AHC: Special Period in Cuba -> Revolution

With no PoDs prior to 1989, how can at least one of the following happen?
  • the Castros overthrown or at least a civil war (which may or may not involve US intervention)
  • transition toward democratic elections
  • more free market reforms (as much capitalism as possible)
Depending on your answer, what would be the effects?
 

TinyTartar

Banned
The post-Soviet "special period in a time of peace" was of course an utter disaster, but the lack of economic competency did not lessen the structural oppression systems that the Castro state operated.

Revolution is going to be hard to bring about at all, really. Class and race divisions continued to function as a way to both perpetuate oppression and sow divisions among anyone who would dissent.

For anything to happen, it'd need outside help. That is just the bottom line. A new Bay of Pigs is out of the works, but something akin to a Contra movement developing is another matter entirely. Of course, with the Cold War over, neither the Bush or Clinton governments would really care that much.

Castro dying however might be the impetus for free market opening or elections. If his death comes from the CIA deciding to actually put their A squad on that old project, the way it is carried out will dictate how things go forward; if its cancer, like with Chavez, reforms likely come but gradually, as the Cuban Commie ruling class will need to get their ducks in a row to avoid what happened in Eastern Europe with the deposition of the nomenklatura. The bottom line is that some tyrants just are good at staying around, or they have such power that the only thing that deposes their system is Father Time. We saw it in Spain with Franco, after all.
 
I agree, with the coercive apparatus intact and those who benefit from the regime actively cooperating revolution would be difficult to bring about.

Perhaps the US could have used the opportunity to lift the embargo and use a good dose of economic and cultural imperialism to destabilise Castro's regime while it was down for the count.
 
Perhaps the US could have used the opportunity to lift the embargo and use a good dose of economic and cultural imperialism to destabilise Castro's regime while it was down for the count.
Now that's an interesting idea -- what if the US had lifted the embargo against Cuba in the early 1990's?
 

TinyTartar

Banned
Now that's an interesting idea -- what if the US had lifted the embargo against Cuba in the early 1990's?

I don't think that lifting the embargo would lead to a collapse of the Castro regime.

Rather, it'd lead to something akin to what we are seeing right now; mass emigration from Cubans afraid that the US immigration loophole is going to disappear, taking with them the people most liable to oppose Castro and the Commies in charge.

Blue jeans and VHS tapes don't create political change, and material comfort would merely reinforce the success of the system. Cuban opposition to Castro, except in some very small circles early on, has been about his failure to provide a solid standard of life for Cubans while oppressing them. Most people who have left Cuba since 1970 have been either exiled prisoners, either political or criminal, or economic migrants much like the Haitians who try the same thing. Political flight from Cuba was a thing of the 60s.

Totalitarianism, when it has the support of the elites, works in both conditions of deprivation or normality. The Cuban elite who would have opposed Castro left in the 60s, and all that is left are people who owe him for their status. Its really much like Russia now that I think of it, a strongman leader who is the center of everything and anything.

Communism in Cuba does not fall until Castro and his brother are out of the way, embargo or not.
 
Now that's an interesting idea -- what if the US had lifted the embargo against Cuba in the early 1990's?

Politically it's kind of a no-go: the Cuban-American voting bloc in Flordia remains just as vital to any presidential candidate. The best chance you have is for an outgoing president (i.e. someone who doesn't have to worry about reelection) to spearhead an effort to end the embargo and take action against it via executive order the way Obama did but even then it's hard. It's hard to underestimate how entrenched the opposition is to *any* rapprochement with Cuba. That's why it's only happening in recent times rather than as soon as the USSR collapsed.

People also thought that without Moscow to support him, Castro's regime would swiftly collapse, it's only hindsight that shows us that the Cuban government is extremely resilient to even major economic problems.

Also, emigration was something Castro historically wielded quite effectively: as TinyTatar points out above, the people most likely to leave are enemies of the Castro regime or young people who feel they have no opportunities, which is a good thing if you are a Cuban official worried about potential unrest from the youth.
 
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