The Cuban Revolution Today: Proposals of Changes, Scenarios, and Alternatives 29
and hope in certain sectors of the leadership that a coup d’état in the
Soviet Union could reestablish the old relationship may help to
explain the resistance of the government to make changes at the
beginning of the 1990s and the fact that the call for the Fourth Con-
gress of the Cuban Communist Party and the tone of public discus-
sion were more radical than the Congress results.
Since 1989, the Cuban government has been dealing with enor-
mous challenge caused by major international events such as the disin-
tegration of the Eastern Bloc, the tightening of the U.S. blockade, the
emergence of a unipolar world led by the United States, the economic
and social crisis in the South, the “victory” of neoliberalism, the world
economic crisis since 2008, several natural catastrophes and hurri-
canes, and the need for Cuba to become part of a new type of global
market. During the period 1989-2010 the main challenges have been
to build a capital-intensive economic model, to maintain legitimacy
and credibility in the political realm despite increasing social inequality,
to avoid isolation in international relations, and to maintain the morale
and strategic strength of the armed forces in defense against military
aggression by the United States. By my criteria, the performance has
been better in the last two categories than in the economic and politi-
cal realms, where changes have been rather slow and unsystematic.
The economic reform undertaken in 1993 allowed the reestablish-
ment of some markets and private initiatives forbidden during the
“rectification process” and authorized the use of foreign currency.
Although there were achievements in some aspects of the economic
reform (for example, foreign investment and the excess of currency),
they were the result not of any overall plan but of a set of financial
measures. Mainly, the development of the Cuban economy depends
not on the excess or lack of currency—although this is an important
variable—but on its productive capacity. At the end of the 1990s the
economic reform slowed down and was reversed in many respects—
especially with regard to providing market space for Cuban nationals
as in the Chinese or Vietnamese economic reforms^9 —after 2000, with
the new program of economic recentralization, with deep social