What if Cuba never went communist?

[Reflection]

At the time, Fidel Castro's rise to power was an unlikely story, and even more unlikely would be that Cuba would go full communist. The fact that communism, which was thought to have been restricted to just Eastern Europe and Asia, had now arrived quite literally at America's doorstep threw the US into a panic. Assassination attempts, a failed invasion, closed diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba as the latter grew close to the Soviets, and a near-apocalypse brought upon by the Cuba Missile Crisis was the result of that. Cuba remained communist after the CMC, as part of their deal with the Soviets because that nightmare scenario scared the two so much that they worked on a compromise to never let it happen again. As such, Cuba was quite unique as a communist country in the Western Hemisphere normally in the US dominated part of the world, whereas others would get toppled and fast.

So with all this time where Cuba existed as a communist country, you have to wonder, how would Cuba have developed if it went capitalist instead?

The POD is that Fidel Castro dies trying to overthrow the government, as does his brother Raul and Che Guevara. Thus, Cuba doesn't have a Marxist revolution. What effects does this have?

Personally, I think Cuba would've been in a great position to become the economic powerhouse of the Caribbean, mainly because of its sheer size and population. I imagine Cuba's main exports would be cigars (because of course), sugar, steel, gas and agricultural machines, while one of the biggest industries benefiting the nation would be tourism. You can imagine all the people in the US and elsewhere who would love to vacation in Havana, or enjoy the nice sunny beaches. Also, Cuba would be a major source of pro baseball players, as the sport was very popular there, and many Cuban defectors would become pro MLB. Just imagine if they could easily move to the US and back?

Also of note is that Cuba never going communist means that Castro doesn't fund and prop up regimes in Latin America and Africa. That means that a lot of the regimes that the US fought off likely never exist in this timeline, and furthermore, communism remains contained to just Europe and Asia.

However, one notable knock-on effect is that Miami would likely never become the "Capital of Latin America". Miami was originally a much smaller city in Florida that wasn't very important overall and much more heavily tied to the rest of Florida. Cuban migration to Miami happened en masse after Castro took over, and that in turn led to a mass migration of other ethnic groups like Nicaraguans, Venezuelans, Dominicans, Hondurans, and Argentines, among others. It was a place where many from the Caribbean and South/Central America fled to in order to escape oppressive, often communist regimes. Without the need for Cubans to escape to Miami, and without Castro funding these regimes, it's much less likely to turn into the Latin Capital it is today, and with that, Miami becomes far less important (most likely just a resort city).

But that's my take. What do you think?

 

[Walker2006]

No communist Cuba means no Cuban Missile Crisis (obviously). The Soviets would be in a more precarious position, as it no longer has the leverage to place missiles to directly threaten the United States in the New World, and with the addition of American missiles being placed in Turkey.

 

[Vinization]

Khrushchev lasts a little while longer without the Missile Crisis. The US might be a little less paranoid without a communist state right next to Florida, but I wouldn't bet on it. Speaking of Florida, its politics will definitely be affected by the lack of an exile community. Maybe it'll be a little less conservative as a result?

 

[marktaha]

Professional boxing would have been a lot better.

 

[Matrix]

Communism in Cuba actually is very preventable, it's just that many opportunities were missed in doing so. I think that the turning point was when Fidel Castro was sent to imprisonment and later on, went to Mexico to grow his revolution. Had Batista chose to execute Castro, things would be different. And Castro's revolutionary momentum would just die off.

And for what future holds Cuba had it not be under communism, we could see that it will still remain as a hub for American tourists and mobsters. It was dubbed as the Las Vegas of the Caribbean. Had Batista chose not to reform, corruption levels will stay the same. Not to mention we could see a modern-day Cuba with modern cars with the embargo non-existent. What I kept thinking what will happen is that how Batista would reign longer, I don't see Batista ruling for more years especially the growing discontent of Cubans. Without the nationalist revolution of Castro (yes, his revolution was nationalism before going full socialism due to disagreements with the U.S.) we could see a number of factions rise like the Falangists, a fascist faction originated from Spain and has growing activities in Latin America at the time, even Syndicalists and others.

Personally, I think Cuba would've been in a great position to become the economic powerhouse of the Caribbean, mainly because of its sheer size and population. I imagine Cuba's main exports would be cigars (because of course), sugar, steel, gas and agricultural machines, while one of the biggest industries benefiting the nation would be tourism. You can imagine all the people in the US and elsewhere who would love to vacation in Havana, or enjoy the nice sunny beaches. Also, Cuba would be a major source of pro baseball players, as the sport was very popular there, and many Cuban defectors would become pro MLB.

Yes, I think Cuba will be economically robust too except if Batista continues his corrupt administration then it's nothing. With Cuba's rich exports, it could become one of Latin America's biggest economies next to Argentina and Brazil (assuming those giants aren't wasted as well like in our OTL). Cuba has many potential to be one, its decaying infrastructures will not exist like in OTL and we could see skyscrapers in Havana, perhaps it could still be called as the Las Vegas of Latin America today.

 

[marathag]

Professional boxing would have been a lot better.

Baseball even more

 

[Chris Nation]

Speaking of Florida, its politics will definitely be affected by the lack of an exile community. Maybe it'll be a little less conservative as a result?

I think the opposite is true. It's often said that Florida is the only state where the further south you go, the more North you get. Meaning that Northern Florida is much more like the rest of the South, but South Florida is much more like the Northeastern US.

The impetus for this, as others have alluded to, is down to the Cuban refugees who remade the area. I think without that change, Florida becomes less of a monolith in attracting other communities, especially from elsewhere in Latin America, but also from within the US, like Jews and other Snowbirds from New York and the rest of the Northeast.

The result is a much more conservative Florida which remains much more like the rest of the South.

Sorry, Al Gore.

 

[Comte de Geneve]

I am interested on the impact to Vegas with Havana remaining a wide-open party town and much closer to the East and Midwest. Plus the mob remaining fully invested in Cuba. I think back to Guys and Dolls where the plot was Sky getting Sarah to go to Havana with him and be 'liberated'. Havana would still be focal point especially for New Yorkers wanting to gamble and party and in a warm and exotic environment (sorry Atlantic City). Imagine the Trump complex on the Havana seaside. Vegas would still exist and grow but I think it would be more of a destination for Californians and not nearly the ginormous thing it is today. What happens in Havana stays in Havana.

 

[Gibby71]

I'm no expert on Cuban history or the life of Fidel Castro, but what if while studying law in Havana, Castro had instead been influenced by right-wing nationalists, in the vein of Juan Peron, and Franco in Spain? Let's say that he still attempts to overthrow Batista's government, which he sees as weak and beholden to organized crime in the U.S., gets imprisoned, but when freed, he and his brother Raul go to Spain, where they learn from fascist/falangists there. Would the U.S. support a fascist/nationalist Cuba? It would probably be seen as better than a communist Cuba by Eisenhower, then Kennedy, but what if this right-wing nationalist government was hostile to U.S. business interests? Would this Cuba be seen as a threat, or simply tolerated like other right-wing dictatorships in Latin America were until it was no longer in U.S. interests to prop them up?

 

[Dan1988]

So with all this time where Cuba existed as a communist country, you have to wonder, how would Cuba have developed if it went capitalist instead?

It's actually pretty simple - it wouldn't, as long as Batista remains in power, and if the US demands Cuba remain a de facto colony, the island still wouldn't develop as far as it could be. At the same time, there was already enough discontent within Cuba that Batista's regime was going to go anyway, so it may render that moot.

Economic powerhouse of the Caribbean Cuba would not become (even when industrialized, its economy would be much too small to make that work), but if the US could be persuaded to support land reform (one of the key bits of the later Alliance for Progress, don't forget), perhaps as a TVA-style thing, that gives it a much better chance to provide some additional cheap capital for industrialization - along with closing down the casinos as an anti-corruption/anti-organized crime measure and repurposing the buildings as something else. Cuba alone would easily meet the goals of the OTL Alliance for Progress and making it a New Deal-type thing that could also simultaneously help attract legitimate foreign investment and extend literacy, education, and health care to the poor. At some point, Cuba will have to move away from agriculture and raw materials and towards some level of industrialization, which it could definitely try making it work - even if agriculture remains important, à la NZ, there's enough potential for Cuba to start trying to industrialize.

 

[durante]

It's actually pretty simple - it wouldn't, as long as Batista remains in power, and if the US demands Cuba remain a de facto colony, the island still wouldn't develop as far as it could be. At the same time, there was already enough discontent within Cuba that Batista's regime was going to go anyway, so it may render that moot.

Economic powerhouse of the Caribbean Cuba would not become (even when industrialized, its economy would be much too small to make that work), but if the US could be persuaded to support land reform (one of the key bits of the later Alliance for Progress, don't forget), perhaps as a TVA-style thing, that gives it a much better chance to provide some additional cheap capital for industrialization - along with closing down the casinos as an anti-corruption/anti-organized crime measure and repurposing the buildings as something else. Cuba alone would easily meet the goals of the OTL Alliance for Progress and making it a New Deal-type thing that could also simultaneously help attract legitimate foreign investment and extend literacy, education, and health care to the poor. At some point, Cuba will have to move away from agriculture and raw materials and towards some level of industrialization, which it could definitely try making it work - even if agriculture remains important, à la NZ, there's enough potential for Cuba to start trying to industrialize.

Without the Revolution, Cuba's best case is Puerto Rico and worst case is the Dominican Republic. (Both of which have higher GDP per capita but also higher % of the population living in poverty). It is impossible to underestimate how genuinely popular the revolution is in Cuba - the people want change, reform, openness, but NOT a return to Capitalism.

So much so, that I hesitate to say that Che, Raul and Fidel's deaths wouldnt have avoided anything. It was not three men that overthrew Batista. It was the Cuban people.

 

[marathag]

, I think Cuba will be economically robust too except if Batista continues his corrupt administration then it's nothing. With Cuba's rich exports, it could become one of Latin America's biggest economies

Cuba was the most developed in Central America, GDP per capita as good as Mexico, but worse GINI in 1959

 

[Pelranius]

I'm no expert on Cuban history or the life of Fidel Castro, but what if while studying law in Havana, Castro had instead been influenced by right-wing nationalists, in the vein of Juan Peron, and Franco in Spain? Let's say that he still attempts to overthrow Batista's government, which he sees as weak and beholden to organized crime in the U.S., gets imprisoned, but when freed, he and his brother Raul go to Spain, where they learn from fascist/falangists there. Would the U.S. support a fascist/nationalist Cuba? It would probably be seen as better than a communist Cuba by Eisenhower, then Kennedy, but what if this right-wing nationalist government was hostile to U.S. business interests? Would this Cuba be seen as a threat, or simply tolerated like other right-wing dictatorships in Latin America were until it was no longer in U.S. interests to prop them up?

It'd probably be ignored by the US government, which would hope that something else replaces it (I doubt that a Falagnist Castro dictatorship would be very stable, since I doubt it'd be nearly as popular as OTL socialism with either the average Cuban revolutionary or person in the street).

 

[Dr. No]

If you type in "Cuba without Castro" or "Cuba without revoltuion" and add "synthetic control method", you'll get some insightful scientific answers by number-crunching economists and the like. They all say that the revolution had a negative effect on Cuba's development and the country would be better off in numerous ways without 1959 happening the way it did.

I read a lot of papers about this stuff: Venezuela without Chavez/Maduro, Spain/Turkey without terror from ETA/PKK, Slovakia without the Euro, West Germany without re-unification (disregarding the menacing exodus from East Germany, mind you), Ireland without independence, UK without the EU referendum etc. Cuba without socialism/communism/you name it is one of the most classic examples. I love the synthetic control method because it's one of the most scientific ways to explore counterfactuals and this is what AH.com is all about.

 

[Mark E.]

You are dealing with the time period when air conditioning was beginning to transform the American South. You would see a reflection of that type of industrial boom.

 

[Asp]

At the time, Fidel Castro's rise to power was an unlikely story, and even more unlikely would be that Cuba would go full communist. The fact that communism, which was thought to have been restricted to just Eastern Europe and Asia, had now arrived quite literally at America's doorstep threw the US into a panic. Assassination attempts, a failed invasion, closed diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba as the latter grew close to the Soviets, and a near-apocalypse brought upon by the Cuba Missile Crisis was the result of that. Cuba remained communist after the CMC, as part of their deal with the Soviets because that nightmare scenario scared the two so much that they worked on a compromise to never let it happen again. As such, Cuba was quite unique as a communist country in the Western Hemisphere normally in the US dominated part of the world, whereas others would get toppled and fast.

So with all this time where Cuba existed as a communist country, you have to wonder, how would Cuba have developed if it went capitalist instead?

The POD is that Fidel Castro dies trying to overthrow the government, as does his brother Raul and Che Guevara. Thus, Cuba doesn't have a Marxist revolution. What effects does this have?

Personally, I think Cuba would've been in a great position to become the economic powerhouse of the Caribbean, mainly because of its sheer size and population. I imagine Cuba's main exports would be cigars (because of course), sugar, steel, gas and agricultural machines, while one of the biggest industries benefiting the nation would be tourism. You can imagine all the people in the US and elsewhere who would love to vacation in Havana, or enjoy the nice sunny beaches. Also, Cuba would be a major source of pro baseball players, as the sport was very popular there, and many Cuban defectors would become pro MLB. Just imagine if they could easily move to the US and back?

Also of note is that Cuba never going communist means that Castro doesn't fund and prop up regimes in Latin America and Africa. That means that a lot of the regimes that the US fought off likely never exist in this timeline, and furthermore, communism remains contained to just Europe and Asia.

However, one notable knock-on effect is that Miami would likely never become the "Capital of Latin America". Miami was originally a much smaller city in Florida that wasn't very important overall and much more heavily tied to the rest of Florida. Cuban migration to Miami happened en masse after Castro took over, and that in turn led to a mass migration of other ethnic groups like Nicaraguans, Venezuelans, Dominicans, Hondurans, and Argentines, among others. It was a place where many from the Caribbean and South/Central America fled to in order to escape oppressive, often communist regimes. Without the need for Cubans to escape to Miami, and without Castro funding these regimes, it's much less likely to turn into the Latin Capital it is today, and with that, Miami becomes far less important (most likely just a resort city).

But that's my take. What do you think?

Communism in Cuba actually is very preventable, it's just that many opportunities were missed in doing so. I think that the turning point was when Fidel Castro was sent to imprisonment and later on, went to Mexico to grow his revolution. Had Batista chose to execute Castro, things would be different. And Castro's revolutionary momentum would just die off.

And for what future holds Cuba had it not be under communism, we could see that it will still remain as a hub for American tourists and mobsters. It was dubbed as the Las Vegas of the Caribbean. Had Batista chose not to reform, corruption levels will stay the same. Not to mention we could see a modern-day Cuba with modern cars with the embargo non-existent. What I kept thinking what will happen is that how Batista would reign longer, I don't see Batista ruling for more years especially the growing discontent of Cubans. Without the nationalist revolution of Castro (yes, his revolution was nationalism before going full socialism due to disagreements with the U.S.) we could see a number of factions rise like the Falangists, a fascist faction originated from Spain and has growing activities in Latin America at the time, even Syndicalists and others.



Yes, I think Cuba will be economically robust too except if Batista continues his corrupt administration then it's nothing. With Cuba's rich exports, it could become one of Latin America's biggest economies next to Argentina and Brazil (assuming those giants aren't wasted as well like in our OTL). Cuba has many potential to be one, its decaying infrastructures will not exist like in OTL and we could see skyscrapers in Havana, perhaps it could still be called as the Las Vegas of Latin America today.

Without the Revolution, Cuba's best case is Puerto Rico and worst case is the Dominican Republic. (Both of which have higher GDP per capita but also higher % of the population living in poverty). It is impossible to underestimate how genuinely popular the revolution is in Cuba - the people want change, reform, openness, but NOT a return to Capitalism.

So much so, that I hesitate to say that Che, Raul and Fidel's deaths wouldnt have avoided anything. It was not three men that overthrew Batista. It was the Cuban people.

Cuba was the most developed in Central America, GDP per capita as good as Mexico, but worse GINI in 1959

One of the annoying misconceptions that always seems to come up in these threads is that Batista's Cuba was some sort of unique hellhole and that it was a economically badly off for non-rich Cubans in comparison to any other country in the third world. None of that is true. Batista was a brutal dictator, but Castro wasn't an improvement in that regard. As far as the economy, Cuba was extremely high-performing and was on track to be a first world country within a few decades. Per capita income was ahead of some of the poorer countries in Europe like Spain, Portugal, Italy, etc., possibly on par with certain states in the southern U.S., and it was growing fast. The consumption statistics are even better. Castro took that and turned it into the kind of place where Cuban doctors and educated professionals flee en mass whenever they get the opportunity.

If Communism hadn't happened to Cuba, it would be at least as well off as Spain, Italy, and Portugal (who it was ahead of in the 1950s). Castro's handling of the state's economy is objectively one of the most awesome failures of governance of all time, on par with Venezuela and Zimbabwe. Most independent estimates say its economy is actually slightly smaller than it was before the revolution, and at most it's no bigger than it was in the late 60s/early 70s. That's just staggering.

 

[durante]

One of the annoying misconceptions that always seems to come up in these threads is that Batista's Cuba was some sort of unique hellhole and that it was a economically badly off for non-rich Cubans in comparison to any other country in the third world. None of that is true. Batista was a brutal dictator, but Castro wasn't an improvement in that regard. As far as the economy, Cuba was extremely high-performing and was on track to be a first world country within a few decades. Per capita income was ahead of some of the poorer countries in Europe like Spain, Portugal, Italy, etc., possibly on par with certain states in the southern U.S., and it was growing fast. The consumption statistics are even better. Castro took that and turned it into the kind of place where Cuban doctors and educated professionals flee en mass whenever they get the opportunity.

If Communism hadn't happened to Cuba, it would be at least as well off as Spain, Italy, and Portugal (who it was ahead of in the 1950s). Castro's handling of the state's economy is objectively one of the most awesome failures of governance of all time, on par with Venezuela and Zimbabwe. Most independent estimates say its economy is actually slightly smaller than it was before the revolution, and at most it's no bigger than it was in the late 60s/early 70s. That's just staggering.

The data from the world bank says, accounting for inflation, that GDP PC was the same in 2015 as it was in 1985. (It didnt stay at the same level, it dipped post 1990 and then came back up).

Definitely had a rocky economic time. Might it have anything to do with the embargo?

In any event, most experts on Cuba assert that the US embargo strengthened Castro's dictatorship by creating a common enemy and allowing him to blame the (large, and many) economic issues the country faced on the embargo, rather than the system itself.

Castro was unequivocally an improvement on Batista.

I said without communism, best case scenario is Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico's GDP per capita is higher than Spain or Portugal (2021) and is within 2% of Italy's.

 

[Anglocalvinist67]

Michael Corleone would have won the battle for the control of the hotels and casinos in Havana over Hyman Roth.

 

[marktaha]

It's actually pretty simple - it wouldn't, as long as Batista remains in power, and if the US demands Cuba remain a de facto colony, the island still wouldn't develop as far as it could be. At the same time, there was already enough discontent within Cuba that Batista's regime was going to go anyway, so it may render that moot.

Economic powerhouse of the Caribbean Cuba would not become (even when industrialized, its economy would be much too small to make that work), but if the US could be persuaded to support land reform (one of the key bits of the later Alliance for Progress, don't forget), perhaps as a TVA-style thing, that gives it a much better chance to provide some additional cheap capital for industrialization - along with closing down the casinos as an anti-corruption/anti-organized crime measure and repurposing the buildings as something else. Cuba alone would easily meet the goals of the OTL Alliance for Progress and making it a New Deal-type thing that could also simultaneously help attract legitimate foreign investment and extend literacy, education, and health care to the poor. At some point, Cuba will have to move away from agriculture and raw materials and towards some level of industrialization, which it could definitely try making it work - even if agriculture remains important, à la NZ, there's enough potential for Cuba to start trying to industrialize.

What's wrong with casinos? Or brothels?

 

[Asp]

I think the opposite is true. It's often said that Florida is the only state where the further south you go, the more North you get. Meaning that Northern Florida is much more like the rest of the South, but South Florida is much more like the Northeastern US.

The impetus for this, as others have alluded to, is down to the Cuban refugees who remade the area. I think without that change, Florida becomes less of a monolith in attracting other communities, especially from elsewhere in Latin America, but also from within the US, like Jews and other Snowbirds from New York and the rest of the Northeast.

The result is a much more conservative Florida which remains much more like the rest of the South.

Sorry, Al Gore.

It really depends on a lot of different factors. There were 10,000 Cubans living permanently in Miami even before the Revolution, and lots of rich ones would make a day trip up from Havana fairly frequently. You would without a doubt see more immigration when the U.S.'s laws get loosened in the mid-60s, though whether it would reach OTL levels is up in the air. Either way though, Miami is close to Latin America and it had IOTL and will have IATL lots of Spanish speakers and businesses that cater to them, so it's a logical place for Latin-Americans to go. Sunbelt migration was a thing either way once air conditioning got invented, and you're going to see a LOT of people heading south. Miami is still going to be a destination. Exactly what ethnic diasporas end up there depends completely on the butterflies from the Cuban revolution.

I am interested on the impact to Vegas with Havana remaining a wide-open party town and much closer to the East and Midwest. Plus the mob remaining fully invested in Cuba. I think back to Guys and Dolls where the plot was Sky getting Sarah to go to Havana with him and be 'liberated'. Havana would still be focal point especially for New Yorkers wanting to gamble and party and in a warm and exotic environment (sorry Atlantic City). Imagine the Trump complex on the Havana seaside. Vegas would still exist and grow but I think it would be more of a destination for Californians and not nearly the ginormous thing it is today. What happens in Havana stays in Havana.

For the record, the whole meme of Havana being a tourist play land controlled by the mob is a myth. Tourism was a tiny part of the pre-revolution Cuban economy (remember, this is the era when flight travel was still really expensive). In 1956, which was a banner year for the industry, about 200-250k people visited Cuba, and the whole tourism industry brought in about a tenth as much revenue as the sugarcane industry alone, to say nothing of all other Cuban cash crops and every other non-ag sector of the economy. The mob also didn't have nearly as much control as some popular portrayals say...they were present, but they didn't run the place and their power was far less than many of the other interest groups there. The idea that the commission was somehow running Cuba (which I see in different places) is silly.

It is interesting to think about alternate Las Vegases, though. Havana definitely could have been a HUGE tourist/gambling city, that's true enough. It's a lot closer than Cancun, and it was more developed than the Bahamas (and with closer major airports). It'd probably be what Spain and the south of France are to Europeans.

While the mob didn't have nearly as much influence as is commonly portrayed, it might still have had significant effects if they had kept their interests down there. Expect Cosa Nostra to hold meetings in a place with a friendly government and sunshine instead of in backwater New York towns, so the Apalachin Raid probably doesn't happen IOTL. It took that, the Kefauver Hearings, and Joseph Valachi's testimony to finally establish that organized crime did, in fact, exist. It will eventually be discovered, but without that, Hoover and the FBI might continue to operate in blissful ignorance of LCN. The other interesting effect would be on drug trafficking. The reason international drug trading routes and drug cartels (which are basically globalized multinationals) didn't become a thing until the later 1900s is for the same reason multinationals weren't common before that...it was really hard to ship stuff and coordinate commerce across international borders, and it was even harder to do it covertly. You didn't see anybody outsourcing until the 1970s at the earliest, and it didn't really get going until the 80s and 90s. Even so, drug trafficking could have gotten started earlier than that, there were some embryonic Colombian smuggling groups in the late 1940s, but the supply areas and transshipment points were really affected by the political chaos of the Cold War. Mao tore out all the opium that was grown in China, which at that point was the source of almost the whole world's supply, and it took time to get it reestablished in Burma and Thailand. Cuba would have been a useful shipping point, but that was negated by the Cuban Revolution. So if Batista's regime and the mafia's foothold survived, you could see them start smuggling cocaine out of South America and controlling the trade of it into the U.S. in the 1960s. That would be a hell of a butterfly.

As a side note, one of my other favorite PODs for an alternate Las Vegas is Little Rock. It was a huge gambling location IOTL (in a MUCH nicer locale than the Desert Oasis), but it was done in by southern social conservatism. All of the gambling there was illegal, and eventually the state and the feds cracked down. If it had been legalized, Bugsy Siegel probably never even would have tried to build the Strip (which might have saved him from getting whacked). So Vegas in Hot Springs instead of the desert. It's interesting to think about.