By Francisco J. Diaz Pou
Regional perspective and social decay
Cuba is currently facing a very serious economic and social crisis. To better understand the gravity of this situation, it is important to compare its condition with that of other neighboring countries in the Caribbean Basin.
A review of information collected by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) offers a balanced perspective on how the region is faring as of 2025. This comparison helps provide context for Cuba’s crisis within the broader regional trends.
The economic and social decline experienced by Cuba over sixty years of the Castro regime is palpable. In the economic sphere, the country went from occupying a leading position in the region to ranking fourteenth, according to the ECLAC study, with a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) lower than that of Haiti, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Honduras, and the Bahamas. In contrast, the Dominican Republic’s economy was eleven times larger than Cuba’s in the same study.
Analyzing the GDP per capita of the seventeen countries that make up the region, Cuba ranks last, with a value at current prices of $1,009 per inhabitant. Haiti’s per capita GDP at current prices is $2,756. The data compiled by ECLAC, an agency linked to the United Nations, reflect the magnitude of the economic and social disaster resulting from the absolute control exercised by the Castro family over the Cuban people.
Upon examining the crisis caused by Castroism in Cuba, we wonder: How is it possible that this has been occurring for almost seven decades?
To summarize the many elements that have converged to create this complex situation, let’s divide the analysis into two parts. One is the internal situation, and the other is the external factors that made it possible for the Castro family to remain exercising full power over Cuban society.
Internal situation
In republican Cuba, both in practice and in the popular imagination, political disputes were frequently settled through some form of armed struggle. Thus, resorting to armed violence became a recurring way to channel opposition to power, and Castroism was no exception to this phenomenon.
Fulgencio Batista’s sudden flight from Cuba on January 1, 1959, produced a significant political vacuum in the nation. This want of leadership and guidance was rapidly capitalized on by Fidel Castro and his supporters. This occurrence was not a standalone event, but the clear outcome of a political crisis that had been impacting the Cuban leadership for some time.
The terror campaign implemented by the Castro regime as soon as it seized control of the country unleashed a massive exodus of the business, professional, merchant, and intellectual sectors. The exit of these fundamental groups caused a notable impoverishment of Cuban society, eliminating a large part of its human capital and weakening the country’s social and economic structure.
The inability to organize an effective, nationwide opposition in Cuba has been directly linked to the systematic exercise of state terrorism by the Castro regime. From the moment Castroism consolidated its control, the population has been subjected to an environment of permanent fear. This fear manifests itself through repression, constant surveillance, and the threat of severe consequences for those who attempt to challenge the authority of the state. Thus, the fear and control exerted over Cuban society have perpetuated the absolute dominance of Castroism, leaving the population without the space or resources to articulate a viable political alternative.
External factors that have contributed to the permanence of Castroism
The existence of a marked bipolarity in the world after World War II, which lasted for seven decades, was decisive for the longevity of the Castro regime. The so-called Cold War was characterized by the Containment Policy, pursued by the United States, and the Expansion Policy, promoted by the Soviet Union. The global application of these strategies generated spheres of influence and areas of friction between the two poles, directly affecting the course of events in Cuba.
The Containment Policy
The United States maintained a policy of Benign Neglect in its relations with Latin America and the Caribbean. The attention of power circles in Washington was focused on Europe and the Pacific Rim, which allowed a segment of the so-called Centennial Generation, with its radical and gangster-like tendencies, to assume control of Cuba due to the governance crisis caused by the mistakes of their predecessors, the Generation of 1933.
The new regime established in January 1959 was clearly personalistic, centered on the figure of Fidel Castro, a young lawyer of thirty-three with no legal or administrative experience, much less in government. In fact, he had never practiced law continuously in a law firm or in a public or private company. Raúl Castro, for his part, had not even finished high school. As is customary in these cases, the research centers in Washington carried out an exhaustive analysis of Fidel Castro’s personality and the way he operated with the rest of his government team.
In 1959, the Castro brothers, confronted with the option of honoring their pledges to restore the liberal democratic system that existed before the coup which returned Fulgencio Batista to power, decided to implement a totalitarian model. To achieve their aim, they integrated Cuba into the dynamics of the Cold War, situating it in a friction area like the then-perennial Berlin crisis.
When the Castros began to shift Cuba from the American sphere of influence to the Soviet one, Washington abandoned the policy of Benign Neglect and adopted the policy of Containment, in force against the Soviet Bloc.
After the 1962 Missile Crisis, US policy gravitated towards reinforcing the Containment Policy, known among Cuban exiles as the «showcase policy.» This policy was based on the premise that the Castros were incapable of fostering a model of government that would permit the continued development of the modernization process of Cuban society and that the modus operandi they were employing would bring about the country’s ruin.
By the end of 1959, most of the Council of Ministers and other key figures in the regime’s cabinet had been replaced by people with little experience and technical training, whose only merit was their unwavering loyalty to the Supreme Leader.
An emblematic case was the departure of Felipe Pazos from the Presidency of the National Bank of Cuba, who was replaced by Ernesto «Che» Guevara, an Argentine adventurer with no formal economic training who met the Castros in Mexico after wandering through various Latin American countries following the completion of his medical studies in his native Argentina. Pazos had participated, as a member of the Cuban delegation, in the Bretton Woods Conference. He later served as the International Monetary Fund’s chief economist for Latin America before returning to Cuba to establish the National Bank of Cuba [Central Bank].
The Castro brothers withdrew Cuba from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and declined to participate in the creation of the Inter-American Development Bank. Decades later, Cuba remains the only country in the Americas without access to these sources of financing and technical assistance, hindering its economic development and modernization. This isolation, imposed by Fidel Castro before the severing of diplomatic relations with the United States and other countries in the region, has shaped Cuba’s economic future to this day.
On the other hand, the Containment policy adopted by the United States toward the Cuban regime consists of maintaining constant vigilance and waiting for internal conditions in the country to eventually lead to change, rather than intervening directly. The aim is for the regime’s own erosion, resulting from its own contradictions and limitations, to foster a future transformation in Cuba.
The Soviet/Russian Expansion Policy and Cuba
During Joseph Stalin’s long and violent rule, the Soviet Union (USSR) pursued a policy aimed at consolidating «spheres of influence,» thereby maintaining its hegemony over vast areas of Eurasia that had initially been controlled by the Tsarist empire in the 19th century. Although the Soviet presence was manifested in other parts of the world primarily through communist parties and movements, the Stalinist vision considered Latin America to be within the sphere of influence of the United States. Therefore, during this period, the USSR did not seek a direct presence in the region, respecting the distribution of power that emerged after World War II.
When the Castro brothers began their overtures to the Soviet Bloc, both the Soviet Foreign Ministry and the Soviet Communist Party expressed misgivings. They feared that these attempts at rapprochement were a possible trap set by anti-Soviet elements within the U.S. government, whose objective would be to undermine the policy of peaceful coexistence. For this reason, in 1959, they rejected the Castros’ initial requests to obtain armaments via Poland.
With Nikita Khrushchev’s rise to power as Stalin’s successor, the USSR faced constant criticism from the Chinese communist regime, which accused it of weakening the global socialist movement through its policy of «peaceful coexistence» with the United States and the Western bloc. Khrushchev seized upon Fidel Castro’s rise to power in 1959 to reorient the Soviet doctrine of expansion: he decided to support the so-called «liberation movements» in the Third World, seeking to neutralize China’s attacks and strengthen the USSR’s international presence.
Fidel Castro, aware of this international situation, accelerated Cuba’s integration into the Soviet sphere of influence in late 1959. Subsequently, Khrushchev made the decision to install missiles in Cuba, with the enthusiastic support of the Castro brothers. This action provoked the biggest crisis of the Cold War and jeopardized Cuba’s very existence, as the confrontation could have led to the island’s destruction. After the crisis was resolved, Khrushchev was removed from office, held responsible for the imprudence that brought the USSR to the brink of nuclear confrontation with the United States. From that moment on, the USSR, and later the Russian Federation, have maintained Cuba as one of their «friction zones» in their relations with the U.S.
The end of an era
The ongoing economic and social crisis in Cuba is a direct manifestation of the limitations and failures inherent in the Castro regime’s model of governance. The regime’s approach, characterized by personalist leadership concentrated within the Castro family, points to the inability of this system to endure beyond its founding figures. The lack of competent successors and the sweeping changes occurring on the global stage further undermine the regime’s stability and prospects for continuity. One of the most significant consequences of Cuba’s removal from the liberal democratic system has been the marginalization of its population. This isolation has severely limited the country’s capacity to achieve sustained economic and social development.
A substantial portion of the emerging generation of left-leaning politicians in Latin America has distanced itself from Castroism as a blueprint for attaining power. The change is largely attributed to the ongoing economic and social crisis within Cuba, which has highlighted the shortcomings of Castroism. The inability of the regime to ensure lasting development and prosperity for the Cuban people has led to a reassessment of its relevance and viability as a model for governance.
Due to the Ukraine war, Russia’s military strength is diminishing, leading to a tangible reduction in its capacity to project force internationally. Moreover, the Russian Federation is facing an economic crisis that jeopardizes its future.
Since their inception by the Castro family, the Armed Forces have contributed to transforming the nation into an instrument of the foreign policy of the defunct Soviet Union and later the Russian Federation. The pro-Russian military faction, which has sustained the regime through military counterintelligence, is weakening because Russia cannot provide the resources to overcome the current crisis.
The only option for the Cuban military leadership is to adopt the path used by the Polish military to pull their country out of the endemic crisis it suffered in the 1980s. The last leader of the Polish People’s Army and the Communist Party of Poland, Wojciech Jaruzelski, after several attempts at reforming the system that failed to produce the desired results and faced with the severity of the economic and social crisis, initiated a process of democratizing the structures of government. This process culminated in the dismantling of the Polish People’s Republic and the elimination of the hegemonic power that Russia had exercised over the country for a significant part of its history.
Jaruzelski, having fought in the Soviet Army since his twenties during World War II, prioritized the interests of the Polish people over his personal and partisan interests. Eventually, following a modernization of government structures, Poland joined the European Union, establishing itself as the leading nation in Eastern Europe.
The Cuban military leadership has no justification at all for keeping the Cuban people in misery when the path to modernity is open to reintegrate the country into its rightful place within the political and economic structures of the Western world.