In the first half of the twentieth century, Cuba was the biggest producer of sugar in the world, and sugar represented 80 percent of the country’s exports. This dependence on a single crop left the whole Cuban economy at the mercy of the world sugar market.
When the world price was high, this brought wealth to the plantation owners and poorly paid, backbreaking toil to the rural proletarian cane cutters. When the price crashed, the wealthy kept their riches and laid off the cane cutters, depriving them of their subsistence.
The sugar workers responded by forming one of the most important trade union organizations in Latin America, which organized a number of important strikes. It became the backbone of the general strike that ensured the victory of the Revolution in 1959.
Between 1895 and 1925, world output of sugar increased from seven million to twenty-five million tonnes, while Cuba’s production increased from one million to over five million tonnes. This period became known as the “Dance of the Millions.”
In the first half of the twentieth century, Cuba was the biggest producer of sugar in the world, and sugar represented 80 percent of the country’s exports.
In the 1920s, large loans from US banks had financed Cuban efforts to profit from a short-lived speculative boom in world sugar prices in 1920. When the boom collapsed at the start of the Depression, the same banks took over defaulting Cuban producers and financiers, giving effective control of the industry to North American corporations.
While attempts had been made since 1917 to…
Auteur: Steve Cushion
