By February 12, 2021 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — Cuba — perhaps more than most other countries — has been the victim of imperialism and colonisation. The greatest impact of imperialism and colonisation is on people, in particular, indigenous people. Cuba is no exception. There are also other lasting impacts. Marxist political economists Paul Baran ( The Political Economy of Growth, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1957) and André Gunder Frank ( Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1967) wrote of the devastating long-term effects of imperial dominance. Frank described those effects as ‘the development of underdevelopment’. According to the Baran-Frank thesis, as it is known, an underdeveloped country is not in a state of ‘static equilibrium’ preventing development. On the contrary, underdevelopment is the result of imperial dominance, leading also to a chronic state of dependency. Colonisation can be directly attributed to the structure of external relations in which the country was, and remains, enmeshed. While the Baran-Frank thesis has been much critiqued, Cuba seems to be a classic example of the thesis in operation.