If not for Castro, would Miami be like Jacksonville? (taxi, living in)

[karstic]

It was not a class revolution, as the country was rich but desired a democracy with institutions.



Havana was richer and gorgeous, Cubans only went to Miami in shopping sprees to Burdines and Sears as everything was cheaper. Cuba was far richer than Spain, Italy or Canada.

[WrongStreet]

Originally Posted by karstic

It was not a class revolution, as the country was rich but desired a democracy with institutions.



Havana was richer and gorgeous, Cubans only went to Miami in shopping sprees to Burdines and Sears as everything was cheaper. Cuba was far richer than Spain, Italy or Canada.

That's just totally false, I'm sorry. While Cuba in the 50's was richer than now, it was nowhere near being richer than Spain, Canada, or Italy. In fact it wasn't even one of the top nations of Latin America; Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Peru were all wealthier nations.


Spain and Italy both had just gone through major wars, but even still were ranked in the top 30 for GDP in the 1950's. On top of that, Cuba didn't have the industrial capacity of either those two countries, so it's ridiculous to assume it would be richer.


Richer than Canada? You can't be serious, on GDP alone Canada has ranked in the top 10 since WWII, Cuba never even cracked the top 50. Even if just referring to resources Canada was probably among the richest in the world, while Cuba offered Sugar Cane.


Also, it was a class revolution, Cuba may have been fairly wealthy for an island nation, but it had serious income disparity and other than tourism relied heavily on agriculture.

[karstic]

Double GNP than Spain, higher GNP than Italy and Canada. Cuba was not the richest country in Latin America, as Venezuela, Argentina and Uruguay were far richer. The four countries had tremendous problems with illegal immigration from Spain and Italy.

Cuba had industry, sugar mills, the first producer in the world, light industry, garments, shoes, etc.

Income disparity...as all the continent.

It was not a class revolution, it was a bourgeois-middle class revolution stormed by the communists.

Cuba also went through a war that ended in 1898 and that resulted in the extermination of one third of inhabitants starved to death in concentration camps...which sparked American intervention.

Sugar, tobacco, tourism, light industry, nickel, cobalt, specialized agriculture and 6.000.000 inhabitants. Not a tundra.

[WrongStreet]

Originally Posted by karstic

Double GNP than Spain, higher GNP than Italy and Canada.

Can you show me where you found that information? Because I find it hard to believe Cuba would have double the GNP of Spain and higher GNP than Canada while having lower industrial output and capacity.


Cuba's agriculture was the staple of the economy and they didn't have the amount of resources of Canada (a fully developed industrial nation by 1959).


If Cuba was such an economic powerhouse why did they have a revolution? If it was a middle-class revolution why did the middle-class population emigrate to the US?

[karstic]

Higher producer of sugar in the world, second nickel, tourist. Middle class and rich are expelled from communists countries.

[WrongStreet]

Originally Posted by karstic

Higher producer of sugar in the world, second nickel, tourist. Middle class and rich are expelled from communists countries.

So if they were so rich and doing so well, why was there a revolution if it wasn't about class struggle?


You said: "It was not a class revolution, it was a bourgeois-middle class revolution stormed by the communists"


Huh?


If Cuba was rich and the middle-class was thriving, why would they revolt?




That doesn't make sense

[ruski]

Originally Posted by WrongStreet

So if they were so rich and doing so well, why was there a revolution if it wasn't about class struggle?


You said: "It was not a class revolution, it was a bourgeois-middle class revolution stormed by the communists"


Huh?


If Cuba was rich and the middle-class was thriving, why would they revolt?




That doesn't make sense

Russian revolution that started in Feb 1917 was also a bourgeois revolution which then got hijacked by the communists in October 1917. Those commies are a clever bunch.

[karstic]

Right, Kerensky was a socialdemocrat, menchevik.
The Russian Empire was a world power, a cultural power with gross problems in the countryside but with almost no proletarians!!!

[karstic]

Originally Posted by WrongStreet

So if they were so rich and doing so well, why was there a revolution if it wasn't about class struggle?


You said: "It was not a class revolution, it was a bourgeois-middle class revolution stormed by the communists"


Huh?


If Cuba was rich and the middle-class was thriving, why would they revolt?




That doesn't make sense

Because thriving middle class EVERYWHERE want to live in a normal democracy, with no corruption, so they revolt and only obtain a revolution, that turns into terror and then in a totalitarian dictatorship.

Russia, France, etc.

There's a very nice book, "history of revolutions" that shows the pattern.

[WrongStreet]

Guys, that's nice that you can cite some cases where a bourgeois revolution was hijacked by communists. But that just wasn't the case in the Cuban revolution.

Go look it up, the 26th of July movement was always a socialist movement designed to redistribute wealth to the peasant class. At no point was it ever geared to bring a democracy favoring the middle class. It did operate under the pretense of offering free elections, but that was just a smoke screen to show they were better than a Batista govt.

The Cuban Revolution really had more in common with the Chinese Revolution than the Russian Revolution, despite later modeling their government like the Soviets. Fidel Castro himself was middle-class, but the people he was leading in revolt mostly were not.

Point is, whether there was a revolution or not, Cuba was not doing great economically because of increased corruption in the government. Eventually this would have led to people emigrating to the US, just as was the case with many other Latin American countries that didn't have leftist revolutions.