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THE FAR has had a role in the Cuban economy since the 1960s, primarily in providing labor to agriculture and rural development projects through organizations such as the Youth Labor Army and the Territorial Troop Militia. In the 1980s, military manufacturing grew and the Castro regime established the Enterprise Improvement System to manage military factories and other businesses. Losing economic support from its Soviet patron in the early 1990s severely hurt the Cuban economy, and GDP fell by more than 10 percent annually between 1991 and 1993. The economic crisis of this period led the Castro government to increase the military’s role in managing the economy.

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