Emily J. Kirk - Cubas Forgotten Decade: How the 1970s Shaped the Revolution

i Cubas Forgotten Decade

ii Lexington Studies on Cuba

Series Editors: John M. Kirk, Dalhousie University, and Mervyn Bain, University of Aberdeen

This series will publish texts on all aspects of Cuba, focusing on the post-1959 period. It seeks to be truly interdisciplinary, with studies of all aspects of contemporary Cubafrom foreign policy to culture, sociology, to economics. The series is particularly interested in broad, comprehensive topics (such as women in Cuba, economic challenges, human rights, the role of the media, etc.). All ideological positions are welcomed, with solid academic quality being the defining criterion. In exceptional circumstances edited collections will be considered, but the main focus is on high quality, original, and provocative monographs and innovative scholarship.

Recent Titles in This Series

Cubas Forgotten Decade: How the 1970s Shaped the Revolution

Edited by Emily J. Kirk, Anna Clayfield, and Isabel Story

Everyday Adjustments in Havana: Economic Reforms, Mobility, and Emerging Inequalities

By Hope Bastian

Cubas Gay Revolution: Normalizing Sexual Diversity Through a Health-Based Approach

By Emily J. Kirk

iii Cubas Forgotten Decade

How the 1970s Shaped
the Revolution

Edited by

Emily J. Kirk, Anna Clayfield, and
Isabel Story

iv Published by Lexington Books

An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Is Available

ISBN 978-1-4985-6873-9 (cloth: alk. paper)

ISBN 978-1-4985-6874-6 (electronic)

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

v Contents

Antoni Kapcia

Mervyn Bain

H. Michael Erisman

John M. Kirk

Anna Clayfield

Robert Huish

vi

Emily J. Kirk

Hope Bastian Martnez

Rosi Smith

Isaac Saney

Par Kumaraswami

Isabel Story

Guy Baron

Raquel Ribeiro

Anne Luke

vii List of Acronyms

Introduction

Cubas Forgotten Decade

Cuba in the 1970s was a very different place to the Cuba of the 1960s. Gone was the open and polemical debates that raged across all spheres of life, the erratic forming of social institutions which arose empirically. Gone too, argued many, was the idealism. By the 1970s the need for a fundamental reassessment of the path to independence had become urgent. The revolutionary government felt increasingly isolated as previously natural alliesgeographically or politicallyseemed to move ever further away, compounded by the atomizing nature of the Cold War. Thus began a new phase of the Revolution which sought to find new answers to old problems, and which also included some pragmatic solutions to perennial issues to allow for longer-term planning. One of these solutions included a closer and deeper alliance with the Soviet Union and the Socialist Bloc, particularly in the fields of economy, education, and the military. Cuba joined the Council for Mutual Economic Aid (COMECON) as a full member in 1972 and trade with the organization swiftly came to account for the majority of Cubas foreign commerce. This shift in economic collaboration seemed to imply a change in policy and therefore a prioritization of a particular strand of socialism.