Economy of Cuba - History

History

Prior to the Cuban Revolution, Cuba had a one-crop economy whose domestic market was constricted. Its population was characterized by chronic unemployment and deep poverty. United States monopolies like Bethlehem Steel Corporation and Speyer gained control over Cuba's national resources, from which they made huge profits. The banks and the country's entire financial system, all electric power production, and most industry was dominated by US capital. US monopolies owned 25 percent of the best land in Cuba, and more than 80 percent of all farm lands were occupied by sugar and livestock-raising latifundia. 90 percent of the country's raw sugar and tobacco exports was sent to the USA. Before the Revolution, most Cuban children were not included in the school system. There was almost no machine-building industry in Cuba.

87 percent of urban homes had electricity, but only 10 percent of rural homes did. Only 15 percent of rural homes had running water. Nearly half the rural population was illiterate, as was about 25 percent of the total population. Poverty and unemployment in the rural areas forced desperate residents to migrate to Havana, where there was high levels of crime and prostitution. More than 40 percent of the Cuban workforce in 1958 was either underemployed or unemployed. Schools for blacks and mulattoes were vastly inferior than those for whites. Afro-Cubans had the worst living conditions and held the lowest paid jobs.

Cuban Revolution During the Revolutionary period, Cuba was one of the few developing countries to provide foreign aid. Foreign aid began with the construction of six hospitals in Peru in the early 1970s.

Foreign aid expanded later in the 1970s to the point where some 8000 Cubans worked in overseas assignments. Cubans built housing, roads, airports, schools, and other facilities in Angola, Ethiopia, Laos, Guinea, Tanzania, and other countries. By the end of 1985, 35,000 Cuban workers had helped build projects in some 20 Asian, African and Latin American countries.

For Nicaragua, Cuba pledged to provide over $130 million worth of agricultural and machinery equipment, as well as some 4000 technicians, doctors, and teachers.

Some have attributed the Cuban economic success to Soviet subsidies. However, comparative economic data from 1989 showed that the amount of Soviet aid was in line with the amount of Western aid to many Latin American countries.