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The new poverty has halved Cuba's per capita income. The figure in 1957 was $374 for each of the country's 6,400,000 people, and Cuba ranked second among the 20 Latin American nations; now it is among the last seven on the list with a real per capita income of $185. Profitable domestic industries once made Cuba 90% self-sufficient in a long list of items: cigarettes, beer, soap, detergents, evaporated milk, tires and tubes, cement, refined petroleum, clothing, paints. Now all have been nationalized; production has faltered and profits have turned into losses.
The cigarette industry lost about $2,780,000 in the second half of 1961, the breweries more than $5,000,000. Soap was a big-time pre-Castro industry, with an annual 50,000-ton output, plus another 10,000 tons of detergent. Today the soap ration (when available) is one bath-size cake per person per month, plus a small packet of detergent for two persons per month.
The Communist world's promises to make Cuba a model of insular self-sufficiency have proved empty. The Cuban press has reported grandiose plans for more than 76 new factories, including plants for ballpoint pens, gum erasers, gasoline pumps, auto parts and batteries, poultry processing, machine tools, meat processing, shipbuilding, oil refining, electric power, steel milling and nail manufacturing. So far, Cuba's socialist partners have built four juice-canning plants, two cotton mills and a biscuit bakery. But in the other direction, Cuba has sent shiploads of machinery and furniture to Russia.
Making History. Before Communism, Cuba grew 70% of its food; today domestic food production has dropped by 50%, and little comes in from the rest of the Communist world. The country is not starving, but Havana, a city of 1,200,000, is getting hungry. In a way, its citizens are making history. In 1842, during the hated Spanish rule, the poorest-fed Cubans on record—Negro slaves from Africa—were guaranteed by law and custom at least 8 oz. of meat or fish a day, 4 oz. of rice, 12 oz. of cooking fat and 4 Ibs. of vegetables. Under Castro's rationing system, citizens of Havana are now allotted 3 oz. of meat or fish a day, 3 oz. of rice, ^ oz. of cooking fat and 8 oz. of vegetables. Even that meager ration is hard to come by. Housewives start lining up at 3 a.m. before the neighborhood groceries, which open at 8. Almost always, the end of the food comes before the end of the line.
"If this is socialism, you can have it." said a Habanero to a visiting journalist a few weeks ago. Some 200,000 of his fellow Cubans—mostly of the middle class—have already had it, and have fled into exile. Of 5,000 doctors before Castro, 1,300 have left; of 1,800 pharmacists, 300 left; of 700 agricultural engineers, 320 left; of 1,800 certified public accountants, 1,000 left; of 800 civil engineers. 350 left; of 520 electrical engineers, 200 left.