The Cuban Experiment - Part Three

With socialism on the island of Cuba closer than ever to collapse, Latin America Correspondent Jon Bonfiglio traces the Cuban Experiment, from the Batista regime which pre-dated the revolution, to the present day. 

Transcript

Hi everyone. Welcome back, to Cuba, in the 1970s and 1980s, which was characterised by overwhelming integration into the Soviet Union, before the latter’s collapse in 1991, meaning that the island’s single most important international relationship, economically and politically, disappeared overnight. But we’ll get there. 

Before then we have to talk about sugar, which is almost certainly the most important product in the history of this Caribbean island. 

We left the second episode in the series at the point at which Cuba (by which I mean Castro) had attempted to leverage the entire island to be in service of sugar production, and had failed to reach the figures they had set themselves, for the harvest of 1970. Which is not to say that sugar stopped being important to the island, but it did mean that Cuba didn’t succeed in a self-set level of economic independence. It was a critical point in which they knew that they needed a new plan, especially with the ongoing hostility from the United States. The answer, especially in the context of the Cold War? The Soviet Union. 

It was an economic question, which led to a political answer.

And so, in 1972, Cuba joined the so-called Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, which was, to all extents and purposes, a Soviet-led economic bloc which had started in 1949, and was designed to foster economic cooperation - as well as counter Western influence - among socialist or communist countries. These included the likes of Vietnam, East Germany and Poland. It was a sort-of developmental program, sponsored by the Soviets, to encourage economies to self-support each other through trade, information sharing and cooperation. And what linked all of these countries - apart from communism - was that none of them produced their own sugar - except Cuba. 

So Havana doubled down on its sugar gamble, only, to make it worse, its gamble was staked entirely on the patronage of one major partner. It was all sugar, and it was all the Soviet Union. By the late 1980’s, 75% of its exports were based directly on sugar and related products. 

It made Cuba money, which allowed them to invest significantly in social programs, health and education, but it also meant that they had all of their eggs in one basket. Of course, they didn’t have much choice, but it was the Soviet Union or bust. And that pact with the devil would not only relate to sugar, it would also see them receive significant amounts of aid, to support them in their ideological struggle. 

If bringing an end to the Cuban experiment has been seen as a key US policy, since 1959, in order to openly demonstrate the unviability of communism, in particular on the US’s doorstep, then the same is true in reverse: for the USSR, the success of the Cuban experiment, on the US’s doorstep, was imperative to demonstrate the international viability of communism. 

Cuba was a key battleground for both superpowers. 

Of course, Cubans knew this - to some extent they still know this today - but what a difference time - by which I mean memory - makes. Back then Cubans were only a couple of decades on from the defeat of Batista. Absolutely everyone on the island had direct experience of what had come before, and for sure they didn’t like being a plaything, but it felt like a necessary evil that had to be endured in order to survive. 

In a quick flash forward to today, no-one has any memory left of reasons why things are how they are - there is no foundational, collective will remaining, outside of that imposed by the Communist Party. In 1970, and 1980, and 1990, things were tough but the cohesion was social, political, and it was economic - because people were poor before and then there had been no collective project; now they were still poor but at least they believed in something.

There’s a New York Times article from Jan 28th, 1973, called ‘Cuba: How Sweet It Isn’t’, which talks specifically about Cuba’s dependence on sugar, and how its trade deficit had reached $550 million dollars the year before. At the time, Cuba was also believed to have owed the Soviet Union nearly $5 billion dollars, without counting military aid. The US was desperate to choke Cuba, and the Soviet Union had the same desperation to give it oxygen. There was nothing about this which resembled a normal economic system. And after sugar, representing nearly 80% of the country’s exports, came nickel and tobacco, each at less than 10% of exports. 

The New York Times article also talks about the austerity being lived on the island. Not only were Cubans by this stage used to being pawns in a geopolitical battleground, but they were also used to being broke. It was only to get worse, and worse. Because what’s the only thing worse than being fought over by two superpowers? Having your superpower ally disappear.

Relations with the Soviet Union began to sour in 1985, when Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev initiated a series of reforms, including perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost´ (openness), which were designed to restructure the ailing Soviet economy, as well as open it up to foreign markets. 

Over in Cuba, Castro was worried, predominantly because in the preceding 15 years, Cuba had modelled itself on the Soviets, and he feared that this shift in Moscow would devalue the Cuban model. He was right to be worried, but he was worried about the wrong thing. As a result, he launched his own economic restructuring program, but one which went in the opposite way to Moscow. As they opened up, Cuba centralized, intent on diminishing still further any influence on market forces. 

To some extent, by 1985, it was clear that Cuba was a necessary irrelevance to Gorbachev. 

Conventional wisdom has it that the collapse of the relationship happened overnight in 1991, but the truth is that that event was even further heavily trailed by severe budget cuts from 1989, as Mikhail Gorbachev - in response to domestic Soviet economic issues -  started to reduce funding, ending sugar-for-oil agreements, and calling in Soviet loans. 

Then, much as now with the situation in Venezuela, and the end of preferential oil from the Maduro regime, it was Cuba’s lack of oil that would be the noose around its neck. 

When the end did finally come, in 1991, it was greeted with horror on the island. Many people spoke of catastrophe, some, of the apocalypse. Cuba had pinned everything to the Soviet Union, and from one day to the next, it didn’t exist any longer. 

Fidel Castro’s charisma was to be needed more than ever before.  

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Next up, we’ll look at the start of the so-called Special Period of an isolated Cuba, up until the Covid crisis. 

Thanks everyone, and goodnight!