Despite increasing economic distress and political unrest, Cuba's caudillo stubbornly clings to power. Roger Fontaine is a diplomatic correspondent for Report from America, a Washington, D.C.-based news service. The glory may be fading, but Fidel Castro, now 67, is tenaciously holding onto power.
He may be an anachronism. Who else would tell the world with a straight face that socialism will make a comeback and capitalism is experiencing a complete crisis? But Fidel Castro still runs Cuba with an iron fist.
It was not supposed to be that way. When communist regimes began to crumble in the autumn of 1989, speculation about Castro's fall became the table talk of Cuba watchers. After the sudden, surprising, and violent demise of Romanian tyrant Nicolae Ceausescu over Christmas of that year, Castro's swift end became a near certainty. Many observers thought it would be only months. The more cautious suggested two years.
Yet more than four years have passed, and the Cuban caudillo remains in place. How can this be, particularly since Cuba continues in crisis despite the modest program of economic (but not political) reforms adopted last summer?
Cuba in the Castro era always had a grossly mismanaged economy. Not only did it have all the disadvantages of a Soviet-style command economy, but the economy was also micro-managed from the top by an erratic leader who fancied himself an instant expert on almost anything his mind touched.
While, for example, Mao Zedong engaged in one or two bizarre economic experiments like the Great Leap Forward, Castro launched dozens of them. Whether it was dictating that Cuba must harvest 10 million tons of sugar or the breeding of a Super Cow or making Cuba a leading exporter of biomedical products, the Maximum Leader's brainstorms have invariably led to costly, dislocating failure.
The Soviet Union's collapse, in fact, did bring Cuba to its present sorry state, euphemistically styled the Special Period in Time of Peace. Until 1991, Cuba survived, albeit at minimal levels, because Moscow was willing to subsidize Havana at the equivalent of $5 billion a year. No one is certain, but the total amount of this 30-plus years' worth of aid may have run as high as $300 billion when military supplies and technical assistance are included. By 1992, however, the largess had come to an abrupt halt.
The Russian government no longer provides at discount virtually all of Cuba's oil, capital goods, spare parts, industrial raw materials, food, and consumer products. Nor does it purchase Cuba's exports--sugar, nickel, citrus--at
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