# Cuba's Special Period

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cubas-special-period/540970>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [May 27, 2010, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cubas-special-period/540970 "2010-05-27T17:10:14Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\
**Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cubas-special-period/540970/1 "2010-05-27T17:10:14Z")

</div>

This seemed too much of a hijack for [the thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=564603) where it came up, and I’m not asking a question or really trying to spark a debate here–just pointing something out for any who may be interested. Do what you will with it.

> [@Civil Rights and other Social Changes: Wouldn't they have occured anyway?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-rights-and-other-social-changes-wouldnt-they-have-occured-anyway/540788/45):
>
> If you think Cubans were better fed after the Castros came to power then you should look up the time called “Special Period”.

The [Special Period](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Period#See_also) had to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union, which changed Cuba’s resource picture, thirty years after the Revolution. (The American embargo wasn’t helping, either.) If you think the average Cuban was better off _before_ Castro, maybe you should look up the time called the [Batista](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulgencio_Batista) dictatorship.

> [@John F. Kennedy](#):
>
> I believe that there is no country in the world…where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country’s policies during the Batista regime. I approved the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will even go further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries.

You should probably also look at what the Special Period actually _did_ for Cuba, rather than just how hard a time it was. [Some people](http://www.powerofcommunity.org/cm/index.php) feel there are some useful lessons there.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\
**Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cubas-special-period/540970/2 "2010-05-27T18:06:53Z")

</div>

Perhaps this topic would be better served in Great Debates.