CUBA, SUGAR AND THE UNITED STATES: DIPLOMATIC AND ECONOMIC RELATIONS DURING THE ADMINISTRATION OF RAMON GRAU SAN MARTIN, 1944-194

Ramon Grau San Mart(')in led the Autentico party to power in 1944 on a platform of revolutionary nationalism which promised to break Cuba's extreme dependence upon sugar. Grau failed in his bid to diversify the Cuban economy largely because the entrenched powers of Cuba's U.S.-dominated sugar industry were too strong.;From 1945 to 1947 the concept of sugar diplomacy took on new meaning as a result of the bitter and prolonged sugar crop sale negotiations between Cuba and the United States. Cuba eventually realized dramatically higher prices for its 1946 and 1947 crops ushering in an era of seeming prosperity on the island. While the large sugar companies realized record profits, the nation experienced a renewal of labor strife, political gangsterism and governmental corruption. Through the promulgation of thousands of pro-labor decrees, Grau attempted to improve the material conditions of Cuba's working class. The resulting inflated wage structure transformed Cuba into a relatively high cost and inefficient sugar-producing nation.;A plurality of interests were responsible for the formulation of U.S. policy toward Cuba. The U.S. ambassador in Cuba played a disproportionately significant role in the development of policy. The Department of Agriculture had a major impact on policy because of its responsibility for conducting sugar crop purchases. The U.S. Congress played a key role through the passage, in 1947, of a new sugar act which reinstituted a quota system. The U.S. Cuban Sugar Council and the American Chamber of Commerce of Cuba both played vital roles in promoting policies that preserved the status quo for American companies on the island.;United States policy goals toward Cuba included the maintenance of political and economic stability, the protection and expansion of the Cuban market, the protection of American companies from manifestations of Cuban nationalism and the removal of the Cuban Communist party from the leadership of organized labor. The preferential system, the sugar quota and carefully timed purchases of surplus sugar provided the U.S. with the means by which it could indirectly control much of what happened in Cuba without abandoning the principle of non-intervention.