Erika Barris

At this point, Cuba was 100 percent fully communist.

Everyone was employed by the government.

The government appointed people to jobs.

It set wages and it owned and controlled everything.

The Cuban government now owned the tobacco and sugar industry.

And to get the other things it needed, especially oil, it relied on its most powerful communist compadre, the Soviet Union.

The Soviets bought Cuban goods for more than they were worth and sold Cuba oil for less than it was worth.

And for a few decades, yeah, it worked.

Cuba was poor, but collaboration with the Soviets kept it going.

Like shelter?

With help from the Soviets, Cuba developed a strong health care and education system.

But in 1991, Cuba lost its key compadre.

The Soviet Union broke up and stopped being communist.

And this was devastating for Cuba.

This period in the early 90s was called the special period, which makes it sound good special, but was actually terrible.

There was less food.

Cuba's GDP sank by 35 percent.

People were suffering, fleeing, some people even making rafts out of whatever they could find and trying to float to the U.S.,

By that time, Ricardo had gotten his hands on an old Soviet economics textbook that extolled the virtues of communist countries and highlighted the inequalities of capitalist ones.

But young Ricardo was wondering, OK, well, why did the Soviet Union break up and ditch communism if it was so great?