Structural Changes in the Cuban Economy

Abstract

During the past century and particularly during the first three decades of this century, the Cuban economy suffered from a major structural deformation. Its model of development, which was based on superspecialization in sugar production, prevented growth in the rest of the economy and led to economic and political dependence on the United States. At the beginning of the 1920s the new generation of Cuban youth understood that the country's economic structure condemned it to stagnation, imbalances, inequalities, defenselessness, and underdevelopment. The pressing need to diversify the economy was obvious to the best members of that generation, and it was for such a cause that they struggled. Many of the revolutionaries who struggled against the dictatorship of Gerardo Machado (1924-1933) and afterwards against that of Fulgencio Batista knew that social change had to be more profound than the simple overthrow of these dictators. The period of growth based on sugar production reached its peak at the beginning of the 1920s, and for almost 40 years thereafter per capita income remained at the same level. The bankruptcy of this model of development was evident. During that period some foreign institutions and individuals were also convinced of the need for change. Any serious analysis of the complex and stagnating reality of the Cuban economy inevitably exposed the necessity of transformation. When the reactionary forces, in league with the U.S. embassy, liquidated the Government of a Hundred Days after the overthrow of Machado, they designated a new puppet government which immediately requested a nonofficial institution of the U.S. government, the Foreign Policy Association, to