#国际##美国##经济##医疗#从上篇文章我们可以看出古巴曾经也阔国, even in the last days, it maintains its glamorous appearance, but the gap between the rich and the poor causes dissatisfaction, and Batista's blocking of people's channels for change directly fills people's anger value, and the long-term control of the country by the United States is a catalyst for revolutionary nationalism. In fact, Cuba's political system is relatively advanced, but the system is determined by people, once someone does not abide by the rules, no matter how advanced the system is, it is just a dead letter, under this chaos, people are eager to make changes, although the future is full of unknowns, but in short, the current session will be changed first, so under this condition, the Cuban people chose their "sun" -- Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz, how did Castro win the victory of the revolution under high pressure? And how did he stiffen the United States for decades? What has changed in Cuba as a result?
1. Transcend class
Castro's origins as a socialist were less likely, but his father, Ángel Castro Algis, was a big capitalist, who had 500 Haitians working for him, 1,800 hectares of land and another 10,000 hectares of land to produce pine, livestock and sugar cane, and was worth $500,000 in the 50s (equivalent to $5.7 million in 2023). Castro later proudly boasted that it was this experience that had saved him "from the infestation of capitalism" because of his illegitimate status as an illegitimate child and that his father had allowed him to live with the labourers of the estates In fact, although Castro Sr. was a successful capitalist, he had previously been a Spanish soldier and hated American control over Cuba, so the children were not affected by this nationalist ideology, and it was widely believed that Castro Sr. was not good to Castro, but without his father's financial support, he would not have had the opportunity to go to the best school in the country, the Belém College in Havana, and to attend the University of Havana, the oldest college in Cuba.
College of Belém, Havana
Castro was also actively involved in politics during his college years, and he was also exposed to many anti-imperialist and anti-colonial ideas, but at this time he had not yet become a radical leftist, and in 1948 when he married Bai Fume Dias, Batista also gave them a wedding gift of 1,000 dollars, but he did not know that Batista was about to change him. In 1952, when Castro was preparing for his election campaign, Batista staged a coup d'état to end the democratic government, and after coming to power, he relied on the support of the United States to carry out repression, and the media was shut down. The student movement was banned, an estimated hundreds to thousands of people were killed, the path to legal participation in politics was blocked, Castro was pushed to the path of radicalization, in 1953 Castro was captured during an attack on the barracks, the trial turned into his personal show, he also read more left-wing books in prison, and on the eve of the 1954 elections, Batista released Castro in order to improve his image, just as the tsar had released Lenin.
Fidel Castro was arrested after the Moncada attacks in July 1953
As soon as Castro was released from prison, he divorced his wife, who was "seriously infected by the bourgeoisie" and worked in the system, and then vented his "grievances" in prison to two female comrades and gave birth to a son. In 1955, Castro met the Argentine Che Guevara in Mexico, and the two upper-class and chivalrous people came together, and after raising funds, they sneaked back to Cuba in 1956 to fight the revolution, on the one hand, to obtain troops in poor areas, on the other hand, not to open the radical left-wing ideas to gain the support of other forces, the corrupt government army was defeated under this blow, and the United States saw that Batista was useless and made the mistake of hoping to set up another agent in the civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, on the one hand, the CIA secretly contacted Castro and provided weapons, and on the other hand, imposed an arms embargo on the Cuban governmentHowever, the rise of nationalist movements in Latin America caused the United States to be wary of revolutionaries, and it obstructed the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Cantillo, in reaching a ceasefire agreement with Castro on the condition of his arrest of Batista.
In January 1959, Sturgis, a CIA liaison in the guerrillas, stood on a mass grave for the execution of government supporters
Battista was warned in advance to flee the country with $300 million, and Cantillo appointed Supreme Court Justice Carlos Pitra as president, but the United States' hopes of dissuading the revolution were frustrated, and Castro, feeling deceived, resumed his offensive and arrived in Havana on January 9, 1959. After the success of the revolution, Castro did not directly exceise the post of Führer, but put the politically moderate lawyer Manuel Urrutia Leo on the interim presidency, made himself prime minister, and governed the country in the form of decrees, to which hundreds of people were executed, to which Castro responded that "revolutionary justice is not based on legal precepts, but on moral convictions." So at a time when Batista was spurned, it was in fact very flattering and slightly populist, but at the same time he said that he would eventually resume multiparty elections, and repeatedly denied to the media that he was a communist, which shows that Castro was a sophisticated politician, and the United States had not yet adopted a completely hostile policy towards Cuba at that time.
Manuel Urrutia Leo
2. Change direction
After the revolution, Castro tried to gain the support of the United States, and he visited the United States in the hope of achieving the Marshall Plan for Latin America, but he was disappointed by the cold reaction of the United States and decided to fend for himself. The first was the agrarian reform, when 80% of Cuba's best land was in the hands of a group of North American corporations, Cuba's first agrarian reform law and the National Agrarian Reform Institute were established, the agrarian reform law banned large estates in Cuba, limiting land ownership to 4 square kilometers per owner, in addition to prohibiting further ownership of land by foreigners, large estates (previously mostly owned by Americans) were divided and redistributed, and an estimated 200,000 peasants were granted property rights. The 1960 Urban Reform Act ensured that no household could pay more than 10 per cent of its income, and that those who were retired, sick or below the poverty line would pay less than 10 per cent or not at all. These measures allowed Castro to gain the support of the broad masses of the people, but the middle and upper classes were wary of his radical reforms, and Urrutia had hoped for a constitutional restoration, but Castro, with his super-popular popularity, refused on the grounds that "elections breed corruption".
Agrarian Reform Act of 1959
The United States, whose interests had been damaged, began to support Castro's efforts to subvert him, while many members of Castro's government left after seeing his tendency to turn to the left, while the United States gradually reduced imports of Cuban products on trade. In addition to the signing of a treaty on the purchase of sugar and the sale of oil, the Soviet Union also provided Cuba with a loan of $100 million, and the vacancy of the United States in Cuba was quickly filled, and in 1960 an explosion occurred on a ship transporting ammunition to Cuba, and Cuba believed that the main culprit was the United States, which led to a further deterioration of relations between the two sides. In response to the nationalization of Shell and Esso, the reduction of Cuban sugar import quotas and the confiscation of more American companies, Cuba created its own "Rising Sun Masses", the Committee for the Defence of the Revolution (CDR), which engages in community health and hygiene tasks and documents the overall moral character of the revolution.
"Long Live Socialism" CDR billboard in the countryside on the way from Havana to Pinar del Río
In January 1961, the United States and Cuba severed diplomatic relations, but until the Bay of Pigs invasion, Castro's ideology remained a "mystery" to the United States, but this did not affect the hostility of the United States to him, and in April the U.S.-backed Cuban anti-Castro forces launched an attack on Cuba, and the Cuban security agencies quickly arrested 200,000 people to cut off potential opponents, and the anti-Castro forces without support were quickly defeated. On December 2, 1961, Fidel announced to Cuba and the world in a televised address on national television: "I am completely satisfied, completely confident, that I am a Marxist-Leninist and that I will always be a Marxist-Leninist" A year later, travel and financial transactions by American citizens to Cuba were banned, and Cuba began to carry out deep socialist reforms in the political, social, and economic fields.
Cuban troops in the Bay of Pigs incident
3. Profound changes
In July 1961, Castro's 726 Movement, the People's Socialist Party and the March 13 Revolutionary Steering Committee formed the Unified Revolutionary Organization, which was reorganized into the Socialist Revolutionary Unity Party of Cuba on March 26, 1962, and the Communist Party of Cuba on October 3, 1965. In 1976, the Cuban constitution established the leadership of the Cuban Communist Party and abolished the positions of president and prime minister, Castro served as the chairman of the newly established Council of State and the Council of Ministers, making him both the head of state and the head of government, in order to maintain order, the Ministry of the Interior set up the General Directorate of Counterintelligence and the General Directorate of Internal Order to be responsible for national security and surveillance, the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television formulated the values of compliant literature and restricted private media, the Cuban Academy of Cinematic Arts and Industry censored film and television works, and the Cuban Communist Party was also far ahead in radio interference, and in 1963 Cuba used equipment provided by the Soviet Union to shield"Bad radio" became the first country in the Western Hemisphere to interfere with radio broadcasts, and if it did not have a cure, it was sent to military production units in the center for 10-12 hours a day of unpaid labor and 2 hours of ideological education.
In 1967, homosexuals and dissidents were imprisoned in military units aiding production.
Cuba has also undergone social transformation. After the revolution, 250,000 Cubans fled Cuba, known as the "golden exile" because they were mostly middle- and upper-class people, and the brain drain prompted the new government to launch a literacy campaign consisting of youth volunteers who went to the countryside, workers who tutored colleagues after work, literate workers who went to remote areas but were paid by their former employers, and school teachers, which not only led to a 96 per cent literacy rate in the country In 1959, the Cuban government proposed "to redress inequalities in health care and to establish a rapid, transitional, free and comprehensive national service system covering urban, rural and mountainous populations" In 1960, Cuba imposed a one-year service in the countryside for all medical school graduates, and at the same time reduced drug prices by nationalizing pharmaceutical companies and nationalizing private hospitals, which directly led to the exodus of two-thirds of medical professionals, and the infant mortality rate was 40% higher than before the revolution.
Two-child families are a common trend in Cuba, as in this 1955 (pre-revolutionary) photograph
Socialization of the economy. The second agrarian reform law, approved in 1963, further reduced land ownership to 67 hectares, targeted medium-sized property in the hands of Cubans, and the excess of the land was granted not to peasants but to the state, raising the proportion of state land to 70 percent; There was also a large-scale nationalization of enterprises, and in 1966 Castro made a speech that extra work should be rewarded by workers' enthusiasm rather than material things, a view that many entrepreneurs must now strongly agree, and those who dissided in the party were accused of conspiring against state arrests, and in 1968 Cuba began to fully nationalize, banning self-employed and farmers' markets, including 17,000 food retailers, 25,000 industrial goods retailers, 113,000 bars and restaurants, 9,600 small workshops, and 14,000 Barbershops, laundries and other small retail outlets were nationalized, in short, everything was state.
A clothing store in Cuba before the revolution
The older generation is most familiar with food stamps, and Cuba established its own ration system in 1962. Originally created in response to the lack of supply caused by the embargo in the United States, the National Committee for the Distribution of Goods had the power to recommend a distribution system and the quantity of each product to be provided to the population, initially only for food, and special quotas were given to anyone who was old, sick or in need of a differentiated diet, but later rations were extended to industrial products and a supply control office was established to be responsible for all matters related to the bureaucratic paperwork involved in any action at the municipal level for consolidation or cancellation in the consumer registry, until 1970 Almost all products were regulated and retail prices were frozen, but in the 70s special products were offered at differential prices in order to motivate workers, such as the annual or semi-annual union allowing successful workers to choose to buy a household appliance. The Food Supply Certificate has thus become an integral part of the lives of the Cuban people.
Food Supply Certificate
Fourth, a slight setback
The process of socialization actually led to some negative effects, many people became disillusioned with the Cuban Revolution, so the country had a second wave of immigration, the United States based on economic and political considerations in 1966 introduced the "Cuba Adjustment Act" to give Cuban immigrants the most favored treatment, and Castro believed that those who wanted to leave were a factor of instability, so he simply reached a consensus with the United States and agreed to have two flights a day to pick up people. But the Cuban government was furious when it saw that there were 1 million people who had applied to leave, and that the applicants had been humiliated as "worms" and fired and harassed in an attempt to get them out, and that this route of legal immigration was actually fraught with difficulties because it took even two years for someone to apply for a flight, despite the fact that 300,000 Cubans had successfully left Cuba between 1965 and 1973, including many petty propriats dissatisfied with nationalization. Of course, this kind of episode was nothing to Castro, after all, in his opinion, the broad masses of the people still supported him, so he decided to use this revolutionary enthusiasm to make a big gamble, that is, the "Ten Million Harvest" plan.
Havana in the 60s
Cuba's reforms did not result in a major economic crisis due to the aid of the Eastern Bloc, although the original idea of the revolutionary government was to get rid of dependence on sugar, but sugar was really fragrant. Cuba and the Soviet Union signed a long-term trade agreement in January 1964, allowing the export of 24 million tons of sugar from 1965 to 1970 at a fixed price of 6.11 cents per pound, which was twice the market price in the context of falling world sugar pricesIn September 1969, in a speech to students at the University of Havana, Castro claimed that the goal of achieving 10 million tons of sugar was like the "second national liberation" of Cuba, which planned to produce 10 million tons of sugar in 1970.
A poster of Fidel Castro cutting down sugar cane, promoting a bountiful harvest.
In order to achieve this goal, Cuba has demolished a large amount of land on a large scale for the cultivation of sugar cane, mobilized the largest number of people for harvesting, and workers from all walks of life, students, and armed forces who have no experience in cutting vine have been committed, and holidays have been postponed, everything has given way to sugar production. In 1970, Cuba had 8.5 million tons, and the "10 million harvest" plan had failed, and in fact it had achieved its target of 8.5 million tons, and the rest of the Cuban economy had fallen by 20 per cent that year because a large amount of resources had been allocated to sugar cultivation and other productive sectors had been neglected In 1971, Cuba's sugar production was only 5.9 million tons, and Cuba's sugar production never even reached its pre-revolutionary peak, and Cuba was forced to reduce its sugar exports, and Cuba's debt to the socialist countries amounted to 3.5 billion rubles.
Cuban party and state leader Fidel Castro
Fifth, make a small profit
Fortunately, the Cubans have not met leaders who are not too bad, unlike some old people who do not admit mistakes and are happy to make the whole country pay for the inflated numbers, Castro dared to admit the failure of the plan and took the initiative to take responsibility, saying in a public address that "let us first point out the responsibility of all of us, and especially myself, for all these problems...... Change the leaders of the revolution as long as the people wish". Although Castro never really left office and removed the sugar industry minister, he adjusted his policy in time to respond to the Soviet Union, During his visit to Eastern Europe, he acknowledged that national selfishness was incompatible with socialism, both domestically and in foreign policy, and in view of his sincerity, the Soviet Union made him join the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, agreed to raise the price of sugar in Cuba and sell oil to Cuba three times below normal prices, and Cuba made a fortune from exporting these cheap oils, and between 1976 and 1980 the trade between Cuba and the Soviet Union accounted for 80 to 84 percent of the total imports of all socialist countries, and the Cuban economy was in the 70s of the twentieth century It has grown rapidly, with GDP growing at an average annual rate of more than 10 per cent between 1971 and 1975 alone.
The Soviet version of the "Marshall Plan" Committee for Mutual Economic Assistance
The aid was of course conditional on Cuba's commitment to economic reform in line with the Soviet Union's plan, and in 1976 Cuba embarked on modest market reforms under the economic management and planning system, based on the idea of decentralizing the decision-making process and incorporating selective market mechanisms, self-financing based on bank loans, and economic incentives (including wage differentials and production premiums). However, Cuba's reform program has not been implemented, and Cuban leaders are still subjectively more inclined to move economic policy out of a "localization" that is different from that of the Soviet Union, even if it fails to achieve the 6% set by the 1975-1980 five-year plan Cuba is still stubbornly following its own path, but in order to show that it is not eating for nothing, Cuba actively provides foreign aid, which can not only expand Cuba's political influence but also open up new foreign trade markets, for example, in 1982 Cuba earned 250 million US dollars from Angola aid projects. In view of the foreign aid behavior, Cuba insisted that the Economic Committee was not giving aid, but fair trade between socialist countries.
Cuban tank crews in the Angolan Civil War
One cannot help but wonder if Cuba is so disobedient, it is enough to cut off aid, but Cuba is very self-aware. At the 10th Plenary Session of the Central Committee held at the end of December 1984, it stated that the Soviet Union understood Cuba's strategic position on the North American continent and its political and ideological influence on the Non-Aligned Movement. Because the Eastern European countries, which are members of the Economic Commission, were very angry because they had to undertake part of the trade that aided Cuba, and the Soviet Union, in order to relieve the pressure, actually suggested that Cuba should improve relations with the United States, the Soviet Union said that Cuba had briefly considered the possibility of improving relations with the United States, but the tough Reagan came to power to block this possibility, so Cuba could happily take aid on the grounds that it was threatened by US imperialism, and the Eastern European countries were miserable.
U.S. President Ronald Wilson Reagan
Hugging your thighs has improved the livelihood of people in Cuba. Between 1960 and 1985, Cuba's per capita real income grew at an average annual rate of 3.1 percent, compared to 1.8 percent in the rest of Latin America, and as a result of this growth, Cuba's per capita income exceeded $3,500 in 1987, compared to $2,223 in Latin America, and the mainland's per capita income was only 600 yuan at that time, which is an unimaginable gap today. By the way, the problem of free medical care, due to the "provision of free medical care and inpatient care, dental care" It is written into the constitution, so Cuba attaches great importance to the investment in public health, which pays attention to the training of medical personnel, the cycle is long and professional, and in the context of economic growth in the 80s, Cuba will focus on the community, and the health care will be integrated into the community, intern doctors will be invested here to practice, that is, the training of doctors and the increase of the beneficiary group, and the regular inspection of health officials to ensure the quality, thanks to this period of Cuban life expectancy has reached 74 years, the mainland did not reach this number until 2010, all admirable.
Cuba in the 80s
Sixth, if you are poor, you will think about change
Cuba's willfulness benefited from the assistance of the Economic Commission, and at the end of the eighties, Castro was not only unwilling to follow the trend of reform, but denounced the incompatibility of the market economy with the socialist economy, and was irritated by the propagation of his hosts to denounce the poor quality of Eastern European products, and with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Economic Commission, no one paid for Castro's willfulness. Cuba's GDP has shrunk by 35 percent, imports and exports have both fallen by more than 80 percent, many domestic industries have shrunk dramatically, Cubans have had to walk or cycle to their destinations because there is no gasoline to power cars or buses, lack of electricity means no fans to withstand the scorching tropical climate and no way to power refrigerators, calories intake have decreased by about a third, and hunger and malnutrition have risen to levels not seen before the 1959 revolution. When the police stopped the 1994 protests, Castro blamed the United States for the economic crisis and sent the military and police to suppress it, until the turmoil subsided when 37,000 people fled to the United States that year, so much so that the United States began to tighten Cuban immigration policies.
The Cubans fled to the United States by boat
In an effort to alleviate the crisis, Cuba began to carry out limited reforms, many of the state-owned farms were converted into cooperatives, state subsidies for the agricultural sector were cut in half, two-thirds of the farms were profitable or broke even, according to the government, and farmers were later allowed to sell their products at free prices. However, the country's economic system has not changed much, but the rigid system has not led to the famine like in North Korea, thanks to Cuba's fiscal stimulus rather than austerity policy, which cut defense spending by 86 percent and eliminated 15 ministries on the one hand, and increased spending on health, welfare, and social services, which rose by 29 percent and 13 percent of GDP respectively from 1990 to 1994 This led to a spike in Cuba's fiscal deficit, but averted the threat of famine and was a necessary stress measure, so that despite the collapse of the economy, Cuba's child mortality rate actually declined, and life expectancy rose from 75 years in 1990 to 75.6 years in 1999.
Cuban streets in the 90s
In order to cope with the national deficit, Castro had to reform again. The first was to raise the prices of specific goods such as cigarettes, alcoholic beverages and gasoline, while allowing self-employment, and from the beginning of 1995 they would have a high interest in real estate and certain services (advertising), Taxation of self-employment income and income derived from abroad, and the dollarization of Cuba, which was declared legal in 1993 in order to stimulate remittances by Cubans abroad or the sale of goods and services by nationals to foreigners in order to increase foreign exchange, can also stem the interference of the black market with the normal exchange rate of currencies; China and other countries that compete with the United States have invested in Cuba, and the economic realities have eliminated the ideological barriers between Cuba and other countries, and in 1995 Cuba signed trade and investment promotion and protection agreements with more than 12 countries. The reforms were so successful that Cuba's fiscal deficit began to fall, falling to 36 million pesos in 1996, compared to 480 million pesos the previous year.
Cuban refugees asking for help
Thanks to the development of tourism, Cuba's GDP grew by 6.2% in 1999, followed by rapid growth, and in 2007 Cuba's economy grew by 7.5% above the Latin American average, but even so, Cuba's per capita GDP ranked only about 10th in Latin America, and Cuba was the third before the revolution. Of course, this has nothing to do with the US embargo, which is said to be a blockade rather than a unilateral embargo that does not want to do business because the US embargo policy involves third countries, for example, manufacturers from third countries cannot export to Cuba any goods containing 20% American content, and must contain up to 10% Although the United States does not directly prevent you from doing business with Cuba, in view of the regulations, people will naturally take into account the concerns about the adverse impact of doing business with Cuba and the trade with the United States, the world's largest economy, and the choice between the two undoubtedly restricts Cuba's trade, Cuba said in its 2020 report to the United Nations that the United States has caused a loss of $144 billion, and the size of the United States determines the international obligations it must bear, assuming that it is only a small country。
Cuban beaches in the 90s
Even so, Cuba's medical level has still made great progress, although Cuba's annual per capita health care expenditure is only 813 US dollars, while the United States is 9403 US dollars, but in 2020, Cuba once crushed the United States with a life expectancy of 77.57 years old 76.98 years. However, in the case of a rigid system, Cuba still has money to invest in public utilities and debt-related, China, Russia and some Western friendly countries have issued astronomical loans to Cuba, although these countries have forgiven most of the debts, but Cuba still has not been able to repay the money on time, so the iron still needs to be hard, long-term borrowing is difficult to maintain life, and most people have an annual income of less than 3,000 US dollars. Still a necessity, a long and poor life is not necessarily what everyone wants, and with 44,353 Cuban immigrants entering the United States in 2013 alone, reform is imperative.
A saleswoman marks the supply card
In 2011, Cuba approved plans to expand its domestic market and access to global markets, including the legalization of the sale and private ownership of houses and cars, the expansion of the private sector, the granting of greater autonomy to state-owned enterprises, the creation of special economic zones in 2014 that are not subject to Cuba's normal economic legislation, and the use of tax and customs exemptions to attract foreign investment. The reform was immediate, attracting a $2 billion investment deal in 2017, and after Castro's death, Cuba began to make a bolder attempt, amending the constitution in 2019 to grant private property rights and more access to the free market, but the epidemic and the rise of conservative forces in the United States have worsened the Cuban economy, and major cities in Cuba have generally been subject to power outages in turn, with 4% in 22 and 23 years Although the turmoil that provoked March this year has finally subsided, a healthy economic system and relations with the United States are still issues that Cuba needs to overcome, and it remains to be seen where Cuba will go in the future.
March 17 turmoil
Bibliography:
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