Changes in contemporary Cuba

Profesor de la Universidad de Georgetown y del Máster en Relaciones Internacionales del Instituto de Estudios Europeos

A major transition is underway in contemporary Cuba. The transfer of power from Fidel Castro to his younger brother Raul Castro not only represents a clear break with the charismatic leadership of the older brother but also involves a sharp re-definition of the priorities of the Revolution with a new focus on economic reform, institutional efficiency, and the more general “normalization” of life. Fidel Castro’s authority derived from his status as the founder and defining figure of the regime; the metric of his success was political and measured by his capacity to mobilize and inspire the population. History will judge his younger brother by more mundane standards, most especially on whether he succeeds in reviving the comatose Cuban economy. He understand that the longer-term stability of the system is at risk, if the regime does not resolve its intertwined economic, political, and institutional challenges.

The Communist Party has been at the epicenter of the political transformation associated with the rise of Raul Castro. His personnel changes decimated the “successor generation” that surrounded his brother and put another in its place. His Report to the Sixth Party Congress April 2011 offered a blunt assessment of the deficiencies of the Communist Party. “What we approve at the Congress,” he declared, “must not suffer the same fate of agreements approved at earlier congresses [that were] nearly all forgotten without having been implemented.” The younger Castro criticized the personnel policies of an earlier era that led to “the accelerated promotion of inexpert...