Obvious Failures

It is the 50th anniversary of a large U.S. diplomatic error: the trade embargo against Cuba, which helped Fidel Castro explain the failure of his island’s economy.

One of the worst U.S. foreign policy failures celebrates its 50th anniversary this month: On February 7, 1962, then-president John Fitzgerald Kennedy imposed a trade embargo against Cuba in an attempt to economically strangle Castro’s revolution. However, neither the embargo nor the revolution were effective.

The embargo was ineffective as it was initiated during a time when socialist power occupied more than half of the planet and challenged the absurd and arbitrary decision of the Western superpower. The then-prolific socialist system was unsustainable, in particular for the Soviet Union, who paid massive subsidies to purchase sugar; subsidies made possible by the sale of fuel until the system reared off course and failed.

The so-called “real socialism” failed because it never had the courage to face the inevitable reality of a system that was doomed to fail: a system that produced without taking production costs in account.

The blockade failed because other Western countries did not necessarily follow suit with the U.S.’ decision. Gradually, through direct and indirect transactions, other countries ignored the embargo. The first European country to disregard the U.S. embargo was the Spanish fascist dictatorship of Francisco Franco.

The truth is, the blockade actually worked against the United States; it gave Cuba the best excuse to mask their costly mistake of a centrally planned economy. Other countries with the same planning model also sank in misery and corruption. The Soviet Union, East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, countries with strong industrial tradition and global trade, suffered no blockade and still sank into a chaos of inefficiency and paralysis that dragged down the revolutionary utopia.

The fight against capitalism fathered a child, capitalism of the state, and the worst effect: a corrupt bureaucracy. Mikael Gorbachev, who attempted to contain the decadence and stop the system’s collapse, described the perfection of this vice and burden: “The Soviet Union,” he said, “is occupied by a power of 11 million soldiers and bureaucrats.” Not only did this refer to the privileged parties but to all levels of political and administrative power in the totalitarian regime.

On the island, Cubans experienced the same problems and suffered the same sterile sacrifices, with only one advantage over other countries employing the socialism model: the United States as the perfect scapegoat for its ongoing collapse.