Miguel Angel Falla: The Cuban Sugar Industry.
Bilingual, English - Spanish
This book is both a biography about an extraordinary
individual and his world as much as a condense overview
of Cuba’s flagship Industry for many centuries, Sugar.
It offers documentary evidence of Cuba’s economy as well
as the social mores of the times and a glimpse at some
powerful individuals.
Chapter I offer the reader the opportunity to know not
only about the life of Miguel Angel Falla but, also the
background of the era. The parallel references to Miguel
Angel’s uncle, Laureano Falla Gutierrez, the founder of
the sprawling Falla sugar and other businesses, provide
excellent material for those interested in the early
phases of Cuba’s business world. Of significance is how,
after Cuban independence, at the suggestion of the US
Governor, the General’s of the Insurrection Army went,
one on one, to persuade wealthy Spaniards not to leave
the Island. Out of such efforts, a close friendship and
business partnership was latter forged between General
Gerardo Machado and Laureano Falla Gutierrez, a Captain
in the Spanish Volunteers Corp. So close was the
friendship and the honorable reputation of Laureano that,
later on, his word was the only bond that Machado used to
seal a political pact with another presidential candidate
of the Liberal Party to support his nomination to the
presidency.
The anecdotes about John Loeb’s first trip to Cuba and his latter involvement with the country and the Falla family offers an excellent glimpse of early Cuban-American relations and the business and social mores after the Great Depression and through the fifties. So as in many biographies the references to “the times and places” rivals in interest those of the subject proper. This Chapter can be considered a foreshadowing of the short biographies that will provide four to six Chapters, on as many individuals in each book in the Series.
Chapter II, entitled, Memories, is unique to this book. In the series, the testimonials will be blended into the body in the same way it is done in Chapter I, including, if available, quotes of letters from the subjects. In keeping with the objective of the Series, a note on what these five testimonies tell us, without saying it, is in order.
First, the four men went to work at entry-level clerical jobs and without a college education. All of them left the Industry, when Fidel took it over, with one or more University Degrees. They went to the University, while working, with the encouragement of Management and taking advantage of Cuba’s free and highly respected Universities. Paraphrasing Medardo’s statement they entered the mill as "guagiro cerrao" and left the company with University degrees. Is that the Capitalist exploitation that Castro claims for Cuba’s past?
The fact that Mr. de la Cruz and Mr. Rocio kept Miguel Angel’s letters and their anecdotes about him, tells volumes in dispelling the lies about a social division in pre 1959 Cuba. Certainly, not every one was like Miguel Angel, taking personal care of his employees during periods of illness, talking and laughing with them after dinner, drinking goat’s milk at every farmer’s house, as he inspected the fields, and opening his house and his heart to his employees. The Captains of Industry series will however, probe that there were more Miguel Angels than the likes of "robber barons" of Castro’s propaganda.
Finally, as evident from the references to Miguel Angel, his father, his brother Laureano, other members of the Falla Gutierrez family this was not a group of rich absentee owners. As those that know the industry will attest, most were hands on managers-owners. Their families may have moved to nearby towns or eventually to Habana, but they followed where business dictated and circumstances permitted. Obviously, in a regulated industry that exported more than ninety percent of its production and imported equipment and key industrial chemicals, offices in the Capital were a must. It was in Habana where the mill owners could manage their relations with the Government and Trading Houses and best handle their foreign purchases, however they kept their presence in the Mills during the repair and milling seasons.
Chapter III, places Miguel Angel in the context of the mills he commanded. It gives production and technical details of the three mills of the Sucesion Falla Gutierrez, which Miguel Angel managed, and later the ten mills of The Cuban Atlantic Co.
Chapter IV, "Cuba and the International Sugar Market", briefly reviews the history of Cuba’s sugar production from its beginning in 1523 through the wars of Independence. The years as a Republic are divided in several periods according to the main events in the sugar market, including the Depression and World War II. After 1959 the political directives determine the periods. The first covers the time when, under Che Guevara, there was a drive away from sugar. Them come those years of the push back towards the target of 10 million tons, not achieved even with an extended season that ruined many fields. This is fallowed by the brake up of the USSR and termination of the subsidies, ending with this year dismantling of 70 of Cuba’s 155 mills.
Besides the review and analysis of production data, the Chapter also covers the structure of the Industry, in regard to ownership and the agricultural and labor organization up to 1959. The Chapter ventures to answer one hypothetical question: and one about the future. The first is: Where would the Industry have been today if Castro had not destroyed it? And on the future it offers a prognosis on what position Cuba will regain in the International Sugar Market once Castro is gone. This Chapter puts Cuba’s Sugar Industry in the World context and certainly Miguel Angel’s mills in perspective.
It is difficult to do justice to such a complex industry in so few pages. Sugar experts might find the chapter wanting, while the general public might reel at so much detail. Both might be right. However from the data of this last Chapter the author proposes three assertions. First, that prior to 1959 Cuba was the premier sugar producer of the World. He clearly states that such a statement does not mean that Cuba’s sugar industry was perfect, as witnessed by the continued efforts of most sugar mill owners and large sugar cane growers, but it was the best one around and ever improving. Second, that if after 1960 Cuba had not lost its commanding position in the London Sugar Agreement and the respect of the International Community, new subsidized sugar producers, which now cost the traditional producers $30 billion a year of foregone income, would not have flourished. Finally, he ventures that, given the genius of Cubans, who, without spare parts, still keep forty year and older American cars running, the country would have evolved, in an orderly way, to other industrial agricultural, and service activities, including tourism and information technology, as Mexico and Brazil has done.
