Why is Cuba in crisis?

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Why is Cuba in Crisis?"

Throughline (NPR) | Hosts: Rund Abdelfattah & Ramtin Arablouei
Date: March 19, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of Throughline unravels the roots and realities of Cuba’s ongoing crisis, exploring both external (U.S. sanctions, foreign policy) and internal (government repression, economic mismanagement) factors. Through expert voices, personal accounts, and historical context, the episode traces how the Cuban Revolution shaped the island’s trajectory—from early optimism to present-day hardship. Listeners hear from Cuban citizens, exiles, and historians, culminating in a nuanced portrait of a nation on the brink.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Immediate Crisis: Oil, Blackouts, and Daily Life (00:12–05:22)

• Recent developments:
  • U.S. blocks Venezuelan oil, deepening Cuba’s economic hardship (00:52).
  • Island-wide blackouts, food shortages, and rising unrest.
  • Eloy Vieira (Cuban lawyer/journalist):
    • Describes dire living conditions—lack of electricity, reliance on expensive charcoal, and unsustainable costs for basics.

      "A big bag of charcoal right now in the informal market is like 1500 pesos." (02:36)

    • 1500 pesos equates to ~$62 USD, over a quarter of an average Cuban monthly wage (03:02).
• Codes of discontent:
  • Cubans refer to struggles as “La Cosa” (“the thing”) to avoid repression (03:51).

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2. Historical Roots: The Revolution and Dual Embargoes (06:19–23:32)

The Revolution’s Promise and Shift (06:19–13:55)

• Early hopes for democracy and equality:
  • Lillian Guerra (History Professor):
    • Revolution aimed for a nationalist, democratic, and socially progressive Cuba.

      "That was the dream." (07:23)

• Post-revolution changes:
  • Massive land reforms break up U.S.-owned sugar plantations, targeting foreign control (08:10–09:13).
  • Nationalization of U.S. businesses triggers U.S. antagonism (12:24).
• Shift to Communism:
  • Government nationalizes Cuban businesses, tightens state control (13:37).
  • U.S. response: embargo and failed Bay of Pigs invasion.

The Dual Embargoes: External and Internal (14:55–23:32)

• U.S. embargo devastates Cuba’s economy:

  • Halts trade, severs access to essentials (14:55).
  • Cubans initially hopeful embargo is temporary, try for self-sufficiency (15:22).

• Internal blockade:

  • Castro regime nationalizes small businesses; repression intensifies (19:19).
  • Surveillance by Committees for the Defense of the Revolution—“mouth shutters” (19:08–19:40).
  • Culture war: criminalization of Western influences, LGBTQ identity, and forms of self-expression (21:07).

• Failed economic reforms:

  • 1970 sugar harvest mobilization drains other sectors, breeds mass disaffection (22:05–22:35).
  • Widespread discontent; Cubans leave in large waves.

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3. Collapse & Survival: The Special Period (1991–2000s) (24:32–33:37)

• Post-Soviet shock:
  • Soviet collapse ends crucial subsidies, plunging Cuba into the “Special Period”—severe shortages, daily blackouts, mass migration (24:56–26:30).
• Economic adaptation:
  • Legalization of limited private businesses, foreign investment, and especially tourism.
  • Government pays workers a fraction of what foreign companies pay, keeps rest (27:39).
• Shift in alliances:
  • New dependence on Venezuela—Cuba sends doctors in exchange for oil and cash (28:31–29:17), but funds go to government priorities, not infrastructure (29:36).
  • Quote—Lillian Guerra:

    "They would blame the Special Period or they'd blame the US embargo... The number of grievances were miles long." (30:12)

• Diaspora and remittances:
  • Cuban-American families provide vital support; remittances become economic lifeline (31:46–32:49).
  • Changing attitudes toward exiles—from “traitors” to essential supporters (32:57).

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4. Hopes & Fractures: The Cuban Thaw and Its Reversal (36:04–43:02)

• Leadership change:
  • Fidel Castro steps down in 2008; brother Raul inherits power but not popular legitimacy (37:06).
  • Continuity, not true transition—lack of new political voices (37:24).
• Obama-era thaw:
  • Diplomatic engagement, loosened restrictions, historic presidential visit (38:12).
  • Introduction of Internet access for Cubans, leading to new connectivity and public discourse (39:10–40:58).
• End of optimism:
  • Trump administration reverses course, reinstating travel and financial restrictions (41:36).
  • Activists and independent journalists like Eloy Vieira express deep frustration:

    "It was one of the main or worst frustrations of my generation." (42:24)

  • Pandemic further weakens economy. 2021 sees unprecedented public protests—met with harsh crackdowns (43:18–43:40).

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5. The Present: Impasse and a "Cliff's End" (44:17–48:45)

• Multiple views on the crisis:
  • Debate over blame for the current state—embargo vs. regime (45:08).
  • Maria de los Angeles Torres (Political Scientist):

    "The argument that it's only the embargo is actually a very US-centric perspective... I don't think it's the only factor." (45:25)

  • Internal mismanagement, economic dependency, and lack of political or economic autonomy are key causes (46:05).
  • Embargo fosters cottage industries benefiting military elites—sometimes giving regime incentive to keep embargo in place (46:39).
• The future uncertain:
  • Eloy Vieira:

    "If the regime crumbled, it's just because a lot of Cubans went out to the streets, they keep in the streets and they start a new revolution." (47:21)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Life is really bad right now, really bad... when you don't have electricity, you don't have water... Many people using charcoal to cook their food, but at the same point, charcoal is also a limited resource."
  — Eloy Vieira (02:36)
• "For years, a dual Internet developed in Cuba. For those who could afford it, there was access to the World Wide Web. For most Cubans, there was access to Cuba's tightly controlled and censored Internet."
  — Ramtin Arablouei (40:46)
• "Cubans are more equally poor than they are equally rich. And you have an economic elite which is the Cuban communist government, very top echelon that live like kings."
  — Lillian Guerra (46:05)
• "Everything is in the hands of the Cuban. If the regime crumbled is just because a lot of Cubans went out to the streets, they keep in the streets and they start a new revolution."
  — Eloy Vieira (47:21)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Cuba’s Recent Crisis: Oil, Blackouts, Basic Needs – 00:12–05:22
• Revolution and U.S.-Cuban Relations: Dual Embargoes – 06:19–23:32
• The Special Period and Post-Soviet Adaptation – 24:32–33:37
• The Cuban Thaw and Its Collapse – 36:04–43:02
• Blame, Responsibility, and the Way Forward – 44:17–48:45

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Tone & Takeaway

Throughline’s narrative is probing, historical, and empathetic, blending expert analysis with lived experience. The episode uncovers the complexity behind Cuba’s crisis—showing that blame does not rest solely on one side but is rooted in decades of intertwined U.S. policy and domestic regime decisions. The result is a country “at the edge of the cliff,” with its future now resting in the hands of ordinary Cubans, and the world watching what comes next.

Transcript

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[Ramtin Arablouei]

@easycater.com Among Cuban Americans in South Florida, expectations are high that after Venezuela and now Iran, Cuba might be next on President Trump's list for regime change.

[Fidel Castro (archival or quoted voice)]

You know, all my life I've been hearing about the United States and Cuba. When will the United States do it? Believe I'll be the honor of having the honor of taking Cuba. That's a big honor.

[Eloy Vieira]

Taking Cuba.

[Fidel Castro (archival or quoted voice)]

Taking Cuba in some form. Yeah, taking Cuba. I mean, whether I free it, take it, I think I could do anything I want with it. You want to know the truth? They're a very weakened nation.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

For 64 years, the US has had an economic embargo on Cuba in hopes that its communist government would fall, but that hasn't happened. The current situation, though, could be different. In January, after the US capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, the Trump administration blocked Venezuelan oil from going to Cuba. And they made it very costly for any other country to step in to help.

[Lillian Guerra]

President Trump says Venezuela will no longer send support to Cuba. No oil, no money.

[Marislesis (Cuban citizen)]

And it has also promised tariffs on any country that breaks the blockade.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Cuba is suffering its greatest economic crisis in decades, with the island experiencing blackouts, food shortages, and long gas lines. It relies heavily on Venezuelan oil. And without it, experts warn, the economy could collapse, leading to widespread suffering and social unrest.

[Eloy Vieira]

I have aunties in Cienfuegos. I have cousins in San Fuegos. My mother in law lives in Cienfuegos. And there the situation is worse. Much more worse.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

This is Eloy Vieira. He's a Cuban lawyer and journalist from Cienfuegos, Cuba. Now based in Canada, he writes for El Toque, an independent news outlet that's been critical of the Cuban regime. Eloi left Cuba in 2019 after multiple detentions. Many of his friends and family are still there. We spoke to Aloy in February before the US began partially lifting its blockade of Venezuelan oil and allowing limited humanitarian oil shipments back into Cuba.

[Eloy Vieira]

Life is really bad right now, really bad. Because of course, when you don't have electricity, you don't have water, you don't have a way to cook your food. There are many people using charcoal to cook their food, but at the same point, charcoal is also a limited resource. A big bag of charcoal right now in the informal market is like 1500 pesos.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

1500 Cuban pesos equals around 62 US dollars. And we're talking about a country where that can be more than a quarter of your monthly wages.

[Eloy Vieira]

It's a really bad situation and I don't think it's going to be better, at least not under the circumstances that they are leaving right now.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

What his family was living through was happening all across the island nation of around 10 million people.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Earlier this year, NPR reporter Eder Peralta went to Cuba to hear directly from the Cuban people.

[Marislesis (Cuban citizen)]

My love, the thing is very bad, she says. Her friend stops her. She's saying too much in front of a microphone. But Marislesis dismisses her because that's the thing about the thing.

[Historical Narrator/Archival Voice]

The thing can be anything.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The people eider, met, talked in a kind of code so as to not appear critical of the Cuban government about La Cosa or the thing.

[Marislesis (Cuban citizen)]

The thing is our food, our sustenance, our clothes. How's the thing? It's super high, it's super expensive, it's super bad.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

In mid March, Cuba experienced an island wide blackout that's left millions without any power. It's the third major blackout in four months.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

How did Cuba get here? One version of the story is that the US's outside influence has made it impossible for Cuba to flourish. Not long after the 1959 Cuban Revolution, at the height of the Cold War, the United States began working to undermine the communist government there. The CIA plotted to assassinate Fidel Castro at least eight times. And 60 plus years of economic sanctions have stunted the island's potential and led to Cuban people suffering. That's one side.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Another version of the story is that inside Cuba, the communist government has repressed dissent and mismanaged the economy for decades, transforming the island into an impoverished police state that's forced millions of Cubans to flee.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

To make sense of all this, we're going back to the very beginning of the Cuban Revolution to look at how both sides of this story have shaped the current crisis. I'm Ramtin arablouei.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

And I'm Rund Abdelfattah. Today on the show Cuba from the Inside and out.

[Listener Callers]

This is Jamir calling from Philadelphia. I like listening to Throughline because I look at history as a record of our existence.

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[Rund Abdelfattah]

Part 1 the two embargoes in January 1959, like today, Cuba was in the news.

[Historical Narrator/Archival Voice]

The revolution in Cuba has thrown out the Batista administration and it has installed a provisional government. That was the first step. Now the revolution must consolidate itself.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

And all eyes were on Fidel Castro, the leader of the Cuban revolution, who had defeated Cuba's dictator Fulgencio Batista and ushered in a new era for the island.

[Fidel Castro (archival or quoted voice)]

I know that who rule in Cuba now, who gives orders now in Cuba

[Historical Narrator/Archival Voice]

is the public opinion with the free press.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Fidel Castro promised something different. A new Cuba ruled by the Cuban people.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

It was an optimistic time for Cuba. For many Cubans, the revolution was the first step in securing a real democracy.

[Lillian Guerra]

That was the dream.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

This is Lillian Guerra. She's a Cuban American history professor at the University of Florida. Lillian was born in the US in the 1970s, but much of her family remained in Cuba.

[Lillian Guerra]

The revolution against batista in the 50s and the rise of Fidel Castro, the goal and the promise that they will have this nationalist, capitalist and democratic and socially progressive society.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

At first, Fidel Castro was very popular. The young charismatic lawyer said he wasn't a communist and was seen as a national hero. One of his first acts in power was to implement huge land reforms to break up large foreign owned sugar plantations and redistribute that land to farm workers.

[Lillian Guerra]

Some of these plantations, which were huge and had hundreds of thousands of acres of land, and the reality was that land was so concentrated in the hand of a few that the land Reform only affected 3% of landowners.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Who it did impact was US companies that had big investments in the Cuban sugar industry. They owned hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland. And according to Lillian Guerra, these US owned plantations didn't exactly play fair.

[Lillian Guerra]

They operated in some instances like states within states where they had toll roads, they had private port facilities and all that kind of stuff. And they paid people in company script that was only redeemable in a company store. So that is what the land reform was meant to overturn. The land reform was passed May 1959.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Five months after the revolution, the government starts implementing it.

[Lillian Guerra]

This of course, was horrifying to those U.S. businesses that owned this land and to U.S. investors in the sugar markets.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

But inside of Cuba, the land reform was seen as a big win.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

The thinking was that if these laborers who had worked for foreign owned sugar Plantations owned their own land, they would be better able to participate in a free economy as consumers. Not exactly communist thinking, I think that might be.

[Lillian Guerra (additional commentary)]

To an American listener who associates Fidel Castro as sort of like the poster child for communism, the idea might be surprising to a lot of people.

[Lillian Guerra]

Yes, and frankly, there is nothing surprising about it.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

And that's because by the late 1950s, Castro's message of change was becoming more and more appealing to Cubans who were growing tired of the Batista dictatorship's corruption and brutality. And at the time of the revolution, Castro hadn't yet come out publicly and said he was a communist.

[Lillian Guerra]

Fidel does ultimately ride a wave of unconditional support for the Revolution in 1959-1960, and he takes full advantage of that. But then things begin to happen that nobody expected.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

The Castro government started to dismantle the

[Lillian Guerra]

free press between January and May of 1960. This extremely, you know, lively, vibrant press which included national television stations, which included dozens and dozens of radio stations, newspapers, you know, that all got nationalized.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Many people in Cuba, especially the wealthy and middle classes, were not happy with the changes Castro was enacting.

[Lillian Guerra]

Even in the worst moments of dictatorship prior to 1959, the press played a heroic role. There were always journalists who were willing to report on what was really happening and they paid a very high price. And Cubans were very aware of that.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

The dream of a more democratic, free Cuba was quickly proving to be just that, a dream. After the revolution, hundreds of thousands of Cubans left the island, many of them bound for the US and the US

[Ramtin Arablouei]

received fleeing Cubans with open arms because the US was anxiously watching Cuba and it hoped by supporting the exodus of Cubans leaving the island, it would destabilize Fidel Castro's government.

[Lillian Guerra (additional commentary)]

How quickly within Cuba did people realize everything has changed. And how quickly outside of Cuba did the US realize they have now an enemy in Cuba?

[Lillian Guerra]

Well, the Eisenhower administration, pretty much from the get go saw Fidel Castro and revolutionary movement with hostile eyes.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Many members of the Eisenhower administration were suspicious of what Castro wasn't saying out loud. And it was the Cold War and they feared he was a communist.

[Lillian Guerra]

The US position under Eisenhower is about containment at first, toleration at first. What nobody expected is that August of 1960, Fidel is going to come out with a week of national jubilation and nationalize all foreign owned businesses on the island.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Before the revolution, U.S. companies owned or controlled 90% of of Cuba's electrical grid, telephone system and mines. And they had a large stake in sugar plantations. And oil refineries. Now all these industries belong to the Cuban government. U.S. companies lost $1.9 billion in investment.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Castro defended his actions at the United Nations General Assembly. He called out the US for being an imperial force that exerted too much power on Cuba and other UN countries.

[Lillian Guerra]

What nobody expected is that two months later he's going to decree the nationalization of all medium and large scale businesses that are domestically owned.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Meaning Castro's government wasn't just seizing foreign owned companies which many Cubans supported, it was also taking over Cuban owned companies.

[Lillian Guerra]

By December of 1960, without ever having said I'm a communist, we're even revealing the degree to which he has integrated Communist Party members to his state. The government is communist in all but name and it controls 80% of the economy. 80% of the economy.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The US was not liking what it was seeing in Cuba. And tensions between the two countries began to escalate in a heated back and forth. First, the CIA started training a special military force of Cuban exiles to invade the island and topple the communist government. The 1961 invasion, known as the Bay of Pigs was a huge failure for the us. Then Fidel Castro shot back with a

[Lillian Guerra]

speech where he declares that the revolution is socialist. And so, you know, at that point, the deal is done.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Cuba was now a communist country, one that sat only 90 miles away from the US and after the Bay of Pigs, as the Soviet Union solidified its support and defense of Cuba, the US decided the threat was too close. In 1962, the US ramped up the pressure again with an embargo on all trade between the US and Cuba.

[Lillian Guerra]

It's a disaster from day one for Cubans because so much of the food that they ate, the spare parts that were needed in factories, the clothing that they bought, you know, the products that they had become accustomed to consuming, like Coca Cola, all of those things are going to stop. And for a time, the Cuban people, I think, believed that this might be temporary.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Most Cubans living inside the country still supported Castro at this point.

[Lillian Guerra]

So there is a willingness on the part of the Cuban people to ride out the early part of the embargo. And there also seems to be a solution which is maybe we can manufacture these things ourselves. Maybe this is what revolution meant, that we should be able to be self sufficient.

[Historical Narrator/Archival Voice]

My fellow citizens, let no one doubt that this is a difficult and dangerous effort on which we have set out.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

In October 1962, the back and forth between Cuba and the US came to a head when the US learned that the Soviet Union had stationed nuclear ballistic missiles in Cuba.

[Historical Narrator/Archival Voice]

No one can foresee precisely what course it will take or what course or casualties will be incurred.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

The US created a naval blockade around Cuba to stop more Soviet weapons from getting in. The situation was tense. Nuclear war was felt imminent.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

In the end, the USSR and the USA struck a deal. No more nukes in Cuba on the condition that the US doesn't invade the island.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

The US embargo, however, continues to this day. A version of the 1962 embargo, or la Cayo blockade, as some Cubans call it, is still in place. Its aim was to destabilize the Castro government by sowing hardship and disenchantment among the Cuban people.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

To stay afloat, Cuba continued to rely on the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc. The USSR was Cuba's main trade partner.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

But in spite of attempts to build a more self sufficient island, and even with the new influx of Soviet trade, Cuba's economy faltered and rations became a permanent feature of life.

[Lillian Guerra]

There is a certain degree of crony capitalism that reasserts itself in the form of crony communism. People called it sociolismo. Sociolismo. Instead of socialismo, it's a play on

[Ramtin Arablouei]

words, socio meaning buddy or good friend in Cuban slang. So they were saying sociolismo meaning you're taking care of your friends and rather than true socialism.

[Lillian Guerra]

And there is a certain degree to which your buddy, if you're all a bunch of loyalists, you know, whoever is your buddy who controls access to the rations or the ration distribution center, will ensure that people get half the amount of dried milk they're supposed to have so that he can sell the rest of it under the table. And that black market economy very quickly becomes a standard bearer of the communist regiment.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

For some people, like this upper echelon of communists with connections, life was pretty good. But for most Cubans, life was far from easy.

[Lillian Guerra]

Fidel has made a disaster of the economy and we had negative rates of growth. Fidel decides to nationalize all the remaining small businesses on the island, leaving nothing to serve as a substitute. So suddenly it's a crime to, you know, hire a plumber. You have to do it through the state. And the state doesn't have an agency that, you know, contracts out plumbers. You know, all of these activities, these little small businesses, even the production of many goods that had replaced imports. Like there were factories that emerged because of the embargo in the 1960s that produced things like iron beds or produced those spare parts that could no longer be imported.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And according to Lilian Guerra, the Castro government also doubled down on measures to quell potential dissent.

[Lillian Guerra]

Like the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution is a mass organization of people who are spying on one another. And their role, as Fidel put it officially, was to be tapa bocas, which means mouth shutters. They are supposed to. If you're standing in line for a ration and you're complaining about the quality or the fact that they don't have half of the amount that you're due, they're supposed to come out and tell you to shut up and that you're a counter revolutionary and a gusano, and they're supposed to take your name down. And this is very effective.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

This turn toward authoritarian tactics was not popular with everyone in Cuba. Now it wasn't just the press that couldn't be critical of the government. It was everyone from 62 to 65.

[Lillian Guerra]

There's the rise of tremendous discontent on the island in the general population.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

And to combat this, the Cuban government decided to invest in Cuba's youth, who they deemed as loyal and the future of Communist Cuba.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The government expanded the school system, bringing education to peasant girls who would otherwise have been left behind. These schools were considered a revolutionary win in the effort to bring more equality to the Cuban people. But according to Lilian Guerra, the state

[Lillian Guerra]

has captured the attention of the youth and has increasingly told them that their parents are the way of the past, that, you know, that they're going to be the new men in socialism, and so they need to ignore, you know, what their parents might think or say. They need to leave behind the culture of Catholicism and reject foreign influence.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

In some ways, this youthful disdain for the old guard in Cuba echoed the youth movements rocking the US and other parts of the world at the time.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

It's kind of like the vibe of Bob Dylan's the times are a changing. Your sons and daughters are beyond your command.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

But Castro's government started to put some strict parameters on what being a good revolutionary Cuban youth looked like.

[Lillian Guerra]

The Cuban communist state carries out a process of criminalizing behaviors that they label as ideologically diversionary. Those behaviors include listening to the Beatles. They include wearing jeans. They include being gay or being a person, person who tolerates gayness. They include liking abstract art. There are all of these things that are kind of considered to be politically criminal or that contaminate the collective consciousness and dilute their people's commitment to Marxist revolution.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

As the economy continued to struggle, morale in Cuba was low. In 1970, Fidel Castro tried to turn it around. He announced that the country was going to have a 10 million ton sugar harvest, La zafra de los dias miones. And this harvest was going to jumpstart the economy and finally allow Cuba to be economically independent.

[Lillian Guerra]

You have doctors, you have teachers, everybody

[Ramtin Arablouei]

who could possibly cut sugarcane was mobilized. It was supposed to show that the Cuban people could produce for themselves.

[Lillian Guerra]

And in the end it fails.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

They came up short of their goal of 10 million tons. It was still the largest sugar harvest in Cuba's history. But it came at a price. In order to make this big harvest happen, the government let other parts of the economy fall apart.

[Lillian Guerra]

By 1971, people are so angry at what has happened at the state, at the way in which the economy, economy has been devastated by this project that at any one time in the year of 1971, 20% of the workforce doesn't even show up to work.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Some Cubans call Castro and his government's economic and social policies the internal blockade. The US was blocking trade, but the Cuban government was taking away Cubans economic autonomy and making them reliant on the government, all while squashing dissent. This second embargo was not just an embargo of material things, but of ideas.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

By the 1970s, hundreds of thousands of Cubans had left the island for the US And Cuba, having failed to take off independently, became more and more entrenched with the Soviet Union

[Rund Abdelfattah]

coming up. The Soviet Union falls and the world watches to see if Cuba will be next.

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[Maria de los Angeles Torres]

Part 2 the Special Period in 1991,

[Ramtin Arablouei]

the World Order, as it had been for decades, collapsed.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

The gradual deterioration and final collapse of the Soviet Union has hit other socialist nations like the aftershocks of an earthquake.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Perhaps none has been hit so hard as Cuba.

[Maria de los Angeles Torres]

There's this tremendous sense of crisis in Cuba now.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba entered what its leader Fidel Castro coined the special period. In the Time of peace. That term came loaded with irony for everyday Cubans because for them, this period was anything but peaceful. For decades, the Soviet Union had been sending oil, food and machinery to Cuba and the entire economy was subsidized by Soviet money.

[Lillian Guerra]

The public health sector was utterly dependent on Soviet aid. The school system was dependent on Soviet aid infrastructure. You couldn't pick up garbage without the oil to put in your trucks. You know, all this stuff from the Soviet Union, not only is it unavailable and unimportable, it actually ceases to be produced.

[Maria de los Angeles Torres]

And they've lived a period of several years of dire, dire economic needs.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

This is marijuana. Maria de los Angeles Torres, born in Cuba. She's a professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of Illinois in Chicago and has written extensively about the history of U.S. cuba relations.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Cuban people experienced widespread energy and fuel shortages. The government instituted strict food rations. Hunger increased. The staple foods from the Soviet Union that people had relied on for decades disappeared. Blackouts lasted up to 20 hours a

[Maria de los Angeles Torres]

day, and people would be coming out and cooking together because they didn't have the fuel for each household to be able to have their own kitchens.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Desperation peaked in 1994 when 35,000 Cubans took to the open sea on homemade rafts, risking death to make the 90 mile journey to the US.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The Cuban government, in response, had to change out of necessity. It had to open up the economy to more capitalist market forces. As a matter of survival, it started legalizing some small private businesses and it also encouraged the development of foreign investment and the tourism industry.

[Lillian Guerra]

That in particular was pretty hard to stomach.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

This is history. Professor Lillian Guerra again, so much of

[Lillian Guerra]

the revolution's mythology, created by Fidel Castro and enforced by the Communist Party, rested on the idea that tourism was bad, that foreign investors were the bane of communism. And in fact, you get the very thing that Fidel spent the 90s and the 80s criticizing.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

The government began to encourage foreign businesses to set up shop in Cuba and take advantage of the cheap labor Cubans provided those investors.

[Lillian Guerra]

And the company is paying the Cuban government, not the workers directly, more than in fact the worker will receive. Let's say that the Cuban government is receiving for every one of its workers a monthly paycheck of $500. Well, the Cuban is actually only getting 50 and the government gets to keep the rest. And so the Cuban who works in that assembly plant has to be grateful because he has more than the average Cuban and he gets a bag of goods that nobody has, like deodorant, really nice shampoo, detergent, you know, basic products that are no longer available on the ration or in the national currency that are manufactured abroad, imported.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

The Cuban government needs to fill the void left behind by the collapse of Soviet aid and it begins to turn to other countries like Venezuela.

[Lillian Guerra]

So Hugo Chavez really creates a relationship with Fidel that's based on the Cuban state contracting doctors and other professionals.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Under Castro, Cuba had a robust education system which allowed them to train professionals like doctors to send abroad. Venezuela wasn't the only place this so called white coat army went. Doctors were sent to Guatemala, Brazil, Honduras, Haiti and more.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

In exchange for doctors, Venezuela sent Cuba 100,000 barrels of oil a day. In addition to oil, Cuba also got money. Some studies estimate that leasing skilled professionals to foreign countries brought in billions of dollars a year to Cuba.

[Maria de los Angeles Torres]

Then the question is, what happens with that money?

[Eloy Vieira]

Okay?

[Maria de los Angeles Torres]

Is it reinvested or not? There's been investment in hotels and in infrastructure around hotels, but Torres says the

[Ramtin Arablouei]

government didn't invest in other infrastructure like the energy grid or road repairs.

[Maria de los Angeles Torres]

All of a sudden there's blackouts. You cannot drive okay, in certain streets because the potholes are huge. So there's a question of what was happening to the money that was being generated.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

An extreme economic crisis, hunger, crumbling infrastructure. A government response that goes against the communist ideals Castro preached for decades and ends up enriching the government more than the Cuban people. This is the situation Cuban people find themselves in at the turn of the century.

[Lillian Guerra]

You could not escape the outrage that Cubans felt. They also were outraged by the fact that the Cuban state, whenever something would come up that was obvious, visible evidence of its own mismanagement or its own hypocrisy, they would blame the Special Period or they'd blame the US embargo. And so citizens had this incredible sort of, you know, memory checklist. And it was, it was one thing after the other that Cubans complained about. The number of grievances were miles long. They were countless grievances that sparked changes

[Ramtin Arablouei]

outside of Cuba too, and in Cuban's relationship to the outside world, particularly with the US People's discontent with the government had also led many to seek new lives. Elsewhere in the US a new diaspora of Cuban Americans started to grow and change.

[Maria de los Angeles Torres]

There was more of an outflow of people leaving Cuba and that started changing the configuration of the community. The politics is a whole different ball game. But the effect of relationships that people had to their relatives was much closer. If you think about at least my wave of immigrants, the beginnings of the 1960s, we spent 20 years without seeing our relatives, whereas people who were leaving in the 90s, they did not have that waiting period. All right?

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Family members in the US Would send money back to Cuba or supplies. These relatives were playing an important role in the Cuban economy.

[Maria de los Angeles Torres]

Cuba was aware of the remittances and was aware of the power of how much money people could send back. So the remittances become very important during this period of time. That was a sea change of attitude, I think, here in Miami and in other places where there were Cuban exiles, because people felt that they could then really have a relationship with their relatives that didn't have to go through the government. You could support your relatives, but that didn't mean you were supportive government. And so that is another way that I think that Cuba survives during that period. That effective tie allows for a, if you will, a Cuba beyond borders of the political to kind of exist.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

It was a new kind of relationship that also changed how people inside Cuba felt about the people who had left.

[Maria de los Angeles Torres]

They saw their families as supporters, and they saw their friends who left as people who were trying to better their lives, not being traitors to the revolution. And they do lose confidence in their government, because it's not their government who's taking care of them anymore. It's their relatives.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Despite the discontent and the economic challenges, the Communist government still survived. And as the economic storm of the Special Period started to clear, the government would even reverse course. It tightened down the economic controls once again, like scaling back opportunities for private businesses.

[Maria de los Angeles Torres]

It's almost like liberalization is a last resort. And it is only when it is like they're up against the wall that they sort of say, okay, let's do this. And as soon as it is resolved, then they go back to the old ways of doing things. In those 90s, there were debates within the government. Again, I don't think it's a monolithic government. I think there are factions in that government that have different points of views. There were those who argued for liberalization. I think that the ones who argued for repression end up winning. When I look at the situation today, I think that if Cuba had gone a different direction with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, they would not find themselves in the situation that they are today. I think they opted for maintaining a centralized economy and one that is very rigid and not very productive because they were afraid of political change. So they find themselves with a very unproductive economic system and one that tends to rely on other countries. It's almost like, I think they have reached the Cliff's end here.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Coming up, Cuba on its way to the edge of the cliff.

[Listener Callers]

Hi, this is Christina from Houston, Texas. Longtime listener, first time caller, and you're listening to Throughline from npr. This show reminds us that history is not black and white and we'd be wise to learn from it. Give up the great work.

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[Rund Abdelfattah]

Hi Rund here. If you're listening to this episode and you feel like you've learned something about the world around you, send us some love. You can leave Throughline a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. We really do read those reviews. They help us understand what people love about the show and what they want to hear more of. And while you're at it, make sure you follow the show, too. That helps other people find out about our show. It's one way you can help us. We really appreciate your support. It means a lot to us. So thank you. Now back to the show. Part three the Cuban Thaw an announcement

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that Fidel Castro's opponents have been awaiting

[Ramtin Arablouei]

for years came in the middle of the night.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

In a letter published in the Communist Party newspaper, Castro said he's no longer physically able to lead Cuba. In 2008, 81 year old Fidel Castro officially stepped down as president, handing power to his brother Raul.

[Maria de los Angeles Torres]

That's not necessarily a transition. Giving Raul the reins of power is precisely symbolic of the political crisis that Cuba has lived since the revolution. And that is it has not allowed for a renovation of political leadership.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

This is Maria de los Angeles Torres. She's a professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of Illinois in Chicago.

[Maria de los Angeles Torres]

Fidel was a central figure for many people. People who were not necessarily ideological felt a certain affinity to him, even if they were living in disaster. I think Raul does not have that kind of relationship with people. And clearly the military personnel that has been put in charge of the various components of the government does not have that repertoire at all. And so it has made it easier for people to be more critical of the government.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

As Raul Castro took power, just across the Atlantic Ocean, another leader stepped into office. Office U.S. president Barack Obama. Throughout his two terms, Obama pursued what was dubbed the Cuban thaw, the start of a new chapter between the two countries, resuming the kind of diplomatic relations that hadn't been seen in more than 50 years. He started with relaxing travel and trade restrictions. Then he became the first U.S. president to visit Cuba since 1928. And he called on Congress repeatedly to lift the U.S. embargo on Cuba.

[Eloy Vieira]

I have to say that Obama was like a refreshment, like a hope for many people in Cuba.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Eloi Vieira is a journalist at El Toque, currently living in exile in Canada. But he was born in Cuba and he lived there during Obama's presidency.

[Eloy Vieira]

If we talk about information, for example, Obama was changing that perspective because after Obama visit, the government decided to allow Cuban people to have Internet in their phones.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

In 2015, President Obama allowed US businesses to invest in Cuba's telecommunications sector and build Internet infrastructure to connect Cuba to the world. The government also opened hotspots to the public.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

But when Eloa was growing up, Cuba didn't have public Internet. The island didn't get connected until 1996. And for nearly two decades after that, Web access was slow and spotty. It was also expensive to get and tightly monitored by the government.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

People still couldn't access the Internet in their homes, only in public spaces regulated by the state, like cyber cafes or parks.

[Eloy Vieira]

One of the main things that I remember from Cuba at that point is that in a big park, in a public space, many people screaming to their phones, trying to talk with their relative, with their friends in other parts of the world, but you have someone seated beside you, next to you, so they were sharing sometimes even intimacy.

[Lillian Guerra (additional commentary)]

Yeah, yeah, but that's where the WI fi was funny, right?

[Eloy Vieira]

Exactly, but it was funny. But it also expressed that hunger of the people to get not just connected, but to feel part of the world. They were living like in a bubble.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

For years, a dual Internet developed in Cuba. For those who could afford it, there was access to the World Wide Web. For most Cubans, there was access to Cuba's tightly controlled and censored Internet.

[Eloy Vieira]

Intranet Internet has become like a tool for many, many people in Cuba who have used the social networks as a way to create synergies between them, to create strategies between them, and to talk about the Cuban problems on the Internet. And the access to Internet, it changed that mentality, the way of the people in Cuba, so the rest of the world.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

But in the meantime, the thawing relations between Cuba and the US had frozen over once again.

[Lillian Guerra]

Everything reversed course in 2016 with the election of Trump and then the subsequent reversal of policy on the part of his administration. You know, the hardliners in Cuba were re empowered again.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

This is Lillian Guerra, history professor at the University of Florida.

[Lillian Guerra]

They took the reins back.

[Eloy Vieira]

I think that the end, the closure of the Obama era, it was like a hit of reality saying, you have been living a fiction for these two years.

[Lillian Guerra (additional commentary)]

What did that feel like to go from having this kind of glimpse of maybe a little bit more openness, more freedom of expression, more information, to then what began to unfold in the years after 2016?

[Eloy Vieira]

I have to say that it was one of the main or worst frustrations of my generation.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Travel restrictions were back, the money from U.S. tourism and investment from U.S. companies dried up and the Cuban economy took a downturn.

[Eloy Vieira]

The regime wanted that you believe that something was possible under their control. And for my generation, this generation that started to make activism, journalism at that moment, it was a huge frustration.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The last decade in Cuba has been characterized by worsening economic desperation. And the pandemic didn't help. In 2021, Cubans took to the streets in a massive display of frustration and, and grievance with the government.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Cuba is one of the most tightly controlled countries in the world, which is why yesterday's demonstrations were astonishing.

[Lillian Guerra]

They were asking first for food, medicine and vaccines. But their loudest cries were really close to end the communist regime, to end the dictatorship.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

And they were met with a brutal crackdown. Police detained around 1,000 people, hundreds of whom are still imprisoned today. The conditions that fueled the 2021 protests have only worsened since then. And that brings us back to the start of this year when a dire situation transformed into a full blown crisis as Cuba's oil supply from Venezuela was cut off. For weeks, Cuba has been short of food and clean water, suffering from intense power blackouts and facing its worst economic crisis in 67 years.

[Maria de los Angeles Torres]

I think that Cuba has found that it has really very, I would say actually almost no options in terms of its ability to develop any kind of economic relations with countries that can help sustain the military in power in Cuba, and specifically petroleum and other goods.

[Lillian Guerra (additional commentary)]

One thing that has been sort of debated or talked about a lot that I've been seeing in the coverage is how to interpret this moment. Whether it's more the responsibility of the Cuban regime and its mistreatment of the Cuban people for so long, or the US embargo that is more of the cause for the current crisis, the either

[Lillian Guerra]

or dynamic it's either utterly the fault of the United States embargo or it's the fault of the Cuban communist government. That's a very comfortable paradigm for both the Cuban government as well as its detractors.

[Maria de los Angeles Torres]

I think that the argument that it's only the embargo is actually a very US centric position perspective. Because the corollary to that is that if it's the embargo, then the only thing that can save Cuban people is taking away the embargo. While obviously the United States is a huge factor in Cuban politics and has always been, I don't think it's the only factor. I think Cubans have in their hands the ability to, despite the embargo, make choices about how they deal with, with the economy, how they organize their politics, how they trade with other countries, how they deal with their own citizens.

[Lillian Guerra]

The communist state relies on the total economic dependency of the population. You don't have any economic autonomy, nor do you have political or social autonomy from the state. And ostensibly this is all for the general good, but effectively it has been for the general impoverishment. Cubans are more equally poor than they are equally rich. And you have an economic elite which is the Cuban communist government, very top echelon that live like kings.

[Maria de los Angeles Torres]

The embargo has actually created a series of cottage industries that have actually allowed, allowed the Cuban military to create lots of small and big businesses around the embargo. That they have become a factor in not wanting the embargo lifted. These are not hard earned dollars. These are public monies. And I think that that is the difference and that is where the critical perspective comes.

[Eloy Vieira]

So I don't know if the regime is going to fall, but what I'm really sure is that in 2026 something is going to happen with the regime. Even in this moment when they feel or they, they seems being weak, they are not weak. They keep the control inside the island, they keep the narrative because even when the people have access to Internet, they control, they filter Internet, they keep repressing people who spread themselves on the social networks. I think that the situation here is going to be determined by the reaction of the, the Cuban people. So everything is in the hands of the Cuban. If the regime crumbled is just because a lot of Cubans went out to the streets, they keep in the streets and they start a new revolution.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

That's it for this week's show. I'm Rund Abdelfatah.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

I'm Ramtin Arablouei and you've been listening to throughline from npr.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

This episode was produced by me and

[Lillian Guerra]

me and Julie Kane, Anya Steinberg, Casey

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Minor, Christina Kim, Devin Kadayama, Irene Noguchi, Kiana Mojatan, Thomas Coltrane. Fact checking for this episode was done by Kevin Voelkel.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Also, thank you to Johannes Durgi, Dylan Kurtz, Rebecca Ferrer, Beth Donovan and Tommy Evans.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

This episode was mixed by Jimmy Keighley. Music for this episode was composed by Ramtin and his band Drop Electric, which

[Ramtin Arablouei]

includes Naveed Marvi, Sho Fujiwara, Anya Mizani and finally, if you have an idea or like something you heard on the show, please write [e-mail] and make sure you follow. Follow us on Apple, Spotify or the NPR app. That way you'll never miss an episode.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Thanks for listening.

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