Do Cubans live better today than they did in 1958?
Was a social revolution needed in Cuba?
Do the Cuban people really know what the country was like before 1959, and what Castroism has prevented them from doing over the course of these 66 years?
Do they have any idea how they would live today if they had never been "freed from capitalism?"
Every government should be evaluated by the results it obtains and not the promises it makes. In Cuba, however, for half a century the powerful international left wing has been judging Cuba based on its promises, none fulfilled, while the people live worse than ever in the country's history. On this Castroist anniversary that left, a "friend of Cuba," should honestly answer the four questions asked above. But it won't.
On the occasion of those catastrophic 66 "revolutionary" years, today I am going to highlight something that has generally gone unnoticed, but that explains the origin of the term "Cuban Revolution," which was an absolutely unnecessary social one.
Ever since Fidel Castro began his work of political rebellion against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, he always spoke of a "revolution," and that is what the 26th of July Movement talked about. It did not constitute a front for liberation, or national salvation, or democracy, which would have indicated that it was a political rebellion.
None of that. Castro I imposed the word "revolution" with a view to seizing power and selling the idea that it was not enough to restore democracy. Rather, they would have to continue the "revolution" in order to lift Cuba out of the poverty and backwardness caused by "imperialist exploitation" and the "national bourgeoisie."
But what was the point of a "revolution" in a country close to First World conditions?
That is the question. A political rebellion is not the same as a social revolution, which is always devastating. Political rebellions overthrow governments. Social revolutions go much further.
They overturn everything. They transform, or even destroy, the very foundations of modern society, the institutions of the State, and the economy. They change the people's way of life and monopolize the media and education; and they control customs, morals, culture, religion and philosophy.
There is no better to better way to appreciate the difference between political rebellion and revolution than the dialogue between the King of France, Louis XVI, and Duke Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, who early on July 15, 1789, informed the monarch that the Bastille fortress in Paris had been taken and that he should flee from the Palace of Versailles. "Is it a rebellion?" the king asked. "No, Majesty, it is not a rebellion, it is a revolution," replied the clever duke very confidently.
It should be borne in mind that the French Revolution was the last liberal social revolution in history, coming at the needless cost of 40,000 heads severed by guillotines. Since then, revolutions have generally been illiberal, statist, and retrograde, whether communist, fascist, theocratic, or a hybridization of nationalism with medieval features.
Was Cuba in need of a revolution? In fact, it was one of the three countries with the highest standards of living in Latin America (along with Uruguay and Argentina), and its per capita income was double that of Spain, surpassing other countries in Europe, and was similar to that of Italy.
In December of 1958 at Italian Embassy in Cuba received 12,000 requests from Italians eager to emigrate to the island.
The people wanted Batista ousted, and that was it.
I remember it well, because I lived through it. That what the people in Cuba wanted: the end of Batista's dictatorship, and a restoration of the 1940 Constitution, period! The people were not yearning for a social revolution, which made no sense. Why would they?
So much time has passed since that Cuba of "before" that most Cubans today have no idea what the country was like then. Those younger than 74 or 75 can hardly believe that the country was self-sufficient in terms of beef, pork, chicken, fish and seafood, milk, eggs, food, vegetables, tropical fruits, coffee and tobacco.
Or that Cuba was the largest exporter of food per capita in Latin America, in 1958 producing 960 million liters of milk (almost half a liter per capita per day); or that beef consumption was 81 pounds per person, the third highest in Latin America and one of the highest in the world.
There were more than 50 newspapers and magazines in Cuba , all privately owned. It ranked first in Latin America per capita in newspapers, magazines, television sets, radios, household appliances, and also in railway lines per square kilometer. It exported more than it imported, and was one of the three economies with the highest percentage of gold and foreign exchange reserves, due to the stability of the peso, always convertible, 1x1, with the dollar. And this data was all registered by the Ministry of Finance, the ECLAC and other entities.
Havana was a major financial center, with 62 different large and medium-sized foreign and Cuban banks, 96 smaller ones, and savings banks. In total there were some 300 bank branches in the country, according to an April 1956 report by Cuba Económica y Financiera, Volume XXXI, no. 361
Does anyone know today that at the University of Havana for only five pesos a month a young person could graduate in Medicine, Engineering, or Law, or with any other degree? Tuition was 60 pesos a year, to be paid in three installments, and classes were free? I still have three blue receipts 20 pesos each.
In January of 1959 Cuba's economic expansion was at its peak
Does anyone know that in 1956 Cuba was recognized by the UN as one of the most literate countries in the world (23%) at a time when most Latin American nations, and Spain, featured rates of around 50%?
People are even less aware that when the Castros seized power Cuba was in the midst of the greatest economic expansion in its history, which began some 13 years earlier, at the end of the 1940s.
Large factories were built, industrial plants for the extraction of nickel and other commodities, in addition to oil refineries, hundreds of thousands of homes, large hotels, theaters, cinemas, restaurants, schools, hospitals and clinics, bridges and highways.
The tunnel was built under the Havana Bay, and two under the Almendares River, along with the impressive public buildings of the Plaza Cívica, and the Sports City, with its Colosseum. Towering structures such as the Focsa, the Someillán, the Havana Hilton (the hotel's largest, finest and tallest facility in the world at that time), then the tallest buildings in the Caribbean. According to the Cuban Chamber of Commerce, in 1957 the island had 142,742 cars, three times as many as Chile (47,950) and almost twice as many as Colombia (84,500).
This is enough to give one an idea of what Cuba could be like today without Castroism. But the country is in ruins. And rebuilding it will take a lot of money, and effort.
We would have had another 15 presidents of the Republic
Without the Castroist scourge, Cuba would have had 15 one-term presidents of the Republic, constitutionally elected for four-year terms, and some 18 million Cubans would live on the island.
Assuming capital investments of 250 billion dollars (at today's prices), the Cuban economy would, in fact, resemble that of the United States, being very close to a First World one, or already at that level. Exports of goods and services would exceed 160 billion dollars, including
Tourism, with approximately 20 million visitors. Compare this with the 1.58 billion dollars exported in 2023, and the mere 2.2 million tourists received in 2024.
On the beaches there would be spectacular tourist resorts such as those in Florida, Cancún, the Riviera Maya, Punta Cana and the Bahamas; large cruise terminals, modern airports, highways and fast trains; a massive port on the Mariel and, at the same time, a commercial shipping center serving South America, Central America, the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Europe.
Havana could be the Hong Kong or Singapore of the Caribbean as a financial, banking and fiduciary center, as or even more important than those in other large Latin American capitals.
In short, all that Cuba and Cubans have ceased to become, progress, and enjoy because of "the revolution" is truly mind-boggling.
Free Cuba now!
