Notwithstanding the extremely difficult overall situation and the US blockade and aggression, from the very outset of the victory of the revolution the youthful Cuban leadership showed amazing lucidity and tenacity in their resolutely determination to develop the education, science and health spheres. Their conscious though admittedly ambitious goal was to prepare “a future of men of science” for Cuba. This effort started with a widespread literacy campaign, including the universal right to free education at all levels and a university reform conceived so as to foster scientific research. Seeking and welcoming every source of support and collaboration, from both Soviet and western scientists and institutions, and resorting to their typical inventiveness, from the early 1960s on the Cubans succeeded in laying the foundations for advanced scientific development. In determining the path of this development, every effort of the Cuban leadership and scientific community was driven by the primary purpose of meeting the basic economic and social needs of the country, freeing it from the chains of underdevelopment. The outcomes of these choices were to emerge with surprising swiftness, not only in fields of immediate impact, such as medicine and health, but also with long-term strategic foresight regarding what would be required for future development. © 2016, The Author(s).

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