Cubanet interviews the historian and businessman Omar Sixto.
HAVANA.- Few books like The fun is over. The Cuban economy: the leap from capitalism to socialism (1959-1965)from the historian and businessman Omar Sixtoexplain with such rigor and detail how Fidel Castro’s regime dismantled the economy and social structure of the country in its early years. With abundant data and without idealizing pre-revolutionary Cuba—marked by inequalities and structural problems—the work dismantles the myths of Castroism and part of the international left about “the achievements of the revolution,” and helps to understand how the Island reached the current systemic crisis.
Sixto agreed to answer this questionnaire for CubaNet.
Historian or businessman? How would you define yourself?
More than a historian or businessman, I define myself as a free Cuban. Also as a son, father, friend and, now, grandfather. First it was the Cuban, then the historian, then freedom. After a long period as a businessman, I returned to history, without abandoning the company, which is what puts bread on the table. In reality, I never completely distanced myself from history: it is a passion that becomes more enjoyable over time.
Sixto, you said that you escaped from the Cuban State before you left. How was your life in Cuba? What left you positive and negative?
Except for the lack of freedom, my life in Cuba was not an ordeal like that of so many compatriots. I was born in 1969, when the asylum had been established for ten years. Although freedom had been extirpated and the material deterioration of the country had begun, there were still many customs of old Cuba and a lot of decency in the people. Thanks to Soviet subsidies, the regime maintained the appearance that society was functioning, despite the inefficiency of socialism and the follies of Orator Orate.
I had a happy childhood, especially in elementary school. Everything changed with the events at the Peruvian embassy and the Mariel: It changed society and changed my perception of it. I saw hatred in the official discourse and in the facts, although one, being a child, moves on.
High school and high school were difficult, like everyone else, but I survived them. I started studying History at the university in the midst of the decline of that model, and I graduated just when the “special period” began. In 1991, a historian left college, forced to “fight” on the streets to feed a one-year-old girl and support the family. We never went hungry, thank God, and despite the risks—swimming—I was never caught. I slipped off the state radar: I changed my address several times, I stopped appearing in any CDR and I was barely in the Academy of Sciences. Until I got a passport and escaped.
The positive thing was having lived through all that; the negative, having to leave it behind. A world that no longer exists, collapsed by 66 years of totalitarianism.
What led you to write? The fun is over?
The initial draft comes from my time in Cuba. I managed to get the topic of socialist economy approved as my degree thesis and I was able to work without so much censorship in 1989-1990. Then I spent years picking it up at intervals, leisurely, as I built my business. When Orate died and Obama left the symbolic victory of the thaw in his hands, I naively thought that the regime would open some freedoms. The opposite happened. I understood that there would be neither freedom nor material progress. I then returned to the book. The final push was on July 11, 2021, when the potbellied puppet on duty said: “The combat order is given.” I took out the machete and here we are.
In your book you master economics and sociology with a ease that contrasts with the irreverent tone of your blog Remembering the past is recovering the future. How do you handle both logs?
More than mastery, it is study: historical facts, patience, intellectual curiosity. Furthermore, thirty years in private business gives you an economic perspective that is impossible to acquire from the academic world. The fun is over It is serious and documented, but it can be read like a novel: without the brick of figures disconnected from reality. Instead, the blog was born as a joke that became a pleasure. The fight for freedom is serious, but it can be done with humor. And now I also upload daily videos on YouTube: it seems that today we read less and watch more.
In your blog you call the regime “the Military Junta of Barrigones.” Because?
Because it defines them. It is a military junta. Díaz-Canel and Marrero are disposable fuses, simple visible faces of an opaque real power. They will fall when the leadership considers it. And the “bellied” thing is obvious: just look at any photo of those who control this misrule.
What do you respond to those who say that “with Fidel these things did not happen”?
Fidel Castro, the Orate Orator, is primarily responsible for turning a self-sufficient country into a parasite in ruins. He repressed and destroyed, but maintained certain rules of the game, a bad social contract: the fiction that the State took care of its subjects. The current leadership does not even have that talent to manipulate. They have broken what was left of that evil contract. They no longer hide: it is them against the Cubans. They do not understand that the time will come when resentment overcomes fear. That will be your end.
What have thirty years living between Spain, the United States and Mexico left you?
In addition to losing my hair, they have given me freedom. I miss my country and my old life, but being free is priceless. You learn to be flexible, tolerant, to distinguish what is correct from what is not. You have to rebuild your life from scratch: I slept on the street in Miami and today I enjoy a free-born grandson. Cuba remains within us, although the one we left behind no longer exists.
New books on the way?
The second expanded edition of the book will be released soon, followed by the English version. By mid-2026 I will publish The train of egosabout the first railroad in Latin America, built in Cuba in 1837. And I have advanced a history of Havana from 1519 to 1893, from the origin of the city to the beginning of its last great period of splendor.
How do you see the future of Cuba, Sixto?
It depends on the Cubans who remain on the Island. The Military Junta of Barrigones is an absolute obstacle to progress: they do not generate wealth, they have never had productive employment and they do not know how to get the country out of the humanitarian crisis – which no one yet names as such, but it is. They will fall or they will be gone, we don’t know when. Even if they improve the material situation a little, they will never allow Cubans to be free, to stop being “people” and become citizens. The future depends on us.
The material reconstruction of a free Cuba will be costly but possible. There are decades without repairing an aqueduct, a drain, a road, a bridge, a hospital or an industry. The electrical system is in ruins and, even though they have money, the leadership does not use it to improve people’s lives, but rather to preserve their power. But the Island is fertile, it is ninety miles from the largest market in the world and has almost three million prosperous Cubans with an entrepreneurial spirit abroad.
Social reconstruction will be more difficult, but it will begin with the material. And, with it, dignity. Let the joy return, the carnival of Celia’s life. Let the fun that ended that fateful January 66 years ago return.
