The Cuban economy depended largely on agriculture, especially growing sugarcane, a highly labor intensive activity. As a result, both Batista’s and Castro’s regimes, bereft of natural-resource wealth, had to rely on workers to generate revenue. Each did have the benefit of supplementing that revenue with a significant amount of foreign aid, from the United States in Batista’s case and from the Soviet Union in Castro’s. Nevertheless, to stay afloat, both needed to maintain a healthy and reasonably educated workforce. Therefore, both Batista’s and Castro’s Cuba needed good health care as well as
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