Cuban Revolution: Will it Lead

¶ … Cuban Revolution: Will it lead to capitalism, after Castro's assumed and expected demise?

Despite what a casual observer might assume, there has been opposition as well as approval from notable sectors within Cuban society, regarding the retraction of the Cuban communist revolution and an expansion of capitalist reform after Fidel Castro's much-anticipated death. Environmentally, because Castro attempted to divert land from sugar production into the production of food crops, making Cuba initially less reliant on food imports, there still is a great deal of loyalty to the collective farming ideal within Cuban society. (Proyect, 2004) Capitalist farming techniques are associated with oppressive schemas of class stratification, rather than with providing potential benefits to the Cuban population. Moreover, because Cuba has been insulated from global agricultural competition as the result of the embargo and long-standing subsidizes from the communist world, there is an additional fear that economic liberalization could prove troubling and even famine inducing to the agricultural sector of Cuba.

From a feminist perspective, it is also feared that capitalist economic liberalism will result in an infusion of 'machismo' into social as well economic sectors. Cuban feminists have noted that after the communist revolution of the 1950's, many formerly closed sectors of industry now see the highest percentage of female employment, including textiles, beverages, tobacco, chemicals, food and graphic arts. (Max Azicri, "International Journal of Women's Studies," Vol. 2, No. 1, 1981).

Additionally, Cuba's agricultural peasant and urban labor sectors fear the competition of the international capitalist marketplace will result in encroachments upon their benefits and lower wages, and cause them to suffer most harshly from any setbacks the Cuban economy faces in a transition to a more capitalist form of governance. The minority population of Cuba also fears the racism of the white, more American-connected and thus potentially more affluent Caucasian population. In Cuba today, more blacks as a percentage of the population own their homes in Cuba than in any country in the world according to Lourdes Casal ("The Position of Blacks in Brazilian and Cuba Society," Minority Rights Group Report No. 7, pp. 11-27)

This fear of increased racism is echoed in the voices of the indigenous population as well. They fear a potential backlash against Indians by descendants of Spanish colonialists. There has even been a religious element to the protest against capitalism. Despite again, the common expectation of an outside observer that a new infusion of capitalism would favor religion, since capitalism deems religion, in Marx's words, the opiate of the masses, in fact religion in Latin America has usually offered voice, through liberation theology to the descamidas, or shirtless ones, rather than to the affluent. Although a Catholic religious influence stresses the need to end official state atheism, it does not necessarily see capitalism as the solution to Cuban social problems.