Cuba in the Special Period and the 21st Century: Crisis, Reforms and Current Affairs
This domain tests the post-1991 crisis, the reforms that followed, and the current agenda: dollarization and its reversal, self-employment, the 2011 Lineamientos, the 2019 Constitution, and the protests of 2021.
The Special Period
The collapse of the CMEA and the USSR (1991) removed most of Cuba's trade and pushed GDP down by roughly a third. The "Período Especial en Tiempo de Paz", declared in 1990, meant blackouts, food shortages, bicycles and camels instead of buses. The state legalized dollar holdings (1993), converted state farms into UBPCs (1993), opened foreign investment (Law 77, 1995) and expanded tourism. The Maleconazo of 5 August 1994 and the balsero exodus forced migration accords with Washington that September.
Adjustment without abandoning socialism
John Paul II's 1998 visit, the Elián González case (2000) and the Fifth Party Congress (1997) marked a partial recovery. The 2003 "Black Spring" arrests of dozens of dissidents hardened relations. When Fidel fell ill in 2006, Raúl took over and became president in 2008, distributing idle land in usufruct (Decree 259, 2008) and announcing hundreds of thousands of state job cuts. The Sixth Congress (2011) approved the Lineamientos-"updating" the model, not replacing it.
From Raúl to Díaz-Canel
Diplomatic relations with the US were restored on 17 December 2014 and embassies opened in 2015, then reversed under the Trump administration. Fidel died in November 2016; Miguel Díaz-Canel became president in April 2018. The 2019 Constitution recognized private property and markets while keeping the party's leading role; the 2021 Tarea Ordenamiento ended the dual currency, and the July 2021 protests were the largest in decades. The 2022 Family Code was approved by referendum.
Worked example
Prompt: do the 2011 Lineamientos represent a break with 1959? Show continuity and change. Continuity: state ownership of strategic sectors, one-party rule, social provision. Change: private initiative, cooperatives, foreign investment, reduced subsidies. The reasoning move is to compare the Lineamientos with the 1993 reforms and with the 1968 offensive: each crisis produced a partial market opening without a change of regime.
Traps
Dating the Special Period from 1991 alone (it was declared in 1990); confusing the 1993 dollar legalization with the 2021 currency unification; attributing the 2019 Constitution to Fidel; treating the July 2021 protests as isolated from the pandemic and the economy.