Politics and Civil Society in Cuba

The Cuban Revolution Today: Proposals of Changes, Scenarios, and Alternatives 25

long term depends on the development of new policies to overcome

present shortcomings.

WHITHER CUBAN SOCIALISM?

Why a Revolution in Cuba?

The Cuban Revolution was the response of the Cuban people to the

contradictions created in Cuban society by the neocolonial model

imposed by the United States. Politically, the expression of this model

was the Batista dictatorship; economically, it was underdevelopment;

in the social sphere, it was a rate of unemployment close to 20 percent

and a high level of underemployment; internationally, it was the

absence of an independent foreign policy; and culturally, it was an

increasing crisis of cultural identity threatened by images of the

“American way of life” (López Segrera, 1972; 1980; 1989).

When the United States responded aggressively with sabotage,

breaking off diplomatic relations, launching the invasion of the Playa

Giron (Bay of Pigs) in 1961, and establishing the blockade in 1962,

Cuba had no choice but to join the Council for Mutual Economic

Assistance (Comecon), which served as an alternative market for the

island as well as supplying the weapons necessary for its defense.^5 The

economic crisis that Cuba faced in 1989 was the result of the collapse

of the Soviet Union and the resulting disruption of Cuba's commer-

cial links with Comecon and the difficulty of finding alternative mar-

kets (Smith, 1992: 99). While Cuba did recover during the 1990s—

although with great suffering—from this failure of “real socialism,”^6 it

did not achieve a gross domestic product (GDP) similar to that of

5. The blockade costs Cuba US$230 million a year in foreign investment and by 2009
   had caused the country losses of more than US$93 billion (http://www.cbsnews.com/
   stories/2008/10/29/world/main4556348.shtml). The CAME was a complementary
   commercial association of socialist countries, including the Soviet Union, the Eastern
   Bloc, and Cuba, that meant the possibility of survival in spite of the U.S. blockade.


6. By “real socialism” I mean the form developed in the Soviet Union and the Eastern
   Bloc.