Castro has made no secret of his distaste for the changes that put dollars in the hands of some Cubans while leaving the majority with the inconvertible peso, which isn't accepted at hard-currency stores selling imported food and consumer goods.
Nevertheless, Castro's brother and other Cuban officials have continued to discuss the need for structural changes to improve living standards. They have encouraged Cubans to speak out about the current system's shortcomings and to propose ideas for strengthening the country of more than 11 million people.
Today the revolution's supporters point to the country's free and universal education and healthcare, while critics say the country suffered a loss of personal liberties and material well-being.
In South Florida, where 800,000 Cuban Americans live and dominate the political and economic scenes, about 100 people gathered along Little Havana's Calle Ocho in Miami to wave placards denouncing Castro. Several members of the exile community dismissed Castro's announcement as relatively meaningless as long as he's alive and influencing Cuban life.
In his resignation letter, posted about 3 a.m. on the website of the Communist Party daily Granma, Castro reminded Cubans of comments he made to a television moderator in a December letter that he said were intended to prepare the nation for his retirement.
"My elemental duty is not to cling to positions, much less to stand in the way of younger persons, but rather to contribute experience and ideas whose modest value comes from the exceptional era in which I lived," he cited from his earlier note to viewers of the nightly "Round Table" political discussion show.
Cuba scholars describe Castro's carefully managed withdrawal as evidence that gradual change is on the horizon for the island, whether or not U.S. policy is revised to promote that change.
"What we will see in agriculture and in small businesses that are now state-run is a redefinition of property rights," said Julia Sweig, a Cuban revolution historian and senior fellow for Latin America at the Council on Foreign Relations. "If you look over the last few years, even before Fidel got sick, you see they've been talking about the need to get the state out of the way" to allow farmers and small entrepreneurs to fill the production void.
Sweig said Raul Castro had been "managing expectations" during his brother's absence but at the same time advancing a national debate on the issues of most concern to Cubans: how to improve their incomes and standards of living.
