The Revolution was immersed in the development and improving of its work at the time of the collapse of the socialist block and the disintegration of the USSR. These events dramatically affected the Cuban society as the Cuban economy was integrated into the socialist community. It was beside conditioned in a great measure by the stern, cruel and illegal blockade imposed by the US against Cuba since the very first years of the Revolution, which limited extraordinarily the possibilities of establishing relationships with the rest of the capitalist countries. In 1989, 85 percent of Cuba’s trade relationships were carried out with the Soviet Union and the rest of the socialist world. All trade was done based on fair prices and mutually beneficial exchange, avoiding unequal prices that characterize trade with capitalist developed countries. At the same time, there was the guaranty to supply technology and granting loans at satisfactory terms and interest rates.

When socialism collapsed in Europe and after the disintegration of the USSR, Cuba’s buying capacity decreased from 8,139 million pesos in 1989, to 2,000 million pesos in 1993.

The collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe and the USSR unleashed an exceptional euphoria in the US Government and the counterrevolutionary groups of Cubans in Miami. The collapse of the Cuban Revolution, the said, was a matter of days or perhaps weeks. They even started organizing a new government. However, months went by, the crisis became worse, but there was no collapse in Cuba.

As early as July 1989, Commander in Chief Fidel Castro had alerted about the possibility of the disappearance of the socialist block and even the disintegration of the USSR. In October 1990, he had elaborated the guidelines to face the crisis of the Special Period in peacetime. This concept belonged to the military doctrine of the "War of All the People" that referred to the steps needed to fight against total blockade, air raids and attacks and systematic covert attacks, as well as a military direct invasion.

In 1991, the IV Congress of the Communist Party analyzed the situation and established the need to safeguard the Motherland, the Revolution and Socialism, that is, the work of the Cuban people, which had cost so much blood, sacrifice and efforts in more than one-hundred-years struggle. The Congress adopted several important measures in reference to modifications and amendments to the Constitution and Party bylaws. It also established the bases for the strategy to overcome the crisis and start the recovery from it.

The strategy implemented several measures aimed at improving economic efficiency and competitiveness and internal economic health, at solving the internal debt and reincorporating the Cuban economy into the international economy, at encouraging foreign investment, and at strengthening the system of Cuban state enterprises. This last one was a necessary and indispensable condition for socialism. Implementation and improving of economic changes were to be carried out in a gradual and orderly manner.

Of course, US imperialism and the Cuban counterrevolutionary groups in Miami, annoyed by the reality of Cuban resistance, increased their actions to discredit and destabilize the Revolution and to make the economic blockade even worse.

Thus, by the middle of 1992 the US government passes the "Torricelli Act." This Act grants the President of the United States the power to implement economic measures against all countries that have economic relationships with Cuba, and forbids all subsidiaries of US companies in third countries to trade with the Island. This Act was another step in the intentions to make the Cuban people surrender by hunger.

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