By Ricardo Guerrero. Resumen Latinoamericano, June 1, 2026.
Dictator Fulgencio Batista (left), alongside American mob boss Meyer Lansky and his wife.
While a privileged minority lived in the most absolute opulence, the Cuban people suffered from one of the greatest social inequalities in Latin America.
Before the triumph of the Revolution in 1959, Cuba was a neocolony subject to U.S. interests. Under the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, the country was characterized by extreme corruption and total subordination to foreign capital. Havana became the Caribbean’s main casino and brothel: luxury hotels, cabarets, and casinos controlled by the U.S. mafia, where thousands of Cuban women were exploited to entertain American tourists.
The mafia ruled in Havana. Meyer Lansky, one of the leading figures of the American Jewish mafia, acted practically as Batista’s “minister of gambling.” He received an annual salary of $25,000 and personally oversaw gambling operations.
Alongside figures such as Santo Trafficante Jr. (owner of the Sans Souci Hotel casino), Lucky Luciano, and other bosses, the mafia invested hundreds of millions of dollars in establishments like the Hotel Nacional, the Riviera, the Tropicana, and the Capri. Batista received hefty commissions from each casino, and his government matched dollar-for-dollar hotel investments exceeding $1 million in exchange for gambling licenses. Corruption was so brazen that the Mafia operated with total impunity, turning Cuba into its paradise for money laundering, prostitution, and illegal gambling.
While a privileged minority—large landowners, corrupt businessmen, and high-ranking officials—lived in the utmost opulence, the Cuban people suffered from one of the greatest social inequalities in Latin America. The Gini coefficient in 1959 hovered around 0.55–0.57, reflecting an extremely unequal distribution of wealth.
A Cuban peasant family in the 1950s.
In the countryside, where nearly 43% of the population lived, the situation was dire. Just 0.5% of the estates controlled more than 36% of the arable land. More than 147,000 peasant families barely survived on average monthly incomes of less than 70 pesos. Unemployment and underemployment affected hundreds of thousands of guajiros, especially during the “off-season” of the sugar harvest, when they worked only 3–4 months a year. Rural illiteracy stood at 41.8%, compared to 11.6% in urban areas. Malnutrition, lack of medical care, and substandard housing (bohíos) were the norm in rural areas.
In the cities, especially in Havana, luxury shone for a select few, while entire neighborhoods lived in squalor. This stark divide between an elite that enjoyed mansions, imported cars, and parties in casinos, and a populace mired in poverty, unemployment, and humiliation, generated deep discontent.
Batista’s repression was fierce. His police and military tortured, murdered, and disappeared opponents. Material deprivation, extreme inequality, corruption involving the mafia, and the loss of national dignity were the spark that ignited the Revolution. The Cuban people, fed up with being treated as just another one of Washington’s estates, found in Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and the bearded fighters of the July 26 Movement the hope for social justice and sovereignty.
Today, imperialism seeks to restore its casino. More than six decades later, the United States remains determined to recover what it lost in 1959. Through the economic blockade, subversion, and support for the counterrevolution, it seeks to weaken the Revolution in order to turn Cuba back into its casino, its brothel, and its source of profits.
Washington seeks to strip Cuba of its sovereignty, privatize the people’s resources, and return Cubans to the status of servants of the mafia and big U.S. capital. The Cuban Revolution, despite its difficulties and mistakes, restored dignity to a people who refused to remain the empire’s brothel.