Asses the successes and failures of Fidel Castro
Uploaded by wiegerp on Nov 09, 2008
Asses the successes and failures of Fidel Castro
Whereas today, Castro may be seen as the person who made it possible for “200 million people to live in the street and they are certainly not Cuban”; during the first decade of his rule Castro was effective in implementing social justice and freedom of the economy from the USA. This was done by implementing policies such as the land reform, education reforms, agricultural diversification and political decrees. Although these changes may seem to have great success; at the same time, Castro was unaware that these reforms would result in economic failures such as “the failure of 10 m tonnes” or the failure of the second land reform. These failures; combined with the political isolation from the USA of being a socialist country and the resentments towards the USSR of the Cuban missile Crisis left Cuba in a weak position in terms of an economic view.
By the time Castro become prime minister and first secretary in 1959; the country’s economy was weak due to the failure of the Cuban government to perform any reforms; as Castro argued in a speech in 1965 “the fidelists wanted a change in society where political and economical failures made it impossible to recourse the ability to reform”. Cuba before Castro was ruled “by the elite, a group of wealthy landowners and merchants that use the resources to satisfy their own purposes”- Clive foss. Politically; the country was ruled by corrupt politicians who failed to implement any change. Economically; the country was dependent on the USA; 67% of all exports in 1968 went to the USA and 70% of all imports came from the USA. The USA controlled 3/5 of the railways, ½ of all the industrial productive land. USA controlled the main businesses of tobacco “Cohiba” and rum “Havana Club”. They also controlled electricity and telephone companies, not discarding the fact that they had the main oil refineries such as “Texaco”.
Socially; the country had 600,000 workers unemployed, the ones who were employed mainly worked in a basis of 3 months per year. Therefore there was seasonal unemployment. Out of 100% of the education within rural areas; 70% of the rural children lacked a teacher. 3 million people did not have electricity; 3.5 million people lived in huts and there was 37 ½ percent of illiteracy. The poor were not allowed to have health services nor an...