One hundred twenty-five thousand Cubans left the island on a flotilla of privately chartered vessels from May to September 1980. Emigration, which had been quite low since the early 1970s, was spurred by both socioeconomic and political discontent. Certainly the housing crisis was a major contributor since, by 1980, the housing deficit nationwide stood at approximately 1.5 million units.

The housing crisis was most severe in Havana where:

In 1978, the administrator of the city of Havana estimated that 250,000 dwelling units (50 percent of the total) were in need of repair and that, of these, 30,000 were propped up by beams and 40,000 were declared uninhabitable.

Thus in an effort, once again, to export discontent, Castro announced on April 20, 1980, that Cubans wishing to emigrate to the United States were free to leave from the port of Mariel on the outskirts of Havana. As a result, the capital lost more than five percent of its population.

The large outflow of Mariel migrants had some positive affect on the city. It relieved pressure on the labor market since many of the emigrants were quite young with 41 percent under twenty-five years of age. It also disposed of some social undesirables.

Researchers at the Center for the Study of the Americas in Havana reported that 45.25 percent of all persons that abandoned Cuba through the port of Mariel had delinquent backgrounds as follows:

• Crimes against property (theft, etc.)
• Dangerous condition*
• Fraud and falsification
• Crimes against the public administration
• Possession and sale of drugs
• Forbidden games
• Crimes against physical integrity
• Crimes against the normal development of sexual relations
• Crimes against the security of the state
• Violations of the public order
• Others.

*According to the Penal Code of Cuba at the time (Law21, Title 11), dangerous condition is the special likelihood that a person will commit crimes in the future, demonstrated by the conduct he or she observes.

Later survey data confirm that the Mariels had less education, were younger, and were more predominantly male than other Cuban emigrants. It has also been suggested that the Mariels had lower labor force attachment and lower occupational attachment than other Cubans.

Havana’s large out-migration over time was considered by some to be a factor in the city’s favor. Most usually, however, the city lost the best and the brightest. As Segre, Coyula, and Scarpaci note:

The annual net gain from migration to the capital is about 11,000 persons, a figure that is almost laughably small considering the situation in other capitals of large cities [sic] in Latin America. Nonetheless, that figure masks the fact that annually 20,000 people leave Havana, many of them young skilled workers, while about 30,000 migrate to Havana, most of them unskilled.

Moreover, inmigration to the capital, along with natural increase, were not sufficient to compensate for population loss. Over the period from 1970-1980, Havana’s growth trends were the reverse of other cities in Latin America and, indeed, in the Third World as a whole.

While urbanists concerned only with issues of urban balance may look at Havana’s low population growth quite favorably, the declining rate of natural increase was a matter of some concern. Since 1978, fertility in Cuba has been below the level necessary to assure long-term replacement of the population. The estimated fertility rate for 1979 was, in fact, the lowest recorded for any developing country and was “comparable to or lower than that characterizing fertility in most developing nations.” Moreover:

. . .  contrary to the situation in China, Costa Rica, Taiwan, Singapore, and other countries undergoing rapid and significant fertility decline, the fertility decline in Cuba took place in the absence of explicit policies to produce that effect.

_____________________________________

Sources:

H. David Card, “The Impact of the Mariel Boatlift on the Miami Labor Market,” Industrial and Labor Relations Review v43 n2 (January 1990): 245-258.

Marifeli Perez-Stable. The Cuban Revolution, Origins, Course, and Legacy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, 150.

Sergio Diaz-Briquets and Lisandro Perez, “Fertility Decline in Cuba: A Socioeconomic Interpretation,” Population and Development Review, Volume 8, Issue 3 (Sept. 1982).

CEDEM1996 (National Office of Statistics). Annual Demographics of the respective years.

Alejandro Portes and Alex Stepick, City on the Edge (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 21.

Roberto Segre, Mario Coyula, and Joseph L. Scarpaci. Havana: Two Faces of the Antillean Metropolis (Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sones, 1997), 169.

Grupo para Desarrollo Integral de la Capital Estrategia (Havana: Grupo para Desarrollo Integral de la Capital, June 1990), 18.

Photo courtesy Florida Keys Public Library. Boat Endeavor brings in Cuban refugees during the Mariel Boatlift in 1980. Photo by Raymond L. Blazevic.

 

2017

Given President Trump’s partial rollback of engagement with Cuba, it seems worthwhile to look back on the schism between the island and its superpower neighbor. But, first, here are a few highlights of the new policy:

• Americans may still travel to Cuba in coming months, but only in groups with travel providers. Individual people-to-people travel will be prohibited.
• Transactions with entities controlled by Cuba’s military will be limited. This restriction encompasses most of the island’s tourism industry, placing limits on US companies seeking to do business in Cuba and restricting where US visitors can eat and stay.
• Embassies and diplomatic channels on a range of key issues are to remain open, but it is likely that the tone of the relationship will change.
• Regulations allowing unlimited remittances to Cuba will stay in play, and there will be no limits on Cuban American travel to visit family on the island.
• It’s probable that US businesses with existing operations in Cuba will still be able to operate on the island. This group includes commercial airlines, cruise lines, cell phone companies, Google, and Marriott’s Starwood Hotels.

Many organizations and businesses from a wide array of sectors have spoken out about the importance of engagement with Cuba. Here are just a few: the US Chamber of Commerce; Marriott; the US Grains Council; the American Association for the Advancement of Science; the American Security Project; Associated Equipment Distributors; TechFreedom; and a coalition of conservative “free market” groups, including Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform.

Lasrly, according to an editorial in the NY Times, restricting the rights of United States citizens to travel and invest in Cuba will cost the American economy $6.6 billion and affect 12,295 American jobs.  Now for the history.

1959

In 1959 the United States was shaken when Fidel Castro’s revolution in nearby Cuba brought the Cold War to its own hemisphere. The US was directly affected economically since at this time Americans owned 50% of Cuba’s public railway system, over 90% of the telephone and power industries, the majority of key manufacturing plants, the largest chain of supermarkets, several large retail stores, and most major tourist facilities. About 25% of all Cuban bank deposits were held by branches of American banks.

Castro’s intent was to overthrow the oppressive dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista whose corrupt and inefficient regime had long been propped up through the support of the United States government.

Castro was joined in his endeavor by diverse elements — from Communists to dignitaries of the Catholic Church.  These divergent social and political forces, along with some members of the business community combined to unseat Batista, thought by many to be a repressive dictator.

Even though the US had also been disillusioned with Batista’s leadership, the superpower had provided $10 million in military assistance to the Cuban government in the eight years prior to the revolution. Arms shipments were finally suspended in March 1958.

Despite America’s formal position of neutrality, in actuality, the arms suspension was of great benefit to Castro’s rebels. On the other hand, the US refused to recall the military advisers who were assisting the Cuban Air Force, engaged at the time in the bombing of Cuban dissidents.

American policy managed to alienate both sides, weakening Batista’s forces at the same time that it incited Castro’s anger.

While it is impossible to know for sure what caused the lasting enmity between Castro and the American government, Cuba’s nationalization of US petroleum properties and Eisenhower’s economic sanctions — including the elimination of Cuba from the US sugar quota — led Castro to turn to the Soviet Union for assistance.

Although the Soviet response was initially hesitant and carefully measured, the USSR soon acquiesced. One must assume that they were seduced by the opportunity to obtain a foothold only 90 miles from the Florida shores as well as by a desire to alter the strategic balance of power between the two superpowers.

Cuba, in fact, was geographically  invaluable.

Moscow was soon able to establish an intelligence center for the  monitoring of US missile range activities in Florida and Texas, and Cuba was also used as a tracking station for Soviet space shots.

1960

By July 1960 the relationship was well established.

Equipment from the Soviet Union soon poured into the island nation, totaling $50 million by the end of 1960. Deliveries included MIG jet fighters, helicopters, tanks, rocket launchers, and various assault and heavy machine guns. Soviet and Czech advisers also arrived.

Castro declared himself a Marxist-Leninist in December 1961. The Soviets saw this announcement as an example of metamorphosis from a national bourgeois leader to a revolutionary democrat. Castro’s rationale may have been more pragmatic. Like Mao, he was aware that he needed to have strong superpower support to consolidate his revolution.

Meanwhile, the United States passed through the predictable phases of disenchantment with Castro, warnings about him, and — finally — scheming against him. America’s diplomatic relations with Cuba were severed in January 1961.

Many Cubans also reacted negatively. From 1959 – 1962, a steady stream of officials from the deposed Batista regime, along with other professionals and technicians opposed to the revolution, left the island.

Many of these individuals subsequently comprised the core group of 1,400 invaders who were involved in a rebellion against Castro, modeled on successful strategies of  covert action employed by the US government in Iran in 1953 and Guatemala in 1954.

Masquerading as Cuban Air Force defectors, the group of exiles was organized and trained by the Central Intelligence Agency, and used American B-26 bombers to carry out their surprise air strike.

1961

Planned during the final months of the Eisenhower administration, the operation was carried out by President Kennedy in April 1961 with invasion forces landing in the area of Cuba known as the Bay of Pigs (Castro’s favorite fishing spot).

The CIA expected civilian uprisings, but underestimated how much Castro’s revolution had done to help the local population. As a result, the incursion failed to incite the expected response. Instead, within three days, Castro’s army and militia had killed, captured, or thrown off the entire landing force.

Reaction to the invasion was marked by a wave of anti-American demonstrations across Latin America, and the stoning of US Embassies in Tokyo, New Delhi, and Cairo. Moreover, the defeat came at the same time as a Soviet success, the first manned orbital spaceflight around the earth.

Although the United States found itself in a weakened public position, President Kennedy was bolstered by the emerging knowledge that the purported missile gap between the two superpowers was nonexistent.

Shortly after this information became public, the Soviets began sending missiles and personnel into Cuba.

Photograph by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe

 

Just as the organization of work within the armed forces was restructured so that military units might function more efficiently, the organization of work in various sectors directly affecting the provision  of urban services for the residents of Havana required change. The housing sector, in particular, cried out for attention.

A New Framework

As a precursor to the implementation of formal institutional change, a new framework focusing on a revitalization of popular participation was developed in an attempt to solve the housing problems of the capital.

Havana, you may recall, had been marginalized by the revolutionary housing  policies of the 1960s which had concentrated on the building of new towns outside of the urban area and the ruralization of the city itself. As a consequence, there had been very little new housing construction in the capital and housing demand had largely depended on vacancies left by emigrating Cubans.

Pent-Up Demand for Housing

By 1970, there was substantial pent-up demand for housing as well as for other urban services. In fact, the cash income of habaneros in 1970 was twice the supply of goods and services available, a problem that, of course, affected housing policy.

In addition, the Revolutionary Offensive of 1968 which eliminated most of the capital’s remaining small business had resulted in the

unintended outcome of deteriorating the quality of the city’s major centers. This occurred when local commercial establishments were readapted as housing units, almost always of an improvised nature and of very low quality. With this came problems of building maintenance in the central areas as well as a dearth of a variety in products and services. (Segre, Coyula, and Scarpaci, Havana: Two Faces of the Antillean Metropolis, p.151.)

Havana’s dire housing situation was exacerbated, according to one expert, by the same problems that stimulated institutional change:

The biggest obstacle to expanding housing production was what appeared to be an acute labor shortage — a shortage that, in fact, was due more to the sharp drop in productivity and increased worker absenteeism in the 1960s. (Jill Hamburg, “The Dynamics of Cuban Housing Policy,” Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1994, p. 598.)

Voluntary Work: The Microbrigade System

On the other hand, residents had shown their willingness to engage in voluntary work, including housing, organized through the CDRs. These factors stimulated the creation of the “microbrigade system” in late 1970. Teams of 20 to 35 individuals were created, consisting of workers from a specific workplace who labored full time on a particular project while their coworkers covered their everyday duties so that productivity would not decrease. On weekends, all workers decided which of their fellow employees should receive the completed units.

Need -Based

Since housing assignment was based on need and not on job performance, those laboring in the brigades did not necessarily receive a home. Workplace teams were augmented by skilled workers and technicians supplied by the Ministry of Construction which also provided building materials, land, and equipment.

Problems of Bureaucratization

The microbrigade system was designed to contribute to the provision of new housing, but it was also an attempt to solve severe problems of bureaucratization caused by an excess of employees in state companies. It was hoped that workplace productivity would increase when fewer workers maintained the same productivity levels, and that productivity would also rise since the distribution of completed housing would be based, in part, on production performance.

In 1971, alone, more than 1,000 workers were assigned to build 1,154 housing units in Place de la Revolucion, Altahabana, Rancho Boyeros, Alamar, Reparto Bahia, San Agustin, and La Coronela: the number of participants and completed units rose steadily until 1975. (By 1971, 12,715 workers made up 444 Microbrigades. By 1975, 30,000 workers constituted 1150 Microbrigades that completed 25,000 housing units in addition to many non-residential (social) projects.)

Havana’s Large Share

Havana received a disproportionately large share of this construction as compensation for previous neglect, and the projects also altered the existing system of suburban expansion whereby spontaneous single dwellings were constructed at the city’s edge. Microbrigade projects, in contrast, were four or five story buildings with 20 to 30 apartments each.

Socialist Housing

The areas mentioned above clustered in three large areas on the outskirts of the city and were located in districts that had a large number of industrial and service-sector workers. These areas included Alamar in East Havana, Altahabana in the south, and San Agustin in the west.

One authority  notes that

these complexes were developed as socialist housing quarters and  are, in fact, larger than those found in socialist eastern European countries.

A second states that the new crop of large scale housing projects on the outskirts of Havana were

characterized by endless rows of four- and five- story walkups in enormous superblocks. Occasional high-rise prefabricated buildings sprang up in a number of provincial capitals and with greater frequency in both central and outlying areas of Havana. (Jill Hamburg, “The Dynamics of Cuban Housing Policy,” Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1994, p. 600.)

Many argue that the units are depressing and that little concern was given to integrating these buildings into the rest of the built environment.

I was told specifically that these developments were constructed on the Soviet model and that they are a type of housing which Cuban planners dislike. Thus, while they were inspired, in part, to counter bureaucratization they reflected  “a deeply engrained bureaucratization of problem solving.” They were also poorly finished with little attention to detail or to technical specifications.

Dogmatism

Housing projects in the early 1970 reflected the dogmatism mentioned earlier. According to Cuban planners:

The Revolutionary government employed rigid institutional structures in architectural projects and cultural life. Varying from the norms or otherwise reinterpreting orders from centralized authority were not permitted . . . . This may explain why urban spaces in Alamar can best be characterized as depressing. Elements of this poor design remain today and can be noted throughout Havana . . . . far removed from the dynamism and lively spirit of Cubans. (Segre, Coyula, and Scarpaci, Havana: Two Faces of the Antillean Metropolis, p.207.)

Photograph by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe

The establishment of the Organs of People’s Power (OPP) and countrywide geographic and political reorganization were especially important to Havana’s future development.

Organs of People’s Power (OPP) were created at three levels: municipal, provincial, and national.

Popularly known as Poder Popular or Popular Power, OPP were

an attempt to decentralize decision-making and advance the process of institutionalization, which in turn was related to economic functions and political organization.

The national OPP (the National Assembly or ‘the supreme organ of state power’) combined constitutional and legislative powers. This body elected the Council of State from among its members, appointed the People’s Supreme Court magistrates and the attorney general, and approved the outlines of domestic and foreign policy, economic plans, and the state budget. It exercised the highest supervision over the organs of state and government.

The lower two levels of the OPP — the provincial and municipal levels — were responsible for municipal and provincial management of services such as schools, day-care centers, hospitals, stores, hotels, restaurants, cinemas, nightclubs, transport, retail trade, housing, public utilities, and sports, as well as ‘some local industries’. These also selected the judges for the corresponding people’s courts.

Delegates to municipal assemblies were elected through secret ballot and multiple candidacy every two and a half years. Municipal assemblies then elected the membership of provincial assemblies and these assemblies, in turn, elected the delegates to the National Assembly.

At least 55% of the delegates to the National Assembly were to be elected in the municipalities. The other 45% were to be selected from a list of candidates proposed by the party leadership.

Some scholars have been highly critical of the OPP, arguing that poder popular was under tight party control. However, in discussions with residents of Havana in June 1997, many took great pride in the opportunity for participation, agreeing that:

At their best, they addressed immediate and concrete issues: local Popular Power allowed the citizenry a voice in the conduct of local affairs, a potential arena for self-government.

Residents noted that even when their voice was to have no impact, as often occurred due to budgetary constraints and conflicting priorities, meetings enabled them to hear presentations from government officials so that they at least understood why certain policies were to be enacted instead of those they deemed preferable. In essence, they agreed that

Popular Power exemplified the politics of Cuban socialism. Local assemblies took public opinion into account more systematically than the politics of mobilization had during the 1960s and enhanced popular involvement in the administration of daily life. They did not, however, bestow upon the population the opportunity — let alone the power — to discuss and decide matters of substance. Their mandate was to supervise the state, not to debate investment policies or resource allocation. Involvement — not substantive participation — was the key characteristic of Popular Power at the local level. Moreover, involvement was to be as individuals, not organized groups.

Many supporters of the Revolution see the institutionalization of the OPP as a democratization process resulting in the revival of mass organizations and the expansion of their role in decision-making at all levels and in all spheres, More critical observers attribute the expansion of various groups to the development of a formal apparatus by the Communist party. From this perspective, organizations like the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) and the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs) were assigned larger roles in the formulation  of policy and implementation of programs as fulfillment of their function as “transmission belts” between the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) and the people. A similar role was attributed to the trade unions that others argue were revitalized, strengthened, and democratized.

Objectively, though, the democratic nature of the OPP is undermined by three points.

First, the National Assembly, while partially comprised of popularly elected members, meets only twice a year and, therefore, lacks the power to confront or curtail Castro’s power.

Moreover, at least in its early years, the National Assembly was quite elitist and not representative of the population at large. For example, in 1976, only 3% of the deputies represented the 80% of the population that was not a member of either the party (PCC) or the Young Communist League (UJC).

Finally, the powers and functions of the provincial and municipal OPP are significantly limited. And, of course, these are the levels where the citizens could be most involved. Limitations are evident in five areas:

1. The party decides in practice who is eligible to sit in and chair the OPP Executive Committees which are the decision-making and  managerial bodies of poder popular;
2. The OPP manage the least important sectors of the economy (basically services) while the central state agencies administer the key industries, all agriculture, mining, and finance;
3. The size and distribution of resources allocated to the services administered by the OPP are also centrally decided;
4. The Council of State supervises the OPP, and the Council of Ministers (through the state central agencies) exerts direction and supervision over the OPP administrative departments; and
5. The OPP decisions can be annulled, modified, or revoked by other organs of the state and the government.

The make-up of the OPP was also shaped by the political and geographic reorganization of the country which was designed to expedite the

modernization, decentralization, and democratization process . . . related to the implementation of a new plan of placing Cuba favorably in the Soviet economic system.

In July 1976, the six existing provinces were remolded into fourteen and the existing 407 municipalities were combined into 169 with an average urban population of 10,290, excluding Havana City. Each provincial capital was to serve as the highest order center of a local central place hierarchy in an increasingly integrated urban-rural landscape. Potentially, this organization was to maximize the entire population’s access to services, economic infrastructure and political bodies at all levels.

Obviously, Havana was affected by the change.

With the creation of Poder Popular, Havana province was divided in two (the city of Havana and the rest of the province). The capital itself was comprised of fifteen municipios or counties depending solely on a centrally-allocated budget.

Growing Soviet influence was acknowledged when city planners began work on a revised master plan for the capital, a document to be prepared under Soviet supervision.

Eventually, the theoretical plan included ideas similar to those incorporated in the city-planning of Miliutin in Stalingrad.

Soviet involvement came as no surprise for, by the end of the 1970s, even maps were produced under the direction of Soviet cartographers and most Cuban urban professionals were trained in Soviet academies.

 

The Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) emerged in the 1970s as the country’s governing institution at the same time that the weight of the military in its Central Committee moved toward the Soviet pattern. At this time, Castro asserted:

The party today is the soul of the Cuban revolution . . . .

The First Congress of the Cuban Communist Party took place in 1975.

Preparations for the conference spurred changes in Cuba’s appearance. Beautification efforts in key areas of the city were carried out through a program of Urban Revitalization implemented by the Department of Architecture and Urbanism of the City of Havana. The use of large murals called Super Graphics — still common in Havana today — and other elements of urban landscape architecture formed key components of the revitalization campaign.

The conference itself resulted in

the full incorporation of orthodox Soviet-style institutions and practices (making the PCC) resemble its Soviet counterpart in both style and substance.

The Congress approved five significant measures:

1. a draft of a socialist constitution
2. a five-year economic plan
3. a geographic-politico-administrative reorganization of the country
4. a new system of economic management, and,
5. a party platform.

Thus:

. . . the leading role of the Communist party, subordinate to the ruling leaders but with authority over the government, the society, and the economy, has been asserted with increasing emphasis and is backed up by the provisions of the new Constitution. Its leading role is perhaps clearest in its supervision of mass organizations.

Importantly for urban areas such as Havana, the supervision served to limit the freedom of action of groups like the CDRs or the Cuban Women’s Federation (CWF) as they attempted to respond to the needs of their members. For

whenever mass organizations or economic enterprises have sought to set goals, make policy, or undertake tasks on their own, their wings have been clipped.

The 1976 constitution established a presidential system of government and provided for the election of provincial and local governmental officials across the island. Notably, the USSR is mentioned by name in the Preamble, and many features of the Soviet counterpart were incorporated in the Cuban document.

Carmelo Mesa-Lago states that 32% of the articles of Cuba’s 1976 constitution come from the Soviet constitution of 1936, and 36% from Cuba’s constitution of 1940. Eighteen percent are influenced by both sources with Soviet predominance, and only 13% of articles are at least partially innovative.

The fundamental political bodies introduced in the new constitution closely resembled the Soviet model with Cuba’s National Assembly of People’s Power equivalent to the Supreme Soviet, the Council of State corresponding to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, and the Council of Ministers, the judiciary, and the Organs of People’s Power paired with similar institutions in the USSR.

As a result of the institutional changes discussed above, at the end of 1979, Castro stated that after 18 years of revolution the process of institutionalization was basically concluded. Soon the changes dictated by the process were to greatly change Havana’s urban landscape. For example, at the party conference, the government stated clearly that:

. . . it should fill the vacuum in building construction created by the ruralist approach of the 1960s. Housing assumed an important symbolic presence in the city, matching the availability of social services, schools, and recreational facilities. Some of the more noteworthy projects were Jose Antonio Echevarria University Campus, the Lenin Vocational School, Lenin Park, and the Botanical Gardens and Zoo, which were located at the city’s edge. High-rise public housing on the outskirts of Havana not only countered the presence of similar structures in Vedado, but became reference points for the Revolution’s modernization efforts in Havana. These high-rise structures spread to the most unlikely and remote corners of the city. Twenty-story high-rise housing in Havana during the first decades of the Revolution paralleled in many ways Stalin’s location of seven scrapers in Moscow at the end of the Second World War . . . . Soviet planning sought to show new features and rights of the unfolding socialist society.

Socialist housing in Havana was similar to the many complexes that existed in Prague, Budapest, Sofia, Dresden, Stalingrad, and Moscow.

 

As we learned in Cold War Cuba: Institutional Changes in the Cuban Military (Part 1), the military was increasingly professionalized.

After the military’s reorganization in 1972, only individuals with good military qualifications were allowed to remain in the structure of the regular Armed Forces (FAR). Greater emphasis was put on professional military education, and many officers were sent abroad for specialized training “such as that provided at the F.V. Military Academy and the K.E. Voroshilov General Staff Academy in the Soviet Union.”

The Professional Military

Most of the graduates of Soviet academies remained in the FAR, concentrating on strictly military tasks, and by the end of the decade “hundreds of FAR personnel were being sent each year for advanced training in Eastern Europe as well as in the Soviet Union.”

As previously mentioned, the officer corps had their ranking system reorganized into a hierarchy more equivalent to that of the USSR and international standards. Moreover, the military was now closely linked to the Communist Party.

Following the same pattern of the Soviet military and its Eastern European allies, the Cuban military maintains political sections throughout the entire military organization down to the squad level. Political commissars are tasked with the education of the rank and file in Marxist doctrine and maintain a high level of discipline and loyalty to the government and the Communist Party. As in the Soviet military, the political commissars have a high degree of authority which rivals that of the military commanders at all levels. All the flag rank officers are members of the Communist Party Central Committee. According to Fidel Castro . . . in December of 1975, 85% of the members of the Armed Forces were either members of the Union of Communist Youth or the CCP.

Each of the actions described above contributed to an increasing professionalization of the army which, as Fidel Castro argued

made possible an increase in the armed forces’ defensive power while at the same time maintaining their participation in economic tasks.

The growing expertise of the armed forces was accomplished primarily with the assistance of resident Soviet military personnel and hardware.

Conflict Among the Military Officers

It is important to note, however, that the increasing professionalization did not eliminate military conflict among the officers. There was an on-going friction among three groups:

• graduates of the Frunze Military Academy
• graduates of Cuban military academies
• veterans of the Sierra Maestra.

These groups differed greatly in power and status, with graduates of the Frunze Military Academy in the Soviet Union holding the most important posts, including control of missile and radar bases. Graduates of Cuban military schools held secondary positions, with Sierra Maestra veterans at the bottom of the hierarchy.

The Military Penetrates Every Sector of Society

After 1973, the military — under the advice and consent of the Soviets — increased its penetration of every sector of society and, at the same time, political control penetrated the military. According to Horowitz

The accelerated movement of the Cuban Revolution into militaristic forms reflects the multiple needs of the Cuban Regime. First, the regime employed the military . . . for internal police functions, through the CDRs. Second, it used the military to mobilize the  population after the less than successful phase in which moral incentives were used to spur economic development. During this phase, the youth brigades in particular were converted into  a paramilitary fight force subject to military discipline and at the same time able to perform as labor shock troops in the event of any decline in sugar production. Third . . . the regime encouraged the rise of a professional attitude in the military so that it could perform on international terrain . . . .

Military Impact on the Cuban Educational System

Strong military impact was also seen in the Cuban education system where a “fully articulated system of military schools” began to be established in the 1960s and had high level influence as the military became increasingly professionalized in the 1970s.

The education system included a tracking mechanism (beginning at the junior high school level) whereby the best students were either placed in a university preparatory school or sent to provincial military schools where they were trained to enter the senior military academies. Active participation in pro-regime youth groups was also required for admission. Those students with lover academic performance were sent to vocational schools.

The military schools graduated their first students in the 1971 school year.

Internal Security

Internal security forces were also reorganized in the early 1970s under the supervision of the Soviet Union. The two principal organizations that were reorganized were the Ministry of the Interior’s Directorio General de Investigaciones (DGI) and the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution.

The DGI began to coordinate its activities much closer than in the past with Soviet intelligence services.

The CDRs were given expanded responsibilities while remaining “an instrument of the party, unable to set its own fundamental policies.” Also, most bars to membership were dropped and the CDRs ” sought to encompass virtually the entire adult population.”

________________________________

If you want to learn more about the Cuban military, you might find the following books useful.

Dominguez, Jorge I. “Institutionalization and Civil-Military Relations in Cuba” Cuban Studies Volume 16 nos. 1-2 (January and July 1976).

Fermoselle, Rafael The Evolution of the Cuban Military: 1492-1986. Miami: Ediciones I Universal, 1987.

Horowitz, Irving Louis,ed. Cuban Communism 1959-1995 8th ed. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1995.

 

The 1960s

It was logical for the military to play a guiding role in the new revolutionary government because, ever since the 1960s, the army was the only government entity that “grew increasingly professionalized, institutionalized, and efficient.” In fact, the army expanded its responsibilities over the decade, absorbing many nonmilitary functions such as the organization of production and cane cutting. By the end of the 1960s it pervaded almost all facets of Cuban society.

The 1970s

By 1970, the Cuban government and its Soviet technical advisors realized that a reorganization of the military was necessary in order to meet demands for increasing functional and technical specialization.

The Soviets had a great deal of input into the reorganization because Cuban arms were outdated and inefficient and the country’s only potential source of supply was from the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc. As Uri Ra’anan notes in his article on Soviet Arms Transfers and the Problem of Political Leverage:

Clearly, one could expect the armies in question to adopt Soviet training and battle doctrine, since it would be self-defeating to use Soviet weapons in a military context other than the one for which they had been specifically designed. In turn, this meant that hardware from non-Soviet sources would become increasingly irrelevant to the needs of any country that had adapted itself to Soviet military standards. Moreover, Soviet and bloc experts would be required to assemble the newly arrived weapons in the recipient countries and to instruct local military personnel and technicians in their use. {Also} . . . officers would have to travel to bloc countries, often for prolonged periods, to be trained at Soviet staff colleges, so that they might be able properly to apply Soviet military doctrine. It seems probable that these exchanges would open up the military establishment . . . to Soviet ideological indoctrination, infiltration, and subversion. Moreover, such links to the USSR could hardly be confined to a single transaction. Once Soviet weapons and training had been accepted, it was assumed that the general staffs in question would naturally wish to go on receiving later models of aircraft, naval vessels, and tanks from the same sources in order to deal with the problem of rapid obsolescence. In that case, each subsequent transaction would expose the recipient to renewed Soviet demands and pressure. [This process certainly applied to Cuba.]

Military Reorganization Under Soviet Tutelage

After military reorganization under Soviet tutelage, and beginning in 1972, the Armed Forces were rearmed with new and more sophisticated weapons, and several hundred Soviet troops arrived to assist with their assimilation.

New missile patrol boats were added to the Navy, MIG 23s were added to the Air Force, and the Army received state-of-the-art antiaircraft equipment and armor. As Cuba expanded its military arsenal, the structure of the Armed Forces became closer to that of the Soviet Union.

The (1975) Angolan War also demonstrated the close military ties between the Soviet Union and Cuba, and the eventual victory in Angola, along with other Cuban large-scale military operations overseas, were evidence of the effectiveness of Cuba’s military reforms. Moreover, the Cubans in Angola were said to receive more advanced arms from the Soviet Union than “even the weapons sent by Moscow directly to Cuba.”

Military or Economic?

So far as manpower was concerned, the army’s flexibility in adapting to changing political and economic circumstances — playing a role in such diverse activities as education and the sugar harvest — had been quite laudable. However, military experts now acknowledged that it would be more advantageous for specific units to perform either military or economic functions even though the armed forces as a whole would continue to perform both.

There was a new focus on the Reserves and their mobilizational capabilities as the backbone of national defense. Meanwhile, the military tasks of civilian agencies were expanded, extending the reach of the military and bringing many more civilians under the partial authority of the Armed Forces Ministry.

In order to implement the new policies, all military organizations created to carry out non-military civilian work were disbanded and reorganized into one organization, the Youth Army of Work, known also as the Army of Working Youth (EJT). This group, specializing in production, accounted for over a fifth of all cane cutters in the 1975, 1976, and 1977 harvests. During lulls in the production cycle the EJT was expected to prepare for combat under the direction of its own officers — military officers with their own training, ranks, and system of promotion.

The Militia, the paramilitary organization formed of armed workers and peasants in 1959 which played a crucial role in the consolidation of the revolution was also disbanded. Its political functions were taken over by the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, and other functions were passed to Civil Defense units which operated in every work center. The Militia’s more militarized successor, the Reserves, also replaced many of the demobilized, less professional units of the old Armed Forces

Photograph by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe

This post was originally published in March of 2012 as part of a series of posts on “Religion in Cuba.” I’m republishing it today in honor of Pope Francis’ visit to Cuba. Links to the other posts follow. I hope you’ll take the time to read them all.

Many of you are aware that Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Cuba recently.  His visit marks the 400th anniversary of Cuba’s patron saint, El Virgen del Cobre, and marks thawing relations between the church and the still communist state.

During the beginning  years of the revolution, the church struggled in Cuba. Many clergy were deported and church land was nationalized. Believers of all denominations were banned from the Communist Party and Cuba became an “atheist” state. But in recent years, the state has become more tolerant of religion.

Christmas was once again celebrated as a national holiday just in time for John Paul II’s visit 14 years ago in 1998. And the Catholic Church has found a more prominent role, led by Cardinal Jaime Ortega under Raul Castro who has ruled since 2008.

The pope’s visit to Cuba is something of a tightrope walk, balancing calls from dissidents and the demands of the Cuban state.  And Benedict XVI has his church’s mission and interests to consider as well. Since the revolution, many believers have left the church. Christian Evangelism and the syncretic West African religions — particularly Santeria — may now be more popular than Catholicism. At the very least they are major influences on the island’s religious landscape.

I recently completed a series on Religion in Cuba for my other blog Havana Project. If you are interested in this topic, I urge you to take a look.

RELIGION IN CUBA TODAY: THE CROSS OF PARRA

RELIGION IN CUBA: VIRGIN OF COBRE

A SNAPSHOT OF RELIGION IN CUBA TODAY

THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF RELIGION IN CUBA TODAY

DIVERSE INFLUENCES SHAPE RELIGION IN CUBA TODAY

MULTIPLE BELIEF SYSTEMS MAKE UP RELIGION IN CUBA TODAY

WHAT’S UP WITH RELIGION IN CUBA TODAY?