Late last week the entire Cuban island lost power, throwing its 11 million inhabitants into darkness, cutting off all refrigeration, and forcing a partial shutdown of much economic activity. As of this writing, service has been only partially restored in some areas of the island nation.
Why is Cuba’s electric grid in such bad shape? The principle cause for this and other aspects of the social crises plaguing Cuba is the 60 year long U.S. embargo on trade and investment designed to strangle the Cuban economy. The U.S. embargo not only prohibits trade between Cuba and the US; it also penalizes trade or investment by other countries as well. Until 1991, the embargo was only partially effective because its effects were offset by trade between Cuba and the Soviet Union. But after the demise of the Soviet Union, U.S. embargoes were expanded and tightened throughout the 1990’s, and by the turn of the century the Cuban economy was in a tailspin. Trump’s presidency made things worse, as he tightened embargoes once again.
The power grid, which relies heavily on oil to power its power plants, was reliant on the Soviet Union for much of its oil, and then became reliant on large shipments of subsidized oil from Venezuela, particularly during the Chavez era. But as Venezuela’s economy also struggled in recent years and as oil prices have shifted with market forces, Cuba has received less oil from Venezuela, and with less subsidies. Analysts estimate Cuba does not produce and receive enough oil to power its power plants.
Their power plants are also decades old and have not had consistent maintenance for years, much less improvements. The state simply cannot afford those needs, much less building new power plants from scratch. Cuba not only still relies on these aging power plants and planet destroying, yet expensive fossil fuels, it also relies on a patchwork system of individual generators and power ships that supply power from massive ships parked offshore. Since there is no money for investment, and no foreign states willing to assist, there have been no moves toward solar or wind power, which could be at least a partial solution to the problem. This system, if it can be called that, has been a disaster waiting to happen for decades.
The 60 years of U.S. embargoes against Cuba are the predictable response of an imperialist power toward any single nation that dares to challenge its political-economic dominance. Even though Cuba did not actually create a democratically organized, socialist economy controlled and managed collectively by its people, just the fact that Cuban leadership (with tremendous popular support in its early years) attempted to chart an independent course for its nation and people meant that it had to be isolated and crushed. Cuba and others like it – small nations surrounded in a hostile world of global capitalist powers – are easily squeezed until their limited experiments are stifled and their people impoverished.
While many Cubans are rightly protesting their current situation, no matter what their government does it will matter little in the larger scheme of things. The power of the imperialist U.S. government and the larger capitalist world economy of which it is a key part makes it impossible for the Cuban government or its people to create anything different. Capitalism is an international system. Unless it is destroyed internationally, around the globe, its hungry pursuit of profit and domination will never allow socialism, or even anything coming close to it, to exist for very long in just one country. To defeat the capitalist system, we’ll need a global working class revolution that breaks out of the many national borders that limit our possibilities today.
