[1][2][3] This process was proceeded by a period of government that was directly managed by Fidel Castro without much input from other officials, which had been status-quo since the conclusion of the Cuban Revolution.

The constitution was modeled off the Soviet system, and introduced the National Assembly of People's Power as the institution of indirect representation in government.

[7] After the Triumph of the Revolution, Castro held de facto veto power during the process of establishing a provisional government.

Castro refused to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, declaring it a Soviet-US attempt to dominate the Third World.

[13] Diverting from Soviet doctrine, Castro suggested that Cuba could evolve straight to pure communism rather than gradually progress through various stages of socialism.

[14] In turn, the Soviet-loyalist Aníbal Escalante began organizing a government network of opposition to Castro, though in January 1968, he and his supporters were arrested for allegedly passing state secrets to Moscow.

[15] Recognising Cuba's economic dependence on the Soviets, Castro relented to Brezhnev's pressure to be obedient, and in August 1968 he denounced the leaders of the Prague Spring and praised the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia.

The economic focus on sugar production involved international volunteers and the mobilization of workers from all sectors of the Cuban economy.

[23] In 1970, the political bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba held a meeting to initiate a series of studies as to how to build state institutions.

[31] A series of economic reforms in Cuba, officially titled the "Rectification of Errors and Negative Tendencies", began in 1986, and lasted until 1992.

[35] According to Guerra, the "grassroots dictatorship" of the provisional government eventually morphed into a "total state" that assumed the right to direct every detail of citizens' lives.

Welp claims that any illusions to a democratic process at the time were a "smokescreen" for the Cuban government, which is more akin to a hybrid regime.

[37] Some scholars like Peter Roman, Nino Pagliccia, and Loreen Collin have written books concluding that the system that developed after the 1976 constitution, particularly with the National Assembly of People's Power, is a highly participatory democracy.

Julio Cesar Guache offers a critical view of the "democracy" that developed, and argued it is informally controlled by the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, who vet candidates.

[27] The sovietization thesis is a historiographical model proposed by scholars like political scientist Piero Gleijeses, and economist Carmelo Mesa-Lago.