Cuban Revolution, today

Miguel Ángel Ramírez Ramos Delhi

The Cuban Revolution has reached its 50th anniversary and many analysts have engaged, once again, in rewriting and expressing their viewpoints on the Caribbean nation. As one of such , attempts, the French magazine, Le Monde diplomatique, published last February an article by Janette Habel, which was reproduced by Hardnews in its March issue, entitled Castro's socialism is in crisis.

The very headline of the article states the conclusion to which readers should arrive after reading it, therefore eliminating any possible debate. She doubts whether the government in Cuba will be able to keep socialism alive in the island and takes isolated news and opinions to reach to a general conclusion which is intentionally biased. It is, indeed, a clever effort to use (and misuse) different sources, some of them progressive ones, in order to reach to a conclusion that is supposedly objective, while disguising its true reactionary intention.

A little bit of Cuban history: In January 1959, when Fidel Castro entered Havana, he claimed that in the future, contrary to most people's views, everything would be far more difficult. Time has demonstrated that he was hundred per cent right. He also asked Cubans to read, not just to believe. As it is already known worldwide, immediately after the first weeks of 1959, as the then new government implemented its first programmes and, especially, after the passing of the Land Reform Law, Washington began its efforts to subvert the new government. Most of the professionals Cuba had at the time, were encouraged to leave the island for the US, and at the same time the Eisenhower administration began to impose the 'blockade' so that the country had to reinvent itself in a complex situation and accepted the friendly support from the USSR in order to develop itself.

Let's also remember that at the beginning of the 1960s most Latin American countries, except Mexico - at the request of Washington-cut off relations with Havana in an effort to isolate it and destroy the example of the Revolution as a result of economic constraints. This historical background, particularly the grave effects of the US blockade on the Cuban economy and society, are ignored by Habel.

Cuba today: After five decades, and amid such hostile environment, many wonder how the Cuban revolution has managed to survive, while some others still hope for the end of socialism in the island. Cuba being such a small country and the only socialist one in the western hemisphere, it would be a good question to ask all the successive US administrations as to why they have
tried so hard to eliminate it and why they keep on saying that Cuba is a menace for their country and a threat to its national security. But, probably even more interesting would be to ask the western media why they are trying to create a monster out of an island which, in other circumstances, would have never deserved so much coverage or analysis by the western academicians.

The beginnings of the 1990s were probably the most difficult years in the entire Cuban history. The island had to face a de facto double blockade. Yes, it is true that the measures applied at the moment created social differences among the Cuban population with undesirable results that have to be made in order to survive in that critical juncture of our history, and also, in order to keep the main achievements of socialism alive.

Some economic considerations: