Cuba’s Uncertain Future after Fidel
Edward Gonzalez
Kevin F. McCarthy
Senior Social Scientist
RAND Corporation
Professor Emeritus
UCLA
Although Fidel Castro appears to be recovering from the intestinal surgery that he
underwent in July 2006, the nearly half-century of rule by Cuba’s 81-year-old socialist
caudillo may be nearing its end. The political succession from Fidel’s regime to that
of his brother Raúl, who assumed provisional power upon Fidel’s incapacitation, is
clearly under way, though the process will remain incomplete until Fidel finally passes
from the scene.
When that time comes, will the comandante’s demise produce political unrest
and open the way for the island’s democratic transition, as the White House wants?
Or will Raúl’s successor regime be able to overcome the death of Fidel by ultimately
gaining popular support and legitimizing itself? And what should the United States
do in the meantime?
Contrasting Cuban Futures
Writing in the January/February 2007 issue of Foreign Affairs, Julia Sweig of the Council on Foreign Relations asserts that under the “transition” from Fidel to Raúl, power
has been successfully transferred to “a new set of leaders, whose priority is to preserve
the system while permitting only very gradual reforms.” Hence the pace and nature of
Cuba’s change in the coming years will be “mostly imperceptible to the naked American
eye.” She points out that there have been no signs of internal violence or mass refugee
exodus since the transfer of power began. Having traveled to Cuba nearly 30 times
since 1984—meeting with Fidel Castro and other members of his regime, along with
its critics, intellectuals, and foreign diplomats—she reports that she found members of
the Cuban government and Communist Party “enormously confident of the regime’s
ability to survive Fidel’s passing.”1
Edward Gonzalez is professor emeritus of political science at UCLA and on the adjunct staff at the
RAND Corporation. He has specialized in Cuban affairs for over 40 years. Kevin F. McCarthy is a senior
social scientist at RAND. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors only. They do not
represent the views of any organizations with which they are affiliated.
Copyright © 2007 by the Brown Journal of World Affairs
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Edward Gonzalez and Kevin F. McCarthy
To be sure, the regime does have grounds to be confident about its survival over
the short term (i.e., within 12 months of Fidel’s death). Its internal security apparatus
has for decades succeeded in controlling the population, including quashing the 1994
riots on the Havana waterfront—the country’s last major public disturbance. It does
not have to contend with a strong, united opposition movement or a robust civil society. It can rely on the solidarity and support of sectors of the population and, most
importantly, on the loyalty of its Communist Party cadres, security agents, and armed
forces. Finally, it can employ the nationalist card, as Fidel has done since coming to
power in 1959, to whip up popular support against the United States.
Nonetheless, José Latour, a popular Cuban mystery writer who defected with his
family in 2002, is not sanguine about the regime’s long-term survival prospects. “Everyone knows,” he writes, “that the system is condemned to extinction. In peacetime,
no form of government in the Western world has failed so dismally.”2
In fact, a Raúl-led regime will be starting from a deficit because the following
pillars of support that enabled Fidel’s regime to overcome U.S. hostility and generate
popular support have either disappeared or been severely weakened:
•
28
•
•
•
The Soviet Union: Cuba’s benefactor no longer exists. Though Venezuela
under Hugo Chávez will continue to supply Cuba under Raúl, it cannot provide the level of economic and military support that Moscow once did.
The revolution and its social compact with the people: Both have been seriously undermined after the economy plummeted by 32 percent between
1989 and 1993 following the disappearance of the Soviet Union.3 Cubans
experienced intense hardship on a scale not seen before during the resulting
Special Period of government decreed austerity, which led to rising social
tensions.4 Cubans will not regain the standard of living they enjoyed in
1989 for several more years.
Fidel himself: His demise will leave an enormous leadership void. His
charismatic presence held his regime together, galvanized popular support,
and helped legitimize his government. Neither Raúl nor anyone else in the
regime has the persona to replace the symbolism of Fidel.
The totalitarian state’s control apparatus: It remains in place, but it has been
weakened as a result of hard economic times that have corrupted and sapped
the resolve of party cadres, government officials, and the neighborhood-bloc
Committees for the Defense of the Revolution.
Nevertheless, the control apparatus should give Raúl and his regime breathing room.
The Ministry of Interior’s agents, informers, and thugs who make up the rapid reaction
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Cuba’s Uncertain Future after Fidel
brigades, as well as its elite special troops, will undoubtedly remain as the regime’s first
line of defense against social disorder. Behind them stands the Revolutionary Armed
Forces (FAR), which could be called upon in the event of a popular uprising. All have
a stake in the preservation of the system. In addition, both the Interior Ministry and
the FAR are controlled by raulistas––Raúl’s long-time personal followers.
Still, considering the many political, societal, and economic structural problems
that will confront Raúl’s successor regime, its prospects do not appear particularly promising over the medium term (12 to 24 months) and beyond. This will be especially true
if Raúl’s regime pursues only “very gradual reforms,” as Sweig predicts.5 Such a course
portends a continuation of Fidel Castro’s limited economic reforms of the 1990s, many
of which have since been curtailed or reversed and have, in any case, proven woefully
inadequate in revitalizing the island’s ailing economy.
Lacking his brother’s charismatic sway over the Cuban people, Raúl cannot afford to undertake timid reforms that produce little palpable change. After enduring
decades of hardship, especially during the Special Period that began in 1990, the Cuban
people will expect Raúl’s regime to improve their lives. He will thus have to deliver
economically if he is to legitimize his rule and that of his regime. Here, however, he
will be burdened with the legacies of the past and a host of structural obstacles that are
likely to impede his regime’s eventual legitimacy.6
The Burdens of the Fidelista Past
Once he takes power, Raúl Castro will have to overcome two dysfunctional political
legacies of his brother. The first is the culture of caudillismo which, after 1959, stunted
the regime’s institutional development. Supreme power and authority became vested
in the person of the charismatic Fidel: despite the so-called “Institutionalization of the
Revolution” after 1976, Fidel has simultaneously held multiple posts as commander-inchief of the armed forces, president of the government, chief of state, and first secretary
of the Communist Party of Cuba. A Raúl-led regime will have to gain new political
legitimacy that is not derived from the personal, charismatic appeal of Cuba’s líder
máximo. This legitimacy will depend on its ability to fulfill not just the basic needs of
the people, as was the case until 1989, but more importantly, their long suppressed
yearnings for a better life.7
Fidel’s popular appeal also stemmed from policies that his brother cannot afford to
emulate because they would interfere with his ability to revitalize the island’s economy.
A continuation of Fidel’s ultra-nationalist, anti-imperialist posture, for instance, would
probably dim chances of improved economic relations with the United States, a potential prerequisite for rebuilding the economy. On the other hand, dropping Cuba’s
defiant stance toward the United States could open Raúl to charges of betraying his
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Edward Gonzalez and Kevin F. McCarthy
brother’s nationalist legacy.
A continuation of Fidel’s “moral economy,” with its emphasis on a classless, nonmaterialistic, socialist society, and his harsh condemnation of those who accumulate
wealth, would similarly be an obstacle to the market incentives and entrepreneurial
spirit needed to revitalize the economy. Yet, abandoning the commitment to a moral
economy could also prove politically dangerous.
The totalitarian state, Fidel’s second political legacy, has left Cubans highly dependent upon the state for their employment and the satisfaction of their basic needs,
which may make it difficult for many Cubans to accept the inequalities and vagaries
of the market if Raúl pursues liberalizing reforms. Nearly half a century of totalitarianism may further undermine a market-oriented economy because it sowed a culture of
societal mistrust (desconfianza) due to the use of ordinary Cubans as informers for the
state and the absence of the rule of law, a policy which left citizens naked before the
all-powerful totalitarian state.
New Social Cleavages
30
To survive beyond the short term, the regime will need to focus much of its attention
and resources on winning the allegiance of two sectors of the population that historically were strong supporters of the revolution—Cuba’s youth (16 to 30 year olds) and
Afro-Cubans (blacks and mulattos).
Fidel Castro’s new revolutionary government set out to create “a more perfect
generation” among the young. To this end, it employed education, the mass media, and
membership in the Young Pioneers
Fidel Castro’s new revolutionary and Union of Young Communists
government set out to create “a more to mold Cuban youth in the image
perfect generation” among the young. of Che Guevara’s “new communist
man.” The 1970s and 1980s saw
some generational tensions between the fidelista regime and Cuban youth over what
the regime wanted for the youth and what the young wanted for themselves and for
Cuba.8
However, only after 1989 did those strains become serious due to the loss of
ideological faith that followed the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the
Soviet Union, and the heightened austerity that subsequently gripped the island. Young
Cubans were then faced with few opportunities for upward mobility, and they saw their
aspirations—not only material, but also creative and spiritual—go unfulfilled. Many
became disaffected and alienated from the regime and its prescribed behavioral norms.
They embraced Western pop music, dropped out of school, hustled, engaged in prostitution, and increasingly became disconnected from politics as the 1990s wore on.
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Cuba’s Uncertain Future after Fidel
By the early 2000s the fidelista regime had partially succeeded in stemming further
disaffection among the young by giving them more of what they wanted, not only in
the areas of pop concerts and artistic expression, but also in terms of upward mobility.
Young Cubans were recruited into the Communist Party; promoted to higher party,
government, and military positions; and assigned to lucrative posts in the new dollar
sectors of the economy. Moreover, nationalist appeals—particularly after the invasion
of Iraq by U.S.-led coalition forces in March 2003—were employed to mobilize the
ranks of the young behind the regime.
However, it remains to be seen whether a continuation of these policies by Raúl’s
regime will suffice not only to retain support among youth, but also to increase that
support. To achieve the latter, the regime may have to move quickly to convince the
young that they have a promising future in Cuba, via new policies that emphasize
education and training suitable for a market-driven economy and economic reforms
that open up opportunities for enterprising young Cubans. Otherwise, the regime
may face the prospect of losing part of Cuba’s young to out-migration, which would
represent a major blow to the economy.
The new regime will most likely also have to mollify Afro-Cubans. Blacks and
mulattos make up roughly one half of the population, though no official census data
on race has been released since 1981. The statistical omission in itself suggests that race
still remains a sensitive issue in Cuba. This is in spite of the fact that Afro-Cubans made
great strides under Fidel’s predominantly white regime in terms of eliminating racial
discrimination and improving socioeconomic equality. As a result, Afro-Cubans quickly
became the regime’s most ardent supporters. Cuba’s economic crisis of the 1990s opened
up a racial divide, however. While the crisis hurt most Cubans, Afro-Cubans—especially
blacks—suffered the worst. As reported by eye-witness observers and the Western press,
it was thus no coincidence that blacks and mulattos figured prominently in the riots
on the Malecón on the Havana waterfront in August 1994.9
Afro-Cubans had less access to dollar remittances from Cuban exiles—most of
whom are white—and as a result lacked the hard currency with which to resolver (makedo) by buying goods on the black market. They were also less likely to be peasants
who could garner extra income by selling their surplus produce in the small farmers’
markets that were opened in September 1994. Instead, Afro-Cubans were dependent
upon state employment, where they were paid in pesos worth 20 or more to the dollar.
They were heavily concentrated in the island’s poorer eastern provinces and harassed
by the police when they migrated illegally to Havana and other cities in search of jobs.
Blacks (more so than mulattos) were largely excluded from the tourist industry due to
unofficial discrimination by the industry’s white officials.
When Fidel finally departs the scene, Afro-Cubans will likely press for political
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Edward Gonzalez and Kevin F. McCarthy
and economic concessions from Raúl in exchange for their support. Their leverage will
be enhanced not only because they represent a large segment of the population, but also
because their loyalty to the old regime was in large measure a loyalty to Fidel—something that Raúl will not enjoy unless he can satisfy their expectations.
This may require Raúl to move blacks and mulattos into positions of higher authority to make the leadership of the party, government, and military more representative of
the racial composition of the population. It may also require opening other avenues for
social and economic mobility in joint enterprises as well as the tourist industry. Finally,
it may require pouring scarce resources into the renovation of Havana’s blighted black
neighborhoods and into the more impoverished provinces of eastern Cuba, which will
strain the new government’s financial resources and complicate its ability to provide
for social entitlements and fulfill economic priorities.
Structural Changes Required by a Cuba after Castro
Satisfying the expectations of the Cuban population will require major structural
changes byRaul’s new government to deal with a series of demographic, institutional,
and economic challenges that accumulated under Fidel’s long tenure.
32
An Aging Population
Cuba is in the disadvantageous position of having a demographic profile typical of
a slow-growth, developed economy and the economic profile of a rapidly growing,
developing country. Like most developed countries, Cuba faces the problems of providing services for an aging society and finding new workers to pay for those services.
But like a rapidly growing country, Cuba has not built up the income and wealth to
pay for those services.
A key consequence of this situation has been the decline in Cuba’s social service
programs, once the pride of the regime and lynchpin of its social compact with its
people. The high costs of these programs (close to half of Cuba’s public expenditures in
1988) made them unsustainable after the loss of Soviet economic assistance. The severe
cutbacks in these services in the 1990s contributed to the immiseration of the Cuban
population and to their growing disillusionment with the regime and the revolution.
Restoring these services will be a key challenge for Raúl’s government, but the aging
of the population will make this very difficult.
The fastest growing age cohorts in the future will be those over 65 and, all else
equal, this will increase pension expenditures by at least 50 percent.10 The pension
system’s early age of retirement (55 for women, 60 for men), its pay-as-you-go funding,
and the fact that public employees (who make up the vast majority of pensioners) are
not required to contribute to their own retirement will further compound the prob-
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Cuba’s Uncertain Future after Fidel
lem for Raúl’s government, since changing these entitlements is likely to be politically
unpopular.
Over the longer term, Cuba’s ability to restore its social programs will hinge on
higher levels of economic growth that will, in turn, require higher levels of investment. But here the government may be faced with a catch-22 because, at least for the
near future, its ability to divert public resources to investment will be constrained by
its need to fund social programs for its aging population. Conversely, the option of
reducing educational expenditures due to a declining school age population may well
be counterproductive, given the dependence of Cuba’s longer-term economic prospects
on the productivity and thus the education levels of its population.
Meanwhile, Cuba will very likely face a contraction in its labor force over the
next two decades, as the number of
Cuba will very likely face a contraction in
new entrants to the labor pool will be
smaller than the number of retirees. its labor force over the next two decades.
Hence labor will need to be used more efficiently and labor force participation will need
to increase, which will require the government to reverse two popular, long-standing
practices: maintaining full employment, even when that translates into massive underemployment, and setting wages according to a national pay schedule, rather than
on the basis of productivity.
Institutional and Societal Challenges
After four decades of a centralized command economy and three decades of tying its
economic development to the Soviet Union, Cuba’s economy suffers from four major
institutional and societal impediments:
1.
2.
A poorly performing labor force: Castro’s policies of promoting underemployment and negating individual incentives by leveling wages have resulted
in a labor force with poor work habits, lack of on-the-job effort, and low
productivity. As a result, Cuba suffers from the paradox of a workforce with
high levels of education but low productivity.
A small, deformed private sector: As the Eastern European experience
suggests, one way to facilitate the transition from a centralized to a market-oriented economy while providing for employment is to promote the
growth of small and medium-sized domestic enterprises. But after Cuba’s
liberalizing reforms in the 1990s began to lead to a new bourgeoisie and
greater income inequalities, the Castro regime severely constrained the
growth of Cuba’s embryonic private sector, consisting of microenterprises
and the self-employed. Additionally, it actively discouraged the develop-
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Edward Gonzalez and Kevin F. McCarthy
3.
4.
34
ment of a wholesale market and impeded the growth of occupations such
as managers, accountants, auditors, bankers, and insurers that are central
to the growth of a market economy.
A corrupt society and economy: The onset of the Special Period has exacerbated the problems of corruption at both the individual and institutional
levels. Black markets exist in virtually all sectors of the Cuban economy,
which are typically supplied through theft or misappropriation of government property. To supplement their peso-denominated salaries, government
officials engage in influence peddling, bribes, and exemptions from the
rationing to which the public is subject. The selective privatization of state
enterprises in the tourist and other hard-currency sectors of the economy has
also emerged as a new form of public corruption for high ranking members
of the nomenklatura and the army. These and other illicit activities, all of
which are likely to persist under Raúl’s regime, impose a significant burden
on the economy through the misallocation of public resources. In addition,
they undermine the legitimacy of the state and increase public skepticism
of the government.
The absence of transparency and the rule of law: Overcoming societal and
institutional corruption will take time, perhaps generations, because in part
it will require changes in social attitudes. It will also require the emergence
over time of institutions that promote transparency, accountability, and the
rule of law, such as a free press, an impartial and incorruptible legal and
judicial system, and a civil society that not only expects but demands such
institutions. Given the authoritarianism of Raúl and other high-ranking
leaders, it is unlikely that they will allow such institutional changes, thereby
further hobbling the regime’s chances to spur the island’s sustained economic
growth and development.
Economic Challenges
The economic crisis of the 1990s forced the Castro regime to enact a number of liberalizing reforms in an effort to arrest the economy’s free-fall, provide employment, and
ease the shortage of consumer goods and services. These reforms included opening the
island to foreign investments, principally in the tourist and mining industries; promoting foreign tourism; permitting self-employment; and allowing the return of the small
farmers’ markets. The resulting influx of foreign investments and tourists, together
with exile remittances (which greatly increased following the partial dollarization of the
economy in 1994), enabled the regime to ride out the crisis.11 However, to assure the
permanency of Cuban socialism, Castro reversed or curtailed many of these reforms
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Cuba’s Uncertain Future after Fidel
starting in the late 1990s and thus set the clock back.
Accordingly, as previously noted, Raúl’s successor government will have to promote a much-expanded domestic private sector if it is to jump-start the economy in the
short term. Moreover, it will have to begin making major, often painful, adjustments
in the structure of the rest of the economy if sustained growth and development are to
take place over the longer term. Such economic changes would involve modernizing
or downsizing Cuba’s aging sugar industry and seeking alternative sources of income
for the Cuban economy.
Castro’s decision to tie the island’s economy to the Soviet Union and other Council
for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) states intensified the economy’s traditional
dependence on sugar and left it unprepared to compete in world markets. The CMEA’s
extremely favorable prices for Cuban sugar (up to three times the international market
price) led the Castro government to concentrate its economic resources on the sugar
industry, which became overly dependent on imported inputs, inefficient in its production techniques, overly reliant on obsolete Soviet technology, and lacking in the
industrial linkages necessary for the development of small-scale domestic suppliers.12
After losing its major foreign market following the disappearance of the CMEA,
and without the ability to compete in the remaining world markets, Cuba was forced
to cut back its sugar production from about eight million tons in 1989 to under four
million tons in 2000. In 2003, Cuba’s sugar harvest of two million was the lowest in
70 years. One-third of Cuba’s sugar mills had to close on a permanent basis and tens
of thousands of workers were retired or retrained for other jobs.13 Raúl’s government,
therefore, will be faced with the difficult choice of having to decide whether it can
modernize the sugar industry so that it can compete internationally—which will require heavy infrastructure investments—or further downsize the industry in order to
concentrate scarce capital and resources in other areas of the economy.
Beginning in the 1990s, the Cuban government has sought alternative sources
for hard-currency exports in the tourist, nickel, and tobacco industries. More recently,
the discovery of petroleum reserves in Cuban territorial waters offers potential development and export earnings prospects. However, oil exploration and production will
require significant foreign capital, the owners of which may be reluctant to invest in
such enterprises without protection of their property rights, predictable and enforceable
contract law, and some assurance that the government will not change the rules of the
game in midstream. Cuba’s government must also be prepared to modify its employment policies and allow foreign investors to earn a return on their investments.
Although the Castro regime has pursued a series of half-measures toward these
ends, it has done so more out of necessity than choice. For example, it has pursued
foreign capital but only on its own terms. It has closed sugar mills and cut back sugar
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Edward Gonzalez and Kevin F. McCarthy
production but it has been reluctant to terminate dislocated employees and perform the
needed restructuring of the sugar industry. It has legalized self-employment but sharply
limited who can qualify and substantially restricted self-employed enterprises. In sum,
although the regime has recognized the need for change, it has also been unwilling to
allow economic necessities to interfere with its ideological and political goals. Whether
Raúl will or can change economic course and become Cuba’s equivalent of China’s
Deng Xiaoping remains to be seen.
A Timeline for What May Happen After Castro’s Departure
36
Based on the foregoing analysis, the following developments are likely for Cuba in the
short term (within 12 months) and the medium term (12−24 months) after Fidel’s
demise. These predictions rest on the assumption that Raúl will outlive his ailing brother
and assume power upon the latter’s death or incapacitation.
First, in the short term, a Raúl-led regime will be able to carry out a relatively
smooth political succession because of its initial leadership cohesion and effective security
apparatus, and because political opposition is likely to remain anemic.
Second, due to reasons of health and pragmatic leadership style, Raúl will probably share power with trusted confidants. He could, for example, remain first secretary
of the Communist Party or minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, while others
could assume the presidency of the Council of Ministers and the Council of State.
Third, regardless of whether Raul’s rule becomes a transitional one, given his
age and poor health it is very unlikely that there will be a democratic transition from
below in the short or even medium term, due to the embryonic state of civil society,
the effectiveness of the state’s repressive control apparatus, and the regime’s authoritarian mindset.
Fourth, the passing of the revolution’s charismatic leader will deprive Raúl’s regime of intrinsic popular legitimacy. Thus it will have perhaps as little as 12 months to
legitimize itself by meeting the Cuban people’s expectations for improving their lives
and giving them hope for a better future.
Fifth, to stimulate economic growth and meet consumer demands, the regime
will adopt some variant of the Chinese model, which combines political authoritarianism with elements of a market economy, including the expansion of Cuba’s private
microenterprises, service establishments, and small farms.
Sixth, the adoption of the Chinese model could lead to factional in-fighting if
hard-line fidelista leaders (such as Ramón Balaguer, José Ramón Machado Ventura,
Estéban Lazo, and Felipe Pérez Roque) oppose reform as a betrayal of Cuban socialism. Their opposition, in turn, will resonate with those sectors of the population who
depend on state employment and largesse—principally party members, government
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Cuba’s Uncertain Future after Fidel
workers, military personnel, state enterprise workers, and pensioners. These internal
regime schisms could deepen further if the new economic course espoused by Raúl and
more liberal reformers does not produce quick, visible results.
Seventh, the benefits of improving the living conditions of ordinary Cubans—easing consumer goods and food shortages, etc.—that could come from adopting the
Chinese model will take more than a year or two to be realized, due to decades of
economic mismanagement, bureaucratic centralization and inertia, institutional corruption, an obsolete infrastructure, and agricultural and industrial underdevelopment.
Hence, the regime’s attempt to legitimize itself could prove elusive.
Eighth, without improvements in economic conditions within the short to
medium term, social tensions and political opposition to Raúl’s regime are likely to
grow, perhaps setting the stage for a Tiananmen Square–like confrontation between
urban sectors of the population and the regime. In addition, if the Communist Party
and the Ministry of Interior’s control apparatus are unable to contain the unrest, then
the Revolutionary Armed Forces are likely to step in, reminiscent of the Polish army’s
takeover under General Wojciech Jaruzelski in 1981­­­–1989.
In sum, when the timeline for Raúl’s succession is extended beyond the short
term, it is currently premature to say that the successor regime will be able to manage
Fidel’s passing without much threat to its survival strikes. This conclusion, in turn, has
implications for U.S. policy.
Preparing for a Cuba without Castro
The imminence of Castro’s demise is intensifying the demands inside and outside
Congress for increased political and economic engagement in order to deal with Raúl’s
successor regime––a position advocated by Sweig in her Foreign Affairs article. Originally
the domain of leftists and liberals, the domestic coalition supporting this change has
now been broadened to include conservative strategists, as well as business, agricultural,
and oil interests who stand to gain by restoring U.S. economic relations with Cuba.
The momentum for engagement has increased with the Democrats’ assumption
of control of the U.S. Congress, and the weakening of George W. Bush’s presidency as
a result of the war in Iraq. His Cuba policy has also lost support among many CubanAmericans, who are bitterly opposed to the administration’s tightened restrictions on
travel to Cuba for the purpose of family visits. Meanwhile, the president’s objective of
achieving the ouster of the two Castro brothers before he leaves office in January 2009
is likely to be only half-fulfilled, since Raúl will surely assume power after Fidel is gone
unless he too dies or becomes incapacitated.
From this analysis, it is evident that both camps in the emerging Cuba debate are
wrong. Whereas the White House appears to be pursuing an unattainable policy goal,
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Edward Gonzalez and Kevin F. McCarthy
critics of U.S. policy are naïve in arguing that a policy of engagement—the first step
of which would be the lifting of the embargo and travel ban—would lead to desired
changes in Cuba. As evidence to the contrary, European and Canadian investments
and millions of tourists have not resulted in a more liberalized, less repressive Cuban
regime over the past decade and a half. Nor has the Chinese model led Beijing to adopt
democratic capitalism or champion the cause of human rights.
Ultimately, the debate over U.S. policy towards Cuba after Castro will not be
settled here or in other academic and policy journals. Instead, we propose that the
president, in consultation with Congress, appoint a bipartisan national commission on
Cuba. Models for such a commission might be the Kissinger Commission on Central
America or the more recent Iraq Study Group, both of which were truly bipartisan
bodies. Both solicited expert advice, sought common ground in a contentious political climate, and recommended policy changes or initiatives that would advance U.S.
interests rather than more narrow agendas or the special interests of political and business groups. Establishing a similar commission on post Fidel Cuba should be the first
step in determining future U.S. policy towards Raúl’s regime. W
A
Notes
38
1. Julia E. Sweig, “Fidel’s Final Victory,” Foreign Affairs 86, no. 1 (January/February 2007): 39−56,
with specific reference to 39, 43.
2. José Latour, Postcommunist Cuba Postcomunista (Charleston, SC: BookSurge, LLC, 2005), 156.
3. Jorge Pérez-López, “Waiting for Godot: Cuba’s Stalled Reforms and Continguing Economic Crisis,” Problems of Post-Communism 48, no. 6 (November/December 2001): 44−45. According to outside
economists like Pérez-López, the actual drop in Cuba’s gross domestic product (GDP) may even have
been greater than official figures show due to the discredited communist methodological approach used
by the Castro government in calculating Cuba’s national accounts.
4. Inaugurated in August 1990, the “Special Period in a Time of Peace” not only saw severe cutbacks
in food rations and consumer goods, but also chronic power shortages, replacement of public buses by
bicycles and horse-drawn carts, a deterioration in public health and medical care, and the downsizing of
bloated state enterprises, among other things. Although some of these problems have eased in recent years
because of the infusion of foreign investments and tourist dollars, and Venezuela’s subsidized oil shipments,
the Special Period still remains in effect.
5. Sweig, “Fidel’s Final Victory,” 39.
6. A more complete discussion of these problems can be found in Edward Gonzalez and Kevin F. McCarthy, eds., Cuba After Castro: Legacies, Challenges and Impediments (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2004).
7. As with the Eastern bloc countries prior to 1989, “normal” in Castro’s Cuba means less fear of running afoul of the all-powerful state, more sense of trust in confiding to one’s relatives and friends, less
mandatory participation in political and economic mobilizations, more stability and predictability in one’s
life, greater government and societal tolerance for individual expression and initiative, and easy access to
more plentiful goods and services, to name some of the things that have been absent from Cuban society
since the revolution assumed its totalitarian character beginning in the mid-1960s.
8. For a fuller discussion of the Castro regime’s efforts to mold Cuban youth according to an idealized
image, and its successes and failures in achieving that political objective, see Damian J. Fernández, “The
Politics of Youth in Cuba: Patterns, Dynamics, and Future Challenges,” in Cuba After Castro: Legacies,
Challenges and Impediments, ed. Edward Gonzalez and Kevin F. McCarthy (Santa Monica, CA: RAND,
the brown journal of world affairs
Cuba’s Uncertain Future after Fidel
2004).
9. It became common knowledge that some ranking members of the regime, including Fidel himself,
reacted bitterly to the participation of so many Afro-Cubans in the riots. According to one U.S. academic
who had access to the regime, and whose identify cannot be revealed, these officials condemned the
participants as “ingratiates” due to the fact that Afro-Cubans had been among the major beneficiaries of
the revolution after 1959.
10. See Kevin F. McCarthy, “Cuba’s Demographic Future and Its Implications,” in Cuba After Castro:
Legacies, Challenges and Impediments, ed. Edward Gonzalez and Kevin F. McCarthy (Santa Monica, CA:
RAND, 2004).
11. See Carmelo Mesa-Lago, “The Slowdown of the Cuban Economy in 2001 and 2002: External Causes
or Domestic Malaise?” (occasional paper, Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, University
of Miami, March 2003) and Carmelo Mesa-Lago, “Growing Economic and Social Disparities in Cuba:
Impact and Recommendations for Change” (paper, Cuba Transition Project, Institute for Cuban and
Cuban-American Studies, University of Miami, 2003).
12. See Jorge F. Perez-Lopez, “The Cuban Sugar Industry After the Transition,” in Cuba After Castro:
Legacies, Challenges and Impediments, ed. Edward Gonzalez and Kevin F. McCarthy (Santa Monica, CA:
RAND, 2004).
13. Ibid.
39
Fall/Winter 2007 • volume xiv, issue 1
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LTERNATIVES
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