The world system perspective suggests that socialist governments cannot construct truly socialist societies because they remain part of a larger capitalist world economy and must emphasize trade-oriented production for profit. Using this thesis to examine developments in Cuba since the 1959 revolution, I discuss (1) changes in the role of trade and the impact of the world economy on the structure of Cuba's domestic production; and (2) forces shaping the organization of Cuban agriculture since the revolution. Cuba is affected by global capitalist dynamics, internal class forces, and its distinctive trade relations with the Soviet bloc. I conclude that the world economy perspective enhances our understanding of developments in societies purporting to be socialist, but that the thesis itself is insufficient for a complete analysis. A world system perspective challenges widely held assumptions about development possibilities in countries that claim to be socialist. According to Wallerstein (1974, 1979), societies that nationalize ownership of resources within their territory, declare themselves socialist, and propagate socialist ideologies cannot in fact construct a socialist mode of production because they remain part of the larger capitalist world system.' He also argues that because such countries are integrated into a capitalist world economy, they are pressured to organize production to profit from market trade. Socialist and, especially, communist ideologies obfuscate the fact that regimes committed to socialist transformations remain part of a capitalist world economy. A state which collectively owns the means of production is a collective capitalist firm as long as it participates, as all states are compelled to, in the market of the capitalist world economy. This paper examines how Wallerstein's thesis helps explain certain developments in Cuban agriculture since the 1959 revolution. Efforts to expand and diversify agriculture are constrained by global economic forces and not merely, as Dumont (1970), Mesa-Lago (1978), and Ritter (1974), among others, have tended to stress, by domestic organizational inefficiencies and utopian shortsightedness. I summarize Wallerstein's argument and discuss the conditions that should prevail in Cuba were his thesis correct. Then I examine how and why the agrarian sector has been reorganized since 1959 and what effects the changes have had on the island's relations with the world economy.