This re-reading of the Cuban Revolution from the perspective of socialist humanism engages unresolved issues in this political tradition and challenges the notion of human development popularized by the United Nations Development Programme (i.e., predicated on capitalism). UNDP economists and other agencies of international cooperation for development give a human face to a capitalist development process that is anything but humane. The authors argue that socialism in Cuba has taken a very different form (socialist human development) than it did elsewhere in the twentieth century, and that these unique characteristics enabled it to survive adverse conditions a 'near-perfect storm' that still threaten its evolution.