Groucho Marxism

The Cuban Revolution was a left-wing movement that overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, who had ruled Cuba from 1952 to 1959. The revolution was led by Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl, who began by launching an armed assault on the Moncada Barracks, a Cuban military post, in 1953. The attack was a failure and the co-conspirators were arrested; but at his trial, Fidel Castro gave a two-hour speech that won him national fame as he laid out his grievances against the Batista dictatorship. The Castros were exiled but consolidated their strategy and subsequently re-entered Cuba in 1956, accompanied by Che Guevara. This time they were more successful and toppled Batista and his regime just under three years later.

The revolution had significant repercussions with regard to Cuba-United States relations. The US has maintained a comprehensive trade embargo against Cuba since 1960 – the most enduring trade embargo in modern history. The sanctions were loosened slightly during the ‘Cuban thaw’ from 2015 to 2017 but were subsequently tightened again. The US government tightened its embargo further in January last year, orienting around ‘maximum pressure’ strategy. The aim is clearly to destabilize the country and bring about a collapse of the government. According to Cuban intelligence officials, the US also made 638 (!) attempts to assassinate president Fidel Castro between 1959 and the early 2000s, using methods ranging from exploding cigars to poisoned diving suits to Mafia-style hit attempts.

The impact of the US embargo on Cuba is comprehensive and impacts all sectors of the Cuban economy. For the 30 year period following the revolution, Cuba was supported by its ally the Soviet Union, mitigating the worst effects of the sanctions. In return, the Soviet Union was allowed to deploy nuclear missiles on the island; this led to the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, when the world was brought to the brink of nuclear war. In 1989, with the collapse of the Soviet bloc, Cuba witnessed its most devastating economic crisis. During this time – euphemistically referred to as the ‘special period’ – Cuba’s GDP plummeted 34%, the total value of its exports to fall by 61% and the total value of its imports dropped by 72%.

At this point, Cuba had become isolated from the rest of the world. However after the rise to power of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela in 1999, Cuba and Venezuela formed an increasingly close relationship, with the latter providing the former with a steady flow of oil. In 2006, Fidel Castro fell ill and withdrew from public life; the following year, Raúl Castro became president. This led to improved foreign relations and in 2012 Cuba received its first American goods in over 50 years, following the partial relaxation of the US embargo to permit humanitarian shipments. The severe economic strife suffered by Venezuela in the mid-2010s lessened its ability to support Cuba and may have contributed to the thawing of Cuban-American relations.

The subsequent re-tightening of the embargo under president Trump in 2017 led to a downturn in Cuba’s fortunes. The downturn was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic; this decimated the island’s economy, which had come to rely increasingly on foreign tourism. Today, Cuba resembles a failed state. The island is experiencing its most severe economic and social crisis since the special period in the early 90s, characterized by extreme shortages of food, medicine, and fuel, coupled with chronic, daily power blackouts. The nation is also reeling from recent hurricanes and earthquakes, which have damaged infrastructure and disrupted essential services. The economy is facing potential collapse and the island is dealing with a significant surge in mortality caused by mosquito-borne diseases.

How much of this is attributable the US embargo, as opposed to mismanagement of the economy by the Cuban government? It should be noted that the Cuban regime is far from perfect. Although Cuba claims to be a socialist country, it is not really socialist, at least not in the strict sense of the term. As with the former Soviet Union and its satellites, power is concentrated in the hands of a small bureaucracy which runs the country as it sees fit. Through this bureaucracy, the government directly owns and operates most means of production, with a high percentage of the labour force employed by the state. There is no real democracy to speak of – and certainly no worker control of the means of production, the true hallmark of socialism.

That said, I don’t think it is fair to blame the state of Cuba today on its government, as corrupt and authoritarian as it may be. The more you look into this the more obvious it becomes that the US is the root cause of Cuba’s problems. When the revolution happened back in 1959, Cuba had an agrarian economy designed to produce sugar and tobacco for export, mainly to the US. The imposition of the embargo not only removed Cuba’s ability to sell produce to its largest and most natural trading partner; it also removed its ability to build up any sort of manufacturing or industrial capacity over the subsequent decades. That’s why if you travel to Cuba today, most of the cars you will see on the road were built in the 1950s, prior to the revolution.

This lack of capacity makes it very difficult for Cuba to produce medicine, which also cannot be imported due to the embargo. The government’s response has been to move to a preventative model of healthcare, whereby illnesses are caught and addressed early, before symptoms develop. This contrasts with the Western model, which basically involves allowing people to get sick and then treating them for their symptoms. The Cuban model requires training and maintaining an army of healthcare professionals – which explains why it has the highest doctor-per-capita ratio of any nation. This model obviously works well as life expectancy in Cuba is similar to many Western countries (including the US). And its not just in healthcare where Cuba excels; its literacy rate is one of the highest in the world.

Critics of the regime would argue that living for a long time isn’t so great if you have no quality of life. And there is no doubt that life is extremely hard for most ordinary Cubans. But we need to be clear about who is responsible for creating these conditions. The economic warfare waged on this small island nation by its superpower neighbour has heaped misery on its citizens for decades and brought the country to its knees. That it has still not succumbed to this imperial assault is testament to the strength of the revolution and to the resilience of the Cuban people.