper Juventud Rebelde
reported on Elián’s ‘kidnapping’, calling it ‘a new crime by the United States against the Cuban
people’.7 It blamed the deaths of migrating Cubans on the US Cuban Adjustment Act, which
encourages illegal emigration from Cuba.8
Juan Miguel, who was a member of the Cuban Communist Party (CCP), turned down bribes
offered via his Miami family to emigrate to the United States to be reunited with his son.9 On 29
November he told Fidel Castro that he would neither travel to the United States nor negotiate,
nor would he agree to discuss his rights over the child’s future in the corrupt courts of Miami.10
On 4 December Fidel Castro publicly stated that if the US administration did not return the boy
within 72 hours, Cuba would launch a campaign for Elián’s return.11 When the deadline passed,
the Cubans prepared for battle.
‘I had the privilege of participating in this process from the very beginning,’ said Hassan
Pérez who was President of the Cuban Federation of University Students (FEU) at that time.12 ‘I
already knew about the Elián issue,’ Pérez told me in the crumbling grandeur of the University
of Havana where he now lectures. At dawn on 4 December, Pérez arrived in Havana with the
Cuban delegation returning from Seattle, where 400,000 demonstrators had mobilised outside the
World Trade Organization’s conference.13 ‘During the reception, Fidel said that the United
States had an obligation to return Elián immediately, based on the rights of his family, or Cuba
was going to start a great battle for his freedom, a battle in the field of ideas.’
The next day, 1,600 Cuban Youth Technical Brigade members meeting in the capital’s
Convention Palace carried out an impromptu march to the US Interests Section on the Malecon,
the sea-wall in Havana, and held an open rally (tribuna abierta) to demand Elián’s return to his
father in Cuba.14 ‘And that’s when the rallies began,’ explained Pérez. On 6 December, while
Fidel Castro visited Elián’s school in Cardenas where his peers were marking his sixth birthday
in his absence, another rally outside the US Interest Section was attended by 20,000 Havana
youth and students. Rallies over the subsequent two days mobilised 40,000 and 50,000 young
Cubans respectively. On 9 December, a 300,000-strong march was held by the organisations of
Pioneers (7- to 14-year-olds), High School students (FEEM) and FEU. The ball was rolling. On
10 December, 2.2 million Cubans participated in rallies organised with staggered start times and
televised live in 15 cities and towns around the country, from Guantanamo to Pinar del Rio.15
Millions of T-shirts and placards were printed with the face of Elián; the little boy became the
face of a revolutionary nation as it changed gears from ‘resisting’ to ‘insisting’. International
solidarity activists carted box loads of the T-shirts back to their own countries where they
demonstrated for Elián’s return to Cuba.16
Between 5 December 1999 and 28 June 2000, when Elián finally returned to the island, 106
open rallies were organised in municipalities across the country, from small towns to provincial
capitals. The events were essentially cultural acts, almost celebrations, interwoven with a
political message. The live national broadcasts strengthened both the sense of collective identity,
‘Cubanidad’, and local pride, shining a national spotlight on local talent and traditions; artists
and performers, dance troops, singers and musicians, many of them children. There was even a
resurgence in ‘repentism’, a rural tradition of public improvisation to music.17 Eleven huge
marches were held in those seven months, as well as 84 Mesa Redondas (round tables), a new
format of daily live televised discussions which took over prime time Cuban TV.18
Elián’s image also saturated US television: showered in toys, paraded round Disney World,
meeting with US politicians and the Cuban-American exile powerbrokers.19 Those images were
broadcast on Cuban state TV. ‘There was so much aggressive media around Elián that many of
us worried what the psychological and pedagogic impact of all this would have on him,’
explained Kenia Serrano, then a leading member of the UJC, who chaired a Mesa Redonda on
this issue in January 2000.20
The battle for Elián took on huge political significance in Cuba. It was translated as a battle
for sovereignty and an ideological battle, pitting the consumerism of Elián’s Miami experience
against a poor socialist country where childhood is not commodified and every child has access
to free education, health care, culture and sport. Led by Cuban youth organisations, the campaign
to demand Elián’s return involved all sectors of Cuban society: artists, intellectuals, workers and
athletes. Such extensive popular engagement raised the stakes for the Cuban leadership. After the
demoralising trudge through the Special Period in the 1990s, the battle for Elián reignited a spark
among the Cuban people. The revolution could not afford to lose. And for once they had
majority support in international opinion.21
In the United States, meanwhile, the case produced an institutional power struggle pitting
Washington against Miami. This conflict was exacerbated by the pending US presidential
elections in which the votes of the Miami Cuban exile community were decisive for the national
result. The Bush family had close ties to powerful Cuban exiles, links which were cultivated as
Jeb Bush took over as Governor of Florida in January 1999 and George W. Bush announced he
would run for president in summer 2000.22
First, on 1 December 1999 the US Immigration and Naturalisation Services (INS) stated
that Elián’s father must present his custody claim at the family court in Florida. Then, on 5
January 2000, after interviewing Juan Miguel in Cuba, INS officials announced that he was the
biological father and legal custodian of Elián. President Bill Clinton and Attorney General Janet
Reno agreed with the INS. But five days later a Miami judge completely undermined the
decision, granting guardianship of Elián to his great uncle Lázaro. Later that month, Reno met
with Elián’s grandparents, who US authorities had permitted to travel from Cuba. They were
able to see him briefly just once, but their visit galvanised public opinion in favour of Cuba’s
claim.
INS authority was further undermined in mid-February when one of its senior officials,
Mariano Faget, was accused of spying for the Cuban government after being fed false
information unrelated to Elián, and a Cuban diplomat, who had been instructed to leave the
United States after also being accused of spying, announced a hunger strike, was arrested by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and deported to Canada.23 An exasperated Juan Miguel
wrote to Reno: ‘It is really surprising that all the authority of INS is reduced, apparently, to
depending on the good will of the kidnappers.’24 By late March 2000, the case had reached a
legal and political stalemate in the United States. Hoping to win those decisive Florida votes, the
Democrat presidential candidate, Vice President Al Gore, broke with the White House to say
Elián should stay.25 A Florida judge dismissed a petition for asylum made on Elián’s behalf by
his Miami-based relatives, who vowed to appeal, while a Miami-Dade county mayor and other
civic leaders announced that local authorities would not cooperate with Federal agencies to
repatriate Elián. Janet Reno declared that Elián was authorised to return to Cuba, and that his
father could speak for him. INS warned the Miami family to expedite the appeal process or lose
custody of Elián. Meanwhile, the claim that Fidel Castro was too scared of Juan Miguel
defecting to let him travel to the United States was tested when Juan Miguel flew there with his
wife and baby boy on 6 April. He did not defect, despite allegedly being offered USD 2 million
in front of his lawyer. By then, 80 per cent of the US public believed Elián should be returned to
his father.
The Justice Department ordered Lázaro to reunite Elián with his father at 2 p.m. in Miami
airport on 13 April 2000. The deadline came and went, and Lázaro’s formal custody over Elián
was withdrawn. Six days later, an Atlanta Court of Appeals ruled that Elián must stay in the
United States until his Miami relatives had appealed the asylum ruling, in May. Lázaro’s house
where Elián resided was surrounded by an international media circus, police and Cuban-
Americans, including armed and criminal elements, ‘protecting’ Elián from Federal forces.26
Finally, at dawn on 22 April, 130 heavily armed officers surrounded and stormed the house to
remove Elián. Associated Press photographer Alan Díaz snapped his Pulitzer prizewinning photo
mentioned at the start of this chapter.27 Within four hours, Elián was reunited with his father,
step-mother and half-brother. A new image hit the front page of Time Magazine; Elián was
smiling joyfully in the arms of his father. It was the same boy with a very different face.28
Elián was stuck in the United States for two months, while the Miami family exhausted
their legal processes. He was joined by his cousin, his pre-school teacher, four classmates with
their parents, and a doctor who travelled from Cuba. They set up a mini-school so Elián could
catch up with his studies and reintegrate with his peers.
Back in Cuba, the marches, rallies and the Mesa Redonda programmes continued. A
permanent assembly space, named the ‘anti-imperialist tribunal’, was constructed outside the US
Interest Section in Havana, with a statue of Cuban national independence hero, José Martí,
clasping a child protectively and pointing an accusing finger towards the US building. The space
was filled with 200,000 Cuban Pioneers who marched there on 22 June. Finally, on 28 June, the
US Supreme Court rejected a further appeal from Lázaro, and Elián was free to go. As Elián’s
flight was in the air, the Cuban people were informed, via television, that there would be no
official statement or public mobilisation.29 Hours later, Elián was received at the airport by a
crowd of his family, school peers and teachers chanting his name and waving small Cuban flags.
Elián was not to be a war trophy, declared Fidel Castro, who did not meet him until the end of
the school year two weeks later when he visited Elián’s home in Cardenas, gifting him a book of
children’s stories by José Martí.30
Inspired by Juan Miguel’s loyalty to the Revolution and the symbolism of the embattled
child, the Battle for Elián had seen a return to the mass mobilisations reminiscent of the early
1960s. US journalist, Ann Louise Bardach claimed that, by the time she got to Cuba in February
2000, ‘Elián fatigue’ was a nationwide epidemic.31 Having arrived in Cuba two months later, in
April 2000, I cannot agree. Young Cubans I knew, who had previously been disengaged, had
rediscovered their militancy and spoke with urgency about the need to mobilise, to demand
justice, as if Elián’s plight was a metaphor for the history of Cuba’s subjugation by the United
States. That momentum had to be maintained.

FROM THE BATTLE FOR ELIÁN TO THE BATTLE OF IDEAS

Against the backdrop of mass mobilisations and public denunciations, Elián’s case spurred a
self-critical evaluation of the deep socioeconomic scars left on Cuban society by the Special
Period, and of the structural problems inherited from a colonialised society and not yet resolved.
There were two precursors to this awareness. First, a high-profile conference of the Union of
Cuban Writers and Artists in 1998, attended by Fidel Castro, which warned against ‘cultural
invasion’ and called for action to raise cultural levels and re-democratise access to culture.32
Second, a study the following year of 500 youth prisoners in Havana, most of whom were found
to have low educational levels and be from ‘socially disadvantaged families’ from the city’s
poorest neighbourhoods, revealed that 58 per cent had committed their first crime by the age of
20, only 2 per cent had parents who were university graduates, and 64 per cent had abandoned
their studies and were not working when sentenced.33 The existence of social inequality was
officially recognised. For the first time in many years the term ‘poverty’ was used in Cuban
political discourse, and it was by Fidel Castro, who insisted that as most crime has social causes
it is avoidable.34 ‘Building a new society is much harder than it might appear,’ he told Ignacio
Ramonet, explaining how pre-revolutionary class and racial privilege was unwittingly
perpetuated by the merit-based education system post 1959. ‘The parents’ educational level, even
after we’ve made the Revolution, continues to have a tremendous influence on the children’s
later outcomes,’ he said.35 This conclusion pinpointed education and culture as mechanisms for
obstructing inherited privilege in revolutionary Cuba.
At the outset of the campaign for Elián’s return, Fidel Castro convened a group of youth
leaders, from the UJC and the FEU, including Hassan Pérez, Kenia Serrano and Enrique Gómez,
who were interviewed for this chapter, to address these problems at their roots. Why would a
Cuban mother risk the life of her young child to get to the United States? Clearly, the pull factor
was the US Cuban Adjustment Act, which gave Cubans permanent residency within one year of
arriving in the world’s wealthiest nation. But what were the push factors? What were the
conditions in those poor barrios, in the homes and schools? What resources were lacking?
Did Fidel Castro forge this select group of youth leaders to bypass existing institutions he
saw as deficient or bureaucratic, I asked them. Pérez replied, ‘Fidel worked as he had in the
guerrilla struggle: general command, advance, add, multiply and integrate. But he never
disregarded the institutions; on the contrary, he was aware that it was the existing structures
which had to carry out the tasks.’ Serrano described the group around Fidel Castro as
‘reinforcement for his leadership style and methods’ and concluded ‘evidently it was a catalyst to
solving problems’.36 ‘While Ministries work from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.,’ Pérez pointed out, ‘the
youth organisations could work around the clock.’37 Fidel Castro understood that the existence
of a nomenklatura, a bureaucratic caste, had corrupted the Soviet Union and was the subject of
justifiable grievances and he sought to harness the energy and creativity of Cuban youth leaders
to prevent this happening on the island.
Traditionally Cuban university students dedicate two weeks of their summer vacation to
social or productive projects. In summer 2000 in Havana their contribution was organised
through newly established University Social Worker Brigades (Brigadas Universitarias de
Trabajo Social, or BUTS). Their task was to investigate how many young people were outside
work and employment in the Municipality of Plaza in central Havana and identify the causes of
youth unemployment. The BUTS study encountered thousands of young people who had
completed pre-university exams, in the twelfth grade, but not secured a university place.38 Cuban
university entrance exams were demanding, competition was tough and university places had
fallen dramatically during the Special Period.
As First Secretary of the UJC in Havana at that time, Gómez told me how strongly Fidel
Castro criticised the UJC cadre for their lack of information about, or engagement with, young
people who were not in work or study. ‘Fidel complained that the Ministry of Work had no
record of these youth and the Ministry of Education said they are in schools!’39
For a year, BUTS ‘shock brigades’ investigated the socioeconomic reality of Cuban
individuals. ‘It was a fabulous thing,’ Pérez recalled. ‘Every weekend, 6,000 students from all
the universities in Havana City participated. With the Comandante we designed a programme to
visit, for example, 75,000 children who we had detected as living in vulnerable conditions.’ He
described how their findings led to ‘an explosion of work in many fields’, generating some 200
‘programmes of the Revolution’ under the umbrella of the Battle of Ideas. Most were designed to
engage Cuban youth in revolutionary society. By 2000, around 300,000 young people, up to 20
per cent of the youth population, were ‘disconnected’, that is, outside work or study. They either
operated in the informal sector, hustled or hung around bored.40 However, programmes were
extended to all vulnerable or disadvantaged sections of society, spanning the fields of education,
health, culture, employment and prisons.

YOUTH SOCIAL WORKERS

If the intensity and breadth of social work was to continue, a more professional structure was
needed. But how to achieve this without losing the energy and exuberance of an organised youth
force such as BUTS? The approach adopted attempted to transform ‘disconnected’ young people
from the problem into the solution by training them as social workers to work in their own
communities. A social worker school was established in Cojimar, Havana, and, in September
2000, 650 students who had just completed twelfth grade were enrolled. The first course lasted
one semester. In early 2001 it was repeated, but this time the students were recruited from among
‘disconnected’ teenagers, not recent school graduates.41
From September 2001, enrolment rose to 7,000 with the opening of three new social worker
schools, attached to local universities, in Villa Clara, in central Cuba, and Holguin and Santiago
in the east. The course now lasted ten months, with a curriculum incorporating elements of law,
psychology, sociology and social communication. Social workers in Cuba had no previous
experience of professional education.42 There were social workers within the Ministry of Public
Health, some 4,000 mainly working in psychiatric services, and 800 more within the Ministry of
Work and Social Security. The latter were incorporated into the new social worker programmes,
while the former were left in the healthcare sector but, like the new social work graduates, were
given the chance to study at university level.43
Social work was not an easy option. Initially, students boarded at the school, rising at 6 a.m.
for classes from 7 a.m., followed by guided activities until 10 p.m., with practical work in the
community on Saturdays. On graduation they were guaranteed 400 pesos monthly, a
comparatively good wage for a young person, were exempt from military service and could
study for a university degree, choosing from 22 courses, without having to pass the competitive
entrance exam. That meant combining a full-time social work job with university studies for a
minimum of six years.44 For those enrolling as social workers, access to a university course was
a principle motivation, given the valued status of higher education in Cuba. Above all, it gave
young people a revolutionary responsibility reminiscent of the youth who participated in the
literacy brigades of 1961, or the volunteers who fought in Angola against the invading army of
apartheid South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s.
Gómez categorises the social work training programme into three stages: 2000–2003,
investigating and relaying information to the state about the socioeconomic problems detected;
2004–2008, carrying out tasks designed by the programme; and 2008–2011, developing a
professional practice.45 The social workers began by visiting over 6,500 ‘disconnected’ under-
21-year-olds in Havana to enquire about their situations, with the ultimate aim of keeping them
out of prison. Mirroring the young prisoners studied before, many of these youths had left
education during or on completing secondary school. Only 2.5 per cent had professional parents,
69 per cent had families in ‘unfavourable social situations’, 37.8 per cent lived in ‘marginal’
neighbourhoods, 263 had already been to prison and 165 were prisoners.46 Given the
deterioration in the value of Cuban salaries during the Special Period, instead of registering in
Cuba’s employment offices they had sought incomes through the informal sector or illegal
activities. Importantly, however, 80 per cent of them said they would like to return to study, or
enter employment.
Armed with this information, the revolutionary leadership sought to tackle the problem.
Again harking back to the 1960s, study was offered as an employment option for disconnected
youth.47 A new Comprehensive Improvement Course was established nationwide from 1
October 2001, with students paid to study computer science, English, geography, history and
mathematics in three-hour classes, four times a week. ‘The goal is for these young people to
acquire knowledge and culture’ explained an information leaflet, ‘to have the opportunity for
upgrading, study, social integration and participation in production or the provision of
services.’48 In the first academic year, almost 74,500 young people aged between 17 and 29 were
enrolled in 333 schools with 4,812 instructors – about 15 students per teacher. Almost two-thirds
of the students were young women and one-quarter had children.49
From March 2001, the first group of social work graduates continued the investigation
started by BUTS, visiting 197,282 under-15-year-olds in Havana. Material conditions were
found to be ‘critical’ in 898 homes with 1,520 children. The social workers and university
students returned to those homes with financial and material aid delivered by the state. This
demonstrated to ordinary Cubans the state’s political will to address the problems of the most
vulnerable families on a case-by-case basis. Institutions were mobilised to tackle the causes of
these household’s deprivation by finding employment for parents, meeting educational needs and
granting social assistance, pensions and other help.50
Between March and December 2001, the social workers assumed a huge project: to measure
and weigh every Cuban child up to 15 years old. The point, Gómez said, was to go beyond the
numbers to alleviate the causes. He recalled Fidel Castro insisting:

I don’t need statistics, I need the name and surname, and the reason the child is
underweight. Who knows this? Who is looking after the child? I cannot sleep peacefully
and you tell me that it is 3 per cent, that it is 1 per cent, that it is low in this country; that we
have improved. No, no! Who is that child, what are the causes and what should be done?51

The social workers were assisted by members of the Cuban Communist Party (CCP), the Cuban
Women’s Federation (FMC), the Committees for the Defence of the Revolution (CDRs) and
government officials, and accompanied by nurses and technicians to recalibrate the weighing
equipment. ‘Everyone participated,’ said Gómez, who was by then leading the social worker plan
nationally, ‘the country mobilised.’52 Across the island, over 2.2 million children were weighed
and measured.53 Children found to be below the average scores were visited at home and their
family situation was evaluated to determine possible causes. Subsequently a programme of food
assistance was rolled out to 97,733 children and regular check-ups organised. The situation of
28,517 minors was described as critical, catalysing coordinated action from the institutions
caring for them.54
In 2001, over two weeks of the summer holiday, 5,000 BUTs and 1,000 university
professors set out to put a finger on the pulse of every home in Havana, how they lived and what
they thought. They were armed with an open survey addressing issues from health and education,
to the work of social organisations and the quality and uptake of television programmes. Later,
1,000 social workers completed the work in the homes not reached by the university students and
staff. For the state, this was an important means of feedback about the daily reality of people’s
lives, their problems and aspirations. It strengthened the Cuban leadership’s commitment to the
development of the social worker programme. ‘The results of the survey produced new
programmes which constituted a real revolution in the fields of education, health and culture,’
Gómez explained.55
New investigations were launched into the situation of the elderly and disabled people. In
2001, retirees and pensioners with the lowest incomes were assessed. In Havana this was led by
BUTS, but in the rest of the country it was implemented by social workers, coordinating with the
Ministry of Work and Social Security. The elderly had suffered the greatest deterioration of
living conditions during the economic contraction of the 1990s. The project raised awareness
nationally of the ageing population, and fostered new social policies. Pensions were increased,
physical rehabilitation services reanimated or expanded, food supplements extended, a
programme for ‘satisfactory longevity’ was set up by the Ministry of Public Health and the
University for the Elderly programme developed. Meanwhile, specialists devised a
comprehensive ‘Psychosocial, Pedagogic and Clinical-Genetic Study’ which they took on visits
to 366,864 people with major disabilities, of which 16,223 were evaluated as ‘critical social
cases’.56 Between summer 2001 and spring 2003 these cases were followed up and programmes
in health, medical genetics and ear implants were developed to assist them. Policies were devised
to incorporate disabled people into work, where feasible, including providing training, with local
formulas to implement support. Further investigations assessed the social and biological factors
affecting learning in children. Families were advised about hereditary diseases, and over 6,000
mothers were allocated a salary to provide full-time care for children with serious disabilities.57
The content of social work in this period was mainly limited to carrying out visits and
conducting surveys, tasks which Gómez describes as corresponding to a welfare and bureaucratic
conception of social work.58 The form was a mobilised youth force which intervened in
emergency situations to confront tasks prioritised by the revolutionary leadership, from opinion
surveys to mosquito eradication campaigns.
By 2004, 14,000 young people had trained as social workers. They began to design their
own tasks and programmes. Building on the 2001 experience of weighing and measuring under-
15-year-olds, a more comprehensive study of Cuba’s child population was initiated with
specialists from relevant ministries and institutions.59 Evaluating each child’s ‘bio-psycho-
social’ situation, they sought to identify anything, beyond nutrition, affecting normal
development. They considered school results, conduct, school relationships, family
communication with the school, family concern for the child, plus biological factors. All
2,143,995 under-15-year-olds in the country were assessed; nearly 250,000 of them, 11.7 per
cent, were identified as needing systematic attention and were assessed further. In this second
stage the context in which each of those children lived was analysed: 181,375 children, 8.5 per
cent of all Cuban children, were categorised as being in ‘at risk’ personal, family or social
situations. These cases were discussed with the relevant institutions, which adopted measures to
monitor their health status systematically. Some children in rural zones faced long journeys to
school which impeded their access and attendance. Consequently, micro-schools were founded,
with teachers travelling daily to teach a handful of children and, in several cases, a single pupil.
With the Ministry of Work, the social workers evaluated the country’s employment
situation, categorising informal employments and their territorial specificity. They identified
shortcomings in work centres’ efforts to recruit recent graduates of technical courses and
universities, those leaving compulsory military service, people with criminal records on parole,
and other unemployed adults up to the retirement age. They reviewed the System for Family
Care, guaranteeing food to people with low incomes, the construction of social housing, care for
patients with low-prevalence diseases, and so on. A study into households struggling to meet
their survival needs identified 43,480 family units in a ‘critical state’, and programmes of
assistance were designed with resources centrally approved.
Two significant aspects to these social worker programmes were, first, that with a return to
economic growth, resources had become available to provide material assistance, and, second,
that moving beyond the established principle of universal access, they incorporated the concept
of personalised and differentiated provision based on need.60 Given the ongoing scarcity of
resources, explained José Luis Rodríguez, who was then Minister of the Economy, these
programmes sought the highest economic and social outcomes possible at the lowest cost.61
As the Cuban economy continued its recovery, a series of regulations introduced from 2003
recentralised the country’s financial resources, providing the state with funds for investment and
social expenditure and enhanced government control of finances and monetary policy in general.
Internal motives included the lack of financial discipline in self-financing enterprises, which
failed to resolve the country’s foreign-exchange constraints, and the threat of an energy crisis in
2004 as Cuba’s ageing power stations fell into disrepair (see Chapter 4). ‘The situation required
massive hard-currency investments to rebuild the power grid,’ explained Rodríguez.62 The
external motive was aggressive action by President Bush’s administration to halt hard currency
revenues to Cuba discussed in Chapter 7.
In 2003, the number of Cuban enterprises authorised to operate with US dollars was
reduced and US dollar payments between Cuban enterprises were replaced by payments in
Cuban convertible pesos (CUC), a currency pegged to the US dollar but printed and controlled
by Cuba’s Central Bank since 1994. Enterprises had to swap the convertible peso for US dollars
or other convertible currencies held by the Central Bank to pay for imports, thus recentralising
control of this activity. US cents were removed from domestic circulation and replaced by CUC
coins. From November 2004, the US dollar was no longer accepted in domestic commerce. ‘De-
dollarisation’ had become an imperative after the Bush administration set up the Cuban Assets
Targeting Group to stop US dollar flows into and out of Cuba. In the three weeks Cubans were
given to swap their US dollars for CUCs, the sum deposited in the island’s banks was greater
than deposits over the previous ten years. CUCs were now the only convertible currency
accepted in Cuba’s ‘dollar shops’.63 In December 2004, Resolution 92 centralised all foreign
currency transactions in the Central Bank, introducing a degree of financial centralisation not
seen since the early 1960s.
 Also in December 2004, Venezuela and Cuba accelerated the exchange of medical and
educational services for oil and together launched the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas
(ALBA). This provided Cuba with an alternative export strategy that was consistent with its
socialist principles, reaped the benefits of the Revolution’s welfare-based development strategy
and was not obstructed by the US blockade. The number of smaller private foreign investors in
Cuba was cut, so mixed enterprises decreased by 41 per cent from 2002 to 2006. Meanwhile, the
government consolidated large investments in major infrastructural and development projects in
strategic sectors such as mining and energy, establishing joint ventures with state companies
from fraternal countries, Venezuela and China. The result was to limit the sphere of operation of
capitalist mechanisms, introduced via foreign capital, diminishing their impact on Cubans as
producers and consumers, whilst simultaneously strengthening the state’s economic resources
based on higher value-generating activities, for example in nickel and oil production.
Debt repayment agreements were reached with several governments, facilitating Cuba’s
access to new investment capital. Cuba’s current account and balance of payments were positive
in 2004 and 2005. GDP grew an average 8.1 per cent between 2002 and 2007, peaking at 11.2
per cent in 2005 and 12.1 per cent in 2006. Significantly, the proportion of Cuba’s international
trade carried out with Latin America rose from 5 per cent in 1989 to 35 per cent in 2006.64 This
economic boost facilitated the scale of imports and state subsidies required by the Energy
Revolution, in which the social workers played a key role.

SOCIAL WORKERS IN THE ENERGY REVOLUTION

The Energy Revolution was a major state initiative to improve energy security and energy
efficiency through the installation of new power generators, increased use of renewable energies,
progressive electricity tariffs and the replacement of old durable goods with energy-saving
equipment (see Chapter 4). This last aspect was carried out by some 13,000 social workers. For
most Cubans the first indication of the Energy Revolution was in July 2005, when social workers
arrived at their door with backpacks of energy-saving fluorescent light bulbs, which they
delivered and installed for free. They took away every incandescent light bulb.65 Within just six
months, 9.4 million light bulbs had been replaced, making Cuba the first country in the world to
complete the switch.66 During these visits, the social workers made inventories of the ageing and
inefficient electrical equipment in every household. Next, they returned with new, more efficient
household appliances imported from China. From fridges to televisions and rice cookers, some
30 million electronic items were distributed house by house.67
The social worker programme had been created to address the deprivation and
marginalisation of the revolutionary population as it emerged from the Special Period. But the
flip side of this post-Soviet period was the emergence of a ‘new rich’ who benefited from access
to dollars or hard currency, via tourists, remittances, illegal activities or joint ventures with
foreign companies. A certain proportion of the population benefited from the free welfare and
education provision without contributing back to society. Fidel Castro referred to ‘several dozens
of thousands of parasites who produce nothing’. Low salaries and scarce material goods
generated widespread pilfering of state resources. This problem had always existed under
socialism, as Fidel Castro pointed out, ‘Don’t think for a moment that stealing resources and
materials is just a present-day illness . . . The Special Period aggravated it, because in this period
we saw the growth of much inequality and certain people were able to accumulate a lot of
money.’ He sought to confront this reality through the Battle of Ideas: ‘We invite everyone to
take part in a great battle . . . against larceny, against all types of theft, anywhere in the world.’68
Most social workers came from non-professional families and 72 per cent of them were
women. Gómez explains how they became immersed in the battle over energy resources, pitted
against the ‘new rich’ and ‘parasites’ whom Fidel Castro perceived as an existential threat to the
Revolution. Cuba’s oil supply was running low and, in the context of the war and occupation in
Iraq, international oil prices were rising. ‘Cuba was in danger of electricity blackouts again, the
Guiteras thermoelectric plant was broken and we couldn’t get spare parts,’ explained Gómez.69 It
was vital to avoid a return to the blackouts of the 1990s.
Fidel Castro devised a plan to tackle what he called, ‘the dirty little crooks selling [stolen]
gasoline to the new rich’. It required the element of surprise. First, 150 social workers gathered
in a school around an old fuel pump and were given a few minutes each to practice operating it.
‘They were motivated,’ explained Gómez, ‘because they knew it was an important task, but they
did not know what they were going to do.’70 Then, at dawn on 10 October 2005, Fidel Castro
met with the social workers and explained their role, before they boarded buses that took them
straight to the petrol stations in Pinar del Rio province, two hours’ drive west of Havana. They
were joined by local government officials and members of the CCP, mobilised at the last minute.
It was a national holiday, so the regular petrol station attendants had been given the day off; the
social workers took over the pumps.71 The result? Fuel sales doubled in one day – evidence that
half of the petrol supply was being stolen by the regular attendants. This programme was
extended across the island. Fidel Castro announced: ‘We started in Pinar del Rio to ascertain
what was happening in the gas stations that sell gas in dollars. We soon discovered that there was
as much gas being stolen as sold.’72 The action was not a deterrent, however; more fuel was
subsequently stolen from pumps in other provinces as ‘people took advantage down to the last
minute before the social workers arrived’.73 By 5 December social workers were operating every
petrol station on the island.
Next, social workers were sent to refineries to accompany fuel distribution trucks. The
results were rapid and tangible. Fidel Castro described how the social workers ‘get on board the
trucks that carry 20,000 or 30,000 litres [of petrol] and they watch, more or less, where that truck
goes, and how much of the oil is rerouted. They have discovered private gas stations, supplied
with oil from these trucks.’ Gómez explains that the outdated technology and lack of control over
the fuel distribution system made stealing from the state easy. In the midst of the economic
crisis, every institution had created their own petrol stations, lacking standardisation or security.
‘In one agricultural area in Pinar del Rio, fuel was distributed in boots – rubber wellies! It was
not litres, or anything like that, but boots of fuel.’74
For ten months, more than 10,400 social workers worked full time at petrol stations located
outside their own provinces, rotated regularly to avoid them being corrupted by local ‘crooks’.
This was not real social work, Gómez admitted, but it was decisive social action. ‘The social
workers were an organised youth force and this was an important task for the country. It was an
emergency situation, and it was tackled within one year because with the extra revenue collected,
the state imported the digital technology necessary to ensure greater control in all the service
centres.’75 By then, Fidel Castro had become ill, but the social worker programme carried on.
In the 2008–2011 period, the social workers promoted solutions based on community self-
development, which, as Gómez pointed out, ‘constitutes an alternative to the paternalistic and
top-down concept that had prevailed’.76 Postgraduate training for professional social work was
developed; over 2,200 social workers enrolled on five postgraduate courses, with vocational
courses in every municipality. In 2011, a new investigation into the situation of cohabitation in
Cuban families had evaluated 3,071,987 homes, 85 per cent of all the homes in Cuba.
Problematic situations requiring attention were registered in 530,014 households, 17.3 per cent
of the total family units visited. The main problems were alcoholism, ‘unsociable behaviours’,
difficulties in educating children, lack of care for the most vulnerable family members, and
domestic violence.77 Importantly, 85,018 families (2.8 per cent of the total) were identified as
vulnerable to the economic reform process initiated since 2008 under Raúl Castro’s presidency,
with the reduction of staff payrolls, elimination of free provisions and the fall in subsidies. This
finding contributed to the pushback against the ‘economism’ of the reforms (see Chapter 9), and
for a greater balance between the drive for economic efficiency and the need for social justice.
By 2011, 43,000 young people had qualified as social workers: ‘a mass of youth and
women’ and a high proportion of them non-white. Many young women dropped out as they
became mothers, while others left as the professional demands increased. Some fell in love with
the profession, said Gómez, but others were not interested: they had entered the programme for
the university degree. Nonetheless, some 35,000 social workers were professionally active from
2006 to 2009, 1 for every 320 inhabitants. Then, suddenly, in September 2011 the entire
programme was ended by government decree. Just 8,000 social workers formed under the Battle
of Ideas passed over to the Ministry of Work, the rest were found employment in other areas.78
What has Gómez to say about rumours that the social worker programme was ended
because the young recruits had become corrupted? He pointed out that these young people are
shaped by daily social realities and adds that only around 100 social workers faced disciplinary
measures for corruption of any sort. This does not detract, he said, from the value of the general
conduct of the social workers and the tasks they carried out. ‘They were young people, who had
material needs, handling resources with a high market value.’ As an illustration he recounted the
story of a teenage social worker tasked with accompanying an oil truck. The young man had a
difficult situation at home and the truck driver began to help him out, bought him lunch, gave
him rice to take home and so on. But it was manipulative, not caring. When the driver stole fuel,
the social worker felt indebted to him and thus unable to report it. He hid from the driver to avoid
accompanying him again. When the authorities found out, the social worker was not punished:
he was removed from the programme, although permitted to continue his studies. The driver, on
the other hand, faced a tough prison sentence for corrupting a state official, as well as for theft.
Other examples involved social workers prioritising their own friends and families with the
distribution of electro-domestic equipment. Gomez reflected that:

Most interesting is the trust that the revolutionary process had in these disconnected youths
to become better people. The Revolution had the capacity to mobilise young people who
were not elites, youths who were often in the barrios without studying or working, to carry
out fundamental tasks, to contribute to the construction of society. That must have marked
them as a generation. The importance of that process was not just the actions carried out,
but who the protagonists were.79

The social workers were a large part of Fidel Castro’s Citizens’ Army in the Battle of Ideas. But
there were other groups of youths mobilised with different tasks, among them thousands of
teenagers recruited as teachers and known as Maestros Emergentes, which can be translated as
either ‘emergent’ or ‘emergency’ teachers. In this case, both translations are appropriate.80

EDUCATION REVOLUTION

The Elián González case led Fidel Castro and the youth leaders working with him to interrogate
the state of the island’s schools, as well as Cuban homes and neighbourhoods. Serrano said, ‘We
asked ourselves about the ability of the Cuban educational system to reinsert Elián quickly at the
social level when he returned.’81 Cuban schools had deteriorated over the Special Period.
Thousands of teachers had left the profession seeking better incomes in tourism, self-
employment or other jobs. Those who remained were overstretched and underpaid, classrooms
were overcrowded, school libraries emptied, resources and materials depleted and buildings
falling apart. ‘UJC cadre went to visit the homes of all the teachers in the capital,’ recalled
Gómez, ‘to identify which neighbourhoods they lived in, how they lived, how many students
they had.’ In Havana, classes had swelled to 35 or 40 students. With reference to the 1999
investigation into youth prisoners, Fidel Castro began to speak about ‘student number 40’ as a
candidate for prison. ‘The teacher was worn out and lacked the energy and ability to give
differentiated attention to 40 students, especially those who had most difficulties,’ he surmised.82
The education system clearly needed revitalising. Thus the Battle of Ideas incorporated a
revolution in education.
No primary school teacher should have more than 20 students, it was concluded, and no
secondary school teacher more than 15 students.83 This would strengthen relations between
teacher and student and, through regular home visits, the student’s family. But where would the
extra teachers come from? The answer was the Emergent Teacher Training Plan.

EMERGENT TEACHERS

For primary schools the emergent teachers were 16- and 17-year-olds who had dropped out of
school after completing tenth or eleventh grade. They enrolled on an eight-month intensive
training course, followed by two months working in a school in their own neighbourhood,
alongside a mentor. The following academic year, they entered the classroom as teachers
responsible for 20 children. They wore their own school uniform, as they were simultaneously
finishing their secondary education on Saturdays. They signed up to work as teachers for eight
years. Like the social workers, once they had completed pre-university studies they could
continue on to university degrees with exemption from the difficult entrance exams.84 Demands
on the emergent teachers were even greater than on the social workers. The teenage teachers
arrived at school around 7.30 a.m. to teach a full timetable, supervising children at breaks,
completing their preparation and marking at home, attending schools on Saturdays or evening
university courses, attending teacher training methodology classes, and carrying out home visits
to each of their 20 pupils at least once a month.85 By January 2002, over 5,500 16- and 17-year-
olds were training as ‘emergent’ teachers for primary schools.
Emergent teachers for secondary schools were called Comprehensive General Teachers.
They often left their home province to teach students aged 12 to 15 years, only a few years
younger than themselves. Over 6,500 of them trained alongside 41,200 existing teachers being
retrained to fit the new scheme, although existing professionals could opt out of the new system,
becoming mentors to the new young teachers instead.86
 Secondary schools at that time had a specialist teacher for each subject; each student had 11
teachers, and each teacher had 100 students. However, Gómez explained, Fidel Castro began to
argue that, as secondary school was, for young people, the age when they were drawn towards
drugs and crime, they needed more than just a teacher: they needed a ‘perceptor’, a mentor, an
educator in the full sense. He proposed the Plan for Comprehensive Teachers in Secondary
Basic, which transformed Cuban schools. Under the new system, students had one teacher who
knew them and their family well. Specialist classes were delivered by experts via the television,
so all Cuban students would have access to the best teachers on each topic. These ‘audio-visual
classes’ were pre-recorded. The class teacher then ‘leads and accompanies the student in that
learning process’.87 The school day was extended from half day sessions, which left students
hanging around, to a ‘double session’, with additional hours of computing and language training.
The Plan faced resistance from the Ministry of Education, explained Gómez. ‘Fidel met with
education officials, he went to schools, he debated with teachers, he went on television. He
battled to defend these programmes.’ Ultimately, Gómez said, ‘when there was a debate Fidel
Castro had the most authoritative voice’.88 The Plan was implemented.
Three additional requirements for the implementation of this Plan led to additional
programmes under the Battle of Ideas. First, the need to repair school facilities and construct
additional classrooms. The School Repair Plan was launched in Havana where schools were in
the most critical condition and population density put extra pressure on facilities. State entities
mobilised materials and human resources, while teachers and parents contributed voluntary
labour over the summer holidays. In summer 2002, 799 schools were repaired with 30,000
builders on the job.89 By the end of the year, 33 new schools had been built and 4,453 new
classrooms.
Second, the need to install televisions, video players and computers in every classroom,
requiring huge imports of equipment: 45,000 computers were installed in school computer labs
in every primary school and nursery to teach computer skills. In 2002 alone, 1,250 15-year-olds
were trained in Havana to work as computer instructors in these labs, while intensive computer
training was provided to 15,000 primary school teachers and twelfth grade students. In
December 2000, the ‘Ernesto Che Guevara’ electronics factory in Pinar del Rio began
manufacturing solar panels. By June 2001, 2,000 schools in the mountains and other areas
outside the reach of the national grid were provided with solar energy for televisions and videos.
Even the handful of schools with just one student benefited. From 2002, solar-panelled
computers were installed and teachers were trained to run them. Serrano recalls joining
Comandante José Ramón Machado in a mountain community in Guantanamo to inaugurate solar
panels. ‘It was an emotional experience, in a remote community, a hamlet with 10 or 12 families.
Thanks to the solar panels, they now had a school, with teachers, computers, a television, a
video. Another solar panel supplied a video room so the adults could watch the television, watch
the news, the soap operas, whatever they liked!’90
Third, the need to create the ‘audiovisual programmes’ to provide every school in the
country with televised classes. By 2002, there were three education programmes for different age
groups: My TV to Grow, for primary school level; My TV to Learn, for secondary basic; and My
TV to Know, for higher secondary. Broadcasting these via the national network took the
programmes into every home with a television. In October 2000, ‘University for All’ courses
began, which enabled all Cubans to study and learn from televised classes, raising the
population’s general level of knowledge and culture ‘in an easy, pleasant and economical
manner’, in the words of an information leaflet.91 Two separate education channels were
broadcast nationally.
In late 2007, a nationwide debate about Cuba’s socioeconomic problems took place,
sparked by a critical speech on the island’s problems by Raúl Castro on 26 July 2007. The
professional adequacy of the young teachers was among the principal concerns expressed.
Gómez recognises that the Emergent Teacher programme had deficiencies. It required too many
hours of watching video classes in succession, inadequate even after new televisions with larger
screens were installed, with the teacher reduced to keeping order and answering questions.92
There was also concern about their young teachers’ lack of knowledge, professionalism and
maturity. Children had served as educators previously under the Cuban Revolution, not just
during the literacy campaign in the early 1960s but also in the 1980s when, as scholar Rosi Smith
wrote, ‘Young people had stepped into the breach when educational expansion outstripped the
availability of trained adult teachers. Many well-respected older teachers working at the turn of
the century had begun their professional life that way.’ Almost every conversation with Cubans
about the emergent teachers, ‘begins with the disclaimer that this was not the first time that
children had been used for this function’, said Smith.93 However, by the late 1980s, over 94 per
cent of Cuban teachers held degrees in education so the employment of teenagers who had not
even finished high school post-2000 was a step backwards.94
While Gómez insisted that ‘the idea was good, especially the value of having a teacher for
every 15 to 20 children’, he conceded that ‘maybe more time was required to develop the
programme. But there was also the social demand.’ Here he was referring back to Fidel Castro’s
concern for ‘student number 40’ in the classroom. Recalling that Fidel Castro once described
himself as ‘an activist in the band of the impatient,’ Gómez reflected:

All his revolutionary practice is proof of that; he was impatient to solve problems. But
impatience, without a doubt, sometimes leads to new problems that have to be addressed. I
think the urgency, the emergency, the impatience to solve this problem, how to look after
 student number 40 in that classroom, prevailed over the question of training that teacher to a
level where they met all requirements, before they could take charge of a group of 20
students.95

It was a deeply social concept of education.

After eight years of full-time teaching and university study, regardless of their starting age,
those emergent teachers were experienced professionals. Many remained as teachers, others
pursued careers shaped by their university degrees. But even those who left had been irrevocably
shaped by their experience as professionals, as role models and mentors to younger children.96

ART INSTRUCTORS

New schools for training art instructors were set up in every province to provide four years of
training to teenagers as young as 15 years old as art instructors, to work in primary and
secondary schools, universities and cultural institutions. By 2005, there were 16,000 students
enrolled in these schools. Fidel Castro described their social and racial mix as ‘more satisfactory
than the historical average’.97 A Cuban information leaflet stated that: ‘Every year, 4,000 new
students enrol, hailing from the smallest, most isolated towns to the largest, to the most densely
populated cities . . . They are receiving comprehensive training in the fields of visual arts, music,
dance and theatre. They will have the opportunity to continue with university studies in their
field of specialisation. These young people will play a crucial role in raising the general,
comprehensive cultural level of the Cuban people, fulfilling the principle of promoting
education, culture and social development in order to be the most cultured country in the
world.’98 Art instructors were under contract to work professionally for eight years, but the
scheme did not give them access to study art at the university, nor to a state salary as
professional artists.99

BATTLING ON OTHER FRONTS

Having identified the link between criminality and lack of education, there was a huge expansion
of educational provision within Cuba’s prisons, including university-level courses. Sentencing
policy leaned towards community punishments or part-time prison which enabled offenders to
maintain family relations and community integration.100
Throughout the island, hundreds of video clubs and youth computer clubs were set up, free
and accessible to everyone regardless of age. By January 2002, there were 350 video clubs,
where films were discussed, as well as watched, raising attendees ‘cultural awareness and
knowledge of the world through cinematic works’, and 300 computer clubs with 3,491
computers. Courses were taught at different levels and included website design and computer
sciences.101 In 2002, 50,000 students were studying computing at university and polytechnic
levels, working to provide software and computing services.102 That year, a new University of
Information Science (UCI) was opened to contribute to the island’s computerisation and to foster
a software industry for domestic application. By 2007, the first group of 1,300 students
graduated.
In 2003, the momentous decision was taken, for economic reasons, to close half of Cuba’s
sugar mills, ‘creating thousands of unemployed sugar workers in the Revolution’s traditional
rural heartland’, as historian of Cuba Antoni Kapcia put it.103 International sugar prices were low
and the cost of producing and exporting sugar was greater than that of importing it. Tens of
thousands of sugar industry workers were offered further education and retraining.104 University
centres were set up in all 84 closed sugar mills, and many sugar industry officials began to give
classes as assistant professors.105 Besides soaking up otherwise potentially dangerous
unemployment, said Kapcia, ‘the purpose was to make up for lost schooling earlier in the
workers’ careers . . . Again, higher education was going beyond the previous limits.’106
In the process of guaranteeing university education to social workers, emergent teachers and
other members of the Citizens’ Army in the Battle of Ideas, a new system of university
organisation was established, known as ‘municipaliation’ or ‘universalization’. This saw the
establishment of a ‘satellite’ site of the nearest university established in every one of the island’s
168 municipalities. Evening or weekend classes took place in local schools or other public
buildings. The teachers were local practitioners. Degrees were overseen by the traditional
universities to ensure quality. Eventually these municipal universities were opened to all Cubans,
especially workers and carers who could study part-time. Consequently, the number of students
exploded from 2,000 in the first year to 700,000 at its peak.107 Many of these young students
were the first in their families to enter university. Raising the average educational standard to
graduate level within a decade became the aim.
By 2005, there were 600,000 students in Cuban universities, of whom 90,000, or 15%, were
‘disconnected’ youth before enrolling. There were 958 university centres, including 169
municipal campuses, 84 centres at former sugar refineries and 18 in prisons. Over a thousand
centres for public health studies had also been set up in municipalities and healthcare institutions.
There were close to 100,000 higher education teachers, including assistant staff. Fidel Castro told
Ignacio Ramonet, ‘We’re now waging a profound educational revolution.’ It was not about
removing opportunities from the historically privileged who get into the best schools, he
explained, but about extending higher education to every Cuban, ‘a formidable instrument of
social levelling’. The disconnected youth given the chance to study, he asserted, ‘are going to be
among the most revolutionary of our citizens, because these programmes represent a rebirth for
them’.108

FIDEL CASTRO’S LAST GREAT BATTLE

Conceptually, the Battle of Ideas addressed many issues still to be resolved under socialism: the
balance of responsibility for provision between the individual and the state; how such class
antagonisms as remain under socialism should be mediated; ensuring discipline with resources
and at work; how the wealth of socialist society should be distributed; and how much control and
centralisation is appropriate. These issues were addressed by Fidel Castro in a seminal speech to
students at the University of Havana on 17 November 2005. His words sparked a national
debate, in workplaces, in homes, in the streets and in the National Assembly. He publicly
questioned the survival of the socialist Revolution:

I ask you all, without exception, to reflect on it: can the revolutionary process be
irreversible, or not? Which are the ideas or the degree of consciousness that would make the
reversal of the revolutionary process impossible? When those who were the forerunners, the
veterans, start disappearing and making room for the new generations of leaders, what will
be done and how will it be accomplished? After all, we have been witnesses to many errors,
and we didn’t notice them.109

While the Revolution could not be overthrown by imperialism, he said, ‘This country can self-
destruct; this Revolution can destroy itself . . . and it would be our fault.’
These questions were being addressed in the face of the unrelenting US blockade and, with
the new US administration of George W. Bush from January 2001, a hardening line against
Cuba. The invasions of Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003) showed Bush’s willingness to ignore
both the United Nations and international opinion. Accused of being a ‘state sponsor of
terrorism’, Cuba was added to the ‘Axis of Evil’ in 2002 (see Chapter 7). So, while the
Revolution had survived the threat of economic collapse during the Special Period, by the early
2000s the island faced a renewed political and military threat from the United States.
Against the immense, sophisticated machinery of US imperialism, Fidel Castro pitted his
‘Citizens’ Army’ of social workers, emergent teachers, art instructors, reintegrated youth: ‘An
entire nation which, in spite of our errors, holds such a high degree of culture, education and
consciousness that it will never allow this country to become their colony again.’ Dressed in
fatigues, Castro declared war on ‘parasites’, ‘the dirty little crooks selling gasoline to the new
rich’, and on the Bush administration, a ‘gang of shit-eaters who don’t deserve any respect’.110
 Then suddenly, Fidel Castro was struck down; it was not a bullet but biology that struck
him.111 I was in Cuba when, five days after his annual speech on 26 July 2006 in Granma
province, where the Rebel Army began, the Cuban people were informed that their Commander
in Chief was sick and had transferred his numerous responsibilities to Vice President Raúl Castro
and four other government leaders. While there were celebrations in Cuban parts of Miami, in
Havana most Cubans sighed with concern and carried on as usual. The uncertainty continued
throughout 2007: would Fidel Castro die or recover, would he retire or return? In February 2008,
his retirement was confirmed and Raúl Castro was formally elected in his place.
What happened to the Battle of Ideas? Many of the programmes had run their course, the
social workers continued until 2011, and other projects have carried on until today. But the
‘Battle of Ideas’ label was dropped and the protagonism of the Citizens’ Army petered out. Some
external commentators depicted Raúl Castro as sweeping away his brother’s programme in
favour of a renewed institutionalisation and efficiency cuts. While it is clear that a new stage was
introduced by Raúl Castro, this juxtaposition is too stylised, implying a false dichotomy between
the brothers. In fact, Raúl Castro’s watershed speech of 26 July 2007 expanded on themes raised
by Fidel Castro in November 2005, with a view of Cubans as citizens, not consumers, with
responsibility to society: ‘We need to bring everyone into the daily battle against the very errors
which aggravate objective difficulties from external causes.’112
Raúl Castro initiated a process of popular consultation in which all Cubans debated Cuba’s
socioeconomic problems. The government could risk such a public airing of grievances precisely
because the Battle of Ideas had alleviated the most acute socioeconomic suffering, raised
political consciousness and renewed commitment to the socialist project, and because Cuba had
entered a period of economic growth and expanding international relations. The new head of
state initiated a drive for efficiency within the socialist framework, to tackle the structural
imbalances and economic inefficiencies which had long hindered it. By 2008, when the global
economic crisis struck, Cuba confronted the new challenge with a generation of young adults
who had been shaped, consciously or not, by Fidel Castro’s last great battle.

POWER TO THE PEOPLE

THE ENERGY REVOLUTION
Standing on the roof of a tall building on a hilltop at the back of the Diez de Octubre
neighbourhood in Havana on a hot day in early July, I am acutely aware of the solar energy
beating down on my shoulders. The view is spectacular: green tree tops rise between small red-
roofed houses, a jigsaw of mismatched and ornate buildings, with, in the distance, the high rise
of government ministry buildings, the José Martí monument and a cluster of tall hotels. One
thick black plume of smoke rises from the Regla oil refinery in Havana Bay – a warning against
complacency. I am not here to admire the Havana cityscape but to appreciate the set of four solar
panels and two water heaters that adorn the flat concrete roof.
The home, which doubles as an office, belongs to Luis Bérriz, a scientist and President of
the Cuban Society for the Promotion of Renewable Energy Sources and Environmental Respect,
known as Cubasolar. We are accompanied by Vice President Eliseo Galván, who talks me
through the technical details, enthusing about the equipment’s potential contribution to national
development. Made in a Cuban factory in Pinar del Rio, western Cuba, the solar panels produce
200 times the electricity Bérriz’s household consumes and the surplus is fed into the national
grid. The Cuban government has begun to roll out residential solar panels to every home in
Cuba. Under a new law approved in March 2017, residents will be nominally allocated bank
credit to purchase the equipment and the loan will be repaid over five years by discounting the
value of surplus electricity contributed to the national grid by each household.1 An editorial in
the Cuban Workers’ Confederation newspaper, Trabajadores, states that ‘the energy strategy
launched is aimed at clean, safe and sustainable energy or, what is the same thing, renewable
energy sources’.2
Cubasolar was set in up 1994 in the midst of Cuba’s acute energy crises during the Special
Period when, as Bérriz explains, ‘we were obliged to develop a new energy policy, based on our
own resources’.3 Cuban scientists were already working on the development of renewable
energies in research institutes and universities around the country. Cubasolar was established to
bring together engineers, scientists and planners in an organisation to forge the new energy
culture necessary to accompany the policy changes required. Officially, Cubasolar is a non-
government organisation; with no state budget it is funded on a project-by-project basis by the
Cuban government and foreign partners. It has over 1,000 members and branches in every
province installing new technologies and implementing projects.
However, its main function, according to Bérriz, is ‘education, new consciousness,
discussion and culture’, and to these ends it publishes books and two regular magazines which
are sent to every Cuban school and to every member of the Central Committee of the Cuban
Communist Party (CCP): Energía y Tu is for a general readership and EcoSolar for scientific
readers. It has helped establish study centres, specialised classrooms and scientific circles in
universities. In Granma province, in the east of the island, it set up both the Educator’s Villa,
which hosts national events, and the Solar Study Centre, where hundreds of students and teachers
train each year.
Cubasolar has trained technical brigades to install hybrid wind–diesel systems, hybrid
photovoltaic (solar) wind technologies, wind farms, firewood kitchens, hydropower plants and
drinking water in remote and inaccessible communities.4 The schemes it has contributed to have
taken solar-panelled electricity to over 500 family doctors’ clinics, rural hospitals and farmers’
homes and over 1,800 television and video rooms for people in remote regions.5 Cubasolar has
also aided projects to mitigate desertification and the effects of drought on the coast and
contributed to the domestic manufacture of renewable energies equipment.6 It has even assisted
the transfer of technologies to Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Guinea Bissau, Haiti,
Honduras, Mali, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, South Africa and Venezuela through collaborative
missions.7 This range of activities is an indication of the kind of experimentation with renewable
energies underway in Cuba, and Cubasolar is just one of several institutions spearheading
developments in this field.
As we sip tea made from Bérriz’s moringa tree, he shows me potato chips and spices dried
with the solar equipment on the roof.8 ‘We are trying to teach people not to keep speaking about
electricity as the universal carrier of energy,’ he says. He is beaming about the potential for
renewable energies and believes the effects of climate change can be halted. ‘Trump is a stupid
man,’ proclaims Bérriz, referring to the US president’s announcement just five weeks earlier that
he would withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement and renegotiate ‘a deal
that’s fair’ for US interests. Motivated by greed, Trump’s agenda is to enrich the powerful,
counters Bérriz. ‘But this is my world as well, and what right does he have to contaminate it, to
get more money and power!?’9
Bérriz is opposed to the two dominant international approaches to climate change:
adaptation and mitigation. ‘If climate change was natural I would adapt,’ he explains. Since the
beginning of the universe, he clarifies, ‘natural climate change has been accompanied by a
process of adaptation. We are the result of an adaptation over thousands of years.’ However, he
compares man-made climate change to military aggression, pointing out that people under
bombardment do not adapt to being bombed, they prepare: ‘So the concept of adaptation is not
correct. The concept should be preparation for climate change.’ He also rejects the notion of
mitigation which he caricatures as: ‘Don’t kill me in 50 years, kill me in 100. Go slower. Don’t
raise the water level to five metres, raise it only to four metres. Why? Get it back to where it
should be! Human beings are at fault!’ Logically he condemns the commercialisation of climate
change through international carbon trading schemes. ‘If you adapt, I will give you money . . .
Not only are you telling me to adapt, when I should be preparing, what’s more you are buying
me.’10
 As a small island nation in the tropics, Cuba is particularly vulnerable to climate change:
extreme weather events, heat waves, drought, torrential rain, hurricanes and rising sea levels.11
Cuban scientists estimate that sea levels could rise by three feet by the end of the century, wiping
out 122 coastal towns, polluting water supplies and destroying agricultural lands.12 Without
preventative action taken to protect the coast by 2050, 2.3 per cent of Cuba could become
submerged.13 However, action is being taken. In spring 2017, Cuba’s Council of Ministers
approved Tarea Vida (Project Life), a 100-year plan to prepare for climate change.14 Bérriz is
among thousands of Cuban scientists and environmentalists preparing for climate change and a
more sustainable future in which renewable energies will play a major role.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

The term ‘sustainable development’ appeared in the World Conservation Strategy report
published in 1980.15 In 1983, the United Nations (UN) founded the World Commission on
Environment and Development, known as the Brundtland Commission, to investigate the
deterioration of the human environment and natural resources.16 Four years later, the
Commission’s main report, Our Common Future, defined sustainable development as
‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs’, thus locating the economy, society and the environment as
keys to sustainable development.17 In 1992, the UN’s Conference on Environment and
Development, or ‘Earth Summit’, took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.18 Agenda 21, a
comprehensive plan of action for making the world more sustainable, was agreed at the Summit
but there was no enforcement mechanism for countries that signed up.
‘An important biological species – humankind – is at risk of disappearing due to the rapid
and progressive elimination of its natural habitat,’ announced Cuban president Fidel Castro in his
uncharacteristically short and appropriately alarming speech to the Earth Summit in 1992. He
blamed consumer societies that ‘were spawned by the former colonial metropolis. They are the
offspring of imperial policies which, in turn, brought forth the backwardness and poverty that
have become the scourge for the great majority of humankind.’ These societies held one-fifth of
the world’s population but consumed two-thirds of the metals and three-fourths of the energy
produced in the world. ‘They have poisoned the seas and the rivers. They have polluted the air.
They have weakened and perforated the ozone layer. They have saturated the atmosphere with
gases, altering climatic conditions with the catastrophic effects we are already beginning to
suffer. The forests are disappearing. The deserts are expanding. Billions of tons of fertile soil are
washed every year into the sea. Numerous species are becoming extinct. Population pressures
and poverty lead to desperate efforts to survive, even at the expense of nature.’
 Third World countries cannot be blamed for this, Fidel Castro insisted. Nor should they be
denied the right to develop, as everything that generates underdevelopment and poverty violates
the environment. ‘Tens of millions of men, women and children die every year in the Third
World more than in each of the two world wars. Unequal trade, protectionism and the foreign
debt assault the ecological balance and promote the destruction of the environment.’ A better
distribution of global wealth and technologies was necessary, he insisted, to save mankind from
self-destruction. ‘Less luxury and less waste in a few countries would mean less poverty and
hunger in much of the world.’ Environmentally ruinous lifestyles and consumption habits must
stop being transferred to the Third World.
‘Make human life more rational. Adopt a just international economic order. Use science to
achieve sustainable development without pollution. Pay the ecological debt. Eradicate hunger
and not humanity.’ Now that the demise of communism had eliminated the excuse for cold wars,
arms races, and military spending, why were resources not being used to develop the Third
World and combat the threat of the ecological destruction of the planet, he asked, calling for an
end to selfishness, hegemonies, insensitivity, irresponsibility and deceit, concluding: ‘Tomorrow
will be too late to do what we should have done a long time ago.’19
That same year, the Cuban government added commitment to sustainable development to
the nation’s constitution and initiated measures to redress past environmental harm and minimise
future degradation of air, water and land resources.20 It was not until 2006 that Cuba’s
contribution to sustainable development was noted globally. That year, the World Wildlife
Fund’s (WWF) Living Planet Report identified Cuba as the only country in the world achieving
sustainable development – improving the quality of human life while living within the carrying
capacity of its ecosystem.21 Meanwhile, National Geographic magazine described Cuba’s
environment as ‘largely pristine’, pointing to state conservation and reforestation programmes as
evidence of its environmental commitments.22 And the documentary The Power of Community:
How Cuba Survived Peak Oil celebrated Cuba’s embrace of organic farming, agricultural
cooperatives and biofuels during the economic crisis of the 1990s, concluding that: ‘Cuba has a
lot to show the world about a crisis we will all be facing.’23 2006 was also the Year of the
Energy Revolution in Cuba.
Necessity is the mother of invention, they say. Indeed, the standard explanation for Cuba’s
turn to organic farming and renewable energies is that its hand was forced by the post-Soviet
economic crises. To an extent, that is true. However, the ‘simple expediency’ explanation
overlooks the Revolution’s historical record and its socialist development framework. Neglecting
these factors could lead to the erroneous assumption that if the Cuban economy booms those
commitments will end. The idea that Cuba’s environmental success was due to economic
underdevelopment was rejected by Jim Barbourak of Conservation International: ‘If this were
true, then Haiti could be expected to be a verdant ecological paradise, instead of being the most
environmentally devastated country in the region.’24
Under capitalism, private businesses regard the Earth’s natural resources as a ‘free gift’ to
capital.25 Driven by the profit motive, capitalist businesses are only interested in natural
resources such as land, water, raw materials and hydrocarbons in so far as they can be turned into
profit. It is the logic of the system of capitalist production, not specific policy decisions, which
makes capitalism unsustainable. How can sustainable development be achieved under capitalism
if doing so obstructs the capital accumulation process that drives capitalist production? Carbon
trading and similar schemes attempt to impose a ‘cost’ on companies for using or damaging the
environment, obliging them to incorporate that cost into their business decisions. However, the
lack of political will, legal enforcement mechanisms or method for calculating ‘cost’ inevitably
limits success.26
In Cuba’s socialist centrally planned economy the profit motive does not determine
production and reproduction, meaning that environmental as well as social costs can be factored
into economic decisions. It is not enough, for example, for electricity to be within physical reach:
it must also be affordable for all Cubans.27 That does not mean, however, that socialism is
synonymous with environmental respect; environmental disasters occurred in the socialist bloc.28
A leading environmental policy-maker in Cuba pointed out that the process ‘is not automatic,
you have to try to create a socialist system where the environmental agenda is driven well,
otherwise you will still have environmental problems. Nothing is given, it has to be achieved.’29

ENERGY INEQUALITY IN PRE-REVOLUTIONARY CUBA

In 1950s Cuba, 56 per cent of the population had access to electricity. Nearly half the population
was rural, but only 9 per cent of Cuba’s rural dwellings had electric light, compared to 87 per
cent of urban homes.30 US investors controlled 90 per cent of the island’s electric services.31 In
his famous 1953 trial defence speech History Will Absolve Me, Fidel Castro articulated both the
notion of access to electricity as a right, and the commitment to develop renewable energy: ‘Two
million eight hundred thousand of our rural and suburban population lack electricity . . . [The
electricity monopoly] extends lines as far as it is profitable and beyond that point they don’t care
if people have to live in darkness for the rest of their lives. The State sits back with its arms
crossed and the people have neither homes nor electricity . . . today possibilities of taking
electricity to the most isolated areas on the island are greater than ever. The use of nuclear
energy in this field is now a reality and will greatly reduce the cost of producing electricity.’32
During the guerrilla struggle in rural and mountainous Cuba, the Rebel Army rarely had
access to electricity. In February 1958 an electric generator was taken to Che Guevara’s
command post in Pata de la Mesa to power their clandestine radio station, Radio Rebelde, taking
the insurrectionary message into Cuban homes.33

REVOLUTIONARY CUBA: EARLY DAYS

‘Energy is an instrument of power,’ asserts Bérriz. ‘What did the United States do when it broke
off relations with Cuba? Take away our oil supply. What did the USSR do? Give us oil.’34
In 1961, the literacy campaign was launched. Some 300,000 brigadistas, including 100,000
students, many in their early teens, travelled across Cuba teaching more than 700,000 people to
read and write while learning how the country’s poorest lived. Illiteracy was eliminated within
one year.35 An enduring image of the literacy campaign is of urban youth, side-by-side with
adult campesinos, leaning over notebooks under the flickering flame of a Chinese kerosene lamp
– a standard part of brigadistas kit. Only the main villages in rural areas had electricity, recalled
Esther Armenteros, former Cuban Ambassador to Britain, who participated in the literacy
campaign as a young teen: ‘I was near a village called Julia, in Bayamo, in what is today Granma
province. There was no electricity for kilometres around. In my area there was only one house
with an electricity generator. I was very friendly with the lady of the house and I went there from
time to time to listen to my favourite radio program. I was 13 at the time. Imagine! My family
was very poor but we were from Havana so I grew up with electricity and running water, but I
must confess to you that sometimes my mother lacked money to pay the electricity bill and the
service was suspended, so I had some experience.’36
In August 1959 the revolutionary government ordered a 30 per cent reduction in electricity
charges. In 1960, the US-owned Cuban Electric Company was nationalised and placed under the
jurisdiction of the Department of Industrialisation, headed by Che Guevara.37 Extending
electricity to the entire population was going to be a huge challenge, but it was imperative to
reduce socioeconomic differences, especially between urban and rural Cuba. Referring to
Lenin’s definition of communism as Soviet power plus the electrification, Che Guevara told the
Electrical Energy Forum of 1963 that ‘Without electricity, it’s impossible to locate new
industrial centres and often the preferable location from other standpoints has been affected
because electrical provision was insufficient for installing factories.’38
In October 1960, two days after the US government introduced a partial blockade of Cuba,
Guevara led a trade mission to the socialist bloc. From the USSR he secured Soviet assistance in
the electrification of the island and power plants were imported from the Soviet Union,
Czechoslovakia, East Germany and France.39 ‘The importance that this had for the economic
development of the country and for the survival of the Revolution is difficult to overestimate,’
stated Ángel Gómez Trueba, who at that time was the Vice Minister of Industrial Construction in
Guevara’s Ministry of Industries (MININD).40 Nonetheless, another Vice Minister in MININD,
Tirso Saenz, who headed technical development, told me how this also created problems: ‘The
Eastern European socialist countries worked with 50 hertz, and Cuba worked with 60 hertz.
Their technicians had to adapt the equipment before it was sent to us, because we couldn’t
change the whole electrical system. Those were big problems’, he said, ‘but the biggest problem
was the lack of technical people.’41
The agreement to export Cuban sugar to the USSR and import Soviet oil at below world
market prices inevitably perpetuated the island’s energy dependence and structural
underdevelopment. This relationship also fostered the increasing mechanisation of agriculture, as
the USSR supplied the island with diesel-fuelled tractors, petroleum-based pesticides and
fertilisers.42 Inevitably, incentives were lacking for the development of alternative energy
sources. Nonetheless, a search for alternatives began as early as the 1960s while energy
specialists were trained to replace the technicians leaving the island and to staff the extended
electrical provision nationally. Table 1 below tracks the key areas of research and investigation
from the 1960s to 1980s.
According to Bérriz, by the late 1980s, ‘from the scientific perspective, Cuba came to be a
power in the development of renewable energy sources. It had its first building completely
supplied with renewable sources of energy . . . and was one of the most advanced in renewable
sources in tropical conditions.’43 Nonetheless, beyond the experimentation underway, the
application of these technologies was very limited. This was partly due to the lack of technology
and investment, and access to both resulting from the US blockade. However, perhaps more
decisive was the lack of commitment or incentive to restructure the energy mix away from
hydrocarbon fossil fuels given that the island’s industry and agriculture were orientated towards
cheap imported oil from the USSR. Indeed, as the Power of Community documentary noted,
Cuba had committed to the Green Revolution, a system which required the massive use of fossil
fuels in the form of natural gas-based fertilizers, oil-based pesticides and diesel fuel for tractors
and other farm-based machinery. ‘The country’s agriculture was more industrialised than any
other Latin American country and exceeded the US in its use of fertiliser.’44 Cuba had 90,000
Soviet tractors in the 1980s.

Table 1: Key areas of research and investigation from the 1960s to the 1980s45
1960s–
Energy specialists trained in the universities of Havana, Oriente and Las Villas.
70s
Physics Faculty, University of Havana, set up a course on photovoltaic devices. By
1968 1975, they had produced the first Cuban photovoltaic solar cell made with crystalline
silicon, the standard first-generation panel material.
 Urban population entirely connected to the National Electroenergetic System (SEN),
1970 providing electricity at 110 kV. During the decade 1970–80, the SEN was
interconnected at voltages of 220 kV.
Scientists in the sugar industry worked to develop renewable energy from bagasse, the
residue from sugar cane once the juice has been squeezed out. Sugar cane is the most
1970s
efficient living captor of solar energy and their work improved the efficiency of the
furnaces and boilers in the sugar centrals, where bagasse had long been used as fire fuel.
Headed by Bérriz, the Grupo de Energia Solar (Gensolar) was set up to develop
renewable energies. Directed by the new Principal State Programme of Research into
Use of Solar Energy in Cuba, approved by the First Congress of the CCP, they
1975
developed the first Cuban solar heaters, solar dryers, distillers, sea water purifiers,
concentrators and technologies for the use of solar energy in the cultivation of
microalgae.
Group of Technical Assistance on Energy was created within the Ministry of Basic
Late Industry to develop strategies for energy saving and developing renewable energies. In
1970s 1981 their Report on Cogeneration gave perspectives on the use of renewable energy in
the sugar industry and other areas.
Physics Faculty, University of Havana, improved the Cuban-made solar cells with the
Early
use of gallium arsenide, increasing the efficiency of solar panels. First Cuban solar
1980s
heaters were produced.
Environmental Physics Group was set up in the Ministry of Construction, to promote a
1983 culture of ‘passive’ solar energy use, bioclimatic architecture and regulatory norms for
the efficient use of energy in buildings.
National Energy Commission (CNE) created to rationalise energy consumption and
increase use of national resources, especially renewable sources. Installed 200 (mini and
1983 micro) hydroelectric power stations to supply electricity to 34,000 people in
mountainous regions. Groups worked to expand the use of renewable energies, mainly
hydroelectricity, thermal solar, wind power and biogas.
Centre for Research into Solar Energy (CIES) set up in Santiago de Cuba, to develop
1984
renewable energy sources.
Ministry of Communications laboratory began assembling photovoltaic solar modules
1986
made of monocrystalline silicon, with an annual capacity of 200 kWh.
A Combustion Laboratory was established in Cienfuegos to research the combustion of
1988
solid renewable fuels.

Even so, the fact that thousands of scientists had conducted research in multiple institutions,
working under government directives to develop renewable energies since the 1960s, facilitated
the urgent uptake of new practices and a new culture when the shock of the Soviet collapse made
doing so an obligation.

THE EXPEDIENCY OF THE SPECIAL PERIOD: AN ACUTE ENERGY CRISIS

It was the Soviet Union’s unilateral decision in 1990 to reduce oil exports to Cuba which
presaged the Special Period. From 13 million tons in 1989, Soviet oil exports to Cuba slid to 10
million tons in 1990, then 8.5 million tons in 1991, plummeting to 1 million tons in 1992.46
Reducing dependence on petroleum was no longer a policy choice, but an imperative. Cuba was
crippled by critical scarcities of hydrocarbon energy resources, fertilisers, food, medicines,
cement, spare parts, equipment and resources in every sector (Chapter 2). Power outages became
a defining feature of the era while the island’s transport system ground down, almost to a halt.
In agriculture, tractors were replaced by human and animal labour, and organic fertilisers,
crop rotation techniques and urban gardens were developed as people cleaned up vacant plots
and began to cultivate fruit and vegetables.47 The army was sent to farm fallow land to increase
agricultural production; nearly 40 per cent of state farms were converted into cooperatives and
farmers’ markets were reintroduced. In small towns and cities, people turned to horses for
transportation. The 1950s Cadillacs and Chevrolets were parked up alongside Russian Moskvitch
to rust in garages while 1.2 million bicycles were imported from China, and half a million more
produced domestically. New centres, ministries and programmes were established in the 1990s to
pursue alternative energies with greater urgency. The main entities are listed in Table 2 below.
Despite these efforts, Bérriz admits that ‘the country’s energy policy remained basically oil-
fuelled, with centralised electricity generation in a few thermoelectric plants’.48 The principal
difference in the post-Soviet 1990s was that, in the absence of imported oil, Cuba was burning
domestic crude oil reserves.49 Many Cuban policy-makers still believed that renewable energy
sources were scarce, unstable, expensive, inefficient, inadequate for meeting Cuba’s energy
needs and would require extensive territorial use.50 Indeed, the cost to Cuba of importing solar
panels from Europe was almost prohibitive, but once China began mass production costs
plummeted.51

Table 2: Centres, ministries and programmes established in the 1990s to pursue

alternative energies
Centre for the Study of Renewable Energy Resources set up as a university teaching–
1992 research centre within the José A. Echeverría Polytechnic Higher Institute (ISPJAE ) in
Havana.
Centre for the Study of Sugar Thermoenergy founded in the Central University of Las
1992
Villas, for experimentation related to sugar mill energy production.
National Energy Sources Development Programme approved by the National Assembly
of People’s Power to improve energy efficiency and renewable energy use, including by
1993
substituting imports with increased production of national crude oil and accompanying
gas for electricity generation and improving efficiency in the use of bagasse.
New Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment (CITMA) set up in April
1994
1994 to reorganise work in this area.
 Hydroenergy Research and Development Area set up in Villa Clara to coordinate
researchers and technicians advising government bodies on hydropower, designing,
1994
constructing and assembling hydroenergy facilities, and training specialists and
technicians.
Cubasolar established to promote all forms of solar energy (biomass, biogas, hydropower,
1994 sea and wind, solar photovoltaic, solar thermal and passive use) ‘in solving the economic
and social problems of the country’.
Integrated Centre for Appropriate Technology set up within the National Institute of
Mid-
Hydraulic Resources to develop technologies to supply water to the population with
1990s
windmills, hydraulic rams, rope pumps and winches.
Centre for the Study of Efficient Energy founded to develop technologies for the
1996 combustion of biogas, mainly with bagasse, and the use of biogas in internal combustion
engines.
Late
Solar heaters factor built in Morόn City, central Cuba.
1990s
CITMA creates the Group of Solar Energy Technological Applications (GATES) in
1997
Guantanamo to install photovoltaic systems in areas beyond the national grid.
Ministry of Education launched an Energy Saving Programme, or PAEME, ’to involve
citizens in the effort to save energy … to teach students, workers, families and
1997 communities about energy-saving measures and renewable sources of energy’. Energy
Festivals were held to educate Cubans about energy efficiency and conservation, and in
schools the theme was integrated into physics, economics and environmental courses.
Cuba’s first wind farm was inaugurated on Turiguanό, with two wind turbines of 225 kW
1999
each, doubling as a centre for wind energy studies.
Cubasolar and Ecosol Solar help form groups of specialists in photovoltaic onwards
2000
technologies in every province.

There was, however, commitment to developing renewable energies among Cuba’s top
leadership, and not just Fidel Castro. In the 1950s, Vilma Espín had been one of the first Cuban
women to study chemical engineering on the island, before doing post-graduate work at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States. On return to Cuba, she joined
the Rebel Army in the Sierra Maestra, married Raúl Castro in 1959 and became a leading
member of the revolutionary government. In 1960 she set up the Cuban Women’s Federation and
served as its president until her death in 2007. She joined the Central Committee and the Political
Bureau of the Cuban Communist Party, as well as the Council of State. In the early 1990s, she
sent a message to Bérriz asking to meet him. ‘I prepared to convince Vilma of the great
importance of using renewable energy sources,’ Bérriz recalled, ‘but when we sat down to talk,
Vilma started to convince me of the great importance of using renewable energy sources! I kept
quiet and thought “I don’t have to do anything here.”’52 Subsequently, he says, Espín visited him
frequently in Santiago de Cuba, sometimes accompanied by Raúl Castro and others. He points to
a framed photograph on the wall with himself, Espín, Raúl Castro and Esteban Lazo, who is
currently president of the National Assembly of People’s Power. It was Espín’s project to put
solar heaters in every nursery in the country, he tells me.
By 1994, Cuba’s electricity crisis was critical. The lack of fuel meant that generation
capacity was 40 per cent below its potential. Industries were paralysed while energy shortages
were rationed, so that in Havana residents experienced regular rotating blackouts for eight hours.
Across the island, these lasted longer. Living in Havana from 1995, my sister and I quickly
learned to stock up on candles and matches. Blackouts remove more than just light: no air fans,
no television, food perishes without refrigeration. Cubans suffered long waits for the massively
depleted fleet of public transport to return from work or college and defied the laws of physics to
squeeze into already packed buses heaving with hot, sticky bodies. On alternate days they could
arrive home to a darkened neighbourhood, obliged to cook, wash, clean or do homework by
candle or kerosene flame.

RENEWABLE ENERGY FUELLING THE BATTLE OF IDEAS

The installation of solar panels in remote areas, facilitating access to televisions, videos and
computers, was an essential aspect of the Battle of Ideas launched in the early 2000s and
discussed in the previous chapter. In December 2000, the Ernesto Che Guevara electronics
factory in Pinar del Rio began to manufacture Cuban solar panels; later it produced solar cells,
which are the building blocks of solar panels. Within the year, 2,000 schools beyond the reach of
the national grid had been supplied with solar panels, including schools in isolated, mountainous
areas with just one student.
In 2002, the Council of Ministers set up the Renewable Energy Front to advocate policies
and devise strategies to strengthen the sustainable use of renewable energies in Cuba. The
previous year, the Centre for Information Management and Energy Development, known as
Cubaenergía, was created through the merging of several research and technology institutes. Its
80 scientists and technicians, including experts in nuclear energy, focused on energy efficiency,
renewable energies and providing scientific–technical services to state enterprises and
government ministries at a provincial level.53
In 2004, Cubaenergía launched a pilot project, with funding from the UN Industrial
Development Organization, to increase the contribution of renewable energy sources on the
Island of Youth (Isla de Juventud).54 They began with a two-year study which identified the
potential of biomass, produced as a residual from the woodland which covers over 54 per cent of
the island, and designed demonstration plants for the use of biomass in electricity generation.55
They also built a small wind farm with folding towers that can be lowered during a hurricane.
 Starting in 2000, the trade and cooperation agreements signed between Cuba and Venezuela
saw tens of thousands of Cuban medics and educators pour into Venezuela’s poor
neighbourhoods, while Cuba received up to 90,000 barrels of Venezuelan crude oil a day. The
deal bought Cubans some necessary respite from the blackouts and bus queues of the Special
Period and gave many millions of Venezuelans access to quality medical care for the first time.
However, the ‘oil for doctors’ programme did not solve Cuba’s energy problems. In 2003,
Cuba’s aged thermoelectric power stations were converted to burn the low quality, sulphur-
heavy oil extracted from the surrounding shallow coastal waters. A Cuban expert lamented:
‘Without the embargo this high sulphur content oil would have been used for making asphalt, not
for energy production. But after the Soviet support was gone we had to turn to our national oil
reserves.’56 The result was a series of breakdowns, starting in 2004 with the major thermoelectric
generator in Matanzas. Effectively this set Cuba back to the acute energy crisis of 1994, with
electricity generation falling to 38 per cent of its potential. Having returned to live in Havana at
that time, I experienced the increase in blackouts resulting from maintenance work and the
withdrawal of the faulty thermoelectric plants in Matanzas and Camaguey.
These problems were compounded by hurricanes knocking out parts of Cuba’s electricity
supply. Pinar del Rio lost electricity for a fortnight and Trinidad de Cuba for a month after
Hurricane Dennis struck as a category 4 storm, unseasonably early in July 2005, with winds of
up to 220 kilometres per hour, 6-metre high waves and heavy rains, leaving an unusually high
trail of death and destruction in a country famed for its national disaster response. The hurricane
left 16 people dead – despite over 1.5 million people being evacuated (nearly 14 per cent of the
population), caused USD 1.4 billion of damage and seriously affected 120,000 homes, including
15,000 which were completely destroyed.57 Power cuts and communication systems broke down
as 1,025 electricity posts were felled, 21 municipalities were left without electricity and 2.5
million people without a direct water supply.
‘Look how weak we were!’ exclaimed Bérriz, ‘If anyone had thrown a bomb at Guiteras
[power station in Holguin] you would have wiped out half of our electro-energetic system. If
they had thrown seven, they would have finished us off!’ Essentially, Cuba’s electricity supply
was generated through seven power stations, and this meant the island was extremely vulnerable
to attack. Between the military invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, the US
Undersecretary of State John Bolton had added Cuba to the list of ‘rogue states’ and ‘state
sponsors of terrorism’; military aggression certainly seemed possible to the Cubans.58 ‘As you
said, it is not just the lights that go off, it wipes out industrial production, the warehouses, food,
everything.’ Furthermore, added Bérriz, ‘we can no longer live without electricity, we are too
accustomed to it.’59 A solution to Cuba’s vulnerability was sought through the Energy
Revolution.
 2006 YEAR OF THE ENERGY REVOLUTION

The Year of the Energy Revolution dawned with the forty-seventh anniversary of the Revolution
on 1 January 2006. The Energy Revolution was a major state initiative to improve both energy
security and energy efficiency. It incorporated the installation of efficient new power generators
in a ‘distributed’ system, increased emphasis on renewable energy, a progressive electricity
tariff, and replacement of old durable goods with energy-saving equipment. The intention was to
increase Cuba’s capacity for electricity generation to four times its needs, consigning blackouts
to the past and addressing the island’s energy dependence.
During a seminal speech to student leaders at the University of Havana on 17 November
2005, Fidel Castro located the question of energy (cost to the state, cost to the consumer, state
subsidies, theft and wastage, energy efficiency and conservation) in relation to the Battle of Ideas
and to the survival of the Cuban Revolution. The state subsidy for fuel was so high that bills
were negligible, he said. ‘Simply stated, electricity is a gift, and I can prove it to you,’ he
announced before proving it with audience participation, statistics and examples. ‘No one knows
the cost of electricity, no one knows the cost of petrol, no one knows its market value.’60 This
placed an immense burden on the state budget and was a disincentive to individuals and
businesses to conserve energy. ‘We discovered that a “paladar” [private] restaurant consumed
11,000 kilowatts and that this stupid state was subsidizing the owner . . . [with] more than 1,000
dollars a month,’ he complained.61 The Energy Revolution would see the state reduce its energy
subsidy, inducing an awareness of consumption and saving in the Cuban people.
Fidel Castro estimated that Cuba’s new energy policy could save two-thirds of its existing
energy consumption, more than USD 1 billion a year, or CUP 25 billion, nearly double the sum
of Cuban wages. The total cost of Cuba’s higher education system is just 20 per cent of what can
be recouped by the energy revolution underway, he said. With this accumulation of wealth,
salaries would rise and prices fall as production increased, to achieve what he called ‘the dream
of everyone being able to live on their salary or on their adequate pension’.62

DECENTRALISED GENERATION

When I met with Alfredo Curbelo Alonso, an engineer at Cubaenergía, he confirmed that a key
driver behind the Energy Revolution was the commitment to switch to a decentralised,
distributed system of energy generation in order to reduce the country’s vulnerability to natural
disasters and other so-called extraordinary situations, which, he explains, ‘could include a war,
blockade, something like that’.63 Despite the centrality of the national security motivation it has
been overlooked in externally published reports about the Energy Revolution that focus instead
on three other important drivers: the decline of oil supplies, extreme weather conditions due to
climate change and economic crises.64
In shifting to a ‘distributed’ system of power generation, 1,531 small generators with a total
output of 3,072 MW were imported from Danish and Spanish companies and installed
throughout the island.65 Fidel Castro was personally involved, Curbelo Alonso said: ‘Fidel
invited the presidents of those businesses to Cuba and negotiated the price, everything. This was
a scenario where you had to combine quantity, and it was a great quantity, with quality, which
was also essential. What’s more, we wanted maximum efficiency, we sought practically the best
companies in the world; obviously they couldn’t be American because of the US blockade.’66
The distributed system of electricity generation decisively reduced Cuba’s vulnerability,
agreed Bérriz: ‘Now we have thousands of electric plant generators. The more electricity
generators we have the stronger we become.’67 In addition, as Curbelo Alonso pointed out, the
distributed system is conceptually closer to the kind of localised generation required for a switch
to renewable energies.68 So, as well as solving the energy crises suffered in the 2003–5 period
and improving the island’s energy security, the Energy Revolution was a step towards a ‘New
Energy Paradigm’ in which renewable energy sources would play an increasing role.69
In 2005 extensive blackouts lasting more than one hour had occurred on at least 224 days,
but by 2007 power outages caused by the lack of generation capacity had been eliminated.70 In
the same period, Cuba had reduced its carbon dioxide emissions by some 5 million tons,
equivalent to 20 per cent of the island’s total emissions in 2002.71 And Cuba was second in the
world, after Denmark, in terms of distributed energy production.72 In addition, more than 4,000
emergency back-up systems had been installed in hospitals, food production centres, schools and
other critical sites, representing 500 MW of emergency back-up power.73 Upgrades were made
to 120,000 electrical posts, nearly 3,000 kilometres of cable and half a million electrical metres,
reducing wastage and the amount of oil needed to generate one kWh of electricity from 280
grams in 2005 to 271 in 2007. ‘While this might seem like a small saving, it translates into
thousands of tonnes of imported oil annually,’ wrote Laurie Guevara-Stone, adding that ‘in
2006–2007 Cuba saved over 961,000 tonnes of imported oil through energy-saving measures’.74

IMPROVING ENERGY EFFICIENCY AT HOME

For most Cubans the first sign of the Energy Revolution began in July 2005 when teenage social
workers knocked at their doors delivering free energy-saving fluorescent bulbs. Within just six
months, around 9.4 million incandescent bulbs had been replaced making Cuba the first country
in the world to complete the switch. Conservative estimates are that this generated an annual
saving of 354 million kWh, 3–4 per cent of total electricity consumption.75 In state enterprises
800,000 inefficient fluorescent tubes with magnetic ballasts were exchanged for more efficient
lamps with electronic ballasts.76
During their home visits in summer 2005, the social workers drew up inventories of each
household’s electrical equipment. This information was then used in the subsequent campaign to
replace inefficient and ageing domestic appliances with more efficient substitutes imported from
China. A Finnish report on the Energy Revolution noted: ‘The biggest “energy monsters” were
the old refrigerators from the 50s and the ventilators [air fans] that have been made from old
Russian washing machines (a remarkable “grass-roots” innovation in itself of course, but a very
energy consuming one).’77 A similar German report calculated that each new Chinese
refrigerator brought an annual saving of about 450 kWh per unit.78 With over 2.5 million old
fridges replaced, this totals 1,148 million kWh, an annual sum of ‘about 230 million euros saved
in operating costs (mainly fuel costs)’.79 Also replaced were: over a million air fans; 265,500 air
conditioners and ventilators; 230,500 televisions; and over 268,000 water pumps. Simple electric
hotplates were distributed, along with 3.5 million rice cookers and 5.5 million pressure
cookers.80 As a result Seifried, author of the German report noted: ‘While the vast majority of
households cooked with kerosene and LPG [liquid petroleum gas] until early 2006, within a few
months some 3 million households were converted almost completely to electric cooking. Gas
stoves remained only in areas where there was a gas supply.’81
The purchase and replacement of this energy-saving equipment required a huge investment
by the state. The energy-saving bulbs and fans were distributed to households free of charge, but
Cubans were charged for the other equipment. How could Cuban consumers on low salaries be
expected to pay back the cost of all this new equipment? A credit scheme was set up for most
Cubans who could not pay upfront.82 Within two years, Cuban banks financed over 4.5 million
household appliances with a value of CUP 9 billion.83 Repayments were adjusted to household
incomes. In 2005, the average individual’s monthly salary in Cuba was CUP 330.84 Cuban
households with a monthly income of up to CUP 225 were offered credit at an annual interest
rate of 2 per cent and a repayment period of 10 years. The interest rose to 3 per cent for
households with incomes between CUP 226 and CUP 450, to 4 per cent for incomes between
CUP 451 and CUP 600, and so on. The higher the income, the higher the rate of interest. ‘With
an income of CUP 1,801 and more, loans were no longer granted,’ explained Seifried.85 Some 92
per cent of Cubans who requested credit paid between CUP 10 and CUP 75 monthly.86
How much the equipment cost the Cuban government has not been revealed, but based on
his own estimations plus the fuel costs saved, Seifried calculated that ‘the devices have been
amortized in less than two years’, concluding that ‘we obtain a benefit–cost ratio for the Cuban
economy of about ten [to one]’.87 The switch to electric cooking alongside increased ownership
of consumer durables saw electricity consumption increase by 13 per cent. Despite this, these
measures saved Cuba about 250,000 tons of oil equivalents annually.88 In May 2006, Fidel
Castro told the state electric company: ‘We are not waiting for fuel to fall from the sky, because
we have discovered, fortunately, something much more important – energy conservation, which
is like finding a great oil deposit.’89
A new progressive electricity tariff was introduced to reduce the state subsidy and
encourage saving without hurting the country’s poorest people. Households consuming less than
100 kWh per month paid the same low rate, just CUP 0.09 per kWh, but for every 50 kWh
increase the rate went up. Consumers using over 300 kWh per month paid CUP 1.30 per kWh.90
In other words, where consumption tripled, the cost of electricity per unit increased nearly 15
times. Subsequently, in 2011 the top rates were revised upwards from CUP 1.3 per kWh to CUP
5 for consumption above 5,000 kWh per month, so the highest band was over 50 times that of the
lowest, with no change for low or medium consumption households.91
These energy-efficiency measures were largely directed at the residential sector for two
reasons. First, because it accounts for some 45 per cent of Cuba’s electricity consumption, an
unusually high proportion which reflects low levels of industrial activity. Second, the investment
required was less than for replacing capital goods, equipment, machinery, infrastructure and
transport. ‘The last industrial plants introduced into the country are from the 1980s and they were
built to use fossil fuels and without prioritising energy efficiency,’ explained Curbelo Alonso.
Indeed, modern plants might produce the same product with half the energy consumption. ‘The
same applies for transport. With so many vehicles produced so many years ago and in such a
deteriorated state, the amount of fuel you consume to transport a given quantity of products a
certain distance is much greater than in a modern vehicle. But energy efficiency measures in
transportation are associated with very high investment costs and we would practically have to
renovate the entire automotive fleet.’92

EMBEDDING THE ENERGY REVOLUTION

‘Educating a population of 11.5 million about energy is a tall order,’ pointed out an article on the
role of education in the Energy Revolution. ‘Cuba’s energy education program focused on
creating a new energy culture and on achieving sustainable development.’93
The Ministry of Education’s energy-saving programme, PAEME, took the Energy
Revolution into schools and communities. Hundreds of educational festivals were held, and
thousands of thematic workshops organised.94 Between 2006 and 2008, to inform the Cuban
people about the measures under way, there were 22,000 television and radio broadcasts, 1,600
newspaper articles and more than 1,100 discussions in communities.95
 New institutions were set up within the framework of the Energy Revolution including the
National Group for Renewable Energy Sources, Energy Efficiency and Co-generation, which
had 14 commissions covering different types of renewable sources of energy and efficiency,
coordinated by the government, to research and propose ways of developing Cuba’s renewable
energy potential. A new ministerial department for Renewable Energies was created, attached to
the Ministry of Basic Industry.96 National programmes were launched to generate electricity
from wind energy, to provide solar water-heating for domestic, social and industrial purposes, to
develop hydro and solid waste energy capacities and to research geothermal, ocean energy and
other technologies.97
By 2009, between 6 and 7 per cent of the Cuban people were receiving electricity from
gensets (equipment which converts heat capacity into mechanical energy and then electrical
energy), small hydropower stations or solar panels in off-grid areas. Total installed electricity
production capacity was some 6,000 MW while energy demand in Havana was around 500 MW.
The distributed systems supplied 42 per cent of electricity production capacity. The contribution
of renewable energies to electricity production was 4 per cent (in 2011), but 20 per cent in
primary energy production, given the use of bagasse-fired energy in the sugar industry. Hence
the Finnish report concluded that: ‘The emphasis on increasing the use of renewable energy
sources in the overall energy mix has, however, been slow and is not yet clearly visible in the
statistics.’98
In 2010 Cuba’s new National Environment Strategy was launched to solve the island’s main
environmental challenges: land degradation, forest cover, pollution, loss of biological diversity,
water scarcity and climate change impacts.99 Meanwhile, back on the Island of Youth,
Cubaenergía’s renewable energies project passed from the experimental to the investment phase
and the Ministry of Energy and Mines took control.100 Between January and September 2014,
diesel use on the Island of Youth was down by 329 tons, saving the equivalent of USD 253,000
on the international market.101 In 2015, two solar parks contributed 1,039 MW to the electro-
energetic system, equivalent to some 900 tons of fuel, saving USD 517,621 in oil imports for
generating electricity. A third solar park was under construction.
Since 2015, Cubaenergía has coordinated a new project with the European Union, worth
over EUR 3 million, to develop ‘environmental bases for local food sustainability’ and
‘contribute to food security based on principles of economic, technological, environmental,
organisational and gender equity’.102 Cubaenergía’s contribution was to demonstrate the benefits
of biogas, photovoltaic solar panels and solar dryers for agriculture. The organisation is also
developing a ‘bioenergy technology transfer’ project in Matanzas province.103 Curbelo Alonso
explained that by ‘bioenergy’ they refer to the use of biogas, wood waste, forest biomass,
including Dichrostachys cinerea, known in Cuba as marabú, and the production of biodiesel
from a plant with the scientific name Jatropha curcas. ‘In Cuba it is called Piñón de botija. It is
a plant that grows well with little need for water,’ he told me. The project fosters these
technologies and the equipment which uses them. ‘Cubaenergía is responsible for showing the
country that the potential exists, and what kind of regulatory measures would have to be taken to
achieve its potential use.’104

A BRIGHT AND RENEWABLE CUBA?

According to Bérriz, today the pioneer in renewable energy use in Cuba is the Revolutionary
Armed Forces (FAR), which Raúl Castro led between 1959 and 2008. ‘Most military buildings
have solar heaters and they have many solar parks. They have worked a lot with wood dryers and
solar dryers for their agricultural products.’105 For the FAR, self-sufficiency is an issue of
national security and this motivates the military’s engagement in productive and economic
activities.106 Renewable energies and energy efficiency bring Cuba closer to energy sovereignty.
Despite the progress made and the aspirations of those driving it, by mid-2017 Cuba’s
energy structure remained highly dependent on imported fossil fuels, with the associated
economic and strategic risks. Renewable energy sources contributed just 4.5 per cent of
electricity production for the national grid, compared to 45 per cent crude oil, 18 per cent motor
oil, 15.1 per cent thermal fuel, 14.1 per cent natural gas and 3.3 per cent diesel. The national
economic and social development plan through to 2030 (Plan 2030) seeks to increase the share
of renewable energy sources to 24 per cent by 2030, reducing crude oil to 32 per cent, motor fuel
to 9 per cent, thermal fuel to 5 per cent, natural gas to 8 per cent, diesel to 1 per cent and ‘other
combustible fossil fuels’ to 21 per cent.107
However, these statistics fail to capture the scope of the commitment to renewable energy
use in Cuba, because they refer to the production of electricity in the national grid, not the
production of energy per se. This distinction is overlooked even in Cuban reports, which refer to
the aim of raising renewable energy sources to 24 per cent of energy production by 2030.108 ‘We
already have 30 per cent of the country’s energy produced by renewable energy sources!’ Bérriz
exclaimed. ‘All the electricity produced by the sugar refineries for their own consumption is not
included in the current statistic citing 4 per cent.’ He provided another example: the aqueduct at
Baracoa was a huge consumer of electricity until it was reconstructed to use gravity, instead of
an electrical pump, to supply water. ‘Before, it used so much electricity, and now it doesn’t use
any, so it no longer appears in the statistics,’ he pointed out.109 Table 3 below shows the existing
stock of renewable energy by source.110
A second statistical error is not factoring in rising production. Reports often describe the
stated aim as a six-fold increase in the contribution of renewable energy sources to electricity
production (from 4 per cent to 24 per cent) when in fact it represents a multiplication of ten
because electricity production is expected to increase from 18 terawatts (TW) to 30 TW in 2030.
Bérriz made the calculation: ‘4 per cent of 18 is 0.72 and 24 per cent of 30 is 7.2; so the amount
of electricity that will be produced for the national grid will be a 10-fold multiplication.’111
There had also been progress in energy efficiency. By mid-2017, 2 million fluorescent bulbs
had been replaced with LED bulbs in the residential sector, with another 11 million to go, plus
another 250,000 public lights. Over half a million induction cookers had been sold to Cuban
households, with the goal being to replace 2 million electric resistance cookers.112 In Cuban
homes, 550 square metres of solar heaters had been installed out of the planned 200,000 square
metres, reducing the electricity consumed in those homes by an average of 12 per cent. By late
2018, 31,000 facilities in Cuba were using solar heaters, 9,476 had solar panels, 9,343 had
windmills, 3,234 had biogas plants, and there were 147 hydroelectric facilities and 22 solar
farms.113

Table 3: Stocks of renewable energy in 2017

Technology Installed capacity Installations
Sugarcane biomass 470 MW 57 sugar mills
Wind 11.1 MW 4 wind parks
Solar photovoltaic 37 MW 22 photovoltaic solar parks
5543 MW Rural schools
467 MW Doctors’ surgeries
1882 MW Rural TV centres
2500 MW 149 isolated houses
Hydroenergy 66 MW 149 hydroelectric plants
Biogas 0.82 MW 5 biogas plants
Non-sugar biogas 0.5 MW 4 biogas plants

‘Natural resources and the environment’ is one of six strategic areas for national
development in the national Plan 2030.114 The general objectives are: ‘1) Guarantee the
protection and rational use of natural resources, the conservation of ecosystems, and care of the
environment and the natural heritage of the nation for the benefit of society. 2) Improve the
quality of the environment. 3) Reduce the country’s vulnerability to the effects of climate change
through the gradual execution of the State Plan [Tarea Vida] for confronting it.’ These are
followed by twenty-one specific objectives, one of which is to increase energy efficiency and the
development of renewable energy sources, ‘which, among other benefits, contributes to reducing
the generation of greenhouse gases, reduces climate change and promotes less carbon-intensive
economic development.’115
 More specifically, the goals include the installation of 2144 MW of new electrical power,
requiring an expenditure of USD 4 billion. This will augment the existing renewable energy
sources stock with 19 bioelectric plants, 14 wind parks, solar parks producing 700 MW and 74
small hydroelectric stations by 2030. It will also see the extension of thermal solar energy, forest
biomass, solid urban waste, agricultural and organic industrial waste.116 Industrial biogas plants
are being constructed to treat waste and produce energy: of the 500 planned, 5 were already
operating in mid-2017. Similar plants will tackle waste contamination from pig farms, with 7,000
biogas plants to be built for use with pig excrement and another 1,700 for cow excrement. There
are also ambitious plans for forest biomass, by converting marabú, the leguminous tree with
deep roots which spread like a weed over 2 million hectares of uncultivated agricultural land,
about 18 per cent of the country’s territory, from a curse into a resource. An article in The
Economist about a British–Cuban joint venture in this area described it as ‘Cuba’s wonderful
weed’ explaining that: ‘Three tonnes of the stuff can produce as much electricity as a tonne of
fuel oil.’117 Small biomass electricity generators will power 67 saw mills. The first of these are
under development.118
‘How will these objectives be achieved?’ I asked Curbelo Alonso. ‘You know how this
works,’ he responded. ‘The policy goals are public. Then there are teams in the country’s
institutions working to implement the policies and devise regulations for achieving them. There
are work groups which have prepared a renewable energy law which will be an important step.
It’s not public yet – they are still working on it because it’s a complex problem.’119
By 2017, three Cuban factories were manufacturing solar water heaters: in Morón, Ciego de
Ávila, Cayo Coco. ‘We would like to have a factory in every province. And it is one of the things
which we are promoting,’ said Bérriz, who is committed to converting Cuban homes from net
consumers of energy into net producers, or ‘positive energy homes’; he believes it is a
possibility, not a utopian ideal, if the installation of solar panels is accompanied by moves to
cook with biomass and heat water with solar heaters.120 In Cuba, residential use accounts for
nearly half of total electricity consumption and half of that is for food cooking and heating water
for bathing. ‘No one believes it, but 90 per cent of the Cuban population heats water to bath
themselves. In summer, people heat water to wash!’ he exclaimed. ‘If we put solar heaters in the
houses, this immense quantity of electricity will no longer be consumed. Instead of using
petroleum to heat water, we could use the sun. The technologies exist, what we have to do is use
them.’121 In August 2019, a new programme was approved to sell solar heaters to residents in
Havana.122 Lights, televisions and other residential electrical equipment use a much smaller
proportion of the electricity consumed. Implementing the new law ‘Development of Renewable
Sources and Efficient Use of Energy’ approved on 23 March 2017 will be an important step in
this direction.
 THE ROLE OF FOREIGN INVESTMENT

Cuba’s ability to achieve its ambitious goals is dependent on the government’s capacity to attract
foreign investment, including Economic Partnership Agreements. Their 2016/17 Portfolio of
Foreign Investment included USD 3 billion sought for renewable energy projects, with the
projected potential to add 2.1 gigawatts of capacity from wind, solar, biogas and biomass
plants.123 The 2017/18 portfolio listed 13 projects for renewable energy development.124
The Cuban government has already contracted Spanish renewable energy corporation
Gamesa to build seven wind farms in eastern Cuba with a total generating power of 750 MW.
These will be added to four existing wind parks in Ciego de Avila, Holguin and the Island of
Youth. Another plan is to generate 440 MW of power from solar energy by 2020. Cuba has
received a USD 15 million loan ‘under favourable terms’ from the Abu Dhabi Development
Fund to develop 4 solar power plants each producing 10 MW using photovoltaic silicon
panels.125 Given the urgency in securing foreign investment in these areas, the Cuban
government is inviting 100 per cent foreign-owned investments for these projects, an ownership
status rarely permitted in revolutionary Cuba.126
China has been a key partner, offering training for Cuban technicians, technology and credit
to help Cuba augment its domestic production of solar panels. Some 60,000 Cuban panels were
manufactured in 2016, all of them with Chinese equipment, and the plan is to increase
production three-fold and install more automated machines. Chinese capital stepped in to assist a
British company, Havana Energy, which had entered a joint venture with Cuban state company
Azcuba in 2010 to develop biomass plants using Cuban bagasse and marabú. The British
partners struggled to access financing from Europe, because of the US blockade, so Shanghai
Electric stepped in as the major shareholder.127 By early 2018, two biomass plants were under
construction, which according to a business report, would ‘contribute 4 per cent more to Cuba’s
renewable energy share’, and were expected to foster significant future foreign investment.128

THE PRINCIPLES OF CUBAN ENERGY POLICY

‘The world’s energy policy is not right; while we follow this we are lost and that’s where the big
problem is,’ said Bérriz. ‘We now have the correct national energy policy, based on energy
efficiency and the use of renewable sources of energy. We know where we are going, we just
have to see how we get there.’129 What is the Cuban government’s energy policy? It is formally
guided by the following principles: human beings are at the centre of all considerations; an
efficient, diversified, balanced, independent and sustainable energy mix must be achieved;
foreign investment must be fostered; and there must be greater territorial participation.130 With
adequate foreign investment, Cuba can pursue its commitment to renewable energy, energy
efficiency and, ultimately, energy security. The Trump administration’s aggressive measures to
tighten the US blockade, outlined in Chapter 10, make implementing the new energy paradigm
both more difficult, by obstructing foreign investment, and more urgent.
Although preceded by decades of technical and scientific experimentation and innovation,
the Energy Revolution of 2005–2006 was a turning point in Cuba’s commitment to renewable
energies and sustainable development. It was motivated by multiple factors: reducing spending
and dependence on oil imports, and Cuba’s susceptibility to volatile international energy prices;
the need for energy security and national defence; combatting the effects of climate change; and
improving social and economic justice by raising living standards and universalising access to
energy. Creating a new energy paradigm is central to the current process of updating the Cuban
economy, as shown by the focus it is given in Plan 2030 and in terms of the opportunities
available for foreign investors. According to Bérriz, the solar radiation that Cuba receives in one
day is equivalent to the energy produced by 50 million tonnes of petroleum. It is greater in
energy value than the petroleum Cuba consumes in five years. There is great potential for a
bright and renewable future for the Cuban revolution.

THE CURIOUS CASE OF CUBA’S BIOTECH REVOLUTION

In late September 2018, a United States and Cuban biotech joint venture was established to trial
and deliver CIMAvax-EGF, an innovative Cuban lung cancer immunotherapy treatment, to
patients in the United States. Innovative Immunotherapy Alliance SA was set up by Buffalo-
based Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center and Havana’s Centre for Molecular
Immunology (CIM), an institutional collaboration which benefited from the tentative
rapprochement between the United States and Cuba in 2015 and 2016. The sheer fact that such
an entity should exist is scientifically and politically ground-breaking for several reasons.1
First, it testifies to the extraordinary development of biotechnology in Cuba, which has been
largely overlooked in medical science and business history literature on the field.2 Second,
despite six decades of the United States blockade obstructing Cuba’s foreign trade, external
financing, technology transfers and scientific exchange, including in the medical field, it is the
Cubans who have contributed the innovative science to this joint venture: they have cracked a
difficult nut, using immunotherapy to combat cancer. Third, while global biopharma is
associated with speculative, mostly private, capital, the Cuban industry is entirely state-owned
and financed. The emergence of Havana’s Scientific Pole for example, was the result of state
planning, not of market forces attracting private interests to a given location. The Cuban state
was motivated by socioeconomic and welfare concerns, not simply economic gains.3 Fourth,
while domestic production of medical drugs and supplies was an imperative forced on Cuba by
the US blockade, particularly in the post-Soviet era, the historical development of medical
science on the island, with its focus on parasitology and immunotherapy, was also decisive. So
was the involvement from the outset of researchers in biophysics and nuclear physics with the
technological and instrumental knowledge necessary to construct the first Cuban laboratories.
The collaboration between Roswell Park and CIM began when Cuban researcher Gisela
González, who was visiting her family in Pittsburgh in 2011, ‘cold called’ the Roswell Park
Cancer Centre in Buffalo, New York, to tell them about a lung cancer vaccine developed by
Cuba’s CIM. They invited her to give a presentation about the CIMAvax-EGF vaccine. Dr
Kelvin Lee, chairman of Roswell’s Department of Immunology, told me his reaction: ‘Gisela
came up and gave a great immunology talk. I’m sitting there thinking “Why would that ever
work?” Then she goes on to show it works and that they have done all these clinical trials. My
good friend from California sitting next to me said “The Cubans just throw out chapter one of
every immunology text book we know.” And it’s like, that’s really clever, we would’ve never
thought to do that.’4
Dr Lee admits that this was a revelation; he had an outdated, romantic image of Cuba ‘from
the “I love Lucy” days, the 1950s, Tropicana, and all that. We really hadn’t thought about Cuba
progressing forward from that time.’ With little contact between Cuba and the United States for
nearly 60 years, he says, ‘they were really flying under the radar’. Roswell Park took the bait and
shortly afterwards Lee attended an international immunology convention in Havana. He was
impressed by the number of innovative scientists doing remarkable research at CIM.
‘Who would have guessed that there was a medium-sized pharmaceutical company that had
integrated its basic research all the way through to commercial production in one plant? They
were adapting very sophisticated technologies to their economic constraints. Cuban scientists
don’t have a lot of resources to burn, so they think very carefully about what they’re going to do
even before they start. They are very thoughtful, thorough planners . . . It was unexpected. The
degree of sophistication, the size of their efforts. The fact that Fidel Castro saw this as something
very important, at the dawn of the biotech era, and really pushed it forwards. It was all
unexpected and very exciting!’5
 However, Lee’s journey to Havana was not quite breaking new ground. Back in 1980,
another Dr Lee had made that journey. The visit to Cuba by US oncologist Dr Randolph Lee
Clark, Director of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, is credited for catalysing Fidel
Castro’s determination to develop what has since become Cuba’s world-leading biotechnology
sector. The quantity and range of Cuba’s products is also significant: CIM’s lung cancer vaccine
is not an exception. Indeed, as Dr Kelvin Lee himself now recognises Cuba’s biotechnology
successes build on their ‘long history of really good infectious disease vaccination’. That story
begins back in the nineteenth century.

THE HISTORICAL TRAJECTORY OF CUBAN MEDICAL SCIENCE

Three private science institutes were set up in nineteenth century Cuba,6 but the best known
medical scientist of that century is Carlos Finlay who was born in colonial Cuba in 1833 to a
Scottish father and a French mother. In 1881, Finlay presented a ground-breaking theory that the
transmission vector, or carrier, of yellow fever was the mosquito. The following year, Finlay
identified the Aedas aegypti mosquito as the culprit, and recommended controls to halt the
spread of the disease. His finding was described as the greatest advance in medical science since
the discovery of the smallpox vaccine in 1796.7 Following Cuba’s formal independence, between
1902 and 1909, Finlay served as Cuba’s chief health officer.
There were other outstanding individuals in the decades that followed, but the period
between Cuban ‘independence’ in 1902 and the Revolution of 1959 were austere years for
medical science. The country had only three universities: in Havana, Oriente (Santiago) and Villa
Clara (set up in 1952), and they conducted little medical research. In 1937, Dr Pedro Kourí
privately founded the Institute of Tropical Medicine, which did conduct investigations and
earned a good international reputation among parasitologists and other specialists of tropical
medicine.
Private medical clinics thrived, largely by offering clients from the United States services at
a lower cost than home, or services not available in the United States due to more stringent
regulations.8 There was a tradition of eminence in surgery. The big money spinner was cosmetic
surgery, which generated USD 5 million a year between 1948 and 1958. The main causes of
childhood death on the island were parasitic infestation, gross malnutrition and enteric infections,
leading to diarrhoea and dehydration. But the paediatrics department at the University of Havana
Medical School barely addressed these ailments. Instead it specialised in hyperactivity and
leukaemia.
There was also a medical focus on the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Created in 1925,
the League against Cancer in Cuba secured private funding to set up the ‘Calixto García’
hospital, where prestigious Cuban medical practitioners held private clinics. In 1929, the Institute
of Cancer was set up, the first to treat malignant growths. Subsequently two more oncology
centres were founded, mainly to treat patients in the advanced stages of cancer. Most of the
doctors did not receive payment; this was philanthropic work. They did teach, however, and
exchanged scientific information and experiences with oncology centres in developed countries.9
The 1950 report by the Truslow Commission of the International Bank of Reconstruction
and Development declared that ‘the Mission could not find any suitable applied research
laboratory, public or private, in Cuba’.10 Three years later, the 1953 census recorded that 60 per
cent of the population had had had a maximum of three years of education.11 Just over 1 per cent
of Cubans had university education, and of those only 1.7 per cent were science students who
mostly graduated without practical experience. Access to health care was also highly unequal,
and public healthcare provision was minimal.

PRE-REVOLUTIONARY CUBA: AN UNHEALTHY PLACE TO BE POOR

In pre-1959 Cuba, healthcare provision was divided into contributory, private and public
sectors.12 The contributory sector, where regular payments were made to mutualist or medical
associations, or to trade unions, served the middle classes and sections of the organised working
class. The smaller private sector served mainly the rich. The public sector served mainly the
poor. It has been estimated that one-fifth of Cubans belonged to mutualist health associations or
medical cooperatives by 1958 and private clinics also abounded. In the 1930s, some 200 Cuban
doctors were paid by local government authorities, the municipios, to attend the ‘sick poor’ part-
time. There were free hospital beds in Havana to serve the urban poor. By the 1950s, relative to
the rest of Latin America, Cuba had a high number of doctors – 6,286 physicians – and the
island’s poor had at least the possibility of receiving medical attention.
However, geography, racism and corruption obstructed medical access. Some 62 per cent of
medical practitioners were in Havana. Many mutualist associations banned non-white Cubans,
while others were racially segregated. This was not the case in the communist-led trade unions,
where contributory healthcare plans were funded by payroll deductions. In the 1950s, the Cuban
government allocated around 7.5 per cent of its budget to ‘health and welfare’, but a large
proportion was skimmed off through graft and corruption. For the rural population, medical
services were channelled through political party leaders, so those requiring access to clinics or
hospital beds had to sell their votes accordingly.13
Cuba had one medical school, the best in Latin America, recognised by the American
Medical Association as on a par with those in the United States.14 Tuition was free, but only
students from expensive private schools could attain the high entry grades. Medical training
relied almost exclusively on text books used in US medical schools, preparing doctors for US
medical realities. This was not inconvenient, however, given that many graduates planned to
establish lucrative practices in urban areas where wealthy clientele, including US health tourists,
could afford to pay.
Meanwhile, Cuba’s rural infant and maternal death rates were the second highest in Latin
America.15 Some 80 per cent of children in the countryside suffered intestinal parasites in 1959:
it was the number one cause of death. And 60 per cent of the rural population was seriously
undernourished. Life expectancy in rural areas was 50 years (60 nationally) and infant mortality
was 100 per 1,000 live births (58 per 1,000 nationally). And yet there was only one rural
hospital. Unsurprisingly, given massive unemployment, low salaries and little access to land,
only 4 per cent of Cubans in the rural areas ate meat, 3 per cent ate bread, 11 per cent had milk
after weaning and less than 20 per cent ate eggs.16 More than 75 per cent of rural dwellings were
wooden huts; only 2 per cent of rural Cubans had running water and 9 per cent had electricity.17
The true enemy of public health, a report noted, was ‘economic underdevelopment, feudal
exploitation, the latifundia [plantation system] and its consequences: illiteracy, the hundreds of
thousands of unemployed, the terrible tiempo muerto [the ‘dead season’ between sugar harvests
when 400,000 cane cutters were left unemployed] with its inescapable companions: misery,
hunger, and death.’18 What were the revolutionaries going to do about it?

REVOLUTIONARY CHANGE: SOCIALISM IS GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH

Speaking at the Cuban Academy of Sciences in mid-January 1960, one year after the Rebel
Army took power, Fidel Castro declared: ‘The future of Cuba will be a future of men of science.’
This must have seemed like a pipe dream, given the backward state of Cuban scientific research
and generally low level of education. The Revolution, declared Castro, was sowing opportunities
for intelligence. It needed thinking men who would put their intelligence to ‘good’, on the side of
‘justice’, in the interests of the nation.
Initiated the following January, the literacy campaign of 1961 reduced illiteracy from 23 per
cent to 3 per cent in Cubans over ten years old within one year. It was followed by the University
Reform Law in January 1962, which removed their traditional autonomy and, by eliminating fees
and facilitating access at all levels, opened the universities to the children of workers, peasants
and non-white Cubans. Courses were introduced to train the specialists required for the
Revolution’s economic development plans. In 1962 the Cuban government created the National
Commission for the Academy of Sciences of Cuba. New schools, colleges and universities were
built, new teachers trained. Thousands of Cuban students studied in the socialist bloc countries,
while others received scholarships from institutions in the west.
 As the Rebel Army took over Havana, medical professionals followed the dictator
Fulgencio Batista off the island. Only 12 of the 250 Cuban teachers at the University of
Havana’s Medical School remained.19 The vacancies were filled by volunteer professors from
different countries.20 Cuba signed medical aid treaties with East Germany and Poland. Fidel
Castro later recalled ‘we were left almost without doctors, because 3,000 of them left out of the
6,000 that had been in the country.’21 How could the new revolutionary government introduce
free universal access to medical treatment, funded by the state rather than through compulsory
insurance, with so few medics and lacking the infrastructure necessary to reach the rural and
mountainous areas where those most in need lived? Among the stopgap measures taken was the
retraining of prostitutes as paramedical staff to meet the critical staff shortages.22
Canadian Professor Theodore MacDonald spoke to some of those nurses in 1961 who: ‘had
only been given a week’s training, and equipped with a St John’s Ambulance First Aid book (in
English!. . .) before being sent individually and on their own to run rural health clinics where
none had existed before. As one of them observed, prostitution had been much easier and more
highly paid. All of those women subsequently enrolled for proper nursing training in 1960
because they found the work interesting . . . Other ex-prostitutes found themselves assigned to
hospitals where they took a six-month emergency certificate course, involving half a day on the
ward directed by a fully qualified nurse and the other half of each day receiving classroom
instruction.’23
Inevitably, says MacDonald, the academic quality of the Revolution’s first cohort of
medical students fell. They had been selected on the basis of their answers to ‘social issues’
questions, not just their grades. Of 63 students who applied in 1959, only 38 were selected and
14 of them soon dropped out as they found the course too strenuous.24
Cuba’s rural structure began to change with the first Agrarian Reform Law of 1959 which
distributed deeds to 150,000 landless farmers. In 1960, the Rural Medical Service (RMS) was
established and over the next decade hundreds of newly graduated doctors were posted in remote
areas.25 RMS physicians served as health educators as well as clinicians. National programmes
were established for infectious disease control and prevention, targeting malaria and acute
diarrhoeal and vaccine-preventable illnesses.26 From 1962 a national immunisation programme
provided all Cubans with eight vaccinations free of charge. Infectious diseases were rapidly
reduced, then eliminated, including polio (eliminated 1962), malaria (1968), diphtheria (1971),
measles (1993), pertussis (1994) and rubella (1995).27

CHE GUEVARA PROMOTES MEDICAL SCIENCE

In 1959, Cuba was dependent on US pharma for medicines. The market was dominated by two
firms which made exorbitant profits. The industry was expropriated by revolutionary decree,
putting production and distribution of medicines into government hands. It fell under the
jurisdiction of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara as Minister of Industries. In his pre-revolutionary life,
Guevara had graduated as a medic and researched allergies, asthma, leprosy and nutritive theory.
As Minister, he set up nine research and development institutes, including, in 1963, the
Institute for the Development of the Chemical Industry to foster the industrial application of
human and animal antibiotics.28 While progress was limited, the Institute established a research
methodology which later became a distinctive feature of Cuban biotechnology. ‘The idea was
excellent,’ Tirso Sáenz, Guevara’s Vice Minister of Science and Technology in the early 1960s,
told me, ‘to make an institution with what they call a complete cycle of innovation. The institute
develops products at a scale where it can build pilot plants which, if successful, are turned into
production plants.’29
Guevara commandeered an abandoned farm, to use for socio-productive and botanical
experiments.30 The personnel were students from the Rebel Army School, and they were joined
by Chinese medical scientists, a Cuban post-doctoral researcher and three agronomy engineers.
From the farm two dozen varieties of medicinal plants were supplied to 40 scientists conducting
laboratory experiments with plants, animals and raw materials on the fourth floor at the Hospital
of Oncology under Guevara’s directives.31 In this institution lie the roots of CIM.32 When Juan
Valdés Gravalosa, at the time a leading member of the Ministry of Industries, visited the hospital
laboratory he saw research being conducted into antibiotics and use of the native vicaría flower
for fighting leukaemia. He also told me about an experiment mysteriously labelled ‘31’,
involving a flower with strong medicinal qualities taken from burial earth: ‘They were secretly
going round the cemeteries!’ he exclaimed.33
Guevara left Cuba in 1965 and the farm was transferred to the newly established National
Centre for Scientific Research (CENIC), set up to initiate biological studies and a new scientific
infrastructure. The directors in the post-1980 biotechnology institutes all began as students in
CENIC.34 Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, thousands of Cubans trained as scientists and
engineers. Cuba achieved 1.8 researchers per 1,000 inhabitants, well above the mean for Latin
America (0.4) and close to that of Europe (2.0).35 Among the many institutions created was the
National Council of Science and Technology, in 1975, the same year that a new national
scientific policy was approved at the First Congress of the Cuban Communist Party.

EXTENDING AND IMPROVING HEALTH CARE

By 1970, the number of rural hospitals had risen to 53.36 Provincial medical and nursing schools
were established to decentralise training and encourage professionals to practice where they grew
up. Tuition was free, academic achievement being the sole requisite for admission. By the mid-
1970s, health services were available across the country and indicators improved significantly. A
new model of community-based polyclinics was established in 1974 to deliver comprehensive
care to residents in their neighbourhoods. Polyclinics gave Cuban communities local access to
primary care specialists such as obstetricians, gynaecologists, paediatricians, internists and dental
services. Training and policy emphasised the impact of biological, social, cultural, economic and
environmental factors on patients. National programmes focused on maternal and child health,
infectious diseases, chronic non-communicable diseases and older adult health.
In 1976 a new Ministry of Public Health was established, and a new Cuban constitution
approved. Article 50 stated:

Everybody has the right to health protection and care. The State guarantees this right: by
providing free medical and hospital care, by means of the installations of the rural medical
service network, polyclinics, hospitals and preventive and specialized treatment centers; by
providing free dental care; by promoting the public health campaigns, health education,
regular medical examinations, general vaccinations and other measures to prevent the
outbreak of disease. All of the population cooperates in these activities and plans through
the social and mass organizations.37

By the 1980s, Cuba had the health profile of a highly developed country, having eliminated most
infectious and poverty-related diseases, so that ailments such as cancer, diabetes and heart
disease became priorities, on a par with the developed capitalist world.38 These conditions are
expensive to treat. Additionally, a new law passed by US president Ronald Reagan in 1982
prohibited foreign nations from exporting goods and equipment to Cuba if any part or process in
its manufacture had been mediated by US companies or individuals. Cuban subscriptions to US
science and technology journals could not be honoured.39
In Cuba, medical focus was extended to tertiary care (specialised consultative care) facilities
and research. In 1983, the Family Doctor and Nurse Plan was introduced nationwide. Local
practices were to coordinate medical care and lead health promotion efforts, emphasising
prevention and epidemiologic analysis. Primary-care professionals were to rely on medical
records and clinical skills, reserving costly high-tech procedures for patients requiring them.
Comprehensive General Medicine became a new postgraduate specialisation.
Family physicians and nurse teams lived among their patients. Initially, each team was
responsible for 120 to 150 families (600–800 people), holding office hours in the mornings and
house calls in the afternoons.40 Generally, either the doctor or the nurse lived with their family
above the medical practice, so medical attention was available 24 hours a day. The teams carried
out neighbourhood health diagnosis and continuous assessment and risk evaluation for their
patients.41 Family doctors and nurses were also employed in large workplaces and schools, child
day care centres, homes for senior citizens and so on.

SAVING AND EXTENDING LIVES IN THE SPECIAL PERIOD

From 1990, the Special Period of economic crisis wreaked havoc on the Cuban population and
economy (see Chapter 2). However, action taken by the Cuban government mitigated the
deterioration of health for the revolutionary people. This was driven by ideological commitments
to the predominance of state ownership, central planning and free, universal welfare provision,
and it was essential to secure the people’s commitment to the Revolution in such austere
conditions. Despite the severity of the economic collapse, the share of Cuba’s GDP spent on
social programmes in the 1990s increased by nearly 35 per cent.42
Scarce medical equipment and medicines were compensated for by increased personnel.
Health spending rose 13 per cent and 15,380 medical professionals joined the service between
1990 and 1994, raising the doctor to patient ratio from 1 to every 276 inhabitants to 1 to 202.
Between 1990 and 2003, the number of Cuban doctors increased by 76 per cent, dentists by 46
per cent and nurses by 16 per cent. There was an 86 per cent increase in maternity homes, 107
per cent increase in senior day-care centres and 47 per cent increase in homes for people with
disabilities.43 Remarkably, infant mortality declined from 10.7 per 1,000 in 1990 to 7.2 in 1999,
while life expectancy rose from 75 to 75.6 years despite the crisis.44
By 1999, family doctors served all Cubans, even the most rural populations. Praising the
Cuban system in 2000, a United Nations Development Programme study asserted that: ‘Cuba is
the country with the best health situation in Latin America and the Caribbean’, and UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan said the island ‘demonstrates how much nations can do with the resources
they have if they focus on the right priorities – health, education, and literacy’.45 Remarkable
conclusions given the decade of severe economic crises that preceded it and the fact that the US
blockade had been tightened three times during the decade, preventing Cubans from accessing
healthcare technologies, medicines and even medical journals. Cuban paediatrician Aleida
Guevara, daughter of the Argentinian revolutionary Che Guevara, described how, in her hospital,
‘We used an X-ray machine for more than 45 years.’ They finally purchased a new one for an
extortionate price which involved going through two or three intermediaries to circumvent the
US blockade.46
By 2012 there were 488 polyclinics throughout Cuba, each serving between 20,000 and
60,000 patients and supporting 20 to 40 family doctors.47 There were an additional 336 maternity
homes for women with high-risk pregnancies and 234 senior day-care centres. All 15 of Cuba’s
provinces had at least one general, one maternal and one paediatric hospital, and most had more.
There were 215 hospitals in Cuba. Cubans continue to be well served in medical terms with 7.5
doctors per 1,000 head of population, nearly three times the density of doctors in the United
States or the United Kingdom.48

HIGH TECH MEDICINE IN LOW TECH CUBA: THE BIOTECHNOLOGY STORY

‘Biotechnology is an industrial process,’ explains Dr Agustín Lage Dávila, Director of the Centre
for Molecular Immunology (CIM) and a key character in Cuba’s biotechnology story. We are
sitting around a long conference table in a plain room in the CIM premises. ‘People have a hard
time distinguishing between biological and biotechnological scientific research,’ he went on.
Biological research into genomes and cells does not constitute biotechnology unless it involves
industrial production. ‘When you start talking about productive scaling, it begins to look like any
manufacturing process; a transformation industry. You transform cotton into fabric, iron into
steel, wood into furniture, oil into plastic. You British invented it with the Industrial Revolution!
Biotechnology is the same thing, but the transformation of the raw material into a final product is
done inside a living cell; the factory is the cell.’49
The world’s first biotechnology enterprise was established in the United States in 1976. Just
five years later, in 1981, the Biological Front, a professional interdisciplinary forum, was set up
to develop the industry in Cuba.50 This was the first time in its economic history that Cuba had
incorporated itself into an emerging industrial sector. How did this happen? While most
developing countries had little access to the new technologies (recombinant DNA, human gene
therapy, biosafety), Cuban biotechnology expanded and took on an increasingly strategic role in
both the public health sector and the national economic development plan.51 It did so despite the
US blockade obstructing access to technologies, equipment, materials and even knowledge
exchange.
Cuba’s biotechnology sector emerged independently from both the Soviet Union and the
corporate capitalist model in the United States and Europe.52 Driven by public health demand, it
has been characterised by the fast track from research and innovation to trials and application.
This is illustrated by the development and use of interferons to arrest a deadly outbreak of the
dengue virus in 1981.53
Interferons are ‘signalling’ proteins produced and released by host cells in response to
pathogens (viruses, bacteria, parasites and tumour cells) which alert nearby cells to heighten their
defences. Interferons were first identified in 1957 by Jean Lindenmann and Aleck Isaacs at the
National Institute of Medical Research in London during their work on ‘viral interference’, the
process by which a cell that is infected by one virus can produce an immune response which
protects it from another virus. Following this breakthrough, in the 1960s Ion Gresser, a US
researcher in Paris, showed that interferons stimulate lymphocytes that attack tumours in mice.
In the 1970s, US oncologist Randolph Clark Lee had taken up this research. Catching the
tail end of US president Jimmy Carter’s improved relations with Cuba, Clark joined a delegation
to visit the island’s health facilities. During the trip Clark met with Fidel Castro and convinced
him that interferon was the wonder drug. Clark offered to host a Cuban researcher at his hospital.
Castro persuaded him to take two. Shortly afterwards, a Cuban doctor and a haematologist spent
time in Clark’s laboratory. He gave them the latest research about interferon and put them in
contact with the Finnish doctor Kari Cantell, who in the 1970s had isolated interferon from
human cells. Cantell’s commitment to global health led him to share his breakthrough without
patenting his interferon procedure. In March 1981, six Cubans spent twelve days in Finland with
Cantell learning to produce large quantities of interferon. They were from the first generation of
medical scientists entirely trained under the Revolution since 1959.
In April 1981, the day after returning from Finland, the Cubans moved into ‘House 149’, a
former mansion converted into an interferon laboratory, which became the Centre for Biological
Studies. Fidel Castro visited them frequently, securing them the resources they required. Within
just 45 days the Cubans had produced their first Cuban batch of interferon. Safety and sterility
tests were performed on mice before three of the scientists inoculated themselves. They
experienced a slight rise in temperature, nothing worse. Cantell’s laboratory in Finland
confirmed the quality of the Cuban interferon.
Just in time, it turned out. Weeks later Cuba was struck by an epidemic of dengue, another
disease transmitted by mosquitos. Notably, it was the first time this particularly virulent strand,
which can trigger life-threatening dengue haemorrhagic fever, had appeared in the Americas.
The epidemic affected 340,000 Cubans with 11,000 new cases diagnosed every day at its peak.54
The death toll rose to 180, including 101 children. The Cubans suspected the CIA of releasing
the virus. Castro announced: ‘We share the people’s convictions and strongly suspect that the
plagues that have been punishing our country, especially the hemorrhagic [sic] dengue, could
have been introduced into Cuba, into our country, by the CIA.’55 The US State Department flatly
denied it, although a recent Cuban investigation claims to provide evidence that the epidemic
was introduced from the United States.56
At the height of the epidemic, Cuba’s Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) authorised the
scientists in House 149 to use interferon to halt the dengue outbreak. This was done at great
speed. They found that in advanced cases of dengue interferon was not useful, but in recent
infections in children it cut short cases of haemorrhagic dengue shock. Mortality declined. In
their historical account, Cuban medical scientists Caballero Torres and Lopez Matilla wrote that:
‘It was the most extensive prevention and therapy event with interferon carried out in the world.
Cuba began to hold regular symposia, which quickly drew international attention.’57 The first
international event in 1983 was prestigious: Cantell gave the keynote speech and Clark attended
with Albert Bruce Sabin, the Polish-American scientist who developed the oral polio vaccine that
has helped to nearly eradicate the disease globally.
Convinced about the contribution and strategic importance of innovative medical science,
the Cuban government set up the ‘Biological Front’ to develop the sector. In January 1982, the
Centre for Biological Studies moved from House 149 into a newly built and better-equipped
laboratory, with 80 researchers. Cuban scientists went abroad to study, many in western
countries.58 Their research took on more innovative paths as they experimented with cloning
interferon. By the time Cantell returned to Cuba in 1986, the Cubans had developed a second
generation interferon cloned in yeast.59
Meanwhile, in 1982, the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO)
launched a competition for an internationally funded project to foster biotechnology in the Third
World. UNIDO’s International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology was to
facilitate North–South knowledge transfer and cooperation in science. Reagan’s 1982 measures
tightening the US blockade gave Cuba an additional incentive to apply. In 1984, the project
funds were awarded to a joint application by India and Italy. However, the Cubans, and Fidel
Castro most emphatically, decided to proceed without support. Construction immediately began
on Cuba’s showpiece Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB), to work in
biology, chemical engineering and physics. It opened just two years later in 1986. By then Cuba
was submerged in another health crisis, a serious outbreak of meningitis B, which further spurred
Cuba’s biotechnology sector.

CUBA’S MENINGITIS MIRACLE

In 1976, Cuba was struck by meningitis B and C outbreaks.60 Since 1916 only a few isolated
cases had been seen on the island. At that point, internationally, vaccines existed for meningitis
A and C, but not for B. Cuban health authorities secured a vaccine from a French pharmaceutical
company to immunise people against type C meningitis. However, in the following years, cases
of type B meningitis began to rise. With infections and fatalities on the increase, in 1983
MINSAP established a team of specialists from different medical science centres, led by a
woman biochemist, Concepción Campa, to work intensively on finding a vaccine. By 1984
meningitis B had become the main health problem in Cuba. After six years of working around
the clock, Campa’s team produced the world’s first successful meningitis B vaccine in 1988.
Again, the scientists tested the vaccine on themselves, and their own children, before beginning
clinical trials. Between 1987 and 1989, a randomised, double-blind controlled trial of the vaccine
efficacy took place with over 100,000 students aged 10 to 14. The results showed the vaccine to
be 83 per cent effective. Another member of Campa’s team, Dr Gustavo Sierra, recalled their
joy: ‘This was the moment when we could say it works, and it works in the worst conditions,
under pressure of an epidemic and among people of the most vulnerable age.’61
MINSAP decided that more lives would be saved by starting nationwide vaccinations
immediately with an 83 per cent effective vaccine rather than delaying until a more effective one
was produced (or not). During 1989 and 1990, 3 million Cubans, those most at risk (children and
young people), were vaccinated. In the roll-out, the efficacy ranged from 83 per cent to 94 per
cent in different provinces. No severe reactions occurred and another severe disease outbreak had
been halted. Subsequently, 250,000 young people were vaccinated with the VA-MENGOC-BC
vaccine, a combined meningitis B and C vaccination. It recorded 95 per cent efficacy overall,
with 97 per cent in the high-risk three months to six years age group. Cuba’s meningitis B
vaccine was awarded a UN Gold Medal for global innovation. This was Cuba’s meningitis
miracle.62
‘I tell colleagues that one can work 30 years, 14 hours a day just to enjoy that graph for 10
minutes,’ said Agustín Lage, Director of the Centre for Molecular Immunology (CIM), referring
to an illustration of the rise and sudden fall of meningitis B cases in Cuba. ‘Biotechnology
started for that. But then the possibilities of developing an export industry opened up, and today
Cuban biotechnology exports to 50 countries.’63 This possibility came about after an outbreak of
meningitis B in Brazil a few years later. ‘The Brazilians bought the Cuban vaccine. It was a huge
purchase and that money was invested in expanding the biotechnology industry here,’ explained
Lage.
By 1986, Cuba had 39,000 scientific workers: 1 for every 282 people; 23,000 were involved
in research. Thousands had been trained abroad, mainly in the socialist countries, but also in
Western Europe. The revolutionary government’s investments in education and public health had
created the ‘critical mass’ necessary for further progress in medical science. The Biological Front
invested USD 1 billion to develop a biotechnology industry between 1981 and 1989, including
establishing the Western Havana Scientific Pole, known as Science City, between 1986 and
1991.64

SCIENCE CITY

Science City is a cluster of biotechnology institutions that coordinate and integrate their work.
Centre directors get together monthly to discuss projects and exchange information in meetings
attended by top government officials, formerly including Fidel Castro. Thousands of housing
units were constructed locally to enable the institution’s employees, working daily shifts of 14
hours, to walk to work. At the centre of Science City is the CIGB, which has received the
greatest investment of any Cuban science institution. Other institutions followed:

• 1987, the Centre for Immunoassay to manufacture computerised and automated equipment
for biochemical tests and screenings to detect pathologies;

• 1989, the National Centre for Meningococcal Vaccines for research and production of the
VA-MENGOC-BC vaccine and other human vaccines. It was renamed the Finlay
Institute (to honour Carlos Finlay) in 1991;

• 1990, the Cuban Centre for Neuroscience for the diagnosis and treatment of brain
diseases;

• 1992, the National Centre for Biopreparations to produce Cuban biologicals; and

• 1994, the Centre of Molecular Immunology (CIM).

Along with the pace of these state investments, the astonishing fact is that they took place in the
midst of Cuba’s acute economic crisis, as the case of Cuba’s Centre for Molecular Immunology
shows.

ONCOLOGY MEETS BIOTECHNOLOGY

In the 1980s, biotechnology and oncology began to converge globally. In Cuba’s National
Institute of Oncology and Radiobiology, which had emerged from the Hospital of Oncology
where Guevara had directed research, Agustín Lage was among a group of young scientists
working on an experimental project into the role of immunology to fight cancer. In the early
1980s, the National Institute of Oncology and Radiobiology (INOR) developed and trialled the
first Cuban monoclonal antibodies (MABs) – clones of single antibody cells – with multiple
medical uses.65 By the late 1980s, MABs were used for detecting malignant tumours and
preventing organ rejection in Cuban transplant patients.66 After a visit to INOR in 1989, Fidel
Castro recommended expanding the institution, integrating it into the Scientific Pole, and
providing it with the capacity for industrial-scale production and authorisation to export.
Construction began in 1991. In December 1991, when the USSR collapsed, only the
prefabricated columns of the new CIM had been built. Nonetheless, Fidel Castro would not allow
the project to be halted. Lage describes this as: ‘a very audacious decision, when the country had
no financial resources to say “this centre has to be completed”. It was Fidel’s decision, a kind of
offensive defence.’67 The fact that the sector was entirely state-owned and controlled made that
decision possible, and necessary, if CIM was to continue.

THE SPECIAL PERIOD: MEDICAL SCIENCE EXEMPT!

The collapse of the USSR and Eastern European socialism had a traumatic economic impact on
Cuba. From having over 85 per cent of its trade conducted under planned agreements with
socialist countries (unimpeded by the US blockade), Cuba was suddenly dependent on an
international capitalist market dominated by the United States, the country pursuing a merciless
blockade on the island. One-third of world pharmaceutical production took place in the US.
From where could Cuba get medical equipment and medicines?68
In 1993, as Cuban socialism struggled to survive in the post-Soviet world after GDP had
plummeted 35 per cent in three years, Fidel Castro declared that science and scientific production
would have to occupy the first place in national production one day.69 Elsewhere there were
drastic cuts, things fell apart, production and transport halted, belts tightened and scarcity
appeared in almost every sector and space. In this context, the inherently high-risk nascent
biotechnology sector was selected as one of three strategic economic sectors for investment,
along with tourism and food production.
Between 1990 and 1996, another USD 1 billion (1.5 per cent of Cuba’s GNP) was invested
into the Scientific Pole. It functioned as an incubator of medical science enterprises which were
protected directly by the president’s office during the Special Period. When the institutions
began to export, that money was reinvested into them; a ‘closed economic cycle’ was created.
Thus it was in the most difficult economic period that Cuban biotechnology flourished. The
motivation was domestic public health benefits, Lage explained, ‘And because of the US
blockade. We could not afford expensive drugs, sometimes we could not get them even if we had
all the money in the world, because they would not sell them.’70 Elsewhere in Latin America,
neoliberal structural adjustment programmes saw public health provision privatised and rolled
back in the 1990s, but the Cuban government held steadfast to its social-welfare oriented,
centrally planned economy.71
Gradually the dust covering the country’s pharmacy shelves was replaced by Cuban
manufactured ‘biosimilars’ – copies of traditional and biotechnological medicines, as Cuba’s
biopharma sector was channelled to meet this need. Copying biotech products involves high-
level science to synthesise genes and introduce them into cells to clone them. Cuba’s Interferon,
Erythropoietin and the vaccine against hepatitis B have all been ‘copy products’.72 Homeopathic
alternatives also claimed shelf space. Among them was another innovative Cuban treatment for
cancer patients: Vidatox 30-CH, made from the venom of Rhopalurus junceus, a rare blue
scorpion endemic to Cuba. It has analgesic, anti-inflammatory and anti-carcinogenic effects in
more than 15 different cancer cell lines.73 Research began in the Special Period and, by October
2010, Cuba’s Labiofam laboratory had tested Vidatox on more than 10,000 cancer patients, some
3,500 of them foreigners, with positive results both in improving quality of life and stopping
tumour growth.74 The need for cheap generic drugs was international, so Cuba increased its
pharmaceutical exports. By the mid-1990s, they were earning USD 100 million a year.

BIOTECHNOLOGY UNDER CAPITALISM

The biotech industry in the United States was launched with venture capital.75 In 1971, the first
electronic stock exchange, the NASDAQ, was set up in the US specifically for financing high-
tech businesses for which risk is intrinsic, and it shaped the emerging biotechnology sector.76 It
took 24 years for a similar exchange, the Alternative Investment Market, to be established in
London, then the pattern was repeated around the world. These developments also reflect the
twentieth-century phenomena of ‘internalisation of science’ within businesses. Electronic and
chemical companies established scientific laboratories internally, and businesses set up
departments for research and development. Biotechnology took this further with the
establishment of firms in which the science is the business. Science businesses are founded
without products, and so without profits. With scientific–technological innovations, the task is
not to conquer a market, but create one: if the product does not exist, neither does the market.
Lage argues that the scientific–technological nature of the task is inimical to capitalist short-term
profit-seeking. Capitalist businesses responding to ‘market signals’ struggle to connect science
with the economy, manage risky projects, pay attention to ‘human capital’ and prioritise long-
term investment. Their solution to this contradiction is speculative investment to mobilise
capital, he points out.77
Internationally, the biotech sector did not achieve profits from product sales until 2009.
Nonetheless, billions of dollars poured into the industry. Why does money from venture capital
and big pharma flow into an industry in which profits are so hard to come by?78 The answer is
the role of financial mechanisms such as Initial Public Offerings (IPOs), Special Purpose Entities
(SPEs), Special Purpose Corporations (SPCs) and patents licences in permitting profits to be
made from a high-tech sector with low productivity. Start-up firms typically depend on venture
capital investment to underwrite their initial costs. Once some promising products are developed,
venture capitalists and other early-stage investors seek to recoup their investment (or a portion of
it) by having the firm issue stock to the public in an IPO.79
However, biotechnology products can take up to 20 years to commercialise, and many will
never reach that point. By 2002, only about 100 biotech-related drugs had reached the market in
30 years, with the top 10 accounting for nearly all of the sales.80 Virtually all biopharma
companies that do IPOs are product-less.81 However, this financial speculation permits
stockmarket investors to reap huge rewards by trading biopharma stock even in the absence of a
commercial product.
Nonetheless, public investment underlies this private profit. The United States government
gives huge financial, legislative and regulatory support to the sector. Two researchers on the
topic conclude: ‘The biopharmaceutical industry has become big business because of big
government [and] remains highly dependent on big government to sustain its commercial
success.’82 Between 1978 and 2004, the US government’s National Institutes of Health spent
USD 365 billion on life sciences (2004 prices).83 Commodification of medical research has been
legalised.84 Regulatory assistance is channelled through US patent policy, the Food and Drug
Agency (FDA) approval process and decisions concerning what drugs or therapies to include on
national healthcare programmes.85
Thus, Cuban ‘exceptionalism’ does not lie in the mere fact of government support and/or
public funding for the biotech industry. It lies in the political economy context – its centrally
planned, state-controlled economy, and a development strategy which has prioritised health care,
education and research into science and technology since the early 1960s.

BIOTECHNOLOGY WITH CUBAN CHARACTERISTICS

The president of a multinational pharmaceutical company once informed Lage that he was bound
by his shareholders’ interests. Asked how many shareholders his company had, the president
answered that it was 300,000. ‘Ah’, Lage replied, ‘well, I have 11 million. Our shareholders are
all 11 million Cubans!’86 Founded solely through state investment, with financing guaranteed
through the state budget, the Cuban biopharma sector is state-owned, with no private interests or
speculative investments. Profit is not sought domestically, because the sector is completely
integrated into the state-funded public health system. National health needs are prioritised.
Medicines that Cuba cannot afford, or cannot get access to because of the US blockade, have to
be produced domestically. Today, 517 of the 800 or so medicines consumed in Cuba are
produced domestically, close to 70 per cent.
Cooperation prevails over competition as research and innovations are shared between
institutions. Teams of scientists are established to take a project through from basic science, to
product-oriented research, to manufacturing and marketing – activities that are carried out by
different businesses in most countries. Dr Kelvin Lee highlights these ‘striking’ and ‘unique’
characteristics of the Cuban biotech sector: ‘They start with identifying a need, then figure out
the science to develop that in the lab, manufacture their agent, test it in the Cuban medical
system and then commercialise it and sell it overseas. Their system is particularly nimble in that
ability.’87 The disadvantage the Cubans face, he added, is that they can’t pursue thousands of
good ideas and write off those which don’t work as sunk costs. ‘They don’t have the resources to
do that.’88 Their access to capital is extremely limited. So what, then, have been the fruits of this
distinctive Cuban system?

THE CUBAN CURE

In 2015, the World Health Organization announced that Cuba was first in the world to eliminate
mother-to-child HIV transmission. Cuba has prevented an AIDS epidemic with domestically
produced antiretroviral medicine that halts patient transmission, as if it were a vaccine. In 2019,
pre-exposure prophylaxis pills were being distributed to prevent the spread of HIV in healthy
people.89 The island’s mortality curve for AIDS continues to fall. The universal use of the
CIGB’s hepatitis B vaccine on newborns means Cuba should be among the first countries free
from hepatitis B. This is one of the 8 vaccines (out of 11 vaccines for 13 diseases) administered
to Cuban children which are produced in Science City. Within 10 years, 100 million doses of
Cuba’s hepatitis B vaccine had been used around the world.
By 2017, CIGB employed 1,600 people and sold 21 products internationally. CIGB’s
portfolio of innovations with major public health implications includes Heberprot-P for diabetic
foot ulcers, affecting some 422 million people worldwide, which reduces the need for
amputations by 71 per cent.90 In 10 years, 71,000 patients in Cuba were treated with Heberprot-P
plus 130,000 people in 26 other countries.
Cuba was second in the Americas to achieve a complete congenital hypothyroidism
screening programme, after Canada and before the United States. Cuba’s Immunoassay Centre
developed its own Ultramicroanalytic System (SUMA) equipment for prenatal diagnosis for
congenital anomalies. In addition to other checks, nearly 4 million babies have been tested for
congenital hypothyroidism, which effects the production of thyroxine, a hormone needed for
normal growth and development.91 Treatment is easy and cheap. ‘Since this system was
introduced some children who would have had problems with their mental development are in
universities,’ Lage stated.92 In 2017, the Immunoassay Centre had 418 workers producing 57
million tests per year for 19 different conditions, including hepatitis B and C, dengue fever,
cystic fibrosis, Chagas disease, leprosy and HIV.
Cuba’s Centre for Neuroscience is developing cognitive and biomarker tests for early
screening of Alzheimer’s disease. They have developed a hearing aid for children that costs just
USD 2, a fraction of the cost in the US and Europe, made to individual specification using a 3D
printer.93
Cuban professionals have received ten gold medals from the World Intellectual Property
Organization (WIPO) over 26 years. The first was in 1989 for the meningitis B vaccine, followed
by awards for the Haemophilus influenza type b (Hib) vaccine,94 the result of a collaboration
with the University of Ottawa; Heberprot-P; and Itolizumab for treating psoriasis.95 By summer
2017, the Cuban biotech sector boasted 182 inventions with 543 patents granted in Cuba, 1,816
patents abroad and 2,336 patent applications.96 Its products were marketed in 49 countries and it
had partnerships with 9 countries in the global south. Cuba’s pharmaceutical industry has the
capacity for large-scale production of Cuban and generic drugs for export cheaply to developing
countries.
CIM’s focus is on biotechnology of mammalian cells, monoclonal antibodies and cancer
vaccines. Cancer is the biggest cause of death for under-65 year olds in Cuba, and second only to
heart disease for over-65s. By summer 2017 CIM had 1,100 employees, 4 manufacturing
facilities, 25 products in the pipeline, 6 registered products, exported to 30 countries, 5 joint-
venture companies abroad, 45 patented inventions and 750 patents abroad. Over 90,000 Cubans
had been treated by CIM products. Among CIM’s most exciting innovations is CIMAvax-EGF
the lung cancer immunotherapy, for which the US–Cuban biotech joint venture mentioned at the
start of this chapter was set up.
The term ‘cancer’ refers to a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the
potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. Epidermal growth factor, or EGF, is a
cellular protein that stimulates cell growth by binding to cells via epidermal growth factor
receptors (EGFRs) on the cell surface. In 1984, Lage and the scientists at INOR were first in the
world to describe the role of EGFRs in breast cancer: EGFRs were over-expressed in 60 per cent
of human breast tumours. They discovered that EGF was rapidly distributed, reached tumour
cells and recognised specific cell membrane receptors. Lage reported: ‘These results suggest that
high doses of EGF could eventually be used for inhibition of the cell proliferation in some
tumours.’ Up until that point, EGF had been seen as part of the cancer problem; it nourishes
tumours yet is natural to the body so it does not trigger the immune system. The Cubans were
proposing to use human EGF as part of the solution: as an active agent that could be used to
interfere with the normal, cancer-producing binding of EGF to its receptor – the EGFR.97
It is because the immune system struggles to recognise cancer as foreign to the body that
immunology therapy to combat it had proven so difficult. CIM wanted to use EGF to ‘train’ the
body to respond to EGF and so produce cancer-specific antibodies. No other cancer researchers
had managed it. This therapy would require one or two doses of a vaccine which would be cheap
to develop and could be delivered through primary health care, well-suited to Cuba’s public
healthcare system. CIMAvax built on the Cuban therapeutic expertise of the vaccinologists at the
Finlay Institute (meningitis B) and the CIGB’s work on recombinant protein from Neisseria
meningitidis bacteria P64 K. By using P64 K as a carrier protein with which to introduce EGF
into the patient’s body, the researchers at CIM broke the body’s tolerance to its own EGF.98 The
results are a vaccine that helps the body to help itself. Dr Kelvin Lee pointed out that the Cubans
‘designed their lung cancer vaccine to actually be useful in things like colon cancer, head and
neck cancer, breast cancer, pancreatic cancer. It has broad applicability,’ he told me.99 The
Roswell Park/CIM joint venture, Innovative Immunotherapy Alliance, intends to investigate
these additional potentials.
These biotech achievements are accompanied by demographic ones. Most employees in
Cuba’s medical science centres are the children and grandchildren of workers and peasants,
beneficiaries of Cuba’s free education system. In 2016, almost half of Cuba’s science and
technology personnel were women.100 The inordinate additional burdens imposed on the sector
by the unrelenting and extensive US blockade has undoubtedly impoverished Cuba, denying the
island access to resources, markets and knowledge transfers. But it has also fostered resilience
and creativity in Cuban scientists.101

BIOCUBAFARMA

In 2012, BioCubaFarma was created as a kind of ‘holding company’ for the pharmaceutical and
biotechnology sectors. It integrates 38 companies, 60 manufacturing facilities and 22,000
workers, almost one-third of them scientists and engineers. By 2017, BioCubaFarma was
exporting to nearly 50 countries with over 2,000 patents granted abroad. This reorganisation of
Cuban medical science is integral to the broader restructuring of the Cuban economy under the
‘guidelines for updating the economic and social model’ and Plan 2030 discussed in Chapters 8
and 9. The economic reforms, which were initially introduced in 2011, confirm a key role for the
biopharma sector in the national development plan. But only 1 per cent of the nearly 3,000
Cuban state enterprises export innovative scientific products. How can this sector expand
without the kind of speculative private investment and profit-motivated competition which
characterises the capitalist biotech industry?
Lage argues that Cuba’s ‘high-tech socialist state enterprises’ require a regulatory
framework that is distinct from Cuba’s ‘budgeted sector’ (health, education and other social
provisions funded entirely by state budget) and the state enterprise sector (state-owned and
expected to contribute towards the national coffers).102 Biotechnology institutions should remain
under state control, with state investment for scientific research, and the sector must convert
‘human capital’ into economic growth via the export of high value-added products. This requires
strengthening of the integration between science and production, research institutions and
universities and the promotion of the closed-cycle of production.
 CUBA’S MEDICAL SCIENCE ‘DIPLOMACY’

Since the 1960s, many US scientists have forged scientific links with revolutionary Cuba. Albert
Bruce Sabin, inventor of the oral polio vaccine unsuccessfully sought an agreement between the
Academies of Sciences of both countries in 1967; US oncologist Randolph Lee Clark shared his
interferon research; and Ernesto Bravo set up the North American Scientific Exchange
Programme in 1983, taking dozens of top US scientists to Cuba.103 Formal institutions and
commercial links were prevented by the US blockade, but thousands of US scientists continued
to engage with their Cuban counterparts on an individual basis. ‘Even in the Bush era, American
scientists still came to Cuba,’ said Lage. ‘They had to hide, change their visas and travel through
third countries, but relations between our scientific communities always existed, though not at
the business level, because that is blocked by the Americans.’104
By the 1990s, some major western biopharma corporations sought access to Cuba’s
innovative medical science, including US Merck and British SmithKline Beecham. In 1995, US
authorities caught Merck executives returning from Havana with biological samples of the
CIGB’s hepatitis B vaccine for testing in the United States. The company was fined USD
217,000.105 In 1999, SmithKline received a licence from the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign
Asset Control (OFAC) to develop the Finlay Institute’s meningitis B vaccine. Although a British
company, SmithKline Beecham’s research and development took place at a partly US-owned
subsidiary in Belgium. Under the licence terms, SmithKline Beecham was to pay the Cubans
with food and medicines until they started to sell the vaccine, when the Finlay could be paid in
cash.106
CIM received the first foreign investment in Cuba’s biotech industry from a Canadian
venture capital firm, York Medical, which focused on cancer, but did no science research. The
company ‘in-licensed’ promising drugs from small biotech companies and took them through the
stages of development (clinical trials, regulatory approvals, partnering relevant companies) into
marketable drugs. If successful, these were ‘out-licensed’ to larger pharmaceutical companies for
production and marketing.107 CIM’s Pharmacy Director, Idania Caballero, gave the Cuban
perspective: ‘When we started in 1994 we did not have money. A Canadian company told us,
“We’re going to give you money for your innovative head and neck cancer product [TheraCIM],
which is unique in the world and has a WIPO award. You can develop the product and we will
take it to the market.”’108 This coincided with Cuba’s 1995 foreign investment law which
facilitated joint-ventures with foreign companies in the context of the Special Period. The Cuban
government approved the creation of a joint venture, CIMYM BioSciences.
However, with investors fearful of US regulations and fines, it took York Medical longer
than expected to raise the funds the Cubans required. By 1999, the business plan was two years
behind.109 When the product was finally marketed, the CIM scientists were dissatisfied because,
as Caballero explained, ‘We had committed so much of our profit to paying those Canadians.’
CIM had originally offered York Medical first refusal on all their new products, but the Cubans
pulled back realising that the benefits of negotiating with foreign investors so early in drug
development severely limited the financial returns to Cuba. Caballero told me, ‘We explained to
Fidel, and to the country, that we have more innovative products and that we face this dilemma,
either we continue negotiating under those conditions or the country puts up the money.’ Since
then, Cuban institutions have developed their products to advanced stages prior to negotiating
with foreign companies. A much lower investment is needed in the early stages. The first clinical
trials are small scale. ‘In the final stage you have to show that the product is better than any other
treatment in the market, and that needs statistics and many more patients, which is very
expensive. The costs goes up exponentially.’110
In the 1980s, Cuba had vociferously opposed the World Trade Organization’s proposed
Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). By 1994, however, when TRIPS
was agreed at the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade conference in Uruguay, the socialist
bloc had disintegrated and Cuba was forced to play by international market rules. Cubans went
overseas to learn about international property rights and patents, business and marketing, and a
commercial wing was set up for each of the biotech institutions. The Cubans were ready for
business, but political antagonism from the United States intervened once again.
On 6 May 2002, eight months after the 9/11 terrorist attack on the United States led
President George W. Bush to split the world into hostile camps, his Undersecretary of State John
Bolton made a menacing claim: ‘The United States believes that Cuba has at least a limited
offensive biological warfare research and development effort. Cuba has provided dual-use
biotechnology to other rogue states.’111 Fidel Castro retorted, ‘The only thing true in Bolton’s
lies is the geographical fact that Cuba is situated 90 miles from the continental territory of the
United States.’112 One week later, former US president Jimmy Carter arrived in Cuba for a
prescheduled visit and Cuban television broadcast him visiting the CIGB. Carter refuted Bolton’s
claims, revealing that US intelligence experts told him they had no such information.113 The US
Secretary of State Colin Powell, backtracked, claiming, ‘We didn’t say it actually had some
weapons, but it has the capacity and capability to conduct such research.’ The situation was
obviously not conducive to fostering collaboration.114
Cuban medical cooperation with the global south has been far more successful. Between
2008 and 2013, Cuban biotech sales earned the state some USD 2.5 billion.115 In 2015 and 2016,
‘medicinal and pharmaceutical products’ earned over USD 1 billion, with exports to 49
countries. As a small island nation, domestic demand in Cuba is insufficient to foster the
industry, so the establishment of joint ventures with foreign companies providing access to
export markets is one solution. By 2019, Cuba had biotech joint ventures in Algeria, Brazil,
China, India, Iran, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand, Venezuela and Vietnam.116
The CIGB has two joint ventures with China, while CIM has three, manufacturing,
variously, monoclonal antibodies and therapeutic cancer vaccines, recombinant proteins and
biotech products for agriculture.117 That China, a country with 1 billion people, capable of
manufacturing aeroplanes and heavy industries, made their first monoclonal antibodies with
Cuban technology, is a source of pride for Lage. By 2019, CIM had more than 45 partners in 100
countries and was exporting to 30 nations. It had (marketing) joint ventures with Singapore
(InnoCIMAB), Thailand (ABINIS) and Spain, for therapeutic cancer vaccines, and consolidated
partnerships in emerging countries: Brazil, China and India and Malaysia, where the company
Bioven had the rights to CIMAvax for South-East Asia and other territories.118 A joint enterprise
was being set up in Russia.
The low cost of Cuba’s biopharma exports encourages collaboration with the developing
world. CIMAvax-EGF costs USD 1 per shot to manufacture, much cheaper than alternative lung
cancer treatments. Paradoxically, however, because it does not involve a lengthy course of
expensive therapy in high-tech institutions, it is arguably antithetical to the profit-motivated
interests of the global biopharma corporations and the healthcare insurance industry. Dr Lee
points out that, unlike the single payer or nationalised health system, the economic structure of
the US medical system does not seek to lower costs.

CANCER DIPLOMACY

CIMAvax-EGF’s collaboration with Roswell Park has faced numerous regulatory, political and
economic obstacles. ‘Our legal consultants say nobody understands the embargo anymore, it’s so
many regulations accrued over so much time,’ said Lee. ‘We were sailing into unchartered
waters both on the basic science side and the whole question of whether we could do clinical
trials of a human biologic, of a Cuban vaccine, in the United States.’ They met with many federal
authorities and state authorities to discuss feasibility, ‘given the myriad laws bound up in the
embargo’, explains Lee.119 One official agreed it was a great thing to try because nobody votes
for cancer.
First, after a long wait, Roswell Park’s application to collaborate with a Cuban institution
was approved by OFAC in 2013. In late summer 2016, after the restoration of diplomatic
relations between the United States and Cuba, they secured FDA approval to conduct clinical
trials in the US.120 The next hurdle was getting the vaccine from Havana to Buffalo in New York
State, in the absence of a direct mail delivery service. On the Monday, the sample was flown
from Havana to Toronto, Canada, in a temperature-controlled box, passed Canadian customs and
transferred to US customs. On Tuesday, US customs demanded an additional document to permit
entry from an embargoed country and the box was returned to Canadian customs to await the
paperwork. By the time this was submitted and the box got through US customs it was 5 p.m. on
Friday and the sample sat there all weekend, arriving at Roswell Park the following week. ‘The
box is designed to maintain four degrees for three days, so when we get the box our experimental
pharmacist said, “No, that didn’t work.”’ The whole process had to be repeated. ‘It took this
huge team of people just to get a shipment from Cuba into the United States,’ said Lee. When the
Cubans requested the return of the biologic delivery boxes, Roswell Park had to apply for a new
export licence. ‘That’s just one example of the level of complexity; two countries that have not
had normal relations for 60 years.’
In October 2017, Lee told me that phase 1 clinical trials were producing ‘very interesting,
early findings’.121 Hypothetically, FDA could fast-track the path to CIMAvax
commercialisation, given existing data from over 5,000 patients in Cuba, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Colombia, Kazakhstan, Paraguay and Peru, demonstrating that the vaccine is safe
and effective.122 However, this was unlikely, said Lee, simply because they were dealing with a
Cuban biologic. Roswell Park’s clinical innovation is to test CIMAvax alongside a second line
therapy, Opdivo (Nivolumab), which enhances the immune response to CIMAvax.123 The US
blockade and the drug’s cost mean Cubans do not have access to Opdivo.124 In general, Lee
explains, the Cubans are extraordinarily limited in the amount of therapeutics they have. ‘They
don’t have the ability to do personalised medicine, which is why they moved into
immunotherapy. They are really good at it from their infectious disease experiments; essentially
they can actually get the patient to make their own drug, and it is relatively inexpensive because
with a little bit of vaccine you get a big immune response.’125
In November 2017, the Trump administration published a list of Cuban entities with which
US interests were prohibited from engaging. However, a so-called ‘grandfather clause’ exempted
those with existing licences, so Roswell Park’s collaboration could continue, and in September
2018 the new joint venture, Innovative Immunotherapy Alliance SA, was set up. Unfortunately,
this is not beating a path for others to follow. US medical scientists have pulled out of Cuban
conferences, and plans to send Cuban researchers to the United States have been scuppered. Four
grants worth USD 50,000 each awarded to IPK by the US National Institutes of Health were put
on hold. Initiatives to collaborate on arboviruses, mosquito-borne pathogens (including Zika,
Chikungunya and dengue viruses) are under threat.126 For now, cancer diplomacy is unlikely to
have broader implications for US–Cuba relations.

FUTURE CHALLENGES
Reporting on Cuba’s biotech sector for the influential Brookings Institute, trustee Bill Haseltine
asked: ‘How can such a poor, communist system produce such a success?’ His answer: ‘From
the earliest days the government placed health and health technology, along with education, at
the center of its efforts.’ Haseltine concluded ruefully that Cuba’s success ‘does make the point
that some state-run enterprises can be successful and meet demanding goals’.127 While
acknowledging Cuban medical science achievements, many external commentators default to the
argument that only by opening the sector up to private capital and international market forces can
its full growth potential be reached. This is clearly an ideological position and quite contrary to
the evidence. Nonetheless, the global commodification of biotechnology is a challenge for Cuba.
The first Cuban patents are expiring, and the race is on to produce new innovative products.
Globally, the average annual costs of research and development for new drugs are increasing.128
A 2014 report calculated the cost of developing a prescription drug that gains market approval at
USD 2.6 billion, a 145 per cent increase over their previous estimate in 2003.129 Cuba is seeking
substantial foreign investment, not to fund innovations but augment their capacity for industrial
production. It also needs international partners to help insert Cuban products into the global
market.130 In the 2017/18 portfolio of investment opportunities the total capital sought for
biopharma projects amounted to at least USD 850 million of the USD 9 billion total sought –
nearly 9.4 per cent. Of the 14 investment opportunities included in the 2017/18 portfolio, 13
were based at Mariel Special Development Zone, a site included in the Trump administration’s
November 2017 ‘list of restricted entities’ for Cuba. Then in May 2019, Title III of the Helms–
Burton Act, which strengthens and continues the United States embargo, was enacted after 23
years. Will these moves scupper Cuba’s plans to expand the sector? There are ways and means
around these regulations, even for US businesses, if they are determined. And, given Cuban
medical science breakthroughs on some key global health issues, such as cancer, HIV and AIDs,
hepatitis and infectious diseases, there are increasing incentives to do so.

CUBAN MEDICAL INTERNATIONALISM

AN ARMY OF WHITE COATS

The lashing summer rainstorm seems an appropriate backdrop for my interview with Jorge Pérez
Ávila, until recently the director of Havana’s hospital of tropical diseases, the Instituto Pedro
Kourí, known as IPK. We pause to remove a pile of books in danger from an encroaching puddle
forming in his office at the Institute.1 We have been talking about Cuba’s medical
internationalism and Pérez’s role in training the Cubans who went to West Africa to combat the
lethal outbreak of Ebola in late 2014.
As the son of a bus driver who became the head of a world-renowned medical institution,
Pérez’s story exemplifies the Revolution’s commitment to universal public health domestically
and internationally. Pérez has provided medical services in difficult to access areas, ‘in so many
countries, from Angola to Nicaragua, to Tanzania, Uganda and the Congo’. He has studied in
esteemed institutions of higher learning in Britain and North America.2 In 2014, when news of
the Ebola outbreak in West Africa spread generating panic, Pérez accompanied Cuba’s Minister
of Public Health to Geneva to offer the island’s assistance to the World Health Organization
(WHO) in combatting the epidemic. At the IPK, Pérez had been studying Ebola since the 1980s,
but he had never actually seen a case.
Ebola was first identified in 1976. It is a viral haemorrhagic infection which causes fever,
vomiting, diarrhoea and rashes, affects multiple organs and leads to internal and external
bleeding in some victims.3 On average, 50 per cent of those infected die, but this can rise to 90
per cent under poor conditions. Ebola spreads via body fluids.4 The WHO reported a major
Ebola outbreak in Guinea in March 2014, which rapidly spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Little attention was paid in the United States and Western Europe, however, until a handful of
their own citizens were infected and alarm bells rang that this highly contagious disease could be
introduced into their own populations. Also alarming was the high proportion of healthcare
workers among Ebola fatalities. The lack of public health facilities or programmes in West
Africa exacerbated the problem. Thus, when the WHO called for international assistance, rich
countries threw them finances, supplies and military personnel, but not the urgently needed
medics.5 In September 2014, WHO director Margaret Chan said: ‘Money and materials are
important but those two things alone cannot stop Ebola virus transmission . . . Human resources
are clearly our most important need. We need most especially compassionate doctors and nurses,
who will know how to comfort patients despite the barriers of wearing PPE [personal protective
equipment] and working under very demanding conditions.’6
Cuba was the first country to respond to the WHO appeal, sending the largest medical
contingent – to Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia – where they already had medical personnel.7
When Pérez told WHO officials that the Cubans would stay for at least six months, they replied,
‘you are crazy, no one can be there six months, it’s too high risk! After three or four weeks the
medics will get ill.’ Pérez ruled that out, confident that thorough preparation would prevent
infection. That training was his responsibility.8
 Back in Cuba, the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) called for medical volunteers.
Nothing was said about remuneration, but the risks were made clear. Incredibly, within two
weeks more than 10,000 people had volunteered, as Pérez says, ‘to gamble with their lives’.
Interviewed in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, Cuban volunteer Dr Leonardo Fernández
explained: ‘At my hospital they arrived and asked who was willing to go, and told us that we
might not return . . . I had treated haemorrhagic fevers in Mozambique, and I raised my hand,
and here I am . . . While I have strength and they accept me, I will go where I am needed.’9
Pérez had a field hospital set up on the IPK grounds. The Cuban climate created similar
conditions to those in West Africa. Over 400 Cuban volunteers were picked for 4 weeks of
intensive training in Cuba, and the 256 who were subsequently selected for the mission in West
Africa received another 4 weeks training there. Those Cubans had an average age of 47, and 15
years of professional experience.10 All had faced natural disasters and disease outbreaks in other
developing countries as members of Cuba’s International Henry Reeve Contingent, which is
discussed below.
Arriving in early October 2014, they worked in groups of three doctors and six nurses in
six-hour shifts, seven days a week. The 23 Cuban medical professionals already working in
Sierra Leone were joined by 165 volunteers; 53 went to Liberia and 35 to Guinea where 16
Cuban medical professionals were already stationed. The Cubans confronted immense physical,
medical and psychological challenges: sweltering in their protective gear, coping with
dehydration, patients often reaching them once the disease had caused serious damage. Initially
they faced mortality rates of 50 per cent, traumatic even for experienced professionals. Dr
Fernández reported: ‘We saw entire families die, children left alone . . . But we also saw others
who survived Ebola, who after recovering . . . adopted orphaned children.’11 The Cubans stayed
two or three in a room in budget hotels, paid for out of the daily stipend of between USD 220
and USD 250 received from the United Nations to cover food and lodgings.
Cuban medics quickly reduced the morality rates of their patients to 20 per cent and
introduced a preventative education programme to stop the disease spreading. Over 400 lives
were saved in Sierra Leone and Guinea alone. The Cubans treated hundreds of other patients
infected, not by Ebola, but by similar pathologies, such as malaria, a far bigger killer than Ebola,
responsible for over 400,000 African deaths every year. Two Cuban doctors died after getting
malaria. Just one Cuban doctor, Felix Baez, contracted Ebola. He was transferred to the Geneva
University Hospital to be treated at the UN. Pérez rushed from Havana to Geneva to join the
medical team treating him. He recalled that Baez arrived ‘in critical condition, not always lucid’.
However, ‘On day two, he recognised me. He told me, “I’m going to be okay, and I’m going
back to Sierra Leone” . . . I have to admit, I was very moved.’12 That is exactly what Baez did.
By January 2015, Cuba had trained over 13,000 people to deal with Ebola in 28 African
countries, plus 68,000 people in Latin America and 628 in the Caribbean.13 A training
programme in Havana was attended by 278 specialists in infectious diseases from 34 countries,
including the United States. Within Cuba, nearly 324,000 people received Ebola training. By
March 2015, the situation in West Africa was under control. The Cuban medics had a staggered
return, followed by 21 days in quarantine at the IPK hospital to safeguard against introducing the
virus to the island.14 Three weeks is the maximum incubation period for Ebola. By May 2015,
over 26,500 cases of Ebola had been reported, resulting in over 11,000 deaths, one-fifth of them
children, and including 507 medical personnel.15
Dr Fernández pointed out that the media impact of Cuba’s Ebola mission, ‘made some
believe that we have done something extraordinary, which makes us heroes’.16 Indeed, Cuba’s
contribution was lauded internationally. A New York Times editorial exclaimed: ‘The work of
these Cuban medics benefits the entire global effort and should be recognized for that.’17 In mid-
October 2014, both the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, and US Ambassador to the United
Nations, Samantha Power, praised the Cuban role in West Africa. Announcing rapprochement
between the United States and Cuba on 17 December 2014, President Obama referred to Cuba’s
Ebola campaign as an example of the benefits of collaboration: ‘American and Cuban health care
workers should work side by side to stop the spread of this deadly disease.’18
Dr Fernández, however, shied away from special praise. He asked: ‘How is it different from
those [Cubans] working in the Brazilian jungle? How is it different from those in the Venezuelan
jungle, working alone in indigenous communities for months? How is it different from those
serving in African villages? [Or] in the jungle, in temperatures reaching 48 degrees . . . The
difference is that this was a high-profile international mission.’ His point is that the contribution
of Cuban healthcare workers elsewhere, and over decades, has been largely ignored. The Cubans
combatting Ebola were but a drop in the ocean compared to the 400,000 Cuban medical
professionals who have worked overseas in 164 countries since 1960 and about whom politicians
and the mainstream media have said almost nothing.19
And what an impact they have had! Literally, millions of lives have been saved and
hundreds of millions of lives improved. By the Ebola outbreak in 2014, Cuban medical
professionals had performed 1.2 billion consultations overseas, attended 2.2 million births and
performed over 8 million surgeries.20 More than 4,000 Cuban medical personnel, over half of
them doctors, were already working in 32 African countries at that time. Some 76,000 Cuban
medical personnel had already worked in 39 African countries since the early 1960s. Meanwhile,
Cuba had sustained more than 20,000 healthcare workers in Venezuela for a decade, with
thousands more in neighbouring countries. Add to their numbers the Cuban soldiers, educators,
constructors, technicians and other specialists sent overseas by the government and you get to the
astonishing fact that in revolutionary Cuba around one in ten Cubans have been on an
internationalist mission!21
Why does Cuba do it? Cynical, pragmatist or ‘realist’ explanations focus on geopolitical
and financial gains to Cuba: the revolutionary government seeks political allies and advantages
in world forums – soft power; it forces healthcare workers into foreign-service contracts to earn
the country export revenues; or Cuban professionals are simply motivated by the higher earnings
they receive working overseas. More serious commentators observe that Cuban ‘medical
diplomacy’ has been a cornerstone of Cuban foreign policy since 1960, before the realpolitik and
economic imperatives of the post-Soviet era.22 Researchers have emphasised how it differs from
most global health security responses anchored in military and defence programmes and
motivated by a desire to protect domestic populations from external threats of disease.23 Others
recognise that Cuban medical internationalism is rooted in the ‘principle of solidarity’ with the
global population, and that this solidarity differs from notions of responsibility, charity and
altruism common in aid frameworks.24 But what motivates the Cuban approach to solidarity?
What are its political and ideological foundations?
First, the Revolution of 1959 combined the values of Cuban national independence hero
José Martí with the principles of Marxism–Leninism. Second, the post-1959 public healthcare
system was constructed on those values: free, universal, state provision was endorsed as a human
and constitutional right. And, third, Cuban medical internationalism is an extension of those
principles beyond the island’s shores.
Even while galvanising Cuban forces to fight for independence from Spain in the late
nineteenth century, Martí warned against the threat of US expansionism, calling for regional
unity to block this tendency. This was seen as a precondition to sovereignty and self-
determination; thus, anti-imperialism was part of Martí’s project for an independent Cuba.25 The
Revolution of 1959 was conceived as a project that had to go beyond the island’s shores to
include a broad regional alliance of people and political forces to withstand the United States and
other imperialist powers. Meanwhile, drawing from Marx’s analysis of capitalism, Cuban
revolutionaries committed to the decommodification of labour power, to eliminate exploitative
social relations in the construction of socialism and put the working class in power.
Taking up battle cries from both Marx (‘workers of the world unite, you have nothing to
lose but your chains’) and Martí (‘homeland is humanity’), Cuba’s revolutionary leaders saw that
liberating the people from exploitation and underdevelopment was a global endeavour. They
made the internationalist tradition an explicit sphere of state activity.26 Cuban foreign policy and
anti-imperialist class-conscious solidarity was not to be limited to the confrontation with the
United States, but to include an international revolutionary project to promote a global struggle
against diverse forms of underdevelopment, imperialism, colonialism and neo-colonialism.27
Cuban revolutionaries view global poverty and poor health as a result of those exploitative
structural conditions. Thus, until the end of the Cold War, the revolutionary government was as
ready to send soldiers as doctors, and usually sent both on the same missions. In the post-Soviet
period, medical assistance has dominated Cuban internationalism and has been an essential
component of the island’s foreign policy.
In 1997, Fidel Castro said: ‘Our Revolution is not a revolution of millionaires. Instead, it is
one carried out by the poor, and is one which dreams of ensuring the well-being not only of our
own poor, but rather of all the poor in this world. And that is why we talk of internationalism.’28
Medical internationalism, then, is simultaneously an integral aspect of Cuba’s socialist
development path, an expression of the Revolution’s deep, historically rooted anti-imperialism,
and a big part of the story about how the revolutionary people have survived into the post-Soviet
era. It has enabled the revolutionary people to reap the economic and political benefits of the
socialist state’s investments in health and education. Whereas the US blockade is an economic
punishment for Cuba having a socialist system, medical services exports have been an economic
benefit.29 Since 2004, the export of ‘professional services’ has been the principle source of
revenue for Cuba, and the lion’s share of that has come from healthcare provision.
At times, Cuban medical assistance overseas has been followed by the restoration of
diplomatic relations with the host country; this is less remarkable than the fact that Cuban
professionals worked in countries, often in the most impoverished and dangerous regions, with
which their government did not have diplomatic relations in the first place.30 Cuban medical and
educational aid has been pivotal to post-2000 regional integration movements in Latin America
and the Caribbean, facilitating the adoption of more welfare-focused national development
strategies. By 2009, when Barak Obama became president of the United States, regional
governments from across the political spectrum were demanding a change in the US’s Cuba
policy, even threatening to withdraw from the Summit of the Americas unless Cuba were
reincorporated. Rapprochement with Cuba came at a lower political cost to Obama than keeping
the status quo, as discussed in the following chapter.
In 1965, Cubans had 1 physician for every 1,200 people. In 1975, the ratio was 1:1,000; in
1985 it was 1:500; in 2005, 1:167, the highest ratio in the world.31 By 2017, the Caribbean island
of 11.2 million people had 85,000 doctors and 21 medical faculties graduating thousands of new
professionals every year. The island’s infant mortality rate in 2017 and 2018 was a record 4 per
1,000 live births, compared to 5.9 per 1,000 in the United States and 10 times lower than its close
Caribbean neighbour, Haiti.32 A US medical journal observed, ‘The Cuban healthcare system
seems unreal. There are too many doctors. Everybody has a family physician. Everything is free,
totally free.’33
However, revolutionary Cuba was never just concerned about meeting its own needs. In
1984, when 1,800 students from 75 developing countries were already receiving medical training
in Cuba, Fidel Castro announced plans to have 75,000 doctors by the year 2000, sufficient for
10,000 to serve overseas at any time.34 In 1999, the Cubans established the Latin American
School of Medicine (ELAM), probably the world’s largest medical school, to train foreign
students. In the mid-2000s an additional programme was set up to train 60,000 Venezuelans in
their own country and Cuba has 25,000 medical personnel available for World Health
Organization programmes. It is a mantra of the revolutionary people that they share what they
have, not just what is surplus. And the story about the origins of Cuban medical internationalism,
at a time when half the doctors on the island had left, certainly vindicates that.

1960s: A BEGGAR’S HELP35

Four prevailing approaches to Cuban medical internationalism were initiated early in the 1960s:
emergency response medical brigades sent overseas; the establishment abroad of public health
apparatus to provide free health care for local residents; foreign patients brought to Cuba for free
medical treatment on the island; and medical training for foreigners, both in Cuba and overseas.
In May 1960, Valdivia in Chile was struck by the most powerful earthquake ever recorded.
Thousands were killed. Despite the exodus of Cuban doctors and strained diplomatic relations
with the right-wing government of Chile, the Cubans sent an emergency medical brigade with
six rural field hospitals. In the following two years, when Cuban ships took weapons to the FLN
guerrilla movement in Algeria fighting for independence from France, they returned with
wounded fighters and orphaned children who received medical attention on the island.36
Following independence in 1962, Algeria faced challenges similar to those of Cuba, including
the exodus of (French) physicians. Despite the lack of medics on the island, in May 1963, 55
Cuban healthcare professionals set sail for Algeria. Head of the mission, José Ramón Ventura,
subsequently Minister of Health, said: ‘Really what we were offering was so little – just like a
beggar who offers help. But we knew that the people of Algeria needed the assistance even more
than we did, and we also knew that they deserved it.’37 A year later a group of 61 Cuban
healthcare professionals arrived to help establish Algeria’s national health system. The Cubans
charged nothing.
Later in the 1960s, Cuba sent medical specialists to North Vietnam.38 In 1965, 400 Cuban
soldiers went to central Africa. Under Che Guevara’s command in Zaire (now Democratic
Republic of Congo) they supported the struggle against a corrupt US-backed regime. In
neighbouring Congo-Brazzaville (now Republic of Congo), they were invited to defend the
newly independent government, which feared attack by CIA-backed mercenaries. They were
accompanied by Cuban doctors, who organised a mass vaccination campaign, the first in Africa,
benefiting 61,000 Congolese children to combat an outbreak of polio in Congo-Brazzaville in
1966. A total of 254 young Congolese went to study in Cuba for free. From 1966, Cuban military
advisers assisted another movement for independence from Portugal, led by Amilcar Cabral in
Guinea Bissau. A group of Cuban medics went to work in guerrilla-controlled territory where
one foreign doctor served 540,000 people. The Cubans trained Guineans in basic nursing and
some went to Havana to study. By the end of the 1960s, Cuban physicians were working in
dozens of countries, largely in rural areas.

1970s: STEPPING UP MEDICAL AND MILITARY ASSISTANCE

It was not until 1976 that the pre-revolutionary ratio of doctors to citizens was restored on the
island, although health indices improved disproportionately.39 Nonetheless, Cuba shared its
medics with others in need, even in countries with politically hostile governments which had
broken off diplomatic relations. In 1970, up to 70,000 people were killed in an earthquake in
Peru. Cuba sent a 40-strong medical brigade with 10 tons of supplies, while over 100,000
Cubans donated blood for the victims.40 The next year, Cuban medics returned to Chile
following another earthquake. In 1972, the Nicaraguan capital, Managua, was flattened by an
earthquake. Although the country was ruled by the repressive dictatorship of the Somoza family,
sworn enemies of Cuban socialism, and close allies of the United States, a Cuban disaster relief
team rushed to the scene to assist.41 After the Sandinista Revolution overthrew the Somoza
dictatorship in 1979, Cuban healthcare workers helped establish rural and urban clinics to serve
Nicaragua’s poor and medical training centres to train Nicaraguans.42 A Cuban medical brigade
went to Honduras following an earthquake in 1974.
Meanwhile, throughout the decade, Cuban healthcare professionals set up and staffed
comprehensive health programmes in several countries, mainly in Africa. Thousands of young
people from those countries went to Havana for medical training. By 1977, Cuba was providing
between 45 per cent and 84 per cent of the physicians working in 6 African countries.43
In 1975, Angola won independence from Portugal after a long struggle led by the MPLA
(Movimento Popular de Liberatção de Angola), headed by António Agostinho Neto, who
became the country’s first African president. The subsequent mass exodus of Portuguese
professionals left 14 doctors in Angola.44 Neto’s government was attacked by two western-
backed parties, UNITA (União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola) and FNLA
(Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola) and invaded by the army of apartheid South Africa in
October 1975. At Neto’s request, some 36,000 Cuban soldiers went to Angola between
November 1975 and March 1976 to defend the country’s independence, accompanied initially by
200 Cuban healthcare workers. Cuba had medical personnel alongside military advisers
elsewhere in Africa, including in Ethiopia from 1977.45
 1980s: MORE MILITARY AND MEDICS

Emergency medical brigades responded to natural disasters which struck Cuba’s neighbours:
earthquakes in Mexico (1985), El Salvador (1986) and Ecuador (1987), and a hurricane in
Nicaragua (1988).46 Meanwhile, Cuban soldiers and civilians poured back into Angola to
support the MPLA forces fighting back South African army incursions from occupied Namibia
in 1987–8. At Cuito Cuanavale, the Cubans and Angolans finally pushed South African forces
back, ultimately securing independence for Angola and Namibia, which had been occupied by
South Africa since 1915. By 1991, over a 16-year period, some 300,000 Cuban soldiers had
fought in Angola, sustaining more than 10,000 casualties and 2,077 fatalities.47 Some 50,000
civilians had accompanied them, including healthcare professionals, educators and construction
workers.48 By 1988, over 30 countries in Africa were in receipt of Cuban medical support.
Cuban medical faculties were established to train locals in 11 countries between 1976 and
2010.49

TRAINING FOREIGN STUDENTS FOR SUSTAINABLE HEALTHCARE PROVISION

Cuban medical internationalism never intended to foster dependency on Cuban professionals.

After witnessing the urgent need for healthcare workers while on tour in Africa in the 1970s,
Fidel Castro committed to train the local personnel necessary to build sustainable healthcare
systems. However, as those countries lacked educational infrastructure, schools and universities,
he concluded that, initially, Cuba would have to train people on the island. ‘So they began to
bring over the poorest people,’ explained Pérez. ‘The poorest people had local diseases. We had
eradicated most of them here, like malaria, filariasis, schistosomiasis, and poliomyelitis. It was
risky, bringing people here, and sending Cubans there. Fidel said let’s strengthen the IPK
[hospital for tropical diseases] and he got Professor Gustavo Kourí to direct it. They began to
train medical scientists here to confront these diseases.’50
Gustavo Kourí, the IPK’s new director, was the son of Pedro Kourí, who had founded the
hospital of tropical diseases in 1937 as an annex to the School of Medicine at the University of
Havana. Medical science had stagnated in the six decades of the Cuban Republic prior to the
Revolution of 1959, but Kourí’s hospital was an exception, establishing a good reputation among
international specialists of tropical medicine. A communist sympathiser of Lebanese descent,
Kourí did not join the exodus of professionals leaving Cuba. Rather, as his son explained, ‘He
decided to turn his laboratories over to the Revolution and stayed as an adviser to the new
pharmaceutical industry.’51 Aged 23 in 1959, Gustavo Kourí had specialised in microbiology
and virology, going on to work as the assistant director of Cuba’s National Science Research
Centre, set up in 1965, and as Assistant Dean of the School of Medicine and Vice Rector of
research and postgraduate studies at the University of Havana. At the revamped IPK, Gustavo
invited student doctors to train in tropical diseases. Pérez answered the call in 1979, becoming
IPK director shortly before Gustavo’s death in May 2011.52 Inaugurating the new IPK premises
in 1993, Fidel Castro described it as a centre for all humanity. A grandiose claim indeed, but one
justified by its role in Cuba’s medical internationalism.
Foreign students passed through the IPK for medical checks as they arrived in Cuba. If
unwell, they were treated at the IPK, or another hospital, before beginning their studies. Some
people said they should be sent home but, according to Pérez, Fidel Castro said: ‘We cannot lose
those people, they are the best, the poorest, who have suffered most, who most deserve to
overcome.’ Some of the students had to complete primary, secondary or pre-university level
training before entering the universities. Their treatment, education, board and subsistence, were
provided free. Pérez explained that ‘many of those students spent years here without returning to
their homes, because there was no money to finance that’, unless their own governments paid.53
In the 1980s, at least 10,000 foreign students, mostly Africans, were being educated at
different levels on Cuba’s Island of Youth. These students paid nothing. In 1984, 1,800 students
from 75 developing nations were training as physicians, medical technicians or medical
specialists. Of over 3,500 foreign medical graduates in 1991, 500 were from North Africa and
the rest were split between the Americas and sub-Saharan Africa.54 Thousands more received
training in other professions.55
Despite the economic crisis of the post-Soviet era, the Cubans continued to respond to
emergencies around the world, in most cases by sending medical brigades: Iran (1990
earthquake), Brazil (1990 radiation poisoning, 52 patients were treated in Cuba), Nicaragua
(1991 flooding and 1992 volcanic eruption), Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua (1998
Hurricane Mitch), Colombia (1999 earthquake), Honduras (1999 dengue epidemic), Venezuela
(1999 floods).56 In addition, the island continued to receive patients from overseas, but the first
large-scale project of this kind was the Children of Chernobyl programme which began in 1990,
on the eve of the collapse of the Soviet bloc.

CHILDREN OF CHERNOBYL

‘These are children, extremely sick children. How could we not treat them?’ exclaims Dr Carlos
Dotres, Director of the Children of Chernobyl programme. ‘Until the Comandante en Jefe [Fidel
Castro] tells me otherwise, the doors will not be shut to sick children, wherever they come
from.’57
 In late April 1986, an explosion and fire at the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine,
caused a reactor to melt down, generating radioactive pollution 500 times that caused by the
atomic bomb in Hiroshima. Almost 8.4 million people were exposed to dangerous levels of
radiation. They received assistance from the USSR, of which Ukraine was then part, and the
other socialist countries. The nearest town was quickly evacuated, its inhabitants relocated.
However, the so-called international community threw exponentially more money at the task of
containing the reactor than to assisting the victims.58
In the following years, death rates, cancer rates and health problems soared and life
expectancy plunged. Alarming numbers of children got sick with thyroid cancer after drinking
contaminated water. In winter 1989, Cuba’s new Ambassador to the Ukraine, Sergio López
Briel, was informed by Ukrainian authorities about their child health concerns. On a Thursday,
López relayed the information to Cuba. By the Saturday a reply from Cuba’s ‘top leadership’
informed him that the island’s three leading specialists in childhood diseases were to travel there.
Early the following week the specialists from Cuba visited towns and cities close to the nuclear
plant which had been abandoned by local medical staff, and nearby cities in Russia and
Belarus.59 In late March 1990 they returned with 139 very sick children, accompanied by parents
or guardians, for medical treatment in Havana. Fidel Castro promised the children ‘the best
doctors, the best medical care, the best hospitals, the best medicines that exist in the world’.60
Documentary footage shows him welcoming them with a pat on the head as they disembark in
the airport. ‘How many need medical treatment?’ he asks a Ukrainian woman. ‘One-hundred
thousand,’ she replies through translation. His eyebrows rise momentarily, then he reassures her:
‘We can do something here for a good number of children.’61
Not five months later, the Special Period began in Cuba. Eastern Europe abandoned
socialism, the socialist bloc collapsed and the USSR disintegrated taking much of its
infrastructure, institutions and welfare provision with it. In Cuba, the loss of trade partners sent
the economy into freefall, with GDP plummeting one-third by 1993. The population suffered
terrible shortages of food, fuel and medicines. And yet, even while Cuban children went to bed
hungry, the revolutionary government continued to welcome thousands of Chernobyl victims.
The Children of Chernobyl camp was set up at a polyclinic in Tarará, ten miles outside
Havana.62 Over the next 21 years, over 26,000 people, nearly 22,000 of them children, received
free medical care, accommodation, food and other facilities in Cuba.63 Simultaneously a Cuban
medical team worked in a Ukrainian sanatorium. At the height of the programme, with 2,000
patients arriving annually, there were 50 doctors and 80 nurses working at Tarará.64 Most of the
children were between 9 and 14 years old. They stayed for six to seven weeks undergoing
extensive tests, and were attended by dentists, paediatricians, psychologists, hygienists,
epidemiologists and nurses. They enjoyed visits to the aquarium, Lenin Park and the beach;
recreational trips and relaxation in an uncontaminated environment were part of the programme.
Those on prolonged stays received schooling from Ukrainian teachers. Fidel Castro visited the
children at Tarará and followed their progress.
Cuba has not provided data on the expenses incurred through this programme. In 2010, the
Ukrainian-based NGO, International Fund for Chernobyl, estimated the cost in medications
alone at USD 350 million. One Ukrainian mother claimed that at home medical care for her son
would have cost over USD 105,000.65 In 2010, Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma said his
country would contribute to the Children of Chernobyl programme and his successor, President
Viktor Yanukovych, echoed this in 2011.66 But Cuba never received Ukrainian government
support and the last patients finally left Tarará in 2013.

THE LATIN AMERICAN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: WORLD ‘CLASS’ EDUCATION

‘Hundreds of Cuban doctors volunteered for disaster response,’ said Gail Reed, founder of the
US non-profit organization Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba (MEDICC). She was
referring to the Cuban response in autumn 1998 to Hurricanes Georges in Haiti and Mitch in
Central America, which left a combined death toll of up to 30,000 and some 2.5 million people
homeless. ‘But when they got there they found a bigger disaster. Whole communities with no
health care. Doors bolted shut on rural hospitals for lack of staff and just too many babies dying
before their first birthday. What would happen when the Cuban doctors left? New doctors were
needed to make care sustainable, but where would they come from, where would they train?’67
Despite not having diplomatic relations with those Central American countries, the host
governments asked the Cubans to stay on to establish comprehensive health programmes.68
Within weeks, Fidel Castro announced plans to open the Latin American School of Medicine
(ELAM) to train urgently needed medical personnel for the region. The doctors graduating there,
he said, would save more lives every year than those lost in the hurricanes: ‘Twenty years can
pass without a Mitch and a million people will silently die in Central America without anyone
taking notice.’69
ELAM was set up on the former premises of a navy training school in Havana.70 By its
formal inauguration in November 1999 there were already nearly 2,000 students from 18
countries receiving free tuition, board, food and a living allowance. They graduated in 2005. By
2019, 29,000 doctors from 105 countries had graduated. Half of them were young women, 75 per
cent the children of workers or campesinos (peasants or farmers), representing 100 ethnic
groups. At the request of the United States’ Black Congressional Caucus, students from
impoverished areas in the United States began studying at ELAM with scholarships. By 2017,
170 students from the United States had graduated.71 In 2009, WHO director, Dr Chan, declared:
 I know of no other medical school that offers students so much, at no charge. I know of no
other medical school with an admission policy that gives first priority to candidates who
come from poor communities and know, first-hand, what it means to live without access to
essential medical care. For once, if you are poor, female, or from an indigenous population,
you have a distinct advantage. This is an institutional ethic that makes this medical school
unique.72

Since 2012, governments that can afford it have been asked to pay towards their students’
tuition. The South African government paid for 1,200 students to study at ELAM for six years at
a total cost of USD 60,000 each.73 However, most students continue to be subsidised by the
Cuban state.
ELAM is a huge site, occupying 120 hectares, with 28 buildings housing 130 classrooms,
plus laboratories, dormitories, cafeterias and a small hospital. The training endorses the
principles of Cuban public health, emphasising preventative hands-on primary and public
healthcare, equality of access and environmental factors. In monetary terms, ELAM students
graduate debt-free, but they are expected to repay their ‘social debt’ by working in their own or
other poor communities. There is no mechanism, however, to enforce or even audit this
stipulation.
Following an intensive Spanish language course, where necessary, and a six-month pre-
medical foundation course, students spend two years on campus at ELAM before being allocated
to medical facilities throughout the island to learn through experience alongside study.74 Like
Cuban doctors, they are trained to work in austere conditions, without access to sophisticated
diagnostic equipment. Cuban professors challenge students to show how they would proceed in
the middle of the Amazon.75 They are taught to work with, not against, alternative and local
healers, respecting local customs, using local medicinal herbs. Living among their patients they
are expected to advance the community’s health and treat patients as equals.
Some critics have dismissed ELAM as ‘communist indoctrination’. Defenders have pointed
to the lack of ideology or politics in the curriculum to deny the charge.76 However, if communist
indoctrination means fostering a ‘class conscious’ commitment to serve the poor, then that is
what ELAM delivers, and, indeed, what the world needs. This is, in fact, no less politicised than
the predominant global approach which inculcates students with the belief that health care is an
expensive resource, or commodity, that must be rationed through the market mechanism. This is
not about individual medics being greedy or corrupt. The issue is the systemic commodification
of health care through capitalist social relations. Medical students ‘invest’ in their education,
paying high tuition fees and graduating with huge debts. They seek well-paid jobs to repay those
debts and pursue a privileged standard of living. To ensure medics are well remunerated, demand
must be kept above supply. Today the world has a deficit of between 4 and 7 million healthcare
workers just to meet basic needs.77 In addition, increasing dependence on sophisticated medical
technology helps keep the cost of medical services high, and is contrary to the preventative,
primary care approach adopted in Cuba.78
The huge Cuban investment in medical education raises the supply of professionals
globally, thus threatening the status of physicians elsewhere operating under a market system.
Critically, the Cuban approach removes financial, class, race, gender, religious and any other
barriers to joining the medical profession. However, while in revolutionary Cuba the public
healthcare system supplanted the private sector, this has not happened even in those Latin
American countries which declared they were building socialism for the twenty-first century.
Private sector professionals have maintained a powerbase from which to attack the Cubans,
Venezuelans and other ELAM graduates whose deployment to poor regions exposes their own
neglect of underserved areas where patients cannot pay. The largest contingents of Cuban
healthcare workers in the post-Soviet era have been to where government public health
programmes for impoverished communities were jeopardised by the refusal of domestic, private-
sector physicians to staff them: Venezuela and Brazil. In Honduras and Paraguay, medical
associations demanded that the Cuban healthcare workers leave, but popular protests to prevent
their withdrawal succeeded in keeping them there.
The return home by Cuban-trained medics has often been problematic.79 Some have been
left frustrated by their inability to fulfil their commitment to public health due to the lack of
government investment, and consequently employment, in that sector in their home countries.
Some remain unemployed while others enter the private sector despite it being antithetical to
their training. There are also inspirational stories about the impact of ELAM alumnae. One
example is the story of 69 graduates from the black Garifuna people who make up 20 per cent of
the Honduran population and live in deprived, hard-to-access villages lacking water and
electricity. The young Cuban-trained doctors mobilised their community to build its own first
hospital. Opened in 2007, by 2014 it had provided nearly 1 million consultations to patients who
would not otherwise have received medical care. By 2014, nearly 40 healthcare centres around
the world were headed by ELAM graduates.80 Whatever path has been beaten by the ELAM
alumnae, as beneficiaries of Cuba’s socialist education, they represent an international block of
solidarity with the revolutionary people of Cuba.81

VENEZUELA AND CUBA: A HEALTHY EMBRACE

‘What Cuba has given us is priceless,’ declared Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez in 2010. ‘If
we start to add up, cent by cent, Cuba’s contribution, it is clear that this is worth ten times the
value of the petroleum that we have sold to Cuba . . . How much would a capitalist country
charge us to bring that size of an army of doctors and that sea of medicines for our people, and
be on call 24 hours a day?’82
Flooding and landslides in Venezuela’s Vargas state in December 1999 killed up to 30,000
people. Just ten months into his first term in office, President Hugo Chávez launched a major
rescue effort. Cuba sent a 450-strong medical brigade, including 250 doctors, to assist. At the
Venezuelans’ request, they remained after the emergency. In October 2000, Chávez and Fidel
Castro signed their first cooperation agreement, which included Cuban assistance in improving
the Venezuelan healthcare system. Cuban doctors would be sent where needed in Venezuela and
deliver public health education. Venezuelans would train in Cuba as doctors, nurses and medical
technicians and Venezuelan patients would receive medical treatment free of charge in Cuba.83
Cuba would sell its medical products and equipment to Venezuela.
By 1998, when Chávez was first elected president, 17 million Venezuelans out of a
population of 24 million, that is 70 per cent, lacked regular access to medical care, and over 4
million children and adolescents suffered from malnutrition, 1.2 million of them with severe
malnutrition. The situation did not sufficiently improve during the early years of Chávez’s
presidency. In 2004, Héctor Navarro, then the Venezuelan Minister of Higher Education,
described the situation as ‘a humanitarian crisis’ and estimated that 20,000 physicians were
required to tackle it.84
In 2003, a pro-Chávez mayor in Caracas proposed the Barrio Adentro (into the
neighbourhood) health programme to introduce free local health provision to slums in Libertador
municipality. The Venezuelan Medical Federation instructed its members to boycott the
initiative, so the mayor appealed directly to the Cuban embassy for help. The programme was
subsequently launched in April 2003 with 58 Cuban doctors. In May, another 100 arrived and
were spread throughout Caracas. Following the programme’s success and popularity, it was
extended nationwide. Cuban healthcare workers poured into Venezuela to staff it. By December
2003 over 10,000 Cuban medical professionals, half of them women, were in Venezuela and had
conducted 9 million patient consultations and 4 million health interventions. They set up local
practices in poor neighbourhoods, with one doctor for 250 families, living on the premises, as in
Cuba.85
Inevitably, the new system had teething problems and living conditions were tough for the
Cubans, with several adults sharing one room or sleeping in the homes of local residents. Most
Cuban medics proved resilient; they came from humble origins and often overcrowded
conditions. The Cubans had survived the deprivations of the Special Period and many had
experience of working in poor regions in underdeveloped countries. But in Venezuela they also
lived among violent crime and with threats of violence from an ardent opposition movement.
The Chávez government paid the costs of Cuban medical services with Venezuelan oil sold
to Cuba at below world market prices. This was the mutually beneficial ‘oil for doctors’ barter
exchange programme based on the resource strengths and socioeconomic needs of each country.
The exchange catalysed Cuba’s recovery from the Special Period, launched medical services as
the island’s main source of revenues, and bought Cubans much needed respite from the
blackouts and bus queues resulting from oil shortages. These tangible benefits, in addition to the
ideological commitment to proletarian internationalism, garnered support from Cuba’s
revolutionary people.86 Likewise, the programme enabled Chávez to deliver the social benefits
he had promised to Venezuela’s impoverished and marginalised majority, the backbone of
support for his Bolivarian Revolution.87
Significantly, the transaction removed from Cuba the obligation to completely insert itself
into the capitalist world market by providing the Revolution with an alternative export strategy
that was consistent with its socialist principles, reaped the benefits of the Revolution’s
investments in health and education and was not obstructed by the US blockade. By undermining
capitalist market prices, the exchange with Venezuela limited the reintroduction of capitalist
social relations and mechanisms which were gradually being imposed via private, capitalist
foreign direct investments and increasing reliance on free enterprise.88 For Cuba, which had sent
doctors abroad since 1960 and engaged in barter exchange within the socialist bloc, the novel
feature about this exchange was the scale of personnel.
The Cuba–Venezuela embrace catalysed other regional trade and development cooperation
projects, such as the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), set up in December 2004,
opening a space for welfare-focused approaches to development within countries, and ‘fair
exchange’ between countries wracked by neoliberalism. This process facilitated Cuba’s full
reintegration into regional forums and saw Cuban medical internationalism become inextricably
entwined with Cuba’s diplomatic and international relations and with its economic development
strategy.
By 2010, Cuba’s ‘army of white coats’ as it was called in Venezuela, reached 14,000 Cuban
physicians, 15,000 nurses, dentists, physical therapists, optometrists and technicians, providing
medical care through 7,000 doctors’ offices and 500 larger diagnostic clinics.89 Barrio Adentro II
was launched with the establishment of hundreds of Comprehensive Diagnostic Centres,
Comprehensive Rehabilitation Centres and Advanced Technology Centres for more specialised
care. Barrio Adentro III saw the modernisation and integration of 300 Venezuelan hospitals and
Barrio Adentro IV built new specialist hospitals.
Meanwhile, Cuba–Venezuela medical cooperation intensified through Operación Milagro
(Operation Miracle), set up in 2004, under which the Chávez government began paying for
Venezuelans with reversible blindness to travel to Cuba for free eye operations to restore their
sight. The project emerged when Cuban educators, who had also poured into Venezuelan barrios,
found that sight problems were obstructing their literacy efforts. Over 200,000 Venezuelans
travelled to Cuba with a family member, staying for one week after surgery in a Cuban hotel,
receiving follow-up care, without charge. From October 2005, Venezuelans were treated in a
new ophthalmology centre set up in Venezuela as part of Operación Milagro. This was extended
to 30 hospitals in 15 Venezuelan states. The programme was also exported so that, by 2017,
Cuba had 69 ophthalmology clinics in 15 countries operating under Operación Milagro. By early
2019, over 4 million people in 34 countries had benefited.90 And yet, beyond solidarity activists,
few people in the west had even heard of the programme.
The third project between Cuba and Venezuela is the Comprehensive Community Medicine
(Medicina Integral Comunitaria) programme to graduate 60,000 Venezuelan physicians, at
home, with Cuban teaching staff. The six-year course is similar to those at ELAM. Following
graduation, doctors must serve in public hospitals and clinics for two years.91 By early 2019,
more than 25,000 doctors had graduated.92 With combined populations of around 40 million,
Cuba and Venezuela are now training more doctors than the United States, with its population of
nearly 330 million. By 2013, Cuba’s medical intervention was estimated to have saved the lives
of 1,746,417 Venezuelans.93 Infant mortality had fallen from 25 per 1,000 live births to 13 by
2010.94

HENRY REEVE CONTINGENT: COMBATING DISASTERS AND EPIDEMICS

‘On this day a so far unprecedented organization will be formed,’ announced Fidel Castro on 19
September 2005, ten months before he was struck down by illness, ‘the International Contingent
of Doctors Specialized in Disaster Situations and Serious Epidemics . . . to give immediate
assistance, with its specially trained staff, to any country that suffers a catastrophe, particularly
those that are hit by hurricanes, floods or other natural phenomena of this severity.’95
In late August 2005, Hurricane Katrina had struck Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama like
a bomb. Three levees in New Orleans were breached and 80 per cent of the city was submerged
in water. Within hours, Fidel Castro offered to send three Cuban field hospitals and the medical
personnel to staff them.96 By 4 September there were 1,586 Cuban volunteer medics, including
86 recent ELAM graduates, loaded with medical backpacks ready to leave for Louisiana. The
brigade was named the Henry Reeve Contingent, in honour of a US citizen who fought with
Cuban independence forces in the Ten Years War (1868–1878) against Spain.
The Cubans were ideal candidates to provide emergency assistance in those conditions –
without clean water, electricity or sophisticated diagnostic equipment. Between them they had
worked in 43 countries. President George W. Bush’s administration never replied and even
omitted Cuba from a list of countries who had offered help. Two weeks later, Fidel Castro said:
‘It was as if a big American cruise ship with thousands of passengers aboard were sinking in
waters close to our coast . . . It hurts to think that maybe some of those desperate people, trapped
by the water and at death’s door could have been saved.’97 An estimated 1,800 people died as a
result of Hurricane Katrina; the great majority were poor, black residents of Louisiana.
One month after its formation, the Henry Reeve Contingent was put to the test in Guatemala
where, on 4 October 2005, Hurricane Stan had wreaked havoc on poor, mainly indigenous,
communities in mountainous areas: 1,482 people were killed, thousands of homes destroyed and
1.5 million people affected. By 9 October the Guatemalan authorities had abandoned
communities buried in mud and landslides. The Henry Reeve Contingent arrived with 600
members to work alongside 233 Cuban medical staff already stationed in the region. Up in the
cold mountains, the Caribbean healthcare workers assisted 442,618 Guatemalans, saving 1,360
lives within two months. Living with their patients, most of whom had never seen a doctor, the
Cubans witnessed the poverty and alienation which mark their daily lives.98 Four days after
Hurricane Stan, disaster struck on the other side of the world.

IN THE MOUNTAINS OF KASHMIR

‘It has made me more revolutionary,’ a young Cuban doctor, tearful with emotion, told reporters
at the airport in Havana in mid-March 2006. A member of the Henry Reeve Contingent, she was
returning from a five-month medical mission to the Pakistan-administered area of Kashmir,
where a devastating earthquake had killed 80,000, left 120,000 injured and made 3.3 million
people homeless. With the approaching winter threatening to kill thousands more and while the
international media blamed ‘compassion fatigue’ for the lack of material aid and financial
donations from the west, Cuba sent medics.99 Cuba did not have diplomatic relations with
Pakistan, whose president, Pervez Musharraf, was a close ally of US president George W. Bush.
The Henry Reeve Contingent stayed for seven months, with 2,400 healthcare workers
treating 1,743,000 patients, three-quarters of all those treated following the earthquake. Half of
the Cubans were women, which was necessary to be able to treat the local women. They trekked
into mountainous areas, inaccessible by road, lugging backpacks with medical supplies, and
making half a million home visits in mountainous communities, including one region where one
doctor was serving 25,000 people.100 They established 32 field hospitals, which were
subsequently donated to Pakistan and 450 army physicians were trained to use them. Cuba
provided 234.5 tons of medicines and supplies, as well as 275.5 tons of equipment. Complicated
amputee cases were flown to Havana for treatment. Cuba also offered 1,000 medical
scholarships for students in rural areas to study medicine in Cuba. Within a decade, 900
Pakistani medical students had graduated from ELAM.101 These missions have hardly been
mentioned in the international press.
On 2 February 2006, another 140 doctors of the Henry Reeve Contingent rushed to Bolivia
with 20 mobile hospitals to assist the 50,000 rural families affected by heavy flooding at the end
of January. Within 3 weeks, nearly 600 Cuban doctors in 9 provinces had treated 56,011
Bolivians.102 As the disasters continued, so did the Henry Reeve Contingent.

DISASTER HITS HAITI . . . AGAIN

Jean Víctor Généus, Haitian Ambassador to Cuba recognised that, ‘Every time a disaster has hit
Haiti, Cuba’s response has been immediate and altruistic, despite its own scant resources and the
unjust, illegal, and inhumane blockade imposed by the United States over the last 50 years.’103
Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere, with health indictors similar to or
worse than Cuba’s in the 1950s. Prior to the devastating earthquake which hit Haiti on 12
January 2010, 86 per cent of the capital’s inhabitants lived in slum conditions, 50 per cent lacked
access to latrines, and only one-third had access to potable water.104 Poor infrastructure and
living conditions exacerbate the impact of frequent natural disasters. The earthquake killed
230,000 Haitians, injuring another quarter of a million and leaving 1.5 million people homeless –
15 per cent of the population.
International reaction was fast and seemingly ‘generous’, with 10,000 NGOs elbowing for
room on the scene.105 The US government sent 22,000 armed military personnel, 17 ships and
more than 100 aircraft. The USNS Comfort (a 1,000-bed hospital ship) attended 8,600 patients
over 7 weeks – and then sailed away. Whilst celebrating their own country’s reaction, worldwide
media practically ignored Cuba’s contribution despite the island, once again, being first to
respond.106
‘We send doctors, not soldiers,’ announced Fidel Castro 11 days after the disaster.107 Cuba
already had 344 medical personnel in Haiti, alongside hundreds of Haitian physicians trained in
Cuba. This medical aid had been initiated 11 years earlier following Hurricane Georges in 1998.
After 36 years without diplomatic relations, the cooperation agreement signed between Cuba and
Haiti in late 1998 committed Cuba to maintaining 300 to 500 medical professionals in Haiti as
long as they were needed and to training hundreds of Haitians as physicians who could gradually
replace them.108 Cuba set up a comprehensive health programme and Cuban medics were
allocated on two-year contracts to the poorest and most deprived areas, including city slums and
marginalised rural regions. Many of the Cuban physicians are black and from poor origins, like
the Haitians they serve. They live in Haitian communities, sharing their poverty and gaining their
trust.
By 2004, 579 Cubans were responsible for the health care of 75 per cent of the Haitian
population.109 Where the Cubans were stationed, infant mortality had fallen from 80 per 1,000
live births in 1998 to 33 in 2003.110 By 2007, 1 million vaccines had been administered by the
Cubans and two ophthalmology centres had been set up in Haiti as part of Operación Milagro.
With Venezuelan assistance, the Cubans were building ten comprehensive diagnostic centres
(small hospitals). As the numbers of Haitian students at ELAM grew, a second faculty was
opened in Santiago de Cuba to train them alongside francophone West African students.111 By
2011, 625 Haitians had graduated as doctors in Cuba and 430 of them were working in Haiti,
mostly in the public health care sector and alongside Cuban medics.112
The Henry Reeve Contingent began to arrive in Haiti within 24 hours of the January 2010
earthquake. They were followed by Cuban psychologists, psychiatrists and paediatric
psychiatrists and even artists and child entertainers to assist traumatised children. By 1 April
2010, 748 additional Cuban healthcare professionals had arrived, along with 481 Haitian
graduates from ELAM and another 278 graduates from 28 other countries. To compound Haiti’s
woes, in October 2010 an outbreak of cholera began. For a century cholera had disappeared from
Haiti, but it was introduced via UN peacekeepers and spread due to the unsanitary conditions in
temporary camps lacking safe drinking water or sewage facilities. The Cubans established
cholera treatment centres and oral rehydration posts, set up tent-by-tent examinations and
launched a public health campaign distributing information in Creole. By August 2013, nearly
700,000 cases of cholera had resulted in over 8,200 deaths.113 Those numbers would have been
far higher without Cuban assistance.
In July 2012, Haitian government minister Marie Carmelle Rose-Anne Auguste revealed
that, since late 1998, Cuban healthcare workers in Haiti had performed 331,724 surgeries,
attended 140,589 births and saved 312,584 lives (over 80,000 more than those lost in the
earthquake).114 Over 60,000 Haitians had had their eyesight restored through Operación Milagro
and 878 Haitians had graduated as physicians under Cuban instruction. Cubans were working in
96 healthcare centres in Haiti.
In May 2017, when Cuba’s Henry Reeve Contingent received the WHO Public Health
Prize, its 7,254 participants had worked in 19 countries. By early 2019, recipient countries had
risen to 45. Many books have and still could be written to record those contributions, to discuss
the motivations, experiences and impact of Cuban medical personnel abroad, and the foreign
students trained in Cuba.115 This chapter has not even mentioned the extraordinary role of Cuban
medical internationalism in the South Pacific, particularly East Timor, or Cuban-led missions in
Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia to identify, assist and socially integrate people with physical
and psychological disabilities.116
 THE ECONOMICS OF MEDICAL INTERNATIONALISM

In 2005, Fidel Castro recognised that ‘The healthcare system has become the most important
sector in the exchange of goods and services between our country and the rest of the world in
economic terms,’ but pointed out that ‘despite this, Cuba has not failed to offer its medical
assistance completely free of charge to more than 60 Third World countries lacking economic
resources’.117
In 2017, Cuban medics were in 62 countries; in 27 of those (44 per cent) the host
government paid nothing, the remaining 35 paid according to a sliding scale.118 For some
countries, Cuba covers most of the costs, with others it shares costs. With a third group the host
government pays all costs, but at a lower rate than that charged internationally. These agreements
are managed by the Cuban corporation Servicios Médicos Cubanos, S.A. Differential payments
are used to balance the books, so medical services charged to wealthy Qatar or Saudi Arabia help
to subsidise medical assistance to developing countries, such as Burundi or Niger.119 Where host
governments pay, the money goes directly to the Cuban government, which passes a small
proportion on to the medics. This is usually higher than (and additional to) their Cuban salary.
‘[T]he Cuban state keeps the lion’s share of the difference, which represents an important source
of foreign exchange for the government’, explained the Economic Intelligence Unit.120
Post-2000, some developed countries, including Britain and France, contributed indirectly
towards the costs of Cuban health care personnel working overseas.121 However, within a few
years, ‘the help disappeared’, laments Dr Aleida Guevara, Cuban medical internationalist and
daughter of Che Guevara, ‘but the need for help remains’.122 Cuba could not carry the financial
burden, so the system of payments was introduced. This dovetailed with the drive for efficiency
within a socialist framework initiated under Raúl Castro.
Earnings from Cuban medical exports have been the largest source of foreign exchange for
many years. By way of comparison, in 2018 tourism generated nearly USD 3 billion, while
‘health services’ earned USD 6.4 billion, according to Cuba’s Office of National Statistics,
which published the data for the first time in 2018.123 Prior to 2018, government data combined
health care with other ‘professional services’ including educators, engineers, sports trainers and
military personnel working abroad. The annual average export earnings from all ‘professional
services’ (not just medical) between 2011 and 2015 was USD 11.5 billion.124 In that period,
Venezuela and Brazil were the greatest recipients of Cuba’s medical service exports. However,
Cuban doctors working in China, Saudi Arabia and South Africa also earn important revenues.
Meanwhile, state-run health tourism to Cuba is growing: 16 hospitals now provide services to
foreigners, from cancer treatments to drug addiction programmes, with an estimated number of
patients between 20,000 and 25,000 a year, yielding revenues of USD 30 to 40 million
annually.125
In discussing Cuban medical exports, few commentators consider the costs to Cuba of
resources spent, and revenue lost through not charging or charging below international market
rates. In 2010, Mexican journalist José Steinsleger calculated the cost to Cuba of its medical
assistance to Haiti between 1998 and 2010. Based on extremely low estimates he calculated a
total cost of USD 215 million, asking ‘Does Cuba have 215 million dollars left over, or is the
idea to share what you have? In 2008 the island was devastated by three consecutive hurricanes
and world nickel prices (one of its main revenues) plummeted. I am not going to mention the
Yankee blockade . . . a scourge that represented losses of USD 100 billion since 1962.’126
During the first ELAM graduation ceremony in August 2005, Fidel Castro said that an
analysis of international data for medical education put the cost of training the 12,000 doctors
then at ELAM around USD 3 billion. Cuba’s plan to train 100,000 doctors from developing
nations, he said, was a contribution to poor countries worth USD 30 billion.127 Generally,
however, the Cuban government says little about the monetary value of its medical
internationalism programmes.

INSTABILITY IN VENEZUELA

In 2017, 28,000 Cuban healthcare workers remained in Venezuela but, due to the host country’s
economic crisis, oil shipments to Cuba had fallen substantially, bringing down the island’s
export earnings for professional services by 11.8 per cent in 2016 and a further 8.5 per cent
2017.128 Venezuela was trapped in a spiral of economic and political crises as the US
administration attacked the Maduro government, implementing devastating sanctions on
Venezuela’s vulnerable oil-dependent economy, and generating misery and unrest. Threatening
direct military intervention, the Trump administration supported Juan Guaidó’s self-proclamation
as president and endorsed his military coup attempt in spring 2019, commanding the
international community to follow suit.129
Whether it arrives violently or via the ballot box, an end of the Maduro United Socialist
Party government in Venezuela would produce a major economic and political shock for Cuba,
particularly if its medical exports were terminated. However, the proportion of Cuba’s trade with
Venezuela has never been as high as it was with the USSR and the socialist bloc and the
consequent impact of a rupture in trade would be less traumatic. Furthermore, while likely, it is
not inevitable that a change in government in Venezuela would mean an end to Cuban medical
exports. Cuban medical programmes were not terminated following the ousting of President
Aristides in Haiti (2004), President Zelaya in Honduras (2009), President Lugo in Paraguay
(2012), nor for two years following the impeachment of President Dilma Rouseff in Brazil
(2016).

NO MAIS MEDICOS IN BRAZIL

In 2013, the Brazilian doctors’ professional organisation boycotted President Dilma Rouseff’s
Mais Médicos (More Doctors) programme to extend health care to the Brazilian Amazon and
favelas (urban slums). After some vacillation due to internal opposition, the government
contracted some 11,400 Cuban doctors, via the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO),
instead. The Cuban medics in Brazil all had at least ten years’ experience, 62 per cent were
women, most were family doctors.130 The Brazilian government paid USD 3,620 a month, USD
43,440 annually, for the Cuban doctors on three-year contracts starting from 2013.
Michel Temer took over as Brazil’s interim president in 2016 following Rouseff’s
suspension and impeachment. ‘He hasn’t dared to break the contract [with Cuba], but he is not
renewing it either,’ said Aleida Guevara in late 2017, as the numbers of Cuban medics in Brazil
were falling.131 In late October 2018, Jair Bolsonaro won the presidential election, a man with
jaw-dropping far-right views and pride in Brazil’s brutal 21-year military dictatorship. Even prior
to his mandate, Bolsonaro took aim at the Mais Medicos programme calling the Cubans ‘slaves
of a dictatorship’ and ‘not real doctors’. Paradoxically he also suggested he would let them stay,
paying a salary direct to them, bypassing the PAHO and the Cuban government. In November
2018, before Bolsonaro could be sworn in, the Cuban government withdrew its remaining 8,400
Cuban medics from Brazil. Up to 2,000 Cuban healthcare professionals fell for Bolsonaro’s offer
and stayed on but then found they were barred from continuing on the Mais Medicos programme
and were required to undertake further training.
As a consequence, 30 million Brazilians have been left without medical attention, and
PAHO has warned that 42,000 children under five years old could die by 2030 if the programme
is fully closed.132 Bolsonaro found 7,000 Brazilian physicians to replace the Cubans, but within
three months 15 per cent had abandoned the scheme and another nearly 20 per cent were
expected to leave. It was suggested that the programme was being shut down.133

ORGANISED DEFECTION

In 2006, 11 Cuban healthcare professionals were admitted to the United States after abandoning
overseas missions. This figure started to climb, however, when the US administration of George
W. Bush launched the Medical Parole Programme.134 It sought to sabotage Cuban medical
export earnings by inducing Cuban medics to defect in return for US citizenship. An annual
average of 713 Cubans joined the programme in the following six years (2007 to 2012), rising to
995 in 2013 and 1,278 in 2014.135 These were medics who had paid no tuition costs, graduated
debt free and had voluntarily signed contracts to work abroad assisting underserved populations.
The Medical Parole Programme portrayed them as victims of state-sponsored human
trafficking.136 It was clearly designed for propaganda and demoralisation. Cuban medical
qualifications are not recognised in the United States.137 Cuban physicians who defect have had
to invest in expensive new qualifications or leave the profession.
Even the New York Times called the programme ‘particularly hard to justify’. An editorial
in 2014 pointed to the hypocrisy of the US administration in praising Cuban medics combatting
Ebola in West Africa while the Medical Parole Programme encouraged them to:

abandon their posts, take a taxi to the nearest American Embassy and apply for a little-
known immigration program that has allowed thousands of them to defect. Those who are
accepted can be on American soil within weeks, on track to becoming United States citizens
. . . It is incongruous for the United States to value the contributions of Cuban doctors who
are sent by their government to assist in international crises like the 2010 Haiti earthquake
while working to subvert that government by making defection so easy.138

Despite these inducements, most estimates are that up to 2 per cent of Cuban medics defect.
President Obama did not end the Medical Parole Programme until his final days in office in
January 2017.139 The reprieve did not last long: in June 2019, the Trump administration added
Cuba to its Tier 3 list of countries failing to combat ‘human trafficking’ on the basis of its
medical cooperation overseas, and USAID established a programme to discredit and sabotage
Cuban healthcare programmes.
Back in Cuba, healthcare professionals had two- to three-fold pay increases, prior to salary
rises awarded in July 2019 (see Chapter 10). Their salaries remain low compared to counterparts
in other countries, but monetary incomes alone do not determine the standard of living in
socialist Cuba, where the social wage and state subsidies are very high. Undoubtedly, Cuban
internationalists make a huge personal sacrifice regardless of what motivates their decision to
volunteer overseas. They leave behind children, partners, parents, homes, their culture and
communities to work in challenging and often risky conditions for months or even years. Within
Cuba, the dual economy and more recent expansion of private enterprise has encouraged
healthcare professionals to shift into lower-skilled, but higher-paid work in other fields. Every
year, however, thousands of new medics graduate and there is no private health sector to speak
of in Cuba.140
 THE FIDEL CASTRO EFFECT

In a poor rural area in Ghana in the 1980s, Pérez met a local man who was surprised to learn that
he was Cuban because of his white skin. The man was even more astonished to hear that Fidel
Castro was white. He had assumed that the Cuban leader was black because, he said, ‘Fidel helps
black people and does so much for the people of Africa. I cannot believe that Fidel is white.’
Pérez pointed out that experience had led the man to associate white people with exploitation.
‘For me it was a shock,’ said Pérez, ‘This poor man had not even seen a photograph of Fidel.
Nevertheless, he was talking about what Fidel does for Africa. It really motivates you. I was
really moved to see how far the significance of Fidel had reached.’ He concluded, ‘It’s because
of that spirit that we follow Fidel’s ideas.’141
Fidel Castro is clearly the leading protagonist in the history of Cuban medical
internationalism. Deeply committed to the ideas of Martí and Marx, he saw proletarian
internationalism as a duty for the Cuban people. In the post-Soviet period, international
development aid, predominantly health care, replaced the focus on military aid of the Cold War
era. Medical aid was to be the main vehicle for combating imperialist oppression and
exploitation in the underdeveloped world. It also served to showcase the advantages of state
planning and a welfare-based socialist development path. This dovetailed with the Venezuelan
embrace, converting it into a significant source of income for the country. The surge in paid
medical exports from the mid-2000s enabled the revolutionary government to manage the
island’s reintegration into the capitalist global economy in a way compatible with its socialist
development, reaping the benefits of the Revolution’s investments in education and health care.
The earnings were ploughed back in to safeguard the socialist system which had facilitated them,
securing its survival into the post-Soviet world.
The island’s healthcare missions have benefited millions of people around the world; they
owe their health, if not their lives, to Cuban professionals and the government which trained and
sent them. Medical internationalism has in turn nourished Cuba’s international relations: the
island has earned gratitude and respect, particularly from the developing world, which has
become increasingly vociferous in opposition to the US hostility towards Cuba. In the post-
Soviet period, growing numbers of the world’s nations defied US pressure to condemn the US
blockade at the UN General Assembly; today condemnation is almost unanimous. Within Latin
America a groundswell of support for Cuba became a tangible factor pushing the Obama
administration towards rapprochement in 2014, as discussed in the next chapter.
The ‘guidelines for updating the Cuban economy’, approved in 2011 and revised for the
period 2016–2021, confirm the government’s commitment to universal, free healthcare, to
improving the quality and efficiency of provision, and to Cuban medical internationalism, which
is perceived to be both a source of revenue and a form of international solidarity: Guideline 70
states that Cuba will ‘accelerate the development of Cuban medical and health services and
continue expanding markets for their exportation’.142 Guideline 84 commits the island to
continue developing international solidarity by offering cooperation, and adds that it will
‘consider, to the extent possible, compensation, at least, of its costs’.143
In 2019, 13 years after Fidel Castro retired and 3 years since his death, Cuban medical
internationalism remained an indelible feature of Cuba Socialista. Cuban medical graduates
continue to pledge an oath: ‘to serve the revolution unconditionally wherever we are needed,
with the premise that true medicine is not that which cures but that which prevents, whether in an
isolated community on our island or in any sister country in the world, where we will always be
the standard bearers of solidarity and internationalism’.144 In early April 2019, the 28th brigade
of the Henry Reeve Contingent arrived in flood-devastated Mozambique with 40 professionals
and a field hospital. Within one week, 4,000 patients had been treated.145 Meanwhile, Cuba
retained some 20,000 professionals in Venezuela; around 95 per cent of them were medics, of
whom 64 per cent were women.146
To offset the recent setbacks, particularly the withdrawal of Cuban healthcare services in
Brazil, the Cuban government is actively seeking to diversify medical exports, including to oil-
rich Arab countries such as Qatar. Cuban medical assistance is still available free in emergencies,
and a sliding scale has been introduced for its comprehensive healthcare programmes according
to each country’s ability to pay. This increasing shift from free to charged provision is driven by
necessity and can be seen as ‘principled pragmatism’, according to John Kirk, a scholar who has
researched Cuban medical internationalism extensively.147 Trump’s tightened sanctions are
unlikely to drive a significant wedge between the Caribbean island that graduates thousands of
new medical professionals every year, and the urgent need for health care around the globe.

CUBA AND THE UNITED STATES

PLUS ÇA CHANGE, PLUS C’EST LA MÊME CHOSE?

In spring 2019, US president Donald Trump threatened to impose a ‘full embargo’ on Cuba
unless it withdrew support for the Maduro government in Venezuela. Asked about this threat by
US television network MSNBC, Carlos Fernández de Cossío, Cuba’s General Director of US
Affairs, pointed out: ‘There is already a practically total embargo of Cuba. We’ve had it for over
60 years and its been rejected, condemned by the UN almost unanimously for many years. What
else can he do?’ In 2018, the Cuban government’s annual report to the United Nations put the
cost of the US blockade over 6 decades as USD 134 billion dollars at today’s prices;1 Cuban
economists break this down to USD 12 million every day. ‘The whole aim of the policy already
is to cause as much economic harm to Cuba, as much damage, and to harm the living standards
of the population of Cuba,’ pointed out de Cossío, adding ‘but what it will not do is to extract
concessions from the government of Cuba.’2
Trump’s threat was some rewind from the discourse of ‘engagement’ and ‘putting the past
behind us’ delivered by President Obama in his second term. While his penchant for announcing
policy via Twitter might be new, Trump’s Cuba policy is far from innovative: gifting control
over his administration’s approach to powerful right-wing Cuban-Americans, defaulting to
hostility and strengthening the US blockade of the island. The more things change, the more they
stay the same! Even the rhetoric has gone back to the Cold War era. His fanatical anti-communist
National Security Advisor John Bolton attacked Cuba in ideological terms as ‘the sordid cradle
of communism in the western Hemisphere,’ warning of the ‘perils of poisonous ideologies’.3
Trump officials have even resurrected the early nineteenth-century Monroe Doctrine to assert the
United States’ right to reign over the Americas at the exclusion of outside powers; in the case of
Cuba this means the socialist Revolution has to go. ‘The idea that Cuba belongs to them, that
they have special rights of providence over Cuba is older than the existence of the United States
as an independent nation state,’ said former president of Cuba’s National Assembly Ricardo
Alarcón.4 ‘That notion remains even though the project to formally annex Cuba to the United
States does not,’ he told me, despite rapprochement being in full swing when we met. The
annexationist tendency has its counterpart among Cubans, he added: ‘The idea that the island’s
incorporation into the United States is in the best interests of a section of Cubans is older than the
Republic of Cuba.’
Over six decades, an immense legal, economic and political apparatus of hostility has been
built up, almost exclusively on the US side, benefiting many vested interests, including Cuban-
American exiles, who obstruct improvements in bilateral relations. Although the balance of
power has lain with the United States, Cuba has not been a ‘respectable’ or subservient
neighbour. It has supported attempts to overthrow and undermine US-friendly and client states,
punched well above its weight in geopolitical terms and consistently contested US hegemony in
the region, and imperialism internationally, contributing military and medical personnel to what
President George W. Bush once called ‘any dark corner of the world’.5
Ultimately, it is because the Cuban Revolution has survived that the real motivation for
opposition to the Cuban Revolution has remained: the intolerable example of a socialist
alternative in the United States’ backyard. Essentially, then, Cuba has to endure US aggression
or give up the socialist character of the state. This reality was grasped early on by Cuba’s
revolutionary leaders. On 16 April 1961, on the eve of the US-backed Bay of Pigs invasions by
Cuban exiles, Fidel Castro announced the socialist character of the Cuban Revolution publicly
for the first time, stating: ‘This is what they cannot forgive . . . that we have carried out a
socialist revolution right under the nose of the United States!’6 In 1964, when Che Guevara was
asked by US journalist and former actor Lisa Howard what he wanted from the United States, he
replied: ‘Perhaps the most frank and objective response would be: Nothing. Nothing for or
against us. Just leave us alone.’7 Over half a century later, Raúl Castro said Cuba aspired to
‘civilised co-existence’.
What have Cuba’s revolutionary people survived? For six decades, the Caribbean island has
withstood manifold and unrelenting aggression from the world’s dominant economic and
political power: overt and covert military actions; sabotage and terrorism by US authorities and
allied exiles; imposition of the blockade to asphyxiate the Cuban economy and its people;
obstruction of third parties’ trade with Cuba; pressure on regional and international governments
to isolate and ostracise Cuba; encouragement of illegal and dangerous emigration, including of
unaccompanied Cuban children (Operation Peter Pan, 1960–1962) and Cuban doctors (Cuban
Medical Parole Programme, 2006–2017); the obstruction of remittances and family visits and
refusal to issue visas to Cubans; and lucrative funding for regime change programmes.8 Most
aspects of this wretched history are well documented.

THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY SOWS THE SEEDS

The first Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) plan for paramilitary action in Cuba was developed
in December 1959, less than a year after Batista fled the island and well before the US blockade
was imposed. The CIA recruited operatives inside Cuba to carry out terrorism and sabotage,
killing civilians and causing economic damage. Along with Cuban exiles and the Mafia, these
recruits were commissioned to assassinate Fidel Castro and other leaders in an avalanche of plots
involving everything from snipers to exploding cigars.9 The April 1961 landing at the ‘Bay of
Pigs’ (Playa Giron) by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles was the third and most substantial
invasion of Cuba’s coasts; it was swiftly trounced by the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR)
under Fidel Castro’s command.
In the aftermath, US president Kennedy instructed the CIA to initiate Operation Mongoose,
training thousands of exiles in the Florida Keys in paramilitary exercises and sabotage. Miami
soon had the largest CIA substation in its history. In 1962 the US Department of Defense and the
Joint Chiefs of Staff concocted Operation Northwood, ‘the most corrupt plan ever created by the
US government’ according to James Bamford, the former National Security Agency (NSA)
official who exposed its existence nearly 40 years later in 2001. The Operation was approved by
the Pentagon but apparently not by Kennedy. Bamford explained: ‘The plan called for innocent
people to be shot on American streets; for boats fleeing Cuba to be sunk on the high seas; for a
wave of violent terrorism to be launched in Washington DC, Miami and elsewhere. People
would be framed for bombings they did not commit, planes would be hijacked. Using phoney
evidence, all of it would be blamed on Fidel Castro, thus giving Lemnitzer [Joint Chiefs of Staff
Chairman] and his cabal the excuse to launch their war.’10 You couldn’t make it up!
Events bypassed the CIA as the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the brink of
nuclear war in October 1962. Both the United States and the Soviets claimed victory, and the US
agreed not to invade the island. However, Fidel Castro was furious that Cuba’s five
preconditions for the removal of Soviet missiles from the island were not part of the negotiation:
an end to the US blockade and other trade and economic pressures; US withdrawal from
Guantanamo Naval Base and the return of Cuban territory occupied by the United States; the end
to subversive activities; an end to piratical attacks; and an end to violations of air and naval space
by US aircraft and warships.11 The first three remain key issues obstructing normalisation today.

THE CIA’S ‘SONS OF BITCHES’12

From 1963, at the Fort Benning US army post, Cuban exiles were trained in intelligence,
clandestine operations and propaganda. Among the recruits were Félix Rodríguez, Luis Posada
Carriles, Orlando Bosch and Jorge Mas Canosa, who became lifelong collaborators epitomising
the unrelenting and unrepentant violence of the exile extremists, as well as their hold on US
domestic politics. Among other deeds, Rodríguez was the CIA operative who executed Che
Guevara in Bolivia in 1967 and ran supplies for the CIA’s Contra operations in Nicaragua in the
1980s. He enjoyed close ties to former CIA director George Bush senior, who was then vice
president to Reagan. Carriles’s terrorist activities earned him a reputation as the ‘Osama Bin
Laden of the Americas’. He collaborated with Bosch, a convicted terrorist released from prison
in 1990 by then president George H. W. Bush and granted US citizenship two years later. Mas
Canosa became the intimidating leader of the Cuban exile community in Miami, a powerful
businessman personally worth over USD 400 million, who ‘controlled access to the White House
on Cuban issues, ensuring that only hard-liners participated in policy-making’.13 All four were
venerable members of the Cuban exile community.14
By 1967, as US foreign policy was overwhelmed by the Vietnam War, the CIA decided to
close its outpost in Miami; the heyday of CIA-sponsored exile operations against Cuba were
over, although programmes continued in collaboration with militant exiles who refused to
relinquish their war on Fidel Castro and revolutionary Cuba.15 Miami became the émigrés base
of operations where violence, corruption and intimidation reigned. One FBI veteran concluded
that ‘the gangsterismo of Havana was transported to Miami by a handful of early batistiano
arrivals’.16 US authorities did not shut down these operations: having been nurtured and trained
by US agencies the exiles effectively enjoyed immunity from prosecution by US authorities, lest
they reveal that sordid history. Carriles told US journalist Ann Louise Bardach: ‘The CIA taught
us everything – everything. They taught us explosives, how to kill, bomb, trained us in acts of
sabotage.’17
Furthermore, their rabid anti-communism and proclivity for violence was put at the service
of the US establishment, to police covert operations throughout the region and further afield. In
1964, Carriles was assigned to run Venezuela’s repressive intelligence service.18 In the 1970s
Bosch led a coalition of death squads closely linked to Operation Condor, under which right-
wing military regimes in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay
colluded to arrest, detain, torture and ‘disappear’ hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans.19 In
the 1980s, Rodríguez recruited Carriles to help run clandestine operations to support the Contras
in Nicaragua. These exiles were deeply involved in repressive ‘counter-insurgency’ programmes
throughout Central America. The activities listed are the tip of the iceberg.20
Bardach asserts that: ‘No anti-communist opposition in the world has been more fervent or
well financed than the Cuban exiles living in the States. And yet . . . they have little to show for
their efforts.’21 This is not entirely true. While they failed to assassinate the Revolution’s leaders
and return to Havana as conquering heroes, they succeeded in converting Cuba into a US
domestic policy issue, turning themselves into presidential kingmakers, obstructing
improvements in bilateral relations, furnishing their careers and fortunes, and spilling a great deal
of blood on both sides of the Florida Straits and far beyond, as Bardach herself shows. A 2006
Cuban government report detailed acts of sabotage and terrorism on the island launched by or
from the United States and responsible for 3,478 Cuban deaths, with another 2,099 Cubans left
permanently maimed.22
In Miami, the exiles created a fiefdom in which subterfuge, intimidation and violence
reigned and where dissent against their hard line on Cuba was punished brutally.23 Exile politics
became mixed up with the drug money that flooded Miami in the 1970s; generalised corruption
was widespread and protection rackets forced businesses to contribute to ‘the cause’ of
overthrowing Fidel Castro.24 In 1974, Bosch warned: ‘We will invade the Cuban embassies and
will murder the Cuban diplomats and will hijack the Cuban planes until Castro releases some of
the political prisoners and begins to deal with us.’25 Over 150 attacks on Cuban diplomatic
missions in the Americas and Europe were recorded. George Bush senior was head of the CIA
from November 1975 to January 1977, arguably the most violent years of exile activity
according to Bardach.26
Some brave Cuban-Americans defied the exile chiefs. In 1977, the Antonio Maceo Brigade
was formed in Miami, ‘born of ground made fertile by the Civil Rights and anti-war
movements’, to visit and learn about the island first-hand.27 This was possible after US president
Jimmy Carter lifted the ban on travel to Cambodia, Cuba, North Korea and Vietnam. The
Brigade consisted of 55 participants, all of whom had been children when they left the island
and, being mostly based outside Miami, had been exposed to more progressive politics. The
Washington Post reported: ‘Counterrevolutionary extremists issued death threats against some of
the founders and were not averse to using bombs as a means to intimidate those believed to be
Castro agents or allies.’28
Carter reached out to the Democratic Party in Florida to initiate the ‘Dialogue’ in 1978: it
provided political cover for his administration to negotiate with Havana on improving relations.
The initiative was handled by Bernardo Benes, a powerful Cuban-American businessman who
had financed violent exile operations in the mid–1960s before relinquishing such methods.29 The
Dialogue produced two exile conferences in Havana. Cuban-American scholar Nelson Valdés
participated in the first in November 1978. ‘Cuba wanted us to go to our own communities and
get the names of people who were in prison in Cuba and submit those names during the second
meeting,’ he explained.30 During the second meeting, the Cuban government agreed to free some
3,900 prisoners. However, instead of being lauded in Miami, Benes was denounced as a traitor
and a communist; the bank he owned was bombed and picketed for three weeks. Even some of
the prisoners whose release he had secured criticised him. Within the year, two conference
participants had been murdered.31
In 1980 Miami was transformed following the influx of 125,000 Cuban migrants with the
Mariel boatlift.32 Never part of the old regime’s elite, their arrival altered the demographic of the
exile community. Meanwhile, Mas Canosa had concluded that paramilitarism alone could not
topple Fidel Castro and, coinciding with the start of the Reagan presidency in 1981, he co-
founded the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) modelled on the powerful Israeli
lobby. It became the dominant Cuban-American institution and anyone or anything that stood in
its path was dealt with ruthlessly. During the Reagan years of the 1980s the violence in Miami
peaked. In 1985, the FBI labelled Miami as the murder capital of America.33
Meanwhile in 1987, with evidence supplied by 27 of its own state security agents, the
Cuban government publicly exposed CIA operations underway on the island since the late 1960s.
Over the decade since Carter opened the US Interest Section in Havana in 1977 as a substitute
for an embassy, 38 of the 79 permanent diplomatic posts had been occupied by CIA agents and
another 113 CIA agents had operated under the guise of civil servants.34 Instead of expelling the
US representatives the Cubans left them in post, given that their exposure had effectively
neutralised them as agents. Over several weeks, Cuban national television broadcast images of
those US officials engaged in espionage activities with footage from state security cameras.35

‘NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT . . .’

Opposition to the Cuba Revolution has been a lucrative business. Bardach records that, from
1981 until his death in 1997, Mas Canosa’s crusade to topple Fidel Castro was financed by more
than USD 200 million of taxpayer’s money and virtually every Florida politician since CANF’s
inception was enriched by hefty contributions from CANF. Until 2000, CANF enjoyed non-
profit, tax-exempt status while securing vast sums of fungible government grants. CANF’s
various umbrellas and Political Action Committees (PACs), like the Free Cuba Committee,
contributed generously to politicians who would back ‘the cause’.36 Ultimately, these exiles
sought to make the cost of improving bilateral relations between the US and Cuban governments
too high to pursue.
While one hand was buying influence with campaign contributions to politicians, the other
was financing terrorist operations. Carriles estimated that Mas Canosa had sent him more than
USD 200,000 by 1998. Did Carriles operate as CANF’s military wing, Bardach asked him? ‘It
looks like that,’ he replied, and laughed.37 Most notorious among Carriles’s and Bosch’s
numerous crimes was masterminding the bombing of a Cuban civilian aeroplane in 1976, killing
all 73 people on board, including 24 members of Cuba’s national fencing team returning
victorious from the Central American and Caribbean Championships.38
The Reagan administration obliged CANF and Mas Canosa whenever possible. On 20 May
1985, Cuban Independence Day, Radio Martí began broadcasting illegally into Cuba from
Miami, in flagrant violation of the International Telecommunications Union procedures. This
was a pet project of Mas Canosa. Five years later, TV Martí was added to this propaganda
offensive. These broadcasts, to which few Cubans on the island ever paid attention, received
USD 700 million of US Congress-approved funds between just 1996 and 2015.39

BACKCHANNEL TALKS

‘Under this administration,’ announced Bolton in November 2018, ‘there will no longer be secret
channels of communication between Cuba and United States.’40 It was a dig at Obama, whose
administration held 18 months of secret talks with Havana, facilitated by the Vatican and
Canada, prior to announcing rapprochement on 17 December 2014. But, in fact, the three
previous Republican administrations Bolton had served also held backchannel in talks with
Cuba.41
The history of negotiations between the United States and Cuba over the last 60 years
reveals five salient points.42 First, that the United States’ pretext for aggression against Cuba
keeps changing. Initially it was retaliation for government expropriations and nationalisations of
US properties in Cuba, next the adoption of socialism and the alliance with the Soviet Union,
then Cuba’s anti-imperialist foreign policy more broadly; later the excuse was human rights and
the demand for a transition to capitalist democracy was added. In 2019, it became support for
President Maduro and the PSUV government in Venezuela.
Second, despite all of this, bilateral talks began just eight months after diplomatic relations
were broken on 3 January 1961 and have taken place under every US administration since then.
In August 1961, as Cuba’s representative to the Inter-American Conference, Che Guevara sent a
box of Cuban cigars to White House representative Richard Goodwin before orchestrating a
secret dawn meeting with him.43 Even the most hostile US administrations have entered talks,
either about a single issue of mutual interest, or concerning broader relations.44
I heard first-hand about the negotiations from Alarcón, who spent decades leading the
Cuban side in official and backchannel talks, and at times both simultaneously, having been
Cuba’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York on and off over 30 years,
then Minister of Foreign Relations (1992 to 1993) and President of the National Assembly (1993
to 2013).45 He recounted how in the 1990s during official migration talks with Dennis Hays, the
US government’s Coordinator for Cuba Affairs, he was also secretly meeting with Peter Tarnoff,
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, who pleaded: ‘For God’s sake don’t let these
people find out that we are seeing each other!’ ‘How absurd is that!?’ he exclaimed laughing.
Alarcón’s movements were restricted and under surveillance. ‘How do you have a secret meeting
in New York with all this paraphernalia?’ he asked rhetorically, before explaining how he
slipped out of Cuba’s UN Mission undetected. The secret talks with Tarnoff produced an
agreement that was made public; Hays resigned from government in protest and went to work for
CANF. ‘The guy was completely linked to those people, and the State Department knew it,
which is why Hays couldn’t know that we were meeting.’46
Third, Fidel Castro was both prepared to talk to the United States and ‘involved personally
in every aspect of those talks or negotiations’, according to Alarcón. ‘When I returned to Havana
after secret talks, I always met him personally and we talked about everything, including the
description of the lunch.’ In contrast, he says, ‘No American president was ever involved 10 per
cent on Cuba or the secret talks with Cuba.’ For Cuba, relations with the United States have been
a priority issue; for the United States, they have been a minor topic, says Alarcón. Thus, US
presidents have been prepared to outsource their Cuba policy to Miami exile power-brokers.
Alarcón described a deterioration he had observed in the ‘intellectual and cultural level’ of
his US counterparts over the decades. He regarded some as ‘really serious individuals’ with
whom, despite disagreements, ‘the dialogue enriched both sides’. But as the personnel changed
over the years, the knowledge and skill of his counterparts diminished. They arrived at talks with
a big book, like an instruction manual, which they constantly consulted. ‘Suppose I talked about
the weather,’ explained Alarcón, you would see this guy moving rapidly through the book to find
the section on the weather. That was during the meeting, but afterwards we would go to lunch in
a restaurant and they would bring the book! We had to clear space, move the glasses out the way,
for that huge book. I recall a series of bureaucrats – really! I don’t know whether it was
ignorance, or cowardice, not wanting to deviate from strict instructions.’
Cuba’s negotiating team hardly changed throughout this period, except for the translator,
while on the US side only the translator, Stephanie Van Reigersberg, was consistently present
throughout those years.47 Alarcón describes Reigersberg as ‘really the most knowledgeable on
the North American side’. Once, when a new State Department official began talks by suggesting
that they start with a historical overview of relations, instead of translating his words Reigersberg
cried out: ‘Oh my God! Again! I know that story. I know what you are going to say now, that in
1959 when Batista left . . .’ Alarcón chuckled, ‘The poor thing just could not bear to go over it
again. She had been in those conversations over the decades and then some new idiot comes
along and says, “Why don’t we start at the beginning?”’48
Fourth, for over five decades, US officials prefaced talks on the basis of a quid pro quo, a
trade off. To earn improvements in relations, Cuba was variously to: break with the Soviet
Union; stop fomenting guerrilla movements in Latin America; end military intervention in Africa
and withdraw Cuban troops from Angola where they were holding back apartheid South African
forces; silence their support for Puerto Rican independence; stop assisting armed struggles in
Central America; release political prisoners; and introduce a market economy and multiparty
elections. But the Cubans rejected preconditions and ultimatums. During the Carter
administration, Fidel Castro told US negotiators that Cuba would not negotiate its support for
Angola, nor betray that country’s trust. ‘We have never discussed with you the activities of the
United State throughout the entire world,’ he told US officials. ‘I never accepted the universal
prerogatives of the United States . . . the existence of a different law and different rules.’49
Mostly, these were preconditions just to begin talks about ‘normalising’ relations. ‘I don’t
remember them ever saying “if you do this we will lift the embargo”,’ Alarcón stated. The
Cubans imposed their own conditions: that the US blockade must be lifted for Cuba and the
United States to negotiate as equals. Only once both sides had dropped their preconditions could
the restoration of diplomatic relations finally take place during Obama’s second term.50
Fifth, the ultimate goal of the United States’ Cuba policy, the elimination of Cuba’s socialist
system, has never changed. The United States has never accepted Cuba’s right to self-
determination.

CUBA’S SHIFTING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

The break in diplomatic relations with the United States in 1961 engendered the first of two
crises of international relations for the revolutionary government in three decades. The following
year, the United States had Cuba expelled from the Organization of American States (OAS) and
in 1964 the OAS voted to terminate all diplomatic and commercial relations with Cuba. All
except Mexico complied.51 Canada was not a member of OAS and did not break off diplomatic
relations with Cuba despite US pressure. Ostracised by its neighbours, Cuba increasingly aligned
to the socialist countries. The island’s integration into the socialist trading bloc, the Council for
Mutual Economic Assistance, cushioned the impact of the US blockade until 1990.52
Before the Soviet embrace was consolidated, however, Cuba’s young revolutionaries
demonstrated the kind of radical, independent foreign policy they intended to pursue, one that is
focused on the developing (‘Third’) world and support for national liberation struggles and new
post-colonial governments. The USSR’s disregard for Cuban demands in settling the Cuban
Missile Crisis in October 1962 reinforced the island’s determination to pursue an independent
foreign policy. In 1961, the revolutionaries had initiated their first civic–military internationalist
mission, to Algeria. Over the next three decades, civic–military internationalist missions sent
thousands of Cubans throughout Africa and the Middle East, sometimes with support from the
USSR, but not at their behest.53 The Cubans changed the course of history in Angola, ensuring
the defeat of apartheid South Africa’s armed forces. As scholar Piero Gleijeses has pointed out:
‘No other Third World country had ever projected its power beyond its immediate
neighbourhood.’54
Also in 1961 Cuba participated in the founding conference of the Non-Aligned Movement
(NAM) in Yugoslavia.55 In 1966, Havana hosted the Tricontinental Conference of anti-
imperialist movements from Asia, Africa and Latin America, and promoted solidarity with the
National Liberation Front in Vietnam.56 From 1972, diplomatic relations were re-established
with four English-speaking Caribbean countries, leading the way for other Caribbean
Community members.57 In 1975, the OAS removed the prohibition on member states’ relations
with Cuba, paving the way for closer regional ties. The European Economic Community
established diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1988.
Meanwhile, in the mid-1980s, the Soviet buffer began to weaken as the new Soviet Premier
Gorbachev reneged on long-standing economic and military agreements with Cuba. By the end
of the decade the socialist regimes of Eastern Europe were collapsing and in December 1991 the
USSR disintegrated, eliminating most of Cuba’s trade and investments. The Cuban Revolution
faced its second crisis of international relations, but now with no alternative world power to turn
to. The Cold War was won, capitalism returned to Eastern Europe and Russia, neoliberalism
reigned and Latin America was structurally adjusted under the banner of the Washington
Consensus.

CUBA–US RELATIONS IN THE POST-SOVIET ERA

To survive in the post-Soviet world, the Cuban government pursued a multi-pronged strategy.
First, a managed insertion into the international capitalist economy facilitated by a structural
transformation of the island’s economy and an almost complete shift in trade partners, as
discussed in Chapter 2. Second, investing scarce resources on diversifying international
relations; anti-imperialism and solidarity with the underdeveloped world remained central, but
the emphasis was on peaceful cooperation with all governments, focusing on Latin America.
According to Isabel Allende, Director of the Higher Institute of International Relations (ISRI),
which trains diplomats and academics in Havana: ‘Cuba developed the scope of foreign relations
like never before. In the 1990s, when mere mortals were saying “there is no money to maintain
an Embassy”, that great genius, the architect of our policy, Fidel Castro said: “No, no, it’s now
that we have to open, because now we have to counteract immense aggression from the United
States.”’58 The political processes underway in Latin America, from the election of Hugo Chávez
in Venezuela in 1998, forged a space for Cuba’s participation in projects of regional integration,
creating new networks and strategic alliances.
Third, Cuba significantly expanded international development aid, particularly in health
care and education, which strengthened direct ties with beneficiary communities globally and
catalysed improvements in government-to-government relations. It also led to professional
services exports, which became the island’s main source of revenue by 2004. The fourth strategy
was to nurture the Revolution’s global solidarity networks. With groups now active in two-thirds
of all the world’s nations, the solidarity movement became ‘a safeguard of the Revolution; an
element of our peoples’ national security’, according to Kenia Serrano, President of the Cuban
Institute of Friendships with the Peoples (ICAP) between 2009 and 2017.59 ‘The solidarity
movement is autonomous, genuine and authentic,’ inspired by Cuba, but not built or led by
Cubans, Serrano said. Active solidarity from within the United States has been strategically
important.60 Neither the Cuban people nor the government express animosity towards the US
population; on the contrary, they have sought to strengthen ties between them in multiple fields.
The solidarity movement was facilitated by Cuba opening up to the world, through tourism, trade
and by hosting international events.
Meanwhile, Cuba’s enemies in the United States acted fast to hasten the Revolution’s
downfall. The government tightened the US blockade, while exiles renewed their terrorist
campaigns. Both targeted Cuba’s nascent tourism industry in the 1990s. More sophisticated and
multifaceted ‘regime change’ programmes were developed, from Clinton’s ‘People to People’
programmes, to President Bush’s Plan for a Free Cuba, and Obama’s ‘civil society engagement’.

BLOCKADE INTENSIFIED

Seeking to exploit Cuba’s vulnerability, and despite being ‘a devout Republican’, Mas Canosa
switched his political allegiance to US Democrat Bill Clinton in the 1990s, winning Clinton’s
support on issues that Reagan and Bush senior had rebuffed him on, Bardach explained. ‘The
savy exile impresario had quickly sized up Clinton’s willingness to trade Cuba policy for
immediate political gains and adroitly played him off against Republicans.’61 The issue at stake
was the extra-territorial reach of the US blockade.
In 1988, New Jersey Democrat Congressman Robert Torricelli praised Cuba after visiting
the island: ‘Living standards are not high, but the homelessness, hunger and disease that is
witnessed in much of Latin America does not appear evident.’62 However, after receiving
generous campaign contributions from CANF, he was soon sponsoring the Cuban Democracy
Act, subsequently dubbed the Torricelli Act. It prohibited the foreign-based subsidiaries of US
companies in third countries from trading with Cuba, banned ships docking in Cuba from
entering US ports for six months, barred travel to Cuba by US citizens, and forbade family
remittances to the island.63 In Torricelli’s own words, the legislation was intended to ‘wreak
havoc on that island’. President Bush senior intended to veto the Torricelli Bill, concerned about
US allies opposing its extra-territorial reach. Then in April 1992 his rival, presidential candidate
Clinton, told an audience of wealthy exiles, ‘I have read the Torricelli-Graham Bill and I like it.’
He was rewarded with USD 275,000 in campaign contributions at two CANF-sponsored events
in one day. Bush reversed his own position and the Bill was approved by Congress in October
1992.64 The following month, Clinton won the US presidency.
Clinton’s first term coincided with Cuba’s 1994 rafters’ crisis, discussed in Chapter 2,
forcing his administration into talks that produced two major migration accords. However, his
determination to hold on to the decisive electoral state of Florida overrode his concerns about
improving bilateral relations with Cuba.65 Clinton’s second term was won in 1996 with 70 per
cent of the Florida exile vote. ‘The price, to a large extent,’ explained Bardach ‘was the passage
of the Helms–Burton Bill, officially known as the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act,
which demonstrably tightened the Embargo and codified it into law. No longer would an
American president simply be able to dispense with the Embargo by the stroke of a pen . . . After
Helms–Burton, the Embargo can only be terminated by the agreement of the US Congress.’66
 Title III of the Helms–Burton Act authorises US nationals with claims to nationalised
property in Cuba to file suit in US courts against persons ‘trafficking’ in that property. However,
from the outset Title III was suspended for six months at a time by the US president.67 In protest
at the extraterritorial character of this legislation, Canada and the European Union (EU) adopted
blocking and ‘claw-back’ legislation and threatened legal action within the North American Free
Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organization (WTO) respectively.68 On paper, EU and
UK citizens and businesses complying with the 1996 Helms–Burton Act can be fined. But in
April 1997 the EU and the US made a deal: the US would limit the impact of certain provisions
on European companies and citizens and in return the EU agreed to freeze legal action in the
WTO. The US would continue suspending Title III every six months, ‘so long as the EU and
other allies continue their stepped up efforts to promote democracy in Cuba’.69 In 1996, the EU
had adopted the Common Position on Cuba, ‘to encourage a process of transition to a pluralist
democracy and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms’.70
Even with Title III suspended, the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC)
has issued multi-million and -billion dollar fines on banks and companies in third countries for
dealings with Cuba, while in the EU and UK anti-US blockade legislation was not enforced.71
The United Nations advised member states to legislate against the US blockade’s extraterritorial
reach, but no legal action was taken so international trade with Cuba was severely restricted.

TERRORISM AND COUNTER-TERRORISM

Clinton signed Helms–Burton after the deaths of four Cuban exiles whose planes were shot down
by the Cuban Air Force. The Miami-based exile group Brothers to the Rescue had been violating
Cuban airspace between late 1995 and early 1996, even dropping agitational leaflets over
Havana. Cuban authorities issued warnings and asked the Clinton administration to halt the
flights. Finally, in February 1996, the Cubans shot down two planes. José Basulto, another
former CIA operative and the groups’ leader, escaped in a third plane. The claim that the planes
were in international airspace when downed is refuted by the Cubans. Either way, a similar
provocation from Cuban shores would never have been tolerated by US authorities. Furthermore,
according to Juan Pablo Roque, a Cuban government agent who was working undercover inside
the organisation, the Brothers were training its pilots in paramilitary operations and weaponry as
part of a larger plan to attack Cuba and its leaders.72 In December 1997, a US court awarded the
families of the dead USD 187 million compensation and, in 2001, USD 58 million was taken
from Cuban government bank accounts long since frozen in the United States as part of that
award.73
In summer 1997, 18 months after the shoot down, Carriles orchestrated a bombing
campaign to target Cuba’s burgeoning tourist industry.74 Incredibly, the terror campaign caused
just one fatality: a 32-year-old Italian, Fabio di Celmo, killed in a hotel bomb. In September
1997, Cuban authorities arrested and charged a young Salvadoran man who had been paid USD
4,500 per bomb by Carriles. Cuban agents uncovered and prevented other terrorist plots during
the decade. The need to keep abreast of these plans, and the abject failure of US authorities to
prevent or punish the perpetrators, led Cuban intelligence to create the Wasp Network (La Red
Avispa) to infiltrate Miami exile groups and gather information.
In Havana in June 1998 an unprecedented meeting took place between Cuba’s Interior
Ministry, the FBI and other US agencies, convened after Fidel Castro warned Clinton, in a
message carried by Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez, of CANF plans to carry out
airborne terrorism. Canadian author Stephen Kimber records that: ‘The Cubans presented the
Americans with a blizzard of material: photos, audio and video tapes, confessions, wiretap
transcripts, bomb-making paraphernalia . . .’ The FBI took the evidence away to ‘evaluate’. The
Cubans were unaware that their agents, including Gerardo Hernández, Rene González, Fernando
González, Ramón Labañino and Antonio Guerrero, were already under FBI surveillance. Shortly
afterwards, in September 1998, the Wasp Network agents were rounded up.75 After their arrest
they became known as the Cuban Five.
The Cuban Five’s court case took place in Miami where a fair trial was impossible. The
hearing began five months after hard-line Miami exiles had lost the battle for Elián González
described in Chapter 3. Journalists in the pay of the US government whipped up public hostility
to demand harsh sentences, which ranged from 15 years to double life.76 In 2005, a US court
ordered a retrial at a new location, but at the government’s request the decision was reviewed and
reversed the following year. For international solidarity activists the case of the Cuban Five
symbolised the resilience and sacrifice of Cuba’s revolutionary people, and the hypocrisy of the
War on Terrorism launched by President Bush junior in the new millennium.

POST-2000: NEW FRIENDS AND ALLIES IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM

Having survived into the post-Soviet era, socialist Cuba found new allies in the so-called Pink
Tide, the wave of left and progressive governments and movements that swept the region. Latin
American populations were increasingly the beneficiaries of Cuban development aid, expanded
first as emergency assistance and then as a service export. Cuba reaped the benefits of this as
diplomatic relations were restored with Guatemala in 1998, Honduras in 2002, Nicaragua in
2007 and El Salvador and Costa Rica in 2009, leaving the United States as the only country in
the Americas without diplomatic relations with Cuba.
Hugo Chávez’s election as president of Venezuela in late 1998 on an overtly anti-neoliberal
and anti-imperialist platform brought Cuba a much-needed political ally and trade partner. The
Cuba–Venezuela embrace fostered a form of barter trade based on the resource strengths and
socio-economic needs of those countries, the famous ‘oil for doctors’ programme discussed in
Chapter 4. This became the modus operandi for the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas
(Alianza Bolivariana de la Americas), known as ALBA (which means ‘dawn’ in Spanish) a trade
and development cooperation agreement set up between them and subsequently extended to
incorporate 11 regional states.77 Evo Morales and his Movement to Socialism in Bolivia, and
Rafael Correa and his Citizen Revolution in Ecuador, became key players within ALBA and
important allies of Cuba.78
Despite the insignificance of the ALBA bloc in terms of world trade, production, population
or land mass, the process alarmed the US administration. Already by October 2005, Daniel Fisk,
National Security Advisor for the Western Hemisphere, was reporting on the political threat
represented by ‘Cuban and Venezuelan attempts to drive a wedge between the US and its
Caribbean partners’.79 When I interviewed the then Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa in
October 2009, shortly after Ecuador joined ALBA, he emphasised the centrality of Cuba to the
new wave of regional integration. ‘ALBA is very inspired by the successes of the Cuban model,’
he affirmed, referencing Cuba’s long history of basing international trade on solidarity, not
economic gain, and the island’s unrivalled international development aid. ‘Cuba’s great example
is that despite its poverty, it knows how to share, through all its international programmes. Cuba
is the country with the greatest cooperation in terms of its gross domestic product. It is an
example for all of us,’ he concluded.80
Cuba was active in Latin American forums, without reducing its close ties with Africa and
Asia, gaining leverage in international affairs and serving as an example of an alternative
development path. Most of the regional institutions articulated a pan-Latin Americanism which
repelled US interference.81 The growing complexity of the international system generated by the
emergence of global players such as China and Russia, countries with which Cuba had
historically close and contemporaneously improving relations, amplified the significance of the
regional changes.82

THE IRRESISTIBLE RETURN OF POSADA CARRILES

Across the Florida Straits, Carriles sought to turn Cuba’s new dawn into an old nightmare. Aged
72 in November 2000, he was arrested with three other exiled terrorists, Gaspar Jimenez
Escobedo, Guillermo Novo Sampoll and Pedro Remón Rodríguez, armed with 200 pounds of
explosives conspiring to bomb an auditorium in the University of Panama where Fidel Castro
was addressing the Ibero-American Summit. Over three years later in April 2004 a Panamanian
court finally sentenced the four to between seven and eight years in prison each for endangering
public safety and falsifying documents, but not for attempted murder. The president of Panama,
Mireya Moscoso, ignored Cuban and Venezuelan extradition requests and then pardoned the
terrorists on ‘humanitarian grounds’ in the last days of her presidency in August 2004.83 Cuba
and Venezuela immediately broke off diplomatic relations with Panama.84
After his release Carriles melted away, while Escobedo, Sampoll and Rodríguez were flown
back to a hero’s welcome in Miami on a private plane provided by exile Santiago Álvarez, who
had raised USD 400,000 in Miami towards their legal costs in Panama. In May 2005, Carriles
was arrested in Miami after giving a press conference. He was held for illegal entry into the
United States and released on bail in 2007, against the advice of the US Justice Department,
which described him as ‘an admitted mastermind of terrorist plots and attacks’, a flight risk and a
danger to the community.85 The US government refused Venezuelan and Cuban extradition
requests.
In summer 2003, while Carriles was detained in Panama, the FBI had closed its case against
him and shredded five boxes of evidence they held on him. Bardach has recorded that ‘Agents
who worked on it were staggered. It took them 20 years to put this stuff together.’ The FBI had
to appeal to her and other journalists to submit evidence for Carriles’s new trial, which took
place in Texas in 2010, not on terrorism charges but for lying to US authorities about his entry
into the country and about his involvement in the 1997 bombing campaign in Cuba.86 Seemingly
inevitably, in 2011 Carriles was acquitted, and enjoyed his final years at full liberty in Miami. In
May 2018 he died, aged 90, at a government home for veterans.

THE UNITED STATES WAR ON TERRORISM AND ITS COUNTERPART IN CUBA

The backdrop to these deplorable events was the War on Terrorism launched following the 11
September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States with President George W. Bush’s
statement to the world: ‘Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day
forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United
States as a hostile regime.’87
In October 2001, the United States and Britain invaded Afghanistan and, in March 2003, the
US-led ‘coalition of the willing’ invaded Iraq. Cuba was effectively threatened in the interim by
Bolton’s announcement in May 2002 that: ‘The United States believes that Cuba has at least a
limited offensive biological warfare research and development effort. Cuba has provided dual-
use biotechnology to other rogue states.’88 The claim was refuted by former president Carter,
who visited Cuba several days later and revealed that US intelligence experts told him they had
no such information.89
 Meanwhile, US diplomats in the US Interest Section (USIS) in Havana, headed by James
Cason from 2002 to 2005 and Michael Parmly from 2005 to 2008, flagrantly violated diplomatic
norms by attempting to foster an internal opposition.90 Cason hosted meetings at his home for
the leaders of Cuba’s many small opposition groups, travelled around the island delivering
‘packages’ to government opponents, organised workshops at the USIS and so on. Effectively,
Cason was exposing his network of contacts to Cuban intelligence, who clearly gained inside
knowledge of these activities.91
On 18 March, on the eve of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the arrests began of Cuban opposition
activists. Outside Cuba, there was robust condemnation of what was described as a clampdown
on journalists, writers and the intelligentsia.92 Within three weeks, 75 defendants had been tried
and sentenced to prison for between 6 and 28 years under Article 91 of the Cuban Penal Code for
‘actions against the independence or territorial integrity of the State’, a provision introduced to
Cuba under the Spanish Penal Code. Internationally, the 75 were portrayed as being persecuted
for dissenting ideas or ideologies and the events became known as Cuba’s Black Spring. Those
with better insight, however, such as former CIA agent Philip Agee, described them as ‘central to
current US government efforts to overthrow the Cuban government and destroy the work of the
revolution’.93 US Marxist scholar James Petras pointed out that: ‘No country in the world
tolerates or labels domestic citizens paid by and working for a foreign power to act for its
imperial interests as “dissidents”.’94
On 9 April, Cuba’s Foreign Minister, Felipe Pérez Roque, presented part of the evidence
used to convict the 75 ‘dissidents’ to journalists at an international press conference:
photographs, videos, notes of payment, publications, receipts of money transactions and
testimony of several Cuban security agents working inside these groups. The 37 defendants
claiming to be ‘independent journalists’, he said, published in outlets printed in, or distributed
by, the USIS. Only four of them had studied journalism or worked professionally as journalists.95
He presented evidence of payments they received from US agencies distributing US Congress-
approved funds. During the trial, which was open to the public, eight ‘dissidents’ had revealed
that they worked undercover for Cuban state security and the press conference was shown video
footage of their testimonies.96
Witness Néstor Baguer Sánchez Galarraga had worked for Cuban state security for 42
years, since 1960, unbeknownst to USIS, which, he claimed, recruited him as Chairman of the
Cuban Independent Press Association granting him a privileged ‘open pass’ to enter USIS. He
described that Association’s members as ‘mercenaries paid to slander . . . not journalists’, and
explained how cash and other material benefits were distributed. He claimed that ‘independent
journalists’ booked two-hour slots in the USIS internet room to write stories on themes dictated
to them by USIS staff, which were sent to Miami-based website CubaNet, a recipient of USD
343,000 in USAID funds in 2001 and over USD 800,000 in 2002.97 Next up was Odilia Collazo,
President of the Pro Human Rights Party of Cuba, and author of regular reports on human rights
violations in Cuba, which were sent to the US State Department, foreign embassies, the United
Nations, Amnesty International and Americas Watch among other organisations. The press
conference witnessed her declare: ‘I have the privilege of telling you . . . I am an agent.’98
Cubans are not fools, Roque told the press conference, ‘we have only revealed a small part
of what we know . . . our people have learned to defend themselves and depend on the people
because we have, more than anything, the support of the people . . . while he [Cason] got here
only a short time ago, he has to consider the task he has undertaken; or we will have to continue
organizing his meetings and attending the cocktail parties he throws.’99 Roque condemned as
hypocritical the outcry about the arrests, pointing to ‘more than 600 prisoners who are still
locked up at the [US] Guantánamo Naval Base, in a juridical limbo, who are not treated as
persons and will be presented in secret US military courts’.100 While criticising Cuba, he said,
the EU has shown no concern for the over 2,000 prisoners detained by US occupation forces in
Iraq whose names were not even known.101
Other incidents between the arrest and trial of the 75 ‘dissidents’ reveal additional pressures
facing Cuba in this period. On 6 April, a Florida newspaper, the Sun Sentinel, had profiled a
violent terrorist group, Commandos F–4, which was training with heavy weapons for an armed
action, possibly an invasion of Cuba. On 2 April, a Cuban ferry was hijacked by 11 Cubans
armed with knives who threatened to throw civilian hostages overboard as they headed for the
United States. Exceptionally, the US coast guard turned them back to Cuban authorities, who
captured them. This was the seventh violent hijacking of sea and aircraft by Cubans between
August 2002 and April 2003. However, on every previous occasion the perpetrators had been
received with impunity in the United States; US authorities had even sold off the stolen Cuban
aircraft. This last group of hijackers were tried in Cuba and 3 of the 11 were sentenced to death.
It was the first use of the death penalty in Cuba for many years – and the last. That these trials
coincided enabled Cuba’s critics to conflate the cases, implying that the death sentence was
given to opposition journalists and human rights activists, which it was not.
The link between the two cases, Roque told the press conference, was the US’s Cuba policy.
Under the Migration Accord of 1994, the United States had agreed to issue at least 20,000 visas a
year for Cubans to enter the country legally, while Cuban emigrants intercepted at sea were to be
turned back. However, the US consulate had issued half that minimum of visas in 2000: 8,300 in
2001 and 7,237 in 2002. During Cason’s mandate, in the five months from October 2002 to
March 2003, only 505 visas were granted, 2.5 per cent of the quota agreed. ‘We are witnessing
the implementation of a premeditated plan to encourage illegal emigration, to leave those who
want to emigrate from Cuba no other option than to hijack boats, planes,’ declared Roque.102
 Following their sentencing, female relatives and supporters of the 75 ‘dissidents’ created a
new organisation, the Ladies in White, to demand their release. The Ladies held short parades
after Sunday Mass through Miramar, an area in Havana where foreign embassies are
concentrated.103 These proceeded regularly and mostly without incident despite the group’s
spokeswoman, Laura Pollan, admitting on camera that the Ladies received payment for each
march from the Rescate Juridico, a US-based opposition group headed by Carriles’s ally and
fellow terrorist Santiago Álvarez.104 In 2005, the Ladies were awarded the European
Parliament’s EUR 50,000 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.
In October 2003, President Bush junior announced a set of measures to redouble pressure
on the Cuban government: increasing restrictions (and prosecutions) on US citizens, including
Cuban-Americans, travelling to Cuba; promoting Cuban emigration to the US; expanding
internet and radio transmissions; and establishing a Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba,
‘to explore ways we can help hasten and ease Cuba’s democratic transition’.105
The Commission’s first report was published in May 2004, with over 450 pages of
demonising propaganda, plans for destabilisation, regime change and a tightly US-controlled
transition to a ‘democratic’ capitalist Cuba. This required dismantling the socialist state
apparatus, reorganising the economy and education system and introducing ‘multiparty’
elections from which Cuban communists and officials would be excluded. The report
recommended drawing on the experience of transitions to capitalism in the Czech Republic,
Hungary and Poland and targeting Cuban youth.106 The report’s flagrant violations of national
sovereignty and international law sparked outrage, not least from within Cuba.
The Commission’s second report was published in July 2006, by which time the United
States was bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq. The tone is less confident about regime
change, highlighting the challenges of population displacement, property claims and the return of
Cuban exiles, and there is greater emphasis on change coming from ‘within Cuba’. The
Commission recommended USD 80 million be channelled into US programmes over the
following two years to boost Cuban ‘civil society’ and plan for a post-Castro transition to
capitalism, followed by USD 20 million to be spent annually ‘until the dictatorship ceases to
exist’.107 The report contained a ‘secret annex’ classified for security reasons. Alarcón asked
reporters: ‘What on earth could the secret part say when the public part violates all kinds of
international law?’108
On 31 July 2006, just three weeks after the second report was published, Cuban television
announced that Fidel Castro was seriously ill and had delegated his responsibilities to Raúl
Castro and other leaders. US authorities had always expected Fidel Castro’s demise to spark a
civil uprising, a leadership power struggle or a military rebellion serving as a pretext for US
intervention.109 However, as I saw at first-hand, in Havana the overwhelming response was calm
concern.

SUBVERSION FROM WITHIN

Raúl Capote was a double agent – Pablo for the CIA and Daniel for Cuban intelligence. His
autobiographical account claims the following: immediately after the announcement that Fidel
Castro was sick he was contacted by CIA agent René Greenwald, then on 13 August 2006 he
was summoned to USIS and told that a ‘popular uprising’ had been prepared for Central Havana.
USIS spokesman Drew Blackeney told him: ‘We don’t need Central Havana to rise up, it’s
enough to have a group who goes out to protest. They will have the main media outlets covering
the news.’ Capote would then read a proclamation in the name of the Cuban people, requesting
US Army intervention to guarantee a transition without chaos. Blackeney outlined US plans: US
forces would police the coastlines and control the entry of exiles, they would occupy Cuba for
three years establishing a provisional government in Havana with Cuban-Americans and the
internal opposition. Washington would create a Commission to restructure the Cuban economy,
redraft the Constitution, establish new military forces and bring to trial members of Cuba’s
Revolutionary Armed Forces, the Ministry of the Interior, the Cuban Communist Party,
revolutionary leaders and militants in general. In the event, the protest saw one opposition
activist sheepishly shout a slogan, throw a handful of leaflets in an isolated spot, then leave.110
The new head of USIS from 2005, Michael Parmly, had continued efforts to foster and unite
the small, fractured and infiltrated opposition. More sophisticated programmes were developed
to target discontented youth: to use hip-hop, Afro-Cuban groups, artists, foreign students and
social media to engage young Cubans in opposition activities. The celebrity ‘dissident’ of this
era was Yoani Sánchez, who had emigrated to wealthy Switzerland in 2002, where she studied
computer science, before returning to Cuba two years later and setting up the blog Generation Y
in 2007. One year later she was awarded over USD 320,000 (equivalent to 1,488 years of Cuba’s
minimum salary) in international journalism prizes and human rights awards, despite having no
track record and no following in Cuba. Time magazine listed her among its top 100 most
influential people in 2008.111
In an April 2009 cable leaked by Wikileaks, Jonathan Farrar, head of USIS from 2008 to
2011, noted that Sánchez’s ‘international fame . . . fuels further jealousy among the traditional
dissident organizations’ and that there is no effective civil society opposition. The main dissident
organisations had little resonance among ordinary Cubans, were unlikely to supplant the Cuban
government, had been infiltrated by government agents, were consumed by internal conflict and
preoccupied with obtaining resources and salaries.112 Indeed, in November 2006, a US
Government Accountability Office report revealing how USAID (taxpayers’) money was being
spent, recorded expenditure on computer gaming equipment and software, leather coats,
cashmere sweaters, crab meat and Godiva chocolates.113
While investing heavily on putative ‘democracy programmes’, the Bush administration
further squeezed the Cuban economy. In May 2004 the US Federal Reserve imposed a fine of
USD 100,000 on USB, Switzerland’s largest bank, for transferring US dollar notes to Cuba.114 In
October 2004, Daniel Fisk explained the administration’s strategy ‘to identify long-ignored
revenue streams for the Castro regime and then move to degrade them. For example, tourism . . .
When factoring in the decline in all revenue flows, we estimate we will have denied the regime
at least half a billion dollars [over a calendar year].’115 A Cuban Assets Targeting Group was
established to investigate and stop hard currency flows into and out of Cuba.116 The Cuban
government responded by removing US dollars from domestic commerce, substituting it with the
Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC), which was printed in Cuba.117 A tax of 10 per cent was levied
on transactions to exchange US dollars into CUC on the island, to compensate Cuba for the risks
incurred when using the dollar in international transactions.
However, in 2008, the capitalist system entered the most severe structural crisis for 80
years, following the global financial collapse and subsequent international recession. In late
September 2008, President Bush junior professed: ‘The market is not functioning properly’ and
oversaw unprecedented government bailouts for private financial institutions, undermining faith
in the curative power of market forces. This compounded the challenges facing the Bush
administration, whose ‘shock and awe’ strategy had entangled the US military in bloody
occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Meanwhile, the rise of the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and other emerging
economies revived the state-led development path. With Latin American swept along by the Pink
Tide and ALBA membership expanding, Brazil hosted a Summit for Latin American and
Caribbean Integration and Development in December 2008; it was the first time in nearly 200
years of independence that the region’s heads of states had met without representatives from the
US or Europe. The Summit led to the foundation of the Community of Latin American and
Caribbean States (CELAC) in 2011 and Havana hosted its second summit. In this complex
context, in January 2009, coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of the Cuban Revolution, the
Oval Office opened its doors to Barak Obama, whose campaign pledges included closing its
prison camps in Guantanamo Bay and resetting US relations with Latin America.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: NEW DOG, OLD TRICKS?

Obama’s first term in office brought few changes in the United States’ Cuba policy. In April
2009, prior to attending the Fifth Summit of the Americas in Trinidad, his first regional forum,
he reversed Bush’s 2004 restrictions on Cuban–American visits and remittances to the island.
The move did little to assuage regional leaders’ vociferous demands for an end to the US
blockade, normalisation of relations with Cuba and the island’s reincorporation into the summits.
In a complete reversal of the 1960s, the United States was now isolated by virtue of its policy
towards Cuba. ‘The United States seeks a new beginning with Cuba,’ Obama reassured the
Summit of the Americas, but by the end of the year little change was evident.
Then, on 4 December 2009, US private contractor Alan Gross was arrested in Havana on a
half-a-million-dollar mission to take satellite and internet equipment into Cuba to facilitate
subversion. His case became a major obstacle to the improving US–Cuba relations. Given the
inefficiency and corruption of Cuba’s domestic opposition, USAID had turned to professional
contractors. Gross was recruited by the private US company Development Alternatives Inc.,
which held a USD 6 million contract with USAID to ‘advance democracy’ in Cuba; he had
worked under similar contracts with USAID in Afghanistan and Iraq. He travelled to Cuba as a
tourist five times in nine months, targeting the island’s tiny Jewish community, which had good
relations with the government.118 It is illegal under Cuban law to give or receive goods under US
regime change programmes or to bring satellite equipment into Cuba without a permit. In 2011
Gross was sentenced to 15 years’ incarceration.119
Also in December 2009, having failed to galvanise public support, the Ladies in White left
the beaten track to parade through a residential area of Havana, accompanied by diplomats from
USIS and the German embassy. Video footage shows how local residents, mainly women,
surrounded them, singing and chanting their rejection.120 In March 2010, the Ladies launched a
month of action to raise their profile outside Cuba, again entering residential neighbourhoods.
International media filmed them being herded onto buses by Cuban authorities, apparently to
protect them from angry locals. Again, the Ladies were accompanied by US, British and
European diplomats.
In February 2010, 42-year-old Cuban Orlando Zapata Tamayo died in hospital after a
hunger strike, the first such incident in nearly four decades. Coincidentally Zapata had been
arrested in March 2003, but he had never engaged in anti-government activities prior to his
incarceration. Western politicians and press erroneously referred to Zapata as one of the 75
‘dissidents’ arrested that month, a ‘prisoner of conscience’ and political activist, ignoring his
long, violent criminal record and the demands of his hunger strike – a television and separate
kitchen in his cell and a mobile phone to call his family.121 After being put forward as a
‘dissident’ by his mother in 2004, Amnesty International adopted him on a list of 55 ‘prisoners
of conscience’ in Cuba.122 Cuban doctors fought hard to save Zapata’s life, without resorting to
forced feeding.123 The day he died another Cuban with a long record of non-political violent
crimes, Guillermo Fariñas Hernández, initiated his latest hunger strike.124 In late 2010, the
European Parliament awarded Fariñas its Sakharov Prize.
Among the more innovative covert programmes funded through USAID during Obama’s
first term was the establishment of a Twitter-style programme, called ZunZuneo (Cuban slang
for a hummingbird’s tweet), to be used to foment political opposition amongst Cuba’s youth.
There was also a programme to send young Latin Americans to Cuba to identify ‘potential social
change actors’, under the pretext of organising workshops on issues such as HIV prevention.125
These programmes reflected the belief that social media and youth activism were behind the
Arab Spring protests from late 2010.
At the Sixth Summit of the Americas in Colombia in 2012, the ALBA countries, backed by
Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Uruguay, threatened to boycott future Summits if Cuba were
not invited. The following year, in summer 2013, Obama authorised secret talks to be initiated
with the Cuban government. The result was the astonishing simultaneous, live, televised
announcements by the two heads of state on 17 December 2014 of the decision to re-establish
diplomatic relations after more than half a century. That same day, high-profile prisoner releases
took place: three of the Cuban Five remaining in US prisons were swapped for Rolando Sarraff
Trujillo, a Cuban intelligence agent who provided information for the CIA and Alan Gross.126 A
series of Bilateral Commissions began negotiations about multiple issues of conflict and mutual
interest, working towards the far more complex matter of ‘normalisation’. In summer 2015,
embassies were reopened after 54 years and in March 2016, Obama became the first US
president since 1929 to visit the island.

RAPPROCHEMENT AT LAST?

As head of the United States Department at Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Relations, Josefina Vidal
led the Cuban team in those secret talks. We met in late December 2016, three weeks before
Obama handed over to Trump. ‘There are many factors,’ Vidal responded when I asked what had
motivated the Obama rapprochement. ‘Cuba’s resistance and determination were key elements,
number one. History had shown that pressure, preconditions and aggression do not work with
Cuba.’127
Internationally, ‘the loss of US prestige resulting from the failed policy maintained towards
Cuba provoked an unbearable isolation for the United States government’, explained Vidal,
pointing to the increasing number of countries at the United Nations General Assembly voting in
favour of the Cuban resolution to condemn the US blockade.128 ‘It was also seen very clearly
when all of Latin America and the Caribbean told the United States: “no more Summit of the
Americas without Cuba, no more regional meetings without Cuba. Cuba must participate”.’ This
support was ‘recognition of what Cuba, with its modest resources, has done in favour of those
countries, not only in material support but also in defence of regional interests.’ With
rapprochement, Washington moved to eliminate an irritant in US relations with Latin America as
a necessary step in the process of regaining and reinforcing US control over the region.
Despite the extraterritorial imposition of the US blockade, since the 1990s the revolutionary
government had diversified trade and secured international investment partners. The pace of
these collaborations sped up with the economic reforms introduced from 2011. In 2013, the
Mariel Special Development Zone and super-port were opened with Brazil as a major partner,
and in 2014 a new international investment law was approved. US business interests watched
with frustration from the sidelines as their rivals moved into ‘the Cuban market’.129
In summer 2014 the presidents of Russia and China visited Havana. During Putin’s trip,
USD 32 billion of Cuba’s Soviet-era debt was written off, leaving just USD 3 billion to be paid
over 10 years in joint projects. ‘We will provide support to our Cuban friends to overcome the
illegal blockade of Cuba,’ Putin said.130 Two weeks later, Chinese president Xi Jinping signed
29 trade, debt, credit and other agreements in Havana and thanked Cuba for advancing
cooperation between China and Latin America.131 Meanwhile, the European Union had become
Cuba’s biggest external investor, accounting for 20 per cent of total Cuban trade. ‘Very
pragmatically,’ said Vidal, ‘the United States realised that the only country left out, by its own
choice not because of Cuba, is the United States.’
Domestically, a shift in the balance of forces managing Washington’s Cuba policy meant a
policy change on Cuba might at last be possible, enabling Obama to leave a legacy in an area
that most presidents had steered clear of. His administration calculated that there was more to
gain through ‘engaging’ Cuba than there was to lose in a conflict with a political elite that was
losing its leverage. US policy was considered a failure, said Vidal, ‘in public opinion, by
business sectors, religious sectors, academics, people visiting Cuba, in the US Congress itself’.
In autumn 2014, the New York Times ran a series of editorials criticising US policy towards Cuba
and arguing for the restoration of diplomatic relations. This was probably contrived to generate
support for Obama’s pending announcement. Pointing to the economic reforms underway inside
Cuba, US commentators could claim that Cuba was making the liberalising reforms stipulated as
prerequisites for an improvement in relations.
Migration and generational changes had significantly altered the Cuban-American
community, especially in Miami, generating increased support for engagement with Cuba. ‘More
than 50 per cent of Cubans living in the United States emigrated after 1990,’ explained Vidal.
Being mostly economic emigrants, ‘they do not want to cut ties with their country or families.
They want to live and work in the US, but visit Cuba, or maintain a double citizenship, a double
residence.’ On the other hand and given demographic changes, the US administration sought
greater influence on the island in anticipation of the departure of the ‘historic generation’: the
leaders and veterans of the Cuban Revolution.
Along with every Cuban with whom I discussed US–Cuba relations, Vidal did not believe
that ‘rapprochement’ equated to a change in the United States’ strategic objectives, nor that
Obama accepted Cuba’s right to self-determination. Obama himself was clear about that. ‘[W]e
will end an outdated approach that, for decades, has failed to advance our interests . . . these 50
years have shown that isolation has not worked. It’s time for a new approach . . . through a
policy of engagement, we can more effectively stand up for our values.’132 Instead of isolation
and aggression, Obama sought to erode Cuban socialism by persuasion, seduction and bribery,
through ‘engagement’: foisting the logic of the capitalist market, social relations and cultural
values on the revolutionary people. This was part of Obama’s ‘smart diplomacy’ approach to
foreign relations.
The notion of ‘normalisation’ itself was contentious. Historically the United States had
never respected Cuban sovereignty, implying that the US definition of ‘normal’ would be Cuba’s
reintegration into the US-centred power structure – a situation which Cuba’s revolutionary
government could not accept. On the Cuban side, President Raúl Castro stated that normalisation
was not possible, ‘as long as the blockade exists, or as long as the territory illegally occupied by
the Guantanamo Naval Base is not returned, or radio and television broadcasts which violate
international norms continue, or just compensation is not provided to our people for the human
and economic damage they have suffered . . . If these problems are not resolved, this diplomatic
rapprochement between Cuba and the United States makes no sense.’133 During our interview at
ISRI, Isabel Allende reiterated the point: ‘You cannot have normal relations when you have a
military base in a country, against their wishes . . . when you are constantly trying to overthrow
that country’s government, when you want to impose your ways on others. There can’t be
normal relations, but there may be a certain relationship of coexistence.’134 That was what Cuba
sought from rapprochement.

CASTLES MADE OF SAND

With the restoration of diplomatic relations, embassies were opened; the US removed Cuba from
its list of states supporting terrorism; the Havana Club rum label was finally registered in the
United States, resolving a 20-year-long ownership dispute instigated by the Bacardi Corporation;
coastguard cooperation issues were resolved; regular flights and postal services were restored
after decades. Obama eased restrictions on US citizens’ travel to the island, although visits still
required a license. In 2016, over half a million US citizens travelled to Cuba from the US, around
half of whom were Cuban-Americans. In his final days as president, Obama eliminated the ‘wet
foot, dry foot’ policy which encouraged illegal and dangerous emigration from Cuba.135
 However, commercial and economic progress was minimal. While a Congressional vote is
required to end the US blockade, Obama could have dismantled it much further with decisive use
of executive powers. On the contrary, in September 2015 and 2016, he signed annual extensions
on the Trading with the Enemy Act against Cuba, one of the laws which sustains the US
blockade. Obama took only small, strategic steps to ‘engage’ Cuba by signing executive orders
to bypass Congress. His administration introduced five packets of measures and granted licences
to a handful of US companies to trade with and/or operate in Cuba: six telecoms firms, four
cruise companies, one hotel chain, eight airlines, two small banks. In mid-December 2016,
Google signed a deal with the Cuban government to install servers on the island to speed up
internet access.136
Regulations issued under Obama authorised financial institutions to provide Cuba with
finance and credit. However, US banks were not willing to test this. International banks
remained terrified of fines being imposed while Cuba remains on the list of countries under US
sanctions. And for good reason: under Obama a record-breaking 49 entities were fined for
transactions with Cuba – more than under the previous Bush administration. Effectively, Cuba
still could not use the dollar in the international economy, nor make deposits in international
banks. Cuban goods still could not be exported to the United States.137

THE DEMONSTRATION EFFECT

For Cuba, the greatest benefit of rapprochement came from the so-called ‘demonstration effect’.
It served as a green light to third parties to increase engagement with Cuba. ‘American policy vis
a vis Cuba has a big impact on us and any other actor,’ Alberto Navarro, the EU’s High
Representative in Cuba told me at the EU mission in Havana in March 2018.138 The EU opened
an office in Havana in 2003 and initiated projects of cooperation from 2008. Following
rapprochement, EU engagement with Cuba accelerated. In May 2015 French president François
Hollande became the first French head of state to visit Cuba, and other European heads of state
and ministers followed suit. In 2016, the EU and Cuba signed a non-preferential Political
Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement (PDCA), which entered into force on 1 November 2017,
formally replacing its 1996 Common Position. In May 2018, the first EU–Cuba Council meeting
took place to discuss implementation of the PDCA. The EU has allocated EUR 50 million to
projects in Cuba in the 2014–2020 period, Navarro told me.139
In June 2015, the Paris Club of debtors agreed to cancel 70 per cent of Cuba’s historic debt,
and, after a long negotiation, in early 2018, the London Club also presented Cuba with a debt
relief offer.140 Hundreds of companies from dozens of countries have applied to the Cuban
government to commence investments in the Mariel Special Development Zone and, by late
2018, some 43 applications had been approved and 17 projects were already operating.141
Reporting on the restoration of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States,
most commentators described the move as ending the island’s international isolation. This was
wrong and disingenuous, and was premised on an assumption that rapprochement would
facilitate Cuba’s reintegration into the capitalist ‘global community’. In fact, with or without
relations with the United States, Cuba is far from isolated. The revolutionary government today
has diplomatic relations with 195 countries, up from 50 in 1958.142 This testifies to the abject
failure of the US policy of isolation. ‘We have diplomatic relations with more countries than
have membership of the UN,’ explained Cuban Ambassador Eduardo Delgado Bermudez, a
diplomat for nearly 60 years, ‘because we also have relations with Palestine and Western
Sahara.’143
While Obama’s rapprochement sought to end the United States isolation resulting from its
hostile Cuba policy, in reversing that rapprochement, the Trump administration has resorted to
threats and intimidation to drive a wedge between revolutionary Cuba and the rest of the world.
In the process they have marginalised the United States once again, as discussed in Chapter 10
on the post-rapprochement period.

RAÚL CASTRO’S REFORMS

SOCIALIST EFFICIENCY OR CAPITALIST OPENING?

We are sauntering along the hot and dusty central highway in our swim wear, myself and a group
of Cuban adults and children, returning from the nearby river on the outskirts of Florida, a town
40 kilometres from the city of Camaguey in the east of the island. We stop at the tall obelisk
statue, known locally as the ‘Machete of Maceo’, outside the Maceo Park, to take a photograph.
It is named in honour of General José Antonio Maceo, a hero of Cuba’s independence wars who
died fighting Spanish colonists in 1896. Suddenly a military jeep pulls up and, with authority but
without menace, army personnel instruct us to delete the photo and move on. It is an issue of
national security, we are told. The park had just been taken over for military manoeuvres. Our
reservist friends had been summoned to participate in the exercises while we were enjoying our
swim.
 This is 6 August 2006, one week after the announcement that Fidel Castro had fallen sick
and passed his numerous responsibilities over to his deputy and younger brother, Raúl Castro,
and four other government leaders.1 In the United States, President George W. Bush had stepped
up his hostile rhetoric and senior US officials made statements about exploiting the situation. It
was a little over three years since Bush had stood under a triumphant banner emblazoned with
the words ‘Mission Accomplished’ in Iraq. Cuba was on the alert, launching Operation
Caguairán to mobilise hundreds of thousands of Cuban militia and reservists to join the regulars
of the Revolutionary Armed Forces in military preparations.
Almost a year later, on 26 July 2007, and not far from the Machete of Maceo, in
Camaguey’s Agramonte Square, acting president of Cuba’s Council of State, Raúl Castro took
the podium for the annual Moncada Day event. It was exactly one year since Fidel Castro’s last
public appearance and 18 years since, from the same spot, he had anticipated both the collapse of
the USSR and that against the odds the Cuban Revolution would survive into a post-Soviet
world. Just as Fidel Castro’s speech in 1989 foretold of a new chapter in the Cuban Revolution,
Raúl Castro’s speech in 2007 ushered in a new stage of development in Cuba, a period of
restructuring and reform.
In Fidel Castro’s absence, commentators outside Cuba had been searching for signs of
change in Cuba’s revolutionary government. Critics had eagerly anticipated an Eastern European
style transition to capitalism with the Commander in Chief’s exit. But there had been no power
vacuum and no counter-revolution rising to reject everything he stood for. Fidel Castro had
withdrawn, recuperated and then resumed with his published ‘reflections’ as the government and
the Cuban Communist Party (CCP) sped up the process of transition to a generation of younger
leaders at the local and national levels. The enemies of Cuban socialism were frustrated:
transition had taken place but not in the direction desired. That frustration obstructed their ability
to analyse or understand new developments.
Outside Cuba, ‘Raúl’s reforms’ were portrayed as a faltering march towards economic
liberalisation in which ‘progress’ was measured in steps taken towards a capitalist democracy.
Every shift towards commercialisation and the expansion of a private sector was applauded,
while every retreat was lambasted as reflecting the grip on power of an orthodox old guard in the
CCP. However, the apparent hesitancy was not clumsiness or lethargy from Cubans who don’t
understand how to ‘do’ capitalism. It reflects the tension between political preference and
economic necessity: the attempt to balance equity, social property, central planning and socialist
consciousness with the urgent need to increase productivity and economic efficiency.
Cuba needs capital to foster economic development, rebuild infrastructure and productive
capacity, and raise the standard of living. Government policy-makers estimate that a minimum
annual growth rate of 5 per cent is required to see significant socioeconomic improvements and
the kind of infrastructural developments necessary to benefit the entire population. To achieve
the 5 per cent goal, an investment rate of 20 per cent of GDP is required. But the rate of Cuban
savings is half that. Thus, the government cannot find sufficient capital domestically; the internal
market is too small and domestic savings too low. Capital must come from abroad. With no
socialist bloc to turn to, and without membership of international financial institutions which
provide access to loans, Cuba has to turn to foreign direct investment (FDI) and remittances,
channelled through self-employment and small private businesses. Doing so is a ‘concession’
that introduces serious contradictions into the process of socialist development. It means
legalising a social relationship of exploitation (in Marxist terms) and necessitates simultaneously
permitting and restricting the accumulation of private capital.
The revolutionary leadership does not portray the reforms as theoretical advances or
political improvements. The measures reflect the Revolution’s flexibility in devising policies to
deal with urgent problems without straying from the paradigm of Cuba Socialista. State
ownership, central planning and state sector employment continue to predominate, socialist
welfare and internationalism are prioritised, and private accumulation is restricted, all of which
undermine the reign of market forces. The Cuban government’s flexibility has in turn reflected
the lack of consensus about the best strategies for building socialism in a blockaded and trade-
dependent island. The Great Debate of the 1960s about which economic management system
was appropriate for Cuba was never resolved.2
Hence the debate initiated under Raúl Castro’s presidency about ‘updating’ the Cuban
economy and ‘conceptualising’ Cuban socialism has been referred to as a ‘new great debate’. It
returns to many of the same themes addressed in the earlier period: how can production and
productivity be stimulated in a welfare-based socialist development process? How can growth be
obtained alongside equity and social justice? Who should own and who should control
production and distribution? What should be the balance between private and social
accumulation, the plan versus the market? What democratic structures should exist? This
explains the pendulum, the to and fro, which so frustrates external commentators who only see
‘contradictory policies [which] mean one step forward and one step back for Cuba’s ailing
economy’, concluding that ‘Cuba’s economic leaders are going around in circles’.3
Raúl’s reforms were introduced to deal with Cuba’s liquidity and balance of payments
crises, low productivity and investment rate, and dependence on international trade under
deteriorating conditions and with the unrelenting United States blockade. These are historical
problems of the Cuban political economy, which must be understood with reference to three
phenomena. First, the challenge of (under)development in broad terms, which is introduced in
Chapter 1. Second, the deep scars left on Cuba after the collapse of the USSR and the socialist
bloc, and the impact of measures implemented to survive the crisis, as discussed in Chapter 2.
Third, the impact of the global financial crisis and economic recession of 2008, which
underscored the need for the structural reforms which are the focus of this chapter.
While external commentators sought discrepancy between the Castro brothers, the principal
difference turned out to be in management style. And, while changing circumstances imposed
new imperatives in the context of the global capitalist crisis, the ‘reformer’ Raúl Castro was as
committed to Cuban socialism as his elder brother. Raúl Castro described his ‘principal mission
and purpose in life’ as defending, preserving and continuing to improve socialism and never
allowing the return of the capitalist regime.4 There is little evidence to doubt it. While his
reforms evoked anticipation from market advocates, they proceeded at a measured pace
according to objectives that had been thrashed out and approved by the Cuban people, including
by Cuba’s communists.
This chapter provides the chronology of those reforms, highlighting the motivations and the
democratic component of the measures introduced. Raúl Castro’s mandate was characterised by
broad popular consultations and countrywide debates; half a dozen national consultations took
place over ten years. These were no mere public relations exercises: the Cuban population
shaped the laws, policies and development plans generated over the decade. This process
bestowed those measures with the legitimacy necessary for their acceptance and
institutionalisation, in order to endure once the ‘veteran generation’ has handed over to new
leaders.

RAÚL CASTRO TAKES THE PODIUM

Underlying Raúl Castro’s reforms was the drive to improve efficiency and productivity within
the socialist framework. This echoed the concerns of Che Guevara in the early 1960s, and it
picked up on more recent statements by Fidel Castro during a speech in November 2005
criticising excessive state subsidies which allowed a parasitic layer to avoid contributing to
Cuban society. Emphasising the need for energy efficiency, he spoke of ‘the dream of everyone
being able to live on their salary or on their adequate pension’, facilitating the removal of the
ration book.5 ‘Subsidies and free services will be considered only in essentials. Medical services
will be free, so will education and the like. Housing will not be free. Maybe there will be some
subsidy,’ he announced.6
Deepening the analysis in a concrete way, Raúl Castro initiated a new stage in the Cuban
Revolution. In his first public speech as Cuba’s stand-in president in Camaguey on 26 July 2007,
he recognised: ‘Wages today are clearly insufficient to satisfy all needs and have thus ceased to
play a role in ensuring the socialist principle that each should contribute according to their
capacity and receive according to their work. This has bred forms of social indiscipline and
tolerance which, having taken root, prove difficult to eradicate, even after the objective causes
behind them are eradicated.’7 Prices cannot go down, Raúl Castro pointed out, until production
and productivity go up: ‘Any increase in wages or decrease in prices, to be real, can only stem
from greater and more efficient production and services offered, which will increase the
country’s incomes . . . To have more, we have to begin by producing more, with a sense of
rationality and efficiency.’
Cuba must reduce imports, he stated, explaining that the cost of importing oil, milk and
frozen chicken had increased 200 to 300 per cent in four years, sapping Cuban hard currency
reserves. ‘In these four years, nearly 500 million dollars have been spent on these purchases.’
Meanwhile, the cost to Cuban consumers, highly subsidised by the state, had barely changed: ‘I
am talking of products that I think can be grown here,’ he said, lamenting the abundance of
marabú, a thorny bush invading productive land left fallow throughout the island particularly
since half of Cuba’s sugar mills had been closed in 2003. Production must be rationalised, he
said, using the example of milk which ‘travelled hundreds of miles [to pasteurisation plants]
before reaching a consumer who, quite often, lived a few hundred metres away from the
livestock farm’. Rationalisation would reduce both product losses and fuel expenses.
The US blockade remained a real and severe obstacle to development he stated, influencing
all major economic decisions and impacting on each Cuban’s most basic needs. ‘Directly and on
a daily basis, it weighs heavily on our food supply, transportation, housing and even on the fact
that we cannot rely on the necessary raw materials and equipment to work with.’ Cuba needed
foreign investment, he said, to ‘provide us with capital, technology or markets . . . upon well-
defined legal bases which preserve the role of the state and the predominance of socialist
property’. He revealed that ‘the Party and the government have been studying these and other
complex and difficult problems in depth’. Underlying Raúl Castro’s speech was the concept of
Cubans as citizens, not consumers, a revolutionary people with responsibility for social
development: ‘We need to bring everyone into the daily battle against the very errors which
aggravate objective difficulties from external causes . . . All of us, from the leaders to the rank-
and-file workers, are duty-bound to accurately identify and analyse every problem in depth . . . to
combat the problem with the most convenient methods.’ He emphasised the leading role of the
CCP in this process.
Raúl Castro’s speech stirred such debate among the Cuban people that the CCP decided to
initiate a nationwide popular consultation, creating forums for Cubans to thrash out the island’s
socioeconomic problems in every branch of the CCP, trade unions, street committees, women’s
federation, the Union of Young Communists and in every workplace. Raúl Castro invited the
people to speak with frankness and realism. Cubans committed whole-heartedly, not just
complaining, but suggesting improvements. Every intervention was anonymously recorded and
collated for analysis.8 Some 1.3 million proposals were logged, which facilitated a
comprehensive assessment of the state of the country and the consciousness of its people. Many
of the grievances reflected a search for individualistic solutions to material scarcity, proposals to
increase private interests and capitalist mechanisms. The desire to remove state control was the
result of the state’s inability to resolve production and distribution problems, attributable to both
domestic inefficiencies and the ‘very trying international economic situation’ identified by Raúl
Castro.9

‘PERFECT STORM’ COMPELS STRUCTURAL REFORMS

As the debate was underway, the external situation deteriorated with the global financial crisis
and recession, calling a halt to the robust economic growth of the mid-2000s. 2008 was
something of a perfect storm for Cuba. With the rise in international prices, in 2008 it cost Cuba
an extra USD 1.1 billion to import the same volume of food as the previous year. The highly
subsidised state ‘ration’ shielded the Cuban population from the dramatic global rise in food
prices, but not the government, which was importing 84 per cent of the basic food basket.
Cubans augment their ration with domestically grown and imported foodstuffs. The high price
for domestic produce reflected low productivity. And while import costs soared, export earnings
plummeted. The international price for nickel, a key Cuban export, fell from USD 50,000 per
tonne in late 2007 to just USD 9,000 in 2008, while tourist spending on the island decreased as
cash-strapped holidaymakers spent less.10 Productivity also declined. To add to Cuba’s woes, the
island was hit by the worst hurricane season on record, with Hurricanes Ike and Paloma causing
some USD 10 billion of damage, around 20 per cent of GDP, and piling on the costs of
emergency imports and repairs.
Exacerbating the structural imbalances inherent in the Cuban economy and the incomplete
recovery from the Special Period, these circumstances conspired to produce serious fiscal and
trade deficits and a liquidity crisis in 2008–09.11 The Cuban government temporarily froze
foreign businesses’ bank accounts in Cuba and stopped paying foreign suppliers, which further
reduced its access to external financing. The measures described below were taken to reduce
Cuba’s vulnerability to volatile international markets and the global rise in food and fuel prices,
by increasing domestic production and reducing imports.
In summer 2008, the wage cap on bonuses for workers who meet or exceed production
targets was lifted, thus standardising salary policy across the economy as the Enterprise
Perfection System of economic management, which had been operating in military enterprises
since 1987, was rolled out to all state enterprises.12 Bonus payments remained capped at 30 per
cent for various bureaucrats, technicians and economists to prevent the emergence of a
technocratic elite.
Under a new law, from November 2008 the state began distributing land in ‘usufruct’, a
conditional rent-free loan for between 10 and 25 years, to Cuban individuals and groups who
wished to work it. This approach had been applied during the Special Period, when 43,000
Cubans had received land in ‘usufruct’. With the closure of the sugar mills, the amount of
cultivated land had fallen by 33 per cent between 1998 and 2007, leaving up to 50 per cent of
arable land idle or under-used, some 2 million hectares (nearly 5 million acres). The measure
aimed to augment agricultural and food production, without permanently changing property
relations. Usufruct farmers cannot buy nor sell the land, nor transfer it to third parties; they pay
taxes and sell an agreed proportion to the state at fixed prices. Introducing the legislation in July
2008, Raúl Castro told the National Assembly of People’s Power, ‘I am a firm admirer and
defender of large socialist state enterprises, be they agricultural, industrial, or otherwise.’13
Within one week over 34,600 individuals and entities, most of whom had never owned land, had
applied for close to half a million hectares of land to exploit free of charge: up to 13.42 hectares
(33 acres), each with the prospect of subsequently expanding to 40 hectares (99 acres).14
Over two months in autumn 2008, 3.4 million workers (70 per cent of the workforce) met in
80,000 workplace assemblies to debate the proposal to raise the retirement age from 60 to 65
years for men, and from 55 to 60 years for women. The new law was approved by the National
Assembly in December. Additionally, retired school and university teachers were authorised to
return to work with a full salary on top of their pension, a measure to bridge the gap until the
new retirement ages were implemented and pension increases were introduced.15 Cuba has the
oldest population in the Americas thanks to high life expectancy and low birth rates and the ratio
of active workers to retirees had fallen from 7 to 1 in 1970 to less than half that by 2007, making
the challenge of sustaining high social expenditures even greater.

DEEPENING DEBATE AND STRUCTURAL CHANGES

In September 2009, the CCP once again created forums for national debate about the island’s
socioeconomic situation in every community and workplace. Two key recurrent complaints were
the dual currency and low wages in national currency. Granma, the daily newspaper of the CCP,
began publishing four pages of public letters and articles about these and other problems,
including corruption, every Friday. The Ministry of Auditing and Control was replaced by a
Comptroller’s Office, supervised directly from the Council of State, to root out corruption. Raúl
Castro claimed to ‘personally check its everyday performance’.16 Meanwhile, monthly salaries
were increased by an average of nearly 3 per cent.
In 2009 import spending fell by 37 per cent, following reductions in volume and
international prices, particularly of fuel and food.17 Raúl Castro described the development of
Cuban agriculture as an issue of national security, as reliance on imports undermined the
country’s independence.18 Nearly 1 million hectares of arable land had been distributed in
usufruct and the state increased payments to farmers to stimulate production. The fiscal deficit
was reduced from 6.7 per cent of GDP in 2008 to 4.8 per cent in 2009.19 However, the goods
deficit was 67 per cent in 2009, underscoring the urgent need to raise domestic production,
reduce imports and increase goods exports.
In September 2010, the Cuban Workers’ Confederation (CTC) announced the state’s plans
to transfer 1 million unproductive state sector workers into alternative employment between
2011 and 2015 – half of them within six months. A Financial Times editorial described it as a
‘reform that makes Margaret Thatcher look like a leftist radical’.20 Raúl Castro, meanwhile,
reassured the Cuban people that ‘No one will be abandoned to their fate. The socialist state will
offer the support necessary for a dignified life through a system of social assistance to those who
really are not able to work.’21
In 2010, Cuba’s workforce was 5.2 million, of whom 800,000, or 15.4 per cent, already
worked in the non-state sector, mostly in agricultural cooperatives whose production features in
the central plan and a proportion of which is sold to the state. Just 140,000 Cubans or 2.7 per
cent of the total workforce were self-employed. Official unemployment was low at 1.7 per cent,
but this figure excluded workers in the informal economy, where earnings are often higher and
no tax is paid, those not seeking employment and those who have no work to do but who remain
on payrolls, receiving a reduced salary.22 Announcing the decision to restructure employment,
the CTC statement said: ‘Our state cannot and should not continue maintaining enterprises,
productive, service and budgeted entities, with inflated payrolls, and losses that hurt the
economy.’ The first workers dismissed were from within government ministries.
Trade union representatives met with management in every state entity to determine which
posts were expendable. The ‘surplus’ workers could take up employment in understaffed areas of
the state sector (agriculture, construction or industry), join (and, from December 2012, create)
cooperatives or become self-employed in any of the 178 activities authorised at that time –
mainly services and artisan trades. In 83 of these occupations existing regulations specifying that
only family members or cohabitants could be employed by the licence holder were removed. The
self-employed category of ‘contracted worker’ was introduced, which allowed non-family
members to be taken on as ‘assistants’ to other self-employed people.23 Self-employed workers
remained a minority of Cuban workers, their incomes progressively taxed, and they were
prohibited from strategic sectors, healthcare, education, the armed forces and domestic security.
Alongside the employment changes the education system was adjusted to give greater emphasis
to technical training and manual skills. This halted the massive extension of (free) access to
university education which was part of the Battle of Ideas but had failed to address shortages in
skilled and semi-skilled trades.
When Raúl Castro insisted on the need to end the ‘paternalistic’ state he was not referring to
welfare provision, such as health and education services, but to the notion that in Cuba ‘you can
live without working’.24 This was not a new concern from Cuba’s revolutionary leaders. In 1962
Che Guevara had pointed out that ‘every excess worker in a factory means social unemployment
. . . the worker stuck in a job where he has to divide his work with another worker adds nothing
to society’, and in 1986 Fidel Castro warned against ‘speaking about the standard of living as if it
was divorced from productivity, from economic and social development, as if it was divorced
from the development needs of a country in the Third World, even a socialist one’.25 The
employment reforms were intended to create the structure under which all Cubans could
contribute towards social development.
Within a year, however, it was clear that the CTC itself had put the brakes on the process,
evidence of their leverage over government policy. In September 2011, at the headquarters of the
CTC, I asked Ernesto Freire Cazañas, head of the Confederation’s International Relations
department why. ‘This is a gradual process that cannot be hurried,’ he told me. ‘The objective of
restructuring the workforce is the rational use of human and material resources. We must ensure
that no worker is left helpless through a policy of “shock therapy”. Rather, we want to use their
work skills, knowledge and technical–professional training in the areas where we have a deficit
in the country’s labour force.’ The role of the CTC and Cuba’s 19 national trade unions, he said,
was to ‘guard against violations of the procedures established for the restructuring of the
workforce’. He explained the process of consultation behind each decision to redeploy a worker
and the multiple levels of appeal available to each state employee (Labour Justice Committees,
municipal labour courts, trade union workplace branches or municipal and provincial offices).
‘We are representing people who do not agree with the decisions made. Many workers come
here for clarification or to complain about measures taken.’26 Workers unhappy with their
proposed redeployment had a period of salary guaranteed and could register with the municipal
work organisation to see what alternative employment was available.
‘Under socialism the trade union has two main functions,’ Freire Cazañas said. ‘The first is
universal for any trade union, the representation and defence of workers’ rights. In the case of
socialist Cuba, we have another mission – to actively participate in the effort to develop the
economy of the country, which is the economy of the people.’ However, this process must be
understood in the broader context of Cuba’s dependence on foreign trade, the need to substitute
imports, the global economic and financial crisis and the US blockade and hostility, he added.27
By late December 2011, some 357,000 individuals, less than 7 per cent of the total
workforce, were self-employed, mostly occupied in goods and people transportation, food
preparation and sale, renting out rooms, selling agricultural products – including from roadside
carts (carretilleros) – making household items, as couriers and carpenters, or as ‘contracted
workers’.28 Two-thirds of them had been officially unemployed beforehand, 16 per cent were
retirees and 18 per cent had left the state sector. The process was pulling workers from the
informal sector, and the unemployed, into formal work where they contribute to the social
product, pay taxes and receive the protection afforded to all workers.29

THE GENIUS IS IN THE PEOPLE: GUIDELINES FOR UPDATING THE CUBAN

ECONOMY

In April 2011, on the fiftieth anniversary of the defeat of the Bay of Pigs invasion, the CCP held
its long-overdue Sixth Congress, the first for nearly 14 years.30 For three months prior to the
Congress, the Cuban people had debated a document written and distributed by the CCP called
the Draft Guidelines of the Economic and Social Policy of the Party and the Revolution (referred
to as the Guidelines). Informed by the national public consultations of 2007 and 2009, this
document contained 291 ‘guidelines’ for consolidating or amending social and economic policy
in 12 broad categories.31 The introduction to the Guidelines affirmed ‘the principle that only
socialism is capable of overcoming the difficulties and preserving the conquests of the
Revolution, and that in the updating of the economic model, planning will be supreme, not the
market’. ‘Socialism,’ it stated, means ‘equality of rights and opportunities for the citizens, not
egalitarianism. Work is both a right and a duty, the personal responsibility of every citizen, and
must be remunerated according to its quantity and quality.’32 The short-term aim was to
eliminate the balance of payments deficit, increase national income, substitute imports with
internal production, improve economic efficiency, work motivation and income distribution,
‘and create the necessary infrastructural and productive conditions to permit transition to a higher
stage of development’, the document stated. The long-term aim was ‘food and energy self-
sufficiency, an efficient use of human potential, a higher level of competitiveness in traditional
production areas, and the development of new forms of the production of goods and services of
higher added value’.33
CCP membership was around 800,000 but every single Cuban, regardless of political or
organisational affiliation, could obtain the guidelines and participate once again in open debates
about their contents. Work and study centres, political and residential groups organised 163,000
meetings. Out of a total population of 11.2 million, almost 9 million people participated (it was
possible to participate more than once) and over 3 million opinions were registered, analysed and
organised into 780,000 distinct recommendations. Proving that this was no mere public relations
exercise, 68 per cent of the guidelines were subsequently modified following consultation with
the Cuban people.34 Raúl Castro announced that 45 proposals advocating the concentration of
property were not included because they ‘openly contradicted the essence of socialism’.35 Over
half of all proposals, Raúl Castro reported, concerned the Guideline’s chapters on social and
macroeconomic policies; most related to the removal of the ration book, pricing policy,
passenger transport, education, the establishment of a single currency and the quality of health
care services. The essence of these details is what they reveal about a revolutionary leadership
with its finger on the pulse of the people.
The CCP Congress in April 2011 was attended by nearly 1,000 delegates, who split into
five commissions to discuss the guidelines and the population’s recommendations. As a result, a
further 86 guidelines were modified and 2 added before the document was approved. In summer
2011, the now 313 guidelines were submitted to the National Assembly of People’s Power for
legislative ratification. A Permanent Commission for the Implementation and Development of
the Guidelines was set up and the Central Committee began to analyse progress in implementing
the guidelines in plenary meetings twice a year. Raúl Castro counselled against ‘haste or
improvisation’ and warned that the Cuban people must be kept on board with the ‘updating’
process.
The Congress also resolved to strengthen the institutions of the People’s Power and their
system of participatory democracy, devolving control to the local assemblies.36 Raúl Castro’s
‘Central Report’ was approved, with proposals to limit leadership roles to two terms of five years
and to increase the proportion of women and non-white Cubans in leadership positions.37 It also
emphasised the need for greater separation between the CCP (which should provide political and
ideological leadership) and the government (which is concerned with management,
administrative and legislative functions).38 In this report, Raúl Castro slated the Cuban media for
‘describing the national reality in pretentious high-flown language or with excessive formality’
and for ‘boring, improvised or superficial reports’. The media’s role, he insisted, was to stimulate
public debate and produce ‘objective, continuous and critical reports on the progress of the
updating of the economic model’.
Raúl Castro reassured the people that the ration book would not be eliminated ‘before
creating the proper conditions to do so . . . which means undertaking other transformations of the
economic model with a view to increasing labour efficiency and productivity in order to
guarantee stable levels of production and supplies of basic goods and services accessible to all
citizens, but no longer subsidised’. Socialism would never use the ‘shock therapy’ of
neoliberalism, he said. ‘The social welfare system is being reorganised to ensure a rational and
differential support to those who really need it. Instead of massively subsidising products as we
do now, we shall gradually provide for those people lacking other support.’39
In November 2011, new regulations were introduced to permit the direct purchase/sale of
privately owned houses and cars (by Cuban citizens only); to authorise agricultural producers to
sell direct to state-owned tourist entities (regulated under the national plan); to provide loans
from the state to non-state workers, farmers and people who need to repair their homes
(previously only farming cooperatives had access to loans); to permit trade between state
enterprises and workers in the non-state sector (using bank transfers, not cash payments); and to
authorise Cubans emigrating to transfer ownership of their homes to relatives or co-habitants.
While foreign commentators portrayed these as new steps towards a free market, in some cases
they were a return to Soviet-era regulations, for example the public sale of privately owned
homes and of agricultural products by farmers were both permitted in the 1980s.40 These
measures aimed to cut bureaucracy and improve efficiency without fundamentally changing
social relations in Cuba. Although direct sales were permitted, the concentration of property
remained prohibited.41
While 96 per cent of Cubans own their own homes, the housing stock is in poor condition.
In January 2012, the government began to grant subsidies of up to CUP 80,000 for home repairs
to those in need. Previously the government had paid for maintenance regardless of the
recipient’s economic situation, but, this was inefficient and contributed to the housing shortage,
waste and corruption. Subsidies would be provided only to families affected by catastrophes or
natural disasters, or those in ‘vulnerable conditions’ or lacking funds for construction materials
or labour.42

NON-AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVES

As part of the process of reducing the state payroll, from December 2012 new non-agricultural
cooperatives (cooperativa no agrícola, or CNA) were authorised with an ‘experimental’ status.
Employees in some state entities, for example cafes or hairdressers, were invited to lease the
properties to form a CNA; these were known as ‘conversion’ cooperatives.43 ‘Self-effort’ CNAs
were formed from scratch at the initiative of three or more people. Funded by employee
contributions, bank loans and a Ministry of Finance fund, CNAs were authorised to conduct
business with government entities, state enterprises and private enterprises. They set their own
prices except in specific state-regulated markets, pay 10 per cent tax on sales (lower than for self-
employed workers), 20 per cent tax on non-member labour contracts, and must make social
security contributions for each worker and set aside contingency reserves.
Cooperatives were permitted to hire self-employed workers for up to 90 days, after which
that worker either must move on or join the cooperative.44 Once credits are paid off, CNAs
decide how to distribute their surplus. By the end of 2014, there were 498 CNAs: 384
‘conversions’ and 114 ‘self-effort’; 43 per cent were in the gastronomy sector, 14 per cent in
construction and 6.5 per cent in personal and technical services. In 2017, the process of issuing
licences for the non-state sector, both CNAs and self-employment, was suspended while
‘irregularities’ were investigated, and new regulations and better auditing systems were
implemented. It was not until December 2018 that the process resumed in both sectors.

THE REVOLUTION DIGS DEEP

In May 2012, the island’s economic prospects faced another setback, when the Spanish company
Repsol gave up drilling for oil in Cuban waters. In 2008, the government had announced that 20
billion barrels of offshore oil were estimated to exist in the island’s ‘exclusive economic zone’
around the Gulf of Mexico, an amount significantly higher than the 5 to 7 billion estimated by
the US Geological Survey. If true, this would place Cuba among the world’s top 20 nations in
terms of oil reserves.45 What a prospect for a country made vulnerable by its dependence on oil
imports! Some 120,000 barrels per day (bpd) were being imported, mainly from Venezuela, with
another 50,000 bpd supplied domestically.
Accessing deep water oil reserves requires highly specialised technology; agreements to dig
exploratory wells had been reached with state oil companies and conglomerates from Angola,
Canada, China, India, Malaysia, Norway, Russia, Spain, Venezuela and Vietnam. The first dig
was carried out with the Scarabeo 9, one of the world’s largest semi-submersible oil drilling rigs,
a USD 750 million investment, especially designed and constructed to avoid violating US
sanctions which prohibit non-US owned or controlled companies in third countries providing
Cuba with foreign-made products containing 20 per cent or more US-origin parts, components or
materials.46 Scarabeo 9 was owned by Italian oil giant Saipem, designed with the aid of
Norwegian engineers, built in the shipyards of Yantai, China, fitted with advanced technology in
Singapore and initially contracted by the Spanish company Repsol.
Powerful Cuban-American politicians in Miami were enraged at the prospect of Cuba
striking ‘black gold’, and demanded that President Obama ‘prevent a State Sponsor of Terrorism,
just 90 miles from our shores, from engaging in risky deep-sea oil drilling projects that will harm
US interests’.47 Congresswoman Illena Ros-Lehtinen introduced three ‘no-drill bills’ in 2011 to
impose punitive measures against Cuba’s foreign oil partners.48 The threat of fines from the US
Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) had already risen in general. In less than four years of
Obama’s first administration, USD 2.26 billion in fines had been levied on foreign companies
dealing with Cuba. Respol’s chairman faced legal threats.49 However, the US establishment was
split over the issue. Between April and July 2010, the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster saw nearly
5 million barrels of oil gush into the Gulf of Mexico and the National Commission on the
Deepwater Horizon spill called for negotiations between the US and Cuba on regulatory
oversight, containment and response strategies in the case of another spill.
Ros-Lehtinen and her associates must have been pleased after Repsol drilled three wells and
found them all dry. By 2015, a dozen foreign firms had explored for Cuba’s offshore oil without
success, but new survey data confirmed billions of barrels of oil lay beneath Cuba’s Gulf of
Mexico waters and new deals with foreign partners were underway.50 Nonetheless, energy
supply continues to be an issue of national security for Cuba.

WELCOME HOME

New Cuban migration laws enacted in January 2013 removed the requirement for an exit visa
and letter of invitation for Cubans travelling overseas, extended the period for which Cubans
could stay abroad without losing citizenship rights and facilitated the return to Cuba, either
permanently or for visits, of the diaspora, including Cubans who left illegally or abandoned
internationalist missions. Reporting the news, the New York Times blamed the exit visa for
‘discouraging all but the favored or fortunate from leaving the island’, and the Washington Post
said ‘many Cubans are simply denied the visa’.51 In fact, between 2000 and 31 August 2012,
99.4 per cent of the 941,953 exit visa applications were successful; Cubans were internationally
mobile, and not just on internationalist missions, but also visiting families overseas, working and
studying abroad. Almost 1 million Cubans travelled abroad in this 12-year period (nearly 1 in 11
people) and of those only 12.8 per cent settled abroad, while the rest returned. In 2011 alone,
250,000 Cubans went overseas legally.52
In 2009, President Obama had revoked the Bush-era restrictions on Cuban-Americans
visiting and sending money to Cuba.53 However, once again, the US Interest Section in Cuba
was issuing far fewer visas annually than the quota of 20,000 agreed in 1994. Cuba’s new
migration law presented a challenge to the US administration as, regardless of their initial
destination, many new Cuban emigrants would head for the United States claiming the right to
citizenship within one year of arrival granted under US law. Indeed, four years later, President
Obama would end the ‘wet foot, dry foot’ policy, which allowed Cubans entering the United
States, illegally or not, to settle there but turned back Cubans intercepted at sea.54

MONETARY UNIFICATION: UNATTAINABLE IMPERATIVE?

In October 2013 the revolutionary government announced that the process of reunifying Cuba’s
two currencies, the Cuban peso (CUP) and the Cuban convertible peso (CUC), was underway.
Eliminating the dual currency had been a major priority highlighted during the national
consultations held over the previous years and in the Guidelines for updating the economy. The
government statement advised that ‘monetary and currency exchange unification is not a
measure which will, in itself, resolve all of the economy’s current problems, but its
implementation is indispensable to re-establishing the value of the Cuban peso and its function as
money; that is to say, as a unit of accounting, payment and savings’.55 This was necessary, the
statement said, for ‘developing the conditions which will lead to increased efficiency, more
accurate measurement of economic activity and incentives for those sectors which produce goods
and services for export and to replace imports’.56
At that time the exchange rate for individuals was CUP 25 to CUC 1, but it was one dollar
to one peso in state-owned companies.57 The first stage of unification involved devaluation of
the official exchange rate in the state sector (1:1), which ‘everybody knows is not real’, as former
Economy Minister José Luis Rodríguez told me.58 In December 2011, a special exchange rate of
CUP 7 to USD 1 had been established for direct transactions between state hotels and
restaurants, and agricultural cooperatives. In 2013 this exchange rate was raised to CUP 10 to
USD 1, effectively a 900 per cent devaluation of the Cuban peso value in state entities. This
meant that, in the internal economy, ‘costs will immediately increase, because something that
cost you one dollar, or one peso in the near past, now will cost you ten peso’, explained
Rodríguez.
The October 2013 announcement reassured Cubans that the value of CUCs legally held by
the general population would not fall in the process of monetary unification. This required
raising the value of the CUP against the CUC. To prevent the population from suffering,
Rodriguez explained, ‘you have to put more purchasing power in that peso; it is equal to
reducing prices, and to do that you need the means – you have to put money in. How much
money will be necessary? Well, it is billions of pesos.’59
In Cuba the announcement was greeted positively. Rodríguez recognises that most Cubans
‘identify income inequality with the dual monetary system, because the inequality appears to be
between those that have and those who do not have convertible pesos’, so they assume that
monetary unification will automatically see inequalities disappear. However, if monetary
unification is not accompanied by an increase in production and goods available, consumption
problems will remain unsolved. Cubans with greater purchasing power will be competing for
insufficient goods, resulting in inflation and not tackling inequality.60
The process was flagged to take three years, but that deadline had come and gone when I
met with Rodríguez in late 2016. ‘It has been three years and we have done practically nothing
because we don’t have the money to do it,’ he admitted. He estimated that monetary unification
would take another five years. In part, the effort to seek foreign direct investment took
precedence and the precondition for that was the renegotiation of Cuba’s massive, historical
debts. Financial reserves were then dedicated to paying some of these off.
 SETTLING CUBA’S DEBTS

Because of the US policy of persecuting Cuban financial and economic links around the world,
the Cuban government stopped publishing information about its debt and financial reserves.61
However, debt resettlement deals made between 2013 and 2016, on extremely favourable terms,
reveal the historic burden of Cuba’s international debt. Russia amortised 90 per cent of the
(disputed) Soviet-era debt (USD 35 billion) giving Cuba 10 years to pay the rest on favourable
terms; Mexico wrote off 70 per cent of the 1980s-era debt (USD 487 million), with the rest to be
paid over 10 years; and the Paris Club cancelled 70 per cent of its debt (USD 11.1 billion) from
the same era, with the remainder to be paid over 18 years.62 Cuba has also restructured its USD 6
billion debt with China.
To meet its development plans, the Cuban government needs between USD 2 and 2.5
billion in foreign capital, mainly foreign investment, annually. International investors are keen
despite the disincentives of the US blockade. On the Cuban side, as Raúl Castro repeatedly
complained, ideological resistance, a cautious approach and lack of experience have slowed the
process of approving investment proposals. Only USD 1.3 billion-worth of projects were
approved within two years of the 2014 Investment Law, discussed below. Between 2016 and
2018, the Cuban government signed USD 3.5 billion-worth of investment deals, but little of that
has entered Cuba.63 The Trump administration’s tightening of the US blockade has multiplied
the obstacles faced since 2017.

MARIEL PORT AND SPECIAL DEVELOPMENT ZONE

A key axis in the policy of attracting foreign business to Cuba has been the huge investment in
the Mariel Port and Special Development Zone (SDZ), a deep-water sea port and a 465km2
special development zone. In January 2014, Dilma Rousseff, president of Brazil at the time,
accompanied Raúl Castro to inaugurate the first 700 metre section of the new container terminal
at the port of Mariel, in Artemisa Province, 45 kilometres west of Havana. The ceremony was
attended by the presidents of Bolivia, Guyana, Haiti and Venezuela and the prime minister of
Jamaica who were in Havana for a summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean
States, known as CELAC.
After Venezuela, Brazil was Cuba’s second largest trading partner in Latin America and the
Mariel port was being built by the Brazilian engineering group Odebrecht in partnership with the
Cuban state and subsidised with USD 682 million from the Brazilian government’s Development
Bank (BNDES).64 The project involved 400 Brazilian companies, generating some 156,000 jobs
in Brazil and earning USD 802 million for construction businesses. In Cuba, more than 2,000
workers from nearby towns were employed; 99 per cent of the port workers are Cubans.
A long-term contract for managing the Mariel TC, the Cuban company which owns the
port, went to Singapore’s PSA International, which runs several of the world’s largest ports.
Given its depth and the installation of world-leading technology, Mariel can accommodate huge
post-Panamax vessels, giving it the potential to serve as a transhipment hub for the region,
particularly following the expansion of the Panama Canal completed in June 2016.65 The port
will have an annual capacity of up to 1 million containers, replacing Havana Port as Cuba’s main
harbour.66
In 2018, in the plush settings of the Meliá Habana hotel, I met up with a non-Cuban general
manager of TC Mariel, an employee of PSA who relocated to Cuba in 2011 when the project
started.67 ‘Mariel is a huge site,’ he said, ‘approximately half the land mass of Singapore,’ but
virgin territory. ‘The Cuban state has invested about USD 300 million a year for the last five or
six years, in infrastructure – taking out water, electricity, building roads and railways, things like
that, so that foreign investors who want to put a factory there have all the amenities they need.
And that’s starting from nothing, I mean there was literally nothing out there. Not even marabú
had reached Mariel!’ he joked. While the Cuban people think it’s not moving very fast, he says,
‘actually it’s not moving very slowly either. There’s a lot of activity out there.’68
PSA is owned by the sovereign wealth fund of Singapore and it is not listed on any stock
exchange. ‘So that gives you a government-to-government element, which the Cubans love,’ the
manager explained. ‘They’ve had so many bad experiences with large corporations and suddenly
an American influence comes in and that piece of software or hardware gets shutdown, taken
away and it messes them up.’ Normally, PSA invest in the large ports they manage but in Mariel,
he said, ‘the Cubans did not want an investor because [Brazilian president] Lula had given them
a loan of more than USD 600 million dollars through BNDES, so they didn’t need the cash. But
they did need the expertise.’ PSA brought in equipment from China. Their host computer
systems run on IBM servers, but, because of the US blockade, IBM would not guarantee support,
so they had to adopt a Chinese software system.
The new port infrastructure means that investors in Mariel SDZ need not transport products
60 kilometres back to the congested port in Havana. ‘In the longer term, Mariel is well
positioned geographically to serve as a hub particularly for South Atlantic US ports and the US
Gulf and northern Caribbean and Central Mexico.’ Its big Achilles heel is US legislation, the
manager continued, which prohibits the handling of US origin or destination containers. ‘The
ship could stop here but we couldn’t touch any containers that were destined for Houston or
Miami.’
Long-standing US legislation prohibits ships from any country that dock in Cuba from
entering US ports for six months. Does this apply to Mariel given measures taken under the
Obama-era rapprochement? ‘If you can find the answer to that question, I will buy your book’,
he laughed. ‘In theory, Obama’s last changes in 2016 allowed all non-US shipping lines to stop
in Mariel or another Cuban port, discharge whatever containers were destined for Cuba and then
go to Miami, Norfolk and New York. In practice nobody has done it.’ Why? ‘Because the
election of Trump means that everybody is more cautious. Like the stock market, it functions on
confidence and commentary.’69
Mariel is the first and largest of several SDZs planned in Cuba. In Santiago de Cuba, in the
east, work began in 2015 on upgrading the port and introducing another SDZ. These are not,
however, the ‘free-trade zones’ associated with exploitative foreign-owned factories and
sweatshops. ‘The Cubans are not interested in that,’ explains the Mariel general manager. ‘They
don’t have a surplus of unskilled workers.’ On the contrary, the 7,000 Cubans employed in
Mariel are young and skilled, he said. ‘We have lots of people with university degrees, good
technicians. They learn very fast, so you could do “advance manufacturing”, or what they call
“injection moulding” here, you could put together iPhones.’70 Cuban workers are recruited via a
state-run employment agency, which imposes strict conditions on foreign investors. The Cuban
state receives payment for their labour in hard currency and converts a proportion of this into
Cuban currency for the payment of salaries.
The inauguration at Mariel was followed by two major new laws: one regulating foreign
investments, replacing legislation introduced during the Special Period in 1995; and the other a
new labour code, updating legislation from 1985. The new Investment Law approved by the
National Assembly in March 2014 allows 100 per cent foreign-owned companies to operate in
Cuba in ‘special cases’, usually with a higher tax burden than for joint state–foreign enterprises,
speeds up official responses to foreign investment proposals, and reduces some taxes and
provides exemptions on others.71 Foreign investment is prohibited in the armed forces and
security, education, health care and legal services, preserving Cuba’s sovereignty and protecting
‘los logros’, the social welfare achievements of the Revolution.
The introduction of the new Labour Code in June 2014 followed five months of debate
involving 2.8 million workers in nearly 70,000 workplace assemblies and in the CTC, the
Ministry of Labour and the National Assembly. The process led to over 100 amendments to the
draft Code. Among the substantial changes was the removal of a new workplace grievance and
disciplinary procedure which would have given powers to management that previously were
exercised by panels dominated by elected workers.72 The fundamental laws enshrined, as before,
the rights to equal pay, minimum salary and non-discrimination, while reference to sexual
orientation was added for the first time and others, such as maternity rights, were enhanced. The
rights of Cuba’s self-employed workers and the new non-agricultural cooperative members were
incorporated. The Code gives contracted workers the right to written contracts, minimum
salaries, maximum hours, rest periods, paid holidays, and health and safety at work.73
Repeating a historical pattern, Cuban efforts to access foreign capital were countered by
increased US hostility. In May 2014, French Bank BNP Paribas pleaded guilty to two ‘criminal’
charges and agreed to pay nearly USD 9 billion to US authorities for violating that country’s
sanctions against Cuba, Iran and Sudan. The fine was a warning to financial institutions around
the world. BNP Paribas was just one of the record-breaking 49 entities fined for transactions with
Cuba under the two Obama terms; the fine was issued even while the United States and Cuba
engaged in backchannel talks about improving relations. With rapprochement announced on 14
December 2014, the US administration’s strategy appeared to be to fend off international rivals
from Cuba, while facilitating greater engagement with the island in the interests of US capital.
Nonetheless, rapprochement served as a green light for international investors.

UPDATING THE GUIDELINES FOR UPDATING THE ECONOMY

In April 2016, the CCP held its Seventh Congress; it focused on updating the Guidelines
approved five years earlier. Of the original 313 guidelines, 21 per cent had been fully
implemented and 77 per cent were underway, a process generating 130 new policies and 344
new legal regulations. In the intervening period, 2011–2016, GDP growth had averaged 2.7 per
cent (just over half the 5 per cent aspired to) but Cuba’s macroeconomic situation had improved
with the rebalancing of external finances, particularly through the renegotiation of foreign debt
and the increase in foreign direct investment. Imports had been reduced, exports increased and
diversified, and government spending had been cut. The Guidelines were updated during the
PCC Congress for the 2016–2021 period.74
During his speech to the Congress, Raúl Castro acknowledged that the reform of property
relations had generated controversy, ‘and logically so, as depending on the predominance of one
form of ownership over another, a country’s social system is determined’. However, in socialist
Cuba, he asserted, the people would retain ownership of the basic means of production, which
meant that state ownership would continue to dominate the national economy and the
socioeconomic system, serving as the basis of the Cuban workers’ power. He continued:

The recognition of the existence of private property has generated more than a few honest
concerns from participants in the discussions prior to the [Seventh] Congress, who
expressed concerns that in doing so we would be taking the first steps towards the
restoration of capitalism in Cuba . . . I have the duty to assert that this is not, in the least, the
purpose of this conceptual idea. The increase in self-employment and the authorisation to
 contract a workforce has led in practice to the existence of medium, small and micro private
enterprises which today operate without proper legal status and are regulated under the law
by a regulatory framework designed for individuals engaged in small business conducted by
the worker and his/her family.

Guideline number 3 approved by the Sixth Congress and which we intend to maintain
and strengthen in the updated draft [Guidelines] categorically specifies that “In the forms of
non-state management, the concentration of property shall not be allowed” and it is added
“nor of wealth”; therefore, the private company will operate within well-defined limits and
will constitute a complementary element in the economic framework of the country, all of
which should be regulated by law.75

The Seventh Congress took place during rapprochement and in reference to Obama’s policy of
strategic ‘engagement’ Raúl Castro declared: ‘We are not naive nor do we ignore the aspirations
of powerful external forces that are committed to what they call the “empowerment” of non-state
forms of management, in order to create agents of change in the hope of putting an end to the
Revolution and socialism in Cuba by other means.’ But, he insisted, ‘Cooperatives, self-
employment and medium, small and micro private enterprise are not in their essence anti-
socialist or counter-revolutionary and the enormous majority of those who work in them are
revolutionaries and patriots who defend the principles and benefit from the achievements of this
Revolution.’76
In the run-up to the Seventh Congress, four documents were discussed by delegates and
some 3,500 invited guests representing different sectors of Cuban society: 1) An evaluation of
the national economy between 2011 and 2015 and the updated Guidelines for 2016 to 2021; 2) A
national plan of economic and social development to 2030 [Plan 2030]; 3) A ‘conceptualisation’
of Cuba’s social and economic model of socialist development [Conceptualisation]; and 4) a
report on progress made towards objectives agreed on by the First National Conference of the
CCP in January 2012.77 These documents establish the parameters within which the ‘updating’
of the economic and social system takes place. As mundane as these events may at first seem, in
them lies the key to Cuba’s survival as a sovereign socialist state in the post-Soviet world. In
form and content, they illustrate the democratic input which underscores the resilience of Cuba’s
revolutionary process. The documents approved at both Congresses had the participation of
millions of Cubans: the population was mobilised through work, study and community structures
to participate in decision-making about their own future.
These documents formally confirm the existence of small and medium private businesses in
Cuba, a precondition for the introduction of urgently needed legislation to regulate and control
what already exists. Cuban economist Juan Alejandro Triana Barros underscored the significance
of ‘private businesses’ being recognised in an official document which ‘came out of the most
important and highest level of the political power of Cuba: the central committee of the
Communist party.’78

CONCEPTUALISING CUBAN SOCIALISM: WHERE IS IT GOING AND HOW WILL IT

GET THERE?

Rarely do states engage in consultation about their own ideologies, policies, aims and objectives.
In Cuba this took place following the Seventh Congress, as the Conceptualisation and the Plan
2030 documents were debated by 1.6 million Cubans in some 47,000 meetings of the CCP and
the UJC, and by representatives of ‘organisations of the masses’ (FMC, CDRs, CTC, ANAP
among many) and in other sectors. In May 2017, the documents were approved by the Central
Committee of the CCP, then debated again in National Assembly work commissions. A total of
208,161 changes were made in this process. Consequently, 92 per cent of the original
Conceptualisation document was modified.79 Raúl Castro described them as ‘the most studied,
discussed and re-discussed documents in the history of the Revolution’, which is indicative of
their importance.80 An extraordinary session of the National Assembly in June 2017 approved
the Conceptualisation document, the updated Guidelines, and the Plan 2030.
The three essential pillars of the ‘updated’ economic model are: the consolidation of the
socialist state in its economic (enterprise), political (organs of people’s power and workers’
representation) and social (socialist welfare and cohesion) aspects; the introduction of a diversity
of non-state forms of management and ownership; and the primacy of planning which ‘takes into
account’ the functioning of the market.81 Given the greater space being opened to market
relations through private ownership and business, self-employment and foreign investment, the
establishment of social welfare and national development priorities are essential to prevent
market forces asserting a capitalist logic over Cuban development. With Raúl Castro retiring as
President of the Council of State in February 2018, the Cuban leadership was working to
strengthen the institutional basis of socialism to help safeguard its future when Cuba is no longer
led by the ‘historic generation’ who carried out the Revolution.
Cuban academics and government specialists worked on the Conceptualisation document
for four years prior to the CCP Congress in 2016: this was the first official document to
‘conceptualise’ Cuba’s socialist system. While it ‘summarises the essential conceptions to
promote socioeconomic development in accordance with the current aspirations and features of
the Cuban revolutionary process’, it is not concerned with the concrete measures or policies
required, but with the main changes necessary in order to consolidate and advance the principles
of Cuban socialism and construct an ‘independent, sovereign, socialist, democratic, prosperous
and sustainable’ socialism.82 The order in which these descriptors appear is no accident:
sovereignty and independence are the only viable frameworks within which the other principles
are deemed feasible.83 Real ‘sovereignty’ means control over national resources and
development strategy, but that has to be balanced with the need for foreign capital.
The introduction to the Conceptualisation document highlights the Cuban feat of surviving
into the post-Soviet era and the gradual recuperation under the difficult conditions imposed by
the US blockade, international uncertainty and internal problems that have slowed social and
economic development. It recognises Cuba’s structural underdevelopment and economic
imbalances: the lack of correspondence between work and remuneration; between the availability
and need for hard currency; the offer and supply of products and services; low productivity,
inefficiency and the technological obsolescence of industry and infrastructure; dependence on
hydrocarbons; limited productive chains; weak organisation, work discipline and management,
including in the investment process; and the negative impact of the dual currency. It flags up
economic and social differences between Cubans not based on their labour and acknowledges
behaviour contrary to the Revolution’s principles and values, manifestations of individualism,
bureaucracy, corruption, crime, indiscipline and other forms of social marginalisation. It goes on
to underscore the strengths and opportunities which will facilitate progress: unity and resilience;
the legacy of Fidel Castro; majority support; essential values, such as patriotism and anti-
imperialism and the vocation for international solidarity; the youth; universal social provision;
effective armed institutions; civil defence system; diverse and active civil society; potential
capacity and natural advantages; human potential with high values and levels of education.84
The first chapter concerns ‘the principles of our socialism that sustain the Model and their
main transformations’.85 Chapter 2, on ‘ownership of the means of production’, notes that:
‘Relations of ownership over the means of production define the nature of any socioeconomic
system, since the dominant form of ownership determines the relations of production,
distribution, exchange and consumption in society.’86 Property ownership is not a merely
‘economic’ fact but shapes the reproduction of social relations, consciousness, class and
ideology.
Chapter 3, on ‘planned management of the economy’, asserts that: ‘The system of planned
management of economic and social development takes into account the presence of market
relations and regulates their action according to socialist development,’ explaining that: ‘The
objective existence of market laws is fundamentally explained by the level of development of
productive forces, the social division of labour and the coexistence of different forms of
ownership and management.’87 Chapter 4, on ‘social policy’, lists economic and social rights but
also underscores the importance of work as the source of welfare and prosperity. The ‘final
considerations’ stress the importance of debate, the exchange of ideas, communication strategies
and ‘other actions that contribute to modifying obsolete conceptions and practices that constitute
the main obstacle to updating the Model.’88 It asserts the role of the CCP in driving and
controlling the process of updating.
Framed as the principal tool to achieve the approach set out in the Conceptualisation
document, the Plan 2030 incorporates 24 ‘guiding principles and themes for elaborating the
national development plan’. The six ‘strategic areas’ outlined are: effective, efficient socialist
government and social integration; productive transformation and international insertion;
infrastructure; human potential, science, technology and innovation; natural resources and the
environment; and human development, justice and equity. Each of these is divided into lists of
general and specific objectives.
Again, there are no details about what policies will be formulated to achieve these
objectives and how they may be implemented. The final section defines the ‘strategic economic
sectors’ as those which: represent a significant proportion of economic activity; produce and
export value added; positively affect the balance of payments; facilitate development of the
productive sector and productive chains; promote the internal market; generate productive
employment; connect with new international technology paradigms; remove logistical and
infrastructural restraints; contribute to sovereignty and national security; and do not negatively
impact environmental sustainability.89
While the participative process behind the compilation of these documents promotes
consensus and commitment to the collective project, the real test will emerge in the practice of
formulating, implementing and enforcing the policies required to achieve their aims. In practice,
how can market forces be both encouraged, as a means of increasing employment and enterprise,
and simultaneously constrained, which is imperative if the dominance of non-exploitative social
relations is to be maintained? These are the difficult challenges facing Cuban socialism.
In April 2018, Raúl Castro told the National Assembly that in 2011, when the Guidelines
were introduced, he expected that, by the present date, ‘we would have advanced more’. He
added:

We never had any illusions that it would be a short and easy path. We knew that we were
beginning a process of enormous complexity, due to its scope, which encompassed all
elements of society, which required overcoming the colossal obstacle of a mentality based
on decades of paternalism and egalitarianism, with significant consequences for the
functioning of the economy.90

Cuba still confronted enormous and growing economic difficulties with budget deficits, hard
currency scarcity, low salaries and productivity, difficulty accessing foreign capital, the
distortions to accounting and incentives resulting from the dual economy. While many of these
are historic difficulties associated with the challenge of (under) development, clearly the US
blockade generates multiple problems. The principal social problems included the slow pace of
housing construction, despite CUP 6 billion distributed to Cubans to build homes via their own
efforts, the exodus of qualified professionals from the state sector, especially in education and
science, and the emigration of Cuban youth.91
Nonetheless, Cuban GDP grew on average 2.3 per cent from 2009 to 2015.92 In 2016, the
island’s economy went into recession for the first time since 1993, with a contraction of 0.9 per
cent, largely reflecting circumstances outside the Cuban government’s control: powerful and
destructive hurricanes (Hurricane Irma caused losses estimated above USD 13 billion), and
political and economic instability in Venezuela which hit Cuban oil imports and their revenues
for professional services exports. From late 2017, the Trump administration began incrementally
tightening the US blockade, undermining the ‘demonstration effect’ of rapprochement with
Obama. According to Rodríguez:

The best results were achieved in the process of restructuring the balance of payments
through renegotiation processes and payment of foreign debt, an essential prerequisite for
obtaining external financing and direct foreign investment. However, on several occasions it
was assumed that once the situation with the creditors was normalised, new loans would be
received in a similar proportion to what was paid, something that did not happen. On the
other hand, the normalisation of the country’s external debt had a high cost, since its
servicing during the period 2009–2017 reached an estimated figure close to USD 23 billion,
which objectively limited the possibility of raising the amount of investments or
consumption with our own resources.93

Furthermore, in Rodríguez’s analysis, regulations introduced to address monetary–mercantile

relations ‘failed to prevent the expansion of the informal economy, tax evasion and the
breakdown of the state monopoly of financial and commercial flows through various channels, in
many cases impossible to control, to which have been added criminal practices that need to be
repressed more quickly’.94
In the social sphere, indicators continued to improve: despite the recession of 2016, in 2017
infant mortality dropped to a record low of 4 per 1,000 live births, and stayed there in 2018, with
decreases in under-five and maternal mortality rates also. Human welfare remains at the heart of
the revolutionary process in Cuba, and the concern extends outwards as Cuban medical
internationalism continues to save and improve lives around the world.
 Raúl Castro’s reforms went some way to getting the Cuban house in order. Viewing them
through the narrow lens of economic efficiency, productivity and growth, their success was
limited. Those who saw them as a base from which to launch Cuba back towards capitalism were
disappointed. For Cuban revolutionaries, however, the efficiency and growth which the reforms
hoped to promote was not the end but the means – to improving the prospects for the human-
centred, socialist development project. The following chapter discusses the role of Cuban
thinkers, policy-makers and activists in keeping the reform process on that track, resisting its
derailment by purely economic concerns.
In January 2012, Raúl Castro declared:

A revolution without errors has never existed and never will because they are the result of
the actions of imperfect human beings and peoples, faced moreover with new and colossal
challenges. For that reason, I believe that we need not be ashamed of errors; it is more
serious and shameful not to have the courage to delve more profoundly into them and
analyse them in order to extract the lessons from each one and correct them in time.95

How ‘errors’ are defined and by whom, the way they are addressed and in whose interests, is the
essence to understanding the revolutionary process in Cuba.

THE CUBAN TIGHTROPE

BETWEEN THE PLAN AND THE MARKET

In a tidy, sunlit, apartment on the third-floor of an old colonial residence in Havana in December
2016, Geidys Fundora Nevot tells me about the ‘strong debate’ which followed the National
Assembly’s approval of the Guidelines for Updating the Economic and Social Model in 2011.
Fundora was then a young doctoral student concerned to promote equity through local and
community development and had investigated the situation of self-employed workers in Cuba.
This new ‘great debate’ was initiated when a group of economic sociologists, social
psychologists, social scientists and philosophers criticised the narrow focus on economic
efficiency in the Guidelines which, they argued, left aside the issue of social equity. Not all
Cubans, they warned, enjoyed the same starting point to be able to take advantage of the ‘new
opportunities’ generated by the changes being introduced.1 She acknowledged that most of this
critique was not aired outside Cuba and is barely detectable on the internet. Fundora herself
allied with critics of the Guidelines after encountering investigations and analysis which referred
to the ‘winners and losers of the reforms’.2
Fifteen months after my conversation with Fundora, I shared a sofa at the office of the
Centre for Research on the World Economy (Centro de Investigaciones de la Economía Mundial,
or CIEM) with economist Blanca Munster, a specialist in ‘women’s economy’. Discussing the
work which produced that debate, she told me: ‘These investigations flashed a red light to say
“stop, stop”, don’t just focus on how much we export, how much investment there is – look at
the people who are lagging behind.’3 She was referring to Cubans still suffering in
socioeconomic terms from problems accumulated since the Special Period: the unresolved issue
of housing, where deteriorating conditions increase vulnerability to hurricanes; the growing gap
between incomes, wages and fixed pensions, and prices; and the removal of social assistance as
part of the effort to reduce the ‘paternalistic state’ under Raúl Castro’s mandate.
At the outset of the reform process, Raúl Castro complained that many Cubans have come
to confuse social equality and justice with ‘egalitarianism’. ‘Socialism means social justice and
equality, but equal rights, opportunities, not income. Equality is not egalitarianism. This, in the
final analysis, is also a form of exploitation: of the worker who is good by those who are not, or
worse yet, by the lazy.’4 Raúl Castro asserted that confusion over these principles had
undermined the socialist concept of work: from each according to their ability, to each according
to their labour.5 He criticised policies of egalitarianism, the ‘excess of subsidies’ and public
services, and undue gratuities – essentially freebies. Provision via the ration book (libreta) was
cut. Since 1962, the libreta has provided every person in Cuba with a basic basket of foods, and
some hygiene products at highly subsidised prices, regardless of their income or wealth. Free
lunches in state-run workplaces were eliminated, mostly compensated by a rise in salaries so
workers could buy lunch from local outlets.
Between 2009 and 2014 spending on social assistance was reduced dramatically by 60 per
cent, and the number of recipients plummeted from 426,000 to 169,778 people in the same
period.6 In the view of another young Cuban doctoral researcher, Jenny Morín, this was injurious
even within the framework of the drive for economic efficiency. ‘The reduction of social
expenditures does not contribute to economic growth; on the contrary, it is counterproductive,
since it strips the Revolution and, therefore, the Cuban government of its legitimising base.’7
Blanca Munster said that ‘The emphasis on economic issues hides the process of
differentiation and poverty affecting segments of the population.’ Inequality, measured by the
GINI coefficient, is increasing in Cuba, she revealed: ‘it is known, but it is not published
officially’. Munster described this as ‘unjust’ inequality because it is not linked to work
contribution or qualifications. ‘Most painful is that many of our youth have plans to study and
work outside Cuba. Their individual project is linked to going abroad.’8
Thus, these Cuban critics pushed back against what they identified as a market liberalising
notion of ‘sacrificing today to reap benefits tomorrow’. For them, this approach echoed
neoliberal theories about how economic growth will ‘spill over’ to the rest of society, dragging it
towards progress. ‘Anyone on the left in Latin America knew this neoliberal thesis was a total
lie,’ said Fundora. Latin America had been through it and come out the other end.
Underlying this debate, Fundora believes, are different concepts of development. ‘What is
our development paradigm for moving forward with our project?’ she asked. This question can
be approached through the lens of forms of ‘socialist’ economic organisation and/or the lens of
developed versus developing countries. Should Cuba follow the development path of the
advanced capitalist countries, the less developed countries, the ‘emerging economies’ or the
former socialist countries? In 2011, Cuban planning economist, Oscar Fernández asked: ‘From
the traditional state socialism that characterises present-day Cuba will it move towards a more
decentralised state socialism? An Asian-style market socialism? A self-managed socialism of the
Yugoslav variety? To the so-called participatory socialism of the twenty-first century?’9 But are
these the right questions? Each one of those ‘socialist’ alternatives reverted to capitalism or has
otherwise floundered. Others see the options as between the present state socialism, market
socialism or ‘socialisation’, with a greater role for cooperative and other forms of so-called social
ownership.10
‘Many economists’, complains Fundora, ‘take China and Vietnam as reference countries,
despite knowing that, although they have improved a little economically, social inequality has
also increased.’ An alternative, she argues, is to examine new forms of economic organisation
developed by social movements independently of the nation state, such as the Zapatistas in
Mexico, the Landless Movement in Brazil, or the movement by workers to recover factories in
Argentina. Fundora continued:

If in a socialist economy, social property should prevail, why don’t we diversify the forms
of social property, instead of promoting private property so much more? Why do we bet
more on small private property, which has increased by half a million people whilst
cooperative property has grown by a much lower percentage? According to socialist theory,
because of the type of values it produces, the cooperative form of production and
distribution is more attuned to that new man and woman needed in a socialist society.

She pointed out that under socialism ‘the social objective of the economy is not growth for the
sake of growth, but for the social implication of that growth’.
 So, what was the result of this critique? A change in both narrative and policy around 2016,
it is said. Fundora indicates the shift in Raúl Castro’s speeches to the National Assembly:
between 2010 and 2012 he focused on economic efficiency, but by 2016 he spoke about equity
and distribution as priorities to be addressed. ‘That tells me that, yes, what is happening in terms
of distribution is being fed back,’ she concluded.11 She even referred to a ‘small rectification’ in
2016, with the reopening of some local health and education centres which had recently been
absorbed into larger centres in the drive for economic efficiency.12 The reversal followed
investigations by the Cuban Communist Party (CCP), which were never made public, about the
impact the closure of these municipal facilities was having on local residents.
Ricardo Torres, an economist at the Centre for the Study of the Cuban Economy (Centro de
Estudios de la Economía Cubana, or CEEC) also identified a change around 2016; he called it a
‘backward step’. The impetus to this, he said, were the December 2015 discussions in the
National Assembly about rising food prices exacerbating inequality, a sense that rapprochement
with the United States was proceeding too fast and concerns about the ‘growing clout of the
private sector’, which was believed to be draining labour from state companies, competing in key
industries, essentially tourism, and generating ‘informality and individual trading’. 2016 was also
the year of US president Barack Obama’s historic visit to Cuba in March, the CCP’s Seventh
Congress in April, and in November both the election of Donald Trump as US president and the
death of Fidel Castro.13 As the economic situation in Venezuela deteriorated, Cuba entered its
first recession for 23 years.
Evidence of changing priorities is contained in two documents with long titles which were
debated in the National Assembly of People’s Power in summer 2017: Conceptualisation of the
Economic and Social Model of Cuban Socialist Development (Conceptualisation) and Basis for
the Plan of Economic and Social Development up to 2030: Vision of the Nation, Axes and
Strategic Sectors (Plan 2030) (see Chapter 8). One of the Conceptualisation document’s four
chapters is dedicated to social policy. ‘This is a novel element,’ explained Fundora, ‘not because
Cuba doesn’t work on this, but because it wasn’t previously so explicitly a theme of public
debate. Here a section appears on economic, social and political rights.’ Following an intense
debate involving 1.6 million Cubans, 92 per cent of the original draft was modified. One out of
six strategic areas outlined in the Plan 2030 is dedicated to ‘human development, equity and
social justice’. It does indeed appear that these Cuban researchers, and the debates they stirred
up, have rescued Cuba’s development policy from the economistic clutches of those who view
progress from a technical, narrowly economic perspective.
Among those economists are Cubans who trust in the efficacy of market mechanisms and
want to give them space to operate within the centrally planned economy. They do not consider
the market to be in conflict with the socialist plan, as Che Guevara did, and argue that it can be
harnessed to foster national development.14 Some believe that after 60 years of socialism, Cuba
is well placed to develop ‘social entrepreneurship’, an abstract model defying the logic of both
capitalism and socialism, under which private interests mould their profit-seeking around social,
cultural or environmental well-being. Cuban economist Juan Alejandro Triana Barros regards it
as ‘very controversial’ that ‘there is no word, no sign of social entrepreneurship in the
Constitution nor in the national development plan’.15 ‘Social entrepreneurship’ implies a kind of
pre-monopoly capitalism, without the cut-throat competition in which the fiercest profit-makers
devour the rest. There is also a group of Cuban economists who effectively argue for a transition
to capitalism, although some are more overt than others.
In late March 2018, a fortnight before Cuba’s new president was named, I attended a talk in
Havana by Torres to students from a British university.16 After he gave an overview of economic
developments on the island, a student asked the economist what changes he would make to the
Cuban economy were he to become Cuba’s new president. His response encapsulated the
approach of many Cuban economists on the island and abroad:

I would engage with the currency unification and an exchange rate reform, economically
speaking that would be the first measure. Second, I would start gradually lifting most of the
restrictions that are in place for the domestic private sector, because I think that the most
valuable asset Cuba has is its people, so we need to give them full opportunities to take
advantage of what they’ve got, and we are not doing that right now. So that will certainly be
a priority. I think definitely that foreign investment has to be a component of Cuba’s
economic strategy for many years to come. But I would try to be more strategic in terms of
foreign investment. I think we are wasting time and energy on projects that are not very
impactful. I would try to join as many development institutions as possible, multilateral and
development institutions, probably the IMF and the World Bank will be the last two in that
list for obvious reasons, but I would pursue that.17

Cuba’s participation in such international financial institutions would de facto imply conditions
that impact upon its domestic economy. In theory, Cuba could join the IMF without restructuring
its domestic economy. This would give it access to technical assistance, ‘free’ advice by experts
in areas such as fiscal policy, financial policy, statistics and so on, but these would be experts in
capitalist economics. What is more, Cuba would have to pay its annual ‘quota’ for membership,
so the advice is not actually free. The IMF would produce an annual report on the Cuban
economy. It is difficult to imagine why a ‘socialist’ Cuba would wish to join the IMF, with its
experts in capitalist economics, other than for the ability to access an emergency loan. An IMF
economist told me that: ‘As an IMF member, this loan would be provided but against the
agreement that some reforms would take place in due course to put the economy back on track.
These reforms, agreed with the Cuban government, should tackle the causes of the crisis to make
sure that no similar crisis would happen in the future.’18 If these reforms were not implemented
in the agreed time, the disbursement could be withheld or cancelled. She admitted that ‘it is not
clear how much a government can negotiate in times of crisis, so the economic measures can feel
more “imposed” than negotiated’.
The United States is the major shareholder and dominant player in the IMF, so Cuba could
not join without that country’s approval and thus, the IMF economist explained, ‘the
conditionality coming with emergency lending would also be shaped by the United States and
other members. Would this be acceptable for the Cuban government? I guess not, as it would be
considered as America meddling in their domestic policies. So all in all, I understand that you
don’t join a club if you don’t trust the other members, even if it could be beneficial for the
various resources it could give you.’ What kind of structural reforms would the IMF impose on
Cuba? Neoliberal ones ceding state control to private interests and rolling back spending on
social welfare.
Torres’s final ‘presidential priority’ is: ‘I would try to get a better deal with the United
States . . . Having said that, if the Americans are not interested, I would look to other countries:
Russia, China, the European Union, and I would try to get a better deal with them.’19 It is
difficult to imagine better deals than those struck with the island’s Russian, Chinese and
European creditors between 2013 and 2015 (see Chapter 8, p. 220). When I had interviewed
Torres’s colleague, Humberto Blanco, who was Director of CEEC in late 2016, he had a more
positive view of Cuban dealings with its debtor countries. ‘The renegotiation of the debt has been
a big success,’ Blanco told me. ‘I think one of the reasons absolutely has to do with the
renegotiating team. [Cuban Economy Minister Ricardo] Cabrisas is on this very effective
renegotiation team.’20
Back at the talk with Torres, I asked him for clarification on his second point about
removing restrictions on the private sector in Cuba. ‘As you know,’ I began, ‘the logic of capital
accumulation would imply . . .’ Torres interjects: ‘inequality . . .’, as if the answer was obvious.
‘. . . a transition to capitalism,’ I finish. ‘State capitalism,’ he replies. ‘In countries like Cuba you
cannot have free markets. That’s an illusion. No country in the world has free markets. I mean
central planning did not solve Cuba’s problems, but I do believe that in countries such as Cuba if
you want to break the inertia that underdevelopment and periphery have brought to us you need a
powerful central government that is able to run the country. Americans believe so as well. Does
he mean like the Chinese model? ‘Well, a variation probably, but yes, I think the state has to be
there. It doesn’t mean that it has to be big, but it has to be powerful and it has to be smart, that is
a different thing.’ For Torres, Cuba’s big state is weak. ‘I believe more in a state such as
Singapore or such as Sweden or, I don’t know, Norway without the oil and the coal. It’s a big
difference.’ This aspiration is surprising; the Kingdoms of Norway and Sweden prospered from
long imperial histories, so the comparison is completely abstract.21
Blanco rejects China as a model because of the two countries’ concrete differences: the
geographical size and population, natural resources and culture, habits, values, ways of living,
behaviours, ‘these are good reasons to say we should not copy-paste what China did. It doesn’t
mean we should not consider experiences such as, for example, the Development Zones etc.’22
Despite these disparities between the countries, according to Jesús García Brigos Pastor, political
scientist and philosopher at the Institute of Philosophy: ‘Agreements have even been signed for
the exchange of experiences and the formation of [Cuban] business cadres and managers in
China, where management is characterised by technocratic approaches.’ He added that, in China,
‘decisions are not discussed and relations of boss-subordinate prevail, requiring loyalty and
obedience, far from a participatory or cooperative management’, which is the objective of the
process of updating the economic and social model in Cuba.23
Hence the Cuban government has set out to find its own solution to the problems the island
faces: structural trade dependence, balance of payments deficits, hard currency shortages,
technological obsolescence and the under-use and inefficiency of the productive base,
infrastructure and the investment process – all in the context of the punishing US blockade. The
question is whether it can find solutions within the socialist planned economy framework whilst
having to operate within the global capitalist economy. The question, as formulated in the
previous chapter, is how can market forces be both encouraged, as a means of increasing
employment and enterprise, and simultaneously constrained, which is imperative to maintain the
dominance of non-exploitative social relations? These are the difficult challenges facing Cuban
socialism under the presidency of Miguel Díaz-Canel.

WHO ARE THE SELF-EMPLOYED AND WHO DO THEY WORK FOR?

Behind many grandiose, ageing facades of tall, high-ceiled mansions in Havana are hosted
private restaurants and bars. Some owners have cultivated the edifices’ ageing elegance, with
ornate dark wood furniture, thick with history and warped by humidity. Others offer modernist
simplicity, with decor and furniture liberated from custom and culture. Escaping a rainstorm
between meetings in Havana in 2017, I slipped under the shelter of a private restaurant, a
paladar, in the sleek, modern style. There were two entrance facades and a service counter on
each floor. Most of those serving were young women with short brightly coloured skirts. This is
clearly not a family business and the workers rushed about joylessly to meet orders and serve
customers. One young waitress told me there are three shifts of eight hours with eight employees
each: this is a 24-hour a day establishment. Set-ups like this are emerging across Cuban cities
and everybody knows it. Triana Barros claimed there are private restaurants in Cuba that make
more than USD 3 million a year, with over 80 direct employees, and mechanical workshops
making over USD 1 million a year.24
Self-employment is a big feature of the economic reforms, promoted since 2010 to provide
employment, to meet the demand for goods and services the state cannot produce, to attract
foreign capital (through remittances), and to raise incomes for participants and tax revenues for
the state. There are now over 200 officially recognised categories for self-employment,
extending to some 900 activities in ‘non-strategic’ areas of economic activity: one in five are
occupied in the production and sale of food or transportation, mainly of passengers.25
However, the status of ‘self-employed’ applies to a range of workers in disparate
employment situations. The traditional ‘self-employed’ are independent workers, sometimes
supported by families, who pay no one and receive no salary. The employment changes of 2010
introduced the new status of the ‘contracted worker’, who is formally self-employed but
contracted as an ‘assistant’ to another self-employed person.26 After an intense debate, however,
the Cuban Supreme Court recognised them as employees subordinated to an employer, and the
new Labour Code of 2014 afforded them workers’ protections.27 The legalisation of ‘contracted
workers’ facilitated the emergence of small and medium private businesses that hire those
employees. Prior to that, the self-employed were restricted to employing family members only.
So the third category of formally self-employed workers are actually private business owners. To
further complicate the issue, workers can exist in any of these categories informally, that is
illegally, as their activity is not registered, and they do not pay tax nor receive protection. Like
anywhere in the world, employees without contracts are in a precarious situation.
The private sector does not have material or commercial autonomy from the state. Most
self-employed workers have higher incomes than state sector employees and seemingly
contradictory state policies simultaneously encourage and restrict the growth of self-
employment. This is because the sector is considered necessary for the reasons outlined above,
but at the same time it clearly has the potential to threaten the socialist system, by changing the
predominant social relations in Cuba, facilitating the emergence of a pro-market political class,
and through its links to foreign capital, especially from the United States.
By 2016, around one in five self-employed Cubans were employees (contracted workers).
Technically this was in contravention of the 1976 Constitution which prohibits Cubans from
obtaining income from the exploitation of the work of others.28 In Marxist terms, contracted
workers are in a relationship of exploitation because the surplus they produce is expropriated by
the private owner. Nonetheless, the fact that they receive a larger share of that surplus, via higher
salaries, means that they are less likely to recognise their position as exploited workers.29 They
feel privileged in comparison to state employees and this has negative implications for class
consciousness. It also serves to draw state workers into the private sector.
Irrespective of their salaries, contracted workers increasingly complain about exploitative
conditions: bad treatment from ‘bosses’, long hours, poor conditions, lack of employment rights.
This is occurring in a country where workers’ rights have been primary. Based on her own
investigations, Fundora described small rebellions among contracted workers to undermine their
bosses. Previously, private business owners identified their biggest problem as the lack of a
wholesale market, whereas more recently, she has been told, ‘My biggest problem is that my
workers rob me and sabotage my business, my own workers!’ Fundora regards this as a small
form of resistance against the perception of exploitation and job instability. However, contracted
workers have also consciously decided to endure bad conditions because their wages are
substantially higher than alternative employment in the state sector. ‘People are not blind, they
recognize that they are being exploited and they tell you, “I am going to keep going for another
three months and then I’ll leave.” They don’t think about taking legal action against their
employer.’30 This creates major challenges for the work of Cuban trade unions.

SELF-EMPLOYED SYNDICALISM?

In September 2011, when I met with Ernesto Freire Cazañas, head of the International Relations
Department at the Cuban Workers Confederations (CTC), in Havana, it was a year since the CTC
had announced plans to transfer 1 million unproductive state workers to alternative
employment.31 Already, the proportion of Cuba’s workforce in self-employment had shot up
from 2.7 per cent of the total workforce in 2010 to 7 per cent, from 140,000 to 357,000
individuals, but it was still early days in the process of the employment restructuring process.
I asked him how the CTC was ensuring that non-state sector workers join trade unions.
Cuban trade unions are organised according to branch or sector, he pointed out, so self-employed
or cooperative workers would continue in the same trade unions as when they were state
employees: ‘It will be those who had no formal employment that the CTC will work with to
encourage to join the trade unions.’32 That constitutes two-thirds of the newly self-employed.
The challenge, he explained, was in the form and method of representing and defending workers’
rights:

With workers in a social entity or in a closed centre we can call a meeting or an assembly
for everyone to attend. But we cannot tell non-state workers to leave their business, or stop
working, to come to the trade union. We are studying ways to address their problems and to
represent them . . . we are aware of non-state workers’ concerns, about taxes, inspections
 and fines. We have been transmitting these concerns to the government. Our experience and
that of those other institutions has led to the decision to introduce greater flexibility in self-
employment legislation.

He is referring to modifications announced a few days earlier permitting the hiring of ‘contracted
workers’ in all authorised self-employment activities, limited and specific tax exemptions, and
the exemption from social security payments for those of pension age.
But how can the trade unions ensure that contracted workers have fair representation and
protection when they are in the same trade unions as their employers? I asked. ‘Contracted
workers have an employment licence, have the right to join a union, social security, and the right
to a salary as a contracted worker that cannot be less than double the minimum state salary for
this employment,’ he told me. Freire Cazañas contended that: ‘They cannot be exploited or made
to work 14 or 15 hours. The trade union is here to prevent violations of their rights. All Cuban
workers are protected by collective bargaining agreements.’
Four years down the line, when I discussed the trade unions’ work in the self-employed
sector with Fundora, it is clear that Freire Cazañas was overly optimistic. Fundora certainly
regards it as a ‘contradiction’ for contracted workers and their employers to be in the same trade
union and, while she recognises that theoretically, under socialism, contradictions should be
resolvable through dialogue and consensus, in reality ‘there is a conflict of interests and a
conflict of class there’.33 This is qualitatively different from a worker participating in a trade
union with a director or line manager in a state entity: both are employees of the state. In the self-
employed sector, the boss profits personally from the contracted workers’ labour, and the
disparities between them in terms of income and hierarchy means that they are unlikely to share
interests, except in the broadest sense.
With time it has become clear that many self-employed workers are not unionised, either
because they were previously in the informal sector or because they have not maintained their
membership. A study of private sector shoemakers by Cuban economist Yailenis Mulet
Concepción, for example, found that only 25 per cent of workers were unionised and another 29
per cent said they wanted to join a union.34 Even where workers are in trade unions, said
Fundora, there is a failure to appreciate that workers’ rights are the product of historical
struggles, not ‘natural rights’ to be taken for granted. The strength of workers’ rights guaranteed
by the socialist revolution over 60 years has meant the loss of a culture of fighting for labour
rights, she explained.
‘As a Cuban, I feel that my way of living with rights is passive because I was born with
them . . . I have never had to fight, almost never, for rights. The culture of fighting for rights is
created in practice and there are many Cubans who don’t have this practice.’ Many Cuban trade
union activists know the law and receive training, she said, but when they need to take action
they are unsure how to defend their case. ‘We have been protected by the state for so long, with
such strong guarantees, that we are disconnected, unable to exercise rights we had taken for
granted. This is also why many Cubans get a big shock in terms of labour relations when they go
to other countries.’
She went on to ask: ‘What role can the trade union have when many workers are willing to
put up with anything, to go home with back pain, aching bones, because they want more
money?’ If the trade union says they must not work more than eight hours, they will respond that
they want to – whether this is done through excessive hours in one job, or two employments,
which is also permitted. What is more, that exploited worker can retort: ‘I would not be prepared
to work so many hours if I did not have to pay so much for food.’ This reflects a larger structural
problem, Fundora explained, as people work more to have more money to cover needs that cost
more each day. However, this is not just about subsistence, she added, it also reflects Cubans’
rising expectations in terms of consumption.

THE ‘BUSINESS’ OF SELF-EMPLOYMENT

Indignation from private business owners about their resources being pilfered is, in some cases,
ironic, given the sourcing of their own resources. The Cuban government retains centralised
control over foreign trade, essentially a monopoly, and, despite the stated intention to establish a
wholesale market for self-employed workers, provision has been insufficient.35 This creates a
problem. The self-employed sectors’ inputs are often derived from either state supplies or
contraband. State resources are habitually stolen by state employees who sell them directly to the
private sector, or they are secured through non-legal bulk buying in Cuban retail stores, including
products sold at subsidised prices by the Cuban state, leading to shortages and frustration for
normal Cuban consumers.36
Cuban self-employment, explained Concepción, ‘is centred on the circulation and
recirculation of goods and services, with a strong tendency towards non-legal growth and very
strong links with the so-called submerged [that is, illegal] economy’. It is difficult, therefore, to
separate the formal and informal economies in Cuba. Many activities which are legal in terms of
the final product are actually illegal from the perspective of the production process: because they
involve illegally obtained state materials, and consequently real incomes are not reported. ‘This
is similar to what occurred in the former USSR and other Eastern European nations,’ warned
Concepción. Furthermore, ‘Self-employment units have developed bogus comparative
advantages, whether through price regulations, benefits offered by the informal or submerged
economy, or because the needs of a scarcity-afflicted population generate a demand that does not
seek quality but only immediate satisfaction.’37 Concepción’s research led her to conclude that
private sector shoemakers ‘mistakenly believe that the gains generated through the informal and
submerged economy can also be achieved in conditions of free competition and formal
institutionalisation.’ This is no doubt relevant to most activities in Cuba’s private sector.
As long as the so-called entrepreneurs benefit from private accumulation, they will push for
greater freedoms for market forces; they do not perceive the accumulation of private wealth as
jeopardising the public wealth which funds the welfare provision that many take for granted as a
right. ‘This is a sector that doesn’t pay for their hospital treatment, that doesn’t pay for the
education of their children, they have the best of both worlds, of both systems,’ Ricardo Alarcón,
former president of Cuba’s National Assembly, pointed out.38
Concepción’s study of private shoemakers illustrates the tendencies inherent in the self-
employed sector. Private shoemakers meet 70 per cent of domestic demand, producing 8 million
pairs of shoes a year to the state’s 5.3 million.39 Excluding producers affiliated to the Cuban
Association of Artists and Craftsmen, there are 2,065 shoe manufacturers and sellers registered
as self-employed, plus 5,226 cobblers and 175 tanners. Over 12,000 people in the private sector
are associated with the shoe production chain but only 60 per cent of them are officially
registered. Of those, 40 per cent are small to medium businesses, 15 per cent are owners of the
business and the rest are individual workers.40
While the tax office calculates tax dues on the assumption that one pair of shoes is sold
every day, established manufacturers knock out up to 160 pairs a day. Business owners employ
an average of ten to fifteen workers a day but declare one or two. Most of those are young people
between 17 and 30 years old, with no training as shoemakers and no legal contract with the
shoemaker. The businesses were started with an average initial investment of around USD
16,000 and 80 per cent of the raw materials have to be imported and include contraband.
Altogether 90 per cent of Concepción’s interviewees said there were no opportunities to obtain
qualifications, apparently unaware of state-run trade schools for shoemakers. Most of the shoes
retail for between USD 6 and USD 16 a pair, high quality shoes for up to USD 50; 70 per cent
were sold wholesale, showing the prevalence of intermediaries. The basic cost of production was
roughly 50 per cent of the sale price. But none of the interviewees kept balance sheets or
financial status records for their business. ‘We shadowed some businesses, estimating that the
minimum net monthly income was USD 452 – 10 times the average Cuban salary.’41 A lucrative
business by Cuban standards.
Interestingly, only 15 per cent of the shoemakers interviewed said they wanted to access
foreign investment. More significantly, however, given the government’s objective of limiting
the concentration of wealth and property, 85 per cent of interviewees said they had investments
in other businesses and 40 per cent considered state control over their business to be excessive.42
In other words, the innate tendency to expand and demand more ‘freedom’ for market forces is
clearly evident.
Concepción divided the earning capacity of Cuba’s self-employed workers into three groups
according to size. The first and smallest group enjoyed an average income 17 times the average
salary in Cuba (which was then CUP 600). The income of the second group was 2.7 times the
average. The third and largest group earned 6 times the average.43 Some have other incomes; in
2016, 17 per cent of licence holders for self-employment were salaried workers augmenting their
incomes.44
The simplified view is that self-employment in Cuba provides an impetus for an emerging
private enterprise. Advocates of market reforms in Cuba refer to all self-employed Cubans as
‘entrepreneurs’ regardless of their status, occupation or revenues. However, researcher Jenny
Morín points out that most are not successful entrepreneurs. Indeed, she insists, there are self-
employed workers who struggle to subsist. During the Special Period, as part of the ‘lucha’
(struggle) to get by, many Cubans sought ‘inventos’ (invented solutions) to ‘resolver’ (resolve
problems); they sought and invented various endeavours to earn additional incomes to maintain
their families, with or without licences. Self-employment continues to be a subsistence strategy
today, claims Morín. The success stories are written by those who receive financial help from
outside Cuba through remittances, those who integrate into informal networks of entrepreneurs
and ‘suppliers’, and those with links to the tourism sector.45
In 2016 women were hugely under-represented in the self-employed sector making up just
30 per cent.46 Only 8 per cent of self-employed women were business owners and there was a
gender divide according to occupation. ‘The best paid activities – plumbers, bricklayers,
carpenters – are almost always done by men and paid more,’ Blanca Munster pointed out.
‘Women you mainly see in sales or cleaning – selling DVDs or working in a restaurant, and that
is as salaried employees, hired, not owners.’47 In the non-agricultural cooperatives women made
up 22 per cent of members and just 13.6 per cent in agricultural cooperatives in 2015.48 This is a
huge step backward in a country where women make up 66 per cent of the labour force,
including more than 60 per cent of all professionals, and over half of all scientists.49

KEEPING THE GENIE IN THE BOTTLE

The rules and regulations which hold back the development of the non-state sector in Cuba are
not ‘mistakes’ or arbitrary. They are measures designed precisely to restrict the growth of private
businesses, the concentration of capital and the inevitable growth of inequality. For example,
there are no inheritance rights associated with these private businesses, licences are personal and
non-transferable. Specialisation within an activity – such as shoemaking – is not permitted,
which restricts the division of labour; licenses are only granted for ‘producer–vendors’ and each
licence holder must partake in the whole process, from design to commercialisation.50
Another Cuban economist, Saira Pons explained that the tax on the use of a labour force
reflects ‘the need to establish mechanisms to discourage the growth of microenterprises . . . a
progressive tax base has been implemented, such that more taxes are paid as more workers are
hired’.51 However, there was also a schedule in place to reduce this tax significantly between
2015 and 2017. Pons points to the high risk ‘that tax liabilities can exceed the net profit’,
incentivising businesses to raise sales prices or evade taxes. In 2014, 60 per cent of audited
taxpayers had underpaid. There is also a high tax rate for personal income tax, and surveys
confirm that a ‘significant portion of self-employed workers consider it necessary to evade taxes,
even though they recognize it is a felony for which they could be severely punished. That
attitude is reinforced by the fact that tax authorities still lack mechanisms to know the actual
income of taxpayers.’52 The need to create a progressive, redistributive and inviolable taxation
apparatus has become a priority in Cuba, a country where taxes were all but eliminated for
decades.

PUTTING ON THE BRAKES

In August 2017 there was a freeze on the issuing of licences for self-employment and non-
agricultural cooperatives (CNAs) while authorities addressed the impact of those sectors and
worked to create an adequate legislative framework to enforce taxation, prevent exploitative
practices, put limits on private accumulation and strengthen mechanisms to ensure that private
profits have social benefits. The issuing of licences was not resumed until December 2018 and it
came with new regulations which tightened account-keeping and clamped down on tax
avoidance. However, two unpopular measures, that self-employed workers be limited to holding
one licence, and that restaurants could not exceed 50 seats, were eliminated following complaints
from those sectors. This reflects the drive from private interests for greater space to be opened up
for market forces and their growing clout as an interest group.
Beyond this there are broader, more conceptual challenges to address. In the non-state
sector efficiency, competitiveness and results are stimulated by material incentives – essentially
the profit motive. At the same time the state affirms that: ‘In non-state management forms, the
concentration of property and material and financial wealth in non-state natural or legal persons
will not be allowed.’53 In other words, material incentives stimulate production and services in
these areas, but the profit motive is constrained by the imperative of maintaining the dominance
of non-exploitative social-relations; keeping the market mechanisms within a socialist
framework; and restraining inequalities. In his critique of the Soviet political economy, Che
Guevara pointed out: ‘Individual material interest was the arm of capital par excellence and
today it is elevated as a lever of development, but it is limited by the existence of a society where
exploitation is not permitted. In these conditions, man neither develops his fabulous productive
capacities, nor does he develop himself as the conscious builder of a new society.’54 Cuba now
confronts a similar conundrum.
Significantly, however, unlike the Soviet Manual of Political Economy, the Cuban leaders
overseeing the reform process, particularly Raúl Castro and Miguel Díaz Canel, have portrayed
the space given to the private sector as a necessary concession, not an inherent aspect of socialist
society. At the outset, Raúl Castro declared: ‘I am a firm admirer and defender of large socialist
state enterprises, be they agricultural, industrial, or otherwise.’55 He made clear that the reforms
were understood as measures of expediency, not political preference. Díaz-Canel described the
‘very intense debates’ following the introduction of the Guidelines which concluded with the
need to update the economy in the unfavourable circumstances of the US blockade. ‘We have
conceived and recognised a non-state sector of the economy . . . it is not the private sector, let’s
say, of neoliberalism. It is a non-state sector, a private sector that complements what is done
from the state enterprise, which relates to the state company or to the State, which is in the
economic plan and in our planning.’56
The imperative of controlling the private sector is also a question of national security for
Cuba. Morín points out that Obama’s policy of empowering Cuban civil society and private
sector actors, ‘which include both self-employed workers, NGOs and opponents of the Castro
regime’, was intended to create a social base economically independent of the Cuban
government.57 She states that microenterprises, not self-employed workers, were the greatest
beneficiaries of Obama’s new policy, which softened the US blockade in areas that could be key
for private sector expansion in Cuba.58
García Brigos points out that the concentration of property, as a possession of resources and
income, is an inevitable process of accumulation which has external linkages and financing
(through remittances) that link this form of ownership to Cubans and other actors abroad. It also
fosters marketing chains that recycle production from state sources, generating a process of
speculation. It generates the use of imported resources over which the state does not exercise
control or effective regulation. It is clear why the Obama administration advocated financial and
economic exchange with Cuba’s non-state sector.
Trade unions play an especially important role, according to García Brigos, because as well
as being directly linked with economic activity they are spaces for social reproduction, linked to
the daily life of workers and their families and representing diverse interests. ‘It is no
coincidence that the US government pays special attention to the work of the unions,’ he writes,
‘supporting the creation of “free trade unions” in Cuba, the strengthening of “civil society”, the
development of “democracy”, “free elections”, “freedom of expression”, as Obama clearly
expressed in his intervention on December 17, 2014.’59 In that speech Obama said: ‘While Cuba
has made reforms to gradually open up its economy, we continue to believe that Cuban workers
should be free to form unions, just as their citizens should be free to participate in the political
process.’60 Of course Obama meant trade unions operating outside the socialist state apparatus.

NON-AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVES

The non-agricultural cooperatives (CNAs) authorised from December 2012 are generally
considered to be more compatible than the private sector with the socialist system in Cuba.61
However, they also present challenges. Most of the nearly 500 cooperatives set up were
‘conversions’, where the state announced it was shutting down an enterprise and gave workers
the option to form a cooperative instead. García Brigos referred to this as ‘creating cooperatives
that from their own emergence have little to do with the essential principals of this [cooperative]
movement’.62 They have not been raised from the base by an association of free producers. By
late 2014, 384 cooperatives had been established through this kind of conversion. Another 114
had been set up through ‘self-effort’, that is, by the initiative of three of more workers. Nearly
half (43 per cent) of the total CNAs were eateries of some sort, 14 per cent were in construction
and 6.5 per cent in personal and technical services.
In his report on Cuba’s new CNAs, Cliff DuRand from the Center for Global Justice in
Mexico pointed out that the socialisation of workers into self-managed cooperatives does not
occur automatically. ‘It is a gradual process of learning, particularly when a cooperative is
converted from a state enterprise previously defined by hierarchical relations between workers
and management.’ He gives the example of an elected manager in a ‘converted’ cooperative that
makes traditional Cuban guayabera shirts and dresses, who referred to her fellow associates as
‘my workers’, even though she effectively answers to them in their monthly General Assembly
meetings. ‘Old habits run deep,’ he said, ‘and it appeared that the main change for her under the
new model was that she no longer had to clear her decisions with higher authorities, and now
enjoys some autonomy. For this reason, the country’s Institute of Philosophy conducts regular
training workshops for new cooperatives, educating members and managers in practices of
democratic self-management.’63
García Brigos argues that, while under capitalism, cooperatives are only linked to the
system through markets, under socialism they must be integrated into state structures. Rather
than being viewed as autonomous cells within the system, they must contribute to the political
decisions made by the whole of society which guide economic development. They must function
genuinely as reproducers of values of social cooperation not just ‘groups that get together to do
business’ or ‘to have greater incomes’.64 García Brigos asks: ‘How to deal with cooperative
workers who are only concerned with the possibility of earning more?’ This takes us back to the
question of trade unions: ‘How do we deal with union work in a cooperative?’65 The answers are
not yet apparent.
In mid-2015 a set of changes were approved to strengthen CNAs, including the extension of
both the grace period of taxes and the maximum contract that could be offered to non-members
from three months to one year.66 Then, as explained above, there was a freeze on new licences
from August 2016 while authorities addressed inadequacies in the financial management of the
existing CNAs and in anticipation of a new comprehensive Cooperative Law, which still had not
been introduced by September 2019, even though the issuing of licenses resumed in December
2018.
In May 2016, the Cuban website CubaDebate published its own study of the country’s 69
construction cooperatives, 42 of which were in Havana. Within 2 years the membership of those
69 cooperatives had grown from 518 workers to 3,127 members.67 Most of the cooperatives
worked directly for state entities, so their ‘client’ could purchase the materials they needed at the
subsidised prices accessible to state institutions. Otherwise, the cooperatives had to purchase
materials and tools with a 20 per cent discount from the Ministry of Domestic Trade.
Enquiring about the social contribution of those cooperatives, CubaDebate found there was
a tendency to put aside social projects in favour of more profitable work. ‘The tendency is to
search in the market for what generates hard currency in the contract, because the profit is
assumed to be significant.’68 The total income for these cooperatives in 2015 was CUP 1.25
billion, comparable to the income of the Ministry of Construction itself. This is complicated,
however, because, while the Ministry’s earnings are calculated with an exchange rate of CUP 1
to CUC 1, the cooperatives use an exchange rate of CUP 25 to CUC 1. This means that each
CUC they earn counts as CUP 25, whereas each CUC the Ministry earns counts as CUP 1 (or
more, where the new exchange rates have been introduced).69 Cooperatives are not [yet]
authorised to purchase equipment or means of transportation, and what adds most to their costs is
the need to hire transport.
The average salary for the cooperative members in 2016 was CUP 4,400 per month (over 7
times the average state salary), although in some cooperatives this was as high as CUP 8,000 (13
times higher). With salaries in the cooperative sector substantially higher than for construction
workers in the state sector, state employees will inevitably be tempted to shift to cooperatives
where the opportunity arises. ‘Do cooperatives means the end of corruption?’ CubaDebate asked
their interviewees. ‘Yes’, says one, ‘there is no stealing.’ ‘No’, says another, explaining that their
cooperative had to expel a group who were stealing and selling-on scrap materials. Another says
that if a member steals, the value of the good is deducted from their wage and it is explained that
they are stealing from themselves and their partners.
At the outset of the process, the formation of CNAs was described as ‘experimental’, rather
than as a form of social production integral to Cuban socialist development. This had not
changed by late 2019. However, as the contradictions thrown up by the small business sector
grow, many Cubans have complained that more effort has not been made to foster and expand
CNAs instead.

THE NEW CONSTITUTION OF 2019

The introduction of the new constitution was deemed necessary to safeguard the legacy of the
Revolution of 1959, in the absence of the veteran generation, the historic leaders who made it, to
formalise the political-economy changes made since 1976 and to prepare for the new leadership
generation. In 2013, Raúl Castro had set up a special commission to draft the new constitution,
which he headed, and in April 2016 he told the National Assembly: ‘Everything we have been
doing must be reflected in the Constitution.’70 However, to gain legitimacy and acceptance from
the Cuban people, the new constitution had to be subject to national debate, like the Guidelines,
the Conceptualisation document and Plan 2030 before them. This process coincided with the
handover to Miguel Díaz-Canel as the new president of Cuba’s Council of State from April
2018.71
Proposals to incorporate changes came under more than one heading. Some were concerned
with the introduction of new forms of ownership and management, including private businesses
with employees. The increased space for market exchanges and the effort to foster foreign
investment had generated contradictions within the socialist development framework which
needed to be addressed in order to be controlled. The ability to do so, however, had been limited
not just by the complexity of the challenge, but also because of the lack of a legal framework and
fiscal apparatus. The reforms created social relations which technically violated the 1976
Constitution, notwithstanding the constitutional amendments of 1992 which reduced mandatory
state ownership to the ‘fundamental’ means of production. The private businesses which
emerged post–2010 were a legal anomaly. Thus, their income was deemed as personal, subject to
different liabilities than the profits of state or foreign companies or cooperatives, with no
reductions associated with investment, production losses, commercialisation expenses and other
circumstances.72
Another set of proposals for the 2019 Constitution concerned new age limits and lengths of
term for appointments to the top government jobs. An additional matter that needed to be
addressed was the move towards decentralising administrative and political structures, which had
been the subject of experimentation when Havana Province was split into Artemisa and
Mayabeque from 2011.
In July 2018, the National Assembly of People’s Power held two days of debate over a draft
of the new constitution. Once approved, the document was distributed throughout the island for
two months of grassroots debates open to everyone in Cuba. Even Cubans living abroad were
invited to comment via a website forum. Halfway through the process, Díaz-Canel told an
interviewer that he had participated in six grassroots assemblies and that everyone turned up with
annotated hard copies of the draft constitution, evidence that they had studied the text. Some
approached the discussion as engineers, he said, ‘making block diagrams to look for
interrelationships’. Three print editions of the constitution had run out, he explained, and
requests for additional copies had been received from the most remote mountainous
communities. The population’s participation was serious and committed he said, claiming that
‘the last word will take into account issues that the people raise’.73
The claim was given substance after significant changes were made to the draft document
following the nationwide debate. First, and the focus of most international commentary, was the
proposal to replace the existing recognition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman
with the stipulation that it was the union between two people. In an unprecedented development,
the evangelical church in Cuba mobilised quite openly against the proposed revision, and the
issue was among the most intensely debated across the country. Subsequently, specification
about the character of the marriage union was removed from the document and it was announced
that the topic would be debated in the process of constituting a new Family Code.74 Second, the
goal of progressing towards a communist society, which had been omitted in the draft
constitution, was reinstated by popular demand.75 That amendment received little attention from
external commentators; it contradicted the narrative of a country gradually ‘liberalising’.
Unchanged is the (irrevocable) socialist system, the role of the CCP as the country’s
ideological leadership and emphasis on national unity. Cuba is committed to ‘never returning to
capitalism as a regime sustained by the exploitation of man by man.’76 State enterprises remain
the mainstay of the economy, and ‘Socialist planning constitutes the central component of the
system of governance for economic and social development.’77 The participation of workers in
the economy and of labour collectives in management and administration of state entities is key.
Social services and other provisions and benefits remain just and free.78 International relations
continue to be guided by the principles of anti-imperialism, proletarian internationalism,
international solidarity, Third World unity, and respect for sovereignty and the right to self-
determination.
New to the Constitution, but not to the Cuban political economy, is the promotion of foreign
investment (‘as an important element for the economic development of the country’) and private
ownership (‘exercised over specific means of production . . . [it has] a complementary role in the
economy’).79 However, as stated in the Guidelines, the state will restrict the private accumulation
process: ‘The concentration of property in natural or legal persons is regulated by the State,
which also guarantees an increasingly just redistribution of wealth in order to conserve the limits
that are compatible with the socialist values of equity and social justice.’80 How the state will
guarantee an increasingly just redistribution of wealth whilst embedding private enterprise is not
clear.
Also newly incorporated is protection of the environment and response to climate change.
There is greater specification of the rights, duties and guarantees of Cuban citizens and
foreigners, both individual rights and social, economic, cultural and human rights. The
Constitution decrees equality before the law, ‘without discrimination for reasons of sex, gender,
sexual orientation, gender identity, age, ethnic origin, skin colour, religious belief, disability,
national or territorial origin, or any other personal condition or circumstance that implies a
distinction injurious to human dignity’, plus ‘equal salary for equal work’. And it states that:
‘Women and men have equal rights and responsibilities in the economic, political, cultural,
occupational, social, and familial domains, as well as in any other domain.’81
The Constitution also restructures national and local government, decentralising and
streamlining authority and resources, improving administrative efficiency and popular
participation. The Provincial Assemblies of People’s Power are replaced by a Provincial
Government composed of a Governor and a Provincial Council, which incorporates the
presidents and vice presidents of the corresponding Municipal Assemblies of People’s Power and
the municipal Mayors.82 Power and responsibility is more balanced at the top of government.
New roles of President and Vice President of the Republic and Prime Minister were created.
Until now, there has been a President of the Council of State. Now there will be a President of
the Republic who is the Head of State, elected for a five-year term by the National Assembly
from among its deputies by an absolute majority. They can serve a maximum of two terms and
must be aged between 35 and 60 when first elected. The vice president is elected in the same
way. The prime minister is the head of government, designated by the president, elected by the
National Assembly and presiding over the Council of Ministers.
The redrafted Constitution was put to a straight yes or no referendum in February 2019, ‘a
complex moment for Cuba’, as David Jessop, editor of Cuba Briefing, recognised, ‘with the
economy in recession, growing concerns about what may happen in Venezuela, increasing US
hostility, the use of social media to express alternative opinions and to question government
decisions, continuing internal differences over the economy, and the continuing transition to a
younger generation of leaders who do not have the same moral authority as the country’s historic
figures’.83 It was approved by nearly 87 per cent of voters, with a turnout of over 84 per cent.84
A flurry of legislation is set to follow as the provisions of the Constitution are codified in law.
 CHALLENGES AHEAD

In his famous 1965 letter, ‘Socialism and Man in Cuba’, Che Guevara warned: ‘Pursuing the
chimera of achieving socialism with the aid of the blunted weapons left to us by capitalism (the
commodity as the economic cell, profitability, and individual material interest as levers, etc.) it is
possible to come to a blind alley . . . Meanwhile, the adapted economic base has undermined the
development of consciousness.’85 Aware that Cuba’s former President of the National Assembly
Ricardo Alarcón is well versed in Guevara’s writings, when we met in December 2016 I asked
him about the relevance of this warning for contemporary Cuba.
‘Look from the corner of this house and you will see the blunted weapons of capitalism
surround us on every side,’ he replied. ‘Because inevitably, we have had to make a series of
concessions, that is the only word for it.’ However, ‘Not everything is a concession, because
there are things that did not have to be in the way they were.’ He is referring to the excessive
state control, which was never originally intended but resulted from the Great Revolutionary
Offensive of 1968 when the remaining small non-agricultural private sector in Cuba was
nationalised. This was presented as a necessary response to actions by private businesses which
undermined the state’s ability to direct the economy. Acknowledging the ‘fairly large and
growing sector of workers who are employees of a private employer’, Alarcón admitted, ‘I am
not sure there’s an answer for that. Logically, it suits us that it grows, but we have to be careful,
because private interests are concentrating. To remain a socialist revolution, it must be of the
working class, because there is no other socialism than that. And the Party, as the vanguard of
that class, must promote its interests against those who are extracting surplus value from it,
which is no longer a foreign company or an ultra-powerful monopoly. There are tens of
thousands of private interests that have been created by us. All this is very complicated.’86
García Brigos points out that Cuba has the objective necessity of producing more, with greater
efficiency, quality, efficacy, to compete successfully in the hostile context of neoliberal
globalised capital, which will not disappear with the lifting of the US blockade and all the current
restrictions by the United States, whilst maintaining its socialist sense of development.87
Complex indeed; and history has shown that the socialist apparatus can be dismantled without a
shot being fired either to destroy or defend it.
Are new socioeconomic classes emerging in Cuba? ‘I think that someone who has a private
restaurant, money and employees is in a different class to me,’ says Isabel Allende, Director of
the Higher Institute of International Relations when we met in Havana. ‘But hey, we have to live
with it because it is clear that otherwise the State cannot continue doing what it does [social
welfare provision and so on]. Maybe if the Soviet Union still existed we could continue as we
were, but it does not exist anymore, nor will it return.’88 While a significant number of Cubans
are emerging with higher monetary incomes, and with the means for accumulating wealth, Cuba
is nowhere near seeing the kind of class privilege that determines access to services such as
health care, education, sport and culture. That will not change as long as the system of universal,
free, socialist welfare remains a key tenet of the Revolution and a parallel private system is
prohibited.
Allende admits to having been ‘extraordinarily worried’ about the future of the Cuban
Revolution given the ageing population, the emigration of young people, growing discontent
among the population, and the complicated process of updating the economic model. But, she
explains, following the death of Fidel Castro on 25 November 2016 she stopped worrying. I ask
her why. ‘Because of the young people,’ she says, ‘I did not expect the young people to react as
they did to the death of Fidel. And it was a spontaneous reaction, they were not mobilised by
anyone. The young people felt the death of Fidel and they knew that something very important
had gone, but that there is still something to defend. Young people took to the streets and went to
pay tribute to Fidel. It was the youth, not the old people. I know young people who are neither
members of the Union of Young Communists, nor are they especially concerned about politics,
who in the days of mourning asked everyone to show respect. So I’m not so worried because
there are still young people who value what we have.’
Evidence that Cuban youth remain engaged was provided by their participation in the
constitutional debates and the elections to the National Assembly in spring 2018. The average
age of delegates fell from 57 to 49 years old; the youngest was a black woman aged 19. A
generational transition is underway. The sense that the Cuban youth retain a collective and
revolutionary sensitivity was reinforced by their spontaneous mobilisation following the rare and
devastating tornado which struck Havana in January 2019, killing 4 people, injuring nearly 200
and damaging or destroying over 8,300 homes. Young Cubans from across the island mobilised
to help those affected and contribute to the recovery and reconstruction. The state, by then
presided over by Díaz-Canel, also proved its efficiency in the face of the disaster: within less
than five months, 80 per cent of the reconstruction work had been completed.89
The Cuban Revolution is cautiously advancing along a tightrope, balancing between the
plan and the market. This was symbolised by President Díaz-Canel’s September 2018 visit to
New York for the UN General Assembly. There he delivered a blistering attack on capitalism
and imperialism, later addressing thousands of solidarity activists at an event in Harlem. But he
also sat down with corporate executives ‘in the belly of the beast’ encouraging them to invest in
Cuba.
The challenge is exacerbated by multiple economic, social, political and environmental
factors: budget deficits, hard currency shortage, low productivity and wages, difficulties in
accessing foreign capital, distortions of accounting and incentives derived from the dual
currency, inadequate housing provision, the exodus of qualified professionals from the state to
the private sector, emigration of young Cubans overseas, and natural and environmental
disasters. Ultimately the revolutionary people of Cuba will determine how the contradictions
inherent in the process of updating the economy are to be resolved and in whose interests. But
there are also extremely adverse external factors beyond their control which limit the room for
manoeuvre: the crisis in Venezuela and its impact on the Cuban economy, and the loss of allies
and trade partners in Latin America (including the end of the Mais Medicos programme in
Brazil) and, most especially, the extra-territorial impact of escalating hostility from the US
government.
In early 2019, the Trump administration significantly tightened the US blockade, enacting
Title III of the 1996 Helms–Burton Act among other measures. This has intensified both the
challenges and restraints the island confronts. These measures are so aggressive that they
threaten to push the revolutionary people back into survival mode. The following chapter
discusses these developments and their impact.

10

SURVIVING INTO THE POST-RAPPROCHEMENT PERIOD

In spring 2019, sporadic electricity blackouts returned to areas of Cuba and state control over the
distribution of basic goods was increased to protect the population against growing scarcities.
The talk was of whether the island would see a return to the conditions which characterised the
economic crisis of the 1990s. From a political economy perspective, the principal concern is less
how socialist Cuba can balance between the plan and the market, and more about how the
revolutionary people will survive in the post-rapprochement period, with the inexorable, all-
consuming slog towards the United States presidential elections of November 2020 in which
attitudes towards Cuba and Venezuela will be a litmus test for candidates in both parties. Under
the Trump administration, and particularly from autumn 2018, hostility towards Cuba has been
ratcheted up, with rhetoric reminiscent of the Cold War and an injurious tightening of the US
blockade. What happened?
In late December 2016, three weeks before Donald Trump entered the Oval Office, lead
Cuban negotiator Josefina Vidal told me that it was ‘too early’ to predict the incoming
administration’s stance on Cuba. Vidal was head of the United States Department at the Ministry
of Foreign Relations and had led Cuba’s team in the secret talks which produced the
rapprochement under Obama in December 2014.1 During the US presidential campaign, it
emerged that businessman Trump sent corporate representatives to Cuba in 1998, violating the
US blockade, and again in the 2000s, to probe for openings. In September 2015 he told an
interviewer, ‘The concept of opening with Cuba is fine.’2 The US business sector was keen to
trade with and invest in Cuba and the political cost had already been paid by Obama.
A year later, however, by then a serious presidential contender, Trump told an audience of
right-wing Cuban exiles in Miami that ‘all of the concessions that Obama has granted the Castro
regime were done through executive order which means the next president can reverse them and
that is exactly what I will do unless the Castro regime meets our demands.’3 After winning the
presidency in November 2016, he insulted millions of Cubans with his tweets following Fidel
Castro’s death later that month and incorporated three pro-US blockade, anti-rapprochement
Cuban-Americans into his transition team. There were mixed messages, however. Vidal pointed
out that: ‘other functionaries, businessmen, that Trump has named, including in government
roles, are in favour of business with Cuba . . . so we have to wait for the government to take
office, start governing, start making policy decisions. Based on what has been said so far we find
it difficult to make an objective assessment.’4
The then Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had promised to announce the administration’s
new Cuba policy, but nothing had happened by 2 May 2017, when right-wing Florida Senator
and second-generation Cuban-American Marco Rubio marched into the White House to demand
Trump get on with reversing Obama’s rapprochement towards Cuba. Trump had a one-seat
majority in the Senate and Rubio was an indispensable vote.5 With little personal interest, Trump
had outsourced his Cuba policy to Rubio. ‘According to one report when he was elected the only
instruction about Cuba [Trump] gave to his senior aides was “make Rubio happy”,’ explained
William LeoGrande a leading scholar on US–Cuba relations.6 Rubio became a member of the
Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation into accusations of Russian meddling in the 2016
election.
In mid-June 2017, Trump went to Miami to announce: ‘I am cancelling the last
administration’s completely one-sided deal with Cuba.’ He committed to restricting travel
between the US and Cuba, prohibiting commerce with Cuban businesses owned by the military
and intelligence services, and to convening an Internet Task Force.7 In September 2017, 60 per
cent of the staff at the US embassy in Havana were withdrawn following the still disputed claim
that 24 US officials, and subsequently 14 Canadian diplomats, were subject to some sort of
undetectable attack causing brain damage and other symptoms.8 Initially this was labelled as a
‘sonic attack’ or ‘acoustic attack’, then microwaves were blamed, and finally, with no causal
explanation available, it was simply referred to as ‘Havana Syndrome’. The first people affected,
just days after Trump won the presidency in November 2016, were the CIA agents posted under
diplomatic cover in the US embassy, but the ‘incident’ was not exposed until August 2017.9
The reduction of US embassy staff was the pretext to effectively close consular services on
the island. Cubans applying to travel legally are now obliged to journey overseas to apply for a
visa, without any guarantee of acceptance, an additional cost and time burden designed to
minimise legal travel.10 Another result of the ‘sonic attacks’ allegation, and the mysterious
‘Havana Syndrome’, was to mute the US business community, who might overwise lobby to
keep rapprochement. LeoGrande explained that business people ‘were concerned that if they
defended the policy of engagement they might end up defending an engagement with a
government that had attacked US diplomats. That was just something politically they were not
interested in doing.’11 Thus in November 2017, when the US Department of State published a
list of Cuban entities which US businesses were prohibited from dealing with and which US
travellers were banned from patronising, there was little kick back from the business
community.12
A so-called ‘grandfather clause’ meant that businesses already engaging with Cuba, with
licences issued under Obama, were not affected, and that included those with ‘contingency
contracts’, open-ended licences incorporating future projects. Furthermore, the list could be
bypassed by changing the company name. US lawyer Robert Muse, an expert in US laws relating
to Cuba, concluded in late November 2017 that the Trump administration was leaving in place
the possibility of improving relations in the future but, he added, the wild card is Rubio – the
administration reacts when he makes a noise.13
In February 2018, Trump’s new Cuba Internet Task Force, set up to promote ‘the free and
unregulated flow of information’ to the island, met for the first time.14 The following month,
when I asked young Cuban television journalist Cristina Escobar for her view, she described it as
‘symbolic’, and yet another justification for the money spent on regime change programmes:
‘They have tried to use the internet to create social disorder in Cuba, but they haven’t achieved
it,’ she said. ‘Actually, the real outcome has been that conservative voices inside the Cuban
government have used this as an excuse to stop the opening of the internet in Cuba, pointing out
that “the enemy is using the internet against us”. And the thing is that they are. It’s a fact. But
you can’t ban the internet because it’s a reality and we need to be in that battle.’15 In summer
2018, US government plans to create ‘native’ and ‘non-branded’, apparently Cuban, Facebook
accounts propagated with US government-created regime-change content were exposed.16 Cuban
Facebook users will be unaware of their true provenance. Despite this, President Díaz-Canel is
pushing for Cuban institutions and officials to embrace the internet and social media and has
initiated an ‘e-government’ implementation programme. In May 2019, it was announced that
private Wi-Fi networks, cybercafes and the importation of equipment such as routers would be
permitted.17
Throughout 2018, the Bilateral Commissions set up during rapprochement to discuss
collaboration between the US and Cuba on issues of mutual interest were continuing, as were
business relations and other official exchanges. A high-profile meeting took place in Cuba
between the Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Republican Bob Corker, and
President Díaz-Canel in September 2018. Later that month, during his trip to New York for the
United Nations General Assembly, Díaz-Canel met top executives from Google, VaynerMedia,
Connectify, Mapbox, McKinsey & Company, Virgin Group, AirBnB, Revolution, Twitter,
Microsoft, Bloomberg and Cresta to discuss developing IT capacity in Cuba.
However, the April 2018 appointments of neoliberal ideologues Mike Pompeo as Secretary
of State and John Bolton as the National Security Advisor presaged a new stage in the Trump
Administration.18 Bolton has a long history of animosity towards Cuba. Previous chapters have
mentioned how in 2002, as a member of President George W. Bush’s administration, Bolton had
accused Cuba of developing biological weapons, despite opposition from the intelligence
community, and, as LeoGrande says, ‘then tried to have fired the intelligence analysts who had
objected to the invention’.19 The New York Times described Bolton’s return to government as
heralding ‘the most radically aggressive foreign policy team around the American president in
modern memory’.20 Bolton appointed Mauricio Claver-Carone, another second-generation
Cuban-American opposed to rapprochement who had served in Trump’s transition team, as
Latin-America Office Director at the National Security Council.21
On 1 November 2018, just before the mid-term elections, Bolton was applauded by an
audience in Miami as he announced a new wave of sanctions against what he labelled as the
‘Troika of Tyranny’ – Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.22 The objective was clear, said
LeoGrande, and was even communicated off record to the media by some administration
officials: to overthrow the Maduro government in Venezuela, ending oil exports to Cuba,
causing economic collapse on the island and enabling the overthrow of the Cuban government,
leaving Nicaragua as an easy third target. ‘And in this way socialism would be extirpated from
the western Hemisphere.’23 As efforts to overthrow Maduro floundered, the attacks on Cuba
became more frenzied.
By mid-January 2019, Pompeo was threatening to enact Title III of the Cuban Liberty and
Democratic Solidarity (Libertad) Act of 1996, known as the Helms–Burton Act, which
authorises US nationals with claims to property nationalised in Cuba after the Revolution to file
suits in US courts against persons ‘trafficking’ in that property.24 Title III had been suspended by
presidential decree every six months for 23 years, including three times by Trump, but Pompeo
announced it would now be held over for 45 days only. This was a threat designed to scare off
foreign investors from Cuba at a time when foreign capital has been awarded a pivotal role in the
island’s development strategy. One week later, US-backed Venezuelan opposition leader Juan
Guaidó nominated himself as that country’s president, but hopes that he would rally the military
and the general public to sweep out the Maduro government were soon dashed. Cuba refused to
withdraw support for the Venezuelan government or to enter mediation to resolve the crisis
without Maduro’s approval. Pompeo squeezed tighter, announcing that Title III would be
activated from 19 March, but only in relation to the Cuban companies included on the November
2017 List of Restricted Entities.
On 17 April 2019, the 58th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, Bolton and
Pompeo announced that Title III would be enacted from 2 May; that ‘U-turn financial
transactions’ (which Cuba uses to circumvent sanctions and access hard currency and the US
banking system) would be blocked, cutting off Cuba’s access to dollar-denominated transactions;
that non-family travel to the island would be limited; that caps would be imposed on the value of
personal remittances (at USD 4,000 annually); and that visa restrictions would be enforced on
foreigners ‘trafficking in confiscated properties’ (Title IV of the Helms–Burton Act). Talks under
the Bilateral Commissions were finally closed down, against the wishes of officials involved on
both sides.25
On 30 April 2019, Trump tweeted the warning: ‘If Cuban Troops and Militia do not
immediately CEASE military and other operations . . .[in]. . . Venezuela, a full and complete
embargo, together with the highest-level sanctions, will be placed on the island of Cuba.’26 The
attempted coup earlier that day by Guaidó had fizzled out despite US support. Seeking excuses,
Bolton had accused Cuba of propping up the Maduro regime with at least 20,000 Cuban troops.
It was another sinister fabrication, depicting Cuban healthcare workers in the country as military
personnel.27 Cuban foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez tweeted back that Bolton was a
‘pathological liar who misinforms Trump’. Those were not Cuban troops in Venezuela, ‘only
medical staff on humanitarian missions’.28
The next day, millions of people took to the streets in Cuba and Venezuela to celebrate
International Workers Day and demonstrate defiance. On 2 May, Title III was fully enacted. The
first two claims were filed immediately in US courts against Carnival Cruise Lines, an
international business with headquarters in Florida. The claimants had not been forcibly removed
from their premises in Cuba by the Rebel Army: they were the ‘descendants’ of dock owners in
Havana and Santiago de Cuba.29 Carnival was being sued, their lawyer stated, for profiting from:
‘Property that was confiscated from our clients wrongfully by the communist government of
Cuba in 1960.’30 The term ‘confiscated’, along with ‘expropriated’, are applied to delegitimise
the nationalisations carried out by the revolutionary government in accordance with international
norms, including the offer of compensation which US interests turned down on the advice of
their own government. The legal action clarified that even those US businesses exempted from
the November 2017 List of Restricted Entities, because of their pre-existing licenses granted
under Obama, would be targeted under Title III.
How many further claims can we expect to follow? One source cites 6,000 certified claims
for US properties totalling an estimated USD 8 billion in current values.31 The State Department
says the number of lawsuits could soar to 200,000. Claims are limited to properties worth more
than USD 50,000 when nationalised (more than USD 427,000 today), in commercial use and
which are not used by diplomatic missions.32 The cost of legal action will rule out smaller
claims. What matters, however, is the uncertainty this presents for international businesses.
‘Cuba’s not an easy place for foreign investors to do business anyway,’ said LeoGrande, ‘and so
adding one more risk on top of the existing ones is going to discourage everyone except the most
intrepid investors . . . it’s a very serious sanction.’33
The Cuban government responded indignantly and within days measures were introduced to
control the availability of some basic foodstuffs and other products on the island, to ensure
scarce goods were distributed fairly and to prevent hoarding. First, limits were placed on shop
purchases per person of some goods and for other foodstuffs Cubans were required to present
their ration card before buying.34 Queues formed outside stores when certain items entered.
Second, the government worked hard to source products from origins unaffected by the tightened
US sanctions. The official position is that, with broader trade relations and a more diversified
economy, Cuba will not return to the traumatic post-Soviet crisis conditions.35 Third, from 1 July
2019, nearly half of Cuba’s state sector employees saw their salaries rise substantially, along
with all pensions, directly benefiting over 2.75 million Cubans. Fourth, a broader set of reforms
to increase national production was also announced. The latter two measures were announced by
President Díaz-Canel on the Mesa Redonda, a live televised current affairs programme, and are
explained below.

THE TELECOMS EXEMPTION

In mid-May 2019, I asked an employee at Google what the impact of Title III would be on the
‘peering agreement’ signed six weeks earlier between Google and Cuba’s telecoms monopoly
ETECSA to build a physical infrastructure connecting their networks and speeding up global
internet data flows into and out of Cuba.36 An initial agreement signed in the last week of the
Obama administration, on 12 December 2016, had seen Google install ‘edge caching and
services nodes’ on the island in 2017, enabling Cubans to access Google content cached on local
servers.37 Since then, the employee said, ‘We have seen tremendous growth, on YouTube in
particular, which bodes well for our products more generally. We are seeing a ground up thirst
for a lot of our products. In that way there’s certainly a commercial case to be made. If you also
look at the infrastructure in the region, and how Google is situated geographically, it’s quite
strategic from a commercial standpoint to have connections through Cuba.’38 In December 2018,
ETECSA rolled out a 3G service facilitating connection to the internet directly via mobile
phones in Cuba, and within three months 2 million Cubans had signed up. Millions more use
government-provided Wi-Fi hot spots in hundreds of public areas throughout the island.39
Despite Title III, the Google employee informed me that, ‘We feel positively about our
work going forwards because of the existing carve outs.’ He is referring to the exemption written
into the Helms–Burtons Act in 1996 permitting US telecommunications firms to do business
with Cuba. Jorge Mas Canosa, the notorious Cuban-American leader who drove through the
legislation under President Clinton, presided over a large phone cable system and the exemption
was introduced to protect his interests.40 ‘The general spirit of the law is that if you are providing
information into Cuba, that is seen as “blessed” by the US government, it is not subject to US
sanctions. The caveat is that the law was written in 1996 before the internet was really a thing
and a company like Google really existed. It will be hard for regulators to try to place some of
our initiatives within the scope of the spirit of the law when it was written in 1996.’ As a
telecommunications company, Google was not required to secure a licence under Obama
because of this general authorisation. Nonetheless, some Google apps are unavailable on the
island, not because of Cuban government objections, but because of the US blockade.41
Pedro Freye, a Cuban-American legal expert, recognised that the Google agreement would
create a dilemma for the US administration: ‘Free information and greater connectivity with
Cuba has been a long-held US objective,’ he claimed. ‘But how does that square with
Washington’s new policy to get tough on Cuba? It’s a contradiction.’42 While the Google
employee recognises that the Trump administration could attempt to shut down all contact with
Cuba, he added: ‘Legally I am not sure they are able to do that because there is, specifically, this
carve out for telecommunications. I remain quite confident that we can move forward.’43 For
others trying to engage with Cuba, however, he recognises this as a really sour moment. ‘It’s not
just that there’s been a reversal from the Obama administration, that is undoubtedly true. I think
you could argue that it’s worse than it was in decades.’ Even Trump’s replacement by a new
government committed to returning to rapprochement could not put the lid back on the can of
worms already opened by Helms–Burton. Once lawsuits have been filed under Title III, they
cannot be reversed or stopped.
One month after Title III targeted foreign investment with Cuba, new measures were
suddenly introduced to hit Cuba’s tourism sector. On 4 June 2019, the ‘people-to-people’
category for licensed group travel from the US to Cuba was eliminated with almost immediate
effect. This is the category most commonly used by US visitors. The new rules also ended
recreational and passenger vessels, including cruise ships, yachts and sail boats, and private
aircraft travel. Cruise companies with hundreds of thousands of pre-booked customers switched
destinations within one day. In 2018, some 638,000 US citizens visited Cuba, around two-thirds
of them on cruises.44 Commercial airline flights remained unaffected by the new measures, as
well as group travel under eleven other licence categories, for example university groups,
journalists or professionals. Collin Laverty, president of the US-based NGO Cuba Educational
Travel, described the move as ‘political grandstanding aimed at Florida in the run up to the 2020
elections’. As well as the millions of Cubans who would suffer, he pointed out: ‘It’s also terrible
for US companies that are providing employment and paying taxes in the US and creating an
economic footprint on the island.’45

INTERNATIONAL REPUDIATION

Title III was also a direct hit against European interests: in 1997 and 1998 the EU had agreed to
freeze legal action in the World Trade Organization (WTO) against the extraterritorial
application of US domestic laws, while the US agreed to suspend Title III. EU relations with
Cuba had improved, particularly since the Obama rapprochement. ‘Now we are again number
one in terms of trade with Cuba, overtaking China and Venezuela,’ stated Alberto Navarro, EU
Ambassador in Havana, in March 2018, 14 months prior to the enactment of Title III.46 Annual
trade between the EU and Cuba is worth around EUR 2.5 billion, although Cuba imports far
more than it exports. Eighteen European countries have embassies in Havana, the EU is Cuba’s
largest donor, having allocated EUR 50 million to Cuba in the 2014–2020 period, including EUR
21 million dedicated to agriculture, EUR 18 million to assist rural electrification and EUR 4
million for ‘expert exchange’ programmes. Cooperation was focused on higher education,
assistance with Cuba’s taxation apparatus and digitalisation of the civil register and the Gaceta
Oficial, the law registry. The EU was also offering Havana its expertise on currency unification.
I asked Navarro why, given the EU desire to increase trade and cooperation with Cuba,
almost no action had been taken to protect EU interests from US legislation, despite the legal
frameworks existing to do so. The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control had imposed
multimillion and multibillion dollar fines on European financial institutions and companies for
trading with Cuba (prior to the enactment of Title III). ‘The EU should be more assertive about
the US embargo,’ Navarro conceded, recognising that, ‘the biggest burden on development in
Cuba is the US embargo, no doubt about that.’ This was not easy, he explained. Cuba represents
0.1 per cent, or less, of the EU’s external trade; miniscule compared to the interests of EU
members in the United States, the global superpower. ‘So, you understand that member states are
very cautious sometimes.’47 In January 2018, during her visit to Havana, Federica Mogherini,
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, had publicly described the US
blockade as ‘illegal’.
Even before the threat of Title III, the uncertainty generated by Trump’s Cuba policy meant
companies and banks were halting operations with Cuba in fear of fines. Navarro listed European
banks which had withdrawn financial services from anything linked to Cuba. ‘They should make
a statue to the companies that are able to operate in Cuba and the United States at the same time
– there are not many. A good example is [Spanish hotel chain] Meliá, the largest operator of
hotels in Cuba . . . those companies devote a lot of time to separating their businesses to fulfil the
American Treasury requirements.’48 Cuba is among the minority of countries in the world where
the European Investment Bank (EIB) is not active. ‘So we are starting the process to change
that,’ said Navarro, ‘but it means that 28 member states have to ask the bank to operate in Cuba,
because of the embargo.’ Furthermore, one-third of the bank’s denominations are in dollars,
which means proceeding with Cuba could jeopardise the EIB’s triple ‘A’ rating.
In response to the US threat of enacting Title III, the EU and the Canadian government
issued a joint statement denouncing the measure as a violation of international law and stating
that they would act to protect their own companies within the WTO and by prohibiting the
enforcement of US court judgements based on Title III in the EU and Canada. ‘Our respective
laws allow any US claims to be followed by counter-claims in European and Canadian courts, so
the US decision to allow suits against foreign companies can only lead to an unnecessary spiral
of legal actions,’ their statement concluded.49 Their condemnation was reiterated on 2 May when
the legislation was enacted.50 Individual EU member states announced that they would work
with the EU to defend the interests of their citizens and companies engaging with Cuba.51 Talks
were held in Havana.52 The condemnation was echoed in declarations from the Caribbean
Community (CARICOM), China, Japan, Russia and other countries and multilateral institutions.
Cuba’s own laws state that any person or entity engaging with Title III now will be excluded
from any future agreements on compensation for nationalised properties.53
Despite the Trump administration’s onslaught, high-profile visits, trade delegations and
agreements with international partners continued apace. In late March 2019, Prince Charles and
his wife the Duchess of Cornwall became the first members of the British Royal Family to visit
Cuba in an official capacity; the trip was intended to promote bilateral trade and the positive
media coverage it generated undermined US efforts to portray the island as a dangerous
destination. Not long after that, a delegation of British businesses attended a forum in Havana,
which was opened by President Díaz-Canel and attended by other Cuban Ministers, to discuss
trade and investment in areas that are priorities for the Cuban government, including renewable
energies, food production, tourism and increasing Cuban exports.54 A brief look at Cuban news
in May 2019 alone shows multiple collaborations, exchanges and agreements continuing with
international partners from Bolivia to the Caribbean, Canada, China, India and Vietnam.55
At the United Nation’s General Assembly on 1 November 2018, 189 countries voted in
favour of Cuba’s annual motion condemning the United States blockade, with only the United
States and Israel against. That was despite the US introducing seven new amendments
condemning Cuba for human rights violations among other issues. Each amendment was roundly
defeated. It was the twenty-seventh consecutive year that the General Assembly had repudiated
the US blockade. Cuba has 148 diplomatic missions overseas.56 Isabel Allende, Director of the
Higher Institute of International Relations, which trains diplomats, points out that Cuba’s
diplomatic representation abroad is greater than that of Mexico and Brazil. Cuba has an embassy
in Kiribati, she explains, a state constituted by 32 coral atolls and one raised coral island, with a
population of 110,000. ‘In Kiribati there are only four embassies!’57
Clearly the tightening of the US blockade will hurt the Cuban people. How severely will
depend on whether the EU, Canada and other countries move from words into action to
neutralise its extraterritorial reach. Evidence that they would act came when a Spanish court
dismissed a Helms–Burton related case against Meliá Hotels in early September 2019.58
The impact of the new sanctions will also depend on the success of internal measures to
increase domestic production in Cuba.

DOMESTIC REFORMS: PAYING MORE, PRODUCING MORE

From 1 July 2019, every one of the 1,470,736 employees in Cuba’s ‘budgeted’ state sector
received significant salary rises. Employing 48 per cent of all state sector workers, the budgeted
sector incorporates organisations and entities which operate with a state budget and mostly
provide services free to the population without returning revenue to the state: public health,
education, culture and sport, public administration, community services, housing and defence.59
Simultaneously, 1,281,523 pensions rose, taking the number of direct beneficiaries to over 2.75
million Cubans. The new salary scale raises the incomes of the lowest earners (the minimum
monthly salary rises from CUP 225 to CUP 400, up from CUP 125 in 2005) and expands the
wage differential between these and the highest earners from between 2.9 to 7.5 times, so jobs
demanding greater complexity, responsibility and qualifications receive substantially higher
remuneration, serving as an incentive to work towards leadership positions.60 The average
monthly salary in the budgeted sector rose from CUP 634 in June, to CUP 1,065 in July – above
the 2018 average salary in state enterprises, which was CUP 871 (up from CUP 600 in 2014).
Speaking on the Mesa Redonda on 2 and 3 July, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel
framed the pay and pension increases and the new economic measures announced
simultaneously in relation to several factors.61 First, the tightening of the US blockade,
particularly with the implementation of Title III. Second, determination not to return to the
hardships suffered by the Cuban people during the Special Period. Third, the long-standing
demand for a pay rise. Fourth, acknowledgement of the loyalty and commitment of workers who
stayed in state employment, often in the lowest-paid jobs, defending the ‘conquests’ of Cuba’s
socialist revolution.62 Lastly, the salary rise is a step towards a broader economic restructuring to
come, which will change the way salaries and prices are set, introducing greater flexibility into
the planning process with greater initial input from workers, eliminate the dual currency, increase
cooperation between state enterprises, non-state entities and foreign investors, and give greater
financial autonomy to state enterprises. These measures aim to boost national production and
improve Cuba’s balance of payments, so as to withstand the onslaught of US imperialism and
advance the national development plan.
The salary rise provokes two issues of immediate concern: the danger of inflation, and the
need to meet the additional costs to the state without exceeding the previously planned deficit.
Inflation would undermine the positive effect of the pay rise, increased purchasing power, to the
detriment of all Cubans, not just the beneficiaries.63 Economy Minister Alejandro Gil claimed
that, in Cuba’s planned economy, the salary rise should not cause inflation because: (a) the
budgeted sector provides free goods and services, so increased salaries cannot push up non-
existent sale prices; (b) most retail trade is under state control and subject to administrative
controls, including fixed or capped prices; and (c) the state is not raising wholesale or retail
prices, taxes or other payments. Consequently, said Gil, the non-state sector had no excuse for
raising prices. Prices in all sectors would be capped and closely monitored and the public was
urged to report ‘irresponsible’ and ‘opportunistic’ price rises to authorities. Subsequently, in late
July 2019, a generalised system of price controls was introduced on all goods and services sold
or provided by both state and private enterprises.64
With inflation ‘repressed’, the danger is that as beneficiaries buy more they will quickly
exhaust the goods currently available, generating greater scarcity. To prevent either inflation or
scarcity, the Cuban economy must expand the supply of goods and services available to the
general public, a result which the new economic reforms are designed to achieve. While
excluded from the salary rise, workers in the state enterprise sector can increase their incomes,
said Gil, by producing more, but not by charging more. Local development will be fostered on
the basis of local resources to meet demand without increasing imports (which bleeds hard
currency). Other measures are being designed to retain the hard currency which Cubans receive
as pay or remittances, and which often leaves the country, for example when individuals travel
abroad to purchase goods to bring back to Cuba.65 New financial services products are being
created to encourage savings.
 The cost of the salary rise to the Cuban state is over CUP 7 billion annually, and the pension
increase adds another CUP 838 million to the bill. This is greater than the CUP 6.4 billion social
security budget for 2019 and the planned budget deficit at CUP 6.1 billion.66 How can the state
cover the additional cost without increasing the deficit? The ministers talked in general terms
about redirecting investment funds from unimplemented projects, while planned budgets to all
entities will be reduced by some 10 per cent, obliging them to prioritise their spending.
Meanwhile, all social programmes will be preserved.

BROADER ECONOMIC REFORMS

The broader economic strategy seeks to strengthen state enterprises and national production, the
diversity and quantity of exports, import substitution, productive linkages, self-sufficiency in the
municipalities, local development projects, investments, agricultural production, food
sovereignty and housing provision and to keep hard currency in the country. Díaz-Canel talked
about overcoming the obstacles and bureaucracy, which Cubans refer to as the ‘internal
blockade’, and breaking the pattern of relying on imports.67 Cuba’s principal imports are food
and fuels, which drain billions in hard currency. A critical solution is to increase agricultural
production and the use of renewable energies. Moving Cuba towards food and fuel sovereignty is
a political necessity given the aggressive, extraterritorial imposition of the US blockade.
To achieve this, state enterprises will be given more independence in planning, financing,
investment, collaboration and incentives for workers. In turn they must eliminate budget deficits
and stop using budgets without proper cost assessments. Ministers talked about replacing
‘administrative controls’ with ‘financial and economic mechanisms’, that is, increasing
individual material incentives for workers to expand domestic production, exports and import
substitution, essential both to save hard currency and to balance the books. Where surpluses rise,
bonuses can increase workers’ pay up to five times the average salary (previously capped at three
times). ‘Anything that increases efficiency must be evaluated for incorporation into the plan,’
said Gil. Decentralising the plan implies decentralising access to resources, and so increased
autonomy for state enterprises.68
FINATUR, an existing financial institution in the tourism sector, will provide investment
credit directly to enterprises, outside allocations from the Central Fund, to reduce delays and
bureaucracy in funding investments.69 Other incentives will foster municipal self-sufficiency and
increased agricultural productivity. By introducing more extensive market mechanisms into the
Cuban economy, the reforms present risks to Cuba’s socialist planned economy, but they are
necessary concessions made in the context of renewed US aggression and deteriorating
international conditions. Díaz-Canel recognises the challenges and the importance of the
population’s support. In the most difficult times, he said, Fidel and Raúl Castro always ‘went to
the people’. This was the essence of the revolution, he added, ‘as the people are the source of
wisdom and creation’.
Given US actions intended to block Cuba’s use of the US dollar, the possibility of adopting
a crypto currency for the government’s international transactions is under evaluation.70 In early
September 2019 the US Treasury announced that the forewarned prohibition of ‘U-turn’
financial transactions would be enacted on 9 October.71 The cap on family remittances would
also begin that day.72 Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said they were ‘denying Cuba access
to hard currency’ to curb the island’s ‘bad behaviour’.73
A few days later, on 11 September, Díaz-Canel ‘went to the people’, returning to the Mesa
Redonda to explain the new measures being implemented to mitigate the impact of fuel shortages
resulting directly from US sanctions and threats to governments and shipping companies
supplying Cuba with oil. This was an externally imposed temporary energy crisis, he said, that
would impact on transportation, the distribution of products and the generation of electricity
during peak demand periods. Long queues had already formed at bus stops while Cubans
squeezed into buses in scenes reminiscent of the Special Period. However, Díaz-Canel reiterated
that Cuba would not return to the economic crisis of the 1990s: the island is far less vulnerable
than before, today meeting some 40 per cent of its oil needs with domestic production while its
international partners and markets are more diversified. Nevertheless, some of the useful and
creative measures adopted to pull Cubans through the fuel-scarce 1990s are already being
reinstated: organised hitch-hiking and flexible work schedules, for example. The creativity and
resilience which got the revolutionary people through the post-Soviet crisis are being channelled
today to survive US attempts to cause misery and suffering in the post-rapprochement period.

WILL THE REVOLUTIONARY PEOPLE SURVIVE IN A POST-RAPPROCHEMENT

PERIOD?

There is no attempt here to predict the future, a vainglorious habit which historians, of all people,
should avoid. Nonetheless, by examining how the revolutionary people have survived into the
post-Soviet world, this book has identified the tools, mechanisms and ethos which they will
harness to determine their future. By way of a conclusion, I have pulled out the salient themes
below, linking them to the preceding chapters.
The commitment to socialism as the solution to the challenge of development. Chapter 1
explains why, for the Cuban revolutionaries of the 1950s, colonialism and imperialism were the
principle explanations for the island’s structural weaknesses. Dependent development had
fostered an economy, and a national capitalist class, which was subservient to foreign, mainly
US interests. Thus, they perceived two real alternatives: to renounce fundamental change,
beyond expelling the dictator Fulgencio Batista, so the new government would be acceptable to
Washington; or to pursue the deep structural changes necessary to address the island’s
socioeconomic ills and dependent development, which would bring hostility from the United
States. That is, it could either operate within the limits imposed by Cuba’s subordination to
United States, at most bolstering Cuban national capital, or break that dependant relationship and
build real sovereignty, confronting both US imperialist interests and the Cuban ‘bourgeoisie’
which was allied to them. Cuban revolutionaries opted for the latter, adopting socialism as the
only viable alternative. The post-1959 government chose state action over free market exchange
as the lever for development, expropriating the private sector and adopting a centrally planned
economy and state ownership because they believed it was the best approach to tackle Cuba’s
historical development challenges.
As US government machinations effectively blocked Cuba from accessing capital or trade
with other capitalist countries, the Cuban state sought socialist allies. Socialist bloc trade and
cooperation was established so developing nations could obtain financial and material resources
under conditions which did not exploit or undermine sovereignty, and could engage in
international exchange without deteriorating terms of trade.74 However, the Cuban commitment
to operate within a socialist paradigm implied additional restraints and complications. The Soviet
embrace generated its own problems and failed to solve the island’s sugar trade dependence.
Indeed, Cuba was particularly vulnerable to the disintegration of the socialist bloc and the USSR
between 1989 and 1991. Nonetheless, instead of reversing the commitment to socialist
development, the severe economic crisis of the 1990s strengthened the Cuban resolve.
What has fluctuated over six decades, however, are the strategies adopted by the state to
build socialism: to increase production and productivity within a welfare-centred development
process. The lack of consensus on this issue explains why multiple systems of economic
management have been adopted under the Revolution: five different systems in the first three
decades and at least three distinct approaches in the post-Soviet period. Each one reframed the
relationship between market mechanisms and the state plan in accordance with the economic and
political imperatives of the period and international conditions. Cuban revolutionaries have
shown great flexibility in devising policies to deal with urgent problems without straying from
the paradigm of Cuba Socialista.
The disposition the Cuban leadership to take an independent path, to defend
sovereignty and social justice, even at the expense of economic growth, is also illustrated in
Chapter 1 with the discussion of the Rectification period, during which the Cubans pulled back
from the Soviet model prior to its collapse. Rectification holds clues to the survival of Cuban
socialism into the post-Soviet world. During this period, Fidel Castro expressed deep-rooted
distrust and indeed disdain for capitalist social relations; his speeches from this period
complement the work of Che Guevara in the early 1960s to create a rich archive of arguments
against ‘liberalising’ the economy. Rectification saw efforts to strengthen the link between the
CCP and the revolutionary people, with renewed emphasis on political mobilisation and
socialism as a conscious process of construction and self-transformation. This approach proved
essential in the post-Soviet period and is today being pursued by Díaz-Canel in response to the
strains imposed in the post-rapprochement period.
The revolutionary resilience of the Cuban people. In late June 2019, President Miguel
Díaz-Canel described the Special Period as ‘a great act of collective creation with a strong and
creative leadership that never rested’. He revealed that some measures taken during the economic
crisis of the 1990s are currently under study.75 Chapter 2, on the Special Period, demonstrates
the revolutionary resilience of the Cuban people: the ability to pull together to get through
economic hardship, with creativity and community, despite fragmentation of the socioeconomic
structure, and seeking inventive solutions to daily scarcity and suffering. The leadership never
wavered in its commitment to socialism, which it saw as tantamount to the survival of the
Revolution itself. Against the ‘economic rationality’ of capitalism, welfare spending was
prioritised, for example by subsidising employment despite low productivity and the lack of
inputs. The government proved responsive to the new circumstances, restructuring the economy
for reintegration into global capitalist markets while maintaining state control over trade and
financial institutions, enabling it to harness scarce hard currency and other revenues to direct
spending and imports according to its social and political priorities.
The measures taken in the 1990s, and their enduring impact, are key to understanding the
subsequent reforms introduced to ‘update the Cuban economy’ under Raúl Castro’s mandate.
The ethos and institutions which got Cubans through the crisis will be vital resources to which
the government of Díaz-Canel will have recourse in the difficult contemporary period, including
the extensive apparatus controlling production, distribution, prices, imports and exports.76 The
ability to control distribution has already proven vital for safeguarding social justice in Cuba’s
post-rapprochement period. Other legacies of the Special Period that will also prove useful in the
newly adverse times are those of community mobilisation, targeted social assistance and
decentralised organic and urban farming. While Cubans are dismayed by the prospect of a return
to the daily grind of the previous economic crisis there is also an attitude that ‘If we could
survive the Special Period, we can survive this.’ For others, however, particularly young Cubans
who lack this point of reference and have rising consumerist expectations, it will be the tipping
point. Emigration, which has been high for several years, is likely to rise, depleting the young
labour force Cuba needs but also serving as a pressure valve and reducing social tensions.
The importance of education and culture in inculcating a commitment to national
sovereignty and social justice and to resist the imperialist offensive. Chapter 3 on the Battle
of Ideas demonstrates the propensity of Cuban leaders to take the ideological offensive when
under attack from US imperialism. Today that can be seen in the increasingly combative
messages emanating from Díaz-Canel and government ministers, these days via social media. In
late May 2019 reconstruction work began on the Anti-Imperialist Tribunal, the physical space
outside the US embassy (formerly an ‘Interest Section’) where mass rallies and concerts took
place in the early 2000s, first to demand the return of Cuban boy Elián González and
subsequently throughout the period of the Battle of Ideas.77 During the Battle of Ideas Fidel
Castro confronted a ‘parasitic’ layer within Cuba which he identified as endangering the
revolutionary process. That approach has shaped Cuba’s new leaders, who accept the non-state
sector’s productive contribution but are less tolerant of freeloading off the state.
The ability of the Revolution to rejuvenate its ranks and the composition of its
‘vanguard’ was also evident during the Battle of Ideas. The process cultivated new
revolutionary protagonists, drawn from the youngest, poorest and most racially diverse sections
of Cuban society – a citizens’ army of young social workers, emergent teachers and medical
internationalists, who mobilised through rallies and marches, armed with energy-saving light
bulbs and political T-shirts. The Battle of Ideas also demonstrates the determination of Cuban
leaders, thinkers and activists not to leave people behind. This resolve was reasserted to counter
the ‘economism’ implicit in the post-2011 process of updating the Cuban economy.
Energy is an issue of national security for Cuba, a point stressed in Chapter 4 on the
Energy Revolution. Measures taken during the Energy Revolution reduced the island’s
vulnerability through the introduction of the distributed system of energy generation, the focus
on energy efficiency and the fostering of renewable energies. These factors will prove
increasingly important in the post-rapprochement period as the Trump administration attempts to
block the supply of Venezuelan oil to Cuba. However, the government’s 2030 renewable energy
goals require huge investments, much of which must come from foreign partners, but which Title
III has been enacted to block. Fortunately, a major partner in this field is China, which is unlikely
to be driven off by the US measures.
The commitment to sustainable development and preparing for climate change, is also
discussed in Chapter 4. In the context of a growing and increasingly radical global environmental
movement, Cuba’s achievements in sustainability and its long-term plan to protect the population
from the devastating impact of global warming serve as an inspiration, countering attempts to
ostracise the island. The fact that Cuba is socialist introduces to the environmentalist table a
discussion about alternative development models. It strengthens the argument that the profit-
driven capitalist system is incapable of redressing the environmental damage caused by the
process of accumulation (through exploitation) integral to capitalism.
 State investments in science and technology to foster endogenous solutions and
innovation. Chapter 5 on Cuba’s biotech revolution shows the results of the state’s commitment
to medical science, free from private interests and speculation and directed to meet public health
needs. Its achievements in this field have placed it at the fore front of a globally emerging
industry, despite six decades of the US blockade. In the post-Soviet period, Cuba bolstered the
domestic production of medicines, which now meet close to 70 per cent of the population’s
needs. This makes Cuba far less susceptible to US pressures today than the Venezuelan people,
who in early 2019 were suffering an estimated 85 per cent shortage of medicines because of US
sanctions.78
Cuba’s biotech revolution has brought international prestige and provided strong incentives
for global biopharma interests to engage with Cuba, undermining the US blockade. The export of
biopharma goods has made a growing contribution to Cuban revenues. Potential earnings from
the commercial production in the United States of its lung-cancer vaccine CIMAvax and its
treatment for diabetic foot ulcers, hebrobrot-P, could be significant. These innovations, and those
in the pipeline, may provide incentives for US biopharma companies to lobby against the US
sanctions. However, to fulfil its potential, the biotechnology sector also requires substantial
foreign investment, which US sanctions intend to block.
The commitment to internationalism as part of the struggle against capitalism,
imperialism and underdevelopment. Chapter 6 on medical internationalism explains how
Cuban revolutionaries view global poverty and poor health as the result of structurally
exploitative conditions resulting from capitalism and imperialism. While during the Cold War,
the principle expression of Cuban internationalism was military assistance for national liberation
struggles, in the post-Soviet period, medical assistance prevailed, becoming an essential
component of the island’s foreign policy. The island’s global healthcare missions and the forms
that this assistance have taken, have expanded hugely, from emergency response brigades and
establishing public healthcare systems overseas, to the training and treatment of foreigners on the
island. These programmes have benefited millions of people, who owe their health, and perhaps
their lives, to those professionals and the government which trained and sent them. This in turn
improved Cuba’s international relations and became the principal source of export earnings as
the Revolution’s investments in health and education were converted into revenues for the state,
vital for sustaining the socialist system which produced them.
Cuban development aid was pivotal in the post-2000 regional integration movements and
the welfare-focused national development strategies pursued to varying degrees in Latin America
and the Caribbean. As the ‘Pink Tide’ has been turned back, Cuban medical exports have fallen,
most injuriously in Brazil. The Trump administration is working furiously to destroy Cuban
prestige and revenues, characterising Cuban medical missions as ‘human trafficking’, while
USAID finances actions to, in the words of Cuba’s Foreign Ministry, ‘discredit and sabotage the
international cooperation provided by Cuba in the area of health in dozens of countries and for
the benefit of millions of people.’79 The Cubans, meanwhile, are working to diversify their
medical cooperation and exports, securing payment on a sliding scale where possible and
maintaining free provision in emergencies and for those too poor to pay.
Principled intransigence in defence of sovereignty and in the face of external (US)
pressure. Chapter 7 on Cuba–US relations argues that the real motivation for US hostility
towards the Cuban Revolution is the intolerable example of a socialist alternative in the US
backyard. As long as Cuba remains socialist, it will face US antagonism. For the revolutionary
people, the choice of socialism is a question of national sovereignty and relinquishing that choice
due to external pressure would be tantamount to recolonisation. This is not something they will
countenance. ‘Pressure, preconditions and aggression do not work with Cuba,’ affirmed Josefina
Vidal.80
It is a lesson lost on the Trump administration, whose ultimatum that Cuba withdraw
support for the Maduro government in Venezuela or suffer the consequences is simply the latest
pretext for US hostility and will not be met regardless of the cost to the island itself. While
Trump may have crowned himself as a ‘deal-maker’, history has shown that US efforts to
conduct talks on the basis of a largely one-sided quid pro quo have not been successful. In
response to multifaceted aggression from the US establishment and Miami-based exiles, the
Cuban state has devised a versatile defence: from undercover agents and denunciations in
international forums, to cultivating scientific and cultural links, embracing solidarity and
welcoming US visitors.
The drive for productivity and efficiency within a socialist framework. Outside Cuba,
‘Raúl’s reforms’ were portrayed as a faltering march towards economic liberalisation. However,
the Cuban state viewed them as part of a drive for productivity and efficiency within a socialist
framework. Chapter 8 provides a chronological account of the structural changes undertaken
explaining how each measure was designed to rebalance the economy and bolster domestic
production. The reforms were driven by expediency: they never represented an embrace of the
market or capitalism. Rather they reflect the tension between political preference and economic
necessity: the attempt to balance social production and accumulation under central planning with
the urgent need to increase productivity and economic efficiency, and the need for foreign
investment and trade in order to do so.
While success has been limited, the reforms have gone some way towards getting the Cuban
house in order, particularly in terms of debt restructuring and infrastructural investments, both of
which increase incentives for foreign investors. That the new private sector has been so hard hit
by the Trump administration’s sanctions serves to reinforce the importance of the protections
offered by the centralised state apparatus and its control over production and distribution. The
Trump administration’s hostility shatters the illusion, fostered by Obama, that the US
establishment is concerned to improve the lives of the Cuban people by promoting the private
sector and civil society.
Extensive grassroots participation in nationwide debates shaping policies and
legislation. This was also underscored in Chapter 8. The process of national and sectoral
consultations was repeated throughout Raúl Castro’s decade as president, involving ordinary
Cubans in shaping their own futures and securing legitimacy and acceptance for the changes
underway. This procedure was reinforced under Díaz-Canel’s presidency with the mass
participation in debates about the new Constitution which was approved in the referendum of
February 2019.
The tendency to reassert the centrality of social justice in the development process.
Fidel Castro expressed disdain for market forces, pointing to the human cost of exploitative
social relations and the drive for profit. When capitalist mechanisms were increased under his
leadership, they were articulated as concessions imposed on Cuba by its underdevelopment and
by external factors; the revolutionary people were to be protected from their nefarious impacts.
From 2007, even while introducing ‘liberalising’ reforms, Raúl Castro repeatedly asserted that
no one would be abandoned to their fate. The introduction of market mechanisms in the process
of ‘updating the Cuban economy’ has intensified the contradictions between the plan and the
market that are inherent to the process of socialist transition; and it requires political action to
prevent a capitalist logic being incrementally imposed on society.
Chapter 9 on the tightrope Cuba is walking considers debates which took place in the post-
2011 period, as Cuban social scientists and others criticised the economic reforms for their
narrow focus on economic efficiency at the cost of social equity. Objecting to market exchanges,
private accumulation and the emergence of exploitative social relations, they demanded action to
halt growing inequality and marginalisation. Subsequently, licences to the non-state sector were
suspended, the institutional apparatus was strengthened to audit, tax, monitor and restrict the
private sector and the state reinforced its control over production, distribution and prices to
protect the general public.
The socialist state retains the mobilising capacity to support the people through
economic crisis. In 2019, the contradictions inherent in the reform process became less of an
existential threat to Cuban socialism than belligerence from the Trump administration, as this
chapter shows. New US sanctions severely hinder the emerging Cuban private sector, which is
dependent on foreign remittances and US tourism, reducing incomes for participants, tax
revenues for the state and domestic spending in general. However, private interests were only
permitted in non-strategic, marginal areas of the economy. The government is now focused on
strengthening the state sector. The Cuban people still rely on the centralised state apparatus for
most resources and the state retains the institutional capacity to mobilise those to get the
revolutionary people through the current difficulties.
So, the prospects for the revolutionary people of Cuba are deteriorating, at least in the short
term. No one, however, should underestimate the resilience of the revolutionary people, as this
book makes clear, nor doubt the enduring commitment of the Díaz-Canel government to
socialism. The system is neither static nor dogmatic: proceeding cautiously on the Cuban
tightrope it can lean further towards the market, making the ‘concessions’ necessary to bolster
production and productivity, without losing the counter-balance of the state plan, production,
employment and welfare. The domestic challenge is knowing how far it can lean without passing
the tipping point from which the internal logic of the capital accumulation process will, like
gravity, bring the socialist system down.
Beyond that, the situation will be shaped by international factors: will Canada, the EU,
Britain and other nations actively counter the extra-territorial imposition of the US blockade, so
that Cuba can access the finances and resources it needs to invest in its national development?
Will the global solidarity movement and the beneficiaries of Cuban development aid push their
governments to take that stand? Will China and Russia increase trade and investment to offset
losses from the west? Will Latin American governments swing back under control of the left,
opening new avenues for trade and cooperation with Cuba? Will those who find hope in Cuba’s
biotechnology innovations and in its commitment to sustainable development demand that Cuba
is given the space to breathe, to fulfil its potential?
Cuba continues to defy expectations and flout the rules; this small Caribbean nation has had
the audacity to survive six decades of hostility from the United States and its international allies.
The revolutionary people have never been forgiven for dispossessing those who exploited Cuba
and intransigently refusing to compromise their principles and objectives. They have paid a high
price. No doubt, and inevitably, there have been errors, misjudgements, contestation and
hardship. More notable than those, however, has been the ability to redress these issues in each
period, making adjustments to realign the process with the project of social transformation under
way. Revolutionary Cuba, it appears, wrote the rule-book on resilience. However, its best form
of resistance has been not just the assertion of national sovereignty, but the creation of an
alternative model of development that places human welfare and environmental concerns at its
core. That this poor, blockaded island has achieved world-leading human development
indicators, that it mobilises the world’s largest international humanitarian assistance, that it has
contributed to global innovations in medical science, that its contributions in culture and the arts
are admired throughout the world, is an achievement to be examined and respected. We are left
to ask, what could the revolutionary people of Cuba achieve if they were left in peace – if they
were finally given the chance to prosper, and not just survive.

INTERVIEWS AND SELECTED TALKS

I have only listed interviews that are cited directly in this book. The list of ‘talks’ here does not
include seminar or conference presentations from which I have drawn. They refer to talks
organised for a small group of students from the London School of Economics in March/April
2018 in which I participated and had plenty of opportunity to effectively interview the speaker
following the presentation.

Alarcón, Ricardo. Interview in Havana, 27 December 2016.

Alarcón, Ricardo. Talk in Havana, 5 December 2018.
Allende, Isabel. Interview in Havana, 4 January 2017.
Bérriz, Luis. Interview in Havana, 5 July 2017.
Blanco, Humberto. Interview in Havana, 20 December 2016.
Caballero, Idania. Interview in Havana, 7 July 2017.
Chomón Mediavilla, Faure. Interview in Havana, 16 February 2005.
Correa Delgado, Rafael. Interview in London, 28 October 2009.
Coyula, Miguel. Talk in Havana, 29 March 2018.
Curbelo Alonso, Alfredo. Interview in Havana, 5 July 2017.
Escobar, Cristina. Talk in Havana, 28 March 2018.
Freire Cazañas, Ernesto. Interview in Havana, mid-September 2011.
Fundora, Geidys. Interview in Havana, 22 December 2016.
General manager, Mariel TC. Interview in Havana, March 2018.
Gómez Cabezas, Enrique Javier. Interview in Havana, 16 April 2018.
González Gutiérrez, Alfredo. Interview in Havana, 1 February 2006.
Google employee. Interview, 14 May 2019.
Graduates of the Higher Institute of International Relations. Talk in Havana, 2 March 2018.
Hernández, Rafael. Interview in Havana, 4 January 2017.
Lage Dávila, Agustín. Interview in Havana, 7 July 2017.
Lee, Kelvin. Interview, 3 October 2017.
Munster, Blanca. Interview in Havana, 28 March 2018.
Navarro, Alberto. Talk in Havana, March 2018.
Pérez Ávila, Jorge. Interview in Havana, 6 July 2017.
Pérez, Hassan. Interview in Havana, 6 March 2018.
Pérez, Hassan. Interview in Havana, 8 March 2018.
Rodríguez, Anayansi. Interview in New York, 27 March 2017.
Rodríguez, José Luis. Interview in Havana, 20 December 2016.
Rodríguez, José Luis. Interview in Havana, 7 July 2017.
Rodríguez, Raúl. Talk in Havana, 29 March 2018.
Sáenz, Tirso. Interview in Havana, 7 January 2005.
Sáenz, Tirso. Interview in Havana, 20 February 2006.
Serrano, Kenia. Interview in Havana, 4 January 2017.
Serrano, Kenia. Interview in Havana, 4 April 2018.
Torres, Ricardo. Talk in Havana, 30 March 2018.
Velázquez, Edison. Interview in Havana, 21 January 2006.
Valdés Gravalosa, Juan. Interview in Havana, 22 February 2006.
Vidal, Josefina. Interview in Havana, 28 December 2016.

NOTES

INTRODUCTION: ‘¡SOMOS CUBA! ¡SOMOS CONTINUIDAD!’

1. Telesur tv, ‘Cubanos reconocen cercanía del pdte. Miguel Díaz-Canel’, 14 September
2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfslhCNj5Hm.

2. See, for example, the conclusion to Díaz-Canel’s speech at the closing session of the
Union of Cuban Writers and Artists (UNEAC) IX Congress, in Havana’s Convention
Center, 30 June 2019. Granma International, 1 July 2019.
http://en.granma.cu/cuba/2019-07-01/. On Twitter, the hashtags #SomosCuba (We are
Cuba) and #SomosContinuidad (We are continuity) have become standard use among
revolutionary Cubans, including members of the government.

3. Miguel Díaz-Canel, cited by Telesur, ‘Cubanos reconocen’.

4. Che Guevara, speech at the Central University of Las Villas, 28 December 1959.
 https://blackopinion.co.za/2016/04/22/che-guevara-speaks-decolonising-university/.

5. Díaz-Canel received 603 out of 604 possible votes: 99.83%.

6. However, Raúl Castro remains First Secretary of the Cuban Communist Party, an
important position that he is likely to hold until 2021.

7. In 2006, the World Wide Fund for Nature identified Cuba as the only country in the
world achieving sustainable development, as discussed in Chapter 5 on the Energy
Revolution.

8. Isabel Allende, Interview in Havana, 4 January 2017.

9. Fidel Castro speech in Camaguey on Moncada Day, 26 July 1989.

http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/castro/db/1989/19890726-1.html.

10. Helen Yaffe, Che Guevara: The Economics of Revolution, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

11. Kelvin Lee, Interview via Skype, 3 October 2017.

12. Hal Klepak, Raúl Castro and Cuba: A Military Story, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, 61.

13. Rafael Hernández, ‘Looking at Cuba: Notes towards a Discussion’, Boundary 2, 29:3
2002, 125.

14. For example, Julia Sweig’s otherwise useful book What Everyone Needs to Know about
Cuba, Oxford University Press, 2009, overlooks most of the developments which are
the focus of this book.

15. All translations from Spanish to English are my own.

16. Other social scientists interviewed include: Blanca Munster, Ernesto Domínguez López,
Geydis Fundora, Humberto Blanco and José Martin. I also recorded talks about Cuban
development with Raúl Rodríguez, Miguel Coyula, Ricardo Torres, Ricardo González,
Anicia García, Juan Triana Cordoví, Olivia Álvarez Méndez, Lázaro Peña, Luis René
Fernández. On the issue of Cuban health internationalism and global health security I
benefited from the contributions to an academic seminar by Jorge Pérez Ávila, Jorge
Alfredo Carballo Concepción, Alejandro Lage, Luisa Iñiguez Rojas and Olga Rosa
González Martín.
17. This clarification is made in response to a comment received from a peer reviewer of the
manuscript.

18. For more on the summer 2019 salary rises see Helen Yaffe, ‘Cuban Workers Celebrate
Salary Rise from New Economic Measures’, Counterpunch, 19 July 2019.
https://www.counterpunch.org/.

19. Allende, Interview in Havana, 4 January 2017.

20. With the exception of Dr Kelvin Lee cited above, they requested anonymity.

21. Many useful insights came from presenters at the Latin American Studies Association
(LASA) Annual Congress in Boston in May 2019, as referenced in the text.
Unfortunately, most of the Cuban participants at LASA were denied visas to enter the
United States so could not present their papers.

22. In addition, Cubanology tends to dismiss sources from Cuba as ‘ideological’ or

unreliable, while dissidents enjoy a special status regardless of their previous
ideological or institutional position. For a discussion of the politics of Cuba studies see
chapter 2, Helen Yaffe, ‘Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara: Socialist Political Economy and
Economic Management in Cuba 1959–1965’, PhD thesis, London: London School of
Economics, 2007. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/2311/1/U615258.pdf.

23. In the fundamental neoclassical paradigm, economies are static, tending towards
equilibrium, operated by rational men engaged in a competitive ‘game’. There is no
explanation of how the economy evolved; no concept of development; no concept of
colonialism, neo-colonialism or imperialism; no notion of monopoly, oligarchy or
class. Indeed, there is no theory of value (as distinct from price), so the idea of surplus
value produced from the exploitation of workers is rejected. These omissions are
significant because they are central to the Cuban approach.

24. The Cubans reply, ‘lift the blockade then, remove our excuse, and let’s see what
happens’.

25. Rafael Correa Delgado, Interview in London, 28 October 2009.

26. Nelson P. Valdés, ‘Revolution and Paradigms: A Critical Assessment of Cuban

Studies’, in Andrew Zimbalist (ed.) Cuban Political Economy: Controversies in
Cubanology, London: Westview Press, 1988, 184.
27. See particularly work by Peter Roman, D.L. Raby and Arnold August.

28. Steve Ludlam, ‘Regime Change and Human Rights: A Perspective on the Cuba
Polemic’, Bulletin of Latin American Research, 31:s1, 110–26 2012.

29. Article 1 of the Cuban Constitution of 2019 states that: ‘Cuba is a democratic,
independent and sovereign socialist State of law and social justice, organized by all
and for the good of all, as an indivisible and unitary republic, founded by the labor,
dignity, humanism, and ethic of its citizens for the enjoyment of liberty, equity, justice,
and equality, solidarity, and individual and collective well-being and prosperity.’
Article 18 says, ‘The Republic of Cuba is governed by a socialist economic system
based on ownership by all people of the fundamental means of production as the
primary form of property as well as the planned direction of the economy, which
considers, regulates, and monitors the economy according to the interests of the
society.’ The preamble to the Constitution commits Cuba to ‘never returning to
capitalism as a regime sustained by the exploitation of man by man. . .’.
www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Cuba_2019D?lang=en#1.

30. Geidys Fundora, Interview in Havana, 22 December 2016.

31. José Luis Rodriguez, Interview in Havana, 20 December 2016.

32. Al Campbell, in Al Campbell (ed.) Cuban Economists on the Cuban Economy,

University Press of Florida, 2013, 2.

33. In fact, when analysts have awarded a monetary value to all those goods and services
which the Cuban population receives free or heavily subsidised from the government,
it turns out that they are pretty well off compared to many neighbouring populations.

34. In this respect, Cuba is no different with other small trade-dependent nations. That Cuba
has sought government-to-government relations from their foreign partners, mainly
other ‘socialist’ or state-dominated economies, reflects the Cuban’s aversion to the
private/capitalist market.

1. THE CHALLENGE OF (SOCIALIST) DEVELOPMENT

1. The first industrialised nations also have many labels, including: developed, imperialist,
 advanced capitalist, First World and Global North.

2. Adam Smith’s theory of ‘absolute advantage’ in international trade was superseded by

David Ricardo’s theory of ‘comparative advantage’, and the latter was adopted by
neoclassical economists, but detached from the underlying principle, the labour theory
of value, which made it work.

3. From their earlier assertions about the revolutionising impact of the capitalist mode of
production, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels moved on to reassess the effect of the
international expansion of British capitalism on its colonies. Marx observed that in
Ireland, Britain’s oldest colony, when the landed aristocracy drove peasants off the
land the absence of alternative industrial development meant they were plunged into
poverty and famine. Marx and Engels, Ireland and the Irish Question, 1978, 93–4. In
1880 Marx described Britain’s role in India, Britain’s largest colony, as ‘an act of
English vandalism which pushed the indigenous people not forward but backwards’.
Marx, letter to V.I. Zasulich, March 1881, Selected Works, 1961, 241. They concluded
that capitalist social relations and productive forces will only be developed in those
sectors and to the extent that they serve foreign capital in extracting surplus value
[profit] and raw materials or creating export markets as required.

4. Building upon Hobson’s 1902 Imperialism: A Study and applying Marx’s analysis
described above, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin produced his theory of imperialism as the
highest stage of capitalism. He defined five core features which included:
concentration of production and capital, generating monopolies; merging bank and
industrial capital, creating finance capital and a financial oligarchy; export of capital;
formation of capitalist monopolies; world territorial division. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin,
Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, 1917, Marxists Internet Archive.
www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/

5. In the 1960s and 1970s Marxists, neo-Marxists and dependency theorists debated how the
relationship between the advanced capitalist countries and the so-called Third World
impacted on development, focusing on Latin America.

6. That is imperialism in the Leninist sense, as distinct from colonialism and from the
region’s early integration into world markets.

7. Edward Boorstein, The Economic Transformation of Cuba, Modern Reader Paperback,

1969, 1.
8. The structural link between the US domination of the Cuban economy, the corruption and
lack of patriotism from Cuban elites, and the island’s socioeconomic problems were
clearly elucidated by Fidel Castro in his famous court speech of 1953, ‘History Will
Absolve Me’. Despite this, most Cubanologists have lamely argued that the
Revolution’s turn to socialism and its integration into the socialist bloc was merely a
tactic adopted by Fidel Castro to secure personal power. See, for example, Samuel
Farber, The Origins of the Cuban Revolution Reconsidered, University of North
Carolina Press, 2006, and Luis Martínez-Fernández, Revolutionary Cuba: A History,
University Press of Florida, 2014.

9. This section draws on my own previously published material, particularly Yaffe, Che
Guevara, and Ernesto Domínguez López and Helen Yaffe, ‘The Deep Historical Roots
of Cuban Anti-imperialism’ in Third World Quarterly, 38:11, 2017, 2517–535.

10. Cited by Philip Foner, A History of Cuba and its Relations with the United States, Vol.
1, New York: International Publishers, 1962, 145.

11. Foner, History of Cuba, Vol. 2, 20–29.

12. Foner, History of Cuba, Vol. 2, 241.

13. William Appleman Williams, Roots of the Modern American Empire: A Study of the
Growth and Shaping of Social Consciousness in a Marketplace Society, Random
House, 1969, 5.

14. Louis A. Pérez, Jr. Cuba and the United States: Ties of Singular Intimacy, University of
Georgia Press, 2003, 83–84.

15. Cited by Richard Gott, Cuba: A New History, Yale University Press, 2004, 111.

16. Steve Cushion, A Hidden History of the Cuban Revolution: How the Working Class
Shaped the Guerrilla Victory, Monthly Review Press, 2016, 45.

17. US Department of Commerce, ‘Investment in Cuba: Information for United States

Businessmen’, Washington, DC: GPO, July 1956, 9–10.

18. Arturo Guzmán Pascual, ‘La Acción del Comandante Ernesto Guevara en el Campo
Industrial’, Revista Bimestre Cubana, 8, 1998, Sociedad Económica Amigos del País,
 29.

19. The Jones–Costigan Sugar Act, was passed in May 1934.

20. Manuel Moreno Fraginals, ‘Plantation Economies and Societies in the Spanish
Caribbean, 1860–1930’, in Leslie Bethell (ed.), The Cambridge History of Latin
America, Vol. 4, 1986, 190.

21. US Department of Commerce, Investment in Cuba, 37. Cuban businesses owned three-
quarters of the island’s sugar mills, producing nearly 60% of its sugar. This figure
demonstrates that foreign-owned mills were more productive.

22. US Department of Commerce, Investment in Cuba, 103.

23. US Department of Commerce, Investment in Cuba, 10.

24. As claimed by Jaime Schulicki, Cuba: From Columbus to Castro, Pergamon-Brassey’s,

1986, 135. This is a reference to Walt Rostow’s theory of development.

25. Boorstein, Economic Transformation, 6.

26. Jean-Paul Sartre, Sartre on Cuba, Ballantine Books, 1961, 12.

27. Boorstein, Economic Transformation, 6–7.

28. Cited by Marifeli Pérez-Stable, The Cuban Revolution: Origins, Course and Legacy,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, 31.

29. US Department of Commerce, Investment in Cuba, 23–4.

30. Theodore MacDonald, Hippocrates in Havana: An Analytical and Expository Account

of the Development of the Cuban System of Healthcare from the Revolution to the
Present Day, Bolivar Books, 1995, 50.

31. US Department of Commerce, Investment in Cuba, 187.

32. US Department of Commerce, Investment in Cuba, 181, and MacDonald, Hippocrates

in Havana, 59.

33. In the post-Soviet era a further three shifts in economic management have taken place:
the structural changes and reforms introduced during the Special Period; the financial
 recentralisation and generalisation of the Enterprise Perfection System in the 2000s
and onwards; and the process of updating the economic and social model introduced
from 2011. This brings the total to eight.

34. This issue is explained in greater detail in my previous publications. See Yaffe, ‘Che
Guevara and the Great Debate, Past and Present’ in Science & Society, 76: 1, 2012,
11–40; Yaffe, Che Guevara, 45–69.

35. See Yaffe, Che Guevara, for a comprehensive analysis of the Budgetary Finance
System.

36. From as early as 1962, Guevara warned that the USSR was on that trajectory, and by
1966 he warned that, without a dramatic policy change, capitalism would return to the
Soviet Union.

37. JUCEPLAN worked according to the national development strategy which was
formulated by the government’s Economic Commission on which sat Guevara
(MININD), Rodríguez (INRA) and Osvaldo Dorticos (president of Cuba).

38. See Yaffe, ‘Che Guevara and the Great Debate’, 11–40 and Yaffe, Che Guevara, 45–69.

39. Tirso Sáenz, Interview in Havana, 7 January 2005.

40. Alfredo González Gutiérrez, Interview in Havana, 1 February 2006.

41. Faure Chomón Mediavilla, Interview in Havana, 16 February 2005.

42. Fidel Castro, Report of the Central Committee of the CPC to the First Congress, La
Habana: Department of Revolutionary Orientation, 1977, 149–51.

43. José Luis Rodríguez, ‘Fifty Years of Revolution in the Cuban Economy’ in Campbell
(ed.) Cuban Economists, 30. Guevara had criticised both imperialist and socialist
countries for basing trade prices on those set in the international capitalist market,
which are determined by the operation of the law of value. Trade between socialist and
underdeveloped countries should not perpetuate the structural inequalities between
countries resulting from differential levels of development, he argued. See Guevara,
‘At the Afro-Asian conference in Algeria’,
https://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1965/02/24.htm.
44. José Luis Rodríguez, Interview in Havana, 20 December 2016.

45. Paul Sweezy, ‘15th and 20th Anniversaries for Cuba’, Monthly Review, September
1973, 25:4.

46. Andrew Zimbalist, ‘An Overview’, in Zimbalist (ed.), Cuban Political Economy:
Controversies in Cubanology, Westview Press, 1988, 9.

47. José Luis Rodríguez, Interview in Havana, 7 July 2017.

48. Brian H. Pollitt and G.B. Hagelberg, ‘The Cuban Sugar Economy in the Soviet Era and
After’ in Cambridge Journal of Economics, 18:6, December 1994, 564; Carmelo
Mesa-Lago, ‘Cuba’s Economic Counter-reform (rectificatión): Causes, Policies and
Effects’, Journal of Communist Studies, 5:4, 1989, 131.

49. Rodríguez, Interview in Havana, 7 July 2017.

50. Mesa-Lago, ‘Cuba’s Economic Counter-reform’, 107.

51. Mesa-Lago, ‘Cuba’s Economic Counter-reform’, 108.

52. Mesa-Lago, ‘Cuba’s Economic Counter-reform’, 118. Between 1980 and 1985, annual
growth in Cuba’s non-traditional exports reached 18.8%. Zimbalist and Brundenius,
The Cuban Economy, 147.

53. Allende, Interview in Havana, 4 January 2017.

54. Zimbalist and Brundenius, The Cuban Economy, 129.

55. Rodríguez, Interview in Havana, 7 July 2017.

56. Edison Velázquez, Interview in Havana, 21 January 2006. Fidel Castro had received
two secret documents from Guevara critiquing Soviet political economy: a letter
spelling out his concerns more directly than in his published articles; and his critical
notes on the Soviet Manual of Political Economy, written between 1965 and 1966 and
not made public until 2006.

57. Fidel Castro, ‘Main Report to the Second Congress of the Cuban Communist Party’,
1980, cited by Thomas Angotti, ‘The Cuban Revolution: a new turn’ in Nature,
Society, and Thought, 1, 538. The full speech is available here:
 http://www1.lanic.utexas.edu/project/castro/db/1980/19801217.html but Angotti’s
translation is better.

58. Angotti, A New Turn, 538.

59. Cited by Mesa-Lago, ‘Cuba’s Economic Counter-reform’, 102.

60. Zimbalist and Brundenius, The Cuban Economy, 128. By 1985, 3.2% of the labour force
were small private farmers, 2.1% cooperative members, 1.6% were self-employed and
the remaining 93.2% were employed in the state sector. Mesa-Lago, ‘Cuba’s Economic
Counter-reform’, 105.

61. Cuba is often referred to as a one-party state. Political parties which oppose the socialist
character of the Cuban state are not given public space. However, the Cuban
Communist Party does not stand candidates in elections, which are non-party elections.
There are many different sectoral-based organisations in Cuba which do have
representatives in the Organs of People’s Power.

62. Money plays no part in Cuban elections, and advertising is confined to a one-page sheet
of the candidate’s biographical information. Participatory democracy is also practised
through mass organisations and through regular, unprecedented public consultations on
new legislation and planned reforms.

63. Zimbalist and Brundenius, The Cuban Economy, 128.

64. By 1991, 2,077 Cubans had died in Angola.

65. The Central Group was composed of vice-presidents of the Council of Ministers, all
ministers, the president of JUCEPLAN, provincial heads of Popular Power, and the
heads of departments of the Communist Party. It functioned until 1988.

66. Antoni Kapcia, ‘Back to Basics: The Deferred Session of the Third Congress of the
Cuban Communist Party’, Journal of Communist Studies, 3:3, 1987, 311.

67. Fidel Castro, ‘Discurso en la Clausura de la Sesión Diferida del Tercer Congreso del
Partido Comunista de Cuba, en el Teatro “Carlos Marx”,’ 2 December 1986.

68. Kapcia, ‘Back to Basics’, 312.

69. Fidel Castro, ‘Discurso pronunciado por el Comandante en Jefe Fidel Castro Ruz,
 Primer Secretario del Comité Central del Partido Comunista de Cuba y Presidente de
los Consejos de Estado y de Ministros, en el acto central por el XX Aniversario de la
caída en combate del comandante Ernesto Che Guevara, efectuado en la ciudad de
Pinar del Río, el 8 de octubre de 1987, “Año 29 de la Revolución”.
http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/1987/esp/f081087e.html.

70. Fidel Castro, ‘Discurso pronunciado’, 8 October 1987.

71. Fidel Castro, ‘Discurso pronunciado’, 8 October 1987.

72. Mesa-Lago, ‘Cuba’s Economic Counter-reform’, 104 and 114.

73. In 1974 over 40% of the revenues of the Organisation of Oil Exporting Countries
(OPEC) were deposited in European banks in the form of Eurocurrency deposits,
known as petrodollars.

74. Rodríguez, ‘Fifty Years’, 30.

75. The current account surplus of oil producers soared from USD 3 billion in 1978 to USD
115 billion in 1980, while the current account deficits of non-oil-producing developing
economies ballooned from USD 39 billion to USD 100 billion. Deficits were met by
more international borrowing, but now under far worse conditions with rising interest
rates. The United States had put up its interest rates, from 9.5% in August 1979 to 16%
by May 1981. The cost of servicing existing debt was further increased by the
appreciation of the US dollar by 25% from 1980 to 1982. In 1981 alone, Mexico’s debt
had increased from USD 55 billion to USD 80 billion. In August 1982, the Mexican
government announced a default on its sovereign debt; Argentina, Brazil and Chile
followed suit. Between 1981 and 1984, Latin American GDP fell by almost 10%. In
just two years, 1983 and 1984, the net flow of financial resources out of Latin America
was a devastating USD 56.7 billion. See Catherine R. Schenk, International Economic
Relations since 1945, Taylor and Francis, 2011, chapter 4 ‘Years of Crisis’.

76. Rodríguez, Interview in Havana, 7 July 2017.

77. Rodríguez, ‘Fifty Years’, 31.

78. Castro Ruz, cited by David Yaffe, ‘Is There a Solution to the Debt Crisis?’ Fight
Racism! Fight Imperialism! 59, 15 May–15 June 1986.
79. Gott, Cuba: A New History, 273–4. Gott points out that the Soviets continued to sell
Cuba conventional weapons between 1983 and 1990. According to some sources, the
Soviet defence guarantee ended earlier.

80. Mesa-Lago, ‘Cuba’s Economic Counter-reform’, 128.

81. See Klepak, Raúl Castro and Cuba.

82. Rodríguez, Interview in Havana, 7 July 2017. He added that, despite rules about what
should happen to shared resources, these were simply appropriated by those who took
control. ‘The building of CMEA that was in Moscow suddenly became the property of
the mayor of Moscow.’

83. Rodríguez, Interview in Havana, 7 July 2017.

84. Gott, Cuba: A New History, 274.

85. Kapcia, Back to Basics, 312.

86. Zimbalist and Brundenius, The Cuban Economy, 129.

87. Zimbalist and Brundenius, The Cuban Economy, 187.

88. Mesa-Lago, ‘Cuba’s Economic Counter-reform’, 108–9.

89. Guevara had been involved in a similar task of revising employment categories and pay-
scales which, after two years’ work, produced a new salary scale in 1964. See Yaffe,
Che Guevara, 95–8.

90. Mesa-Lago, ‘Cuba’s Economic Counter-reform’, 121.

91. Rodríguez, ‘Fifty Years’, 33.

92. For an extensive analysis of Guevara’s views on these issues see Yaffe, Che Guevara.

93. Mesa-Lago, ‘Cuba’s Economic Counter-reform’, 122.

94. Fidel Castro, 8 October 1987.

95. Fidel Castro, 8 October 1987.

96. These figures are disputed by Mesa-Lago in ‘Cuba’s Economic Counter-reform’.

97. Mesa-Lago, ‘Cuba’s Economic Counter-reform’, 106.

98. Zimbalist and Brundenius, The Cuban Economy, 145.

99. Rodríguez, Interview in Havana, 7 July 2016.

100. Mesa-Lago, ‘Cuba’s Economic Counter-reform’, 120.

101. Miren Uriarte, Cuba: Social Policy at the Crossroads: Maintaining Priorities,
Transforming Practice, An Oxfam America Report, 45.

102. Angotti, ‘The Cuban Revolution’, 128.

103. Oscar U-Echevarría Vallejo, ‘The Evolution of Cuba’s Macroeconomy: From the
Triumph of the Revolution through the Special Period’, in Campbell (ed.) Cuban
Economists, 76.

104. Angotti, ‘The Cuban Revolution’, 128.

2. SURVIVING THE CRISIS: THE SPECIAL PERIOD

1. Fidel Castro speech, 26 July 1989.

http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/castro/db/1989/19890726-1.html.

2. In 1994, Rodríguez was named Minister of Finances and Prices, then became Minister of
the Economy and Planning in 1995, a position he held until 2009. Subsequently he
served as Vice President of the Executive Committee of the Council of Ministers and
among other posts.

3. Rodríguez, Interview in Havana, 7 July 2017.

4. Rodríguez, ‘Fifty Years’, 34–5. Initially a short-term economic shock was expected, but
by October 1991 the Cuban Communist Party Congress anticipated a deep and
prolonged crisis.

5. Susan Yaffe, ‘The Gains of the Revolution are Unique’, Fight Racism! Fight
Imperialism! October/November 1994, 5.
6. I have been told that during this period even British Embassy personnel traded the
tomatoes grown in their garden for fish at the harbour.

7. Yaffe, ‘Gains of the Revolution’.

8. Susan Yaffe and Helen Yaffe, ‘Letter from Cuba’, Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!
December 1995/January 1996, 8.

9. Yaffe and Yaffe, ‘Letter from Cuba’

10. Rodríguez, ‘Fifty Years’, 37–8.

11. Rectification was as much an attempt to arrest the political stagnation of the socialist
project as to address economic weaknesses, a process interrupted by the new crisis.

12. Information draws from Emily Morris, ‘Cuban Economic Policy and Performance,
1990–2000: A Case Study in Economic ‘Transition”’, PhD thesis, University of
London, 2011, 44–50; Mavis Álvarez, Martin Bourque, Fernando Funes et al,
‘Surviving the Crisis in Cuba: The Second Agrarian Reform and Sustainable
Agriculture’, in Peter Rosset, Raj Patel and Michael Courville (eds.), Promised Land:
Competing Visions of Agrarian Reform, 232; Klepak, Raúl Castro and Cuba, 57;
Uriarte, Cuba: Social Policy, 9.

13. Prices were set according to the 5-year average on the world market prior to
transactions. The measure protected the least-developed member states from the
historical relative deterioration in the terms of trade for primary product exports.

14. Cuban GDP data for this period is problematic and involves conversion from the
Material Product System of accounts applied in the socialist countries.

15. The blockade was estimated to cost Cuba USD 30 billion between 1960 and 1990, an
average annual cost of USD 3 billion, equivalent to over 20% of GDP in 1993.
Rodríguez, ‘Fifty Years’, 35.

16. The Mack Amendment of October 1990, the Torricelli Act in October 1992 and the
Helms–Burton Act of March 1996.

17. Information from Nancy A. Quiñones, ‘Cuba’s Insertion in the International Economy
since 1990’, in Campbell (ed.) Cuban Economists, 91 and 105; Oscar U-Echevarría
 Vallejo, ‘Cuba’s Macroeconomy’ in Campbell (ed.) Cuban Economists, 71; Morris,
‘Cuban Economic Policy’, 134; Ángela Ferriol, ‘Fighting Poverty: Cuba’s Experience’
in Campbell (ed.) Cuban Economists, 17; Claes Brundenius, ‘Whither the Cuban
Economy after Recovery?’, in Journal of Latin American Studies, 2002, 34, 367;
Uriarte, Cuba: Social Policy, 3. The decrease of real wages was greater than the fall in
consumption because a large part of consumption was met by state provision and self-
provisioning of food.

18. Vallejo, ‘Cuba’s Macroeconomy’, 76.

19. Morris, ‘Cuban Economic Policy’, 129–30.

20. Imports were 10 million tons in 1990 and 8 million in 1991.

21. Rodríguez, Interview in Havana, 7 July 2017.

22. A new Unitary Plan of Economic and Social Development was introduced.

23. The Cuban peso (CUP) fell from around CUP 7 to USD 1 in 1990 to over CUP 100 to
USD 1 by late 1993. Morris, ‘Cuban Economic Policy’, 131–3.

24. This and following information from Morris, ‘Cuban Economic Policy’, 116–17;
Rodriguez, ‘Fifty Years’, 39.

25. Rodríguez, ‘Fifty Years’, 40.

26. Cited by Morris, ‘Cuban Economic Policy’, 166.

27. Fidel Castro, cited by Rodríguez, ‘Fifty Years’, 37.

28. Rodríguez, ‘Fifty Years’, 36. A minority among Cuban economists did, and still do,
advocate an increasing transition to capitalism, as discussed in Chapter 9.

29. See Chapter 3.

30. Pedro Sánchez, Dual Currency in Cuba, pamphlet, Agencia de Información Nacional
Cuba, 2.

31. Fidel Castro, speech, 26 July 1993.

http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/1993/esp/f260793e.html.
32. Rodríguez, ‘Fifty Years’, 41.

33. Susan Eckstein, ‘The Immigrant Divide: How Cuban Americans Changed the US and
Their Homeland’, in Susan Eckstein and Adil Najam (eds.), How Immigrants Impact
their Homeland, Duke University Press, 2013, 222.

34. Susan Yaffe, ‘Gains of the Revolution’.

35. Morris, ‘Cuban Economic Policy’, 176, 178. Morris points out that no other ex-CMEA
country currency rebounded like Cuba’s between 1994 and 1996.

36. Rodríguez, ‘Fifty Years’, 41. Payment in CUC was an award for productivity increases.

37. Net current transfers increased yearly from less than USD 50 million in 1992 to USD
650 million in 1995. Morris, ‘Cuban Economic Policy’, 156.

38. Uriate, ‘Cuba: Social Policy’, 28. Due to the US blockade, a large proportion of
remittances are transported via visitors to Cuba, so figures are necessarily estimates.

39. Morris, ‘Cuban Economic Policy’, 223.

40. Information from Álvarez et al., ‘Surviving the Crisis’, 233–9. The usufruct model was
expanded with the 2008 measures introduced by Raúl Castro to transfer idle state land
to individuals and families.

41. The First Agrarian Reform Law nationalised 5.5 million hectares and turned 1.1 million
hectares over to farmers. Álvarez et al., ‘Surviving the Crisis’, 230. In 1995, my sister
and I visited a newly formed UBPC which had 1,000 hectares of sugarcane plus 50
hectares of land for the workers’ individual use. We wrote: ‘The bank lends the farm
money to buy materials cheaply from the state. After the harvest, the workers sell their
produce to the government, pay back the bank and 50 per cent of the profits are shared
out among the workers with consideration made for the workers’ contribution and
efforts. The directors of the farm then discuss with the workers their ideas for social
projects using the other 50 per cent of the gains . . . the priority is housing. Social
activities are also planned for workers and their families.’ Yaffe and Yaffe, ‘Letter
from Cuba’.

42. Forms of state farms were: 1) animal breeding, large-scale pig and poultry production
and other mechanised activities; 2) farms belonging to the Revolutionary Armed
 Forces and Ministry of the Interior; 3) self-provisioning farms at workplaces and
public institutions; and 4) the New-Type State Farms (known as GENT farms), which
initiated a more gradual transition from state to cooperative use. Collective non-state
farms were: 1) Agricultural Production Cooperatives (CPAs), set up in 1977 by private
farmers voluntarily joining individual lands and resources to raise efficiency; and 2)
the UBPCs set up from 1993. Individual production was divided between: 1) Credit
and Service Cooperatives, in which independent farmers work their own land but
cooperate to rent machinery and equipment and receive credit and services from state
agencies; 2) individual farmers in usufruct; and 3) private farmers working their own
land. The mixed sector involved joint ventures with foreign companies, mainly in
citrus exports. See Álvarez et al, ‘Surviving the Crisis’.

43. It was perhaps indicative that Raúl Castro made the announcement, not Fidel. There
were rumours of a heated debate among the Revolution’s leadership in which Fidel had
to concede.

44. Rodríguez, ‘Fifty Years’, 44.

45. Morris, ‘Cuban Economic Policy’, 172–3. According to Morris, Cuba was the only ex-
CMEA country where consumer prices fell.

46. Uriarte, Cuba: Social Policy, 15.

47. This and following from Morris, ‘Cuban Economic Policy’, 163. Competition with state
enterprises was not encouraged.

48. Rodríguez, ‘Fifty Years’, 44.

49. A 2003 survey recorded an average monthly income for the self-employed of CUP
1,326 after taxes, compared to CUP 273 in the state sector. Morris, ‘Cuban Economic
Policy’, 164.

50. Rodríguez, ‘Fifty Years’, 42.

51. Morris, ‘Cuban Economic Policy’, 168.

52. Rodríguez, ‘Fifty Years’, 42. Cuba’s fiscal deficit soared again from 2008, as discussed
in the chapter on Raúl’s reforms.
53. US Department of Commerce, ‘Investment in Cuba’, 37.

54. Quiñones, ‘Cuba’s Insertion’, 93.

55. Morris, ‘Cuban Economic Policy’, 191.

56. The island’s sovereign risk rating was below junk status. The US blockade was
augmented to prevent private capital from other countries investing in, or trading with,
Cuba. The European Union introduced its hostile Common Position in 1996, so
renegotiation of Cuba’s large Paris Club debt was impossible.

57. Quiñones, ‘Cuba’s Insertion’, 94.

58. Uriarte, Cuba: Social Policy, 26–7.

59. The contribution to GDP of Cuba’s deals with foreign investors rose from 1.1% in 1994
to 14.5% in 2008 and the share of exports increased from 4.5% to 17.6%. Quiñones,
‘Cuba’s Insertion’, 96.

60. Brundenius, ‘Whither the Cuban Economy’, 374.

61. Quiñones, ‘Cuba’s Insertion’, 104; Morris, ‘Cuban Economic Policy’, 212.

62. Morris, ‘Cuban Economic Policy’, 213.

63. Quiñones, ‘Cuba’s Insertion’, 103; Morris, ‘Cuban Economic Policy’, 213.

64. Many tourists from the United States entered Cuba via third countries.

65. This and following information from Morris, ‘Cuban Economic Policy’, 216 and 207.

66. Free trade zones are expected to offer a competitive advantage to foreign investors.
However, without access to the US market, and with Cuban legislation prohibiting
companies from undercutting competitors by reducing wages, the benefits of Cuba’s
free trade zones were questionable.

67. Quiñones, ‘Cuba’s Insertion’, 105.

68. Quiñones, ‘Cuba’s Insertion’, 104; Morris, ‘Cuban Economic Policy’, 213. Domestic
sugar production fell by more than half in the same period. By 2008, sugar production
was down to 1.4 million tons.
69. These three products rose from 11.2% of goods exports in 1990 to 55.5% in 2009.
Quiñones, ‘Cuba’s Insertion’, 103.

70. Vallejo, ‘Cuba’s Macroeconomy’, 83.

71. Cuban services exports rose from USD 2.64 billion in 2000 to USD 7.28 billion in 2005.
Figures from Elda Molina Díaz, ‘Cuba: Economic Restructuring, Recent Trends and
Major Challenges’, posted 13 April 2009, MR Online:
https://mronline.org/2009/04/13/cuba-economic-restructuring-recent-trends-and-major-
challenges/.

72. Rodríguez, ‘Fifty Years’, 45.

73. Morris, ‘Cuban Economic Policy’, 209.

74. Source: ECLAC: ‘Cuba. Evolucion Economica en el 2005 y Perspectivas para el 2006’,
cited by Molina Díaz, ‘Cuba: Economic Restructuring’, 7.

75. Thus converting Cuban’s CUP wage into dollars for country comparisons reveals very
little about comparative living standards, although it is an easy trick for Cuba’s critics.

76. To reduce costs, the military turned to food production; by 1991, it was meeting 60% of
its needs.

77. Klepak, Raúl Castro and Cuba, 59.

78. Rodríguez, ‘Fifty Years’, 45.

79. Morris, ‘Cuban Economic Policy’, 119–120.

80. Social distribution policies, such as the ration book, had the same effect as the benefit
was attached to residence. In addition, a comprehensive public welfare infrastructure
exists throughout the country.

81. Morris, ‘Cuban Economic Policy’, 217.

82. Uriarte, Cuba: Social Policy, 64.

83. Blanca Munster, Interview in Havana, 28 March 2018. The training was extended to
women from various Latin American women’s organisations, especially from Mexico,
 Guatemala and Venezuela who sent people to Cuba.

84. Uriarte, Cuba: Social Policy, 16. Meanwhile, Uriarte points out that one in ten children
in Latin America works for a living before they are 14 years old.

85. Susan Yaffe, ‘Gains of the Revolution’. In 1996 we left Cuba for Mexico, Venezuela
and Colombia, three far wealthier countries where children beg for food as a matter of
survival.

86. Vallejo, ‘Cuba’s Macroeconomy’, 76.

87. Rodríguez, ‘Fifty Years’, 44. By 1999, productivity had increased 3.3% per year, energy
use per unit of national output decreased by 7.7% per year and investment efficiency
had improved 74%.

88. Uriarte, Cuba: Social Policy, 32.

89. Average calorie intake fell from 2,845 in kilocalories 1989 to 1,863 in 1993. Quiñones,
‘Cuba’s Insertion’, 91. Consumption of the poorest Cubans was estimated to be under
1,500 calories.

90. Morris, ‘Cuban Economic Policy’, 140–41.

91. As reported by Manuel Franco, Usama Bilal, Pedro Orduñez, Mikhail Benet, Alain
Morejón, Benjamín Caballero, Joan F. Kennelly, Richard S. Cooper, ‘Population-wide
weight loss and regain in relation to diabetes burden and cardiovascular mortality in
Cuba 1980–2010: Repeated cross sectional surveys and ecological comparison of
secular trends’, British Medical Journal, 2013, 346, f1515
https://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f1515.

92. Morris, ‘Cuban Economic Policy’, 140–41.

93. No one died from this and the incidence declined substantially after the Ministry of
Public Health issued multivitamin supplements to the population from June 1993.

94. Uriarte, Cuba: Social Policy, 29. The divorce rate returned to pre-crisis levels by 1998.

95. Unfortunately, bikes were left to rust as alternative transport improved.

96. Uriarte, Cuba: Social Policy, 23.

97. Susan Yaffe, ‘Gains of the Revolution’.

98. In a subsequent interview he explained that on hearing about the disturbance: ‘I felt that
my first duty was to be there where the riots were, with the people. Well, there was not
one more stone, not one more shot. I told our escorts not to fire a shot. I told them
“frankly I prefer to be shot than to tell you to shoot”. Because I have always believed
that there are weapons much more powerful than firearms and they are moral
weapons.’ See ‘Fidel Castro sobre los sucesos del 5 de agosto’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc_zgN-735I

99. See the documentary by Estela Bravo, Fidel Castro: The Untold Story, Bravo Films,
2001 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2Obp6YS4SY.

100. Susan Yaffe, ‘Gains of the Revolution’.

101. William M. LeoGrande and Peter Kornbluh, Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden
History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana, University North Carolina
Press, 2014, 281.

102. LeoGrande and Kornbluh, Back Channel, 294.

103. Uriarte, Cuba: Social Policy, 30.

104. Hal Klepak, Raúl Castro, 61.

105. Uriarte, Cuba: Social Policy, 3.

106. Uriarte, Cuba: Social Policy, 21. The situation had reversed by 1995, and infant
mortality declined throughout the decade.

107. Morris, ‘Cuban Economic Policy’, 118–19.

108. Morris, ‘Cuban Economic Policy’, 128. Social security showed the sharpest increase in
relation to GDP, surpassing education in 1993 as the largest social expenditure.
Uriarte, Cuba: Social Policy, 36.

109. Susan Yaffe, ‘Gains of the Revolution’.

110. Uriarte, Cuba: Social Policy,13 and 33–4. Over 53,000 families received cash
payments in 1994.
111. Hannah Caller, ‘Socialism is Healthier’, Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!, 208, April–
May 2009, http://www.ratb.org.uk/frfi/208.html.

112. Uriarte, Cuba: Social Policy, 9.

113. Morris, ‘Cuban Economic Policy’, 128.

114. Uriate, Cuba: Social Policy, 12 and 27. The lack of teachers and poor state of
education facilities was subsequently addressed during the Battle of Ideas from 2000,
discussed in the following chapter.

115. Uriarte, Cuba: Social Policy, 27.

116. Vallejo, ‘Cuba’s Macroeconomy’, 77.

117. Ferriol, ‘Fighting Poverty’, 171.

118. Figures from Morris, ‘Cuban Economic Policy’, 142.

119. Ferriol, ‘Fighting Poverty’, 171.

120. Cited by Tania Jackson, ‘Defending Socialism: Fighting Prostitution in Cuba’, Fight
Racism! Fight Imperialism! 146, December 1998/January 1999.

121. Jackson, ‘Defending Socialism’. While in 1958, for most of the estimated 100,000
prostitutes in Cuba, the trade was a question of survival, in the 1990s many sought
access to hard currency.

122. Margaret Randall, Exporting Revolution: Cuba’s Global Solidarity, 2017, Duke
University Press, 26.

123. Cited by Cristina Venegas, ‘Filmmaking with Foreigners’ in A. Hernández-Reguant

(ed.), Cuba in the Special Period: Culture and Ideology in the 1990s, Palgrave
Macmillan, 2009, 38.

124. Venegas, ‘Filmaking with Foreigners’, 41.

125. A. Hernández-Reguant, ‘Writing the Special Period: An Introduction’, in Hernández-

Reguant (ed.), Cuba in the Special Period: Culture and Ideology in the 1990s,
Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, 5–6.
126. Kevin Delgado, ‘Spiritual Capital: Foreign Patronage and the Trafficking of Santería’,
in Hernández-Reguant, Cuba in the Special Period, 52.

127. The 2005 documentary ‘Inventos: Hip Hop Cubano’, directed by Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi,
explores this movement.

128. ‘The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil’, documentary film, Arthur
Morgan Institute for Community Solutions, 2006.

129. For a historical account of Cuba’s structural dependency on food imports, which grew
with the expansion of the sugar industry, see Louis A. Pérez Jr, Rice in a Time of
Sugar, University of North Carolina Press, 2019.

130. Uriarte, Cuba: Social Policy,19.

131. Uriarte, Cuba: Social Policy, 15, and ‘Power of Community’, 2006.

132. Morris, ‘Cuban Economic Policy’, 118 and 136. Much of this production was
formalised with the opening of private farmers’ markets in 1994.

133. ‘Power of Community’, 2006.

134. In addition to biofertilizers, they turned to earthworms, compost, other organic

fertilizers, animal and green manures, and the integration of animal grazing. Álvarez,
‘Surviving the Crisis in Cuba’, 226.

135. Sinan Koont, ‘The Urban Agriculture of Havana’ in Monthly Review, January 2009,
60:8, 45.

136. About this process see Peter Rosset and Benjamin Medea, The Greening of the
Revolution: Cuba’s Experiment with Organic Agriculture, Ocean Press, 1994;
Fernando Funes Aguilar and Luis L. Vázquez Moreno (eds), Avances de la
agroecología en Cuba, Estación Experimental de Pastos y Forrajes Indio Hatuey,
2016; Julia E. Wright, Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security in an Era of Oil
Scarcity: Lessons from Cuba, Routledge, 2009.

137. While intensive, high-yielding horticulture production systems, such as hydroponics,

rely on chemical inputs, Cuban organopónicos use organic materials. Growing Greener
Cities in Latin American and the Caribbean, An FAO report on urban and peri-urban
 agriculture in the region, 2014, http://www.fao.org/3/a-i3696e.pdf, 11.

138. Growing Greener Cities, 15. By 2015 Havana alone hosted 318 urban gardens, 89,000
productive backyards and 5,100 agricultural plots.

139. Growing Greener Cities, 10.

140. Urban agriculture in Havana, Centre for Public Impact, 1 March 2014
https://www.centreforpublicimpact.org/

141. Koont, ‘Urban Agriculture’, 48.

142. Monty Don, ‘Around the World in 80 Gardens’, Episode 1, BBC 2, 27 January 2008.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b008wf8l/

143. This and following information from Koont, ‘Urban Agriculture’, 47.

144. The fuel cost per tonne of organic vegetables was estimated at USD 0.55 compared to
the fertilizer cost of USD 40 per tonne under conventional agriculture. The cost of pest
control was reduced from USD 2.8 million to USD 300,000 per tonne. Additional costs
were saved through domestic seed production. Growing Greener Cities, 17.

145. ‘Power of Community’; Koont, ‘Urban Agriculture’, 44. The WWF’s Sustainability
Index Report identified Cuba as the only country in the world to have achieved
sustainable development.

146. Sinan Knoot, Sustainable Urban Agriculture in Havana, Gainesville, Fl: University of
Florida Press, 2011.

147. ‘Power of Community’.

148. Monty Don, ‘Around the World’.

149. Uriarte, Cuba: Social Policy, 43 and 46.

150. Uriarte, Cuba: Social Policy, 47.

151. According to official claims, only 0.1% of participants questioned whether socialism
could get them through the crisis, while just 0.005% specifically proposed a market
economy. Rodríguez, ‘Fifty Years’, 36.
152. From 2007, under Raúl Castro’s leadership, popular consultations increased.

153. Rodríguez, ‘Fifty Years’, 43.

154. Kenia Serrano, Interview in Havana, 4 April 2018.

155. Rita Castiñeiras García, ‘Creating a Better Life: The Human Dimensions of the Cuban
Economy’, in Campbell (ed.), Cuban Economists, 144.

156. Cited by LeoGrande and Kornbluh, Back Channel, 276–277.

157. Rodríguez, ‘Fifty Years’, 37.

158. United Nations Human Development Report, 1999, 146.

3. FIDEL CASTRO’S CITIZENS’ ARMY: THE BATTLE OF IDEAS

1. See Yaffe, Che Guevara.

2. In 1998 Oswaldo Paya set up the Varela Project to seek 10,000 signatories who would
endorse political changes to the Cuban constitution, implying the end of the socialist
system.

3. They were all friends and family. The five-year-old daughter of one couple was left
behind at the last minute. For a disturbing account of the shipwreck and deaths see Ann
Louise Bardach, Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana,
Vintage Books, 2002, 17.

4. Different sources have slightly different dates for these events.

5. Journalist Tim Golden reported that ‘the cause has been dominated by the Cuban
American National Foundation, which has sponsored most of the Gonzálezes political
activities, advised them on strategy and helped arrange what has thus far been a largely
no-show job for Lázaro, who had been unemployed, at the Ford dealership of one of its
directors.’ Golden, ‘Just Another Cuban Family Saga’, New York Times Magazine, 23
April 2000,
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20000423mag-
elian.html
6. Hassan Pérez Casabona, Palabra en Combate: uno más, Casa Editora Abril, 2001, 409.

7. Juventud Rebelde, cited by Pérez Casabona, Palabra en Combate, 409.

8. The 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act granted Cubans permanent residency in the United
States after two years. The 1976 Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments
reduced this to one year. In addition, Cubans were exempt from the requirement to
enter the United States legally, thus these provisions encourage illegal immigration.

9. ‘Following in his father’s path, Juan Miguel joined the Union of Young Communists at
15 and threw himself into the duties it presented: attending political rallies,
volunteering to work on the agricultural harvest, keeping an eye on the “revolutionary
morale” of his comrades. He became a full member of the Cuban Communist Party at
the tender age of 24, an achievement he called “the proudest thing that can happen to
you”.’ Golden, Cuban Family Saga.

10. Fidel Castro, ‘Letter to Hassan, 8 December 1999’, cited by Pérez Casabona, Palabra
en Combate, 29.

11. Hassan Pérez, Interview in Havana, 8 April 2018.

12. Pérez, Interview in Havana, 8 April 2018.

13. The Cuban delegation had been participating in a Summit of the World Health
Organization.

14. Subsequently, 5 December 1999 was marked as the official beginning of the Battle of
Ideas.

15. Pérez Casabona, Palabra en Combate, 412–13.

16. Golden described Elián González as ‘the biggest revolutionary symbol since Che’.

17. Enrique Javier Gómez Cabezas, Interview in Havana, 16 April 2018. Some ‘repentists’
resident overseas actually returned to live in Cuba.

18. As a result of the economic contraction, Cuban television had only two channels both of
which broadcast the Mesa Redonda, so the Cuban public watched that or nothing. The
Mesa Redonda programmes have continued until today, but, with more channels
available airing alternative programmes, viewing is optional.
19. For his birthday on 6 December, Elián was given a piñata styled like an aeroplane
inscribed with ‘Brothers to the Rescue’, the name of a Cuban exile organisation whose
provocations in Cuban airspace had ended with the island’s authorities shooting down
two planes in February 1996 (see Chapter 7).

20. Serrano, Interview in Havana, 4 April 2018.

21. Members of the Spanish, French and Russian governments publicly called for Elián’s
return to his father in Cuba.

22. For a detailed account of the ties between the Bush family and the Cuban-American
exile elite see Bardach, Cuba Confidential.

23. Mariano Faget passed the false information on to a business partner. His father, also
Mariano Faget, had been the head of the Bureau for the Repression of Communist
Activities (BRAC) under the Batista dictatorship. Described as ‘a technician of torture’
by Carlos Franqui, one of his victims, according to Don Bohning, ‘Faget’s father was a
brutal Batista official’, Miami Herald, 19 February 2000.
http://www.jonathanpollard.org/2000/021900b.htm. The Cuban diplomat José
Imperatori had met with Faget.

24. Letter dated 22 February 2000, cited by Pérez Casabona, Palabra en Combate, 434.

25. However, as Richard Gott points out, this may have been a tactical misjudgement, as
63% of Miami voters believed Elián should be sent home. Gott, Cuba: A New History,
313.

26. Bardach’s book details who was around Elián and their role in the real politik of the
Miami exile community.

27. According to Pérez, CNN’s coverage of the raid had more viewers than the fall of the
Berlin Wall or the death of Princess Diana. Pérez, Interview in Havana, 8 April 2018.

28. Julian Borger wrote about the ‘Photo War’ over Elián in Guardian, 26 April 2000.
www.theguardian.com/world/2000/apr/26/cuba.usa1.

29. Statement by Rogelio Polanco on the Mesa Redonda, 28 June 2000.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsS9GNeJRB4&feature=share.
30. Fidel Castro’s first meeting with Elián is shown in the video Fidel y Elián, luchando por
una causa justa. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lfb0rjT1f4E.

31. Bardach, Cuba Confidential, 17.

32. Fidel Castro informed Ignacio Ramonet that his books The Tyranny of Communication
(1999) and Propagandes Silencie (2000) about cultural invasion had informed this
debate. Ignacio Ramonet, Cien Horas con Fidel: conversaciones con Ignacio Ramonet,
segunda edición, Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo del Estado, 2006, 456.

33. Enrique Javier Gómez Cabezas, ‘Sistematización de la experiencia del programa de

trabajadores sociales’ in Caballero Labaut and Ana María (eds.), Trabajo Social en
Cuba: Retos en el siglo XXI, Editorial Unión, 47. Interviews in Havana with Gómez
Cabezas, 16 April 2018, and Pérez, 8 April 2018.

34. Gómez Cabezas, Interview in Havana, 16 April 2018.

35. Fidel Castro to Ramonet, Cien Horas con Fidel, 402.

36. Serrano, Interview in Havana, 4 April 2018.

37. Pérez, Interview in Havana, 8 April 2018.

38. Serrano, Interview in Havana, 4 April 2018. Gómez Cabezas, Interview in Havana, 16
April 2018.

39. Gómez Cabezas, Interview in Havana, 16 April 2018.

40. Gómez Cabezas, Trabajadores Sociales, footnote 5, 50; Rosi Smith, Education,
Citizenship, and Cuban Identity, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, 119.

41. Smith, Education, 127.

42. Gómez Cabezas, Trabajadores Sociales, 48.

43. Gómez Cabezas, Interview in Havana, 16 April 2018.

44. Smith, Education, 138 and 131.

45. Gómez Cabezas, Trabajadores Sociales.

46. Gómez Cabezas, Trabajadores Sociales, 50. Subsequently this study was extended to all
Cubans up to 30 years old.

47. See Yaffe, Che Guevara, chapter 4 on ‘Education, Training and Salaries’, for
information about the Peoples’ Schools and ‘Superacion’ (improvement) courses set up
in the early 1960s.

48. Cuba: Batalla de Ideas, information leaflet, January 2002.

49. Cuba: Batalla de Ideas. The oldest of this age-range had completed compulsory
schooling as the Special Period began.

50. Gómez Cabezas, Trabajadores Sociales, 52.

51. Fidel, cited by Gómez Cabezas, Interview in Havana, 16 April 2018.

52. Gómez Cabezas, Interview in Havana, 16 April 2018.

53. The exact figure was 2,202,068 children.

54. Gómez Cabezas, Trabajadores Sociales, 53.

55. Gómez Cabezas, Trabajadores Sociales, 54.

56. Gómez Cabezas, Trabajadores Sociales, 54–5.

57. Gómez Cabezas, Trabajadores Sociales, 55. Fidel Castro, speech 5 December 2004.
www.fidelcastro.cu/en/discursos/speech-given-closing-session-young-communists-
league–8th-congressheld-havana-convention. This campaign was subsequently adopted
in other ALBA countries.

58. Smith refers to this as a ‘betrayal’ of the social workers’ potential. Smith, Education,
157.

59. A national group was composed of ministries of Education and Health, the Centre for
Youth Studies, the Office of National Statistics, the Institute of Pedagogic Research,
the Institute of Nutrition and the social workers. The Programme took months to
design and prepare and for social workers to be trained.

60. Mayra Espina discusses the benefits of this approach, in ‘Viejas y nuevas desigualdades
 en Cuba: Ambivalencias y perspectivas de la reestratificación social’ in Nueva
Sociedad, No. 216, julio–agosto, 2008, 133–46.

61. Rodríguez, ‘Fifty Years’, 46.

62. Rodríguez, ‘Fifty Years’, 46.

63. Helen Yaffe, ‘Cuba reclaims its monetary sovereignty’, Fight Racism! Fight
Imperialism! December 2004–January 2005. See Chapter 3 on the Special Period and
the establishment of dollar shops.

64. Angela Ferriol Muruaga, ‘La Revolucion Cubana: A 50 Años Del Triunfo: Aspectos
Socioeconomicos’, presentation, Conferencia Internacional La Obra De Carlos Marx
Y Los Desafios Del Siglo XXI, May 2008. Despite the increase, the proportion of
Cuba’s international trade with Latin America was well below the figure represented
by the USSR and the socialist bloc pre-1959, which was 75% to 85%. Cuba’s
‘dependence’ on Venezuela was well below that on its former socialist allies.

65. Living in a Cuban home in this period, I witnessed this process first-hand.

66. The following chapter on the Energy Revolution refers to the impact of this campaign in
terms of energy efficiency and economics.

67. As Cuba’s Energy Revolution spread to Latin America and the Caribbean through
ALBA, Cuban social workers travelled to 11 countries in the region to assist energy
efficiency projects.

68. Fidel Castro, ‘Speech delivered by Dr. Fidel Castro Ruz, President of the Republic of
Cuba, at the Commemoration of the 60th Anniversary of his admission to University of
Havana, in the Aula Magna of the University of Havana’, 17 November 2005.
http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/2005/ing/f171105i.html.

69. Gómez Cabezas, Interview in Havana, 16 April 2018.

70. Gómez Cabezas, Interview in Havana, 16 April 2018.

71. 10 October is Cuba’s Independence Day.

72. Fidel Castro, ‘Speech in the Aula Magna’.

73. Gómez Cabezas, Interview in Havana, 16 April 2018.

74. Gómez Cabezas, Interview in Havana, 16 April 2018.

75. Gómez Cabezas, Interview in Havana, 16 April 2018. The theft of fuel continues to be a
perennial problem, however, as digital systems can be tampered with.

76. Gómez Cabezas, Trabajadores Sociales, 69. The social worker programme was
restructured to meet the requirements of the Energy Revolution. Specialised work
fronts were created for: the Energy Revolution; disconnected youth; comprehensive
improvement courses; the prison population and social reinsertion; attention to
children; the disabled and patients with low prevalence diseases; the elderly; critical
social cases; reproduction of audio-visual educational materials; Operation Milagro
(ophthalmological programme to correct reversible blindness); and the training of
Latin American doctors. The process of professional specialisation was reversed in
2010, after the Secretariat of the Central Committee decided that social workers should
prioritise the prevention of criminal activities and promote a comprehensive social
work programme, without specialisation.

77. Gómez Cabezas, Trabajadores Sociales, 69–70.

78. Gómez Cabezas, Interview in Havana, 16 April 2018. Gómez told me about meeting
former social workers now working as everything from taxi drivers to television
producers.

79. Gómez Cabezas, Interview in Havana, 16 April 2018.

80. As pointed out by Smith, Education, 127.

81. Serrano, Interview in Havana, 4 April 2018.

82. Gómez Cabezas, Interview in Havana, 16 April 2018.

83. There could be 30 secondary school students in one classroom; there must be 2 teachers
to attend to them.

84. Smith, Education, 127–8. All the participants interviewed by Smith had met their
obligations.

85. Smith, Education, 138–9.

86. Gómez Cabezas, Interview in Havana, 16 April 2018. Figure cited by Smith, Education,
128.

87. Cited by Gómez Cabezas, Interview in Havana, 16 April 2018. The general teacher was
exempt from teaching physical education or foreign languages, Smith, Education, 128.

88. Gómez Cabezas, Interview in Havana, 16 April 2018.

89. Pérez, Interview in Havana, 8 April 2018.

90. Serrano, Interview in Havana, 4 April 2018.

91. Cuba: Batalla de Ideas.

92. Gomez Cabezas, Interview in Havana, 16 April 2018; Smith, Education, 128.

93. Smith, Education, 128.

94. Lavinia Gasperini, ‘The Cuban Education System: Lessons and Dilemmas’, in Country
Studies: Education Reform and Management Publication Series 1:5, 2000, 67.

95. Gómez Cabezas, Interview in Havana, 16 April 2018.

96. Smith, Education, discusses the forms this took.

97. Fidel Castro to Ramonet, Cien Horas con Fidel, 403.

98. Cuba: Batalla de Ideas.

99. Smith, Eduation, 150–1.

100. Smith, Education, 123–4.

101. Cuba: Batalla de Ideas.

102. Speech by Carlos Valenciaga, ‘La UCI es fruto de la Batalla de las Ideas’, Granma,
online, 20 July 2007. www.granma.cu/granmad/2007/07/20/nacional/artic05.html.

103. Antoni Kapcia, ‘Educational Revolution and Revolutionary Morality in Cuba: The
“New Man”, Youth and the New “Battle of Ideas”’, Journal of Moral Education, 34:4,
2005, 402.
104. I recall an argument between two Cubans about the merits of this decision: a middle-
aged metal engineer at a sugar mill dismissed the attempt to retrain workers his age,
arguing that the state should have kept them employed on the land, producing food
crops for domestic consumption. Against this a smallholder farmer, who was the
municipal representative for the Ministry of Agriculture, insisted that this was not an
option as the island lacked, and could not import, the necessary resources (tools and
seeds) for alternative crop production on state farms.

105. Fidel Castro to Ramonet, Cien Horas con Fidel, 404.

106. Kapcia, ‘Educational Revolution’, 402.

107. Smith, Education, 152.

108. Fidel to Ramonet, Cien Horas con Fidel, 403. This claim has not been tested.

109. Fidel Castro, ‘Speech in the Aula Magna’.

110. Fidel Castro, ‘Speech in the Aula Magna’.

111. According to Ann Louise Bardach, Fidel Castro suffered from malignant diverticulitis.
‘Ann Louise Bardach on Cuban Exile Carriles and Her Book “Without Fidel” 2’, in
Interview with Democracy Now!, 2009 https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=4Hm1rGpV0vg.

112. Raúl Castro, speech in Camaguey 26 July 2007.

http://www.granma.cu/granmad/2007/07/27/nacional/artic01.html.

4. POWER TO THE PEOPLE: THE ENERGY REVOLUTION

1. Decree Law 345, Development of Renewable Sources and Efficient Use of Energy, was
approved on 23 March 2017, regulating the production of self-supply and sale back to
Cuba’s Electric Union by Cuban residences under individualised contracts. Luis
Bérriz, ‘La Política Energética Cubana en el Camino del Desarrollo Sostenible’,
presentación, June 2017.

2. Editorial, Trabajadores, 28 May 2017, http://www.trabajadores.cu/20170528/apuesta-

necesaria/.
3. Luis Bérriz, Interview in Havana, 5 July 2017.

4. The beneficiaries of these have been thousands of schools and other social facilities.

5. See Chapter 3 on the Battle of Ideas for more about the communal television and video
rooms.

6. The equipment manufactured domestically includes solar panels, hydropower turbines,

portable photovoltaic lamps, small wind turbines, solar heaters and distillers, solar
wood dryers, medicinal plants, fruits and other products with state-of-the-art modular
building technologies. Cubasolar have also built greenhouses for research into seed
cultivation and vitroplants (plants studied in test tubes of glass, outside their normal
biological context) and participated in the construction of aqueducts by gravity and
hydraulic rams. Cubasolar, presentation: ‘Cubasolar: Sociedad Cubana para la
Promocion de las Fuentes Renovables de Energia y el respect Ambiental’, undated.

7. In homage to Che Guevara, they helped provide solar electricity for the old school in La
Higuera, Bolivia, where Guevara was killed, and which now hosts a medical post.

8. Fidel Castro became a champion of moringa while recovering from the serious stomach
illness which almost killed him in 2006. In 2012 he wrote: ‘It is the only plant that has
every kind of amino acid . . . has dozens of medicinal properties . . . [and its] effects on
the digestive system are very good as with all plants, apart from its high protein
qualities’. He revealed that ‘samples of seeds from different varieties have been
provided to the agricultural research institutes in our country’. See ‘Rare photo of Fidel
Castro harvesting Moringa from his personal Moringa Farm’ Moringapowder, 24 May
2015. https://www.moringapowder.com/news/rare-photo-of-fidel-castro-harvesting-
moringa-from-his-personal-moringa-farm/.

9. Bérriz, Interview in Havana, 5 July 2017.

10. Bérriz, Interview in Havana, 5 July 2017.

11. For a full discussion of Cuba’s disaster response see Javier Sandoval Guzman, ‘Popular
Power and Environmental Governance: The Cuban Approach to Natural Hazards and
Disaster Risk Reduction’, Master Thesis, Norwegian University of Life Sciences,
2014.

12. Lea Terry, ‘Cuba Climate Change Impact: How Scientists Say Global Warming Will
 Hurt’, Newsmax. 9 November 2015. www.newsmax.com/FastFeatures/Cuba-climate-
change-scientists/2015/11/09/id/701380/.

13. Ivet González, ‘Cuba Wakes Up to Costs of Climate Change Effects’. Inter Press
Service News Agency, 17 June 2013. http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/06/cuba-wakes-up-
to-costs-of-climate-change-effects/.

14. Richard Stone, ‘Cuba Embarks on a 100-year Plan to Protect Itself from Climate
Change’, Science, 10 January 2018. https://www.sciencemag.org/. The plan will be
spearheaded by the Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment.

15. This was compiled by three environmental organisations: International Union for
Conservation of Nature, World Widelife Fund and the United Nations Environmental
Programme.

16. Named after Chairperson, Gro Harlem Brundtland, former prime minister of Norway.

17. Christopher Amacker, ‘The Concept of Sustainable Development’, 27 July 2011.

http://www.e-ir.info/2011/07/27/the-concept-of-sustainable-development/.

18. Followed up by the UN’s World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg,

South Africa in 2002 and the UN’s Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil in 2012.

19. Fidel Castro, ‘Tomorrow Will be Too Late’, speech at the Rio Summit, 1992,
https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/fidel-castro-earth-summit. He returned to this
issue in numerous national and international forums. For examples, see ‘Editorial’
Energía y Tú, No. 77, ene-mar., 2017, 2–3.

20. Daniel Whittle and Orlando Rey Santos, Protecting Cuba’s Environment: Efforts to
Design and Implement Effective Environmental Laws and Policies in Cuba, 2006,
University of Pittsburg press, 73.

21. WWF, Living Planet Report, 2006, 19,

https://wwf.ru/en/resources/publications/booklets/living-planet-report-2006/. See also
research by, Daniel D. Moran, Mathis Wackernagel, Justin A. Kitzes, Steven H.
Goldfinger and Aurélien Boutaud, ‘Measuring Sustainable Development – Nation by
Nation’, in Ecological Economics 64, 2007, 470–474, which compared changes in both
HDI and Ecological Footprint indexes between 1975 and 2003. On presentation of the
 Living Planet Report 2016, Cuba’s leading position in the world was confirmed. See,
www.telesurtv.net/english/news/As-World-Burns-Cuba-Number–1-For-Sustainable-
Development-WWF–20161027–0018.html.

22. Stefan Lovgren, ‘Castro the Conservationist? By Default or Design, Cuba Largely
Pristine’, 6 August 2006, National Geographic,
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/08/060804-castro-legacy.html.
Between 1900 and 1959, Cuba’s forest and plant cover was reduced from 52% to
somewhere between 8–14% as land was concentrated in the hands of a few private
domestic and foreign companies. After the Revolution of 1959, the first reforestation
programme was initiated. The increase in forest cover was modest, estimates are 18%
in the 1980s, until the post–2000 decline of the sugar industry and intensive livestock
programmes, and the launch of reforestation projects in the mountains which saw
forest cover rise from 25% to 31% by 2016. For an environmental history of Cuba
demonstrating the link between the sugar industry and deforestation see Reinaldo
Funes Monzote, From Rainforest to Cane Field in Cuba: an environmental history
since 1492, University of North Carolina Press, 2008. For a more general approach
see: Enrique del Risco Rodriguez, Los bosques de Cuba: historia y características,
Editorial Cientifico Tecnica, 1995.

23. ‘Power of Community’, 2006.

24. Cited by Lovgren, ‘Castro the Conservationist’, 2006.

25. In the 1770s, the French Physiocrats, identified nature as the source of all value. Their
Scottish contemporary, Adam Smith, argued that labour was the source of value. Karl
Marx’s critique of political economy drew on both these notions to argue that labour,
set to nature, was the source of all value. Thus, under capitalism both nature and
workers are exploited in the interests of capital accumulation.

26. This hardly surprising given the increasing overlap between political and corporate
interests globally. It also undermines the notion of ‘green capitalism’ and the idea that
the free market and liberal democracies are the best systems for confronting climate
change.

27. Judith A. Cherni and Yohan Hill, ‘Energy and Policy Providing for Sustainable Rural
Livelihoods in Remote Locations: The case of Cuba’, in Geoforum, 40, 2009, 645–
654.
28. There is an extensive bibliography, especially emerging after the collapse of the USSR
and the socialist bloc, about environmental damage under socialist governments. For
the Cuban case, see Sergio Díaz-Briquets and Jorge Pérez-López, Conquering Nature:
The Environmental Legacy of Socialism in Cuba, University of Pittsburg Press, 2000.

29. Director, Directorate of Environmental Policy in CITMA, cited in Karen Bell,

‘Environmental Justice in Cuba’, Critical Social Policy 2011 31: 257.

30. US Department of Commerce, ‘Investment in Cuba’, 178 and 187.

31. US Department of Commerce, ‘Investment in Cuba’, 10.

32. Fidel Castro, ‘History Will Absolve Me’.

www.marxists.org/history/cuba/archive/castro/1953/10/16.htm.

33. Radio Rebelde. ‘About us’. http://www.radiorebelde.cu/english/about-us/.

34. Bérriz, Interview in Havana, 5 July 2017.

35. Reduced from 23% to 3% according to Richard R. Fagen, The Transformation of

Political Culture in Cuba, Stanford University Press, 1969, 45–47. Internationally, a
country can be declared ‘free from illiteracy’ with a literacy rate of 96%.

36. Esther Gloria Armenteros Cárdenas, Personal email correspondence, 15 August 2017.

37. Guevara’s examination of the documents of this, and similar US-owned companies,
influenced the development of his Budgetary Finance System. See Yaffe, Che
Guevara, 33–41.

38. Che Guevara, ‘Discurso Clausura del Fórum de Energía Eléctrica’, 20 November 1963,
in Escritos y Discursos, Editorial de Ciencia Sociales, 1977. Vol 7. 1963, 135.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FeuV8T7w34

39. The mission set out six months before the Cuban Revolution was declared ‘socialist’ in
April 1961. Other agreements with the USSR included: the annual sale of 4 million
tons of Cuban sugar at substantially higher than the world market prices, credit for
purchasing capital and consumer goods, and Soviet assistance to adapt Cuban petrol
refineries, with prospecting for Cuban oil and developing nickel mines.
40. Trueba, Ángel (2001), ‘El MININD en la industrialización socialista de Cuba 1960–
1965’, in 40 Aniversario Ministerio de Industrias. Editora Política, 2001, 34.

41. Sáenz, Interview in Havana, 7 January 2005.

42. Pre-1959, sugar workers in Cuba resisted the mechanisation of the industry so this
process was introduced by the revolutionary government. For more on this see Yaffe,
Che Guevara, 174–7; Cushion, Hidden History.

43. Bérriz, Interview in Havana, 5 July 2017.

44. ‘Power of Community’. There is an extensive bibliography about the evolution of

intensive agriculture in Cuba, including Armando Nova González, La agricultura en
Cuba: Evolución y trayectoria (1959–2005), Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 2006.

45. The following historical information draws largely from Bérriz, Algunos Aspectos Del
Desarrollo Histórico Del Uso De Las Fuentes Renovables De Energía En Cuba:
undated document; and Bérriz, Interview in Havana, 5 July 2017.

46. Rodríguez, Interview in Havana, 20 December 2016.

47. As discussed in Chapter 2 on the Special Period. By 2006, 80% of Cuba’s agricultural
production was organic and the annual use of chemical pesticides had fallen from
21,000 tonnes in the 1980s to 1,000 tonnes. See ‘Power of Community’.

48. Bérriz, Fuentes Renovables, 7.

49. The Cubans were aided in this by Canadian company Sherrit; see Chapter 2 on the
Special Period.

50. Wind was not considered to have significant energy value, and to only be useful in small
windmills for pumping water. Bérriz, Fuentes Renovables, 7.

51. Another issue obstructing the expansion of renewable energy use in Cuba was the need
for the technology to enable that energy to be fed into the national grid.

52. Bérriz, Interview in Havana, 5 July 2017.

53. Cubaenergía mainly works with the Ministry of Energy and Mines, but also the Ministry
of Agriculture and Food Industry and CITMA.
54. The Island of Youth is 50 kilometres south of mainland Cuba, the seventh largest island
in the Caribbean, with a population over 86,000.

55. Alfredo Curbelo Alonso, Interview in Havana, 5 July 2017. The Cubans hoped to
purchase the small-scale plants they required from a Canadian company. However,
under US blockade regulations, the equipment could not be imported, because it
contained parts that were manufactured in the United States. Alternative equipment
was imported from an Indian company, Ankur, that had developed a simple technology
suitable for Cuban conditions. Käkönen, et al., Energy Revolution in Cuba: Pioneering
for the Future?, Finland Futures Research Centre, FFRC eBook 4, 2014, 22.

56. Cited anonymously in Energy Revolution in Cuba, 11.

57. The weekend before Hurricane Dennis hit Cuba, hundreds of thousands of Cubans had
participated in Meteorology Exercise 2005, a national mobilisation to prepare for the
tropical storms involving workers, farmers, students and specialists from the municipal
Defence Councils, work centres, social institutions, grassroots organisations, the
Ministry of the Interior and the Revolutionary Armed Forces. My report from the time
is available here: Yaffe ‘Hurricane Dennis: when the going gets tough . . .’, Fight
Racism! Fight Imperialism! 186, August/September 2005.
http://www.revolutionarycommunist.org/.

58. See Chapter 7 on Cuba–US relations for more on this.

59. Bérriz, Interview in Havana, 5 July 2017. This may well be the case in Cuba, however,
which Cherni and Hill point out, as the International Energy Agency projections
suggest that, by the year 2030, 1.4 billion people will still lack electricity, around 17%
of the world’s total population. Cherni and Hill, ‘Energy and Policy’, 645.

60. Fidel Castro, ‘Speech in the Aula Magna’.

61. Fidel Castro, ‘Speech in the Aula Magna’.

62. Fidel Castro, ‘Speech in the Aula Magna’.

63. Curbelo Alonso, Interview in Havana, 5 July 2017.

64. Energy Revolution in Cuba, 5; Dieter Seifried, ‘Cuban Energy Revolution: A Model for
Climate Protection?’ Büro Ö-quadrat report, 2013.
 www.oe2.de/fileadmin/user_upload/download/Energierevolution_Cuba_eng.pdf.

65. ‘Cuban Energy Revolution’, 19; Curbelo Alonso, Interview in Havana, 5 July 2017.
Seifried’s report adds: ‘At the same time, improvements in the transmission and
distribution networks were made to reduce the transmission and distribution losses.
While in 2007 the entire distribution and transport losses amounted to 15.7% of the
produced electricity, they were successfully reduced to 14.8% by December 2008.’

66. Curbelo Alonso, Interview in Havana, 5 July 2017.

67. Bérriz, Interview in Havana, 5 July 2017.

68. Curbelo Alonso, Interview in Havana, 5 July 2017.

69. Mario Alberto Arrastía Avila, ‘Distributed Generation in Cuba: Part of a Transition
towards a New Energy Paradigm’, in Cogeneration and On-Site Power Production,
November–December 2008, 62.

70. Seifried, ‘Cuban Energy Revolution’, 3. In summer 2016, the Cuban government
announced temporary restrictions on energy consumption as a result of falling oil
imports from Venezuela and the government’s decision to keep expenditure within the
annual plan (avoiding additional imports), rather than technological capacity. There
was no return to blackouts. The energy scarcity suffered in 2019 is discussed in
Chapter 10.

71. Arrastía Avila ‘Distributed Generation’, 65.

72. Käkönen et al, Energy Revolution in Cuba, 4.

73. Laurie Guevara-Stone, ‘La Revolucion Energetica: Cuba’s Energy Revolution’, 9 April
2009. www.renewableenergyworld.com/

74. Guevara-Stone, ‘Revolucion Energetica’, 6.

75. Arrastía Avila, ‘Distributed generation’, 62; Seifried, ‘Cuban Energy Revolution’, 7;
Käkönen et al, Energy Revolution in Cuba, 14.

76. Seifried, ‘Cuban Energy Revolution’, 8. Once complaints emerged about the low quality
of the energy-saving bulbs imported from China, the Cubans began producing and
distributing LED bulbs. Curbelo Alonso, Interview in Havana, 5 July 2017.
77. Käkönen et al, Energy Revolution in Cuba, 14.

78. Seifried, ‘Cuban Energy Revolution’, 8. The average annual consumption of the old
Soviet refrigerators was 800 kWh/unit, while the new Chinese equipment requires
around 350 kWh.

79. Seifried, ‘Cuban Energy Revolution’, 8.

80. Käkönen et al, Energy Revolution in Cuba, 14.

81. Seifried, ‘Cuban Energy Revolution’, 8–9

82. Seifried, ‘Cuban Energy Revolution’, 8.

83. Juventud Rebelde, ‘Banca cubana puede asumir todos los créditos para el pago de los
equipos electrodomésticos’, Juventud Rebelde, 4 December 2007,
http://www.juventudrebelde.cu.

84. Centro de Estudios de Población y Desarrollo, Salario En Cifras: Cuba 2010, Oficina
Nacional de Estadisticas, 2010, 3. www.one.cu/publicaciones/.

85. Seifried, ‘Cuban Energy Revolution’, 16.

86. Juventud Rebelde, ‘Los Equipos Electrodomésticos’.

87. Seifried, ‘Cuban Energy Revolution’, 8 and 11. He adds: ‘This exceptionally large
advantage in favour of energy efficiency is partly due to the low efficiency standard
before the Energy Revolution, and also to the high cost of power generation in the
Cuban energy sector.’

88. Seifried, ‘Cuban Energy Revolution’, 10.

89. Fidel Castro, cited by Guevara-Stone, ‘Revolucion Energetica’, 3.

90. Arrastía Avila, ‘Distributed Generation’, 65; Seifried, ‘Cuban Energy Revolution’, 13.

91. Seifried, ‘Cuban Energy Revolution’, 13.

92. Curbelo Alonso, Interview in Havana, 5 July 2017.

93. Mario Alberto Arrastía Avila and Laurie Guevara-Stone, ‘Teaching Cuba’s Energy
Revolution’, Solar Today, January–February 2009, 31.

94. Guevara-Stone, ‘Revolucion Energetica’, 4–5.

95. Seifried, ‘Cuban Energy Revolution’, 21.

96. Michal Nachmany, Sam Fankhauser, Jana Davidová et al., Climate Change Legislation
in Cuba, The 2015 Global Climate Legislation Study: A Review of Climate Change
Legislation in 99 Countries, 6.

97. Arrastía Avila, ‘Distributed Generation’; Käkönen et al, Energy Revolution, 16.

98. Käkönen et al, Energy Revolution in Cuba, 7, 16.

99. The National Environment Strategy replaced the 1997 National Programme on
Environment and Development, first elaborated in 1993. Nachmany et al, Climate
Change Legislation in Cuba, 5.

100. Curbelo Alonso, Interview in Havana, 5 July 2017.

101. Revista Eolica y de Vehiculo Electrico, Cuba impulsa las energías renovables en Isla
de la Juventud, 9 October 2014, https://www.evwind.com/2014/10/09/isla-de-la-
juventud-poligono-de-uso-de-energias-renovables/.

102. European Commission, Suburban agriculture and cooperative building in 10

municipalities in the provinces of Camaguey, Las Tunas and Holguin. No date.
https://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/case-studies/suburban-agriculture-and-cooperative-
building-10-municipalities-provinces-camaguey-la–0_en. The project involves
experimentation in three municipalities: Los Palacios, a rice producing municipality;
Güira, which produces principally fruit and vegetables; and a milk producing
municipality in Camagüey. It supports 89 cooperatives, ‘to reach 1,268,399
beneficiaries with improved access to healthy food and lower prices [and] to support
women’s initiatives’.

103. At the Experimental Station of Pastures and Forages Indio Hatuey, the first scientific
research centre in the agricultural branch opened by the Revolution, in March 1959

104. Curbelo Alonso, Interview in Havana, 5 July 2017.

105. Bérriz, Interview in Havana, 5 July 2017.

106. See Klepak, Raúl Castro and Cuba.

107. Bérriz, ‘Política Energética’, June 2017.

108. For example, Katheryn Felipe, ‘Cuba’s Energy Strategy for 2017, in Granma
International, 24 February 2017, 4.

109. Bérriz, Interview in Havana, 5 July 2017.

110. Information from the Office of Renewable Energies, Ministry of Energy and Mines,
May 2017, cited in Bérriz, ‘Política Energética’, 2017.

111. Bérriz, Interview in Havana, 5 July 2017.

112. Induction cooking heats a cooking vessel by magnetic induction, instead of by thermal
conduction from a flame or an electrical heating element.

113. Cuba, Portfolio of Opportunities for Foreign Investment, 2018–2019, 79.

114. The other five strategic areas are: effective, socialist government and social
integration; productive transformation and international insertion; infrastructure;
human potential – science, technology and innovation; human development, social
justice and equity.

115. ‘Plan Nacional De Desarrollo Económico Y Social Hasta 2030: Propuesta De Visión
De La Nación, Ejes Y Sectores Estratégicos’, Documentos del 7mo. Congreso del
Partido aprobados por el III Pleno del Comité Central del PCC el 18 de mayo de 2017
y respaldados por la Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular el 1 de junio de 2017, 20.

116. Bérriz, ‘Política Energética’, 2017.

117. The Economist, ‘The Miracle of Marabú, Cuba’s Wonderful Weed’, 1 June 2017.
www.economist.com/news/americas/.

118. See Alfredo Curbelo Alonso, Oscar Jimenez and Joel Suarez, for more on the
potential: ‘Biomass based gasifier for providing electricity and thermal energy to off-
grid locations in Cuba. Conceptual design’, in Energy for Sustainable Development 16,
2012, 98–102.
119. Curbelo Alonso, Interview in Havana, 5 July 2017.

120. Bérriz, ‘Política Energética’, 2017.

121. Bérriz, Interview in Havana, 5 July 2017.

122. The water heaters cost nearly 3,000 pesos. ‘La Habana: Venderán calentadores solares
de agua para el sector residencial’, Cubadebate, 27 August 2019.

123. The 2016–17 Portfolio of Opportunities for Foreign Investment included 123 projects
in energy and mining, nearly one-third of the total. Emilio Morales, ‘Investment
Report: Nickel, Oil, and Sustainable Energy’, Cubatrade, 1 March 2017.
www.cubatrademagazine.com/2637–2/

124. ProCuba, Center for the Promotion of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, Foreign
Investment Opportunities in Cuba, 8 November 2017.
http://www.procuba.cu/en/invertir/noticiasinver/MTY5OA==.

125. Morales, ‘Investment report’.

126. In 2017, there were only 13 ‘totally foreign capital enterprises’ in Cuba. See Portfolio
of Opportunities for Foreign Investment, 2018–2019, 16.

127. Michael Voss, ‘China, Cuba cooperate in developing renewable energy’ CGTN, 26
September 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbxECkx1J1k; Sarah Marsh,
‘Lack of cash clouds Cuba’s green energy outlook’, Reuters, 31 March 2017.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-cuba-energy-idUKKBN1720EB.

128. New Energy Events, ‘Havana Energy announces second biomass plant in Cuba’, 28
February 2018. http://newenergyevents.com/havana-energy-announces-second-
biomass-plant-in-cuba/. The question is whether the tightening of the US blockade by
the Trump administration will hinder Havana Energy’s future plans.

129. Bérriz, Interview in Havana, 5 July 2017.

130. Bérriz, ‘Política Energética’.

5. THE CURIOUS CASE OF CUBA’S BIOTECH REVOLUTION

1. The material in this chapter is similar to that in a previously published journal article,
Helen Yaffe, ‘The Curious Case of Cuba’s Biotech Revolution’ History of Technology,
34, 2019, 203–22.

2. Notable exceptions include work by historians of science Angelo Baracca and Rosella
Franconi, for example ‘Cuba: The Strategic Choice of Advanced Scientific
Development, 1959–2014’, Sociology and Anthropology 5:4, 2017, 290–302; political
geographer, Simon M. Reid-Henry, The Cuban Cure: Reason and Resistance in Global
Science, University of Chicago Press, 2010; and Marguerite Rose Jiménez, ‘Cuba’s
Pharmaceutical Advantage’, NACLA, 16 August 2011,
https://nacla.org/article/cuba%E2%80%99s-pharmaceutical-advantage. Cuban medical
scientists contribute to international journals, but these provide technical rather than
historical accounts. Exceptions here include Andrés Cárdenas’s work on innovation
and economic development, for example The Cuban Biotechnology Industry:
Innovation and Universal Health Care, Institute for Institutional Innovations
Economics, University of Bremen, Germany, 2009; and an historical overview
provided by Ernesto Lopez Mola, Ricardo Silva, Boris Acevedo et al., ‘Biotechnology
in Cuba: 20 years of scientific, social and economic progress’, Journal of Commercial
Biotechnology, 13, 1, 2006.

3. Cárdenas, Cuban Biotechnology, 7.

4. Lee, Interview via Skype, 3 October 2017.

5. Lee, Interview via Skype, 3 October 2017.

6. The Institute of Research in Chemistry (1848); the Observatory of Meteorology and

Physics (1856); and the Royal Academy of Medical, Physics and Natural Sciences
(1861), founded by the Spanish queen’s decree. The word ‘Royal’ was dropped in
1902 with formal independence.

7. President Obama acknowledged Finlay’s contribution when he announced rapprochement

between the US and Cuba, 17 December 2014. ‘Statement by the President on Cuba
Policy Changes’, The White House, Office of the Press Secretary.
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/12/17/statement-
president-cuba-policy-changes.

8. This and following information draws on MacDonald, Hippocrates in Havana, 15–79.

9. In 1910 Dr. Domínguez Roldan introduced radiotherapy equipment into Cuba. In 1947,
nitrogen mustard was used by Professor Zoilo Marinello, who also installed the first
cobalt therapy equipment in 1957. In 1945 the League against Cancer opened a
dispensary providing consultations. In 1949, the construction of a new ‘Curie’ hospital
was funded by the League against Cancer and the national lottery, with the state
contributing the land. Idania Caballero Torres and Lien Lopez Matilla, ‘La historia del
CIM contada por sus trabajadores’, unpublished paper, 2017, 3–4.

10. International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) in collaboration with
the government of Cuba, Report of the Mission to Cuba, Washington DC: Office of the
President, 1951, 223.

11. 31% of Cubans over six years old had no schooling; another 29.4% had three years’
schooling or less. In rural Cuba, 41.7% of over ten years old were illiterate.

12. This and following information from James W. McGuire and Laura B. Frankel,
‘Mortality Decline in Cuba, 1900–1959: Patterns, Comparisons, and Causes’, paper
delivered at the Latin American Studies Association, Dallas, Texas, 27–29 March,
2003, 23–5.

13. McGuire and Frankel, ‘Mortality Decline in Cuba’, 23–4.

14. This and following information from MacDonald, Hippocrates in Havana.

15. MacDonald, Hippocrates in Havana, 46.

16. MacDonald, Hippocrates in Havana, 50.

17. US Department of Commerce, ‘Investment in Cuba’, 187.

18. MINSAP report 1969, cited in MacDonald, Hippocrates in Havana, 27.

19. Robert Huish, Where No Doctor Has Gone Before: Cuba’s Place in the Global Health
Landscape, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2013, 265.

20. The resulting linguistic problems were evident in the public health exam papers of
1961–2 according to MacDonald, Hippocrates in Havana, 57.

21. Fidel Castro, ‘Discurso Pronunciado por Fidel Castro el 8 de Octubre de 1987’, in David
Deutschmann and Javier Salado (eds), Ernesto Che Guevara: Gran Debate: Sobre la
 economía en Cuba 1963–1964, Ciencias Sociales, 2003, 392.

22. There were up to 100,000 prostitutes in Cuba in 1958.

23. MacDonald, Hippocrates in Havana, 56

24. MacDonald, Hippocrates in Havana, 55–58

25. This and following information from C. William Keck and Gail A. Reed, ‘The Curious
Case of Cuba’, American Journal of Public Health, 2012, 14.

26. Keck and Reed, ‘Curious Case’, 14.

27. Baracca and Franconi, ‘Cuba: Strategic Choice’, 9; MacDonald, Hippocrates in

Havana, 28.

28. See Yaffe, Che Guevara, 163–98.

29. Tirso Sáenz, Interview in Havana, 20 February 2006.

30. The farm was called Ciro Redondo after a fallen Rebel Army captain from Guevara’s
column.

31. Yaffe, Che Guevara, 188–90.

32. In 1966 it was renamed the National Institute of Oncology and Radiobiology (INOR)
and oncology became a speciality at the same level as surgery or internal medicine.

33. Juan Valdés Gravalosa, Interview in Havana, 22 February 2006.

34. This was pointed out to me by José Luis Rodríguez, former Minister of the Economy,
Interview in Havana, 20 December 2016.

35. Mola et al., ‘Biotechnology in Cuba’, 2.

36. This and following information from Keck and Reed, ‘Curious Case’, 14.

37. Mass organisations refers to Cuban street committees, women and youth organisations,
and trade unions.

38. Julie M Feinsilver wrote: ‘From the outset of the revolution, Fidel has made the health
 of the individual a metaphor for the health of the body politic. Therefore, he made the
achievement of developed country health indicators a national priority. Rather than
compare Cuban health indicators with those of other countries at a similar level of
development, he began to compare them to those of the United States,’ Cuban Medical
Diplomacy: When the Left Has Got It Right, 30 October 2006.

39. MacDonald, Hippocrates in Havana, 143.

40. The ratio has fallen in recent years due to both improving health outcomes and numbers
of doctors serving abroad. Keck and Reed, ‘Curious Case’, 15.

41. Information from Keck and Reed, ‘Curious Case’, 16.

42. Uriarte, Cuba: Social Policy, 3.

43. Hannah Caller, ‘Socialism is Healthier’, Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!, 208, April–
May 2000. http://www.revolutionarycommunist.org/.

44. Uriarte, Cuba: Social Policy, 9.

45. United Nations cited by Keck and Reed, ‘Curious Case’, 18; Kofi Annan, Secretary
General of the United Nations, 11 April 2000, cited by Uriarte, Cuba: Social Policy, 6.

46. Aleida Guevara, talk on ‘Cuban Medical Internationalism’, University College London,
Institute for the Americas, 17 November 2017.

47. Keck and Reed, ‘Curious Case’.

48. Nina Notman, ‘Cuba’s Cancer Treatments’, Chemistry World, 16 March 2018.

49. Agustín Lage Dávila, Interview in Havana, 7 July 2017.

50. Genetech was founded in San Francisco in 1976 by venture capitalist Robert A.
Swanson and biochemist Herbert Boyer. Then AMGen was set up in Los Angeles in
1980. Biotechnology took off in Europe in the 1990s, and subsequently in Japan,
Singapore and China.

51. The focus here is biotechnology for human health care, not animal health care or
agriculture, areas in which Cuba also boasts some innovative developments.
52. Simon Reid-Henry, The Cuban Cure: Reason and Resistance in Global Science,
University of Chicago Press, 2010, 26. Biological sciences stagnated in the USSR from
the 1920s to the mid-1960s, under the influence of Trofim Lysenko. In 1948, the study
of genetics was outlawed.

53. Information from Baracca and Franconi, ‘Cuba: Strategic Choice’; Caballero and
Matilla, ‘Historia del CIM’; Lage Dávila, Interview in Havana, 7 July 2017; and Reid-
Henry, Cuban Cure.

54. New York Times, ‘Epidemic in Cuba sets off dispute with US’, 6 September, 1981.
www.nytimes.com/1981/09/06/world/epidemic-in-cuba-sets-off-dispute-with-us.html.

55. Fidel Castro, 26 July 1981, cited by New York Times, ‘Epidemic in Cuba’.

56. Marieta Cabrera, ‘La ciencia desnuda un crimen contra Cuba’, Bohemia, 29 January
2016. http://bohemia.cu/ciencia/2016/01/. The study states: ‘Cuban researchers were
able to amplify and sequence the full genome of the original strains obtained in
different moments of the epidemic in 1981, using bioinformatic tools . . .’

57. Caballero and Matilla, ‘Historia del CIM’, 10.

58. Including Curie Institute (Paris), the Pasteur Institute (Paris), Heidelberg University
(Heidelberg, Germany) and Harvard University (Cambridge, MA, USA).
Thorsteinsdóttir, Saenz, Quach et al., ‘Cuba: Innovation through Synergy’, Nature
Biotechnology, 22, December 2004, 23.

59. Reid-Henry, Cuban Cure, 47.

60. Meningococcal disease is one of a group of bacteria responsible for the life-threatening
infections meningococcal meningitis and meningococcal septicaemia. Untreated, these
conditions can kill within 24 hours. 10% of survivors suffer serious, long-term
disabilities, including brain damage. Meningococcal disease is among the top ten
global causes of death due to infection. There are 13 different forms of the disease but
serogroups A, B and C are by far the most common. According to the World Health
Organization there are up to 25,000 meningococcal deaths every year in Africa.

61. Dr Gustavo Sierra cited in ‘Meningitis B: Cuba’, documentary posted by Journeyman

Pictures on 25 January 2008 www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgQZhTg04IM.
62. Despite this, Cuba’s achievement has been ignored or censored in Britain. In September
2015 when the NHS introduced a new Meningitis B vaccine for babies it claimed the
vaccine: ‘makes England [sic] the first country in the world to offer a national, routine
and publicly funded MenB vaccination programme’. NHS Choices,
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/. The then British Health Secretary Jeremy
Hunt repeated the claim. In fact, until 2014, only Cuba had developed a safe and
effective Meningitis B vaccine and millions of people in Cuba and around the world
had benefited.

63. Lage Dávila, Interview in Havana, 7 July 2017.

64. This occurred during the period of Rectification from the mid-to-late-1980s, during
which Fidel Castro pulled Cuba away from the Soviet economic management model,
fostering innovative science and technologies instead of the heavy industries the
Soviets’ recommended (see Chapter 1).

65. Lara Marks’ masterful 2015 history of the development of monoclonal antibodies
(MABs) omits Cuban advances that have placed the island at the forefront of MAB-
based immunology therapies. Lara V. Marks, The Lock and Key of Medicine:
Monoclonal Antibodies and the Transformation of Healthcare, Yale University Press,
2015.

66. The first monoclonal antibody registered for cancer treatment in the United States was
1997.

67. Lage Dávila, Interview in Havana, 7 July 2017.

68. In the 1980s, almost 80% of world pharmaceutical production (estimated at USD 84
billion) came from industrialised capitalist countries; 19% from centrally planned
socialist economies; 11% from Asia, Latin America and Africa (just 0.5%).

69. Cubadebate, ‘Cuba promueve en China posibilidad de inversiones en biotecnología’, 24

April 2014. http://www.cubadebate.cu/noticias/2014/.

70. Lage Dávila, Interview in Havana, 7 July 2017.

71. Helen Yaffe, ‘Cuban Development: Inspiration to the ALBA-TCP’ in Thomas Muhr
(ed.), Counter-Globalization and Socialism in the 21st Century: The Bolivarian
Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, Routledge, 2013, 101–118.
72. Recombinant human erythropoietin is used primarily to treat anaemia. By 2019, it had
been used to treat 1 million patients in 20 years. CIM, Presentacíon, 2019.

73. The development of Vidatox is entwined with the life of Niurys Monzon, who was
diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at the age of 11. In 1992, despite two years of
chemotherapy, radiation treatment and three operations, the cancer had spread and
hope was fading. Her father contacted a biologist from Guantanamo, Misael Bordier,
who was experimenting with the scorpion venom on cancerous tumours in rats and
dogs. The results were astonishing: ‘The immune system of the benign cells increases,
the malignant cells start dying and the tumors shrink or disappear’ explained Bordier.
85% of the rats survived. Then aged 15, Niury’s became the first Cuban patient to test
the venom. When CNN reported on the story in 2003, Niurys was 28 years old and
breeding 3,000 scorpions under Bordier’s guidance to distribute the venom to other
Cuban patients for free from her home. Lucia Newman, ‘Scorpion venon: A cure for
cancer?’ CNN, 23 October 2003,
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/10/23/cancer.scorpion.venom/.

74. Compatible with other oncological treatments, the formula has no contraindications. The
product has been approved for sale in China and some Latin American countries.

75. For a longer discussion juxtaposing the emergence and characteristics of the
biotechnology industry in the United States and advanced capitalist countries and Cuba
see Yaffe, ‘Cuba’s Biotech Revolution’.

76. Christian Zeller, ‘The Pharma-biotech Complex and Interconnected Regional

Innovation Arenas’, Urban Studies 47, 13, 2010, 2870.

77. Agustin Lage Dávila, La Economia del Conocimiento y el Socialismo: Preguntas y

Respuestas, Editorial Academia, 2015, 17–19.

78. This question was addressed by Gary Pisano, Science Business: The Promise, the
Reality, and the Future of Biotech, Harvard Business School Press, 2006. It was
subsequently labelled the ‘Pisano Puzzle’. See Lazonick and Tulum, ‘US
Biopharmaceutical Finance and the Sustainability of the Biotech Business Model’,
Research Policy, 40, 2011, 1170.

79. Joseph Cortright and Heike Mayer, Signs of Life: The Growth of Biotechnology Centres
 in the US, Brookings Institution, Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy, 2002, 19.

80. Cortright and Mayer, Signs of Life, 9.

81. Lazonick and Tulum, ‘US Biopharmaceutical Finance’, 1172.

82. Lazonick and Tulum, ‘US Biopharmaceutical Finance’, 1180.

83. Lazonick and Tulum, ‘US Biopharmaceutical Finance’, 1176.

84. For example, the 1980 Bayh–Dolye Act gave universities and hospitals clear property
rights to new knowledge that resulted from federally funded research. Also in 1980,
the Supreme Court decision in Diamond vs. Chakrabarty ruled that genetically
engineered life forms are patentable. The Orphan Drug Act of 1983 provided generous
tax credits for pharmaceutical companies that develop drugs for rare diseases. By 2008,
orphan drugs accounted for 74% of total revenues and 75% of product revenues of the
six leading companies.

85. Cortright and Mayer, Signs of Life, 9.

86. Lage Dávila, Interview in Havana, 7 July 2017.

87. Lee contrasts this to the US, the UK and Europe, where typically a small start-up is
established to investigate the science behind a ‘great idea’. It is subsequently bought
out by a larger company, sometimes twice, which might decide ‘well, you developed
this drug for a really rare disease but we’re going to use it to treat lung cancer’, and
subsequently ‘it really bombs and a great idea disappears’. Lee, Interview via Skype, 3
October 2017.

88. Lee, Interview via Skype, 3 October 2017.

89. EFE, ‘Cuba comienza a entregar gratis la píldora preventiva del VIH’, 3 April 2019.
www.efe.com/efe/america/sociedad/.

90. Given this ratio, 52,000 amputations which take place annually in the US due to diabetic
foot ulcers could be prevented.

91. Orfilio Peláez, ‘The jewel that Fidel conceived’, Granma, 7 September 2017,
http://en.granma.cu/cuba/2017-09-07/.
92. Lage, Interview in Havana, 7 July 2017.

93. Sara Reardon, ‘Can Cuban Science go Global?’, in Nature, 29 September 2016.

94. Haemophilus influenza type b (Hib) is a bacteria responsible for severe pneumonia,
meningitis and other invasive diseases almost exclusively in children aged under five.

95. Similarly to Heberprot-P, over 100,000 patients worldwide have benefited from using
Itolizumab.

96. This pales into insignificance in comparison to the United States, however, where some
5,500 patents are awarded annually according to Cortright and Mayer, Signs of Life, 9.

97. Information from Reid-Henry, Cuban Cure, 99–100.

98. Subsequently, they sought a more efficient carrier for EGF.

99. Lee, Interview via Skype, 3 October 2017.

100. Reardon, ‘Can Cuban Science Go Global?’, 602. In Britain women make up only
12.8% in the science, technology, engineering and maths workforce. George Arnett,
‘How well are women represented in UK science?’, Guardian, 13 June 2015
www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2015/.

101. This, and low salaries in Cuba, have prompted many Cuban medical scientists to seek
employment overseas. However, there is no evidence that the ‘brain drain’ from Cuba
is greater than in other developing countries. Thorsteinsdóttir et al., ‘Cuba:
Innovation’, 22.

102. Lage Dávila, La Economia del Conocimiento.

103. Marguerite Jiménez, ‘Epidemics and Opportunities for U.S.-Cuba Collaboration’

Science & Diplomacy, 6 September 2014; Reid-Henry, Cuban Cure.

104. Lage Dávila, Interview in Havana, 7 July 2017.

105. Reid-Henry, Cuban Cure, 124. Under the Helms–Burton Act, implemented the
following year, individual fines could go up to USD 250,000 plus ten years
incarceration for trading with Cuba.
106. BBC, ‘Cuba vaccine deal breaks embargo’, 29 July 1999.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/406780.stm. Other companies who
approached Cuba’s biopharma industries include: Amersham, Monsanto, Biovation
and Biognosis. Reid-Henry, Cuban Cure.

107. See Reid-Henry, Cuban Cure, about the York Medical collaboration with CIM.

108. Idania Caballero, Interview in Havana, 7 July 2017.

109. York Medical invested USD 10 million over five years in CIMAB, CIM’s business
wing, and Lage was elected onto their board of directors.

110. Caballero, Interview in Havana, 7 July 2017.

111. John Bolton, speech at the Heritage Foundation, ‘Beyond the Axis of Evil: Additional
Threats from Weapons of Mass Destruction’, 6 May 2002.
https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/.

112. Fidel Castro, ‘Respuesta Del Presidente De La República De Cuba A Las

Declaraciones Del Gobierno De Los Estados Unidos Sobre Armas Biológicas’, 10 May
2002, http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/2002/esp/f100502e.html.

113. David Gonzalez, ‘Carter and Powell Cast Doubt on Bioarms in Cuba’, New York
Times, 14 May 2002, www.nytimes.com/2002/05/14/world/carter-and-powell-cast-
doubt-on-bioarms-in-cuba.html.

114. The gravity of the US threat to Cuba must be understood in the international context
(invasion of Afghanistan) and the national context (open hostility between the Cuban
government and US diplomats in Havana). See Chapter 7 on Cuba–US relations.

115. Reardon, ‘Can Cuban Science go Global’, 602

116. For more details on Cuban biotech deals in the developing world see Thorsteinsdóttir
et al, ‘Cuba: Innovation’, 5.

117. Biotechpharma is a joint venture in Beijing employing 300 Chinese staff and 14
Cubans to produce monoclonal antibodies.

118. CIM, presentacíon general, 2019; Notman, ‘Cuba’s Cancer Treatments’.

119. Lee, Interview via Skype, 3 October 2017.

120. The extensive FDA application form required Roswell Park scientists to inspect all the
manufacturing, research and development components of CIMAvax-EGF, a process
which revealed ‘how sophisticated, how carefully designed CIM’s clinical trials are’,
according to Lee. On the 30-day deadline for a FDA response, Roswell Park received a
two-line email giving them permission to proceed. Lee, Interview via Skype, 3 October
2017.

121. Lee, Interview via Skype, 3 October 2017.

122. Notman, ‘Cuba’s Cancer Treatments’.

123. ‘CIMAvax is a b-cell vaccine. Its strength is to generate antibodies against epidermal
growth factor, and those antibodies deplete epidermal growth factor in the serum.
Cancers like lung cancer are very dependent on that growth factor so by depleting it
with this immune response and neutralising the immune response, the cancer is
starved. Opdivo, or Nivolumab is a T-cell immunomodulator. It activates the T-cells
component of the immune system, and those T-cells see the tumour and kill it directly.
So you have antibodies being generated by CIMAvax and activated T-lymphocytes
being generated by Opdivo.’ Lee, Interview via Skype, 3 October 2017.

124. Opdivo costs USD 10,000 a month, four times Cuba’s annual health care expenditure
per capita, which is around USD 2,500.

125. Lee, Interview via Skype, 3 October 2017.

126. Richard Stone, ‘United States bans most government scientists from travel to Cuba’,
Science, 28 November 2017. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/11/united-states-
bans-most-government-scientists-travel-cuba.

127. Bill Haseltine, ‘The Cuban Biotechnology Industry: A Report by Brookings Trustee
Bill Haseltine’, Brookings, 2012, 1–3.

128. ‘There has been a global trend of increasing R&D (7.4 per cent annual increase of total
capitalised costs) since 1980, as well as an increase in R&D expenditure per new drug
(802 US millions/drug).’ Mola et al, ‘Biotechnology in Cuba’, 3.

129. Rick Mullin, ‘Tufts Study Finds Big Rise in Cost of Drug Development’ 20 November
 2014. https://cen.acs.org/articles/92/web/2014/11/Tufts-Study-Finds-Big-Rise.html

130. The 2017/18 portfolio of investment opportunities in Cuba states the biopharma sector
aims: ‘To promote projects in Cuba with strategic partners for manufacturing finished
products and active drug ingredients for generic medicines. In the case of
biotechnological products, we will be evaluating specific businesses that would
complement domestic projects, thereby preserving [Cuban] intellectual property and
looking out for the proper use of what may be jointly generated, as well as the creation
or extension of production capacities.’

6. CUBAN MEDICAL INTERNATIONALISM: AN ARMY OF WHITE COATS

1. The pile of paperback books on the floor was the new English edition of Pérez Ávila’s
own book about AIDs in Cuba, A Doctor and His Patients Talk about AIDS in Cuba,
Casa Editora Abril, 2016.

2. Pérez Ávila graduated with a master’s in clinical pharmacology from McGill University
in Canada. He studied in the Schools of Tropical Medicine in London and Liverpool
and visited universities in Chicago, Cleveland and Ghana.

3. It resembles malaria, cholera, typhoid fever and meningitis. Between 1976 and 2013, the
WHO reports a total of 24 outbreaks involving 1,716 cases.

4. The virus is at its most virulent shortly after death, so traditional burial rites involving
bathing and embracing the deceased catalyse its spread.

5. USD 2.9 billion was pledged to the WHO by late 2014, but only a little over USD 1
billion was received. John M. Kirk and Chris Walker, ‘Cuban Medical
Internationalism: The Ebola Campaign of 2014–15’, International Journal of Cuban
Studies, 8:1, Spring 2016, 12.

6. Cited in WHO report, ‘Cuban Medical Team Heading for Sierra Leone’, September
2014. http://www.who.int/features/2014/cuban-ebola-team/en/.

7. The NGO Doctors without Borders had 225 international staff workers in three West
African countries by March 2015, working alongside 2,560 locals. Their medics served
for weeks at a time, not months like the Cubans.
8. Jorge Pérez Ávila, Interview in Havana, 6 July 2017.

9. Dr Leonardo Fernández, cited by Enrique Ubieta Gómez, ‘Doctors Fighting Ebola:

Completing Their Mission with Revolutionary and Medical Ethics’, Granma online, 23
march 2015, Granma http://en.granma.cu/cuba/2015-03-23/doctors-fighting-ebola.

10. Kirk and Walker, ‘The Ebola Campaign’.

11. Fernández, cited by Ubieta Gómez, ‘Doctors Fighting Ebola’.

12. Pérez Ávila, cited by Gail Reed, ‘Meet Cuban Ebola Fighters: Interview with Félix Baez
and Jorge Pérez Ávila, ‘A MEDICC Review Exclusive’, MEDICC Review, 17: 1, Jan-
Mar 2015.

13. Kirk and Walker, ‘The Ebola Campaign’.

14. ‘Cuba maintains fierce point-of-entry controls: mandatory prophylaxis if returning from
a malaria-endemic region and quarantine if returning from Ebola-infected locations . . .
routine follow-up actually occurs for travellers returning from any potential disease
“hot spot”. First, the neighbourhood doctor is notified of a recently returned passenger.
The doctor is then obligated to follow up directly with that person both to allow for
detection of any unusual symptoms and to ensure quick treatment where necessary as a
means of avoiding onward transmission. In this way, the Cuban health system far
outperforms any health system in the Global North.’ Wexham and Kittlesen, ‘Cuban
Healthcare Offers Many Lessons for Global Health Security’, Latin American and
Caribbean centre blog, London School of Economics, 27 February 2019.

15. Kirk and Walker, ‘The Ebola Campaign’, 10.

16. Fernández, cited by Ubieta Gómez, ‘Doctors Fighting Ebola’.

17. The Editorial Board, ‘Cuba’s Impressive Role on Ebola’, New York Times, 19 October
2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/20/opinion/cubas-impressive-role-on-
ebola.html.

18. Barak Obama, ‘Statement by the President on Cuba Policy Changes’, 17 December
2014. The White House, Office of the Press Secretary,
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/12/17/. In Liberia, the
Cubans worked in US-built centres and operated alongside US NGOs, such as Partners
 for Health. Felix Baéz was transported to Geneva on Phoenix Air, a company under
contract to the US State Department.

19. John Kirk, ‘Understanding Cuban Medical Internationalism’, PowerPoint presentation,

2019.

20. John Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, University Press of Florida, 2015, xii.

21. Margaret Randall, Exporting Revolution: Cuba’s Global Solidarity, Duke University
Press, 2017, 99.

22. Feinsilver, ‘Cuban Medical Diplomacy’; Feinsilver, ‘Fifty Years of Cuba’s Medical
Diplomacy: From Idealism to Pragmatism’, Cuban Studies, 41, 2000, 96–7.

23. Wexham and Kettle, ‘Cuban Healthcare’.

24. Robert Huish, ‘Why Does Cuba “Care” So Much? Understanding the Epistemology of
Solidarity in Global Health Outreach’, Public Health Ethics, 7:3, 2014, 262–4.

25. In 1823, the Monroe Doctrine asserted the United States’ control over the Americas at
the exclusion of European powers, and the notion that Cuba should gravitate naturally
to the United States when freed from Spain was articulated. In 1848, following the war
with Mexico, the United States annexed one-third of Mexican territory and President
James K. Polk offered to buy Cuba from Spain. Thus, the United States’ emerging
expansionist/imperialist character was already clear by the late 19th century.

26. See Isaac Saney ‘Homeland of Humanity: Internationalism within the Cuban
Revolution’, in Latin American Perspectives, 164, 36:1, January 2009, 113.

27. Ernesto Domínguez López and Helen Yaffe, ‘The Deep Historical Roots of Cuban Anti-
imperialism’, in Third World Quarterly, 38:11, 2017, 2517–2535.

28. Fidel Castro, cited by Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, 20.

29. The Associacion Nacional de Economistas Cubanos calculates that the US blockade
costs Cuba USD 12 million every day, which adds up to USD 4.4 billion annually.
Since the mid-2000s, medical exports have earned the country USD 6 to 8 billion
annually. However, those revenues do not deduct government expenditure on medical
training and overseas missions. ANEC presentation, 2019.
30. The dangers faced by Cuban healthcare workers were underscored by the gun-point
abduction of two Cuban medics – Dr Assel Herera Correa, a general physician, and Dr
Landy Rodriguez, a surgeon – from Mandera, a town in north-east Kenya on 12 April
2019. They are believed to have been taken into Somalia and were still being held
hostage in late 2019. The two were from a group of 100 Cuban medical specialists who
first arrived in Kenya in May 2018 following an agreement signed between both
countries’ governments to improve Kenya’s public health system.

31. Huish, ‘Why Does Cuba Care’, 266.

32. In 2018, infant mortality in Haiti was 41.5:1,000 by which time Haiti had been a
beneficiary of Cuban medical assistance for two decades.

33. Cited by Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, 52

34. Feinsilver, ‘Cuban Medical Diplomacy’.

35. This title borrows from Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, chapter 1.

36. Kirk points out that, in supporting the guerrillas, Fidel Castro risked the wrath of French
President Charles de Gaulle who had resisted US pressure to break relations with
Cuba. Healthcare Without Borders, 20.

37. Jose Ramon Ventura, cited in, Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, 20.

38. Piero Gleijeses, ‘Cuba and Africa: A History Worthy of Pride’, Socialist Voice, 2004.
http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?p=66.

39. Steve Brouwer, Revolutionary Doctors: How Venezuela and Cuba are Changing the
World’s Conception of Health Care, Monthly Review Press, 2011, 58.

40. Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, 120.

41. Brouwer, Revolutionary Doctors, 46. Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, 7; Huish,
‘Why Does Cuba Care’, 265.

42. Brouwer, Revolutionary Doctors, 185.

43. Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, 24.

44. Piero Gleijeses, ‘Moscow’s Proxy? Cuba and Africa 1975–1988’ Journal of Cold War
Studies, 8:4, 2006, 105.

45. Gleijeses, ‘Moscow’s Proxy?’ has more on Cuban interventions in Angola and Ethiopia.

46. See Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, Table 5.1, 120.

47. Brouwer, Revolutionary Doctors, 48.

48. See Gleijeses, ‘History Worth of Pride’; Saney, ‘Homeland of Humanity’.

49. Kirk lists medical faculties established in Yemen 1976, Guyana 1984, Ethiopia 1984,
Uganda 1986, Ghana 1991, The Gambia 1999, Equatorial Ghana 2000, Haiti 2001,
Guinea Bissau 2004, Venezuela 2005 and Timor-Leste 2010. Healthcare Without
Borders, Table 5.1, 27.

50. Pérez Ávila, Interview in Havana, 6 July 2017. Pérez himself developed a drug for a
strain of malaria which had become resistant to Chloroquine and was affecting Cubans
in Angola. See Flor de Paz, ‘Jorge Pérez Ávila, director del IPK: Médico hasta sus
nanopartículas’, Cubadebate, 26 diciembre 2014.
http://www.cubadebate.cu/noticias/2014/12/26/.

51. Gustavo Kourí, cited by Iramis Alonso and Bárbara Avendaño, ‘Gustavo Kourí: Un
hombre para la ciencia’. Bohemia, 23 December 2005.
http://articulos.sld.cu/ipk/2005/12/24/.

52. Gustavo Kourí served as Vice Chair at the United Nation’s TDR (tropical diseases)
Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases and was a member
of WHO’s Scientific and Technical Advisory Group for Neglected Tropical Diseases.
For an account of his work see: TDR News, ‘Remembering Gustavo Kourí’, 7 May
2011. www.who.int/tdr/news/2011/in-memoriam-kouri/en/.

53. Pérez Ávila, Interview in Havana, 6 July 2017.

54. Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, 26.

55. On a visit to the Island of Youth in 1995, my sister and I spent time with a group of
Zimbabwean students in their fifth year of studying in various non-medical
professions. Thousands of students were still hosted there.
56. Information from Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, Table 5.1. 120.

57. Cited in Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, 242–3.

58. The EU contributed USD 2 million to help affected children, while the European Bank
for Reconstruction and Development donated EUR 550 million for a protective shell to
be placed over Reactor 4. Several international NGOs ran projects to assist the victims,
especially children. Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, 237–40.

59. See Cuba and Chernobyl, Cuban Television documentary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H10xE1CcKxQ.

60. Fidel Castro cited by Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, 252.

61. ‘Cuba and Chernobyl’, Cuban Television documentary.

62. Pre-1959, Tarará was a holiday spot for the Cuban middle class. Subsequently it was
turned into a camp for the Cuban pioneers organisation for 7- to 14-year-olds, and a
polyclinic was set up. In the 1980s, during the dengue epidemic described in Chapter
6, the clinic was converted into a hospital. In 1990, it was converted into the Children
of Chernobyl Camp.

63. A minority were Russian or Belarussian, but most Ukrainian. The travel costs were paid
by their governments, or privately.

64. Some 3% of the children faced life-threatening conditions and stayed for long periods
with a family member. 17% had chronic pathologies and stayed at the Tarará hospital.
60% were ambulatory and treated at primary healthcare facilitates. 20% were relatively
healthy but needed screening as they lived in contaminated zones. Kirk, Healthcare
Without Borders, 245.

65. Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, 249. Kirk estimates the costs to Cuba in billions of
dollars, 249.

66. Both Ukrainian presidents are cited making this commitment by Kirk, Healthcare
Without Borders, 250.

67. Gail Reed, ‘Where to Train the World’s Doctors? Cuba’, TedMed talk, 1 October 2014.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS_Ssisz2_M.
68. Diplomatic relations were restored with Guatemala in 1998, Honduras in 2002,
Nicaragua in 2007, and El Salvador and Costa Rica in 2009.

69. Fidel Castro, ‘Speech at the Closing Session of the 12th National Science and
Technology Forum’, 21 November 1998. www.fidelcastro.cu/en/discursos/speech-
delivered-closing-session–12th-national-science-and-technology-forum

70. Kirk records that the Cuban government turned down Spanish investors proposing to
establish a tourist complex with a golf course on the site. Kirk, Healthcare Without
Borders, 43. The following information is drawn from Kirk, Healthcare Without
Borders; Reed, ‘Where to Train the World’s Doctors?; Brouwer, Revolutionary
Doctors.

71. CubaDebate, ‘La ELAM ha graduado en Cuba 170 médicos estadounidenses’,

CubaDebate, 2 August 2017. http://www.cubadebate.cu/noticias/2017/08/02/.

72. Margaret Chan, ‘Remarks at the Latin American School of Medicine’, World Health
Organization, 27 October 2009.
http://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2009/cuba_medical_20091027/en/.

73. Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, 65.

74. Anyone who has sought medical treatment in Cuba is likely to have been attended to by
an ELAM student.

75. Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, 58.

76. Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, 49. In addition, when foreign media has reported on
ELAM it has often been to sensationalise some dispute between students and Cuban
authorities, over accommodation conditions or food. In April 2019, some (social)
media outlets sought mileage out of a protest by Congolese students angry about the
failure of their own government to provide them with a stipend. Conflict is inevitable,
given the sheer numbers of young people from diverse countries and cultures confined
in one space under such an intense programme.

77. Reed, ‘Where to Train the World’s Doctors?’.

78. Even Cuba’s world-leading biotechnology industry is catered towards providing low-
cost treatment in a primary care setting, as Chapter 5 explains.
79. For more on this issue see Huish, Where No Doctor Has Gone Before.

80. Reed, ‘Where to Train the World’s Doctors?’.

81. For a discussion about the two-way flow of international solidarity see Gavin Brown
and Helen Yaffe, Youth Activism and Solidarity: The Non-Stop Picket Against
Apartheid, Routledge, 2018, 32–43.

82. Hugo Chávez, April 2010, cited by Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, 187.

83. By 2014 an estimated 60,000 Venezuelans had been treated in Cuban hospitals.

84. Héctor Navarro, cited by Bouwer, Revolutionary Doctors, 76. Figures also from
Brouwer, Revolutionary Doctors, 75–6.

85. Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, 171.

86. It is also true that, at the height of this collaboration, many Cubans complained about
the deterioration of Cuban healthcare provision at home, an indication of their
extremely high expectations, given that Cuba retained the best patient to doctor ratio in
the world. There was some subsequent effort by the Ministry of Public Health to
address this issue.

87. For more on emergence and impact of the Cuba–Venezuela embrace see Helen Yaffe,
‘Cuban Development,’ 101–18.

88. Yaffe, ‘Cuban Development’.

89. Brouwer, Revolutionary Doctors, 15

90. Kirk, ‘Cuban Medical Internationalism’. In 2017 when the figure was 3.5 million,
Telesur reported that 90% of the beneficiaries were Venezuelans and the rest were
from 18 Latin American countries. www.telesurtv.net/english/news/. Among the
beneficiaries was the former Bolivian soldier who shot Che Guevara in 1967.

91. A high proportion of graduates are women, 77% of graduates in 2012. Kirk, Healthcare
Without Borders, 185.

92. Kirk, ‘Understanding Cuban Medical Internationalism’.

93. Based on the number of patients who would normally have died if medical care had not
been provided, according to previous data. Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, 187.

94. This has risen slightly since Venezuela’s economic and political crises from 2013. The
mainstream media claimed a 30% rise in 2016, but the CIA estimate for that year was
12.5 per 1,000 live births, still lower than in 2010.

95. Fidel Castro, ‘Speech at the Foundation Ceremony of the “Henry Reeve” International
Contingent of Doctors Specialized in Disaster Situations and Serious Epidemics, and
the National Graduation of Students of Medical Sciences, 19 September 2005’. Scoop
Independent News World. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0509/S00376.htm.

96. A friend of mine, a native of New Orleans working as a community organiser in

Houston, helped out in the Houston Astrodome, which hosted tens of thousands of
survivors. He described the desperation, disorganisation and ‘circus of political
opportunism and condescension’ the survivors faced. He also told me that when the
live TV news channels broadcast onto huge screens in the command centre showed the
image of Fidel Castro with news of Cuba’s offer to assist, the US military personnel
and politicians awkwardly ignored it.

97. Fidel Castro, ‘Speech, Foundation Ceremony of the “Henry Reeve”’.

98. Helen Yaffe, ‘Internationalism in Practice: Cuban Doctors in the Mountains of

Pakistan’, Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 190, April–May 2006.
http://www.revolutionarycommunist.org/americas/cuba/.

99. Over USD 6.5 billion was pledged internationally, of which a little over USD 1 billion
was received by the Pakistani government.

100. Yaffe, ‘Internationalism in Practice’.

101. Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, 128–30

102. Yaffe, ‘Internationalism in Practice’.

103. Jean Víctor Généus, cited by Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, 207–8.

104. Randall, Exporting Revolution, 180.

105. Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders,199.

106. John Kirk and Emily Kirk examined media censorship of Cuba’s role, ‘Cuban Medical
Aid to Cuba’, Counterpunch, 1 April 2010. www.counterpunch.org/2010/04/01/cuban-
medical-aid-to-haiti/.

107. Fidel Castro, 23 January 2010, cited by Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, 198.

108. The November 1998 cooperation agreement included a literacy campaign, education,
agriculture, tourism, sport and, principally, medical cooperation. One month later, the
first Cuban doctors arrived in Haiti.

109. Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, 194.

110. PAHO report cited by Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, 196. Under-five infant
mortality was reduced from 135 to 59.4 per 1,000. Kirk also describes how in
September 2004, when 2,800 people died after flooding in the Haitian port city of
Gonaïves, a 64-person medical brigade arrived from Cuba to support the 18 Cuban
medics already worked there. They set up an additional network of six clinics and a
public health education campaign to prevent epidemics. Kirk, Healthcare Without
Borders, 191.

111. Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, 193.

112. Many faced unemployment for lack of investment in the public healthcare sector as
mentioned above.

113. Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, 205–6

114. Cited by Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, 213.

115. Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders; Huish, ‘Going Where No Doctor Has Gone’;
Randall, Exporting Revolution.

116. On Cuba’s role in the South Pacific see John M. Kirk and Chris Walker, ‘From
Cooperation to Capacitation: Cuban Medical Internationalism in the South Pacific’ in
International Journal of Cuban Studies, 5.1 Spring 2013, 10–25; on assistance for the
disabled see Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, chapter 3. The programme was based
on a similar programme developed in Cuba during the Battle of Ideas and discussed in
Chapter 3. Kirk lists 20 Cuban international disaster responses between 2000 and 2010,
 most of which are not included in this chapter. Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders,
Table 5.1, 120–22.

117. Fidel Castro, ‘Speech, Foundation Ceremony of the “Henry Reeve”’.

118. Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), ‘Country Report, Cuba’, 21 December 2017, 25–6.

119. Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, 39.

120. EIU, ‘Country Report’, 25.

121. For example, the British government gave money to South Africa to help pay Cubans
operating in Southern Africa, while France did likewise for its former African colonies.

122. Aleida Guevara, ‘Cuban Medical Internationalism’.

123. While tourism earnings were only slightly higher in 2016 (USD 3.07 billion) medical
exports had fallen from around USD 8.2 billion in 2016.

124. According to Cuban economist José Luis Rodríguez, cited in EIU, ‘Country Report’,
25. The EIU’s own annual estimate for the same period is USD 2 billion lower.

125. Rob Baggot and George Lambie, ‘Hard Currency, Solidarity, and Soft Power: The
Motives, Implications, and Lessons of Cuban Health Internationalism’, International
Journal of Health Services, 49:1, 2019, 170.

126. From 1998 to early 2010, 6,494 Cuban doctors in Haiti had carried out 14 million
medical consultations ($10 each = $140 million), 225,000 surgeries ($100 each = $225
million), 100,000 births ($50 each = $5 million), 47,273 eye operations ($25 each = $1
million). Plus 570 Haitian medical graduates ($5,000 each = $5.5 million) and 11 years
of salaries ($500 monthly = $41 million). José Steinsleger, ‘Haití, Cuba y la ley
primera’. La Jornada, 3 February 2010.
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2010/02/03/opinion/019a1pol.

127. Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, 34.

128. The 2018 figure was a forecast. EIU, ‘Country Report’, 25.

129. US sanctions on Venezuela were first implemented by Obama in 2015.

130. Kirk, Cuban Medical Internationalism.

131. Aleida Guevara, ‘Cuban Medical Internationalism’.

132. A PAHO report also found that almost 70% of the Brazil’s poor families had access to
basic health care in 2017 through the More Doctors Programme. ‘Brazil: Bolsonaro
Ready to Terminate the “More Doctors” Program’, Telesur, 7 February 2019,
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/

133. Telesur, ‘Over 1,000 Physicians Give Up Bolsonaro’s “More Doctors” Program’, 4
April 2019 https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/.

134. For more on the Medical Parole Programme see H. Michael Erisman, ‘Brain Drain
Politics: The Cuban Medical Professional Parole Programme’, International Journal of
Cuban Studies, 4: 3/4, (Autumn/Winter 2012), 269–90.

135. Randall, Exporting Revolution, 162.

136. Erisman, ‘Brain Drain Politics’, 279.

137. Erisman, ‘Brain Drain Politics’, 282. Erisman also points out that Cuban medical
professionals may be rendered ineligible as immigrants to the United States if they
have been members of a communist party or affiliated organisations within ten years of
their application.

138. The Editorial Board, ‘A Cuban Brain Drain, Courtesy of the US’, New York Times, 17
November 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/17/.

139. With this avenue for defection ended, a group of 150 Cuban doctors in Brazil filed
lawsuits in Brazilian courts, ‘demanding to be treated as independent contractors who
earn full salaries, not agents of the Cuban state’ as reported by Ernesto Londoño,
‘Cuban Doctors Revolt: “You Get Tired of Being a Slave”’, 29 September 2017, New
York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/world/americas/brazil-cuban-
doctors-revolt.html. If successful, they are unlikely to pay back the Cuban government
for their training.

140. Among US programmes in Cuba have been efforts to set up ‘private pharmacies’ often
stocked with medicines pilfered from government resources.
141. Pérez Ávila, Interview in Havana, 6 July 2017.

142. Guideline 70, 2016–21, ‘Documentos de 7mo. Congreso’.

143. Guideline 84, 2016–21, ‘Documentos de 7mo. Congreso’.

144. Cited by Kirk, Healthcare Without Borders, 276

145. Agencia Cubana de Noticias, ‘Destaca Canciller cubano labor de médicos en

Mozambique’, 9 April 2019, Escambray, http://www.escambray.cu/2019/. On 14
March, Tropical Cyclone Idai hit Mozambique affecting 2 million people and killing at
least 400.

146. Carlos Fernandez de Cossío, Cuba’s General Director of US Affairs, interviewed by

Andrea Mitchell, MSNBC, 3 May 2019. http://www.msnbc.com/andrea-mitchell-
reports/

147. John Kirk, ‘Cuban Foreign Policy from Raúl to Díaz-Canel’, presentation on the panel
‘Cuba After Castro: A New Model of “Prosperous and Sustainable” Socialism’, Latin
American Studies Association Annual Congress, Boston, 25 May 2019.

7. CUBA AND THE UNITED STATES: PLUS ÇA CHANGE, PLUS C’EST LA MÊME
CHOSE?

1. This figure rises to over USD 933 billion when taking into account the depreciation of the
dollar against the price of gold on the international market.

2. Carlos Fernandez de Cossío, Cuba’s General Director of US Affairs in Cuba’s Ministry

of Foreign Relations, interviewed by Andrea Mitchell, MSNBC, 3 May 2019.
http://www.msnbc.com/andrea-mitchell-reports/watch/.

3. John Bolton, ‘Remarks by National Security Advisor Ambassador John R. Bolton on the
Administration’s Policies in Latin America’, issued on 2 November 2018.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/. On 10 September 2019, Bolton was
sacked by Trump as National Security Advisor, but claiming he had first resigned.

4. Ricardo Alarcón, Interview in Havana, 27 December 2016.

5. George W. Bush, ‘President Bush Delivers Graduation Speech at West Point’, United
 States Military Academy, West Point, New York, June 1, 2002. https://georgewbush-
whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/06/.

6. Fidel Castro, ‘Discurso pronunciado en las honras fúnebres de las víctimas del
bombardeo a distintos puntos de la república, efectuado en 23 y 12, frente al
cementerio de Colón’, 16 April 1961.
http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/1961/esp/f160461e.html.

7. Che Guevara cited by Kornbluh and LeoGrande, Back Channel, 85.

8. In 2016, Tracey Eaton revealed that: ‘The State Department, the Agency for International
Development and the National Endowment for Democracy have spent $304,300,000
on Cuba-related democracy programs since 1996. The Broadcasting Board of
Governors, which oversees Radio & TV Martí, has spent another $700 million or so.
That brings the total to around $1 billion [by 2015].’ Tracey Eaton, ‘Democracy
Spending Down, but Controversy Remains’, Along the Malecón, 1 October 2016.
https://alongthemalecon.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/.

9. See the Channel 4 documentary, ‘638 Ways to Kill Castro’, directed by Dollan Cannell,
28 November 2006, about CIA attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COd4fIvUBeI.

10. James Bamford, Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security
Agency, First Anchor, 2002, 77.

11. Tomás Diez Acosta, Peligros y principios. Editorial Verde Olivo, Cuba, 1992, 170.

12. The statement ‘he may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch’ has been
attributed to several US presidents referring to different foreign dictators. President
Franklin D. Roosevelt allegedly said it about Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua and/or
Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic.

13. Bardach, Cuba Confidential, 145.

14. Carriles, Bosch and Mas Canosa had died peacefully, at full liberty, in Miami.
Rodriguez was still alive at the time of writing.

15. Kornbluh and LeoGrande, Back Channel, 112. For example, according to the San
Francisco Chronicle, ‘With at least the tacit backing of U.S. Central Intelligence
 Agency officials, operatives linked to anti-Castro terrorists introduced African swine
fever virus into Cuba in 1971. Six weeks later an outbreak of the disease forced the
slaughter of 500,000 pigs to prevent a nationwide animal epidemic.’ ‘1971 Mystery’,
10 January 1977. http://www.maebrussell.com/Health/CIA%20Pig%20Virus.html.

16. FBI veteran, cited by Bardach, Cuba Confidential, 116.

17. Carriles, cited by Bardach, Cuba Confidential, 175.

18. Carriles was granted Venezuelan citizenship, which explains why the Chávez
government requested his extradition to Venezuela where he was wanted for the Cuban
airline bombing mentioned later.

19. The so-called Archives of Terror uncovered in Paraguay in December 1992 revealed
that at least 50,000 people had been killed, 30,000 ‘disappeared’ and 400,000 arrested
and imprisoned under Operation Condor.

20. Cuban researchers, academics and former agents have documented these activities in
detail. Among the English language accounts are: Bardach, Cuba Confidential, and
Hernando Calvo Ospina, Bacardi: the Hidden War, London: Pluto Press, 2000.

21. Bardach, Cuba Confidential, 179.

22. Note verbale datée du 24 novembre 2014, adressée au Secrétaire général par la Mission
permanente de Cuba auprès de l’Organisation des Nations Unies, 2 March 2015,
http://tinyurl.com/y2e2ugwh

23. From 1973 to 1976 more than 100 politically motivated attacks in South Florida were
directed by anti-Castro groups: businesses and media outlets were bombed, careers
were destroyed and people were assassinated.

24. Bardach, Cuba Confidential, 117.

25. Bosch cited in the Miami Herald, ‘Venezuelans Absolve Bosch in Bombing of Plane’,
27 September 1980. http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/belligerence/bosch-
absolved.htm.

26. Bardach, Cuba Confidential, 192.

27. Tina Griego, ‘They Risked Everything to Open a Door to Cuba: They were Shunned for
 it’, The Washington Post, 5 January 2005.
www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2015/01/05/. The Brigade grew out of
Arieto, a magazine published by New York-based exiles who supported the Cuban
Revolution.

28. Griego, ‘They Risked Everything’.

29. Kornbluh and LeoGrande, Back Channel, 179. On this first meeting with Fidel Castro in
Havana, Benes apparently first joked that he had come to collect the USD 1 million the
government of Cuba owed his family for expropriating their textile factory. Kornbluh
and LeoGrande, Back Channel, 180.

30. Nelson Valdés, personal communication, 18 December 2018.

31. Kornbluh and LeoGrande, Back Channel, 195; Bardach, Cuba Confidential, 110;
Griego, ‘They Risked Everything’.

32. After 10,000 Cubans sought asylum in the Peruvian embassy in April 1980, Fidel Castro
announced that any Cuban who wanted to leave the island could go to Mariel harbour
and be picked up by Cuban-Americans.

33. Bardach, Cuba Confidential, 116.

34. ‘Cuban Security discovered and identified a total of 179 officers, 27 polygraph (lie
detector) technicians, 28 communications technicians and 18 CIA collaborators.’ They
included foreign recruits. Manuel A. González, ‘Agentes encubiertos y oficiales
descubiertos’, Razones de Cuba, 4 mayo 2016.
http://razonesdecuba.cubadebate.cu/articulos/agentes-encubiertos-y-oficiales-
descubiertos/.

35. González, ‘Agentes Encubiertos’.

36. Bardach, Cuba Confidential, 139–40.

37. Bardach, Cuba Confidential, 211.

38. Two bombs were placed on the flight by Venezuelans Freddy Lugo and Hernán Ricardo
Lozano.

39. Eaton, ‘Democracy Spending Down’.

40. Bolton, ‘Remarks by National Security Advisor’.

41. Six months after Bolton’s statement, on 5 May 2019, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
suggested that the Trump administration was talking to the Cuban government about
the situation with Venezuela. David Jessop, ‘Pompeo Indicates Dialogue may be
Taking Place with Cuba on Venezuela’, Cuba Briefing, 13 May 2019, 3.

42. This analysis draws from Kornbluh and LeoGrande, Back Channel. For a Cuban
account see Elier Ramírez Cañedo and Esteban Morales Domínguez, De la
Confrontación a los Intentos de ‘Normalización’: La Política de los Estados Unidos
hacia Cuba, Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 2014.

43. Kornbluh and LeoGrande, Back Channel, 44–45.

44. For fear of recriminations from the powerful Cuban exile community, US officials have
often claimed that talks concerned a single issue. According to Alarcón, however, that
was rarely the case: ‘I have a hard time remembering the exceptional moments when
we only talked about that one thing’. Alarcón, Interview in Havana, 27 December
2016.

45. Because he presided over the National Assembly, foreign commentators often referred
to Ricardo Alarcón as the third-most powerful figure in Cuba. He also was a member
of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba until 2013. Today he is an
adviser to the Council of State.

46. Alarcón, Interview in Havana, 27 December 2016.

47. Accompanying Alarcón on the Cuban team were José Antonio Arbezú, from the Cuban
Communist Party’s Americas Department, and Olga Miranda, Legal Adviser in the
Ministry of Foreign Relations.

48. Alarcón, Interview in Havana, 27 December 2016.

49. Fidel Castro to Peter Tarnoff in 1977, cited in Kornbluh and LeoGrande, Back Channel,
201.

50. A point emphasised by Josefina Vidal, Interview in Havana, 28 December 2016.

51. Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia and Mexico voted against, but only Mexico defied the decision.
 According to Kornbluh and LeoGrande, before the OAS vote officials from the US,
Brazil and Mexico made a secret pact to ensure that one OAS country would maintain
relations with Cuba; not even President Johnson knew about the deal orchestrated by
Secretary of State Dean Rusk. Kornbluh and LeoGrande, Back Channel, 100.

52. Diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, which had been broken after Batista’s coup
in 1952, were re-established in May 1960. The United States broke off diplomatic
relations with Cuba on 3 January 1961.

53. Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959–1976,
University of North Carolina Press. Gleijeses has researched and published many
important works about Cuba’s role in Africa. In 1973, 200 Cuban military advisers
went to the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, then the only ‘socialist state’ in
the Arab World; Cubans trained revolutionaries in the Dhofar region of feudal Oman
and sent troops to Syria. Between November 1973 and May 1974 Cubans using Soviet
tanks directly engaged Israeli forces in the Golan Heights. Randall, Exporting
Revolution, 71.

54. Piero Gleijeses, ‘Moscow’s Proxy?’, 98.

55. An organisation for states not formally aligned to the capitalist or socialist world power
blocs. The label ‘Non-Aligned Movement’ (NAM) was not adopted until the fifth
conference in 1976. Havana went on to host NAM summits in 1979 and 2006.

56. This led to the foundation of the Organization for the Solidarity with the Peoples of
Asia, Africa and Latin America (OSPAAL).

57. The four countries were Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago,

58. Allende, Interview in Havana, 4 January 2017.

59. Serrano, Interview in Havana, 4 April 2018. In 2018 there were 2,011 solidarity
associations worldwide, which organised more than 3,800 activities in 131 countries.
Nuria Barbosa León, ‘Retos para el Movimiento de solidaridad con Cuba en el 2019’,
Granma, 25 January 2019. http://www.granma.cu/cuba/2019-01-25/.

60. When I attended the World Festival of Youth and Students in Cuba in 1997, the largest
delegation was from the United States, with 850 members. By comparison, the British
delegation had fewer than 100 members.
61. Bardach, Cuba Confidential, 127.

62. Cited by Jane Franklin, ‘The Cuba Obsession’, The Progressive, July 1993,
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~hbf/canf.htm.

63. Bardach adds: ‘that the one exemption written into the bill allowed US
telecommunications firms to do business with Cuba and that Mas Canosa presided over
one of the largest phone cable systems in Florida prompted Beltway wags to dub the
legislation the “Jorge Mas Canosa Telecommunications Act”.’ Bardach, Cuba
Confidential, 128.

64. Franklin, ‘Cuba Obsession’.

65. Kornbluh and LeoGrande, Back Channel, 268.

66. See Bardach, Cuba Confidential, 128–30.

67. The Helms–Burton Act has four titles. Title I is concerned with ‘strengthening
international sanctions against the Castro government’; Title II contains measures of
‘assistance to a free and independent Cuba’; Title III authorises US nationals with
claims to confiscated property in Cuba to file suits in US courts against persons that
may be ‘trafficking’ in that property; Title IV obliges US authorities to deny entry into
the United States of foreigners owning or ‘trafficking’ in ‘confiscated properties of
United States nationals’. Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad) Act of
1996. https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/documents/libertad.pdf.

68. Stefaan Smis and Kim van der Borght, ‘The EU-US Compromise on the Helms–Burton
and D’Amato Acts’, American Journal of International Law, 93:1, January 1999, 228.

69. 1997 Understanding, supra note 12, 36 ILM at 529, cited in Stefaan Smis and Kim van
der Borght, ‘EU-US Compromise’, 232.

70. The EU’s concern for Cuban human rights did not extend to the indiscriminate suffering
inflicted by the US blockade.

71. The one exception I am aware of (prior to the enactment of Title III of the Helms–
Burton Act) was in April 2016 when a district court in Dortmund, Germany, issued an
order against PayPal for applying US laws in the country. See:
 http://misiones.minrex.gob.cu/en/articulo/cubas-report-resolution-705-united-nations-
general-assembly-entitled-necessity-ending.

72. Roque said that the Brother’s leader Basulto ‘had asked him for information he could
use to attack electric transmission towers in Ceinfuegos province’. Stephen Kimber,
What Lies Across the Water: The Real Story of the Cuban Five, Fernwood Publishing,
2013, 109–10. See also: Asamblea Nacional de Poder Popular, The Perfect Storm: The
Case of the Cuban Five, Editora Política, 2005.

73. The payment received in 2001 only applied to three of the deceased who had been US
citizens. The family of the fourth was granted USD 3 million from the other recipients.
‘Cuban pilots charged with murder’, CNN, 22 August 2003,
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/LAW/08/21/cuba.pilots/.

74. I was in Cuba in summer 1997, along with 12,000 young people from around the world
participating in 14th World Festival of Youth and Students under the slogan, ‘For Anti-
Imperialist Solidarity, Peace and Friendship’.

75. Kimber, The Cuban Five, 199. Ten Cuban agents involved in the Wasp Network were
arrested, but five of them struck deals with US authorities – lesser sentences in
exchange for testifying against their compatriots.

76. They were convicted of false identification, conspiracy to commit espionage and, in
Gerardo Hernández’s case, conspiracy to commit murder, for passing information
about the Brothers flight plans to Cuban intelligence prior to the shoot down. The Five
were subjected to long stretches in isolation and denial of access to lawyers or family
visits.

77. Cuba and Venezuela set up ALBA in 2004. Bolivia joined in 2006, Nicaragua in 2007,
Honduras in 2008 (withdrawn after the 2009 coup against Manuel Zelaya), Dominica
in 2008, Ecuador in 2009 (withdrawn in 2018), Antigua and Barbuda 2009 and Saint
Vincent and the Grenadines in 2009, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia (2014) and
Grenada 2014.

78. Helen Yaffe, ‘Cuban Development’, 101–18.

79. Cited by Philip Brenner and Marguerite Jimenez, ‘US Policy on Cuba Beyond the Last
Gasp’, NACLA Report on the Americas, 39:4, 21.
80. Correa Delgado, Interview in London, 28 October 2009.

81. There were exceptions: Mexico has been a member of the North American Free Trade
Area with the United States and Canada since 1994, and the Pacific Alliance
established between Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru in 2011 was favourable
towards the United States, arguably having been set up to counter the impact of the
more radical trade and cooperation forums.

82. Ernesto Domínguez López and Helen Yaffe, ‘The Deep Historical Roots of Cuban Anti-
imperialism’ in Third World Quarterly, 2017, 38:11, 2526.

83. Mireya Moscoso was a graduate of Miami Dade College which was established in 1959
largely for Cuban exiles. According to Canadian journalist Jean-Guy Allard, ‘The
pardon . . . was negotiated in Miami by Ruby Moscoso, sister of the then Panamanian
president Mireya Moscoso, for the sum of USD 4 million, according to documents
published on the internet. It is also revealed that Posada Carriles used false documents
provided by the US embassy in Panama to leave that country.’ Special for Granma
International, 7 April 2005. www.latinamericanstudies.org/posada/pardoning.htm.

84. Relations were restored by the incoming administration of Martín Torrijos.

85. Carol J. Williams, ‘US Criticized as Cuban Exile is Freed’, Los Angeles Times, 20 April
2007.

86. Democracy Now! Interview with Ann Louise Bardach, 2009, ‘Cuban Exile Carriles and
Her Book’.

87. George W. Bush, ‘State of the Union Address’, 21 September 2001,

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/sep/21/september11.usa13.

88. John Bolton, Speech ‘Beyond the Axis of Evil’, 2000.

89. David Gonzalez, ‘Carter and Powell Cast Doubt on Bioarms in Cuba’, New York Times,
14 May 2002. www.nytimes.com/2002/05/14/world/carter-and-powell-cast-doubt-on-
bioarms-in-cuba.html.

90. This was in contravention of the United Nations Declaration on the Inadmissibility of
Intervention and Interference in the Internal Affairs of States. Resolution 36/103, 91st
Plenary meeting, 9 December 1981.
91. See ‘The “Diplomacy” of James Cason: Manual for Manufacturing Dissidents’ for a
chronological record of Cason’s activities between 10 September 2002, when he
arrived, to 14 March 2003. The final event listed on 14 March was a workshop on
‘journalistic ethics’ hosted at Cason’s home with 34 Cubans of the ‘independent press’,
21 journalists from 10 foreign press agencies and 5 members of USIS. Even the
content of the lunch is noted in the document. Cuba Socialista:
https://web.archive.org/web/20040108232206/http://www.cubasocialista.cu/texto/csidisi1.htm

92. Even some longstanding supporters of Cuba, such as US scholar Noam Chomsky,
condemned Cuban government repression.

93. Phillip Agee, ‘Terrorism and Civil Society as Instruments of US Policy in Cuba’,
Counter Punch, 8 August 2003. https://www.counterpunch.org/2003/08/08/.

94. James Petras, ‘The Responsibility of the Intellectuals: Cuba, the US and Human Rights’,
1 May 2003. https://www.canadiannetworkoncuba.ca/Documents/Petras-
1may03.shtml. He adds: ‘This is especially true of the U.S. where under Title 18,
Section 951 of the U.S. Code, “anyone who agrees to operate within the United States
subject to the direction or control of a foreign government or official would be
subjected to criminal prosecution and a 10 year prison sentence”.’

95. Felipe Pérez Roque, ‘Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque’, press conference, 9
April 2003. https://www.canadiannetworkoncuba.ca/Documents/Roque-Dissidents-
Apr03.shtml.

96. Rosa Miriam, Los Dissidentes, Editora Política, 2003, has testimonies from 12 Cuban
state agents infiltrated into US-backed internal opposition.
http://www.lajiribilla.co.cu/pdf/disidentes/parte1.pdf.

97. Witness statement by Néstor Baguer Sánchez Galarraga, footage shown at Roque,
‘Press Conference’. The agent had helped lead the journalism ethics workshop at
Cason’s home on 14 March referred to earlier.

98. Witness statement by Odilia Collazo, footage shown at Roque, ‘Press Conference’.

99. Roque, ‘Press Conference’.

100. By March 2004, the US military was holding nearly 7,500 prisoners in Abu Ghraib
prison in Iraq.
101. Roque, ‘Press Conference’.

102. Roque, ‘Press Conference’.

103. The label ‘Ladies in White’ is a wildly misplaced reference to the Argentinian Madres
de la Plaza (Mothers of the Square), who emerged in Argentina to demand information
about the 30,000 people ‘disappeared’ during the Dirty War, 1976 to 1983, under the
US-backed military dictatorship.

104. See ‘Laura Pollán, muerte de las damas de blanco, fracaso contra el pueblo de Cuba’,
16 Oct 2011. Razones de Cuba. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ6689MU1ug. In
November 2006, Álvarez was sentenced to four years in prison in the United States for
conspiracy to stockpile weapons for use against Cuba. A few years earlier Álvarez’s
plans to bomb Havana’s famous Tropicana night club were thwarted by a Cuban
government intelligence agent he unwittingly offered to pay USD 10,000 per bomb.

105. Colin Powell, US Secretary of State, ‘foreword’, ‘Commission for Assistance to a Free
Cuba, Report to the President’, May 2004.
https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/Pcaab192.pdf.

106. ‘The program could draw on youth organizations in Central and Eastern Europe,
especially in Poland, the Czech Republic, Albania, Serbia, to travel to Cuba to
organize and conduct training, develop informational materials and conduct other
outreach. Many of these groups have been successfully involved in similar efforts in
other countries and have expressed a commitment to doing the same in Cuba’.
‘Commission for Assistance’, 23.

107. ‘Commission for Assistance’, Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State, Chair; Carlos
Gutierrez, Secretary of Commerce, Co-Chair, July 2006, 20. This USD 20 million
annual ‘investment’ continued into the Obama era.

108. Alarcón cited by Suzanne Goldenberg, ‘US has $80m plan for Cuba after Castro’,
Guardian, 4 July 2006. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jul/04/usa.cuba.

109. Raúl Capote, Enemigo, Editorial José Martí, 2011.

110. Capote, Enemigo, 87–9.

111. Sánchez was also receiving a monthly salary of USD 10,000, paid by SIP IAPA (a
group of Latin American big media corporations) and the Spanish daily El Pais. See
Salim Lamrani, ‘Conversaciones con la bloguera cubana Yoani Sánchez’, Rebelion, 15
April 2010, available in English: http://internalreform.blogspot.com/2010/04/; and
Helen Yaffe, ‘The Grotesque Circus of Yoani Sanchez’ Fight Racism! Fight
Imperialism! April–May 2013.
http://revolutionarycommunist.org/americas/cuba/2970-tg170413.

112. Jonathan Farrar, Cable, 15 April 2009.

https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09HAVANA221_a.html.

113. United States Government Accountability Office, Report to Congressional Requesters,

Foreign Assistance US Democracy Assistance for Cuba, November 2006, 37.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6Mo1c2bIFLWODkxbWwwOGpaM0E/edit.

114. Miami exiles alleged that Cuba was laundering USD 3.9 billion with the Swiss bank.

115. Daniel W. Fisk ‘Advancing the Day When Cuba Will Be Free’, Deputy Assistant
Secretary, Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, Remarks to the Cuban American
Veterans Association, Miami, Florida, 9 October 2004. https://2001-
2009.state.gov/p/wha/rls/rm/37025.htm.

116. Allegedly, the OFAC group pursuing Cuban assets had many more members than the
group set up to pursue the assets of Osama Bin Laden.

117. Chapter 3 has more information on this. The Cuban legislation did not criminalise the
US dollar, which could be legally held or deposited in Cuban bank accounts.

118. ‘Years of receiving perks and privileges from the government had established
something of a détente between the Jewish community and the Castros – they even had
some of the best access to technology like cell phones and email of anyone on the
island.’ Joshua Hersh, ‘I Was Duped. I Was Used.’ BuzzFeed, 1 July 2015.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/joshuahersh/alan-gross-and-the-high-cost-of-democracy-in-
cuba.

119. Gross was released on 17 December 2014.

120. See: ‘Cubans Mobilise Against Imperialist Mercenaries and Terrorists’,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdiAx-HtLM0.
121. Orlando Zapata’s criminal record involved: domestic violence (2003), possession of a
weapon and assault (fracturing someone’s cranium with a machete) (2000), fraud
(2000), and public disorder (2002). John M. Kirk and Emily J. Kirk, ‘Human Rights in
Cuba and Honduras, 2010: The Spring of Discontent’, Cuba Analysis, 19 May 2010.
https://cuba-solidarity.org.uk/news/article/1851/human-rights-in-cuba-and-honduras-
2010-the-spring-of-discontent.

122. French commentator Salim Lamrani points out: ‘On the one hand AI [Amnesty
International] characterises them as “prisoners of conscience” and on the other hand it
admits they committed the serious crime of accepting “money or materials from the
US government”.’ Salim Lamrani, ‘The Suicide of Orlando Zapata Tamayo’, Voltaire
Network, 18 March 2010, http://www.voltairenet.org/article164489.html. Lamrani
points out that in 2009 there were 122 suicides in French prisons and 60 in those of
England and Wales, none of which were met with international outcry.

123. The day after his death, Zapata’s mother declared: ‘They finally murdered my son’,
and later called for the world to impose sanctions on Cuba. In response, Cuban national
news aired footage of Zapata’s mother thanking Cuban medical personnel: ‘We have
full confidence; we can see your concern and everything that is being done to save
him.’ She referred to ‘the best doctors, trying to save his life’. The Cuban medics had a
kidney for transplant standing by.

124. In 1995 Fariñas assaulted, battered and threatened to kill a woman doctor and hospital
director. Sentenced to 3 years, he initiated his first hunger strike and joined the
‘dissidence’. In 2002, an old woman he attacked with a walking stick needed
emergency surgery. Sentenced to 5 to 10 years, Fariñas began a second hunger strike.
His third hunger strike was to demand a television in the hospital wing where he was
recovering from dehydration caused by the second. In December 2003, Cuban
authorities released him because of his medical condition, but in 2006 Fariñas initiated
a hunger strike to demand internet access from his home for his work as a reporter for
Radio Martí. Salim Lamrani, ‘The Inconvenient Truth about Guillermo Fariñas’,
Machetera, https://machetera.wordpress.com/2010/11/11/the-inconvenient-truth-about-
guillermo-farinas/. In 2016, Fariñas was among a handful of ‘dissidents’ who met
President Obama at USIS in Havana.

125. Both programmes were exposed by Associated Press investigations. Those contracted
 were given ‘quick pointers on how to evade Cuban intelligence and were paid as little
as $5.41 an hour for work that could have easily landed them in prison’. Editorial, ‘In
Cuba, Misadventures in Regime Change’, 9 November 2014, New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/opinion/in-cuba-misadventures-in-regime-
change.html.

126. The official claim was that Gross’s release was a humanitarian gesture and not part of
the prisoner swop.

127. Vidal, Interview in Havana, 28 December 2016.

128. Cuba’s resolution has received a majority vote in favour every year since it was first
submitted in 1992. For several years, only the United States and Israel have opposed it.

129. In January 2015, after visiting Cuba the previous summer, Thomas Donohue, president
of the influential US Chamber of Commerce, enthused about the prospects of trade
with Cuba, pointing out that many countries were increasing trade with Cuba,
including Russia and China. ‘State of American Business News Conference’, C-Span,
https://www.c-span.org/video/?323778-2/. In early January 2015, some 30 US
agricultural and food companies announced that they would pressure Congress to end
the blockade.

130. Putin cited by Alexei Anishchuk and Daniel Trotta, ‘Putin Pledges To Help Cuba
Explore for Offshore Oil’, Reuters, 11 July 2014. Russia was exploring for oil and gas
in Cuban waters and assisting the Mariel port construction. Cuba agreed to host
navigation stations for Russia’s own satellite global positioning system, Glonass. Other
economic, financial, military and intelligence projects between the two countries were
underway.

131. Cuba’s annual bilateral trade with China was worth almost USD 2 billion. China
agreed to import Cuban nickel, sugar and cigars, digitalise the television system,
upgrade communications and cyber security and cooperate in the health, education and
science sectors. China offered to provide a USD 120 million loan and assistance with
the construction of another new port and industrial development zone in Cuba’s second
city, Santiago de Cuba.

132. Barak Obama, ‘Statement by the President on Cuba Policy Changes’, The White
House Office of the Press Secretary, 17 December 2014.
 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/12/17/statement-
president-cuba-policy-changes.

133. Raúl Castro, ‘President Raúl Castro speaks to Third CELAC Summit in Costa Rica’,
Granma, 29 January 2015.

134. Allende, Interview in Havana, 4 January 2017.

135. However, the Cuban Adjustment Act, which gives any Cuban permanent residency in
the United States after one year in the country, has not been abrogated.

136. The deal with Google, which did not require a licence, is discussed in Chapter 10.

137. The one exception was a shipment of 40 tons of artisanal charcoal produced by Cuban
cooperative farms and imported in January 2017 by Scott Gilbert, the attorney who
represented US government contractor Alan Gross, released from prison in Cuba in
2014.

138. Alberto Navarro, Talk in Havana, March 2018. The High Representative is generally
referred to as the EU ‘Ambassador’.

139. Navarro, Talk in Havana, March 2018.

140. Karin Strohecker, ‘Cuba creditors offer “very significant relief” in debt proposal’,
Reuters, 13 February 2018.

141. Granma News Staff, ‘President Díaz-Canel Visits Major Works Underway in Mariel
Special Development Zone’, Granma, 14 January 2019.
http://en.granma.cu/cuba/2019-01-14/president-diaz-canel-visits-major-works-
underway-in-mariel-special-development-zone.

142. In 1958, Cuba’s diplomatic relations were mostly with the Americas and Europe.

143. Eduardo Delgado Bermudez, presentation at the second seminar, London School of
Economics (Latin America and Caribbean Centre) and University of Havana
(FLACSO), Havana, 2 December 2018. In 1973, Cuba broke off diplomatic relations
with Israel, the only country in the world to consistently support the US blockade of
Cuba at the UN General Assembly.
8. RAÚL CASTRO’S REFORMS: SOCIALIST EFFICIENCY OR CAPITALIST OPENING?

1. The other government leaders were José Ramón Balaguer Cabrera, José Ramón Machado
Ventura, Esteban Lazo Hernández and Carlos Lage Dávila.

2. For more about the Great Debate of the 1960s see Yaffe, Che Guevara, and Yaffe, ‘Che
Guevara and the Great Debate’, 11–40.

3. See Mimi Whitefield, ‘Contradictory Policies Mean One Step Forward and One Step
Back for Cuba’s Ailing Economy’, citing retired US State Department official Gary
Maybarduck, Miami Herald, 13 August 2018. www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-
world/world/americas/cuba/.

4. Raúl Castro, closing remarks at the Sixth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party, 19
April 2011. http://en.cubadebate.cu/opinions/2011/04/21/closing-remarks-Raúl-castro-
ruz-party-congress-cuba/.

5. Fidel Castro, ‘Speech in the Aula Magna’. See Chapter 3 on the Battle of Ideas and
Chapter 4 on the Energy Revolution.

6. Fidel Castro, ‘Speech in the Aula Magna’.

7. Raúl Castro, speech in Camaguey, Granma, 26 July 2007.

http://www.granma.cu/granmad/2007/07/27/nacional/artic01.html.

8. Cuban friends told me how they insisted on announcing their names and addresses when
contributing their critique.

9. Raúl Castro, speech in Camaguey.

10. There was a 3% increase in tourist numbers, but an 11% decrease in revenue from the
tourist industry.

11. The lack of hard currency was especially serious as Cuba was obliged to pay upfront
and in cash for food imports from the United States, by then the fifth most important
source of imports behind Canada, China, Spain and Venezuela. Following the damage
to Cuba caused by Hurricane Michelle in November 2000, the Trade Sanctions Reform
and Export Enhancement Act was passed in the United States, allowing US firms to
sell agricultural and food products and medicine to Cuba, a one-directional
 ‘humanitarian’ exception to the United States blockade. Imports from the United States
rose to the value of over USD 700,000 in 2008, partly because Cuba made emergency
imports following the worst hurricane season on record in 2008 and partly because of
global price rises. With the measures taken under Raúl Castro, purchases fell steadily
to USD 340 million by 2011. See William A. Messina, Jr, ‘U.S. Food and Agricultural
Exports to Cuba: Progress, Problems and Prospects’, Association for the Study of the
Cuban Economy, 30 November 2012, https://www.ascecuba.org/asce_proceedings/u-s-
food-and-agricultural-exports-to-cuba-progress-problems-and-prospects/.

12. International press headlines heralded the restoration of capitalism in Cuba, the ‘low-
key death knell of the “new socialist man”’, and the ‘egalitarian wage system’,
according to Rory Carroll, ‘Cuban Workers To Get Bonuses for Extra Effort’,
Guardian, 13 June 2008. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jun/13/cuba.
Capped or not, bonus payments in Cuba are awarded for surpassing ‘norms’ in the
production of physical goods or services, that is, in terms of use values, not in terms of
exchange values.

13. Raúl Castro, speech at the close of the first ordinary period of sessions of the seventh
legislature of the National Assembly, 11 July 2008. http://www.ratb.org.uk/Raúl-
castro/.

14. New usufruct farmers received assistance from existing Credit and Service Cooperatives
and the National Association of Small Farmers, a cooperative federation founded in
1961. By 2018, nearly a quarter of a million individuals and legal entities had received
over 2 million hectares of idle land in usufruct and another half a million hectares were
deemed available. Cuban News Agency, ‘Over 2 Million Hectare of Land Granted in
Usufruct in Cuba’, 7 August 2018. http://www.cubanews.acn.cu/economy/. While
falling short of expectations, the programme saw a 5.3% annual increase in food
production.

15. The focus on teaching professionals was partly a response to public concerns about the
lack of professionalism of the very young emergent teachers who poured into study
centres during the Battle of Ideas in the effort to reduce class sizes to 20, as explained
in Chapter 3.

16. Raúl Castro, ‘Speech Delivered During the Closing Ceremony of the Sixth Session of
the Seventh Legislature of the National People’s Power Assembly’, 18 December
 2010. www.cuba.cu/gobierno/Raúldiscursos/2010/ing/r181210i.html. In January 2012
Raúl Castro stressed the need to fight corruption politically, starting in the ranks of the
CCP. ‘On many occasions, those implicated in corruption cases were members of the
Party, who clearly harboured double standards and used their status to secure positions
in leadership bodies, flagrantly violating their responsibilities as Communists.’ Raúl
Castro, ‘Discurso de Raúl Castro: “El rumbo ya ha sido trazado”’ speech at the closing
of the First National Conference of the CCP, 29 January 2012, Cubadebate.
http://www.cubadebate.cu/opinion/2012/01/29/.

17. Economist Intelligence Report, Cuba Country Report, January 2010, 13.

18. Raúl Castro, ‘No tenemos derecho a equivocarnos, afirma Raúl’, Intervención del
Presidente Raúl Castro en la Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular’, 20 Dcember
2009. Cubadebate. http://www.cubadebate.cu/opinion/2009/12/20/.

19. Economist Intelligence Report, Cuba Country Report, January 2010, 11.

20. Editorial, Financial Times, 17 September 2010.

21. Raúl Castro, Speech to the National Assembly, August 2010.

http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/Raúldiscursos/2010/esp/r010810e.html.

22. For example, workers in entities where production is paralysed by the failure of external
supplies failed to arrive.

23. The implications of this are discussed in Chapter 9.

24. Raúl Castro, Speech to the National Assembly, 1 August 2010.

25. Ernesto Che Guevara, ‘Reuniones Bimestrales’, 10 March 1962, Ministerio de Azúcar.
El Che en la Revolución Cubana: Ministerio de Industrias. Tomo VI, Ministerio de
Azúcar, 1966, 208; Fidel Castro, 30 November 1986, cited in Granma, 15 July 2010,
1.

26. Ernesto Freire Cazañas, Interview in Havana, mid-September 2011.

27. In this period, President Obama was talking about squeezing Cuba until the regime fell
and US Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Chairman of the US Senate’s Foreign
Affairs Committee, had called for Cuba to be attacked as Libya had been.
28. The almost three-fold rise in the number of carretilleros, from 5,679 in May 2011 to
16,454 in November 2011, reflected both individuals legalising their previously
informal occupations and the increase in agricultural production.

29. By 2015, the state sector had shrunk by 718,000 workers, 40% of the original target. In
2016, the end of dismissals from the state sector was announced in the 7th Congress of
the CCP. Carmelo Mesa-Lago, Voices of Change in Cuba: From the Non-state Sector,
University of Pittsburg Press, 2018, 6 and 144. Around this time, according to the
CTC, nearly 70% of registered self-employed workers were previously in the informal
(illegal) sector without rights.

30. CCP Congresses are supposed to be held every five years.

31. The 12 categories were: economic management; macroeconomic policies (including

monetary, exchange, fiscal and pricing policies); external economic relations;
investment; science, technology and innovation; social policy (education, health,
sports, culture, social security, employment and wages); agroindustry; industry and
energy; tourism; transport; construction, housing and water resources; and commerce.

32. Guidelines for Updating the Economic and Social Model, VI Congreso del Partido
Comunista de Cuba, Republic of Cuba, 18 April 2011, 9.

33. Guidelines for Updating the Economic and Social Model, 10.

34. 16 guidelines were moved to other points, 94 remained unchanged, 181 were changed
and 36 new guidelines were incorporated.

35. Raúl Castro, ‘Central Report to the 6th Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba’, 16
April 2011. http://www.granma.cu/ingles/cuba-i/16-abril-central.html.

36. On 1 January 2011, Havana Province had been divided into two new provinces,
Artemisa and Mayabeque, where new experiments in more decentralised
administration and political structures were carried out. This process of political
decentralisation is endorsed and extended in the new Cuban Constitution, approved by
national referendum in February 2019, which particularly strengthens the Municipal
Assemblies.

37. Following the Congress elections, women made up 42% of the Central Committee, a
tripling of the previous figure. The proportion of black and ‘mixed-race’ Cubans rose
 by 10% to 30%, slightly below their proportion of the Cuban population (officially
35%). Raúl Castro revealed that this improvement was the result of an active policy to
promote those sectors. ‘These are the children of the working class; they belong to the
poorest segments of the population and have had a politically active life in students’
organizations, the Union of Young Communists and the Party. Most of these youths
accumulate 10, 15 or 20 years of experience working at the grassroots level without
abandoning their jobs in the professions they studied, and the majority were proposed
by their respective Party cells during the process leading up to the Congress.’ Raúl
Castro, speech to the 6th Congress.

38. ‘The fortitude of the Party basically lies in its moral authority, its influence on the
masses and the trust of the people . . . The fortitude of the State lies in its material
authority, which consists of the strength of the institutions responsible for demanding
that everyone comply with the legal regulations it enacts. The damage caused by the
confusion of these two concepts is manifested, firstly, in the deterioration of the
Party’s political work and, secondly, in the decline of the authority of the state and the
government as officials cease feeling responsible for their decisions.’ Raúl Castro,
‘Central Report to the 6th Congress’.

39. Raúl Castro, ‘Central Report to the 6th Congress’. This process of differentiated and
targeted social assistance was a feature of the Battle of Ideas discussed in Chapter 4.

40. As discussed in Chapter 2.

41. This restriction was strengthened in the updated Guidelines of April 2016 which added
the prohibition of the concentration of wealth.

42. Recipients must use the subsidy for the specified job and the cheque is paid directly to
the retail outlet or the named self-employed construction worker. The state subsidies
were to be financed from the revenue collected by the local government from the retail
sales of construction materials in each province.

43. These CNAs do not own the enterprise, but they can own equipment or other assets.
Leases are for up to ten years, renewable for an equal term.

44. No more than 10% of work-days in any year may be performed by hired labour. These
restrictions aim to prevent the cooperative from exploiting the self-employed worker.
45. BBC News, ‘Cuba Claims Massive Oil Reserves’, 17 October 2008.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7675234.stm.

46. US Department of Commerce, Report on Foreign Policy-Based Export Controls, 2008,

cited by Amnesty International, The US Embargo Against Cuba: Its Impact on
Economic and Social Rights, https://www.amnestyusa.org/pdfs/amr250072009eng.pdf.
A 2006 World Security Institute report described the US Blockade as technology
denial and ‘successful in relegating Cuba’s energy development schemes to less than
world class’. https://cri.fiu.edu/research/commissioned-reports/oil-cuba-alvarado.pdf

47. Letter to Barack Obama from four Cuban-American congress members, cited by Jim
Lobe, ‘Cuba Plans Deep-water Oil Drilling’, Al Jazeera, 6 Nov 2011.
www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/11/201111511216261487.html.

48. On 9 November 2011, Democrat Senator Bill Nelson introduced a bill to allow
claimants to sue foreign companies responsible for any oil spill without limit.
Journalist John Paul Rathbone described this as ‘not so much an environmental
measure. It’s more of a stick with which to beat Cuba – or rather, as the sponsors
admit, to discourage companies from drilling for oil there’. John Paul Rathbone, ‘The
Cuban “oil crisis”’, Financial Times, 22 November 2011.

49. Ros-Lehtinen and a bipartisan group of 34 representatives wrote to Repsol’s chairman

calling on him to ‘reassess the risks inherent in partnering with the Castro dictatorship,
including the risk to its commercial interests with the United States’, warning that the
company could face liability in US courts. The Obama administration also applied
pressure on Repsol and the Spanish government. Lobe, ‘Cuba Plans Deep-water Oil
Drilling’.

50. Mark Frank, ‘Cuba Insists It Has Oil; US Companies Still Uninterested’ Reuters, 6 May
2015. In November 2018, Cuba announced it has oil and gas output potential equal to
22 million barrels a year, including more than 16 million barrels of crude and CUPET
was preparing for a new round of international bids for exploration. ‘Cuba Seeks
Foreign Partners for Oil Exploration’, Xinhua, 10 December 2018.
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-12/10/c_137663419.htm. In December 2018,
Australia’s Melbana announced it would work to increase production from Cuba’s
Santa Cruz offshore field. Renzo Pipoli, ‘Australia’s Melbana agrees with Cuba on
plan to expand island’s offshore production’, UPI, 5 December 2018. In April 2019,
 Cuba’s Petroleum Company (CUPET) was working on several shallow offshore oil
wells with equipment and expertise supplied through a joint venture with China’s
Great Wall Drilling Company, an affiliate of China National Petroleum Corporation.
Xiang Bo ‘Chinese Technology Helps Cuba Drill for Offshore Oil’, Xinhua, 17 April
2019.

51. Damien Cave, ‘Easing Path Out of Country, Cuba Is Dropping Exit Visas’, New York
Times, 16 October 2012; William Booth, ‘Cuba To Ease Travel Abroad for Many
Citizens’, Washington Post, 16 October 2012.

52. Cubadebate, ‘Cuba seguirá apostando por una emigración legal, ordenada y segura’
Cubadebate, 25 October 2012. http://www.cubadebate.cu/especiales/2012/10/25/.

53. As discussed in Chapter 7 on Cuba and the United States.

54. In anticipation of the elimination of this legislation, thousands of Cubans travelled to

Central America hoping to cross the border while they still could.

55. Granma, ‘Nota Oficial’, 22 March 2013,

http://www.granma.cu/granmad/2013/10/22/nacional/artic07.html.

56. Granma, ‘Nota Oficial’.

57. For an overview of the development of Cuba’s two pesos and the impact on the Cuban
economy see Chapter 2 on the Special Period.

58. Rodríguez, Interview in Havana, 20 December 2016.

59. Rodríguez, Interview in Havana, 20 December 2016.

60. Rodríguez, Interview in Havana, 20 December 2016.

61. Emily Morris, talk at the Cuba Research Forum event ‘Getting Into and Understanding
Cuba Today ’, Canning House, 6 March 2017.

62. The figures in brackets indicate the total debt owed prior to any cancellations. In early
2018, the London Club presented a debt relief offer for Cuba’s USD 1.4 billion debt.
Karin Strohecker, ‘Cuba Creditors Offer “very significant relief ” in Debt Proposal’,
Reuters, 13 February 2018. No agreement had been yet been reached by May 2019.
63. Marc Frank and John Paul Rathbone, ‘Cuba in Drive to Attract Foreign Investment’,
Financial Times, 8 May 2018. https://www.ft.com/content/9ef0f118-4fcd-11e8-a7a9-
37318e776bab.

64. In 2012 Odebrecht USA sued the State of Florida over a state law banning trade with
companies which have business ties to Cuba. Patricia Mazzei, ‘Odebrecht Sues Florida
Over New Law Banning Government Hiring of Firms Tied to Cuba’, Miami Herald, 4
June 2012. https://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article1940369.html.

65. Mariel Port was set to benefit from the planned construction of the transoceanic
Nicaragua Canal; however, in April 2018 the private Hong Kong Nicaragua Canal
Development Investment Company, headed by Wang Jing, a Chinese billionaire,
closed its offices after Jing lost 80% of his wealth in Chinese stock market turbulence
in 2015–16. The project appears to have been abandonned.

66. Havana Port cannot be deepened because a vehicle tunnel runs beneath it. Mariel is also
closer to the United States.

67. The interviewee requested anonymity so I have referred to him as ‘general manager’ or
‘manager’.

68. General manager, Mariel TC, Interview in Havana, March 2018.

69. General manager, Interview in Havana, March 2018.

70. General manager, Interview in Havana, March 2018.

71. The main changes to the previous 1995 law include: a maximum 60-day waiting period
for a response to any other foreign investment proposals (approval comes from the
Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment); halving taxes on the profits of
most joint state–foreign enterprises from 30% to 15%; exemption from income tax and
an eight-year tax exemption on profits for new investors, followed by a 50% tax on
profits for most ventures; the tax limit on profits from new raw material enterprises
will be reduced from 45% to 22%; exemption from customs taxes for the importation
of any necessary equipment during the initial investment process; and exemption from
direct labour taxes. The Cuban state retains the right to expropriate properties in case
of public or social interest, with the obligation to pay compensation. These measures
apply for foreign investors at Mariel SDZ who must also contribute 0.5% of their
 income to Mariel SDZ maintenance and development fund and pay a 1% sales or
service tax for local transactions.

72. Steve Ludlam, ‘What About the Workers?’ Autumn 2014. https://cuba-
solidarity.org.uk/cubasi/article/182/what-about-the-workers.

73. Ludlam, ‘What About the Workers?’.

74. Echoing the previous Congress, new age and term restrictions were confirmed for key
positions in the state and political organisations. The newly elected Central Committee
(142 members) had an average age of 54; 44% were women and 36% black and
‘mixed-race’ Cubans. Raúl Castro reflected: ‘Higher than those of the previous
Congress, but we are not satisfied’. Three of the five new members elected onto the
17-member Political Bureau were women. All ‘from humble backgrounds, [who]
worked in the grassroots’. Raúl insisted: ‘there can be no preconceived leaders,
everyone who graduates must work five years at least at the basic level in the speciality
which they studied at university’. Raúl Castro, speech at the closure of the 7th Party
Congress, 19 April 2016. http://www.cuba-venezuela.org/index.php/2016/04/22/.

75. Raúl Castro, ‘Central Report to the 7th PCC Congress’, 18 April 2016. Guideline 4 of
the updated Guidelines for 2016–21 state that: ‘In non-state management forms, the
concentration of property and material and financial wealth in non-state natural or legal
persons will not be allowed.’

76. Raúl Castro, ‘Central Report to the 7th PCC Congress’.

77. There were complaints in the run-up to the 7th CCP Congress that the kind of national
public consultation which preceded the 6th Congress in 2011 had not taken place. The
CCP’s official response was that this was unnecessary as the focus of the discussion
were those same documents that had already been subject to national debate.

78. Juan Alejandro Triana Barros, ‘Inclusion, Inequalities and Opportunities: A Glance to
the Cuban Private Sector’, on the panel ‘Inclusion within the New Constitution: The
Role of Social Entrepreneurship in Cuba’, paper given at the Latin American Studies
Association Congress, 24 May 2019.

79. Having studied first the draft and then the approved documents, I can verify the extent
of changes which have taken place.
80. Raúl Castro, ‘Speech during Second Extraordinary Session of the National Assembly of
People’s Power’, 2 June 2017, National Network on Cuba. http://www.nnoc.info/5022-
2/.

81. Jesus García Pastor Brigos, ‘Cuba 2015: propiedad socialista y relaciones con Estados
Unidos’, unpublished paper, 2015.

82. ‘Conceptualización del Modelo Económico Y Social Cubano de Desarrollo Socialista’,

July 2017, 3 and 12.

83. As Fidel Castro asserted in 1998 during the Special Period: ‘Right now, we are basically
defending the sovereignty and independence of our country and the achievements of
socialism. If we can build a little bit of socialism we do it, but mainly we want to
improve what we have done, to achieve excellence.’

84. ‘Conceptualización del Modelo Económico’, 10–12.

85. These include dignity, equality, and full human freedoms; the leading role of the CCP (a
vanguard party, Martiana [followers of José Martí], Marxist, Leninist and Fidelista);
socialist democracy based on the sovereign power of the people; the socialist state as
the guarantor of freedom, independence, sovereignty, people’s participation and
control, rights and laws; and the people’s socialist ownership of the fundamental
means of production as the main form of national economic and socioeconomic system
based on the real power of the workers and communal ownership via the state; socialist
planning; national defence and security; equality of rights and duties of citizens.
‘Conceptualización del Modelo Económico . . .’, 14–17.

86. ‘Conceptualización del Modelo Económico’, 19.

87. ‘Conceptualización del Modelo Económico’, 32 and 33.

88. ‘Conceptualización del Modelo Económico’, 52.

89. ‘Plan Nacional De Desarrollo Económico Y Social Hasta 2030: Propuesta De Visión De
La Nación, Ejes Y Sectores Estratégicos’, Documentos del 7mo. Congreso del Partido
aprobados por el III Pleno del Comité Central del PCC el 18 de mayo de 2017 y
respaldados por la Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular el 1 de junio de 2017, 21–
22. The actual sectors proposed as strategic are: construction; electro energy;
telecommunications; transport, storage and trade logistics; logistics for network and
 hydraulic installations; tourism, including marine and nautical tourism; professional
services, especially medical; non-sugar agroindustry and foodstuffs; pharmaceuticals,
biotechnology and biomedical production; sugar-related agroindustry and derivatives;
and light industry.

90. Raúl Castro, ‘The Communist Party Will Resolutely Support and Back the New
President’, Speech to the National Assembly, Granma, 19 April 2018.

91. In July 2019, the salaries for state sector workers in the ‘budgeted sector’, which
includes health and education, saw significant rises, fostering a return to state
employment by some professionals who had left those sectors.

92. In the same period annual growth of agriculture was 0.9%, of manufacturing industry
1.4%, sugar industry 4.5%, construction 2.4%, investments 2.3%, the average salary
rose 6.1%, consumer price index rose 2.1%, real salaries went up 4% and labour
productivity was up 2.0%. Rodriguez, ‘Política económica’ (III), Cubadebate, 2
September 2018. www.cubadebate.cu/opinion/2018/09/05/

93. Rodríguez, ‘Política económica’ (I), Cubadebate, 28 July 2018.

http://www.cubadebate.cu/opinion/2018/07/28/.

94. Rodriguez, ‘Politica economica’ (III), Cubadebate, 21 August 2018.

http://www.cubadebate.cu/opinion/2018/08/21/.

95. Raúl Castro, El rumbo Ya Ha Sido Trazado.

9. THE CUBAN TIGHTROPE: BETWEEN THE PLAN AND THE MARKET

1. These are discussed in the previous chapter on Raúl’s Reforms.

2. Fundora, Interview in Havana, 22 December 2016.

3. Munster, Interview in Havana, 28 March 2018. The main authors of these studies were
Mayra Espina, Maria del Carmen Sabala, Dayma Echeverría and Luisa Íniguez who,
together with UNICEF, worked on the Child and Adolescent Atlas of Cuba, to provide
details about the living conditions of families in every municipality of the country.

4. Raúl Castro, ‘Speech to the National Assembly of Peoples Power’, 11 July 2008,
http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/Raúldiscursos/2008/esp/r110708e.html.
5. This differs from the principle of communism: ‘from each according to their ability, to
each according to their need.’

6. Oficina Nacional de Estadísticas e Información, ‘Empleo y Salarios’, Anuario Estadístico

de Cuba 2014, table 7.15, ‘Main indicators of the social welfare system’, 18.
www.onei.cu/aec2014/07%20Empleo%20y%20Salarios.pdf.

7. Jenny Morín Nenoff, ¿Quo vadis Cuba? El proceso de transformación cubano desde la
perspectiva de los perdedores en el cambio, 2015, 9.

8. Munster, Interview in Havana, 28 March, 2018.

9. Oscar Fernández Estrada, El Modelo De Funcionamiento Económico En Cuba Y Sus

Transformaciones. Seis Ejes Articuladores Para Su Análisis, Observatorio de la
Economía Latinoamericana, August 2011, 27 (fn 71).
https://ideas.repec.org/a/erv/observ/y2011i1545.html.

10. For this view see work by Camila Piñeiro Harnecker, for example ‘Cuba’s
Cooperatives: Their Contribution to Cuba’s New Socialism’, Cliff DuRand (ed.),
Moving Beyond Capitalism, Routledge, 2016, 184–94.

11. Fundora, Interview in Havana, 22 December 2016.

12. During the Battle of Ideas, discussed in Chapter 3, Fidel Castro had promoted the
decentralisation of education centres to each municipality, known as the
municipalisation of higher education. But with precedence given to the drive for
economic efficiency this municipalisation was rolled back. Fundora says: ‘The
Universities were becoming more white again, predominated by the children of the
university graduates, and lost a little of their popular character.’ From 2016, there was
a return to decentralisation of higher learning facilities, she said, and university intake
was set to increase again with many courses reopened. Fundora, Interview in Havana,
22 December 2016.

13. Ricardo Torres Pérez, ‘Cuba’s Emerging Economic Model’ presentation on the panel
‘Cuba After Castro: A New Model of “Prosperous and Sustainable” Socialism’, Latin
American Studies Association Congress, 25 May 2019.

14. For Che Guevara’s analysis see Yaffe, Che Guevara, and Yaffe, ‘Che Guevara and the
 Great Debate’, 11–40.

15. Triana Barros, ‘Inclusion, Inequalities’, Latin American Studies Association Congress,
2019. When asked to identify successful examples of ‘social entrepreneurship’
applicable to Cuba, Triana and his fellow panellist Emily M. Medley were not
forthcoming.

16. The students were members of the Grimshaw Club, a student society concerned with
international relations at the London School of Economics (LSE). This trip was
organised by Michael Maisel, who, prior to undertaking an MSc at LSE, worked for
Engage Cuba in the United States, ‘a national coalition of private companies,
organizations, and local leaders dedicated to advancing federal legislation to lift the
55-year-old Cuba embargo in order to empower the Cuban people and open
opportunities for US businesses’. https://www.engagecuba.org/.

17. Ricardo Torres, Talk in Havana, 30 March 2018.

18. The IMF economist wished to remain anonymous. Email correspondence, 1 October
2018.

19. Ricardo Torres, Talk in Havana, 30 March 2018.

20. Humberto Blanco, Interview in Havana, 20 December 2016.

21. Another economist from Cuba who would like the island to emulate Norway is
Mauricio De Miranda Parrondo, ‘Los problemas de la propiedad y el funcionamiento
económico en la economía política de la reforma en la nueva Constitución cubana’, at
Latin American Studies Association Congress, 25 May 2019. He is a professor at the
Pontificia Universidad Javeriana de Cali in Colombia, not at a Cuban institution.

22. Blanco, Interview in Havana, 20 December 2016.

23. García Brigos, ‘Cuba 2015: propiedad socialista y relaciones con Estados Unidos’,
unpublished paper, 32.

24. Triana Barros, ‘Inclusion, Inequalities’.

25. Yailenis Mulet Concepción, ‘Self-employment in Cuba: Between Informality and

Entrepreneurship: The Case of Shoe Manufacturing’, Third World Quarterly, 37:9,
 2016, 1715.

26. Assistants cannot legally perform their activities if the owners do not take part directly
in the production or service – that includes when the owner is unavailable due to
illness or maternity.

27. Consequently, the new Labour Code of 2014 gave contracted workers the right to
written contracts, minimum salaries and maximum hours, rest periods and paid
holidays, and health and safety at work. See Steve Ludlam, ‘What About the
Workers?’.

28. Constitution of the Republic of Cuba, 1976, Article 21. Thus the need to update the
Constitution, to incorporate the legal and structural changes over the previous decades.

29. García Brigos, ‘Cuba 2015’, 13.

30. Fundora, Interview in Havana, 22 December 2016.

31. See Chapter 8 on the reforms under Raúl Castro on this announcement.

32. Freire Cazañas, Interview in Havana, September 2011.

33. Fundora, Interview in Havana, 22 December 2016.

34. Concepción, ‘Self-employment’, Figure 2, 1720. ‘The research took six months of field
study in five Cuban provinces. We interviewed 44 manufacturers (out of a total of 72)
who have been operating for 10 to 20 years, and 10 production workshops were
thoroughly studied. In addition, 120 workers were interviewed (including
manufacturers, vendors and hired workers), as well as different workers in the state
sector, central government officials, suppliers and clients.’

35. In May 2019, it was announced that nine new wholesale markets would be opened for
non-agricultural cooperatives, some six and a half years after they were created. Vivian
Bustamante Molina, ‘Abrirán nuevos mercados para venta mayorista’, Granma, 25
May 2019.

36. On 8 September 2018, in his well-known blog, La Pupila Insomne, Iroel Sanchez
highlighted this not legal but apparently tolerated situation, describing how 15,000
apples were swept away within minutes by employees of a private business from a
 state store and transported in the store’s own transport truck.
https://lapupilainsomne.wordpress.com/2018/09/08/asalto-en-la-puntilla-hay-que-ir-
mas-alla-por-iroel-sanchez/. Sanchez’s exposé generated a vibrant debate within Cuba
and those involved in this case were removed from their posts.

37. Concepción, ‘Self-employment’, 1716.

38. Alarcón, Interview in Havana, 27 December 2016.

39. Concepción, ‘Self-employment’, 1717.

40. Like many Cubans, when Concepción uses the term ‘medium businesses’ she is
referring to enterprises which would mostly not qualify as ‘medium-sized’ in Britain.

41. Concepción, ‘Self-employment’, 1719.

42. 60% of interviewees had more than one point of sale; 84% would not like to become a
cooperative; 64% have negative opinion towards relations with the state; 100% have
not accessed state credit. Concepción, ‘Self-employment’, 1719–20. For similar data
about the opinions of Cuban non-state sector workers, see Mesa-Lago, Voices of
Change. However, Mesa Lago’s survey is based on a smaller sample of interviews.

43. Concepción, ‘Self-employment’, 1726 (fn 11).

44. Concepción, ‘Self-employment’, 1715.

45. Morín Nenoff, Quo Vadis Cuba?, 8.

46. Morín Nenoff, Quo Vadis Cuba?, 6.

47. Munster, Interview in Havana, 28 March, 2018.

48. Mesa Lago, Voices of Change, 7.

49. Connor Gory, ‘Empowering Cuban Women’, interview with Marta Núñez, International
Journal of Cuban Health & Medicine, 20: 3, July–September 2018, 1.

50. Conceptión, ‘Self-employment’, 1718.

51. Saira Pons Pérez, ‘Tax Law Dilemmas for Self-employed Workers’, 20 May 2015,
Cuba Study Group, 3. http://cubastudygroup.org/from_the_island/issue-29-tax-law-
 dilemmas-for-self-employed-workers-2015. When a business has five or fewer
employees, it does not pay a tax on the use of a labour force. From the sixth to the
tenth employee the tax is equal to 150% of the average wage of the province where the
business is registered; for the eleventh to the fifteenth worker it is 200% of this rate;
and starting with sixteenth worker, 300% is taken. Pons Pérez left CEEC in July 2018.

52. Pons Pérez, ‘Tax law dilemmas’, 2, 6.

53. Guideline 4 of the 2016–2021 Guidelines.

54. Che Guevara, Apuntes Críticos a la Economía Política, Editorial de Ciencias Sociales,
2006, 10.

55. Raúl Castro, Speech at the close of the first ordinary period of sessions of the seventh
legislature of the National Assembly, 11 July 2008. http://www.ratb.org.uk/Raúl-
castro/149.

56. Miguel Díaz-Canel, ‘Transcripción de la entrevista concedida por el Presidente cubano

Miguel Díaz-Canel a Telesur’, 19 September 2018.
www.cubadebate.cu/especiales/2018/09/19/.

57. Morín Nenoff, Quo Vadis Cuba?, 11.

58. ‘The Brookings Institution hosted a panel in February 2011 confirming the strategy to
soften the blockade in areas that could be key for private sector expansion in Cuba.’
Oscar Fernandez Estrada, Fernandez Estrada, Oscar. ‘The Economic Transformation
Process in Cuba after 2011’, in C. Brundenius and R. Torres Pérez (eds), No More
Free Lunch, Springer, 2014, 32, fn 11.

59. García Brigos, ‘Cuba 2015’, 68.

60. Barak Obama, ‘Statement by the President on Cuba Policy Changes’, White House
Office of the Press Secretary, 17 December 2014.

61. See Camila Piñeiro Harnecker (ed.), Cooperatives and Socialism: A View from Cuba,
Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. For a discussion of why Che Guevara did not regard
cooperatives as a socialist form of production see Helen Yaffe, ‘Che Guevara:
Cooperatives and the Political Economy of Socialist Transition’, in Harnecker (ed.)
Cooperatives and Socialism, 115–42.
62. García Brigos, ‘Cuba 2015’, 36.

63. Cliff DuRand, ‘Cuba’s New Cooperatives’, Monthly Review, 1 November 2017.
https://monthlyreview.org/2017/11/01/cubas-new-cooperatives/.

64. García Brigos, ‘Cuba 2015’, 72.

65. García Brigos, ‘Cuba 2015’, 69.

66. Mesa-Lago, Voices of Change, 74.

67. Oscar Figueredo Reinaldo and María del Carmen Ramón, ‘Cooperativas de la
construcción, para que no haya grietas en sus cimientos’, Cubadebate, 5 May 2016.
www.cubadebate.cu/especiales/2016/05/05/.

68. Reinaldo and Ramón, ‘Cooperativas de la construcción’.

69. The exchange rate in state-owned enterprises is gradually being adjusted to lower the
value of the CUP against the CUC; for example, it has been lowered to 1 CUC to 10
CUP. This is discussed in Chapter 8.

70. Raúl Castro, ‘Central Report to the 7th PCC Congress’, 18 April 2016.
http://en.cubadebate.cu/news/2016/04/18/7.

71. A position which the new Constitution changes to President of the Republic of Cuba.

72. Pons Pérez, ‘Tax law dilemmas’, 1.

73. Díaz-Canel, Entrevista con Telesur.

74. Article 82 of the approved Constitution states that Art 82 ‘Marriage is a social and legal
institution. It is one of the organizational structures of families.’ The 11th Special
Provision at the end of the Constitution states that within two years of the Constitution
taking effect there shall be ‘a process of popular consultation and referendum for the
Family Code programme, which must include the form that a marriage may take.’ One
influential Cuban policy-maker I spoke to believed it was a mistake to have included
any specification about the character of marriage in the nation’s Constitution –
something which does not appear in many other countries’ constitutions.

75. Article 5. ‘The Communist Party of Cuba, unique, Martiano, Fidelista, and Marxist-
 Leninist, the organized vanguard of the Cuban nation, sustained in its democratic
character as well as its permanent linkage to the people, is the superior driving force of
the society and the State. It organizes and orients the communal forces towards the
construction of socialism and its progress toward a communist society. It works to
preserve and to fortify the patriotic unity of the Cuban people and to develop ethic,
moral, and civic values.’ Preamble, Constitution of the Republic of Cuba, 2019.
www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Cuba_2019D.pdf?lang=en.

76. Preamble, Constitution of the Republic of Cuba.

77. Constitution of the Republic of Cuba, Article 19.

78. Constitution of the Republic of Cuba, Article 31.

79. Much foreign commentary suggested that private property and foreign investment were
new features in socialist Cuba. Actually, the Constitution of 1976 left some 20% of
arable land in the hands of small private farmers or agricultural cooperatives. In 1982,
foreign investment was first approved for joint ventures with the Cuban state. In 1992,
the Constitution was amended to state that mandatory state ownership applied only to
the ‘fundamental means of production’. The employment changes of 2010 created the
conditions for the emergence of private businesses and significantly expanded the non-
state sector workforce. In 2011 private markets were permitted for houses, cars and
other goods. In 2014 a new Foreign Investment Law was implemented. Since 1993,
67% of agricultural production has been carried out in the non-state sector. Meanwhile,
85% of Cubans are homeowners, rising to 96% in Havana.

80. Constitution of the Republic of Cuba, Article 30.

81. Constitution of the Republic of Cuba, Article 42.

82. Constitution of the Republic of Cuba, Title VIII: Local Organs of People’s Power.

83. David Jessop, Cuba Briefing, 25 February 2019, Issue 996, 3.

84. Editorial, ‘Cuba Dijo Sí a la Nueva Constitución’ Granma, 25 February 2019.

http://www.granma.cu/reforma-constitucional/2019-02-25/cuba-dijo-si-por-la-nueva-
constitucion-25-02-2019-16-02-47.

85. Che Guevara, ‘Man and Socialism in Cuba’, in Bertram Silverman (ed.), Man and
 Socialism in Cuba: The Great Debate, Atheneum, 1971, 343.

86. Alarcón, Interview in Havana, 27 December 2016.

87. García Brigos, ‘Cuba 2015’, 57.

88. Allende, Interview in Havana, 4 January 2017.

89. Redacción Nacional, ‘La Habana llega con más del 80% de su recuperación constructive
al ejercicio Meteoro’, Granma, 14 May 2019. http://www.granma.cu/cuba/2019-05-
14/la-habana-llega-con-mas-del-80-de-su-recuperacion-constructiva-al-ejercicio-
meteoro-14-05-2019-23-05-11.

10. SURVIVING INTO THE POST-RAPPROCHEMENT PERIOD

1. For more on Cuban expectations prior to Trump’s mandate see Helen Yaffe and Jonathan
Watts, ‘Top diplomatic negotiator in Cuba warns Trump: “aggression doesn’t work”’,
Guardian, 17 January 2017.

2. Donald Trump, interviewed by Jamie Weinstein, 7 September 2015, Daily Caller.

https://dailycaller.com/2015/09/07/donald-trump-on-his-nuclear-doctrine-democracy-
promotion-and-why-he-refuses-to-use-term-supreme-leader/. He added the inevitable
qualifier about getting a better deal.

3. Trump cited by Jeremy Diamond, ‘Trump Shifts on Cuba, Says He Would Reverse
Obama’s Deal’, 17 September 2016, CNN.
https://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/16/politics/donald-trump-cuba/.

4. Vidal, Interview in Havana, 28 December 2016.

5. Information from US lawyer Robert Muse, ‘The Cuban Economy and US-Cuba Policy:
An Update – Progress, Challenges and Opportunities’, meeting organised by the
Caribbean Council/Cuba Initiative, 30 November 2017. According to Muse, each
action by the Trump administration on Cuba has occurred after a ‘stimulus’ from
Rubio.

6. William LeoGrande, ‘A Detour on the Road to Normalization: U.S.–Cuban Relations

During Donald Trump’s Presidency’, presentation on the panel Más allá de Trump:
Retos y oportunidades para el retorno al proceso hacia la normalización de relaciones
 Cuba-Estados Unidos at the Latin American Studies Association Annual Congress, 26
May 2019.

7. President Trump issued the National Security Presidential Memorandum NSPM–5

entitled “Strengthening the Policy of the United States Toward Cuba”, 16 June 2017.

8. The US Embassy had been upgraded from an Interest Section two years earlier in July
2015.

9. Associated Press, ‘Spies in Cuba Were Among First Victims of Mysterious Sonic
“attacks”’, Guardian, 2 October 2017.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/02/cuba-sonic-attacks-us-spies. In late
January 2019, the Canadian government followed suit, withdrawing half its embassy
staff and shutting its consular services in Havana, while the cause of the ‘Havana
Syndrome’ was under investigation. This action was apparently taken after Canadian
diplomats threatened to take legal action against their government unless it responded
more seriously to their plight. The investigation results are available here:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/medrxiv/early/2019/09/29/19007096.full.pdf. They
point to neurotoxicity resulting from excessive fumigation to prevent the spread of the
Zika virus in Cuba.

10. Additionally, in March 2019, the duration of the B2 visas issued for Cubans visiting the
United States was drastically reduced from 5 years to 3 months.

11. LeoGrande, ‘A Detour on the Road’.

12. The list, along with updates published 15 November 2018, 11 March 2019, 24 April
2019 and 26 July 2019 is available from: https://www.state.gov/cuba-sanctions/cuba-
restricted-list/.

13. Muse, ‘Cuban Economy and US-Cuba Policy’.

14. National Security Presidential Memorandum NSPM–5.

15. Cristina Escobar, Talk in Havana, 28 March 2018. However, in early September 2019,
there was a reminder that, while the Cubans may participate in the internet and social
media, they cannot control it. On 11 September, the accounts of the principle Cuban
media outlets and several government Ministers were ‘suspended’ by Twitter,
coinciding with a live televised announcement given to the nation by President Díaz-
 Canel concerning fuel scarcities resulting from US sanctions against Venezuela and
Cuba.

16. This was revealed through the 2018/19 fiscal year budget documents of the Miami-
based network, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB), an entity charged with
overseeing the plans. The OCB manages the operations of Radio Martí and TV Martí,
discussed in Chapter 8, and is a subsidiary of the state-owned Broadcasting Board of
Governors (BBG), which owns and supervises other networks broadcasting pro-US
propaganda overseas, including Voice of America and Radio Free Europe.
www.miaminewtimes.com/news/us-planned-cuban-facebook-propaganda-on-radio-tv-
marti–10625033.

17. Susana Antón, ‘Nuevas regulaciones sobre el espectro radioeléctrico’, Granma, 29 May
2019.

18. Margaret E Crahan, ‘Trump and His Advisers: Impact on the Molding of US Foreign
Policy’, presentation on the panel Más allá de Trump: Retos y oportunidades para el
retorno al proceso hacia la normalización de relaciones Cuba-Estados Unidos, LASA
Congress, 26 May 2019.

19. LeoGrande, ‘A Detour on the Road’.

20. David E. Sanger, ‘With Bolton, Trump Creates a Hard-Line Foreign Policy Team’, New
York Times, 22 March 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/22/us/politics/bolton-
trump-hard-liners.html.

21. Like Rubio, despite a long career lobbying for a harsher US policy toward Cuba,
Claver-Carone has apparently never visited the island. Global Americans, ‘On Trump’s
Latin American team’, 28 May 2019. https://theglobalamericans.org/2019/05/trumps-
latin-america-team/. Claver-Carone founded and directed the US–Cuba Democracy
PAC, one of the most pro-active pro-blockade groups in Washington.

22. Bolton, ‘Remarks by National Security Advisor’.

23. LeoGrande, ‘A Detour on the Road’.

24. In violation of international norms, the law includes those who were Cuban citizens at
the time but subsequently received US citizenship.
25. LeoGrande, ‘A Detour on the Road’.

26. Donald J Trump, tweet, 30 April 2019.

27. Bolton also blamed the Russian government for keeping Maduro in power. Chapter 6 on
Cuban medical internationalism discusses the work of Cuban healthcare workers in
Venezuela.

28. Bruno Rodríguez, tweet, 30 April 2019.

29. The claimants are Mickael Behn, whose US grandfather owned the Havana dock until
1960, and Javier García-Bengochea, a ‘descendent’ of the owners of dock facilities in
Santiago de Cuba.

30. Video, ‘Carnival Corp. is the First US Company Sued for Using “stolen property”’.
Miami Herald, 2 May 2019,
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article229952669.html. The US Foreign
Claims Settlement Commission in 1971 certified that the Havana Docks Corporation
had a claim against the Cuban government. The commission found that the value of the
properties in 1971 was $8,684,360.18, the equivalent of about $54.5 million in today’s
dollars. Daniel Rivero, ‘First Lawsuit Against Company Operating in Cuba is Filed
under Title III’ WLRN, 2 May 2019.

31. Rivero, ‘First Lawsuit’.

32. Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad) [Helms–Burton] Act of 1996.
https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/documents/libertad.pdf.

33. LeoGrande, ‘A Detour on the Road’.

34. The government imports some USD 2 billion worth of foodstuffs annually, a proportion
of which is from the United States.

35. This was the view presented by Jose Luis Rodriguez, former Economy Minister
between 1994 and 2008, in a podcast interview with the Vice President of the Union of
Journalists, Ariel Terrero. ‘Cuba regresará al periodo especial?’ Cubadebate, 9 May
2019. http://www.cubadebate.cu/especiales/2019/05/09/.

36. Speaking in a personal capacity, the Google employee wished to remain anonymous.
 Interview, 14 May 2019. ‘There have been articles speculating that that means a subsea
fibre optic cable’, he told me, ‘and that certainly is one of the infrastructure options
that would likely be explored, but that’s not the only one.’ Cuba could also connect to
an existing local optic fibre cable or build a cable through a consortium. Cuba is
currently connected to the Venezuelan-owned ALBA 1 optic fibre underwater cable,
but the performance has been disappointing and unable to meet demand. Prior to that,
Cubans relied on expensive, slow satellite connections, which largely explained the
‘rationing’ and high charges for internet access. ETECSA has been working with a
Chinese company to build up the internal infrastructure, something in which Google is
not currently involved.

37. Previously, content on Google apps such as YouTube had to travel long distances to be
accessed on the island, meaning long waits while material buffered.

38. Google employee, Interview, 14 May 2019.

39. Associated Press, ‘Cuba Signs Deal with Google To Connect to Modern Internet’, CBC
News, 29 March 2019. https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/cuba-google-internet-
1.5076587.

40. Chapter 7 has more on Jorge Mas Canosa and his role in influencing the United States’
Cuba policy.

41. For example, ‘Project Shield’ an app to protect sites against cyber-attacks, according to
John Paul Rathbone, ‘Google Strikes Deal To Bring Faster Web Content to Cuba’,
Financial Times, 28 March 2019. The Google–ETECSA deal includes a freedom of
information clause which provides against data censorship.

42. Pedro Freye, cited by Rathbone, ‘Google Strikes Deal’.

43. Google employee, Interview, 14 May 2019.

44. To put this in perspective, Cuba was expecting 5.1 million international visitors in 2019,
and this was revised down to 4.3 million (84.3%) as a result of the US government
restrictions. The biggest group of visitors to Cuba are Canadians.

45. Cuba Educational Travel, ‘Statement on New Cuban Travel Restrictions’, 4 June 2019.
https://www.cubaeducationaltravel.com/press-release-june-4-2019.
46. Navarro, Talk in Havana, March 2018. His formal title is ‘High Representative’ for the
EU.

47. Navarro, Talk in Havana, March 2018.

48. In late May 2019, Spanish hotel firm Meliá became the first foreign company to have a
case filed against it under Title III. The claim was made by the heirs of the Mata family
and concerns the San Carlos Hotel (now the Meliá San Carlos), which is managed in a
joint venture with Gran Caribe. The hotel was nationalised in December 1961 by the
Cuban government. The law suit also names CIMEX, Cubanacán and Gaviota. Jessop,
Cuba Briefing, 27 May 2019, 6.

49. European Union, ‘Joint Statement by High Representative/Vice President Federica

Mogherini, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada Chrystia Freeland and EU
Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström on the Decision of the United States To
Further Activate Title III of the Helms Burton (Libertad) Act’, 17 April 2019.
https://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/united-states-america/61181/.

50. European Union, ‘Declaration by the High Representative on Behalf of the EU on the
Full Activation of the Helms–Burton (LIBERTAD) Act by the United States’, 2 May
2019. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2019/05/02/.

51. In Britain, for example, the Minister of International Trade, George Hollingbery, told
Parliament that the EU ‘blocking’ legislation of 1996, ‘makes it illegal to comply with
the extraterritorial effects of the embargo’. The 1980 UK Protection of Trading
Interests Act states that ‘it is illegal for UK companies to comply with extraterritorial
legislation such as the US embargo’. The Act contains a provision for fines to be levied
against companies and individuals that fail to comply with this stipulation.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/exporting-to-cuba/.

52. The Canadians and Cubans discussed working together ‘to defend Canadians
conducting legitimate trade and investment in Cuba in light of the United States ending
the suspension of Title III of the Helms–Burton Act’. Chrystia Freeland, cited by
Jessop, Cuba Briefing, 20 May 2019, 4.

53. The Cuban government has also stated that any agreement on the payment of such
compensation will need to include compensation for damages to the Cuban economy
inflicted by the US blockade. In an unprecedented move, in August 2019, Cuba said it
 would defend its interests in US courts, through US-based law firms, in cases filed
under Title III against Cuban state enterprises CUPET and CIMEX. Jessop, Cuba
Briefing, 2 September 2019.

54. The trip took place in June 2019, organised by Cuba Initiative, which was set up in 1995
at the request of the British and Cuban governments to strengthen bilateral relations.

55. For example, in late May 2019, a Caribbean Customs Organisation was established in
Havana, to circumvent US actions that prevent Cuban participation in discussions over
international customs issues including border security and trade facilitation. Jessop,
Cuba Briefing, 27 May 2019, 6. A delegation from Cuba’s Ministry of Public Health
visited India to expand ties with Indian institutions researching traditional and natural
medicines; cooperation between Cuban and Chinese publishing houses was extended;
an Action Plan for increasing bilateral trade was established between Cuba and
Vietnam; and Bolivia was contracted to increase the food exports to Cuba to meet
shortages. Meanwhile, the Canadian chain Blue Diamond signed two contracts with
Cuban enterprise Gran Caribe to manage two hotels in Cayo Coco and Varadero,
adding to the 19 it already manages. Jessop, Cuba Briefing, 13 May 2019, 5.

56. In many countries the ambassador and their partner are the embassy, according to
Eduardo Delgado Bermudez, presentation at the 2nd seminar London School of
Economics (Latin America and Caribbean Centre) and University of Havana
(FLACSO), Havana, 2 December 2018.

57. Allende, Interview in Havana, 4 January 2017. The four embassies belong to Australia,
Cuba, New Zealand and Taiwan.

58. ‘The court ruled that Spain does not have international jurisdiction for its courts to
resolve lawsuits on properties located outside its territory . . . In dismissing the case the
judge ordered the plaintiff to pay the costs.’ Jessop, Cuba Briefing, 9 September 2019,
Issue 1019, 5.

59. Cuba’s state sector employs over 3 million workers, compared to some 1.4 million in
the non-state sector (agricultural and urban cooperatives, private farmers, usufruct
farmers, the self-employed and small businesses). Of the state sector workforce, 52%,
or 1.6 million workers, are in the ‘enterprise sector’, consisting of productive and
commercial entities which sell, trade and receive revenues. Since 2014, many workers
in the enterprise sector have benefited from incentives to increase production, linking
 pay to performance, removing salary caps, and providing payment in hard currency.

60. Salaries in the budgeted sector are capped at CUP 3,000; only those earning over CUP
2,500 pay individual income tax. All employees will now pay towards social security,
2.5% for those earning less than CUP 500 and 5% for those above. Social security
payments, including some pensions, were last raised in November 2018; pensions were
raised again to a minimum of CUP 280 and all those with pensions under CUP 500 see
incomes rise.

61. Information on the salary rise and forthcoming economic reforms, along with the
citations from President Díaz-Canel and Minister of the Economy, Alejandro Gil, are
from: ‘Cuban President and Several Ministers Report on Measures Recently Approved
To Boost the Economy’, Granma International, 2 July 2019; Mesa Redonda, ‘Medidas
para potenciar la economía del país en las condiciones actuales e incremento salarial’,
broadcast on 2 July 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpV9nx13guo; and 3 July
2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZYkYtyTmBk.

62. Groups of workers in the budgeted sector, including health care workers, received a pay
rise in recent years, but others, including in the education sector, were left behind.
Workers in the political organisations of People’s Power and a group in public
administration had not received a pay rise since 2005. Following the announcement,
thousands of Cubans sought (re)employment in the state sector, including 8,000
(former) teachers who returned to Cuban classrooms by the new school year. This
almost resolves the island’s chronic lack of teachers. In other sectors, however,
ministers warned against a return to inflated state sector payrolls stating that only
essential workers should be recruited.

63. In a market economy, inflation is caused by increasing the supply of money without a
concomitant increase in the value of the goods and services produced.

64. Provincial administrations are responsible for setting maximum retail and wholesale
prices and reviewing them on a regular basis in an effort to prevent inflation. The cap
applies to all products except those imported and distributed by the state which have a
fixed price structure. David Jessop, ‘New Controls on Prices and Non-state Enterprises
Announced’, Cuba Briefing, 2 September 2019, issue 1018, 1.

65. Instead of prohibiting this, the economy will be directed to meet the demand for such
goods and services domestically.
66. However, as the salary and pension rises began halfway through the year, the cost in
2019 is half the annual cost.

67. The new measures aim to ‘break the pattern of turning to imports to foster our national
industry’, said Gil, adding that nothing should be imported that could be produced
domestically.

68. State enterprises whose exports exceed the plan will retain all or part of the extra hard
currency earnings (after meeting obligations to the state) and can use those funds for
essential imports or to pay other national producers. Similarly, non-exporting state
enterprises can retain surplus revenues, after payments due to the central fund, and
decide how to invest those, including in projects with domestic non-state enterprises
and foreign companies. Restrictions on relations between these entities will be
removed. Cuban enterprises which supply domestic products and services to foreign
businesses operating in the Mariel Special Development Zone will be permitted to
retain 50% of their profits. State enterprises will be allowed to sell excess production
over their plan in the domestic market. Non-state enterprises may be facilitated to
export through arrangements with state entities. The proposed reforms appear similar
to the Soviet Planning and Management System implemented in Cuba in the 1970s
until Rectification in the mid-1980s.

69. Accordingly, enterprises will be responsible for paying off their own debt to FINATUR.

70. It has been estimated that 10,000 Cubans are already using cryptocurrencies for personal
transactions. Sarah Marsh, ‘Skirting U.S. Sanctions, Cubans Flock to Cryptocurrency
To Shop Online Send Funds’, Reuters, 12 September 2019.

71. US Department of the Treasury, ‘Treasury Issues Changes to Strengthen Cuba Sanctions
Rules’, 6 September 2019. https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm770

72. Remittances are illegal if the recipient is a member of the Cuban Communist Party or to
close family member of ‘prohibited Cuban officials’. Authorisation for ‘donative
remittances’ to non-family members was eliminated. These were the measures
announced on 17 April 2019 but not yet enacted.

73. Steve Mnuchin, ‘The United States holds the Cuban regime accountable for its
oppression of the Cuban people and support of other dictatorships throughout the
 region, such as the illegitimate Maduro regime. Through these regulatory amendments,
Treasury is denying Cuba access to hard currency, and we are curbing the Cuban
government’s bad behavior while continuing to support the long-suffering people of
Cuba.’ US Department of the Treasury, ‘Cuba Sanctions Rules’.

74. The reality of the socialist countries’ trade relations was strongly criticised by Ernesto
‘Che’ Guevara for failing to deliver in this regard. ‘There should be no more talk about
developing mutually beneficial trade based on prices forced on the backward countries
by the law of value and the international relations of unequal exchange that result from
the law of value . . . The socialist countries have the moral duty to put an end to their
tacit complicity with the exploiting countries of the West.’ Ernesto Che Guevara, ‘At
the Afro Asian Conference in Algeria’, 24 February 1964.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1965/02/24.htm.

75. Mesa Redonda, ‘Medidas para potenciar la economía del país en las condiciones
actuales e incremento salarial’, broadcast on 3 July 2019. www.youtube.com/watch?
v=5ZYkYtyTmBk

76. This is not meant to imply that these institutions and apparatus were introduced in the
1990s; most of them were not. The ration book, for example, was introduced as a
temporary measure in 1962 and never removed. While both Fidel and Raúl Castro
stated their wish to eliminate the ration book once conditions permitted, its
continuation has proven useful, for example in handling the sudden scarcity of basic
foodstuffs occurring in spring 2019.

77. CubaDebate, ‘¿Qué sucede en la Tribuna Antimperialista?’ 23 May 2019.

http://www.cubadebate.cu/noticias/2019/05/23/.

78. William R. Rhodes, ‘Venezuela’s Healthcare Crisis Needs Emergency Attention’,

Financial Times, 8 February 2019. https://www.ft.com/content/f1d3b414-2af2-11e9-
88a4-c32129756dd8. Nonetheless, in early June 2019, Cuba was struggling to maintain
a stable supply of some medicines and of the raw materials and other inputs for its
biopharma industry, following the tightening of the US blockade. Jessop, Cuba
Briefing, 10 June 2019, 2.

79. ACN, ‘Cuba: US Government Earmarks Millions To Hinder Cuban Medical

Cooperation’, Radio Rebelde, 29 August 2019,
http://www.radiorebelde.cu/english/news/cuba-us-government-earmarks-millions-to-
 hinder-cuban-medical-cooperation-20190829/.

80. Vidal, Interview in Havana, 28 December 2016.

FURTHER READING

Rather than a full bibliography, this is a list of publications on which I have drawn and/or which
readers may wish to consult for further information and analysis.

Alhama Belamaric, Rafael, Jesús Pastor García Brigos, Roberto Jesús Lima Ferrer and
Daniel Rafuls Pineda. Cuba: Propiedad Social y Construcción Socialista, Nuevo
Milenio, 2019.

Allahar, Anton L. and Nelson P. Valdés. ‘The Bureaucratic Imperative: Economic and
Political Challenges to Cuban Socialism in the Early 21st Century’, The CLR James
Journal, 19:1/2, 2013.

Álvarez, Mavis, Martin Bourque, Fernando Funes, Lucy Martin, Armando Nova and Peter
Rosset. ‘Surviving the Crisis in Cuba: The Second Agrarian Reform and Sustainable
Agriculture’, in Peter Rosset, Raj Patel and Michael Courville (eds.), Promised Land:
Competing Visions of Agrarian Reform, Food First Books, 2006.

American Association for World Health. Denial of Food and Medicine: The Impact of the
US Embargo on Health and Nutrition in Cuba, March 1997.

Angotti, Thomas. ‘The Cuban Revolution: A New Turn’, in Nature, Society, and Thought,
1:4, 1988, 527–49.

Aponte-García, Maribel. ‘Foreign Investment and Trade in Cuban Development: A 50-Year

Reassessment with Emphasis on the Post-1990 Period’, Bulletin of Latin American
Research, 28:4, 2009, 480–96.

Arrastía Avila, Mario Alberto. ‘Distributed Generation in Cuba: Part of a Transition

towards a New Energy Paradigm’, in Cogeneration and On-Site Power Production,
November–December 2008, 62–5.
Arrastía Avila, Mario Alberto and Laurie Guevara-Stone. ‘Teaching Cuba’s Energy
Revolution’, Solar Today, January–February 2009, 30–3.

August, Arnold. Cuba and Its Neighbours: Democracy in Motion, Zed Books, 2013.

August, Arnold. Cuba–U.S. Relations: Obama and Beyond, Fernwood Publishing, 2017.

Ayes, G.N. Revolución Energética: Un Desafío Para el Desarrollo, Editorial Científico-

Técnica, 2008.

Azicri, Max. ‘The Castro-Chávez Alliance’, Latin American Perspectives, 36, 2009, 99–
110.

Babbitt, Susan E. José Martí, Ernesto “Che” Guevara, and Global Development Ethics:
The Battle for Ideas, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

Badella, Alessandro. ‘Between Carter and Clinton: Obama’s Policy Towards Cuba’,
Caribbean Journal of International Relations & Diplomacy, 2:2, June 2014, 29–59.

Baggot, Rob and George Lambie. ‘Hard Currency, Solidarity, and Soft Power: The
Motives, Implications, and Lessons of Cuban Health Internationalism’, in International
Journal of Health Services, 49:1, 2019.

Baracca, Angelo and Rosella Franconi. ‘Cuba: The Strategic Choice of Advanced Scientific
Development, 1959–2014’, Sociology and Anthropology 5:4, 2017.

Baracca, Angelo and Rosella Franconi. Subalternity vs. Hegemony: Cuba’s Outstanding
Achievements in Science and Biotechnology, 1959–2014, Springer Briefs in History of
Science and Technology, 2016.

Bardach, Ann Louise. Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana,
Vintage Books, 2002.

Bolender, Keith. Cuba Under Siege: American Policy, the Revolution and Its People,
Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

Bolender, Keith. Manufacturing the Enemy: The Media War Against Cuba, Pluto Press,
2019.

Boorstein, Edward. The Economic Transformation of Cuba: A First-Hand Account, Modern

 Reader Paperback, 1969.

Brenner, Philip and Peter Eisner. Cuba Libre: A 500-Year Quest for Independence,
Rowman and Littlefield, 2018.

Brouwer, Steve. Revolutionary Doctors: How Venezuela and Cuba are Changing the
World’s Conception of Health Care, Monthly Review Press, 2011.

Brundenius, Claes. Revolutionary Cuba: The Challenge of Economic Growth with Equity,
Westview Press, 1984.

Brundenius, Claes. ‘Whither the Cuban Economy after Recovery? The Reform Process,
Upgrading Strategies and the Question of Transition’, Journal of Latin American
Studies, 2002.

Bustamante, Michael J. and Jennifer L. Lambe. The Revolution from Within: Cuba, 1959–
1980, Duke University Press, 2019.

Calvo Ospina, Hernando. Bacardi: The Hidden War, Pluto Press, 2000.

Campbell, Al (ed.). Cuban Economists on the Cuban Economy, University Press of Florida,
2013.

Campbell, Al. ‘Updating Cuba’s Economic Model: Socialism, Human Development,

Markets and Capitalism’, Socialism and Democracy, 30:1, 2016.

Campos, Carlos Olivia and Gary Prevost. ‘Cuba’s Relations with Latin America’, Social
Research: An International Quarterly, 84:2, 2017.

Capote, Raúl. Enemigo, Editorial José Martí, 2011.

Cárdenas Andrés. The Cuban Biotechnology Industry: Innovation and Universal Health
Care, Institute for Institutional Innovations Economics, University of Bremen, 2009.

Castro Díaz-Balart, Fidel. ‘Global Challenges in Science and Innovation for Sustainable
Development: Remarks from a Cuban Perspective’, Caribbean Journal of
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https://www.marxists.org/history/cuba/archive/castro/1953/10/16.htm.
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1992.

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Cuba, at the Commemoration of the 60th Anniversary of his admission to University of
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the Guerrilla Victory, Monthly Review Press, 2016.

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Legacy of Socialism in Cuba, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000.
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Erisman, H. Michael. Cuba’s Foreign Relations in a Post-Soviet World, University Press of

Florida, 2000.

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Erisman, H. Michael and John M. Kirk. Cuban Foreign Policy: Transformation under Raúl
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Espina, Mayra. ‘Viejas y Nuevas Desigualdades en Cuba: Ambivalencias y perspectivas de

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Fagen, Richard R. The Transformation of Political Culture in Cuba, Stanford University

Press, 1969.

Feinsilver, Julie M. ‘Fifty Years of Cuba’s Medical Diplomacy: From Idealism to

Pragmatism’, Cuban Studies, 41, 2000.

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Foner, Philip. A History of Cuba and its Relations with the United States, International
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Font, Mauricio (ed). Changing Cuba/Changing World, The Cuba Project, Bildner Center
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Franklin, Jane. Cuba and the United States: A Chronological History, Ocean Press, 1997.

Funes Aguilar, Fernando and Luis L. Vázquez Moreno (eds). Avances de la Agroecología
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Funes Aguilar, Fernando, L. García, M. Bourque, N. Pérez and P. Rosset. Transformando el

Campo Cubano: Avances de la Agricultura Sostenible, ACTAF-Food First-Ceas, 2001.

Funes Monzote, Reinaldo. From Rainforest to Cane Field in Cuba: An Environmental

History since 1492, University of North Carolina Press, 2008.

Gasperini, Lavinia. ‘The Cuban Education System: Lessons and Dilemmas’, Country
Studies: Education Reform and Management Publication Series, 1:5, 2000.

Gillespie, Richard (ed). Cuba after Thirty Years: Rectification and the Revolution, Frank
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Gleijeses, Piero. Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959–1976,

University of North Carolina Press, 2003.

Gleijeses, Piero. ‘Cuba and Africa: A History Worthy of Pride’, Socialist Voice, 2004.

Gleijeses, Piero. ‘Moscow’s Proxy? Cuba and Africa 1975–1988’, Journal of Cold War
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Gleijeses, Piero. ‘Cuba and the Independence of Namibia’, Cold War History, 7:2, 2007,
285–303.

Gott, Richard. Cuba: A New History, Yale University Press, 2004.

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Sociales, 2006.

Guevara-Stone, Laurie. ‘La Revolucion Energetica: Cuba’s Energy Revolution’, Renewable

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 MEDICC Review, 14:2, 2012.

Hamilton, Douglas. ‘Whither Cuban Socialism: The Changing Political Economy of the
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Walker, Chris and Emily J. Kirk. ‘Alternatives? Pitfalls of Polarized Internationalism:

Protest against Cuban Medical Solidarity’, Studies in Political Economy, 98:1, 2017.
White, Nigel D. ‘Ending the US Embargo of Cuba: International Law in Dispute’, Journal
of Latin American Studies, 51:1, 2019.

Whittle, Daniel and Orlando Rey Santos. Protecting Cuba’s Environment: Efforts to Design
and Implement Effective Environmental Laws and Policies in Cuba, University of
Pittsburgh Press, 2006.

World Wide Fund For Nature, Living Planet Report, 2006.

Wright, Julia E. Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security in an Era of Oil Scarcity:
Lessons from Cuba, Earthscan, 2009.

Yaffe, Helen. Che Guevara: The Economics of Revolution, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

Yaffe, Helen. ‘Che Guevara and the Great Debate: Past and Present’, Science & Society,
76:1, 2012.

Yaffe, Helen. ‘Che Guevara: Cooperatives and the Political Economy of Socialist
Transition’, in Camila Piñeiro Harnecker (ed.), Cooperatives and Socialism, Palgrave
Macmillan, 2013.

Yaffe, Helen. ‘Cuban Development: Inspiration to the ALBA-TCP’ in Thomas Muhr (ed.),
Counter-Globalization and Socialism in the 21st Century: The Bolivarian Alliance for
the Peoples of Our America, Routledge, 2013.

Yaffe, Helen. ‘The Curious Case of Cuba’s Biotech Revolution’, History of Technology, 34,
2019.

Yordi García, Mirtha, Enrique J. Gómez Cabezas and María Teresa Caballero Rivacoba. El
Trabajo Social en Cuba: Retos de la Profesión en el Siglo XXI, Editorial Unión, 2012.

Zabala Arguelles, María del Carmen, Susset Fuentes Reverón, Geydis Fundora Nevot,
Danay Camejo Figueredo, David Díaz Pérez, Vilma Hidalgo López-Chávez and Marta
Rosa Munoz Campos. ‘Referentes Teóricos para el Estudio de las Desigualdades
Sociales en Cuba: Reflexiones sobre su Pertinencia’, Revista Estudios del Desarrollo
Social: Cuba y América Latina, 6:1, 2018.

Zanetti, Oscar. Esplendor y Decadencia del Azúcar en las Antillas hispanas, Editorial de
Ciencias Sociales, 2012.
Zimbalist, Andrew (ed.). Cuban Political Economy: Controversies in Cubanology,
Westview Press, 1988.

Zimbalist, Andrew and Claes Brundenius. The Cuban Economy: Measurement and Analysis
of Socialist Performance, John Hopkins University Press, 1989.

INDEX

9/11 (i), (ii)

Abu Dhabi Development Fund (i)

Academy of Sciences (i), (ii)

acopio (i)

Adams, John Quincy (i)

Afghanistan (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

Africa see also individual countries; North Africa; South Africa; West Africa

Castro’s personal popularity (i)

colonial legacies (i)

Cuban medical aid in (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

Cuban military-civic missions (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) n53

foreign students from (i)

Agee, Philip (i)

Agrarian Reform Law (1959) (i), (ii), (iii) n41

Agricultural Production Cooperatives (CPAs) (i)

agriculture (i) see also cooperatives; farming

industrialisation of (i), (ii)

matter of national security (i)

new practices (i)

productivity (i)

types of organisation (i)

workers in (i)

AIDS (i), (ii)

Alarcón, Ricardo (i), (ii)

advisor to the Council of State (i) n45

on US attitudes to Cuba (i)

on ‘single issue talks’ (i) n44

on the private sector (i), (ii)

US aims for Cuba (i)

ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas)

alliance against neoliberalism (i)

Ecuador joins (i)

expanding (i), (ii) n77

launched by Cuba and Venezuela (i), (ii) n77

‘oil for doctors’ (i)

Summit of the Americas and (i)

trade and development cooperation (i)

Algeria (i), (ii), (iii)

Allende, Isabel (i), (ii)

class structures (i)

developing foreign relations (i), (ii)

family expectations (i)

on the 1980s (i)

US and Cuba (i)

alternative energy programmes (i) see also entries beginning with Energy; renewable
energy

Alternative Investment Market (London) (i)

Álvarez, Santiago (i), (ii), (iii) n104

Alzheimer’s disease (i)

American Medical Association (i)

Amnesty International (i), (ii), (iii) n122

Angola (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) n64

Annan, Kofi (i)

antibodies (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

anti-government demonstrations (i)

anti-imperialism see also imperialism

continuing (i), (ii)

historically rooted (i)

national sovereignty and (i), (ii)

reason for US aggression (i)

Tricontinental Conference (i)

Venezuela and (i)

Antonio Maceo Brigade (i)

Argentina (i)

Aristides, Jean-Bertrand (i)

Armenteros, Esther (i)

Artemisa (i), (ii)

arts, the (i), (ii), (iii) see also culture

Auguste, Marie Carmelle Rose-Anne (i)

austerity (i), (ii), (iii)

Azcuba (i)

Baez, Felix (i)

bagasse (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

Bamford, James (i)

banking (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii)

Baracoa (i)

Barbourak, Jim (i)

Bardach, Ann Louise (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

Barrio Adentro health programme (i), (ii)

Basic Units of Cooperative Production (UBPCs) (i)

Basulto, José (i)

Batista, Fulgencio

encourages foreign investment (i)

expulsion of (i), (ii), (iii)

removal of Grau San Martin (i)

revolutionary organisations overthrow (i)

Battle of Ideas

continuation (i)

defining the new millennium (i), (ii)

education and (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) n12

Elián González affair and (i), (ii)

Energy Revolution and (i), (ii)

ideological offensive (i)

strengthening of socialist conscience (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

youth and (i), (ii), (iii)

Bay of Pigs invasion (i), (ii), (iii)

Belarus (i)

Benes, Bernardo (i)

Berlin Wall (i)

Bermudez, Eduardo Delgado (i)

Berríz, Luis

Cubasolar (i)
energy and state power (i)

Gensolar (i)

oil fuelled energy (i)

on climate change and Trump (i)

on electricity supply (i)

on renewable energy (i), (ii)

world’s energy policy wrong (i)

bicycles (i), (ii)

Bilateral Commissions with the United States (i), (ii), (iii)

BioCubaFarma (i)

bioenergy (i)

biogas (i), (ii)

Biological Front (i), (ii), (iii)

biomass (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

biopharma

corporations seeking access to Cuba (i)

foreign investment for (i)

gearing up (i)

low cost of exports (i)

state-owned (i), (ii)

biosimilars (i)
biotechnology

biotech revolution (i), (ii)

Cuban ‘exceptionalism’ (i)

Dr Randolph Clark Lee (i), (ii), (iii)

export of (i)

extraordinary development of (i)

global commodification challenge (i)

infectious disease vaccination and (i)

inventions and patents (i)

nature of (i)

oncology and (i)

research methodology (i)

science and (i)

UNIDO project (i)

United States (i)

Bioven (i)

Black Congressional Caucus (US) (i)

blackouts see electricity

Blanco, Humberto (i)

blockade (US)

access to technology and investment during (i)

CMEA and (i)

condemnations of (i)

cost of (i), (ii) n15, (iii) n29

Cuba demands lifting of (i)

extraterritorial reach of (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

FDI contracts and (i)

higher prices and (i)

imposition of (i), (ii)

joint ventures and (i)

loosening of under Obama (i), (ii)

measures taken against (i)

oil and (i)

tightening of (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)

Trump’s violation of (i)

under Raúl Castro (i), (ii)

BNDES (Brazilian Development Bank) (i)

BNP Paribas (i)

Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas see ALBA

Bolivarian Revolution (i)

Bolivia (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) n77

Bolsonaro, Jair (i)

Bolton, John (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)

bonuses (i)

Boorstein, Edward (i)

Bosch, Orlando (i), (ii)

Bravo, Ernesto (i)

Brazil

Cuban health care workers (i), (ii)

Cuban meningitis vaccine (i)

doctors’ boycott (i)

emerging economy (i)

joint ventures (i)

Landless Movement (i)

radiation poisoning (i)

second largest trading partner (i)

withdrawal of medical services from (i), (ii)

Brezhnev, Leonid (i)

BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China) (i)

Britain

capitalism and imperialism (i) n3

contribution to the costs of Cuban health care missions (i)

debt relief for Cuba (i)

Helms–Burton Act and (i), (ii)n51

invasion of Afghanistan (i)

joint ventures (i), (ii)

prices for sugar from the Caribbean (i)

trade with (i)

US blockade and (i)

Brookings Institute (i)

Brundtland Commission (i)

Budgetary Finance System (i)

Buena Vista Social Club (i)

Buffalo, New York (i)

bureaucracy (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

Burundi (i)

Bush, George H. W. (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

Bush, George W.

2008 crisis (i)

aggression from (i), (ii)

criticising Cuban foreign policy (i)

family ties to Cuban exiles (i)

‘Free Cuba’ plan (i)

hardening line against Cuba (i)

invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq (i), (ii)

Medical Parole Programme (i)

rhetoric when Raul takes over (i)

splitting up the world (i)

spurns assistance after Hurricane Katrina (i)

squeezing the Cuban economy (i)

talks of end of socialism (i)

US scientists still forge links (i)

‘War on Terrorism’ (i), (ii)

BUTS (University Social Worker Brigades) (i), (ii), (iii)

Caballero, Idania (i)

Cabral, Amilcar (i)

Cabrisas, Ricardo (i)

cadecas (i)

Caimanera (i)

Calixto García hospital (i)

Camaguey (i), (ii), (iii)

Campa, Concepcíon (i)

Campaign of Rectification of Errors and Negative Tendencies (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) see also
Rectification

Campbell, Al (i)

campesinos (i)

Canada

contracts from (i), (ii)

customs (i)

Helms–Burton Act protests (i), (ii)

helps Cuba digging for oil (i)

helps Obama with Cuban talks (i)

hypothyroidal screening (i)

Latin America ‘left behind’ by (i)

maintains diplomatic relations (i), (ii)

tourists visiting Cuba (i) n44

cancer

biotechnology and (i)

development of treatment centres (i)

EGFs (i)

research (i)

York Medical (i)

CANF (Cuban American National Foundation) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii) n5

Cantell, Kari (i), (ii)

capital (i) see also FDI; foreign capital; foreign investment

capitalism

attitude to natural resources (i)

global struggle against (i)

opinions from outside as to Cuba’s direction under Raúl (i)

population’s views (i)

post-Soviet Cuba and (i)

return to ruled out (i)

social entrepreneurship and (i)

‘socialism’ that leads to (i)

‘triumphant moment’ of (i)

US style (i)

Capote, Raúl (i)

Caribbean (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)

Caribbean Community (CARICOM) (i), (ii)

Carter, Jimmy (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

Cason, James (i), (ii) n91

Castiñeiras Garcia, Rita (i)

Castro, Fidel (i)

addresses protestors (i), (ii) n98

announces socialist character of the Revolution (i)

assassination attempts (i), (ii)

assistance offered after Hurricane Katrina (i)

Battle of Ideas (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii)

Bay of Pigs invasion (i)

biotechnology interest (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

CIM must be completed (i)

concerns about self-employment (i)

consulting the people (i), (ii), (iii)

Cuban Missile Crisis (i)

death (i), (ii)

debt strike suggested (i)

demands survey on children’s health (i)

disdain for capitalist social relations (i)

doctors leaving (i)

doctors to be trained (i)

dollar legalised (i)

Earth Summit speech (i)

educational system revisited (i), (ii), (iii)

elements of capitalism incorporated (i), (ii)

Elián González affair (i), (ii), (iii) n30

energy and Battle of Ideas speech (i), (ii)

energy conservation (i)

finance systems (i), (ii)

frequent visits to students (i)

Gabriel García Márquez on (i)

hands over to Raúl (i)

healthcare, prime importance of in exchange of goods and services (i), (ii)

History Will Absolve Me speech (i), (ii) n8

Hugo Chávez and (i)

illness (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) n111, n8

kickback against profit and material incentives (i)

Latin American military regimes and (i)

microbrigadistas (i)

Moncada Programme (i)

negotiations with US (i)

Neighbourhood Transformation Workshops (i)

on George W. Bush and the USSR (i)

on foreign relations in the 1990s (i)

on health of the individual and the nation (i) n38

on ‘new rich’ (i)

on the Revolution (i), (ii)

opposition to private farmers’ markets (i)

personal involvement with power generation (i)

popular support for (i)

‘rectification of errors’ campaign (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

science is the future (i), (ii)

state enterprise directors meeting (i)

tackling oil thefts (i)

training health care workers for Africa (i)

warning Clinton of CANF terrorism (i)

willing to talk to the US (i)

Castro, Raúl (i)

CCP’s Draft Guidelines (i)

commitment to socialism (i)

consulting the people (i), (ii), (iii) n152

continuing as First Secretary of the CCP (i) n6

equality and egalitarianism (i)

farmers’ markets (i)

from efficiency to equity (i)

importance of Conceptualisation (i)

in favour of socialist state enterprises (i)

leads Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) (i)

limited success of reforms (i), (ii)

on investment (i)

on relationship with the USA (i), (ii)

private sector (i)

property reform (i)

reorganises defences (i)

retires from Council of State (i)

slates media (i)

speech on 26 July 2007 (i), (ii)

takes over (i), (ii)

‘updating’ the economy (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

Catholic University Association (i)

Cazañas, Ernesto Freire (i), (ii), (iii)

CCP see Cuban Communist Party

CDR (Committees for Defence of the Revolution) (i), (ii), (iii)

CEEC (Centre for the Study of the Cuban Economy) (i), (ii)

CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) (i), (ii)

CENIC (National Centre for Scientific Research) (i)

Central America (i), (ii) see also Latin America

Central Bank (i)

Central de Trabajadores de Cuba see CTC

Central Group (i), (ii) n65

Central Planning Board (JUCEPLAN) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

‘Central Report’ (Raúl Castro) (i)

Central University of Las Villas (i)

Centre for Biological Studies (i)

Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology see CIGB

Centre for Immunoassay (i), (ii)

Centre for Molecular Immunology see CIM

Centre for Neuroscience (i)

Centre for Research into Solar Energy (CIES) (i)

Centre for Research into the World’s Economy (CIEM) (i), (ii)

Centre for the Study of Efficient Energy (i)

Centre for the Study of Renewable Energy Resources (i)

Centre for the Study of the Cuban Economy (CEEC) (i), (ii)

Chan, Margaret (i), (ii)

Charles, Prince of Wales (i)

Chávez, Hugo (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

Che see Guevara, Ernesto

Che Guevara: The Economics of Revolution (Helen Yaffe) (i)

Chernobyl (i), (ii)

Chijona, Gerardo (i)

children

causes of death (i)

childcare (i)

importance of education (i)

interaction with tourists (i)

malnutrition (i)

participation in culture (i)

underprivileged children (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) n76

surveys (i), (ii), (iii)

with disabilities (i)

Children of Chernobyl programme (i), (ii)

Chile (i), (ii)

China

as a key partner (i)

comparisons with (i), (ii)

condemning enactment of Title III of Helms–Burton Act (i)

Cuban debts (i), (ii)

Cuban doctors in (i)

emerging economy (i), (ii), (iii)

imports from (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)

joint ventures with (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)

regional relations (i)

rejection as a model (i)

software assistance (i)

trade with (i), (ii) n130

cholera (i)

Chómon Mediavilla, Faure (i)

Christian Liberation Movement (i)

CIA (Central Intelligence Agency)

agents in Cuba (i), (ii), (iii)

assassination attempts on Fidel Castro (i)

introducing dengue virus into Cuba (i)

report on Castro government (i)

terrorism and sabotage in Cuba (i), (ii)

training Cuban-American exiles (i), (ii)

Ciego de Ávila (i), (ii)

CIEM (Centre for Research into the World Economy) (i), (ii)

Cienfuegos (i)

CIGB (Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology)

as centre of Science City (i)

construction of (i)

hepatitis B vaccine (i)

Jimmy Carter visits (i)

protein work (i)

CIM (Centre for Molecular Immunology)

biotech joint venture partner (i)

focus and achievements of (i)

foreign investment and partners (i), (ii)

Gisela Gonzalez (i)

Science City institutions (i)

CIMAvax-EGF

an exciting innovation (i)

cost of (i)
description of (i) n123

external issues surrounding (i)

Finlay Institute and (i)

Gisela Gonzalez’s presentation (i)

joint venture established (i)

cinema (i)

Citizens’ Army (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

CITMA (Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment) (i)

Clark, Randolph Lee (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

class system and inequalities (i)

Battle of Ideas and (i)

ELAM (i)

healthcare and (i)

power to the working class (i)

prison system and (i)

remittances from Cubans in the US (i)

Claver-Carone, Mauricio (i)

climate change

can be halted (i)

capitalism incapable of combating (i)

combating effects of (i), (ii), (iii)

extreme weather conditions due to (i)

National Environment Strategy (i)

opposition to ‘adaptation and mitigation’ approach (i)

State Plan (Tarea Vida) (i), (ii)

Clinton, Bill (i), (ii), (iii)

CMEA

collapse of (i), (ii), (iii)

Cuba becomes full member (i), (ii)

dependence on (i), (ii)

dismantled (i)

last meeting of (i)

CNAs (non-agricultural cooperatives) (i), (ii), (iii)

Cold War

complications for Cuban socialism (i)

Cuban military missions during (i), (ii), (iii)

use of rhetoric of (i), (ii)

won by capitalism (i)

Collazo, Odilia (i)

Colombia (i), (ii)

Comfort, USNS (i)

Commandos F-4 (i)

Committees for Defence of the Revolution (CDR) (i), (ii), (iii)

Communist Party see Cuban Communist Party

Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) (i), (ii)

community projects (i)

Comprehensive General Medicine (i)

Comprehensive Healthcare Programmes (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

Comptroller’s Office (i)

Concepción, Yailenis Mulet (i)

Conceptualisation (i), (ii)

Conference on Environment and Development ‘Earth Summit’ (UN 1992) (i)

Congo-Brazzaville (i)

Conservation International (i)

constitution (i)

2019 new Constitution (i), (ii), (iii) n29, (iv) n74, n75

mandatory state ownership alterations (i)

population ratifying Assembly delegates (i)

presidency re-designated (i)

Triana Barros on (i)

contracted workers (i)

Cooperative Law (i)

cooperatives (i)

agricultural (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii)

agricultural training at (i)

during the Special Period (i), (ii)

income (i)

integration into state structures (i)

loans (i)

non-agricultural (CNAs) (i), (ii), (iii)

private farms turned into (i)

socialism and (i)

state farms turned into (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

transfer of workers to (i), (ii)

women in (i)

Coppelia ice cream factory (i)

Corker, Bob (i)

Correa, Rafael (i), (ii), (iii)

Costa Rica (i)

Council for Mutual Economic Assistance see CMEA

Council of Ministers (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

Council of State (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

CPAs (Agricultural Production Cooperatives) (i)

credit (i), (ii)

CTC (Cuban Workers’ Confederation) (i), (ii), (iii)

debate on Conceptualisation (i)

debate on new Labour Code (i)

government and (i)

newspaper, Trabajadores (i)

non-state sector workers and (i)

transfer of workers (i), (ii)

Cuba

aid in Africa (i)

breaks off diplomatic relations with Panama (i)

Chernobyl aid (i)

China and (i)

choice faced between placating US imperialism and radical change (i)

Cubans leaving for US (i)

development aid (i)

Ebola training programme (i)

ELAM (i), (ii), (iii)

external financing and debt (i)

health care worker missions see health care missions

high cost of US blockade (i)

highly developed infrastructure (1950s) (i)

imports benefiting elites (i)

interaction with other socialist countries (i), (ii)

international diplomatic relationships (i), (ii)

international isolation (i)

international poverty ranking (i)

invasion menace (i), (ii)

particular risk from climate change (i)

pre-revolutionary elites (i)

reopening of US embassy (i)

scientists (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x)

self-sufficiency goal (i)

‘Sovietisation’ period (i)

the only sustainable nation (i), (ii)

ties with US population (i)

trade deficits (i), (ii)

Cuba Briefing (i)

‘Cuba’s Black Spring’ (i)

CubaDebate (i)

Cubaenergía (i), (ii), (iii) n53

Cuban Academy of Sciences (i), (ii)

Cuban-Americans

anti-Communism (i)

Antonio Maceo Brigade (i)

Bay of Pigs invasion (i), (ii)

Brothers to the Rescue (i), (ii) n19

change of Cuba policy (i)

Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

drug money (i)

enraged at prospect of Cuban oil drilling (i)

gangsterismo (i)

involved in ‘counter-insurgency’ programmes in Central America (i)

new arrivals in the 1980s (i)

obstructing improvements in US–Cuba relations (i)

Operation Mongoose (i)

right-wing (i), (ii)

terrorism and sabotage in Cuba (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

trained by the CIA (i), (ii)

Trump and (i)

voting for Bill Clinton (i)

Cuban Association of Artists and Craftsmen (i)

Cuban Central Bank (i), (ii)

Cuban Centre for Neuroscience (i)

Cuban Communist Party (CCP)

2019 Constitution and (i) n75

Conceptualisation approved (i)

Congresses: First (i), (ii), (iii); Third (i); Fourth (i), (ii), (iii); Fifth (i); Sixth (i), (ii); Seventh
(i), (ii)

Díaz-Canel joins (i)

enquiry into facilities closures (i)

Forums for national debate (i), (ii)

Guidelines (i), (ii), (iii)

links renewed with general population (i), (ii)

membership numbers (i)

on Fidel’s retirement (i), (ii)

role being negated (i)

role in the Battle of Ideas (i)

unchanged by 2019 Constitution (i)

US plans to bring to trial (i)

Vilma Espín, role in (i)

warning re dollar (i)

Cuban convertible peso (CUC) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) n69

Cuban Electric Company (i)

Cuban Five (i), (ii), (iii) n75, n76

Cuban Independence Wars (i)

Cuban Missile Crisis (i), (ii), (iii)

Cuban peso (CUP)

collapse in value (i)

devaluation against dollar (i)

exchange rates (i), (ii) n69

reunified with convertible peso (CUC) (i)

salaries paid in (i)

Cuban Revolution (1933) (i)

Cuban Revolution (1959)

a durable paradox (i)

commitment needed from general population (i)

commitment to social justice and independence (i)

Constitution and (i), (ii)

defending the conquests of (i)

Fidel Castro on (i)

human welfare at heart of (i)

internationalist aspect to (i)

multiple systems of economic management (i)

nature of (i)

new stage under Raúl Castro (i)

revolutionaries in power (i)

socialism’s survival and (i)

survival of (i)

US monopolies prior to (i)

Cuban Workers’ Confederation (CTC) (i), (ii), (iii)

‘Cubanidad’ (i)

CubaNet (i)

‘Cubanology’ (i), (ii) n22

Cubasolar (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) n6

CUC see Cuban convertible peso

Cuito Cuanavale (i)

culture

‘counter-culture’ (i)

‘cultural invasion’ (i)

cultural rights (i), (ii)

free access to (i), (ii), (iii)

importance to socialism (i), (ii)

institutions (i), (ii)

promotion of (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

role of (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

since the Special Period (i), (ii), (iii)

tourism and (i)

CUP see Cuban peso

CUPET (i), (ii) n50, (iii) n53

Curbelo Alonso, Alfredo (i), (ii)

currency reunification (i), (ii) see also Cuban convertible peso; Cuban peso
‘Dance of the Millions’ (i)

debt (i)

cancellation of (i)

foreign direct investment and (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

need to reschedule (i)

Paris Club and other relief (i), (ii)

repayment agreements (i)

Russia writes Soviet-era debt (i)

Declaration of Human Rights (UN) (i)

Deepwater Horizon (i)

defence (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

democracy

call for Cuba’s ‘transition’ to (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

capitalist (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

community level (i)

national consultations (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix) n62

national debate on Conceptualisation (i)

non-party elections (i) n61

participatory (i) n62

referenda (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) n36, (v) n74

socialist (i), (ii), (iii) n29, (iv) n85, (v) n75

dengue (i)
Denmark (i)

Department for Renewable Energies (i)

Department of Industrialisation (i)

development (i), (ii)

economic and social plan (i)

FDI and (i)

focused on human well-being (i), (ii), (iii)

international aid from Cuba (i), (ii), (iii)

national development plans (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

need for capital (i), (ii)

Plan 2030 (i)

Rectification and (i), (ii)

socialism and (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)

sustainable development (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii) n7

training and (i)

Development Bank (Brazil) (i)

Development of Renewable Sources and Efficient Use of Energy (i)

Development Zones (i), (ii)

Díaz-Canel, Miguel

at UN General Assembly (i)

British businesses attend forum with (i)

challenges faced (i)

embracing internet and social media (i)

intense debates following Guidelines (i), (ii)

overcoming bureaucracy (i)

pay and pensions increases (i)

reforms announced (i)

the new President (i)

Diez de Octubre, Havana (i)

doctors see health

dollar (US)

access to (i), (ii)

de-dollarisation (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

exchange rate to CUC (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

influx of (i)

legalisation of (i)

salaries paid in (i)

substitution by CUC (i), (ii), (iii)

US institutions blocking Cuban use of (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)

Don, Monty (i), (ii)

Dorticos, Edwardo (i)

Dotres, Dr Carlos (i)

dual currency (i), (ii), (iii)

Dual Sector Model (i)

Duchess of Cornwall (i)

DuRand, Cliff (i)

‘Earth Summit’ (UN 1992) (i)

East Germany (i)

East Timor (i)

Eastern Europe (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)

Ebola (i), (ii)

Economic Calculus (i)

Economic Commission (i)

Economic Defence Exercise (i)

Economic Partnership Agreements (i)

Economic Planning and Management System (i)

Economist, The (i)

Ecosol Solar (i)

Ecosolar (i)

Ecuador (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) n77

education

arts classes (i)

budgeted sector (i)

decentralisation of (i) n12

electronic (i), (ii)

emergency/emergent teachers (maestros emergentes) (i), (ii), (iii)

free and universal (i), (ii)

higher (i), (ii), (iii)

levels of (i)

maintenance during the Special Period (i), (ii)

micro-schools (i), (ii)

problems (i), (ii), (iii)

programmes (i), (ii)

school repairs (i)

secondary (i)

socialism and (i)

under Raúl (i)

Educator’s Villa (i)

egalitarianism (i), (ii), (iii)

EGF (epidermal growth factor) (i)

El Salvador (i), (ii)

ELAM (Latin American School of Medicine) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) n76

Electrical Energy Forum (i)

electricity (i)

blackouts (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii)

distribution of (i) n65, n70

electrical goods (i)

Energy Revolution and (i), (ii)

new means of generating (i)

1994 crisis (i), (ii)

reducing use of (i), (ii) n78

residential use of (i)

solar energy (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

tariff (i)

threat of new crisis (i)

urban population connected (i)

use of sulphur content oil (i)

Elián González affair (i), (ii) n5, (iii) n30

embargo see blockade (US)

employment see cooperatives; self-employment; state sector employment; unemployment

Energía y Tu (i)

energy efficiency (i)

Energy Festivals (i), (ii)

Energy Plan (1992) (i)

Energy Revolution (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) n76

Energy Savings Programme (i) see also renewable energy

Enterprise Perfection System (EPS) (i), (ii)

Environmental Physics Group (i)

Ernesto Che Guevara electronics factory (i), (ii), (iii)

Escobar, Cristina (i)

Espín, Vilma (i)

ETECSA (i)

Ethiopia (i)

European Community (EC) (i)

European Union (EU)

adoption of ‘Common Position’ on Cuba (i), (ii), (iii) n56

condemning enactment of Title III of Helms–Burton Act (i), (ii)

debt relief for Cuba (i)

embassies in Cuba (i)

EU–Cuba Council (i)

investments in Cuba (i), (ii)

joint ventures with (i), (ii)

office in Havana (i)

PDCA (Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement) (i)

Sakharov Prize for ‘Freedom of Thought’ (i), (ii)

state visits to Cuba (i), (ii)

trade with (i)

US blockade and (i), (ii), (iii)

exchange houses (i)

exchange rates (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

exile conferences (i)

exiles see Cuban-Americans

exploitation

capitalist regimes (i), (ii) n25

contracted workers (i)

egalitarianism and (i)

environmental damage (i)

feudal (i)

foreign owned businesses (i)

imperialist (i), (ii), (iii)

in social relations (i), (ii)

state plan prevents (i)

tourism industry and (i), (ii)

white people associated with (i)

exports

ALBA and (i)

biotechnology (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

blockade and (i), (ii), (iii)

control of (i), (ii)

dependence on (i)
diversification of (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

fall in (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)

imports and (i), (ii)

medicines (i), (ii), (iii)

pre-Revolution (i)

promotion of (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii)

rewards for producing export goods (i)

services (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii) n71, (ix) n29

sugar (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii)

to CMEA (i), (ii)

to the Soviet Union (i), (ii), (iii)

Family Code (i)

Family Doctor and Nurse Plan (i)

FAR (Revolutionary Armed Forces) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

Fariñas Hernández, Guillermo (i), (ii) n124

farming see also agriculture

Agricultural Production Cooperatives (i)

from private to state markets (i)

INRA (i), (ii)

private farmers’ markets (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) n132

state-run markets (i), (ii)

types of farm (i), (ii) n42

Farrar, Jonathan (i)

FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

FDI (foreign direct investment) (i), (ii), (iii) see also foreign capital and investment

Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv),

Federation of Middle School Students (FEEM) (i), (ii)

Federation of University Students (FEU) (i), (ii), (iii)

Fernández, Dr Leonardo (i)

Fernández, Oscar (i)

Fernández de Cossío, Carlos (i)

Financial Times (i)

FINATUR (i), (ii) n69

Finland (i), (ii)

Finlay, Carlos (i), (ii), (iii) n7

Finlay Institute (i), (ii), (iii)

Fisk, Daniel (i), (ii)

FLN (National Liberation Front, Algeria) (i)

Florida (Cuba) (i)

Florida (US) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

FMC (Federation of Cuban Women) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

FNLA (National Liberation Front, Angola) (i)

food see also production: food

assistance (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

diet (i)

domestic produce (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)

imports (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

ration books provisions cut (i)

sale at farmers’ markets (i), (ii)

scarcity during the Special Period (i), (ii), (iii)

urban production (i), (ii)

Food and Drug Agency (FDA) (i)

Food and Nutrition Surveillance System (i)

Food Programme (i)

foreign capital and investment (i)

2019 Constitution on (i)

Batista encourages (i)

China (i)

first joint venture (i)

Foreign Investment Law (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

problems acquiring (i)

state sector only (i)

strategic approach to (i)

Trump obstructs (i), (ii)

Foreign Currency Incentive System (i)

Foreign Investment Law (2014) (i), (ii) n79

Fort Benning (i)

fossil fuels (i), (ii), (iii)

France (i), (ii), (iii)

Free Cuba Committee (i)

Freye, Pedro (i)

Fukuyama, Francis (i)

Fundora Nevot, Geidys (i), (ii), (iii)

Gaceta Oficial (law registry) (i)

Galván, Eliseo (i)

Gamesa (i)

García Brigos Pastor, Jésus (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

García Márquez, Gabriel (i)

Gardeners’ World (BBC) (i)

Garifuna people (i)

GDP

employment and (i)

fall in (i), (ii)

growth (i), (ii)

Latin America (i)

social programmes (i)

switch to UN system (i)

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) (i)

Généus, Jean Víctor (i)

Geneva University Hospital (i)

Gensolar (i)

Gerschenkron, Alexander (i)

Ghana (i)

Gil, Alejandro (i), (ii)

Gleijeses, Piero (i)

Gómez, Enrique (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

Gómez, General Juan Gualberto (i)

González, Elián (i), (ii), (iii) n19, n30

González, Fernando (i)

González, Gisela (i)

González, Lázaro (i), (ii) n5

González, Rene (i)

González Gutiérrez, Alfredo (i)

González Quintana, Juan Miguel (i), (ii) n9

Goodwin, Richard (i)

Google (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) n36 see also internet

Gorbachev, Mikhail (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

Gore, Al (i)
Gott, Richard (i)

Granma (i), (ii)

Granma province (i), (ii)

Grau San Martín, Ramón (i)

Gravalosa, Juan Valdés (i)

‘Great Debate’ (i), (ii)

Great Depression (i)

Great Revolutionary Offensive (i), (ii)

Green Revolution (i), (ii)

Gresser, Ion (i)

Gross, Alan (i), (ii), (iii) n134

Group for the Comprehensive Development of the Capital (i)

Group of Solar Energy Technological Applications (GATES) (i)

Group of Technical Assistance on Energy (i)

growth

2008 (i)

annual averages (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

biotechnology (i)

economic stagnation replaces (i)

social implications of (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

under Raúl (i)

Guaído, Juan (i), (ii)

Guantanamo (i), (ii)

Guantanamo Bay (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

Guatemala (i), (ii)

Guerrero, Antonio (i)

Guevara, Aleida (i), (ii), (iii)

Guevara, Ernesto ‘Che’

against liberalisation (i)

anniversary of death (i)

assassination (i), (ii) n7

at Central University of Las Villas (i)

Budgetary Finance System and its uniqueness (i), (ii)

Department of Industrialisation (i)

educational concept (i)

‘forum for spare parts’ (i)

Hospital of Oncology (i)

moral incentives (i), (ii)

on socialist countries’ trade relations (i) n74

on Soviet ‘hybrid system’ (i)

on Soviet political economy (i), (ii) n56

on the capitalist world market (i) n43

on relations with the US (i)

Pata de la Mesa (i)

Raúl Castro and (i)

responsibility for medicine (i)

secret meeting with White House representative (i)

‘social unemployment’ (i)

Socialism and Man in Cuba (Che Guevara) (i)

the market versus the plan (i)

veterans with (i)

warning of return of capitalism in Soviet Union (i) n36

Zaire (i)

Guevara-Stone, Laurie (i)

Guidelines of the Economic and Social Policy of the Party and the Revolution (Cuban
Communist Party)

in draft form (i)

intense debates on (i), (ii)

purpose of (i)

Raúl Castro on (i)

restrictions on private accumulation (i)

Seventh Congress works on (i)

Guinea (i), (ii)

Guinea Bissau (i)

Guiteras (i)
Gulf of Mexico (i)

Haiti (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

Haseltine, Bill (i)

Havana

attracting celebrities (i)

CELAC summit (i)

construction cooperatives (i)

disconnected youth in (i)

disturbances (i)

energy demand in (i)

exile conferences (i)

food supply (i)

housing problems (i)

microbrigades (i)

‘new showbiz elite’ (i)

organopónicos (i), (ii) n138

overcrowded schools (i)

prosperity opposed to rural poverty (i)

prostitution (i)

rallies (i), (ii)

regular blackouts (i)

rural deprivation vis-a-vis (i)

Scientific Pole (Science City) (i), (ii)

school repairs (i)

selling solar heaters to (i)

tornado (i)

Transformation Workshops (i), (ii)

transport problems (i)

vegetables (i)

Havana, University of

Castro’s 2005 speech (i)

Medical School (i), (ii)

Physics Faculty (i)

School of Medicine (i)

Havana Energy (i)

Havana Port (i)

Havana Province (i)

‘Havana Syndrome’ (i), (ii) n9

Hays, Dennis (i)

health (i), (ii), (iii)

biotechnology and (i)

budgeted sector (i)

doctors (i), (ii), (iii)

domestic production of medicines (i)

free health care (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

health care institutions (i)

maintenance of programmes during the Special Period (i), (ii), (iii)

nurses (i), (ii)

programmes for the disadvantaged (i)

surveys (i)

weight loss during the Special Period (i), (ii) n89, n91

health care missions

abduction of workers (i) n30

Brazil (i), (ii)

Castro’s vision (i)

Chernobyl (i)

Ebola (i)

foreign health care workers trained in Cuba (i), (ii), (iii)

Haiti (i), (ii) n110, n126

Henry Reeve Contingent (i), (ii)

in various places (i), (ii)

quarantine for (i) n14

Revolution and (i)

surgery (i)
Venezuela (i), (ii), (iii)

Heberprot-P (i)

Helms–Burton Act (1996) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) n67, (vii) n53

Henry Reeve Contingent (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

Hernández, Gerardo (i)

Hernández, Rafael (i)

Hernández-Reguant, Ariana (i)

Higher Institution of International Relations (ISRI) (i), (ii)

Hiroshima (i)

History Will Absolve Me (Fidel Castro) (i)

hitch-hiking (i), (ii), (iii)

HIV (i), (ii), (iii)

Holguin (i), (ii), (iii)

Hollande, François (i)

Honduras (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) n77

horses (i), (ii)

Hospital of Oncology (i), (ii)

hotels (i), (ii), (iii)

‘House 149’ (i)

housing

budgeted sector (i)

construction microbrigades (i), (ii)

deteriorating conditions (i)

microbrigades dismantled (i)

Neighbourhood Transformation Workshops (i)

not provided by the state (i)

private ownership (i) n79

private sector building (i)

protecting against hurricanes (i)

provision (i)

state intervenes (i)

under Raúl (i)

Houston (i)

human rights (i)

Hungary (i)

Hurricane Dennis (i)

Hurricane Georges (i), (ii)

Hurricane Ike (i)

Hurricane Irma (i)

Hurricane Katrina (i)

Hurricane Mitch (i)

Hurricane Paloma (i)

Hurricane Stan (i)

hurricanes (i)

hydroelectricity (i)

hydroenergy (i)

Hydroenergy Research and Development (i)

hypothyroidism (i)

IBM (i)

ICAP (Cuban Institute of Friendships with the Peoples) (i)

IMF (International Monetary Fund) (i), (ii), (iii)

immunisation (i)

Immunoassay Centre (i), (ii)

immunology (i)

immunotherapy (i), (ii)

imperialism see also anti-imperalism

consumer societies arising from (i)

Cuba combating (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)

Díaz-Canel on (i)

exploitation and (i)

global struggle against (i), (ii)

highest stage of capitalism (i) n4, n6

unable to overthrow the Revolution (i)

US (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

imports
computers (i)

dependence on (i), (ii), (iii)

dollars and (i)

emergency (i)

exports and (i), (ii)

fall in (i), (ii)

food (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) n11, (vii) n34

from CMEA (i)

from the Soviet Union (i), (ii)

oil (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x) n70

planning of (i), (ii)

pre-Revolution (i)

reduction of (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii)

to supply Energy Revolution (i)

India (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

induction cookers (i)

Industrial Development Organisation (UN) (i)

Industrial Revolution (UK) (i)

infant mortality (i), (ii), (iii)

infectious disease vaccination (i), (ii)

informal/illegal sector
a survival mechanism (i)

dollar and (i), (ii)

good times for (i)

incentives for (i)

infrastructure (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) (i)

Innovative Immunotherapy Alliance SA (i), (ii), (iii)

INOR (National Institute of Oncology and Radiobiology) (i), (ii), (iii) n32

INRA (National Institute for Agrarian Reform) (i), (ii)

Institute for the Development of the Chemical Industry (i)

Institute of Cancer (i)

Institute of Philosophy (i), (ii)

Institute of Tropical Medicine (i)

Integrated Centre for Appropriate Technology (i)

Inter-American Development Bank (i)

interferons (i)

International Bank of Reconstruction and Development (i)

International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (UN) (i)

International Fund for Chernobyl (i)

International Monetary Fund (IMF) (i), (ii), (iii)

internet see also Google; social media

Díaz-Canel calling for embrace of (i)

exemption from Helms–Burton Act (i)

Google–ETECSA agreement (i), (ii), (iii) n36

international companies developing IT capacity in Cuba (i)

private Wi-Fi networks permitted (i)

US programmes in Cuba (i), (ii), (iii)

Wi-Fi hot spots (i)

interviewees, list of (i)

inventos (i), (ii)

Investment Law see Foreign Investment Law

IPK (Instituto Pedro Kouri) (i), (ii)

IPOs (Initial Public Offerings) (i)

Iran (i), (ii)

Iraq (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

Isaacs, Aleck (i)

Island of Youth (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) n54, (vi) n55

Italy (i)

Itolizumab (i), (ii) n95

Japan (i)

Jessop, David (i)

Jimenez Escobedo, Gaspar (i)

jineterismo (i)
José A. Echeverría Polytechnic Higher Institute (ISPJAE) (i)

José Martí monument (i)

JUCEPLAN (Central Planning Board) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) n37

Juventud Rebelde (i), (ii)

Kashmir (i)

Kennedy, John F. (i)

Kerry, John (i)

khozraschet (i)

Kirk, John (i)

Klepak, Hal (i), (ii), (iii)

Knoot, Sinan (i)

Kourí, Gustavo (i), (ii) n52

Kourí, Pedro (i)

Kuchma, Leonid (i)

Labañino, Ramón (i)

Labiofam laboratory (i)

Labour Code (i), (ii)

Labour Justice Committees (i)

Ladies in White (i), (ii)

Lage Dávila, Agustín

EGFRs and breast cancer (i)

on biotechnology (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

on regulatory frameworks (i)

shareholders (i)

Landless Movement (Brazil) (i)

Las Villas (i), (ii), (iii)

latifundia (i), (ii)

Latin America

CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) (i), (ii)

child labour (i) n84

cooperation with (i), (ii)

‘counter-insurgency’ programmes (i)

Cuban exports to (i), (ii)

doctors (i)

GDP (i), (ii) n75

groundswell of support of Cuba (i), (ii)

infant mortality rates (i)

left behind by ex-British colonies (i)

Marxism and (i) n5

medical training for (i)

military regimes in (i), (ii)

neoliberalism and (i)

opposition to US policy (i)

‘Pink Tide’ (i), (ii), (iii)

privatisation of public health (i)

structuralism (i)

trade with (i)

Latin American Integration Association (i)

Latin American School of Medicine see ELAM

Laverty, Collin (i)

Lazo, Esteban (i)

League against Cancer in Cuba (i)

Lebanon (i)

Lee, Kelvin (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) n87

Lenin, Vladimir (i), (ii) n4

LeoGrande, William (i), (ii), (iii)

LeoGrande and Peter Kornbluh (i)

Liberia (i), (ii), (iii)

Libertador, municipality in Caracas (i)

libreta (ration book)

cutting of provisions (i)

discussion about removal of (i), (ii), (iii) n76

introduction of (i)

part of public welfare system (i) n80

reduction of rations during Special Period (i)

life expectancy (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)

light bulbs (i), (ii)

Lindenmann, Jean (i)

literacy (i), (ii), (iii)

brigadistas (i)

Living Planet Report (World Wildlife Fund) (i)

López Briel, Sergio (i)

los logros (i), (ii)

Lugo, Fernando (i)

Lula da Silva, Luiz Inácio (i)

M.D. Anderson Cancer Center (i)

MABs (monoclonal antibodies) (i), (ii) n65, n66

Macdonald, Professor Theodore (i)

Maceo, General José Antonio (i)

Machado, General Gerardo (i)

Machado, José Ramón (i)

Maduro, Nicolás (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)

Maestros Emergentes (i)

Mais Médicos (Brazil) (i), (ii)

malaria (i), (ii)

Malecon, Havana (i), (ii)

Maleconazo (i), (ii)

Managua (i)

marabú (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

Mariel boatlift (i)

Mariel Special Development Zone (i)

channelling foreign capital (i)

foreign investors (i), (ii) n71, (iii) n68

opening of (i)

portfolio of investment opportunities (i)

Martí, José (i), (ii)

Marx, Karl (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) n3, (v) n25

Marxism (i), (ii), (iii) n5

Marxism–Leninism (i)

Mas Canosa, Jorge (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

mass mobilisations (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (i)

Matanzas (i)

Material Product System (i)

Matilla, Lopez (i)

Mayabeque (i)

Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba (MEDICC) (i)

Medical Parole Programme (US) (i), (ii)

meningitis (i), (ii), (iii) n60, (iv) n62

Merck (i)

Mesa Redonda (i), (ii), (iii) n18

Mexico

earthquake relief for (i)

retains links with Cuba (i)

writing off Cuban debt (i), (ii)

Zapatistas (i)

Miami

Antonio Maceo Brigade (i)

celebrations after Fidel Castro steps down (i)

CIA substation (i)

crime and violence (i)

Cuban-American community (i), (ii), (iii)

Cuban Five trial (i)

Elián González affair (i)

harbouring terrorists (i)

illegal radio and TV broadcasts into Cuba (i)

importance to US politics (i)

terror attacks organised from (i)

Trump in (i)
Wasp Network (i)

website CubaNet (i)

microbrigades (i), (ii)

migration laws (i)

military regimes (i)

military spending (i)

milk (i)

Ministry of Agriculture (i)

Ministry of Auditing and Control (i)

Ministry of Basic Industry (i), (ii)

Ministry of Communication (i)

Ministry of Construction (i)

Ministry of Domestic Trade (i)

Ministry of Energy and Mines (i)

Ministry of Foreign Trade (i)

Ministry of Industries (MININD) (i), (ii), (iii)

Ministry of Labour (i)

Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

Ministry of Revolutionary Armed Forces (MINFAR) (i)

Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment (CITMA) (i)

Ministry of Sugar (i)

Ministry of the Economy and Planning (i), (ii)

Ministry of Transportation (i)

Mississippi (US State) (i)

Mogherini, Federica (i)

Moncada Day (i)

Moncada Programme (i), (ii)

mono-crop economy (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

Monroe Doctrine (i), (ii), (iii) n25

Monzon, Niurys (i) n73

Morales, Evo (i)

Morín, Jenny (i), (ii), (iii)

Morocco (i)

Morón (i), (ii)

Morris, Emily (i)

Moscoso, Mireya (i), (ii) n83

mosquitos (i), (ii)

motor cars (i)

Mozambique (i), (ii)

MPLA (Movimento Popular de Liberatção de Angola) (i), (ii)

Municipal Assemblies (i)

Munster, Blanca (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) n83

Muse, Robert (i)

Musharraf, Pervez (i)

music (i)

NAM (Non-Aligned Movement) (i), (ii) n55

Namibia (i)

NASDAQ (i)

National Assembly

Conceptualisation debated and approved (i), (ii)

Constitution amended (i)

debating the new (2019) Constitution (i)

Guidelines submitted to and approved (i), (ii)

new Investment Law (2014) (i)

Plan 230 debated (i)

private farmers’ markets (i)

Raúl Castro’s speeches (i), (ii)

rising food prices (i)

state’s role in housing (i)

youth participate in elections (i)

National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP) (i), (ii)

National Bank of Cuba (i)

National Centre for Biopreparations (i)

National Centre for Meningococcal Vaccines (i)

National Centre for Scientific Research (CENIC) (i)

National Commission for the Academy of Sciences in Cuba (i)

National Council of Science and Technology (i)

National Electroenergetic System (NES) (i)

National Energy Strategy (i)

National Geographic (i)

National Group for Renewable Energy Resources, Energy Efficiency and Co-generation (i)

National Institute for Agrarian Reform (INRA) (i), (ii)

National Institute of Hydraulic Resources (i)

National Institute of Medical Research (London) (i)

National Institute of Oncology and Radiobiology (INOR) (i), (ii)

National Institutes of Health (US) (i), (ii)

National Service Research Centre (i)

National Urban Agriculture Group (i)

natural resources (i)

Navarro, Alberto (i), (ii)

Navarro, Héctor (i)

Neighbourhood Transformation Workshops (i), (ii)

neoliberalism (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

Neto, António Agostinho (i)

New Energy Paradigm (i)

New Orleans (i), (ii)

New York (i), (ii)

New York Times (i), (ii), (iii)

NGOs (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) n7

Nicaragua

Contras (i), (ii)

diplomatic relationships with (i)

disaster help (i), (ii), (iii)

medical help (i), (ii)

member of ALBA (i) n77

Sandinistas (i), (ii)

technological assistance (i)

nickel

2008 recession price fall (i)

collapse of CMEA (i)

high-value generating (i)

Soviet Union need for (i), (ii)

Niger (i)

non-agricultural cooperatives (CNAs) (i), (ii), (iii)

Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) (i), (ii) n55

non-sugar biogas (i)

North Africa (i)

North America (i) see also Canada; United States

North American Scientific Exchange Programme (i)

North Vietnam (i)

Norway (i), (ii)

Novo Sampoll, Guillermo (i)

nuclear energy (i)

nurseries (i)

nurses see health

OAS (Organisation of American States) (i), (ii)

Obama, Barack

change in US Cuba policy (i), (ii), (iii)

‘civil society engagement’ (i)

Cuba visit (i), (ii)

Cuban trade unions (i)

ending of Medical Parole Programme (i)

historic visit to Cuba (i), (ii)

loosening blockade (i), (ii), (iii)

negotiations with Cuba (i)

political pressure from Latin American states on (i), (ii)

praising Cuban medical help in Africa (i)

rapprochement (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

revokes Bush-era restrictions (i)

Seventh Congress CCP and (i)

talks with Havana (i), (ii)

Trump succeeds (i)

Odebrecht (i)

Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) (US Treasury) (i), (ii), (iii)

Office of National Statistics (i)

oil

domestic crude oil (i)

drilling in Cuban waters (i), (ii) n50

Energy Revolution and (i)

imports from Venezuela (i), (ii)

import percentages (i), (ii)

new threat to imports (i)

1970s shocks (i)

production (i), (ii)

refineries (i)

Russian oil (i)

Soviet oil (i), (ii)

Soviet Union gives, US takes (i)

sulphur-heavy oil (i)

theft tackled (i)

Venezuelan imports (i)

oncology see cancer

one-crop economy (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

One Hundred Day Government (i)

Opdivo (i), (ii) n124

Operación Milagro (Operation Miracle) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) n76

Operation Caguairán (i)

Operation Condor (i), (ii) n19

Operation Mongoose (i)

Operation Northwood (i)

Operation Peter Pan (i)

opposition groups (i), (ii), (iii)

organic farming (i), (ii), (iii) n137, (iv) n144, (v) n47 see also agriculture; farming

Organisation of American States (OAS) (i), (ii)

organopónicos (i), (ii) n137

Organs of People’s Power (i)

Oriente (i), (ii)

Ottawa, University of (i)

Our Common Future (Brundtland Commission) (i)

oxen (i)

Oxfam (i)

P64 K (i)
PAEME (Energy Saving Programme) (i), (ii)

Pakistan (i)

paladares (i)

Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) (i)

Panama (i), (ii)

Panama Canal (i)

Paraguay (i), (ii)

Paris Climate Agreement (i)

Paris Club (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) n56

Parmly, Michael (i), (ii)

Pata de la Mesa (i)

patents (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

Paya, Oswaldo (i), (ii) n2

pensions

adequate (i), (ii)

disability (i)

exemption from social security payments for pensioners (i)

fixed (i)

granting of (i)

pensioned teachers returning to work (i)

raised (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii) n60

state (i)
People’s Councils (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

People’s Power (i), (ii), (iii) see also National Assembly

Pérez, Hassan (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

Pérez Ávila, Jorge (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii)

Permanent Commission for the Implementation and Development of the Guidelines (i) see
also Guidelines of the Economic and Social Policy of the Party and the Revolution

permuta (i)

Peru (i)

Petras, James (i)

petroleum (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) see also oil

Philippines (i)

photovoltaic devices (i), (ii), (iii)

Physics Facility, University of Havana (i)

pig farms (i)

Pinar del Rio

anniversary event of Che Guevara’s death (i)

blackout due to hurricane (i)

building of hospital (i)

Ernesto Che Guevara electronics factory (i), (ii), (iii)

petrol stations (i)

solar panel production (i), (ii)

tobacco production (i)

‘Pink Tide’ (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

Placetas (i)

Plan 2030

debated in National Assembly (i)

general objectives (i)

new energy paradigm (i)

Seventh Congress discussions (i)

six strategic areas of (i)

planned economy

accounting system in (i)

adoption in Cuba (i), (ii)

balance between planned and market economy (i)

Cuban ‘exceptionalism’ (i)

management in (i)

market mechanisms in (i), (ii)

repressed inflation (i)

planned deficit (i), (ii)

retaining of (i), (ii)

risks to (i)

Platt Amendment (i)

Poland (i), (ii)

Polk, James K. (i)

Pompeo, Mike (i)

Pons, Saira (i)

Portfolio of Foreign Investments (i)

Portugal (i)

Posada Carriles, Luis (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

Powell, Colin (i)

Power, Samantha (i)

Power of Community, The: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil (documentary) (i), (ii)

power stations (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

Presidents of the Republic (i), (ii)

prices

CNAs and (i)

control of (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x) n64

cooperatives and (i), (ii) n102

‘dollar shops’ and (i)

dual economy and (i)

energy (i)

Fidel Castro predicts fall in (i)

food (i)

international (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi) n11

libretas (i)
lower at state-run farmers’ markets (i), (ii)

non-essential goods (i)

production and (i)

purchasing power and (i)

self-employment and (i), (ii), (iii)

setting of (i)

special deal with Venezuela (i)

UBPCs and (i)

unregulated at farmers’ markets (i), (ii)

Prieto, Abel (i)

prime minister role (i)

Principal State Programme of Research into Use of Solar Energy in Cuba (i)

private medical clinics (i)

private restaurants (paladares) (i)

private sector

buying stolen state goods (i)

demands for lifting restrictions on (i)

expansion of (i), (ii), (iii)

expropriation of (i), (ii)

gains achieved in (i)

hit by Trump sanctions (i)

nationalisation of businesses (i), (ii)

‘necessary concessions to’ (i)

no autonomy from the state (i)

no excuse for raising prices (i)

payment in (i), (ii) n49

private healthcare (i), (ii)

qualified professionals switching to (i)

restriction of (i)

taxation and registration (i)

production

capitalist (i), (ii) n3, n4

control over (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

cooperative (i), (ii), (iii)

food (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x) n76, (xi) n14

for exports (i)

increase in (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii) n59

means of (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) n29, (v) n85, (vi) n79

medicine (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii)

nickel (i)

oil (i)

private (i)

rationalisation of (i)
socialist (i)

solar panels (i)

productivity

decline in (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)

focus on (i)

increase in (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix) n87, (x) n92

low (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

prices and (i)

profits and (i)

standard of living and (i)

prostitution (i), (ii), (iii) n121, (iv) n22

Provincial Assemblies (i)

PSA International (i)

public health see health

public transport see transport

Puerto Rico (i), (ii)

Putin, Vladimir (i), (ii) n129

Qatar (i), (ii)

Quiñones, Nancy (i), (ii)

Radio Rebelde (i)

rafters’ crisis (i), (ii)

rallies (i), (ii), (iii)

Ramonet, Ignacio (i), (ii)

Randall, Margaret (i)

rapprochement (i)

announced (i), (ii)

effect on Mariel (i)

EU engagement follows (i)

moving too fast (i)

Obama faces pressure from Latin America (i)

political cost to Obama (i)

Trump reverses (i), (ii)

ration book see libreta

Reagan, Ronald (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

Rebel Army (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

Rebel Army School (i)

Rectification (of Errors and Negative Tendencies) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

Reed, Gail (i)

refrigerators (i)

Registry System (i), (ii)

renewable energy (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) n6

Renewable Energy Front (i)

Reno, Janet (i)

Report on Cogeneration (Group of Technical Assistance on Energy) (i)

Repsol (i), (ii), (iii) n49

research

cancer (i), (ii)

Che establishes (i), (ii)

CIM (i), (ii)

Cubaenergía (i)

Cuban scientists abroad (i)

interferon (i)

key areas (i)

laboratories (i)

new drugs (i)

sustainable agriculture (i)

retirement age (i), (ii), (iii) see also pensions

Revolutionary Armed Forces see FAR

Rhopalurus junceus (i)

rich, the

Battle of Ideas against (i), (ii)

creation of 1980s (i)

‘new rich’ (i)

private sector serving (i)

Rectification and (i)

Rio de Janeiro (i)

Rodríguez, Carlos Rafael (i)

defending Auto-Financing (i)

Rodríguez, Félix (i)

Rodríguez, José Luis (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

bureaucracy and incentives (i)

CMEA problems (i)

Cuban political consciousness (i)

effects of US blockade (i)

finance from capitalist countries (i)

finding alternatives to heavy industry (i)

market mechanisms and their dangers (i)

Rectification (i)

reforms with political and economic objectives (i)

Russian oil (i)

studying the Soviet Union (i)

taxing the informal economy (i)

Rodríguez, Pedro Remón (i)

Roque, Felipe Pérez (i)

Roque, Juan Pablo (i)

Ros-Lehtinen, Illena (i)

Rostow, Walt (i)

Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

Rouseff, Dilma (i), (ii), (iii)

Rubio, Marco (i), (ii), (iii) n5

rural areas (i)

Rural Medical Service (RMS) (i)

Russia

condemning enactment of Title III of Helms–Burton Act (i)

debt relief for Cuba (i), (ii)

emerging economic power (i), (ii)

joint ventures with (i), (ii)

meddling in the 2016 US election (i)

reduction of oil imports from (i)

return to capitalism (i)

visits to Cuba (i), (ii)

Sabin, Albert Bruce (i), (ii)

Sáenz, Tirso (i), (ii), (iii)

Saipem (i)

salaries (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) n60, n62

Sánchez, Yoani (i)

Sánchez Galarraga, Néstor Baguer193

Sandinistas (i), (ii)

Santería (i)

Santiago de Cuba (i)

Sarraff Trujillo, Rolando (i)

Sartre, Jean-Paul (i)

Saudi Arabia (i)

Scarabeo 9 (i)

schools see education

Science City (Scientific Pole) (i), (ii), (iii)

Second World War (i)

Seifried, Dieter (i)

self-employment (i)

better incomes (i), (ii), (iii)

categories (i)

‘contracted workers’ (i), (ii), (iii) n27

cooperatives and (i)

foreign direct investment and (i)

illegal employment (i)

increasing (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

investigation into (i)

non-agricultural (i)

Obama encouraging self-employment in Cuba (i)

percentage of the labour force (i), (ii), (iii)

private restaurants (i)

socialism and (i)

supplies (i), (ii)

taxes (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) n51

trade unions and (i)

transfer of workers to self-employed sector (i), (ii)

under-representation of women (i)

‘Sergeant’s Revolt’ (i)

Serrano, Kenia (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

Servicios Médicos Cubanos (i)

Shanghai Electric (i)

Shell (i)

Sherritt International (i)

shoemakers (i)

Sierra, Dr Gustavo (i)

Sierra Leone (i)

Sierra Maestra (i)

Singapore (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

smallpox (i)

Smith, Rosi (i)

SmithKline Beecham (i)

Soberon, Francisco (i)

social entrepreneurship (i)

social inequality

CUC and (i)

increase of (i), (ii), (iii)

official recognition of (i)

Special Period and (i), (ii)

surveys on (i)

social media

Arab Spring and (i)

control of (i) n15

Díaz-Canel calling for embrace of (i)

Díaz-Canel messages (i)

Facebook (i)

Twitter (i), (ii), (iii) n2, (iv) n15

use for US and opposition propaganda (i), (ii), (iii)

YouTube (i), (ii) n37

social workers

BUTS (i)

Citizens’ Army (i), (ii), (iii)

end of programme (i)

Neighbourhood Transformation Workshops (i)

role in Energy Revolution (i), (ii), (iii) n76

surveys by (i), (ii)

tempted by corruption (i)

training of (i), (ii)

university education for (i), (ii), (iii)

socialism

as continuous process (i), (ii)

attitudes to (i)

Bush Jr talks of end of (i)

Castro warns of mechanistic approach to (i)

Che on Soviet Union (i)

cooperatives within (i)

Cuba’s commitment to (i), (ii), (iii)

employment and (i)

environment and (i)

Guidelines on (i)

irrevocable (i), (ii) n29

necessary market mechanisms (i)

official in Cuba (i)

Raúl committed to (i), (ii)

Raúl describes (i)

survival at stake (i), (ii)

survival ensured (i)

transition to (i)

types that led to capitalism (i)

USA demand end of in Cuba (i)

Socialism and Man in Cuba (Che Guevara) (i)

Society for the Promotion of Renewable Energy Sources and Environmental Respect
(Cubasolar) (i)

solar energy (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

solar panels (i), (ii), (iii) n6

solar parks (i), (ii)

solar radiation (i)

Solar Study Centre (i)

solar water heaters (i)

Somoza family (i)

South Africa (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix)

South America (i) see also Latin America

Soviet Manual of Political Economy (i)

Soviet Planning and Management System (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

Soviet Union (i)

Che Guevara’s critique (i)

Chernobyl aid (i)

collapse of (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

comparisons with (i)

corruption by bureaucratic caste (i)

Cuba outlives (i), (ii)

Cuban Missile Crisis (i), (ii)

Cuban nickel (i), (ii) n39

deterioration of relationship with Cuba (i)

diplomatic relations with Cuba (i) n52

electrification assistance (i)

embracing Cuba (i), (ii)

‘hybrid system’ (i), (ii)

imports/exports deal (i)

nature of relationship with Cuba (i)

oil imports from (i), (ii)

reducing dependence on (i)

sugar and oil (i)

sugar prices (i)

trade deals with Cuba (i), (ii), (iii) n39

trade in free currency at market prices (i)

US and (i)

Sovietisation (i)
Spain

Cuban independence from (i), (ii)

Helms–Burton Act and (i)

investments in Cuba (i), (ii)

joint ventures (i), (ii)

struggle for Cuba with US (i)

Special Period (i)

avoiding mass redundancies (i)

belt tightening measures (i)

Castro’s address (i)

effect on arts (i)

ending of? (i)

farmers’ markets (i)

hard-to-come-by items (i)

health under (i)

incomplete recovery from (i)

invented solutions (i)

launch of (i)

legacy of (i)

nutritional deficiencies under (i)

oil import reduction and Special Period (i), (ii)

Rectification swept aside (i)

revolutionary resilience during (i), (ii), (iii)

schools and hospitals remain open (i)

social inequality under (i)

socialism survives (i)

Soviet Union collapse and (i)

worst year of (i)

Special Purpose Corporations (i)

Special Purpose Entities (i)

Standard Oil (i)

state control

criticism of (i), (ii)

importance during the Special Period (i)

over distribution of basic goods (i)

over finances and trade (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

proposals for removal of (i), (ii)

reduction of (i)

role in cooperatives (i)

strengthening of (i)

vital institutions remain under (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

state pensions see pensions

state sector employment

exchange rate for (i)

foreign capital (i)

government control (i), (ii)

income (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)

reduction of (i), (ii), (iii)

theft of resources (i), (ii)

transfer of workers from (i), (ii)

Steinsleger, José (i)

students (i), (ii), (iii)

and Elián González affair (i)

art students (i)

BUTS (i)

computing students (i)

FEU (i)

literacy campaign (i)

medical students (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

perceptions of capitalism (i)

social work students (i), (ii), (iii)

trainee teachers (i)

Sudan (i)

sugar
closing of mills (i), (ii)

consumption of electricity by (i)

exporting to Soviet Union (i)

international price (i)

international trade in (i)

mass mobilisation for harvest (i)

nineteenth century global dominance (i)

one-crop economy (i), (ii)

overwhelming importance of (i)

percentage of total exports (i), (ii), (iii)

sugar cane and solar energy (i)

US Great Depression and (i)

use as renewable energy (i)

Sugar Thermoenergy (i)

Summit of the Americas (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

surgery see health

sustainable development see development

Sweden (i)

Sweezy, Paul (i)

System of National Accounts (i)

Tarará (i)

Tarea Vida (i), (ii)

Tarnoff, Peter (i)

taxation (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

Telesur (i)

television

broadcasting of unrest (i)

coverage of CIA espionage (i)

cuts in broadcasting during the Special Period (i)

distribution of new television sets (i), (ii)

educational programmes (i), (ii)

Elián González affair (i)

illegal broadcasting by TV Martí (i), (ii) n8, (iii) n16

news of Fidel Castro’s illness (i)

only two channels (i) n18

survey on the quality of programmes (i)

television rooms (i), (ii)

television sets in schools (i)

visit of Jimmy Carter (i)

Temer, Michel (i)

Ten Years War (Cuba/Spain) (i)

Texaco (i)

Thailand (i)
Thatcher, Margaret (i)

TheraCIM (i)

Third World (i)

Tillerson, Rex (i)

Title III see Helms–Burton Act

tornados (i)

Toronto (i)

Torres, Ricardo (i), (ii), (iii)

Torricelli, Robert (i)

Torricelli Act (i)

tourism

2008 crisis and (i)

decrease in revenue (i) n10

dollar and (i)

expansion of (i), (ii)

FINATUR (i)

opening up to (i)

preventing sex tourism (i)

travel restrictions for US tourists (i), (ii) n44

Trabajadores (CTC newspaper) (i)

tractors (i)

Trade Reciprocity Treaty (1904) (i)

Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) (i)

trade unions (i), (ii), (iii) see also CTC

transport

bicycles as alternative (i), (ii)

cuts in during Special Period (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)

Energy Revolution and (i)

means of (i)

new crisis due to Trump sanctions (i)

Plan 2030 (i) n89

problems due to US blockade (i)

return to horses for (i), (ii)

self-employment and (i), (ii)

Treaty of Friendship and Co-operation (1989) (i)

Triana Barros, Juan Alejandro (i), (ii), (iii)

Tricontinental Conference (i)

Trinidad de Cuba (i)

‘Troika of Tyranny’ (Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela) (i)

Trueba, Ángel Gómez (i)

Trump, Donald

appeasing Cuban-Americans (i)

Bérriz on (i)
blocking oil supply from Venezuela (i)

causes loss of confidence in projects (i)

Cuba accused of human trafficking (i), (ii) n139

defaming Cuban medical missions (i)

elected president (i)

Helms–Burton Act and (i), (ii)

hostility towards Cuba (i)

insulting tweets on Fidel Castro’s death (i)

Mariel Special Development Zone (i)

reversing rapprochement (i), (ii)

tightening the US blockade (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

Venezuela attacked (i)

violating blockade (i)

Truslow Commission (i)

Turiguanó (i)

Twitter (i) see also social media

UBPCs (Basic Units of Cooperative Production) (i), (ii) nn41–2

UCI (University of Information Science) (i)

UK (United Kingdom) see Britain

Ukraine (i)

Ultramicroanalytic System (SUMA) (i)

unemployment
falling rate (i), (ii)

pre-revolution (i)

rise due to closing of sugar mills (i)

rural (i)

‘social unemployment’ (i)

surveys on (i)

unemployed becoming self-employed (i)

youth (i)

UNICEF (i)

Union of Cuban Writers and Artists (i), (ii) n2

Union of Young Communists (UJC) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)

UNITA (Angola) (i)

United Nations (UN)

condemnations of US blockade (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

Cuban health care praised (i)

Declaration of Human Rights (i)

Díaz-Canel at General Assembly (i)

minimum monthly calories (i)

pay for Cubans in West Africa (i)

renewable energy funding (i)

System of National Accounts (i)

United Nations Development Organisation (UNIDO) (i)

United Socialist Party (Venezuela) (i)

United States

9/11 reactions (i)

accusing Cuba of biological warfare research (i)

anti-Communism (i), (ii), (iii)

biotechnology begins in (i), (ii)

blockade see blockade (US)

businesses wanting to continue rapprochement policy (i)

change of Cuba policy (i), (ii)

Cuba Internet Task Force (i)

Cuban exports (i)

Cuban medics defect to (i)

Cuban Missile Crisis (i)

Cubans heading for (i)

dengue fever accusations (i)

dollar (i), (ii)

Elián González affair (i)

embassy in Cuba (i), (ii), (iii)

Export Enhancement Act (i) n11

fostering opposition in Cuba (i)

Haiti earthquake (2010) (i)

IMF and (i)

immigration law (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii)

imperialism (i)

interference in Cuban society (i)

international hegemony (i)

invasion plans after Fidel Castro steps down (i)

isolating Cuba (i), (ii)

isolation on Cuba policy (i), (ii), (iii)

Latin America and (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

nineteenth Century (i)

no diplomatic relationships with Cuba (i)

rapprochement (i), (ii)

sabotage in Cuba (i), (ii)

self-employment factor (i)

solidarity of the population with Cuba (i)

Soviet Union and (i), (ii)

sponsoring CANF (i)

students at ELAM (i)

sugar trade (i), (ii)

talks with Cuba (i), (ii)

tentative rapprochement with Cuba (i), (ii)

terrorism in Cuba (i), (ii), (iii)

training Cuban-American exiles in terrorism and sabotage (i)

travel restrictions to Cuba (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii)

twentieth century (i)

universities (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

University of Information Science (UCI) (i)

University Reform Law (i)

University Social Worker Brigades (BUTS) (i), (ii), (iii)

Urban Agriculture Department (UAD) (i)

urban gardening (i)

Uriarte, Miren (i), (ii)

US Interest Section (USIS)

Elián González affair (i)

fostering internal opposition (i)

issuing visas (i), (ii)

opened by Carter (i)

planning uprising (i)

rallies outside (i), (ii)

supporting ‘Ladies in White’ (i)

USAID (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

USSR see Soviet Union

usufruct (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) n40, (v) n14

VA-MENGOC-BC vaccine (i), (ii)

vaccination

cancer and (i)

hepatitis (i)

infectious diseases eliminated (i)

meningitis (i), (ii), (iii)

smallpox (i)

Valdés, Nelson (i), (ii)

Valdivia (i)

Vallejo, Oscar U-Echevarría (i)

Van Reigersberg, Stephanie (i)

Varadero (i), (ii)

Vargas (Venezuela) (i)

Velázquez, Edison (i)

Venezuela (i)

ALBA (i), (ii)

bilateral projects (i), (ii)

breaks off diplomatic relations with Panama (i)

Chávez elected (i), (ii)

Cuba helps with flooding emergency (i), (ii)

Cuban exports to (i)

Cuban healthcare workers in (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

Cuban support for Maduro government (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

economic deterioration (i)

economic instability (i)

ELAM graduates (i)

intelligence service (i)

‘oil for doctors’ programme (i), (ii), (iii)

oil imported from (i), (ii)

self-nomination as president by Juan Guaidó (i)

shortage of medicines (i)

training provided by Cuba (i)

Trump administration plans to overthrow Maduro (i)

US sanctions against (i), (ii)

Ventura, José Ramón (i)

vice presidents of the Republic role (i)

Vidal, Josefina (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii)

Vidatox 30-CH (i), (ii) n73

video clubs (i)

Vietnam (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)

Villa Clara (i), (ii), (iii)

Vivero Alamar (i)

wages see salaries

Washington Post (i), (ii)

Wasp Network (La Red Avispa) (i)

Wells, Sumner (i)

West Africa (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

wind farms (i), (ii), (iii)

wind turbines (i)

WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) (i), (ii)

women

as doctors (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

as social workers (i), (ii)

austerity and (i)

Blanca Munster (i)

education (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

employment (i)

equal rights (i)

FMC (Federation of Cuban Women) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

health (i), (ii)

in leadership positions (i)

retirement age (i), (ii)

training courses (i)

woodland (i), (ii) n22

Workers’ Parliaments (i)

workers’ soviets (i)

World Bank (i), (ii)

World Commission on Environment and Development (i)

World Conservation Strategy (i)

World Health Organization (WHO) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) (i), (ii)

World Trade Organization (WTO) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

World Wildlife Fund (WWF) (i)

Xi Jinping (i)

Yaffe, Susan (sister) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii)

Yanukovych, Viktor (i)

Yeltsin, Boris (i)

York Medical (i)

youth

activities for (i)

Battle of Ideas and (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

computer and video clubs (i)

‘disconnected’ (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) n76

emigration (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v)

employed illegally in the private sector (i)

hope for Cuba’s future (i), (ii)

leaders (i), (ii)

literacy campaign (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)

meningitis vaccinations (i)

organisations (i), (ii)

paying tribute to Fidel Castro (i)

prisoners (i), (ii), (iii)

rallies (i)

rejecting capitalism (i)

social workers (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi)

targeted under regime change programmes (i), (ii)

unemployment (i)

urban agriculture and (i)

YouTube see social media

Yugoslavia (i), (ii)

Zaire (i)

Zapata Tamayo, Orlando (i), (ii) n121, n123

Zapatistas (Mexico) (i)

Zelaya, Manuel (i)

Zimbalist, Andrew (i)

ZunZuneo (i)