Del Prólogo:
Este pequeño libro no tiene un carácter técnico sino más bien divulgativo, casi periodístico. Sin falsa humildad, también debo decir que no es la obra sobre la economía que yo hubiera querido escribir. Las cuartillas,sin embargo, llevaban meses de engavetamiento y cada día –dado mi modesto pero absorbente trabajo ejecutivo en este período revolucionario cubano– se me hacía más imposible revisarlas y, sobre todo añadirles algunos materiales informativos que considero fundamentales para una correcta comprensión del proceso económico de nuestro país.
Oscar Pino Santos, was born in Banes (Holguin Province) in 1928. He attended to junior high school and high school in Havana and enrolled in the university to study Laws. However, because of his work at the daily “Hoy” and the magazine “Carteles” and in Channel 2 of the TV he decided to graduate as a professional journalist. For "Carteles" he wrote weekly press reports, articles and short essays on critical aspects of the economic and social life of the country during almost five years. His works, always illustrated by pictures of the award winner photographer Raul Corrales decisively contributed with the beginnings of a type of journalism that would research and denounce and would be stylistically pleasant. Just a few years later, this form of journalism imposed itself as a “new journalism” as part of the work of some renown American writers. At the triumph of the Revolution he contributed to make the draft bill for the Agrarian Reform (passed on May 17th, 1959), discussed by a small team appointed and presided over by Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro. The team was also made up by Commander Ernesto Che Guevara and four other members.
