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And the Russians Stayed: The Sovietization of Cuba : A Personal Portrait

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Carbonell, Nestor T. 1989 And the Russians Stayed: The Sovietization of Cuba: A Personal Portrait. William Morrow & Co; New York ISBN-10 0688072135 ISBN-13: 978-0688072131

The strength of this history is its attention to detail and its rejection of academic theories which erroneously postulate an indigenous nature of the communist takeover of Cuba. One notes that such academic theories are generally proposed by non-Cuban scholars who with some reprehensible frequency accept the official Cuban government history of this matter in exchange for edited access to archives in Cuba. The balancing and correcting factor and the strength of this work is the author's personal experience in Cuba, and his deep knowledge of the Cuban condition. For instance, this is one of the few books that document the role of Fabio Grobart, the Stalinist éminence gris, and his machinations that guided Fidel Castro in his take over of Cuba. This diminishes Castro from a genius of evil to the role of a "chosen one;" however, to do otherwise as so many other authors do is to give this now dying leader improbable superhuman qualities and uncanny prescience. One quibble is the characterization of the Güajiro, the proud independent Cuban country folk, as peasants, when in reality their willingness to do battle and their skill in war makes them far more akin to English Yeoman than to downtrodden country laborers; and thus making this culture far more important than is generally viewed in the military history of Cuba.

I enjoyed this book as much as a Tom Clancy novel or a JFK conspiracy story. I couldn't put it down. It revealed interesting details regarding Castro's regime and events surrounding the revolution, the Bay of Pigs Invasion, and the Cuban missle crisis. The author discusses facts about Cuba that you never hear about (outside of Miami's Cuban community). I think it could make a great movie.

I recently finished this higly informative book. I did not realize how deeply involved the Soviets were in the takeover and subsequent militarization of Cuba. The work is written with the passion of a man personally involved who deeply loves his country. It would be good to see a follow-up analysis in the years since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Why does the regime seem to be able to hang on? What effect did the visit of Pope John Paul II have on the island? I recommend this book to be read along with "Against All Hope" by Armando Valladares.

One day La Patria will be free.. This book exposes the regime from the start, how a psychopath like fidel took advantage of a situation, and how he was and is a utter failure. People who think Batista was as bad, fidel is worst, Sadly Cuba went from one Dictatorship with some trouble to Another Dictatorship more vicious with a true tyrant.

This book is typical of the hysterical/emotional view the exiles in Miami have of Cuba after 1959. They always fail to acknowledge reality. The first reality is that these exiles had no problem with Cuba under American economic domination. Prior to 1960, 66% of all Cuban imports were from the USA. Between 1930-59 the Cuban economy was in a sustained period of economic stagnation with few engineers, few school teachers and few technicians of any description. The US preferential market for imports of Cuban sugar had failed to grow thus causing the economic stagnation. The author needs to consult four independent sources here (i) The World Bank 1952 "Report on Cuba." It really makes for interesting reading; (2) James O'Connor "The Origins of Socialism in Cuba" (3) G.B Hagelberg The Carribbean Sugar Industries: Constraints and Opportunities" Yale University Press 1974; (4) The UK Board of Trade Overseas Economic Survey: "Cuba: Economic and Commercial Conditions in Cuba" London 1954. This last publication recommended Batista adopt an aggressive policy to diversify the economy and build an import replacement industrial base. These reports stated clearly that Cuba was going nowhere. Batista attempted some type of industrialistaion strategy but cutting US exports to the island was too difficult and it came to nothing. Cuba was firmly under the yoke of US economic and social imperialism. Moreover modernisation investment in the island's biggest industry sugar was low, the mills were old and worn down, and most important of all sugar cane cutting which employed 370,000 professional cutters was completely done by hand. Unemployment peaked during the "dead season" at at least 20% according to official statistics but the actual rate was probably much higher. Does the exile community really want Cuba to return to this?
After 1959, much changed. After a brief period of import replacement industrial development, severe Balance of Payments problems arose causing the develoment of the 10 million ton zafra. Exports had to be expanded in order to fund Soviet Bloc and Western imports. The Soviet Bloc and some Western countries e.g Japan (a net sugar importer), provided sufficient market growth for Cuban sugar exports to gardually expand and fund necessary imports especially of raw materials, oil, and machinery. Growth was slow but Castro decreed that Cuba would now make an historic technological breakthrough: Sugar cane cutting was to become mechanised for the first time in Cuba's history. This was a sustained struggle and in fact Cuba through developing several prototype cane cutting machines developed the Claas Libertadora which unfortunately was too technologically complex for Cuban industry to manufacture at that time. Cuba in effect could not commercially capitalise on what was a very successful basic design. The Cuban patents were sold to the West German Agricultural Machinery Company Claas Machinenfabric in 1970-1 who then began widespread production and export of the Claas Libertadora, a highly successful basic Cuban engineering design. These cane cutting machines are exported to of all places Florida. The exiles are unaware of this irony. Do the exiles want Cuba to become industrialised and mechanised or do they want Cuba to return to the reality of economic and social backwardness as exists in most of the countries around Cuba?
During 1971-5 the Cuban economy boomed allowing Cuba to import Massey Ferguson cane harvesting machines from Australia. The Cubans pulled these machines apart, discovered some technological knowledge suitable for themselves and with Soviet designed plants they actually began domestic production of the KTP cane harvesters, a more simplified version than the Claas Libertadora but effective nonetheless. By the 1980-5 Plan, about 70% of Cuban cane cutting was now done by machines, whilst 70% of the component parts were Cuban made, thus constituting a true technological and industrial revolution for the Cuban economy. The development in producing agricultural machinery allowed Cuba to spawn new industries such as the Taino truck an agricultural truck used for transport, computer software, various machine tools for the sugar mills, sugar by products, radar and military equipment, light foodstuffs and tabacco products, and an important bio medical and bio technolgy sector which even US Conglomerates are intersted in investing in. Cuba has trained thousands of engineers and scientists and has countless numbers of trained doctors for both the domestic population and for export to neighbouring underdeveloped countries such as Haiti, Ecuador, Venezuela and Brazil. This has been the end result of years of structurally transforming Cuba into an industrial, technological economy through Soviet Planning techniques modified by available export revenues with wich to fulfill investment plans and complete factories.
The exile community long for a return to the days prior to 1959 without looking at reality. Cuba has also achieved outstanding Olympic and World Championship Sporting success yet this is continually ignored or targeted by the exiles for sabotage. Cuba's central economic problem is not so much ideological: rather the problem is how to convert its internal economic transformation, largely due to Soviet industrialisation strategies and economic planning, into new exports which have a higher income elasticity of demand than sugar and agricultural products and thus allow for new sources of employment and per capita income growth. Yet anyone seriously interested in Cuba's future and growth potential must recognise that in an economy so export dependent for dynamism and growth, the true concern lay with the country's export base and not its ideological position.