Throughline - Why is Cuba in crisis?

Episode Date: March 19, 2026

Cuba is on the brink of collapse – a scenario that 13 U.S. presidents have tried to engineer with no success. Today on the show, the making of the Cuban crisis and what might come next.Guests:Eloy Viera, lawyer and journalist for El ToqueLillian Guerra, Cuban-American history professor at the University of FloridaMaria De Los Angeles Torres, professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of Illinois in Chicago To access bonus episodes and listen to Throughline sponsor-free, subscribe to Throughline+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/throughline.To manage podcast ad preferences, review the links below:See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Among Cuban Americans in South Florida, expectations are high that after Venezuela and now Iran, Cuba might be next on President Trump's list for regime change. You know, all my life I've been hearing about the United States and Cuba, when will the United States do it? I do believe I'll be the honor of having the honor of taking Cuba to be good honor. That's a big honor. Taking Cuba. Taking Cuba, in some form, yeah.

Taking Cuba. I mean, whether I free it, Take it. I think I could do anything I want with it. You want another, a very weakened nation. For 64 years, the U.S. has had an economic embargo on Cuba in hopes that its communist government would fall. But that hasn't happened. The current situation, though, could be different. In January, after the U.S. capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, the Trump administration blocked Venezuelan oil from going to Cuba. and they made it very costly for any other country to step into help. President Trump says Venezuela will no longer send support to Cuba, no oil, no money.

And it has also promised tariffs on any country that breaks the blockade. Cuba is suffering its greatest economic crisis in decades with the island experiencing blackouts, food shortages, and long gas lines. It relies heavily on Venezuelan oil and without it, experts warn the economy could collapse leading to widespread suffering and social unrest. I have aunties in Sienfuegos. I have cousins in Sienfuegos. My mother-in-law lives in Sienfuegos,

and there the situation is worse, much more worse. This is Eloy Viera. He's a Cuban lawyer and journalist from Sienfuegos, Cuba, now based in Canada. He writes for El-Toke, an independent news outlet that's been critical of the Cuban regime. Eloi left Cuba in 2019 after multiple detentions. Many of his friends and family are still there.

We spoke to Aloi in February, before the U.S. began partially lifting its blockade of Venezuelan oil and allowing limited humanitarian oil shipments back into Cuba. Life is really bad right now, really bad. Because, of course, when you don't have electricity, you don't have water. You don't have a way to cook your food. There are many people using charcoal for cook their food, but at the same point, charcoal is also a limited resource. A big bag of charcoal right now in the informal market is like 1,500 pesos.

1,500 Cuban pesos equals around $62 U.S. dollars. And we're talking about a country where that can be more than a quarter of your monthly wages. It's a really bad situation, and I don't think it's going to be better. at least not under the circumstances that they are living right now. What his family was living through was happening all across the island nation of around 10 million people. Earlier this year, NPR reporter Ader Peralta

went to Cuba to hear directly from the Cuban people. My love, the thing is very bad, she says. Her friend stops her. She's saying too much in front of a microphone, but Marislesis dismisses her. Because that's the thing about the thing. The thing can be anything. The people Ader met talked in a kind of code

so as to not appear critical of the Cuban government about La Cosa or the thing. The thing is our food, our sustenance, our clothes. How's the thing? It's super high. It's super expensive. It's super bad. In mid-March, Cuba's

Cuba experienced an island-wide blackout that's left millions without any power. It's the third major blackout in four months. How did Cuba get here? One version of the story is that the U.S.'s outside influence has made it impossible for Cuba to flourish. Not long after the 1959 Cuban Revolution, at the height of the Cold War, the United States began working to undermine the communist government there. The CIA plotted to assassinate Fidel Castro at least eight times, and 60-plus years of economic sanctions have stunted the island's potential

and led to Cuban people suffering. That's one side. Another version of the story is that inside Cuba, the communist government has repressed dissent and mismanaged the economy for decades, transforming the island into an impoverished police state that's forced millions of Cubans to flee. To make sense of all this, we're going back to the very beginning of the Cuban Revolution,

to look at how both sides of this story have shaped the current crisis. I'm Ramtin Arablui. And I'm Randaud Abid Fattah. Today on the show, Cuba, from the inside and out. This is Jemir, calling from Philadelphia. I like listening to ThruLine because I look at history as a record of our existence. Part 1. The Two Embargoes.

In January, 1959, like today, Cuba was in the news. The revolution in Cuba has thrown out the Batista administration, and it has installed a provisional government. That was the first step. Now the revolution must consolidate itself. And all eyes were on Fidel Castro, the leader of the Cuban Revolution

who had defeated Cuba's dictator, Fulgencio Batista, and ushered in a new era for the island. I know that who rule in Cuba now, who gives orders now in Cuba, is the public opinion with the free press. Fidel Castro promised something different, a new Cuba, ruled by the Cuban people. It was an optimistic time for Cuba.

For many Cubans, the revolution was the first step in securing a real democracy. That was the dream. This is Lillian-Gubans. Guerr. She's a Cuban-American history professor at the University of Florida. Lillian was born in the U.S. in the 1970s, but much of her family remained in Cuba. The revolution against Batista in the 50s and the rise of Fidel Castro, the goal and the promise that they will have this nationalist, capitalist, and democratic and socially progressive

society. At first, Fidel Castro was very popular. The young charismatic lawyers, said he wasn't a communist and was seen as a national hero. One of his first acts in power was to implement huge land reforms to break up large foreign-owned sugar plantations and redistribute that land to farm workers. Some of these plantations, which were huge and had hundreds of thousands of acres of land, and the reality was that land was so concentrated in the hand of a few

that the land reform only affected 3% of the land reform. land owners. Who it did impact was U.S. companies that had big investments in the Cuban sugar industry. They owned hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland. And according to Lillian Guerra, these U.S. owned plantations didn't exactly play fair. They operated in some instances like states within states where they had toll roads. They had private port facilities and all that kind of stuff. And they paid people in a company script that was only redeemable in a company store. So that is what the land reform was meant to overturn. The land reform was passed May, 1959.

Five months after the revolution. The government starts implementing it. This, of course, was horrifying to those U.S. businesses that owned this land and to U.S. investors in the sugar markets. But inside of Cuba, the land reform was seen as a big win. The thinking was that if these laborers who had worked for foreign-owned sugar plantations owned their own land, they would be better able to participate in a free economy as consumers. Not exactly communist thinking.

I think that might be to an American listener who associates Fidel Castro as sort of like the poster child for communism, the idea it might be surprising to a lot of people. Yes, and frankly, there is nothing surprising about it. And that's because by the late 1950s, Castro's message of change was becoming more and more appealing to Cubans who were growing tired of the Batista dictatorship's corruption and brutality. And at the time of the revolution, Castro hadn't yet come out publicly and said he was a communist.

Fidel does ultimately ride a wave of unconditional support for the revolution in 1959 to 1960, and he takes full advantage of that. But then, things begin to happen that nobody expected. The Castro government started to dismantle the free press. Between January and May of 1960, this extremely, you know, lively, vibrant press, which included national television stations,

which included dozens and dozens of, radio stations, newspapers, you know, that all got nationalized. Many people in Cuba, especially the wealthy and middle classes, were not happy with the changes Castro was enacting. Even in the worst moments of dictatorship prior to 1959, the press played a heroic role. There were always journalists who were willing to report on what was really happening, and they paid a very high price, and Cubans were very aware of that. The dream of a more democratic free Cuba was quickly proving to be just that, a dream.

After the revolution, hundreds of thousands of Cubans left the island, many of them bound for the U.S. And the U.S. received fleeing Cubans with open arms because the U.S. was anxiously watching Cuba, and it hoped by supporting the exodus of Cubans leaving the island, it would destabilize Fidel Castro's government. How quickly within Cuba did people realize everything has changed, and how quickly outside of Cuba did the U.S. realize they have now an enemy in Cuba? Well, the Eisenhower administration, pretty much from the get-go, saw Fidel Castro and the revolutionary movement with hostile eyes. Many members of the Eisenhower administration were suspicious of what Castro wasn't

saying out loud. It was the Cold War, and they feared he was a communist. The U.S. position under Eisenhower is about containment at first, toleration at first. What nobody expected is that August of 1960, Fidel's going to come out with a week of national jubilation and nationalize all foreign-owned businesses on the island. Before the revolution, U.S. companies owned or controlled 90% of Cuba's electrical grid, telephone system, and mines. And they had a large stake in sugar plantations and oil refineries. Now, all these industries belong to the Cuban government. U.S. companies lost $1.9 billion in investment. Castro defended his actions at the United Nations General Assembly. He called out the U.S. for

being an imperial force that exerted too much power on Cuba and other U.N. countries. What nobody expected is that two months later he's going to decree the nationalization of all medium and large-scale businesses that are domestically owned. Meaning Castro's government wasn't just seizing foreign-owned companies, which many Cubans supported, it was also taking over Cuban-owned companies. By December of 1960, without ever having said, I'm a communist, or even revealing the degree to which he has integrated Communist Party members to his state. the government is communist in all but name, and it controls 80% of the economy, 80% of the economy. The U.S. was not liking what it was seeing in Cuba, and tensions between the two countries began to escalate in a heated back and forth. First, the CIA started training a special military force of Cuban exiles to invade the island and topple the communist government. The 1961 invasion,

known as the Bay of Pigs was a huge failure for the U.S. Then Vidal Castro shot back with a speech where he... He declares that the revolution is socialist. And so, you know, at that point, the deal is done. Cuba was now a communist country, one that sat only 90 miles away from the U.S. And after the Bay of Pigs, as the Soviet Union solidified its support and defense of Cuba,

the U.S. decided the threat was too, close. In 1962, the U.S. ramped up the pressure again, with an embargo on all trade between the U.S. and Cuba. It's a disaster from day one for Cubans because so much of the food that they ate, the spare parts that were needed in factories, the clothing that they bought, you know, the products that they had become accustomed to consuming, like Coca-Cola, all of those things are going to stop. And for a time, the Cuban people, I think, believed that this might be temporary. Most Cubans living inside the country still supported Castro at this point. So there is a willingness on the part of the Cuban people to ride out the early part of the embargo.

And there also seems to be a solution, which is maybe we can manufacture these things ourselves. Maybe this is what revolution meant that we should be able to be self-sufficient. My fellow citizens, let no one doubt that this is a difficult and dangerous effort on which we have set out. In October 1962, the back and forth between Cuba and the U.S. came to a head when the U.S. learned that the Soviet Union had stationed nuclear ballistic missiles in Cuba. No one can foresee precisely what cost it will take or what cost or casual. The U.S. created a naval blockade around Cuba to stop more Soviet weapons from getting in. The situation was tense. Nuclear war felt imminent.

In the end, the USSR and the USA struck a deal. No more nukes in Cuba on the condition that the U.S. doesn't invade the island. The U.S. embargo, however, continues to this day. A version of the 1962 embargo, or loquayo, lacquade, as some Cubans call it, is still in place. Its aim was to destabilize the Castro government by sowing, quote, hardship and disenchantment among the Cuban people. To stay afloat, Cuba continued to rely on the Soviet Union and the eastern bloc. The USSR was Cuba's main trade partner. But in spite of attempts to build a more self-sufficient island, and even with the new,

influx of Soviet trade, Cuba's economy faltered, and rations became a permanent feature of life. There is a certain degree of crony capitalism that reasserts itself in the form of crony communism. People called it sociolismo, socialismo instead of socialism. It's a play on words, socio, meaning buddy or a good friend in Cuban slang. So they were saying, sociolismo, meaning you're taking care of your friend. friends rather than true socialism. And there is a certain degree to which your buddy, if you're all a bunch of loyalists, you know, whoever is your buddy who controls access to the rations or the ration distribution center will ensure that people get half the amount of dried milk they're supposed

to have so that he can sell the rest of it under the table. And that black market, economy very quickly becomes a standard bearer of the communist regime. For some people, like this upper echelon of communists with connections, life was pretty good. But for most Cubans, life was far from easy. Fidel has made a disaster of the economy. And we had negative rates of growth. Fidel decides to nationalize all the remaining small businesses on the island, leaving nothing to serve as a substitute. So suddenly it's a crime to, you know, hire a plumber. You have to do it through the state. and the state doesn't have an agency that, you know, contracts out plumbers. You know, all of these activities, these little small businesses,

even the production of many goods that had replaced imports. Like there were factories that emerged because of the embargo in the 1960s that produced things like iron beds or produce those spare parts that could no longer be imported. And according to Lillian Guerra, the Castro government also doubled down on measures to quell potential dissent, like the... Committees for the defense's... the revolution as a mass organization of people who are spying on one another. And their role, as Fidel put it, officially, was to be tapabokas, which means mouth shutters.

They are supposed to, if you're standing in line for a ration and you're complaining about the quality or the fact that they don't have half of the amount that you're due, they're supposed to come out and tell you to shut up and that you're a counter-revolutionary in a gusano. And they're supposed to take your name down. And this is very effective. This turned toward authoritarian tactics was not popular with everyone in Cuba. Now it wasn't just the press that couldn't be critical of the government. It was everyone.

From 62 to 65, there's the rise of tremendous discontent on the island in the general population. And to combat this, the Cuban government decided to invest in Cuba's youth, who they deemed as loyal in the future of communist Cuba. The government expanded the school system, bringing education to peasant girls who would otherwise have been left behind. These schools were considered a revolutionary win in the effort to bring more equality to the Cuban people. But according to Lillian Guerra, the state has captured the attention of the youth and has increasingly told them that their parents are the way of the past, that they're going to be the new men in socialism. And so they need to ignore what their parents might.

think or say they need to leave behind the culture of Catholicism and reject foreign influence. In some ways, this youthful disdain for the old guard in Cuba echoed the youth movements rocking the U.S. and other parts of the world at the time. It's kind of like the vibe of Bob Dillon's, the times are changing. Your sons and daughters are beyond your command. But Castro's government started to put some strict parameters on what being a good revolutionary Cuban youth looked like. The Cuban communist state carries out a process of criminalizing behaviors that they label

as ideologically diversionary. Those behaviors include listening to the Beatles. They include wearing jeans. They include being gay or being a person who tolerates gayness. They include liking abstract art. There are all of these things that are kind of considered to be politically criminal or that contaminate the collective consciousness and dilute their people's commitment to Marxist revolution. As the economy continued to struggle, morale in Cuba was low. In 1970, Fidel Castro tried to turn it

around. He announced that the country was going to have a 10 million ton sugar harvest, La Zafra de los Dias Miones. And this harvest was going to jumpstart the economy and finally allow Cuba to be economically independent. You have doctors, you have teachers. Everybody who could possibly cut sugar cane was mobilized. It was supposed to show that the Cuban people could produce for themselves. And in the end, it fails. They came up short of their goal of 10 million tons.

It was still the largest sugar harvest in Cuba's history, but it came at a price. In order to make this big harvest happen, the government let other parts of the economy fall apart. By 1971, people are so angry at what has happened. at the state, at the way in which the economy has been devastated by this project, that at any one time in the year of 1971, 20% of the workforce doesn't even show up to work. Some Cubans call Castro and his government's economic and social policies the internal blockade.

The U.S. was blocking trade, but the Cuban government was taking away Cuban's economic autonomy and making them reliant on the government, all while squashing descent. This second embargo was not just an embargo of material things, but of ideas. By the 1970s, hundreds of thousands of Cubans had left the island for the U.S., and Cuba, having failed to take off independently, became more and more entrenched with the Soviet Union. Coming up, the Soviet Union falls, and the world watches to see if Cuba will be next.

Hi, my name is Alias. I live in the UK where I'm originally from Spain. I'm just so amazed by your work. You're listening to the through line from NPR. Part two. The special period. In 1991, the world order, as it had been for decades, collapsed. The gradual deterioration and final collapse of the Soviet Union has hit other socialist nations like the aftershocks of an earthquake. Perhaps none has been hit so hard as Cuba. There's this tremendous sense of crisis in Cuba now. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba entered what its leader, Fidel Castro, coined, the special period in the time of peace.

That term came loaded with irony for everyday Cubans, because for them, this period was anything but peaceful. For decades, the Soviet Union had been sending oil, food, and machinery to Cuba. And the entire economy was substantive. by Soviet money. The public health sector was utterly dependent on Soviet aid. The school system was dependent on Soviet aid, infrastructure. You couldn't pick up garbage without the oil to put in your trucks.

You know, all this stuff from the Soviet Union, not only is it unavailable and unimportable, it actually ceases to be produced. And they've lived a period of several years of dire, dire economic needs. This is Maria de los Angeles Torres. Born in Cuba, she's a professor of Latin American and Latino studies at the University of Illinois and Chicago, and has written extensively about the history of U.S. Cuba relations. Cuban people experienced widespread energy and fuel shortages. The government instituted strict food rations.

Hunger increased. The staple foods from the Soviet Union that people had relied on for decades disappeared. Blackouts last. up to 20 hours a day. And people would be coming out and cooking together because they didn't have the fuel for each household to be able to have their own kitchens. Desperation peaked in 1994 when 35,000 Cubans took to the open sea on homemade rafts, risking death to make the 90-mile journey to the U.S. The Cuban government in response had to change out of necessity. It had to open up the economy to more.

capitalist market forces as a matter of survival. It started legalizing some small private businesses, and it also encouraged the development of foreign investment and the tourism industry. That of particular was pretty hard to stomach. This is history professor Lillian Gerra again. So much of the revolution's mythology created by Fidel Castro and enforced by the Communist Party arrested on the idea that tourism was bad, that foreign investors were the bank. of communism. And in fact, you get the very thing that Fidel spent the 90s and the 80s criticizing.

The government began to encourage foreign businesses to set up shop in Cuba and take advantage of the cheap labor Cubans provided those investors. And the company is paying the Cuban government, not the workers directly, more than, in fact, the worker will receive. Let's say that the Cuban government is receiving for every one of its workers a monthly paycheck of $500. Well, the Cuban is actually only getting 50. And the government gets to keep the rest. And so the Cuban who works in that assembly plant has to be grateful because he has more than the average Cuban.

And he gets a bag of goods that nobody has, like deodorant, really nice shampoo, detergent, you know, basic products that are no longer available on the ration or in the national currency that are manufactured abroad, imported. The Cuban government needs to fill the void left behind by the collapse of Soviet aid, and it begins to turn to other countries, like Venezuela. So Hugo Chavez really creates a relationship with Fidel that's based on the Cuban state, contracting doctors and other professionals. Under Castro, Cuba had a robust education system, which allowed them to train professionals like doctors to send abroad. Venezuela wasn't the only place this so-called White Coat Army went.

Doctors were sent to Guatemala, Brazil, Honduras, Haiti, and more. In exchange for doctors, Venezuela sent Cuba 100,000 barrels of oil a day. In addition to oil, Cuba also got money. Some studies estimate that leasing skilled professionals to foreign countries brought in billions of dollars a year to Cuba. Then the question is what happens with that money, okay? is it reinvested or not. There's been investments in hotels and in infrastructure around hotels.

But Torres says the government didn't invest in other infrastructure, like the energy grid or road repairs. All of a sudden there's blackouts. You cannot drive, okay, in certain streets because the potholes are huge. So there's a question of what was happening to the money that was being done. generated. An extreme economic crisis, hunger, crumbling infrastructure, a government response that goes against the communist ideals Castro preached for decades and ends up enriching the government more than the Cuban people.

This is the situation Cuban people find themselves in at the turn of the century. You cannot escape the outrage that Cubans felt. They also were outraged by the fact that the Cuban state, whenever something would come up that was obvious, visible evidence of its own mismanagement or its own hypocrisy, they would blame the special period or they'd blame the U.S. embargo. And so citizens had this incredible sort of, you know, memory checklist. And it was one thing after the other that Cubans complained about. The number of grievances were miles long.

They were countless grievances. That spark changes outside of Cuba, too. and in Cuban's relationship to the outside world, particularly with the U.S. People's discontent with the government had also led many to seek new lives elsewhere. In the U.S., a new diaspora of Cuban Americans started to grow and change.

There was more of an outflow of people leaving Cuba, and that started changing the configuration of the community. The politics is a whole different bogg. but the effective relationships that people had to their relatives was much closer. If you think about at least my wave of immigrants, the beginnings in the 1960s, we spent 20 years without seeing our relatives. Whereas people who were leaving in the 90s, they did not have that waiting period, all right? Family members in the U.S. would send money back to Cuba or supplies. These relatives

were playing an important role in the Cuban economy. Cuba was aware of the remittances and was aware of the power of how much money people could send back. So the remittances become very important during this period of time. That was a sea change of attitude, I think here in Miami and in other places where there were Cuban exiles

because people felt that they could then really have a relationship with their relatives that didn't have to go through the government. You could support your relatives, but that didn't mean you were supportive government. And so that is another way that I think that Cuba survives during that period. That effective tie allows for a, if you will, a Cuba beyond borders of the political to kind of exist. It was a new kind of relationship that also changed how people inside Cuba felt about the people who had left. They saw their families as supporters.

And they saw their friends who left as people who were, you know, trying to better their lives, not being traitors to the revolution. And they do lose confidence in their government because it's not their government who's taking care of them anymore. It's their relatives. Despite the discontent and the economic challenges, the communist government still survived. And as the economic storm of the special period started to clear, the government would even reverse course. It tightened down the economic controls once again, like scaling back opportunities for private businesses. It's almost like liberalization is a last resort. And it is only when it is like they're up against the wall that they sort of say,

okay, let's do this. And as soon as it is resolved, then they go back to the old ways of doing things. In those 90s, there were debates within the government. Again, I don't think it's a monolithic government. I think there are factions in that government that have different points of views. There were those who argued for liberalization. I think that the ones who argued for repression end up winning. When I look at the situation today, I think that if Cuba had gone a different direction with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, they would not find themselves in the situation that they are today.

I think they opted for maintaining a centralized economy and one that is very rigid and not very productive. because they were afraid of political change. So they find themselves with a very unproductive economic system and one that tends to rely on other countries. It's almost like I think they have reached the cliff's end here. Coming up, Cuba on its way to the edge of the cliff. Hi, this is Christina from Houston, Texas, long-time listener, first-time caller,

and you're listening to Thurline from NPR. This show reminds us that history is not black and white, and we'd be wise to learn from it. Give up the great work. Hi, Rund here. If you're listening to this episode and you feel like you've learned something about the world around you,

send us some love. You can leave ThruLine and review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. We really do read those reviews. They help us understand what people love about the show and what they want to hear more of. And while you're at it, make sure you follow the show too. That helps other people find out about our show.

It's one way you can help us. We really appreciate your support. It means a lot to us. So thank you. Now, back to the show. Part 3. The Cuban Thaw. An announcement that Fidel Castro's opponents have been awaiting for years came in the middle of the night.

In a letter published in the Communist Party newspaper, Castro said he's no longer physically able to lead Cuba. In 2008, 81-year-old Fidel Castro officially stepped down as president, handing power to his brother, Raul. That's not necessarily a transition. Giving Raul the reins of power is precisely symbolic of the political crisis that Cuba has lived since the revolution. And that is it has not allowed for a renovation of political leadership. This is Maria de Los Angeles Torres. She's a professor of Latin American and Latin.

Latino studies at the University of Illinois in Chicago. Didel was a central figure for many people. People who were not necessarily ideological, felt a certain affinity to him, even if they were living in disaster. I think Raul does not have that kind of relationship with people. And clearly, the military personality. that has been put in charge of the various components of the government that's not have that repertoire at all.

And so it has made it easier for people to be more critical of the government. As Raul Castro took power, just across the Atlantic Ocean, another leader stepped into office. U.S. President Barack Obama. Throughout his two terms, Obama pursued what was dubbed the Cuban Thaw, the start of a new chapter between the two. countries, resuming the kind of diplomatic relations that hadn't been seen in more than 50 years. He started with relaxing travel and trade restrictions.

Then he became the first U.S. president to visit Cuba since 1928. And he called on Congress repeatedly to lift the U.S. embargo on Cuba. I have to say that Obama was like a refreshment, like a hope for many people. in Cuba. Eloy Vieira is a journalist at El-Docke, currently living in exile in Canada. But he was born in Cuba, and he lived there during Obama's presidency. If we talk about information, for example, Obama was a change in that perspective, because after Obama visit, the government decided to allow Cuban people to have internet in their

phones. In 2015, President Obama allowed U.S. businesses to invest in Cuba's televised. communication sector and build internet infrastructure to connect Cuba to the world. The government also opened hotspots to the public. But when Eloy was growing up, Cuba didn't have public internet. The island didn't get connected until 1996. And for nearly two decades after that, web access was slow and spotty. It was also expensive to get and tightly monitored by the government.

People still couldn't access the internet in their homes. only in public spaces regulated by the state, like cyber cafes or parks. One of the main things that I remember from Cuba at that point is that in a big park, in a public space, many people screaming to their phones, trying to talk with their relatives, with their friends in other parts of the world. But you have someone seated beside you and others sitting next to you. So they were sharing sometimes even intimacy. Yeah, yeah. But that's where the Wi-Fi was.

Right. Exactly. But it was funny, but it also expressed that hunger of the people to get, not just connected, but to feel part of the world. They were living like in a bubble for years. A dual internet developed in Cuba. For those who could afford it, there was access to the World Wide Web. For most Cubans,

there was access to Cuba's tightly controlled and censored intranet. Internet has become like a tool for many, many people in Cuba who have used the social networks as a way to create synergies between them, to create strategies between them, and to talk about the Cuban problems on the internet. And the access to internet, it changed that mentality. the way of the people in Cuba sold the rest of the world. But in the meantime, the thawing relations between Cuba and the U.S.

had frozen over once again. Everything reversed course in 2016 with the election of Trump and then the subsequent reversal of policy on the part of his administration. You know, the hardliners in Cuba were re-empowered. Again, this is Lillian Guerra, history professor at the University of Florida.

They took the reigns. back. I think that the end, the closure of the Obama era, it was like a hit of reality, saying, you have been living a fiction for these two years. What did that feel like to go from having this kind of glimpse of maybe a little bit more openness, more freedom of expression, more information to then what began to unfold in the years after 2016? I have to say, that it was one of the main or worst frustrations of my generation. Travel restrictions were back. The money from U.S. tourism and investment from U.S. companies dried up, and the Cuban

economy took a downturn. The regime wanted that you believe that something was possible under their control. And for my generation, this generation that started to make activism, journalism, At that moment, it was a huge frustration. The last decade in Cuba has been characterized by worsening economic desperation. And the pandemic didn't help. In 2021, Cubans took to the streets in a massive display of frustration and grievance with the government. Cuba is one of the most tightly controlled countries in the world, which is why yesterday's

demonstrations were astonishing. They were asking priests for food, medicine, and vaccines. But their loudest cries were it really calls to end the communist regime to end the dictatorship. And they were met with a brutal crackdown. Police detained around 1,000 people, hundreds of whom are still imprisoned today. The conditions that fueled the 2021 protests have only worsened since then. And that brings us back to the start of this year, when a dire situation transformed into a full-blown crisis.

as Cuba's oil supply from Venezuela was cut off for weeks. Cuba has been short of food and clean water, suffering from intense power blackouts and facing its worst economic crisis in 67 years. I think that Cuba has found that it has really very, I would say, actually almost no options in terms of its ability to develop any kind of economic relations with countries that can help sustain the military and power in Cuba, and specifically

petroleum and other goods. One thing that has been sort of debated or talked about a lot that I've been seeing in the coverage is how to interpret this moment, whether it's more the responsibility of the Cuban regime and its mistreatment of the Cuban people for so long. or the U.S. embargo that is more of the cause for the current crisis. The either or dynamic, it's either utterly the fault of the United States embargo or it's the fault of the Cuban communist government. That's a very comfortable paradigm for both the Cuban government as well as its detractors.

I think that the argument that it's only the embargo is actually a very U.S.-centric perspective because the corollary to that is that if it's the embargo, then the only thing that can save Cuban people is taking away the embargo. While obviously the United States is a huge factor in Cuban politics and has always been, I don't think it's the only factor. I think Cubans have, in their hands, the ability to, despite the embargo, make choices about how they deal with,

you know, the economy, how they organize their politics, how they trade with other countries, how they deal with their own citizens. The communist state relies on the total economic dependency of the population. You don't have any economic autonomy, nor do you have political or social autonomy from the state. And ostensibly, this is all for, you know, the general good, but effectively it has been for the general impoverishment.

Cubans are more equally poor than they are. equally rich. And you have an economic elite, which is the Cuban communist government, very top echelon that live like kings. The embargo has actually created a series of cottage industries that have actually allowed the Cuban military to create lots of small and big businesses around the embargo that they have become a factor. in not wanting the embargo lifted. These are not hard-earned dollars. These are public monies.

And I think that that is the difference, and that is where the critical perspective comes. So I don't know if the regime is going to fall, but what I'm really sure is that in 2006, something is going to happen with the regime. Even in this moment when they feel or they seem being weak, they are not weak. They keep the control inside the island.

They keep the narrative because even when the people have access to internet, they control, they filter the internet. They keep repressing people who spreads themselves on the social networks. I think that the situation here is going to be determined by the reaction of the Cuban people. So everything is in the hands of the Cuban. If the regime trumbled, it's just because a lot of Cubans went out to the streets. They keep in the streets and they start a new revolution. That's it for this week's show.

I'm Randab del Fattah. I'm Ramtin Arablui, and you've been listening to ThruLine from NPR. This episode was produced by me. And me and Julie Cain. Anya Steinberg. Casey Minor. Christina Kim Devin Katayama

Irene Noguchi Kiona Mojaten Thomas Coltrane Fact checking for this episode was done by Kevin Vocal Also thank you to Johannes Durgy Dilling Kurtz

Rebecca Ferre Beth Donovan and Tommy Evans This episode was mixed by Jimmy Keely Music for this episode was composed by Ramtin and his band

Drop Electric Which includes Nevid Marvie Chou Fujiwara Anya me Zani. And finally, if you have an idea or like something you heard on the show, please write us at ThruLine at NPR.org. And make sure you follow us on Apple, Spotify, or the NPR app. That way, you'll never miss an episode. Thanks for listening.