In face of US assaults, Cuba acts to revive industry, farming
Three months ago the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba held an Extraordinary Plenary Session, convened by first secretary of the party and president of the republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel. That June 17 meeting approved a sweeping political package of some 176 measures that, taken as a whole, affect virtually every aspect of the country’s economy, including property relations, centralized economic planning and the state monopoly of foreign trade.
An Extraordinary Session of the National Assembly the following day adopted a report by Prime Minister Manuel Marrero initiating the legislative work to implement each of these measures. Underscoring its importance, Marrero’s report was published in full in the June 21 issue of Granma, the daily paper of the Central Committee of the party.
The far-reaching steps now being implemented by the Cuban leadership are aimed above all at reviving agricultural and industrial production. Output by workers and rural toilers has been decimated by the cumulative effects of Washington’s decades-long economic strangulation. The U.S. rulers have acted with increasing brutality and effectiveness to deprive the Cuban government of access to the international banking system; to obstruct trade to secure raw materials, equipment and energy resources otherwise unavailable in Cuba; and to deny access to every possible source of hard currency.
AS WE SEE IT
As a result, according to Cuban government statistics, the rough equivalent of what capitalist economists call the gross domestic product shrank by 11% between 2019 and 2025. Manufacturing output fell by 23%, while agriculture, livestock and mining have plunged even more drastically by 53%.
The island’s population has declined by nearly 2 million since 2022, as a disproportionately youthful, well-educated cross-section of Cubans have migrated, mostly to Spain and countries throughout the Americas. They’ve left in search of jobs, better conditions of daily life and an income level that allows them to send cash to help relatives facing rampant ongoing inflation.
Since the beginning of 2026, the already serious crisis has been qualitatively sharpened by Washington’s naval blockade, which has prevented any ship not approved by the U.S. government from docking in or sailing from Cuba. That imperial act is designed by Washington to prevent even a drop of oil reaching the Cuban government. It has resulted in the near total countrywide collapse of the electrical grid, leading to rolling blackouts reaching 20 hours a day or more across most of Cuba. Without electricity, running water is unavailable. Phones go silent, factories close, life-saving surgeries become too risky to perform and infant mortality climbs.
The naval blockade — Cubans rightly call it an act of war, a “silent” war — has heightened shortages of vital medicines and medical supplies, toiletries and other household basics, even bread, meat and countless other products. It has led to a near total paralysis of all transport vehicles — buses, trains, cars and trucks, including those that bring food from the countryside to cities where the majority of Cubans live.
The severity of the crisis gripping Cuban working people today has nothing to do with mistakes or miscalculations that may have been made in the past by the Cuban leadership. If that were the source of the crisis, the U.S. rulers would feel no need for a naval blockade and economic strangulation of the island’s working people. Washington could simply have walked away and let the crisis run its course. But the U.S. propertied families of both imperialist parties know from their brutal, nearly 70-year-long economic, commercial and banking sanctions that such measures alone have been to no avail.
In reality, the crisis is the creation of the U.S. ruling class, to achieve its goal — to reestablish U.S. imperialist domination of the island and to resume the plunder of its considerable natural resources and, first and foremost, the profit-squeezing exploitation of working people’s labor. In short, to recreate the servile relationship so rudely interrupted by the revolutionary actions of Cuban workers and farmers in 1959, under the leadership of Fidel Castro.
Above all, the goal of the U.S. capitalist ruling class is to extinguish the example of Cuba’s socialist revolution for the exploited and oppressed peoples of the world.
To resist and overcome
The measures being rolled out by the Cuban government today are designed to enable the Cuban people not only to resist but to survive and overcome this savage new stage of Washington’s decades-long crusade.
The task — primarily political in character, if economic in many of its concrete forms — is to buy time to regroup and rearm Cuban working people with the revolutionary confidence that has been eroded. While knowing the limits of what can be conquered and consolidated under the cumulative impact of today’s blockade conditions, the aim is to salvage the class values, solidarity and concrete social gains of the revolution in order to resume the construction of socialism as conditions permit.
There are voices, both inside and outside Cuba, who proclaim that the measures now being implemented mark the death of the socialist revolution in Cuba. They and others argue that Fidel Castro, the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, would never have agreed to the course decided on today.
The answer to such accusations, however, was effectively given by Fidel himself in the darkest hours of what is known in Cuba as the Special Period in a Time of Peace, or simply, the Special Period — the economic, social and political crisis of the early 1990s that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union.
That is when Castro, addressing a Cuban and international audience of several thousand in Havana in 1994, explained and defended the necessary economic changes, including efforts to attract foreign capital, that were being carried out at that time.
“Under the conditions in Cuba today — without capital, without technology and without markets — we could not develop; hence, all the measures, changes and reforms we are implementing in one way or another are aimed at safeguarding our independence, safeguarding the revolution — because the revolution is the source of everything,” Castro said.
Because safeguarding achievements of the revolution, Castro continued, “means preserving socialism or the right to continue building socialism when circumstances permit.” (See excerpts from 1994 talk.)
The economic steps being taken today in Cuba are more sweeping than those that were necessary to recover from the “collapse of the meringue,” as Castro called the fall of the Soviet Union and other deformed workers states in Central and Eastern Europe at that time. But these special measures are neither newly invented nor taken against the will of the big majority of Cuban working people.
Major elements of the steps were introduced and broadly discussed across the country on three different occasions: in 2011 in preparations for the Sixth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party, in 2015 when those measures were revised and again in 2019. The latter was when a new constitution, incorporating the foundations for steps along these lines, was adopted by majority vote in a nationwide referendum that followed months of debate in neighborhood and factory assemblies, farm cooperatives and gatherings organized by the Federation of Cuban Women, the Union of Young Communists and other mass organizations.
The need to open the Cuban economy to investment from abroad in order to upgrade vital electrical, rail and other basic infrastructure in transportation and industry has been recognized, and discussed, for years. Decisive steps in that direction were never taken, however. In part, that was reportedly due to the absence of a consensus within the Cuban leadership that the measures were necessary.
More important, deals came apart due to demands by potential capitalist partners to be able to act like capitalists, demanding legally binding agreements that went beyond what the majority of the Cuban leadership was prepared to accept.
Such demands included the right to repatriate profits instead of investing them in Cuba; the right to hold more than 50% ownership of enterprises developed jointly with Cuban state partners; and ownership of the land on which infrastructure and real estate was to be built.
Most important of all, potential capitalist investors insisted on the unimpeded “right” to hire and fire labor and to negotiate the wages, hours, intensity and other conditions of employment directly with “their” workers.
The policy changes being implemented today go beyond anything around which there has been leadership consensus up to now. The groundwork for many of them, however, was laid during the Special Period, as Castro explained in his 1994 talk.
The 176 measures beginning to be implemented affect every aspect of the production of industrial goods and farm output, the transport and sale of products and services and the social conditions of working people and members of their families, young and old.
In order to encourage investment of needed capital in virtually every sector of the economy — healthcare and education are excluded — the new measures offer very substantial incentives to non-Cuban capitalist businesses, as well as to Cubans both living abroad and on the island.
Attracting needed capital
The measures:
- Remove the longstanding requirement that the Cuban state be the majority owner in joint ventures with foreign companies.
- Permit the direct import and export of products, supplies, and equipment by provincial and municipal government bodies, state enterprises, agricultural cooperatives and private businesses — reducing the state monopoly of foreign trade to certain exports of products of Cuban origin.
- Allow state-owned enterprises to sell ownership stakes to domestic and foreign investors, as well as to sell unused assets.
- Enable foreign investors to repatriate hard-currency earnings, set prices for their products, and hire employees directly. Until now employees of joint ventures were hired through a state agency, and non-Cuban owners had no direct input in the hiring and firing of workers. These regulations were to protect employees and the Cuban working class as a whole from the unfettered operations of capitalist corporations that — like all capitalist relations — prioritize profits over job conditions and the natural environment.
Other reforms allow for the expansion of private-sector activities, including:
- Private businesses will be allowed to hire more than the previous limit of 100 employees.
- Individuals will be permitted to own more than a single business.
- State enterprises will each determine their own wage structures and workforce size.
- Wage levels negotiated with workers, with union participation, will depend solely on the companies’ economic and financial capacity and the organized strength of their employees.
The authorized expansion of privately owned and operated businesses in Cuba extends back some 20 years. The government has permitted and even encouraged them as a way to reduce bloated payrolls in state enterprises and government departments, as well as to meet the need for certain goods and services that the state was not able to provide in sufficient amounts.
As a result, there are currently some 13,000 micro, small and medium-size privately owned businesses in Cuba offering a wide variety of products and services, including food, haircuts, childcare, small-scale construction, cellphone and laptop repairs, foreign-language classes and more. Some 1.6 million Cubans out of a workforce of 4 million today are self-employed or work for a privately owned business.
While minimum-wage laws and other labor protections are reaffirmed within the framework of the new measures, changes in the state-owned, privately owned, and joint state and privately owned enterprises pose new challenges to the trade unions in defending wages, working conditions and social protections for active workers and retirees.
These were all central issues discussed at the congress of the Central Organization of Cuban Workers (CTC), the national trade union federation, in June, as well as in discussions leading to the approval of a new labor code in July. That new code formally recognizes the new sources of employment in private businesses and the rights of workers in all enterprises.
‘Solutions from below’
The crisis in domestic agriculture — the primary source of food for the Cuban people — has been cruelly intensified by Washington’s oil blockade.
Lack of fuel needed to operate farm equipment, carry produce to markets and control temperature in warehouses has left crops rotting in the fields and transport depots. This is on top of the longer-term economic sanctions imposed by Washington, which for decades have paralyzed the purchase of vital fertilizer, seeds, equipment and other inputs. A sharp decline of the rural population is a source of vital concern to the Cuban leadership.
At a July 10 meeting with members of agricultural cooperatives in Havana Province and local leaders of the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP), Ministry of Agriculture officials discussed the proposed measures aimed at increasing food production.
Central to these efforts is the elimination of regulations and bureaucratic obstacles that have delayed the allocation of idle land belonging to state enterprises to individuals who want to start farming, and to farmers and cooperatives wanting to expand their operations.
All land in Cuba is state-owned. It was nationalized in the opening years of Cuba’s socialist revolution in the 1960s in order to prevent the landlords of Cuba’s huge estates from exploiting and evicting tenant farmers burdened by unpayable rent or back debt.
No private farmer in Cuba can lose their land as long as they or an heir is engaged in farming. It is one of the fundamental conquests of the revolution, which today seals the worker-farmer alliance on which the Cuban Revolution rests.
New applications for land to farm, however, have faced major delays due to endless paperwork to win approval at multiple levels — from the ministry of agriculture to local officials, as well as strict limitations on how the land can be used and which crops can be grown. Some of the land granted to individuals was never cultivated by the recipients, or ended up being used for other purposes.
Under the new measures, land will be granted for an indefinite period, and can be passed on to an heir who wants to continue farming. The measures also increase the area of land allowed for construction of housing, storage facilities and other infrastructure on the land. Under previous regulations, where land allocations were granted for periods of 10-25 years, those seeking plots to cultivate had little incentive to improve the land and were not permitted to build permanent structures, including dwellings.
“The solution to the problems with land tenure — the legality and use of the land — did not lie with the ministry of agriculture or any state enterprises,” Gaspar Palermo, president of the Roberto Negrín Cooperative in the La Lisa municipality, told Cuban officials at the July 10 meeting. The solution lies in “a force that can control this from below,” he said.
“By giving us decision-making powers to grant the land to the best choice, it would help get rid of a lot of problems,” said Palermo. “The cooperatives know who is the best farmer. They know who land should be taken away from because they are not using it in accordance with the law or agreements for its use,” he said.
To alleviate the devastating conditions caused by Washington’s oil blockade and other sanctions, individual farmers and cooperatives will now be allowed to import fuel, fertilizer and other inputs directly, without going through state agencies.
These and other steps to increase food production are essential in face of sharply rising prices and U.S. sanctions that block access to hard currency used by the government in the past to subsidize a few basic food products.
In their totality, the 176 measures are broadly understood by most Cubans as necessary under today’s circumstances, as is awareness that the main source of the country’s difficulties is U.S. imperialism. Many welcome the steps being taken as an opportunity to draw more broadly on initiatives by workers and farmers to confront the brutal consequences of Washington’s punishing measures.
At the same time, there is a broad recognition and apprehension that the wider introduction of market relations will inevitably increase class differentiation and inequalities, undermining social solidarity.
The road forward
The source of Cuba’s extreme hardships and its main obstacle to economic and social development is the U.S. rulers’ drive — with the support of other imperialist governments — to overthrow Cuba’s socialist revolution.
Washington’s response to the recent steps being taken by the Cuban people to defend the independence and sovereignty of their state is, predictably, more and more sanctions and secondary sanctions on any bank, country or entity — anywhere in the world — doing business with Cuba.
With their well-known sense of humor, Cuban working people treat Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s near weekly announcements of additions to Washington’s growing list of sanctioned individuals and entities — “to help the Cuban people” — as a cynical joke.
At the same time, one thing is well understood both by working people in Cuba and by class-conscious and revolutionary-minded workers in the U.S. and the world. We know that only when the imperialist siege of the Cuban people is defeated can they return to focus on the building of socialism.
The biggest obstacle facing the Cuban toilers and their socialist revolution today is not the economic and military might of U.S. imperialism. It is the historical reality that Cuba, despite its standing among millions of toilers worldwide, remains alone as a workers state surrounded by capitalist states in an imperialist world. There have been no victorious socialist revolutions in almost seven decades. No new example of what the working class and its allies are capable of when they have the leadership they deserve.
The illusion that a patchwork of capitalist ruling classes across the “Global South” somehow can offer protection from the assaults of the main imperialist powers is being brutally exposed on a daily basis.
As Lenin and other leaders of the October 1917 Russian Revolution knew all to well, “socialism in one country,” even one as large and rich in resources as Russia, is an oxymoron. An isolated socialist beachhead in a capitalist world must be reinforced by other revolutionary victories, or retreat is inevitable.
As Fidel explained, that’s why defense of the independence and sovereignty of the only workers state in the world — and emulation of the proletarian internationalist example its working people have set — is and has been, for the last seven decades, our paramount task.
We don’t ask where or when the battle will end.
We take our place together in the trenches.