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One thing is certain: Cuba’s 67-year experiment with communism is drawing to a close. Whether triggered by a U.S. invasion, sustained political and economic pressure from Washington, internal upheaval, or a combination of factors, the Communist Party’s hold on power will stop. What might replace it remains uncertain, and as the chaos in Haiti demonstrates, conditions can always deteriorate further.
Yet there is also room for considerably brighter outcomes. With thoughtful reforms guided by the island’s educated and influential Cuban diaspora, the economy could emulate the trajectory seen in Chile after its market-oriented reforms toppled the Marxist administration of Salvador Allende in 1973, or in Poland, which began moving from communism to capitalism with the Balcerowicz Plan in 1989. Those countries were once struggling, but today they are frequently cited as regional exemplars. If Cuba follows a similar path, improvements like revived town centers, functioning sewage networks, better roads, and cleaner hospitals could follow suit.
Yet one clear takeaway from any well-managed transition away from communism toward market economies is that change takes time and disrupts lives. A worker who loses a job when a loss-making enterprise ceases to be subsidized does not fault the central planners for designing a factory that makes products no one wants; instead, he blames the capitalist who reallocates capital and labor toward ventures that can fulfill domestic and foreign demand. Jobs disappear, and new ones emerge. That churn—the destruction of some jobs and the creation of others—is the essence of capitalism. It’s also part of what makes Americans wealthier.
Then comes the money illusion, the natural human tendency to fixate on nominal prices. Economic transitions are often accompanied by inflation. The Cuban peso, like its Eastern European counterparts before the fall of the Berlin Wall, is not freely traded. The rate is set by authorities, producing an enormous gap—sometimes as large as 24-to-1—between the official quote and the real black-market rate. The same applies to staples. Bread is cheap under official pricing but rationed, and thus commands far higher prices in the underground economy. That is a classic tactic of state socialism: keep official prices low to trumpet affordability relative to wages, even though those goods are hard to obtain. When the peso becomes freely floating, its value would plunge and the prices of many goods would surge.
Furthermore, privatizing previously nationalized or state-owned firms can invite graft. This is especially likely when the privatizing body—typically a government-appointed board—includes or leans on former regime members. History in Slovakia, Hungary, and—most notably—Russia shows how self-dealing can have multiple harmful effects. First, it rewards former communists rather than punishing them. Second, it prolongs their influence in society. Third, it leads to incompetent management and slows down the pace of economic adjustment. As a result, privatization must be carried out with maximum transparency (for example, via blind auctions) and, ideally, under international oversight. Importantly, privatization should be open to foreign (including diaspora) entrepreneurs who can bring tacit knowledge, including the best accounting and production practices.
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These issues matter, because humans suffer from selective memory and nostalgia. Returning to the Central (formerly “Eastern”) Europe of my childhood, as I occasionally do, I am struck by what people remember and what they have forgotten about life under communism. Gone are the recollections of long lines in front of stores selling stuff sophisticated Western customers would not glance at. Gone are the memories of widespread bribery that greased the wheels of commerce: “Are you sure you are out of this particular medicine?” Here is a bit of money “to look again.” Shortages? Never heard of them. Conversely, people love to remember (official) prices and contrast them with the present. Wage increases are seldom factored in. Capitalism is blamed for all that still ails society, while socialism is more fondly remembered by the old and idealistically reimagined by the young.
Left-wing demagogues use such quirks of human psychology to salvage from a century of socialist disasters some “positives” and to minimize the salutary effects of free enterprise. That is particularly true of Cuba—a tiny island nation that has for decades withstood the pressure from the American behemoth, thereby winning progressive admiration. Thus, before the Cuba of Che Guevara and the Castro brothers disappears over the memory horizon, it is vital to set the record straight and separate the reality from the myth.
Let us start with the promise of the Cuban Revolution that brought the communists to power in 1959.
Novelist Norman Mailer said Castro was “the first and greatest, hero to appear in the world since the Second World War.” Susan Sontag wrote, “Ever since my three-month visit to Cuba in the summer of 1960, the Cuban revolution has been dear to me, and Che, along with Fidel, have been heroes and cherished models.” French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre called Che Guevara “the most complete human being of our age.” His partner, Simone de Beauvoir, wrote of her visit to Cuba, “For the first time in our lives, we were witnessing happiness that had been attained by violence.” Activist Malcolm X praised Cuba’s race relations, while the once-influential sociologist C. Wright Mills praised the revolutionaries for their humanity.
Obviously, things turned out differently.
According to Cuban American journalist Frank Zimmerman’s new book 12 Myths about Cuba: The Power of Narrative, Cuba’s communist regime bears responsibility for thousands of dead and millions forced into exile. From the outset, Castro reinstated the death penalty, ordered firing squad executions, and interned tens of thousands in prisons and forced-labor camps. Che Guevara personally directed summary executions at La Cabaña fortress. Between 25,000 and 30,000 Cubans were sent to forced-labor camps for being gay, religious, or ideologically “deviant.” State-induced scarcity, economic collapse, and a tourism-driven survival economy pushed many Cubans, including minors, into prostitution during the Special Period in the 1990s.
The regime proclaimed the end of racism by decree in 1959, then systematically betrayed Afro-Cubans. For example, the “pre-criminal social dangerousness” law, which allowed imprisonment without a crime, was most frequently applied to young Afro-Cubans. During the July 11, 2021, protests over deteriorating economic conditions made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic, black Cubans were prominent among those arrested, beaten, and given sentences. Structural racism was replaced not with equality but with superficial, folkloric representation on state media. Diversity is permitted only when it applauds power. The moment Afro-Cubans organize autonomously or dissent, repression follows.
In 1958, Cuba’s per-capita GDP topped the equivalent of $24,000 in today’s dollars, placing it among the most prosperous economies in Latin America. By 2025, official figures put it at roughly $7,500—a number Zimmerman finds far too high. Poverty was never eliminated. Instead, it was centralized, rationed, and weaponized as a control mechanism. Private enterprise was dismantled, and independent economic activity criminalized. The military conglomerate GAESA captures an estimated 37 percent of GDP. George Orwell, reflecting on the socialist assertion that, “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs,” once famously retorted: “Yes, but where is the omelet?” That’s a question as appropriate regarding Cuba as any other socialist disaster zone.
And so, the left-wing salvage operation got underway.
In 2016, Barack Obama said to Raul Castro, “Look, you’ve made great progress in educating young people. Every child in Cuba gets a basic education. That’s a huge improvement from where it
