Teetering on the Brink: Cuba's Current Economic and Political Crisis
Cuban scholars are not noted for fashioning consensus, much less unanimity. Yet it is unlikely that a Cubanist could be found who would not agree with the proposition that Cuba in I992 is in the worst crisis of the revolution. It is perhaps arguable that the material situation on the island in 1969 was as difficult as it is today, but back in 1969 the revolution was young and the Cuban people for the most part were energetic and hopeful. Cuba was then an increasingly accepted and economically integrated member of the large world socialist community. The proximate cause of Cuba's present predicament is not hard to identify. Cuba has a small and heavily trade-dependent economy. In the presence of the US embargo, Cuba came to depend on the former Soviet trade bloc (CMEA) for over four-fifths of its imports. Without access to the US market, with access to other markets restricted and with imports from the former CMEA countries reduced by roughly two-thirds, Cuba's economy and its people are struggling to survive. The government's response to the crisis has been deliberate but inadequate. A number of reforms initiated prior to I989 are being continued,1 others are being accelerated and some new programmes are being put in place. The new emphasis on foreign investment and tourism, structural reforms in the operation of foreign trade, and the impossibility of central planning in the presence of ubiquitous supply uncertainties have combined to transform the nature of Cuba's economic mechanism.