The aggression and the hard times continue, and in this issue

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/intejcubastud.14.2.0197
• Pages: 197-206
• Published date: 20 January 2023
• Date: 20 January 2023
• Author: Al Campbell

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EDITORIAL AND ISSUE CONTENTS

THE AGGRESSION AND THE HARD TIMES

CONTINUE, AND IN THIS ISSUE

Al Campbell

A year ago I titled the introductory “Editorial and issue contents” in this journal

“Increased aggression and hard times, and moving forward and this issue’s

contents”. The title still holds, with two adjustments. The aggression, above all

from the US economic Blockade, while it has not significantly increased over a

year ago, continues. As is widely known, and notwithstanding a few small miti-

gations, it remains unrelaxed. As of when this editorial is being written in late

summer, Biden continues to break his election campaign promise to roll back the

major Trump escalation of the Blockade to its level under Obama. The Blockade

always was, and still is, both illegal and immoral, particularly so because it

deliberately targets an entire country’s civilian population. And while that

aggression has not increased over the year, some of its effects have, since some

of the measures escalating the Blockade require a number of years to implement

to their full harmful potential. A guest editorial plus a dossier of four academic

articles on the Blockade today constitute the majority of this issue.

And the economically (very) hard times in Cuba continue. After a 10.9 percent

contraction in GDP in 2020, Cuba “returned to growth” in 2021, at 1.3 percent

(Anuario Estadístico de Cuba, Año 2021, chapter 5, table 5.1). This minimal

recuperation from the previous year’s large drop has of course generated no eco-

nomic satisfaction, beyond the obvious awareness that “still worse would be still

worse”. The Cuban government has continued with the major reforms proposed

to the country’s project of building a socialist economy, one part of its long pro-

ject of building a socialist society. The initial documents of the Tarea

Ordemamiento (Reordering Task) in January 2021, with the associated ongoing

stream of legislation concretising and implementing it, is the latest major develop-

ment in this process to be added to the fundamental guideline documents and

new Constitution from the last decade.

DOI:10.13169/intejcubastud.14.2.0197