What I would like to do here is provide a bit of a counter balance to the coverage of the revolution’s 50th in the bourgeoisie media. Unlike they, who will undoubtedly focus on the admitted negatives that are faced by the Cuban people, I will focus here on the real and serious gains of the Cuban people that are a result of the revolution. I hope you find these facts enlightening.Here is just a quick look at some before and afters:

Literacy Before & After The Revolution
1952	54%
2005	100%
Sources: (1) UNICEF & (2) Encarta Encylopedia.

Life Expectancy Before & After The Revolution
1950	55.8 years
2006	78 years
Sources: (1) UNICEF & (2) “The Health Revolution in Cuba,” Sergio Díaz-Briquets, University of Texas Press. Austin, Texas. 1993. pp. 19.

Infant Mortality* Before & After The Revolution
1958	60
2004	5.8
Sources: (1) Statistics Bureau, Cuban Ministry of Public Health & (2) UNICEF.

* The number of deaths of infants under one year old in a
given year per 1,000 live births in the same year.

And here are some stats about how Cuba ranks up against other Latin American, Caribbean and Western nations in various ways:

Infant Mortality:

Infant Mortality Rate*
Haiti	93.35
Bolivia	57.52
Guyana	38.37
Peru	38.18
Dominican Republic	33.41
Ecuador	33.02
Nicaragua	32.52
Honduras	30.48
Paraguay	28.75
El Salvador	27.58
Mexico	24.52
Trinidad & Tobago	24.20
Suriname	23.48
Colombia	23.21
Panama	19.57
Argentina	17.20
Dominica	15.94
Grenada	14.63
Jamaica	13.71
French Guinana	13.22
Barbados	11.71
Costa Rica	10.87
Puerto Rico	9.30
United States	7.00
Cuba	5.80
Sources: (1) Statistics Bureau, Cuban Ministry of Public Health, (2) CIA factbook & (3) UNICEF.

* The number of deaths of infants
under one year old in a given year
per 1,000 live births in the same year.

Literacy:

Youth Literacy Rate
Haiti	67.0%
Honduras	86.4%
Brazil	95.8%
Colombia	97.2%
Mexico	97.4%
Argentina	98.7%
Cuba	100%
Sources: (1) World Development Indicators, (World Bank, 1998, 1999) & (2) U.N. Statistics Division, Millennium Indicators.

 

Adult Literacy
Haiti	45%
St Lucia	67%
Dominican Republic	82%
French Guiana	83%
Bolivia	83%
Brazil	83%
Jamaica	85%
Peru	88%
Puerto Rico	89%
Ecuador	90%
Venezuela	91%
Colombia	91%
Paraguay	92%
Suriname	93%
Chile	95%
Argentina	96%
Cuba	100%
Sources: (1) UNICEF & (2) UNESCO Institute for Statistics.

Poverty:

Human Poverty Index*
Haiti	42.3%
Honduras	20.5%
Brazil	12.2%
Mexico	9.4%
Colombia	8.9%
Cuba	4.1%
Sources: United Nations Development Program (UNDP) 2003 Human Development Indicators and Project On Human Development.

* Lower is better.

Doctors:

Persons Per Doctor
Haiti	10,005
Honduras	2,500
Colombia	1,105
Dominican Republic	949
Brazil	844
United States	421
Cuba	169
Sources: (1) World Development Indicators, (World Bank, 1997), (2) “World Almanac and Book of Facts 2004,” (3) “Student Atlas of World Politics 4th Edition,” Dushkin/McGraw-Hill, 2000 & (4) Encarta Encylopedia.

Hospitals:

Persons Per Hospital Bed
Haiti	1,250
Honduras	1,000
Colombia	909
Dominican Republic	670
Brazil	370
United States	303
Cuba	185
Sources: (1) “Student Atlas of World Politics 4th Edition,” Dushkin/McGraw-Hill, 2000, (2) Encarta Encylopedia.

Attended Births:

Proportion of Births Attended by Skilled Health Personnel
Haiti	24%
Honduras	54%
Colombia	86%
Mexico	86%
Brazil	88%
Argentina	98%
Cuba	100%
Source: U.N. Statistics Division, Millennium Indicators.

Unemployment:

Unemployment Rate
Haiti	70%
Guadeloupe	26.9%
French Guiana	19.2%
Dominican Republic	17%
Uruguay	16.8%
Argentina	15.6%
Colombia	14.2%
Suriname	13.8%
Venezuela	12.2%
Puerto Rico	12%
Trinidad & Tobago	10.4%
Ecuador	11.4%
Peru	10.3%
Brazil	9.7%
Paraguay	9.2%
Guyana	9.1%
Chile	8.1%
Bolivia	8%
Canada	7%
United States	6.5%
Cuba	1.9%
Sources: (1) CIA World Factbook, (2) Encarta Encylopedia & (3) “Investigating the Effects of Withheld Humanitarian Aid,” a report of the Haiti Reborn/Quixote Center.

Inflation:

Inflation Rate (%)
Dominican Republic	51.20
Haiti	27.00
Venezuela	16.00
Jamaica	12.60
Argentina	9.60
Suriname	9.50
Paraguay	9.20
Bolivia	8.50
Brazil	8.20
Uruguay	7.40
Colombia	7.10
Chile	6.60
Mexico	6.10
Guyana	6.70
Puerto Rico	6.50
Peru	5.70
United States	3.20
Canada	3.00
Cuba	0.30
Sources: (1) CIA World Factbook, (2) World Development Indicators, (World Bank, 2004, 2005), (3) Latin Business Chronicle, 2002.

Sanitation:

Proportion of Population with Access to Improved Sanitation (Urban and Rurual)
Haiti	28%
Mexico	74%
Honduras	75%
Argentina	82%
Colombia	86%
Cuba	98%
Source: U.N. Statistics Division, Millennium Indicators.

Women in Government:

Women In Parliamentary Seats
Haiti	4%
Honduras	6%
Brazil	9%
Colombia	12.2%
United States	14%
Mexico	15.9%
Argentina	31.3%
Cuba	36%
Source: U.N. Statistics Division, Millennium Indicators.

And, leading on from the women in government stats, here are some other gains that the women of Cuba have made over the last 50 years:

• The Cuban constitution guarantees full equality for women. Women receive equal wages as men for doing the same work, and sexual discrimination is forbidden by law.
• By law, men must share equally in house work with women with whom they live.
• Pregnant women in Cuba are guaranteed maternity leave, with full pay, before and after the birth of their child/ren.
• 49.5% of all Cubans who have graduated college, and 62% of all Cubans who are currently university students are women.
• Before the Cuban Revolution women made up less than 20% of the workforce (17% in 1956). One of the largest areas of employment for women was prostitution (mostly with tourists from the U.S.). Today women comprise 44% of the workforce in Cuba.
• 66.4% of all technicians, 87% of all administrators, 53.9% of all service workers, 51% of all doctors, 43% of all scientists and 33.5% of all managers in Cuba are women.
• 35% of the members of Cuban Parliament are Women. 16.1% of the State Council, 18% of the ministers, 22.7% of the Vice-Ministers, 61% of all attorneys, 20% of all officers in the armed forces, 49% of all judges and 47% of all judges in the Supreme Court in Cuba are women.
• The life expectancy of women in Cuba is 79.8 years, several years higher than the average in Latin America.
• Maternal mortality in Cuba is only 33.9 per 100,000 live births. The average for Latin America in 2004 was 94.7.
• Infant mortality in Cuba is 5.8 per 1000 live births (the lowest in Latin America, and lower than that of the U.S.).
• As for all Cubans, access to education and health services, including sexual and reproductive health is universal and free for all Cuban women.
• Abortion, which was legalized in 1965, is free to all Cuban women on demand.
• Childcare is provided in Cuba for all children from 3 months to school age at rates so low, it’s basically free.Eighty-five percent of Cuban women over the age of 14 are members of a grass roots Non-governmental organization called the “Federation of Cuban Women.” To a large extent, the success in implementing the legislation relating to the rights of women has been achieved thanks to the work of the Federation of Cuban Women. The Federation plays a major part in the debate and creation of laws that affect Cuban women.

And finally, here are some other facts about Cuba and its revolution:

• Cuba is among the top five Latin American countries in protein and calorie intake.
• Cuba has compulsory education through the ninth grade and available to 12th grade to all youth; university enrollment exceeding 200,000 with another 90,000 students graduating annually from one of 600 technical and professional training institutes — all absolutely free.
• The average Cuban worker has ten years of education; one of every ten scientists in Latin America and the Caribbean is in Cuba (although Cuba makes up only 2% of the region’s population).
• In Cuba, 50% of all skilled workers or professionals (including physicians) are women & 29% of management positions are held by women.
• Ninety-four percent of the population has electrical service in Cuba, surpassing the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean by some 20%. Television reaches even remote mountain areas and Cuban radio covers the entire island.
• The Cubans have built formidable pharmaceutical, genetic engineering and biotechnology industries, and have twenty scientific research centers investigating products from inexpensive pharmaceuticals to “green medicine.”
• The UN recently announced that Cuba is the only country in Latin America that has no malnutrition.
• The majority of Cubans own their homes. During the urban reforms in the early sixties, those Cubans paying rent to landlords who had fled to Miami, continued to pay the same rent to the State for a period of 5 to 10 years after which time the house or apartment became theirs. Servants who lived in the houses of the rich paid rent to the State and became owners of those homes after a period of years. New homes were bought with a government mortgage for approximately $5,000 (with a 2% to 4% interest rate payable over 20-30 years, paid off at no more than 10% of the chief breadwinner’s income).
• Gas bills in Cuba average 2-4 pesos (8-16 cents) a month; electricity 5-7 pesos (20-28 cents) a month; telephone 6-8 pesos (24-32 cents) a month, the first 300 minutes being free. As you can see, all these services are subsidized by the State.
• In 1999, the Latin American Laboratory for the Evaluation of Educational Quality (LLECE) tested 4,000 students in third and fourth grades in 100 randomly selected schools in 14 Latin American countries. Cuba’s Elementary Education came out on top. The Cuban children scored 350 points on a scale of 400. Despite the economic blockade, the State maintained free education with a 1,585 billion pesos educational budget in 1999. School enrollment is 100% on the elementary level, and 95% on the secondary level. There is one teacher per 40 children compared to one per 103 in the world. While in 1959 Cuba had only 3 Universities, it now has 47 which have graduated 600,000 students. In 1952, less than 50% of Cuban children went to school, over 40% of the population was illiterate, and 10,000 of the existing 25,000 teachers were unemployed. Now, every child has access to free education, remains in school through 6th grade, and then continues on with secondary education. In most Latin American countries 50% of all enrolled children leave by 4th grade.
• The Cuban “Yes, I can” literacy method has been used to teach 3,192,000 people in 28 countries how to read and write.
• A divorce usually takes about 3 months in Cuba and costs $5. Everything is split equally between the separating couple. If there are children involved, the ex-husband has to pay 10% of his wages as alimony, and usually leaves the house so that his ex-wife and children can live in it.
• In Cuba, sovereignty resides in the people. Over 97% of the people eligible to vote, vote in an electoral system which serves to nominate and then elect those best suited to fulfill their position. There are three Assemblies: the Municipal Assembly, the Provincial Assembly, and the National Assembly. In the Municipal Assembly, neighbors nominate their candidates who are finally selected by secret ballot vote by the entire constituency. The fact that candidates are not nominated by the Communist Party but by the people themselves, itself marks the democratic nature of the process. In the same way, the election of the members for the Provincial and National Assemblies are selected by secret ballot vote by the people directly. The election process has two phases: it consists of (1) electing the delegates for the Municipal Assembly, and (2) electing the deputies to the Provincial and National Assemblies.
• The Cuban Constitution (discussed and created through numerous public meetings and adopted by secret ballot in a referendum in 1976) states, in the First Article of the Electoral System, Article 131, that: “All citizens with the legal capacity to do so, have the right to take part in the leadership of the State, directly or through their elected representatives to the bodies of People Power, and to participate for this purpose and as prescribed by law in the periodic elections and people’s referendums through free, equal, and secret vote.” In Cuba, you will find grass-roots democracy never seen anywhere else in the world, where the people themselves nominate their candidates for election. A candidate must get more than 50% of a secret ballot vote to get elected. Every candidate nominated faces the electorate on his/her own merit.
• The Communist Party of Cuba is forbidden by law to play any role in the elections. The only publicity allowed candidates is a posted biography with a photograph of the candidate. They are not allowed to spend money on furthering their chances for selection. Neither are State organizations permitted to issue statements favoring any candidate.
• In order to join the Partido Comunista Cubano (PCC – Cuban Communist Party), Cubans must be chosen as model workers by their co-workers.
• Cuba’s highest leadership body is the Council of State, of which Raul Castro is the elected President. He was last elected in 2008.
• Cuba is a founding member of the Human Rights Council and the United States is not. Cuba was elected with the overwhelming support of 135 countries, more than two-thirds of the United Nations General Assembly, while the United States did not even dare to run as a candidate.
• Despite all the media coverage of all the people leaving by boat, by percentage, few Cubans actually leave Cuba, and there are many issues involved. Firstly, before the Cuban Revolution the United States gave very few Cubans visas to come to the United States, but after the revolution the doors were opened wide. Secondly, the United States has held an unjust trade embargo against Cuba for 40 years (which has been condemned several times in the United Nations by almost every country in the world) which has caused the people of Cuba to suffer. Finally, the United States enacted the ‘Cuban Adjustment Act’, the only act of its kind anywhere in the world, which grants residency to anyone, no matter if they are a criminal or not, who leaves Cuba and reaches the United States in any fashion. Imagine if the same act applied to all of Latin America! How many people from other countries would leave for the United States? How many people leave places like Mexico and the Dominican Republic now?

Also, if you want to learn more, check out the the Cuba Truth Project.