It’s quite possible that the Cuban Revolution will soon die. Just over 67 years ago, it burst forth laden with hopes and redemptive promises. Biblical parallels abounded: there were 12 survivors of the Granma — the yacht that transported the fighters from Mexico to Cuba — and a messiah (Fidel Castro) triumphantly entered the new Jerusalem (Havana). A dove landed on his shoulder as he recited the divine word for hours on end, foreshadowing paradise on earth. Meanwhile, on the other side of the water — the Straits of Florida — the Yankee devil threatened this paradise from hell.
After 1959, a large part of Latin America’s Christian population adopted liberation theology. The most gifted philosophers, poets, painters and novelists placed their talents at the service of the good news. Countless creators exchanged their pens, instruments, or brushes for shovels, plows, or trowels, in order to bring their fantasies of social justice to life.
On April 17, 1961, two years after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, the Bay of Pigs invasion took place. The day before Brigade 2506 landed at Playa Girón, Fidel Castro declared the movement’s socialist nature: “Those who fear the revolution because it is socialist… let them not come asking us to kneel before imperialism.”
Ten days later, the author Norman Mailer published an open letter to Fidel Castro, in which he wrote that the Cuban leader was “the first and greatest hero to appear in the world since the Second World War.” He later suggested that Castro ask Ernest Hemingway to mediate for a better understanding between Cuba and the United States. But it was already too late: in 1962, Cuba allowed the Soviet Union to install nuclear missiles on the island, aiming them at its enemies.
If the 1960s are known as the romantic period of the Cuban Revolution, the 1970s ushered in the so-called Quinquenio Gris (“the gray five-year period”). The Padilla Affair, in 1971 — referring to the imprisonment of poet Heberto Juan Padilla — ushered in an era of cultural control and persecution of any expression that was considered “ideologically deviant.” Novelists, poets, filmmakers, artists and members of the LGBTQ+ community who didn’t adhere to the behavioral norms established by the regime were sent to forced labor camps, known as the UMAPs: Military Units to Aid Production. Authors such as José Lezama Lima, Virgilio Piñera and Reinaldo Arenas were also silenced. Many of the Latin American Boom writers who still harbored sympathies for Cuba definitively lost them during this period.
The tightening of totalitarian controls on the island, however, coincided with a series of U.S.-backed coups in the rest of the region. Cuba provided refuge to thousands of people persecuted by the military dictatorships. Had this not been the case, it’s likely that the democratic forces of the West would have more quickly become aware of the macabre atrocities that the Caribbean country concealed (there was no shortage of grateful leftists).
The 1980s, according to Cubans, were a rather happy time. There was a certain general prosperity thanks to Soviet aid. And, while the state security services exerted control, there was no shortage of spaces for relaxation. Recreational drugs were present in cultural circles, civil liberties were limited, but this was largely accepted without major conflict, and the country guaranteed good‑quality healthcare and education. Access to material comfort — despite not being luxurious — allowed for a certain carefree attitude.
Nearly 2,000 Cuban soldiers died in Angola supporting the MPLA, a social democratic party that fought for independence from Portugal. And, although many returned traumatized, the intervention was a source of national pride. At least, until some of its heroes — General Arnaldo Ochoa, Colonel Tony de la Guardia, Captain Jorge Martínez and Major Amado Padrón — were accused of drug trafficking and treason. Collectively known as “Case Number One,” they were sentenced to death: the four high-ranking officers were executed at dawn on July 13, 1989.
The most widespread interpretation of the trial, however, suggests that it was a political purge. At the time, the regimes of Eastern Europe were beginning to collapse. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had visited Havana that same year with his message of glasnost (“openness”) and perestroika (“restructuring”). And Ochoa — given his popularity at home and possible sympathy for the reformist winds in the USSR — represented a potential threat to Castro. In the absence of serious journalism, all that remains is speculation.
With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the so-called Special Period began, a euphemism coined by Fidel Castro to describe the catastrophic situation that gripped the country after losing the USSR’s economic support. Cuba ran out of oil and blackouts began. Lacking food, people were even eating cats. From this era came the term resolver (“to solve”), used to describe that quintessential Cuban occupation: finding unheard-of solutions to everyday needs… usually outside the bounds of the law.
When talking about Cuba, there’s something that’s rarely emphasized: everyday corruption. State salaries aren’t enough to afford anything, so truck drivers steal fuel, food distributors sell a portion on the sidewalk, while traffic cops negotiate fines. Much of survival is “resolved” informally.
According to some, the Special Period never really ended. Most Cubans, however, agree that it ended with Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, who was elected in 1999. Although Cubans often looked down on Venezuelans, they welcomed the oil and dollars that flowed from Caracas — money that fueled opaque schemes few could fully explain.
On the island of the Revolution, nothing is produced at this point. Not even sugar. In its most fertile fields, there’s a proliferation of marabú, a highly-aggressive shrub.
The government has sold an idea, with no concrete product. It seems that Cuba’s leaders believe the world should pay them to preach a way of life which they don’t know how to sustain.
A few years ago, very few people still bought into this scam. Today, practically no one does.
The U.S. embargo exists, certainly. And that scoundrel Trump has tightened it by putting Cuba back on the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, without considering how cruel this is for the vast, innocent majority. And, since January 30, he has prevented the arrival of ships carrying fuel.
But the failure of the Cuban Revolution is an undeniable fact. It was never capable of providing for the material well-being of its population on its own. When Fidel Castro was alive, what should have been a government by the people only served to glorify one individual.
If the Revolution has developed any expertise at all, it’s been in controlling its inhabitants through state security, intelligence and counterintelligence. During the Cold War, this made some sense, but at this point in time, it’s absurd.
Cubans are starving. They cook with charcoal. No one collects the garbage piling up in the streets; infections and stench are rampant. The population lives in darkness, while few young people remain. And, beyond those who work for the regime, it’s practically impossible to find a government supporter. If you want to find one, you have to look among foreign communists. Only ideological blindness justifies such indifference.
The Cuban Revolution — once the illusion of a new world where things could be different — has just received the CIA director and accepted a bribe from the empire, which may allow it to survive for another couple of weeks. Acknowledging the project’s resounding failure is not only urgent in order to rescue the suffering population, but also to return to an alternative where the idea of community regains its value; where not everything is about arrogance and force. The invitation to come together shouldn’t sound like empty rhetoric; rather, it should be an intelligent, credible and trustworthy proposal.
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