The 1970s was a time of significant change for Cuba, as the country continued to navigate the complexities of life under Fidel Castro’s revolutionary government. As a socialist state and ally of the Soviet Union, Cuba received significant economic support from the USSR during this decade. This assistance helped fund a range of social programs, including education, healthcare, and housing, which contributed to improved living conditions for many Cubans.
Despite the political and economic challenges, Cuban culture flourished in the 1970s. The decade saw a surge in artistic expression, with Cuban music, dance, and visual arts gaining international recognition. The Afro-Cuban sound, blending traditional African rhythms with Cuban flair, took center stage, with musicians like Irakere and Los Van Van creating a new and irresistible sound that captivated audiences both at home and abroad.
In the world of dance, Cuban ballet gained worldwide acclaim under the leadership of Alicia Alonso and the Ballet Nacional de Cuba. The company’s unique blend of classical ballet and Cuban cultural elements garnered praise and admiration from critics and audiences alike, putting Cuba firmly on the global dance map.
The 1970s also saw a rise in Cuban cinema, with filmmakers like Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Humberto Solás pushing the boundaries of storytelling and exploring the complexities of Cuban society. Films such as “Memories of Underdevelopment” (1968) and “Lucía” (1968) offered powerful and thought-provoking insights into the Cuban experience, showcasing the island’s vibrant culture and resilient spirit.
During this decade, Cubans also embraced sports as a symbol of national pride. Athletes like Alberto Juantorena and Teófilo Stevenson emerged as international stars, winning Olympic gold medals and putting Cuba on the world stage in athletics and boxing, respectively.
Of course, life in Cuba during the 1970s was not without its challenges. Food shortages, economic difficulties, and political tensions with the United States were ever-present concerns for the Cuban people. Nevertheless, the resilience and resourcefulness of the Cuban people shone through, as they continued to adapt and find ways to thrive despite these hardships.
In many ways, the 1970s was a defining decade for Cuba. The country’s rich culture, artistic achievements, and indomitable spirit demonstrated to the world that, despite political and economic obstacles, the Cuban people remained strong and vibrant. So, as we look back on this fascinating period in Cuban history, let’s raise a glass to the enduring spirit of Cuba and its people – a spirit that continues to inspire and captivate the world today. Hasta la próxima, amigos!
You mean to tell me that when Cuba had a way to get around the blockade , life in Cuba was not as bad as is now? As opposed to anyone claiming that the blockade is not a big part of the economic crisis in Cuba?
Why can’t the Cuban gov stop fucking the people without the blockade? The government will steal less from the people if the blockage is lifted?
So why wasn’t the government fucking them back in the 70’s (as per these pictures)? What could have possibly changed? Maybe access to other markets globally, regular international trading and banking options. So is the government or the limitations, you have to pick a lane.
Because communism rots over time. The parasitic government destroys its host eventually.
Please give me an example in human history where that has not happened.
If it’s meant to fail why does the Us invests so much time, money and energy in making it fall? Coups, blockades, etc.
Let me ask you, isn’t capitalism failing right now? 1% of the population holding 99% of the wealth? Can we compare the US at the same time in the 70’s Vs now? How is it better? How is not rotten to the core with corporations writing policy while 80% of Americans cannot save enough money to face and extra expense of 700$ . Education? Down the drain, life expectancy? Higher o closer to Cuba. Please explain that
The Cuban diaspora is causing the harm to the regime beyond the blockade. Non Cubans never think of Cuba nor care. The blockade exists because Cuba refuses to drop communism. Same agreement since it was put in place.
America’s problems have nothing to do with capitalism. It’s caused by an extremely corrupt federal government that is quite literally occupied by Israel and global corporations.
If the government does its job correctly, capitalism and socialism work just fine. History has shown us that capitalistic markets work better on average.
Blockade doesn’t exist. Cuba has nothing to sell and make money as a country. They relied on the USSR and once it failed. Cuba was done. They can trade with Mexico and Europe, china and Russia.
You saying the only reason why they are a failed country is bc of the USA. Don’t give us all the credit.
It’s the stupid government not willing to change.
it would be nice to buy pharmaceutical products from cuba. but gusanos wont let it happen and will tell us that cuba has nothing to offer.
Not true. The pictures show a different reality, back in 1970 Cuba had a fairly good economy based of their agriculture. The only thing you said correctly is: once the URRS was gone, their whole commerce base was lost and then the blockade caused huge damage but before that it was perfect fine.
Fine enough to keep the US sending airplanes with viruses to kill all livestock and crops during the years after 1959 and even in the 1980’s.
You can claim that the government is useless and that is fine but do you realize that the US is doing worst than we were in 1970? Why is that? Why is that under the most capitalist (and arguably richest) country in the world, the vast majority of the population is doing worst than in 1970? No house ownership, everyone is in debt, HC and collage are impossible to access for a lot of people unless they die paying loans? Why is this system crumbling and how are you here claiming of a failed cuban system that has been for years blocked from the world’s economy as if capitalism wasn’t failing on its own without any help?
Cuba was working in that moment bc the properties they stole from the previous owners were still functioning and in relatively good conditions, but, since the communist model is not sustainable in the long term, everything starts to rot, and given a couple of decades nothing works. That’s like saying you can live without working just bc you’ve been two days without a job. Two days after losing your job you could still have some savings, but eventually you’re gonna run out of money if you don’t make some more, the same happened in Cuba
So according to you after the revolution won and nationalized farms in 1959…,20 yrs later those same farms were giving the same results as before?? How? Who managed that? How in the world after 20 YEARS you think a farm will produce anything without proper management?
If you are in the US, you must think we are now in the Biden’s economy and not in the circus caused by 5 months of terrible leadership at the white house. Good lord!
First of all, I’m gonna need numbers backing up those claims. Second, if, as you say, they were giving the same results that means a regression, since the population increased in number and the technology advanced. Other thing, you’re kinda forgetting the Soviet Union were buying our sugar at a even higher price compared to international markets and we were basically existing bc we were “chupando de la teta de los rusos”, we incurred in a lot of debt with them that we never really paid, and not gonna do it since we don’t have anything to pay with. You have to take into account also that people were basically forced to go to the countryside and work in farms and stuff so the goverment could achieve those numbers, but analyzing only that metric you won’t get the full picture, it’s like only checking my kids teeth to know if I as a father I’m good a parenting, I could easily just funnel all my money to their dental health and not take care of their education, clothes, abusing them and stuff, and still be considered a good parent since my kid’s teeth are fine. When the goverment did that it had to hoard the resources from other parts of the economy and concentrate them in that specific one, that’s why “La zafra de los 10 millones” was considered a failure, bc even if they achieved a 8.5 million, they couldn’t get the expected result and numerous disasters on other parts of the economy emerged since people that didn’ have to be on farms were there neglecting other services they were best at taking care of. About the Biden and whatnot, I’m living in Cuba, and I’m against Trump, I dunno what the hell a thing as to do with the other, I try to be very consistent, and that includes any wannabe dictator, unlike you
La Zafra de los 10 millones fell short and it affected other areas and needed people from other jobs to support that goal. That is all true.
But as you said, is not just about one thing.It’s also true that during the ’70s, Cuba made real progress in areas like healthcare and education. Infant mortality dropped, life expectancy went up, and almost everyone had access to free schooling. Those things made a difference in people’s lives, even if the economy overall was struggling.
So yeah, the government did move resources into those areas, sometimes at the expense of others but still people in Cuba were not as bad as today. So yes, the blockade had even more impact causing economic damage than just the fall of the URRS, having access to other economies could have helped keeping agriculture and other activities afloat specially tourism producing more income and jobs for a lot of cubans.
We have access to other economies, especially to the Chinese, tourism was indeed affected by the embargo, since US citizens are the most generous tourists you could think of, in that regard, yes, the embargo affected us. But now, Fidel dismantled a lot of sugar mills just because, he thought we could forever live from the free stuff the Soviet Union was providing us and he started to neglect basically everything in our economy, including sugar cane production, once the basically one country that was keeping us alive fell, we fell with it, we never really diversified our industry, we rely solely on the Soviet Union to give us everything, the waste of money was so uncontrolled that we even bought snowplows from them, SNOWPLOWS, in a tropical country where the most the temperature can drop is like 5 Celsius degree in a specific zone in Matanzas. And yes, it’s easy to give everything free when a huge country the size of Australia give you resources “a precio de cochino enfermo”, lends you money, that you don’t plan to return and so on. But we could focus on current policies to “incentivize production on the countryside”:
1- You can only sell a minimum part of your production to private companies (very small ones, btw), the rest you have to sell it to the goverment at less than 1/5 of its actual price
2- The government doesn’t pay you or pay you whenever they want to, with months, even years of delay
3- You can’t sue them, cuz this is a dictatorship so they can basically rob you all they want and if you try to sell whatever you make to private companies, you can go to jail
4- You can’t defend your crops or animals from intruders and thieves since you can’t possess firearms, you can’t even use a knife bc then the one who is gonna go to jail is you, not the thief
5- You can’t eat your own animals, for example, if you have a cow, you can’t kill it to eat it or to sell it, since all cows belong to the goverment
6- If a thief steals your cow, you’re the one paying for it to the goverment, even if the cow was yours to begin with
7- If you try to rent a piece of land to farm you’re gonna face a Dark Souls III level monster of bureaucracy and obstacles to do it
8- Police won’t do sh*t if you are victim of a robbery
9- You have to buy everything you need from abroad through state owned importing companies, which have very abusive fees: you could easily avoid this allowing privates to import directly, but then Raúl Castro’s grandchildren would lose their monopolistic businesses
10- They force the whole country to go through a banking system that completely relies on telecommunications to work, things that usually don’t even work in cities, let alone in the countryside where they don’t tend to have strong signal and along with the continuous outages makes impossible for farmes to pay to their workers
None of those stuff are related to the embargo at all, you can easily fix them if you wanted to. Maybe I couldn’t say the same about tourism since US citizens can’t come so easily to Cuba as they do to other countries (they still do since I have friends that are tour guides and they have a ton of US citizens as clients here), but they don’t do sh*t, since allowing people to thrive is a threat to them, they need to control everything, they prefer people dying than to lose control. Can you enlight me as why these things can’t be solved due to the infamous “blockade”?
Look at the main source of that so-called progress… Soviet assistance in all its forms.
left in 79. don’t recall the vibrancy.
Vibrancy for who? Because… People kept their head down because of censorship, surveillance, and punishments.
Political organizing were banned, criticism of the system was prosecuted as “counterrevolutionary.”
CDRs on almost every block as neighborhood surveillance monitoring political loyalty, reporting dissent, and social pressure against “diversionism” or ideological deviance.
Revolutionary tribunals and political courts imprisoned thousands for being “counterrevolutionary”.
Heavy censorship of writers, artists, and intellectuals.
Artists deemed ideologically suspect were banned from publishing, exhibiting, or traveling or reassigned to low‑status manual or clerical work as punishment.
Cubans were forbidden to listen to or play jazz even while the state used it to entertain foreign guests.
Forced labor for being “politically deficient”, an arbitrary accusation, ex: if somebody in the state targeted your residence as desirable to them and wanted you & yours out. Just make up a lie that you spoke against the revolution.
Forced labor for being gay, a religious believer, Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses, some Protestants and practitioners of Afro‑Cuban religions, harassment, discrimination to all.
State sanctioned attacks on gay men and gender‑nonconforming people demonized in state speeches, barred from certain professions, and subject to social and workplace persecution.
Racial inequality while there was official lip service rhetoric of unity. Specifically targeted were practicioners of Santeria and Palo
Ration books regulated food and basic staples.
Small private enterprises, and private commerce treated as criminal activity.
Civic groups banned. Your group had to align with state goals.
TLDR: Repression felt at the everyday level.
The irony in your post is that much of that is pervasive in the U.S. and even Canada today. Gender discrimination? Yes. Religious hate and Cultural discrimination? Oh geez, it’s huge up here. Forced labour? We have our own issues with cost of living and no living wages so poverty is rampant and people stand in line at Food Banks waiting for anything to eat. Youth unemployment and disenchantment is right up there as dreams of owning anything are far fetched. Homelessness and slums (we like to deflect that term and call them Tent encampments up in these parts though), drug use and organized crime, extortion? We are run over. Taxation that will break your back when you work all week and after expenses you bring home far less than general revenue.
Look, I get it, problems. Problems everywhere. It’s fascinating you want help from others who can’t even fix their own homes thinking they can fix yours.
In the end, those you think will save you will just flip the tables and the same system where the rich get richer on the backs of the poor continues. Instead of making a mojito for less, the same person will flip burgers at a McDonald’s for a wage that can’t keep up.
Political repression? We got that too, it’s just handled differently. In Canada we had a group protesting the government, they ended up freezing their bank accounts and those that donated to them, and prosecuted the people that led the effort. So much for freedom of speech and general protest. I’m the U.S.ook.up I.C.E. and Minnesota etc.
Freedom of elections? Our elected mean nothing when the government can sway the elected officials to cross the floor and switch parties basically stealing your vote. Oops…
Irony…
Anyways, that’s the failure of capitalism and trickle down economics ++++ Caveat Emptor.
leftist here! when i was living in Cuba all i could think about was how familiar the economic inequality, racism, police brutality, etc. was. (but comparing the forced labor in Cuba to cost of living issues and shit wages in Canada is laughable.)
but here’s the thing: imagine if you lived under a government that claimed to be solving all these things, while being an active participant in maintaining or even worsening some of these things, and you’re not allowed to say anything about it. you can’t organize, you can’t have unauthorized journalism, you can’t create studies, if you are caught saying things you’ll be dragged in for citations and threatened, even if you’ve supported the CCP previously.
take a gander reading the Cuban critical left. here’s some essays in English for you: https://newpol.org/issue_post/introduction-to-marginalized-discourse-voices-from-the-critical-left-in-cuba/
It’s easy to compare apples to apples and remove the debate based on who is more tired except when you realize it’s based on perspectives. The guy living in a tent encampment (slum) in Canada being forcibly kicked out and evicted by police can have a different tune of words. It easy to say no, it’s still better here depending on your life of privilege but many in Canada are struggling daily living paycheck to paycheck.
Yes the political clout about freedom of speech is there, but if they are opening up reforms then why dwell on the negative instead of nurturing a more pragmatic approach towards betterment for all Cubans.
What’s the other option? Another war? Permanent blockade and sanctions?
you’ve just said exactly the point… it’s about perspectives. the Cuban living in Cuba or exiled from their home forever is the one who has the perspective on what it’s like, and are the people who should be most at the forefront of discussions about their own country. so why not let them? you were the one who made it about comparisons when a Cuban was simply listing out the repressions felt in their own country.
Cubans are not a monolith, but economic reforms mean nothing to the Cuban that 1) has died, been imprisoned, been exiled, or wakes up every day hoping for political democracy, 2) is currently imprisoned as a political prisoner, 3) is currently exiled and still can’t come home, 4) is being threatened by imprisonment right now as we hang out on Reddit, 5) has seen the Cuban government make reforms before (literally in 90s, 00s, and the 10s) and then go back on them, and 6) knows that these reforms will most benefit the Cuban 1% and their military.
want a thorough analysis of the different options there are? read Cuban sources: https://www.cubaxcuba.com
You’re absolutely right that Cubans are not a monolith, and the perspectives of those who have faced exile, imprisonment, or repression absolutely belong at the forefront. I’m not trying to minimize that or pretend that economic reforms automatically erase political trauma. But the core of the issue is:
where do we go from here?
Pointing out that the state has walked back reforms in the 90s, 00s, and 10s is a fair historical critique. But if we dismiss every potential reform as a hollow gesture that only benefits the 1% or the military, we trap the discussion in absolute stasis. If internal incremental reform is entirely impossible, then what is the alternative path to bettering daily life for the people on the ground right now? Total economic collapse? External intervention? A continuation of a permanent embargo that history shows hurts the population far more than the ruling elite? Engaging with pragmatic economic openings—even with a deeply flawed government—isn’t about ignoring the political prisoners or the lack of democracy. It’s about recognizing that for the average Cuban trying to survive today, a flawed economic opening that provides material relief is a more immediate life raft than waiting for a perfect political revolution that may not come tomorrow.
This was back when USSR was still supporting the economy well and life back then was okay. People still believed in revolution. Life was alright. Compared to now… many probably wish they could go back to this era.
The Soviet support was keeping things afloat