Kate Rogozhina
Fidel Castro's government tired to propose economic development, but his policies did succeed.
To what extend do you agree with this view?
Fidel Castro was Cuban communist revolutionary, who held Cuba in his power from 1959 to 2008. Fidel Castro aimed to make Cuba an economically independent and industrialised country, which did not depend on the USSR for economic help. Che Guevara, who was a major figure of the Cuban Revolution, played an important role in the design of Cuba's economic policies. It was due to his views Cuba adopted a centrally planned economy with emphasis on moral incentives and self-sacrifice, abolished capitalism by implementing communism and proposed the idea of working towards the revolution rather than the personal gain. Che Guevara also strongly believed in the "moral incentives", rather than "personal incentives" as a way of implementing the economic reforms.
I partially agree with the statement, that Fidel Castro's economic development policies did not succeed.
English: Che Guevara smoking a pipe at his guerril...
Raul Castro, left, with has his arm around second-...
Che GuevaraI believe that Castro's policies succeeded in some way, yet also failed too.
Before explaining the economic policies introduced by Fidel Castro, I would like to point out the problems he faced from 1961 and onwards. It was due to the lack of specialists and technicians that Cuba's industrial revolution could not proceed. The lack of specialists led to another economic problem facing Cuba; the spending of huge amounts of money on machinery from the USSR and Eastern Russia, which increased Cuba's debt, not allowing industrialisation to proceed forwards. A further problem that declined the economic development of Cuba was the low production of sugar, meaning that the surplus sugar could not have been sold of to make money to pay back the debt.
It was due to all of these factors and problems that Fidel Castro launched four main policies,