ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to provide a context in which to better understand why policy choices have been made, the significance of the outcomes of the choices, and the conditions limiting alternatives realistically available to the Cuban leadership. The revolutionary government in Cuba has evolved a succession of approaches to the task of fostering independent national development with remarkable speed. In 1959 the anti-Batista movement came to power under the leadership of Fidel Castro and with a reformist program. Discussion of the Cuban revolution by foreigners has generally been characterized by heated polemic, incorporating naive and sometimes intentional distortion. During the first half of the twentieth century the course of Cuban development was determined largely by external forces. The turnpike strategy appeared to be a way to guard Cuban economic independence while establishing the human and the financial bases for industrialization. Between 1962 and 1965, a debate took place over what kind of socialism Cuba would attempt to develop.
