Cuba

E

Theater and Film

Havana’s Teatro Principal, where Cuban audiences viewed European classical works, was inaugurated on October 12, 1776. Theatrical life developed throughout the island, and soon the so-called teatro bufo, or farcical theater, began to depict the different ethnic groups in Cuban society. Later, playwrights such as Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda and José Jacinto Milanés made important contributions to a romantic theater focused upon nationalism.

After independence, Cuban theater lay dormant, but by the end of the 1940s and into the revolutionary period, many small theaters emerged. Playwrights of this period include Virgilio Piñera, Anton Arrufat, Abelardo Estorino, and José Triana. All of these dramatists occupied posts in Casa de las Américas, Cuba’s most prestigious publishing house, and in the National Union of Cuban Writers and Artists. Since the revolution, Cuban theater has languished as popular street theater replaced the formal settings. Street theater took the message of revolution to people throughout the island and often involved them in theatrical productions in order to make them feel a part of Cuba’s new society.

Motion-picture making began with silent films such as La Virgen de la Caridad (The Virgin of Charity, 1930), a film about Cuba’s patron saint, who was a symbol of Cuban independence. Movies of this period glorified independence and celebrated Cuban heroism and sacrifice. During the 1920s and 1930s, Cuban movie houses featured U.S. films, and U.S. movie stars appeared in all the popular magazines. Many aspects of modernization and changing social attitudes were transmitted to Cuba through American films.

Not until the 1950s did Cuban film production compete well with the international film industry. This effort was led by motion-picture director Guillermo Cabrera Infante, founder of the Cuban Film Association, the Cuban Film Society, and after the revolution, the director of the Cuban Film Institute (ICAIC). Cabrera Infante went into exile in 1961 and was replaced at ICAIC by motion-picture director Alfredo Guevara. The movie industry continued to flourish with Memorias del subdesarrollo (Memories of Underdevelopment, 1968), Lucía (1969), and Retrato de Teresa (Portrait of Teresa, 1979), all of which contained messages that both praised and criticized the revolution. Tomás Gutiérrez Alea directed several award-winning films, including Los Sobrevivientes (The Survivors, 1979), Fresa y chocolate (Strawberry and Chocolate, 1993), and Guantanamera (1994). Cinematographer Nestor Almendros received numerous awards, including the Academy Award in 1979 for his work as a motion-picture photographer on Days of Heaven (1978).

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F

Libraries and Museums

The largest library in Cuba is the José Martí National Library in Havana, containing some 2.2 million volumes. It is the major repository for 20th-century literature, periodicals, monographs, maps, and reference books. The National Museum of Havana houses collections of both classical and modern art along with relics of native cultures. The Revolutionary Museum retains the memorabilia of the 1959 revolution as well as some relics of the wars of independence and the Batista era. The National Archives contain all primary documents from the colonial period to the present.

The History Institute contains primary documents, many of a sensitive nature, on the Cuban Communist Party and other radical groups from the 1950s to the present. It also is the repository for the artifacts and documents of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and specific events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, in which the discovery of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba caused a tense standoff between the United States and the USSR. Other important museums are the Colonial and Anthropological museums in Havana, located in restored homes of Spanish officials, which depict the colonial past. The Museum of the City of Havana, also in a colonial palace, houses the papers of Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring, a journalist who became the city historian of Havana in 1933.

The Morro Castle is a fortress with excellent views of Havana’s harbor and skyline. It now houses a maritime museum. The Guanabacoa Museum, near Morro Castle, provides information about Santería and, occasionally, performances of rituals are given here. The Emilio Bacardi Moreau Museum of natural history and art in Santiago de Cuba displays the natural wildlife and plants of the island and is located in an old rum factory. A museum and monument to the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion stands at Playa Girón, where Cuban troops turned back a force of Cuban exiles which, with the support of the United States, attempted to overthrow the Castro government.

V

Economy

With a colonial economy based primarily on sugarcane, Cuba grew into a rich producer and exporter of sugar during the 19th century. Foreign investors, especially from the United States, invested in Cuba to take part in the lucrative sugar market. This investment resulted in much of Cuba’s sugar revenue leaving the country, making foreign investors and a small Cuban elite wealthy. However, large segments of the Cuban people did not benefit economically from Cuba’s sugar market.

After the Cuban Revolution of 1959, the government of Fidel Castro promised to address perceived economic inequities within the country and between Cuba and the United States. Castro nationalized large agricultural estates, sugar refineries, foreign industrial and mining firms, and privately owned urban properties. These policies were not well received by U.S. government officials, and in 1960 U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower severed diplomatic relations with Cuba.

Also in 1960, Eisenhower issued an executive order implementing a partial trade embargo to prohibit the importation of Cuban goods. The Congress of the United States institutionalized the embargo in 1961 with the passage of the Cuban Democracy Act. In return, Castro nationalized an estimated $8 billion in U.S. assets. U.S. hostility toward the Castro government encouraged an economic alliance between Cuba and the USSR, the world’s leading Communist nation. The USSR offered Cuba generous subsidies and trade agreements that provided agricultural machinery, crude oil, and technological instruction in exchange for Cuban sugar. Cuba became one of the USSR’s closest allies.

Despite its alliance with the USSR, Cuba suffered economic mismanagement, and it relied too heavily on sugar. Its economic problems became even more serious after 1989, when Communist governments began to collapse in Eastern Europe and the USSR reduced its aid to Cuba as well as its trade with the island. Cuba’s gross domestic product (GDP) fell at least 35 percent from 1983 to 1993, with the steepest decline between 1990 and 1993. From 1989 to 1992, imports fell from $8 billion to $2.2 billion.

By the mid-1990s the Cuban economy began to recover from its free fall, and the government focused its fiscal policies on increasing productivity and cutting costs. It also turned to foreign investment to help the country upgrade its aging infrastructure and develop new industries. These efforts helped reduce public-sector spending and the deficit. The economy also began to move away from its reliance on sugar as the government decreased sugar production. As the 21st century began, Cuba’s economy had become less dependent on agriculture and instead began to rely more heavily on tourism and biotechnology.

A

Labor

Since the Cuban Revolution, the Cuban government has employed a large percentage of the workforce. Prior to the economic collapse of the late 1980s, the state employed more than 90 percent of the labor force. By the beginning of the 21st century, the figure had dropped to about 75 percent as a result of the government’s efforts to decentralize the economy and encourage private enterprise.

In 1990, 18 percent of the workforce was employed in agriculture, forestry, and fishing; 30 percent worked in industry; and 51 percent worked in the services. By 2002 agriculture, forestry, and fishing accounted for 27 percent of the labor force; industry, 20 percent; and services, 53 percent. The decline in the percentage working in industry reflects Cuba’s efforts to make its industrial sector more profitable by streamlining operations.

No official figures are available that show how the economic crisis beginning in the late 1980s affected labor, but in the mid-1990s unemployment in Cuba was estimated at about 25 percent. This compares with no unemployment between 1965 and 1980, an 18 percent unemployment rate in 1952, and more than 30 percent unemployment in 1933. At the beginning of the 21st century, unemployment had declined to about 5.5 percent according to the Cuban government.

However, economic figures do not capture the full picture of labor activity in Cuba. Many Cubans have chosen to leave their jobs in order to freelance in independent businesses. Their economic activities are not recorded in official labor census data, but they may have income in dollars as freelance entrepreneurs.

In addition, the government does not count the amount of work done by forced “voluntary” labor. The government requires every adult capable of work to volunteer for 150 hours per year. Their duties take them into entirely different occupations from their own, and they usually work in construction, agricultural fields, urban sanitation, and fumigation. The government tracks attendance, and delinquent citizens can be fined or made to work extended hours. Additionally, people are required to do guard duty at their work places and in neighborhoods, and some belong to the militia.

Workers in the state sector represent themselves through the Cuban Confederation of Workers (Confederación de Trabajadores de Cuba, Spanish acronym CTC), which has minimal power to influence labor practices and salary levels. Within work establishments, local boards of the CTC arbitrate labor disputes. Workers participate in these discussions and decisions.

B

Agriculture

More than three-quarters of the Cuban population live in cities, yet the economy remains largely agricultural. Sugar has long been an important part of Cuba’s economy. In the early 1990s, however, the sugar industry was plagued by inefficiency and low world prices. In 2002 the government restructured the industry by shutting about half of its sugar mills and reducing the amount of land used for growing sugar. The goal was to make the industry more profitable and to open up land for food production. Sugar production in 1990 was 8 million metric tons; in 2003 Cuba produced 3.8 million metric tons. Sugar production fell from 65 percent of Cuba’s export earnings at the beginning of the economic crisisto 27 percent in 2000.

Coffee is another important agricultural product. However, coffee production declined as the rural population increasingly moved to the cities. In response, the government had modest success in a program that offered incentives for people to move from cities to the Sierra Maestra mountains to harvest coffee. Most coffee is exported, leaving little for domestic consumption. Tobacco production in Cuba has remained about the same since the late 1990s. Cuban cigars are much in demand worldwide and almost all are exported.

Three types of farms emerged following the revolution. Farms seized from large landholders became state farms. State farms were huge estates completely owned and operated by the government and worked by state employees. Smaller farms were organized into collectives that allowed farmers who owned parcels of land making up the collective to have access to seed, fertilizers, and equipment. They had to give a designated percentage of their crops to the government. Small farms, never entirely eliminated by the socialist government, remained under private ownership. They received no state aid and sold their produce directly to the government.

Between 1975 and 1985, Cuba experimented with limited free-market reforms (Free-Market Economy) in order to boost food production. During this time the government allowed farmers to keep a small percentage of their crops to sell in markets. However, Castro ended the experiment in 1985 after deciding that allowing some farmers to grow wealthier than their neighbors created social inequities.

Domestic agricultural production has dropped precipitously in recent years. To increase production, the government again allowed farmers to sell excess produce for a profit in farmers’ markets and began to divide state farms into collectives, which had proven to be far more productive. Thus, in 1998 the government directly owned only about 30 percent of Cuba’s farmland, down from over 75 percent at the beginning of the 1990s.

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