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The Sugar King is Now a communist Beggar

Manatí Sugar Mill what remainsThe Sugar King is Now a communist Beggar

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Introduction: From Kingdom to Misery

Cuba, once known as the world's "sugar king," has undergone a dramatic transformation, making it an importer of this commodity after having been the world's largest producer and exporter of sugar for nearly 200 years. This appalling decline not only represents an economic change but also symbolizes a deep structural economic crisis in Cuban society and the best demonstration of the failure of the Castro-communist dictatorship.

The Golden Age of Production

During the 1950s, Cuba was a world leader in sugar production, growing and processing millions of tons of cane. This industry not only generated significant government revenues, but also provided a guarantee of employment to hundreds of thousands of Cuban citizens in addition to being a source of foreign exchange, renewable energy, and by-products for domestic industry and exports.

The Cultural Impact of Sugar

Sugar has had a profound impact on Cuba's cultural landscape, influencing its economy, social structure, and traditions. The sugar industry was also a symbol of prosperity and fostered wealth, creating in the pre-Castro era a class of landowners and workers who helped develop other agricultural and industrial sectors.

On the cultural level, it inspired musical genres such as “son”, salsa, and bolero, with themes that reflected life on the plantations and in the bateyes (town places where sugarcane industry workers live). Sugar is also an essential element of Cuban culinary art in traditional dessert dishes such as flan and dulce de leche, and an essential touch to traditional foods such as black beans and an innumerable list of Cuban dishes, as well as influencing the shape of local events and celebrations.

It has also influenced the independence movements of Cuban history since October 10, 1868, when the Ten Years' War or War of Independence began at the "La Demajagua" sugar mill when Carlos Manuel de Céspedes proclaimed the manifesto of the revolutionary junta of the island of Cuba. This cry for independence had a very enriching moral support, which was the Constituent Assembly of Guáimaro, which proclaimed freedom and independence.

Sugar Is Today a Delicacy Absent From the Cuban Table

Sugar was a fundamental pillar of the Cuban economy since Spanish colonization. For centuries, Cuba emerged as the main producer of sugar in the world. However, the arrival of the Castro regime in 1959 marked a radical turning point in sugar production and in the livelihood of its population. The communist model implemented by Fidel Castro destroyed the legacy of the world's sugar producer, transforming the "sugar king" into a communist beggar without a livelihood and has left a large part of the population in a critical situation in which even sugar becomes a luxurious delicacy that is absent from the diet of ordinary Cubans and must pay an exorbitant price to drink sugar water or sweeten it a cup of coffee, another of the great absentees in the Cuban diet. If you decide to sweeten your life, you will have to pay almost a fifth of a minimum wage in one of the MSMEs*, approximately 430 pesos per pound, or buy it online at cheaper prices or find a smuggling seller who steals it from state warehouses.

*Explanatory note: it is practically impossible for the government to approve MSMEs to dissidents, activists, opponents, and critics of the system.

The Historical Paradox of Food in Cuba

A particularly revealing aspect is that the current diet of Cubans is inferior to that received by slaves in the nineteenth century, as documented by Manuel Moreno Fraginals in "El Ingenio". The slaves received daily:

  • Half a pound of beef, tasajo (dried beef), or cod
  • 500 grams of corn flour
  • Various tubers and viands
  • Access to traditional dishes such as tostones (smashed green plantains), funche (corn porridge), and congrí (Cuban rice & bean)

Tasajo and cod are staples of the sugar culture that have disappeared

The tasajo and cod disappeared from reminiscences of the food culture linked to sugar on the island because as it is known these products along with other disappeared ones such as rice, viands (sweet potato, plantain, cassava, pumpkin, taro, and many others) that usually integrated the food diet of the slaves on the plantations and of the Cuban peasantry were practically extinguished by Castrocommunism and today they are part of the list of exotic delicacies that are not at the top of the list. reach of the ordinary Cubans due to the price they must pay.

Cuban slaves ate better than Cubans today

On a gloomy curious note, the slaves of the Cuban sugar plantations were fed by the slave owners better than the dictatorship feeds the Cubans of today. Although it may seem like an anti-Castro joke, in the nineteenth century slaves ate better than Cubans today, in the twenty-first century.

Manuel Moreno Fraginals, in his research essay "El Ingenio", showed that slaves in Cuba consumed per capita half a pound of beef, tasajo (smoked and dried beef) or cod (salted fish), 500 grams of corn flour per day, in addition to sweet potato, cassava, pumpkin or banana fufu.

They also ate plantain tostones, funche (corn stew), fried foods, okra stews, viands with mojos (malangas, plantains, yams), chilindrón de chivo (goat at casserole), and congrí. That diet, the author specifies, "more than satisfied the caloric and protein needs for each working day," reported Diario de Cuba.

I close this drawer because it has enough cockroaches to write and separate me from the fundamental topic.

A Brief History of Cuba's Sugar Disaster

Sugar production in Cuba peaked in the 1950s when millions of tons of sugarcane were grown and processed. Not only did this industry generate significant revenue for the government, but it also employed hundreds of thousands of Cubans. However, with the arrival of Castro, policies of nationalization and collectivization were implemented. These decisions not only affected production but also altered the country's social structures. The priority given to ideology over economic efficiency led to a weakening of the sugar industry, which was already beginning to show signs of decline.

The failure of the communist economic model became evident in the fall in sugar production. Sugar production in 2021 was reportedly as low as 500,000 tonnes, with a catastrophic plunge to:

350,000 tons in the last harvest of 2023, an alarming figure that resembles the lowest levels of the Ten Years' War in 1877, which ranged between 720,250 and 553,364 tons, according to data from the book Economic History of Cuba by historian Julio Le Riverent and Cuba's National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI)

This inefficiency has turned Cuba, a country with a rich sugar history, into a sugar importer, thanks to the political and economic disaster produced by the Castro-communist dictatorship that has also destroyed the fertility of the land and natural resources. With a deteriorated economic infrastructure to a miserable level, coupled with the peasant's lack of incentives to stimulate agricultural production and the inability of government leaders, the Castro dynasty has turned Cuba into a parasitic, indebted communist beggar with no ability to pay.

The economic situation has reached the point where the common citizen finds access to basic products prohibitive. The story of how Cubans have had to adapt is reflected in:

The difficulty of obtaining a simple glass of water sweetened with sugar is the most representative symbol of the cultural, economic, and socio-political collapse of Cuba enslaved by the Castro-communist dictatorship.

The culinary traditions of Cuba's poorest inhabitants that once included a "pan con timba" or a "sweet lemonade" have become an unattainable luxury.

The diet of the population has been impoverished to such a level that it is inferior to that of one of the most miserable slaves of the nineteenth century, and many are forced to deal with hunger in ways that the most marginalized populations of past centuries would not have imagined.

International Context

New Global Sugar Leaders

The void left by Cuba as the largest exporter and producer of sugar has been filled by:

  • Brazil: current leader with investment promotion policies
  • India
  • Thailand
  • Australia
  • Mexico

The sugar crisis in Cuba was exploited by Brazil, which has positioned itself as a leader in sugar production, monopolizing the advantages of modern agriculture and state policies that encourage investment and research in the sector, followed by other countries such as India, Thailand, Australia, and Mexico that have capitalized on opportunities in the global sugar market. The comparison between the economic models of Cuba, Brazil, and the other sugar leaders highlights the shortcomings of the Castro-communist system but also offers a glimpse of what could be a viable path of development once the Cuban dictatorial regime is eliminated.

One of the most worrying aspects of this crisis has been the comparison with the effectiveness of the production system that existed before. In the past, Cuba could produce millions of tons of sugar using rudimentary technology such as animal-drawn mills and hydraulics. The performance of the production today raises serious questions about the administrative inefficiency of Castroism and the obstinacy of the old man headed by the dictator Raúl Castro and his henchmen to maintain the socialist system that governs the country and continue to enrich himself, stealing the patrimony that belongs to the people.

It is not the so-called "blockade" that is to blame for this situation. The characteristic inefficiency of the Castro-communist system is clearly manifested in the dismantling of its productive infrastructure, which has caused the sugar industry to be currently in ruins.

For the Cuban dictatorship, the blame for the sugar failure lies with the Yankee totí: the embargo blockade for them.

Future of Cuba's Sugar Industry

Obstacles to Sugar Recovery

  • Maintenance of the current communist dictatorial political system
  • Economic disaster in all agricultural and industrial sectors
  • Absence of private property
  • Loss of the sugar tradition both in the cultivation of sugar cane and in production activities
  • Cumulative deterioration of infrastructure
  • Destruction and deterioration of sugar mills

Looking ahead, it is uncertain what path Cuba will take about its sugar industry. If the Castro regime continues in power, the current conditions of scarcity, abandonment, and misery on the communist island will be maintained, since they do not intend to transition to democracy so that real reforms can be implemented that promote private property and a true economic opening can be carried out, which will allow it to begin to recover its status as a sugar producer.

Requirements for Sugar Rehabilitation

The recovery of the Cuban sugar industry would require:

  • Transition to a democratic system
  • Implementation of structural economic reforms
  • Significant investment in infrastructure
  • Restoring incentives for planting, cutting, and production activities

The rehabilitation process will not be easy for the new democratic government that is implanted on the island and will require a total change in the economic policies that have destroyed the sugar industry and the country, which as the Cuban phrase goes:

"Without sugar, there is no country." which is attributed to the Cuban landowner José Manuel Casanova

Conclusion

In conclusion, the change from the "sugar king" to communist beggar symbolizes not only the failure of an economic model in Cuba but also a reflection of the daily struggles of a population that has seen how one of the most valuable and abundant products in its history has been turned into a symbol of scarcity. The current situation demands a change in the Cuban political system. Only in this way will it be possible to outline a future in which Cubans recover what was once a pillar of their economy and culture. Since we can affirm without fear of being wrong:

"With communism, there will never be a country"

Jose Tarano Author🖋️Author Jose Tarano 

José Tarano is a technical producer, graphic designer, collaborator, and researcher at Patria de Martí and The CubanAmerican Voice. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering in Telecommunications from José Antonio Echeverria Superior Polytechnic Institute (ISPJAE). In addition, he is the founder and director of Electronics JR Computer Design and Service ►, a computer and information technology services company. Originally from Santiago de las Vegas, Havana, Cuba, he currently resides in the United States.

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