Word: cuba
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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These books raise significant questions: What was the relationship of Castro's non-communist July 26th Movement to the Socialist Party, PSP, and why was the Marxist orthodoxy in a back-seat position? Because Cuba's soil is so fertile, the island must have faced serious economic difficulty to make rationing a continuous part of revolutionary existence there. One must also examine present Russo-Cuban relations and its connections with the Cuban's attempt to export their revolution to Latin America...
Despite some of Dumont's arrogant posturing, Cuba: Socialism and Development gives a concise overview of the Cuban economy. Even though the book originated in French in 1964, two afterwards reasonably update the work. And Dumont covers the material with more knowledge than his predecessors. The book rewards, if only because its discussion of Cuba's economic development is in a field whose dearth of information endangers future experiments...
Castro, surfacing politically around 1952-53, recognized the necessity of forging a completely new alliance based on social justice. The turbulence and speed which characterized Castro's rise to power was to make an important imprint on Cuba's revolutionary reconstruction. Unfortunately, Karol says too little on this struggle or of Castro's role of inspirator and catalyst...
...friendship proved to be a mismatch. Russia poured in experts, goods and equipment with little idea what Cuba needed. The Cubans in turn expected miracles from their new ally and banked on fancy experts to solve their problems for them. But when Karushchev's new cane cutting-machines mangled every stalk they touched, it became obvious that these experts and their machines were just Russian bears. Their pre-set ideas of development based on an Eastern European model could not help agrarian Cuba...
...understand the problems Cuba faced alone in 1963 one must turn to economic questions so well covered by Dumont, one of the world's foremost socialist economic experts...