I'm back to wage labor alas so won't have the leasure to assemble a bunch of stats that have been asked for, at least weeknights. And, this has been a thread many a time here so do this, go to http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/ type in Cuba and read away. In the meantime a bunch of resources, mostly from the Left, on Cuba that are in most public libraries. Cuban political economy : controversies in Cubanology / edited by Andrew Zimbalist. - Boulder : Westwiew press, 1988. - XIV, 240 p. ; 24 cm. Frank T. Fitzgerald. ... The Cuban Revolution in Crisis: From Managing Socialism to Managing Survival (Monthly Review Press, 1994). Well, as usual, I find I'[ve typed my cites before so... http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2002/2002-July/017049.html
I have more to say on this thread but, am real hungry so right now the sources I've read, mostly by Trotskyists and libertarian communists critical of Castroism.
Maurice Halperin, OSS veteran along w/other lefties like Marcuse, Sweezy and H.Stuart Hughes (see the Barry Katz study of Marcuse...or, heh, find a copy of PLP newspaper from the late 60's with the headline, "Marcuse, Cop? Or Cop Out?"), victim of McCarthyism, was an advisor to the Cuban govt' in the 60's. Has three vols. from UC Press on Castroism, as well as a more personal, autobiographical acct. from U. of New Mexico Press if memory serves. (The Rise and Fall of Fidel Castro,
2 or 3 volumes from U.C. Press. The more recent vol. , "Return To Havana :
The Decline Of Cuban Society Under Castro Nashville : Vanderbilt University
Press, 1994.)
K.S. Karol, "Guerillas In Power, " Hill & Wang Press, circa '70 or so. Karol is a Polish journalist, grew up under Nazi occupation, writes for French left press.
"Revolution In Peril, " by Jeanette Habel, Verso Books, circa '91 or so. French Trotskyist. Includes material on the Ochoa Purge Trial. General Ochoa was a hero of the Cuban internatyionalist intervention in Angola vs. Apartheid SA. Railroaded by Fidel on phony drug charges. Executed in '86 or so. Read the excellent acct. on the net from the NYRB by Julia Preston, or the chapter in Andres Oppenheimer, "Castro's Final Hour, " Simon & Schuster Press.
New Politics articles on the net by Cuban born marxist, Sam Farber. Also see the special issue of Revolutionary History on Cuban Trotskyism. And Workers Liberty website.
( http://www.wpunj.edu/~newpol/issue19/farber19.htm Cuba: The One-Party State Continues also see an interview w/ Farber in a recent issue of the International Socialist Review, http://www.isreview.org/issues/36/farber_ext.shtml )
"The New Cuba, " edited by Ronald Radosh, when he was still a leftist. From articles in Liberation, the anarcho-pacifist magazine. Learn all about socialist vs. capitalist lobotomies! After Radosh came back from a Cuban tour in '73 or so, David McReynolds hosted his slide show.
"Cuba: Is It Socialist?", by Rene Dumont.
-- Michael Pugliese