Consumption and Modernity in the Cuban Revolution, 1959–62

When the Cuban Revolution of 1959 came to power, both its leaders and its many adherents hoped it would transform a dependent, underdeveloped economy into an industrialized, diversified and modern one. It was assumed that, as a result, consumption in both city and country would naturally rise. Yet within months, urban consumers found themselves weathering price hikes and sporadic shortages of food and other necessary items. By 1961, urban shortages had reached crisis levels.

This presentation will use the issue of everyday consumption to illuminate the political confrontations of the first few years of the revolution. It will demonstrate that increasing shortages resulted in polarizing political views, as the leadership necessarily moved from its early promises of prosperity to calls for a shared, egalitarian austerity. Meanwhile, many urban middle-class city residents moved from support of the revolution to critique or opposition, decrying the move “backward” toward “premodern” forms of consumption. Finally, the presentation will argue that shortages of food and other necessary goods impacted urban women in particular, and that these same women’s protests pushed the revolutionary leadership to publicly address the problem of shortages and ultimately introduce a system of widespread rationing. Unlike most studies of the Cuban revolution in this period, which focus almost exclusively on U.S.-Cuban relations or the revolutionary leadership, this presentation sees consumption as a hot-button issue that transformed political allegiances and radicalized political imaginaries.