International Relations • History

“A well-documented and exhaustive study. An invaluable resource for academics

BAIN
and researchers who wish to understand the profound nature of the Russo-Cuban
relationship.” — Stephen Wilkinson, International Institute for the
Study of Cuba, London Metropolitan University

“This admirable study draws attention to the often-overlooked relationship between

Cuba and Russia. Written on the basis of a deep knowledge of the subject, the avail-
ability of new sources, and a willingness to challenge assumptions—while setting it
all within a historical context—the book presents a fascinating picture of a relation-
ship that is remarkably still partly driven by the past. It is a welcome addition to the
literature.” —Antoni Kapcia, The University of Nottingham

Russian-Cuban
“Balanced, informative, and timely, this book is the most thorough and helpful

Russian-Cuban Relations since 1992

study in recent years to understand this significant strategic partnership—one
which promises to become increasingly important. An excellent, well-researched,
and insightful work.” —John M. Kirk, Dalhousie University

Relations
This book addresses the relationship between the Russian Federation and Cuba
following the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1992. Mervyn J. Bain analyzes
the reasons why the relationship between Moscow and Havana continues to thrive
even after the end of the Cold War and the death of international socialism. He

since 1992
argues that there are five main areas to be studied in order to understand why the
Russians and Cubans have maintained close cultural and political ties well into the
twenty-first century.

Bain first explores the effects that the collapse of the Soviet Union had on the
relationship between Moscow and Havana in the years since 1992. He goes on to
describe how the two countries have adapted (or failed to adapt) to the New World
Order and the ways in which their foreign policies have changed the shape of their
dialogue with each other. The third and fourth sections detail both the impact of continuing
globalization and the increased cultural, economic, and military exchange between
Russians and Cubans. Bain concludes by showing readers the importance of plac- camaraderie in a
ing the Russian-Cuban relationship in an international context, especially high-
lighting the influence of the United States. This book will interest students of post-
Soviet Russian foreign policy, Cuban foreign policy, and international relations.
post-soviet world
Mervyn J. Bain is a lecturer in the Department of Politics and International
Relations at the University of Aberdeen in the United Kingdom.
Mervyn J. Bain

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 Russian-Cuban
Relations since 1992
 Russian-Cuban
Relations since 1992
Continuing Camaraderie in a
Post-Soviet World

Mervyn Bain

LEXINGTON BOOKS

A division of
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK
LEXINGTON BOOKS

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bain, Mervyn J., 1973–
Russian-Cuban relations since 1992: continuing camaraderie in a post-Soviet
world / Mervyn J. Bain.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7391-2423-9 (cloth: alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-7391-2423-4 (cloth: alk. paper)
eISBN-13: 978-0-7391-3005-6
eISBN-10: 0-7391-3005-6
1. Russia (Federation—Relations—Cuba. 2. Cuba—Relations—Russia
(Federation) 3. Post-communism—Russia (Federation) I. Title.
DK69.3.C9 B348
27.4707291—dc22
2008015323

Printed in the United States of America

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For my Grandfather and Jonathan
 Contents

List of Figures ix
Acknowledgments xi

1 Russian and Cuban Foreign Policy 1

2 Soviet–Cuban Relations 21
3 The Continuing Role of Ideology 51
4 The Soviet Legacy 83
5 Washington and the Wider World 111
6 Continuing Camaraderie 143

Bibliography 153
Index 163
About the Author 169

vii
 List of Figures

Figure 2.1. Soviet-Cuban Trade 33

Figure 3.1. Trade between Moscow and Havana 53
Figure 3.2. Cuban Imports of Russian Goods 54
Figure 3.3. Russian–Cuban Trade 1995–1999 66
Figure 3.4. Russian–Cuban Trade 2000–2005 69
Figure 3.5. Russian Tourists Visiting Cuba 73

ix
 Acknowledgments

T he work for this book has been conducted in a number of different lo-
cations including New York City, Miami, Moscow and Havana. These
research trips have been funded by the University of Aberdeen, College of
Arts and Social Sciences Research Awards from the University of Ab-
erdeen, the British Academy and for my trip to Havana I was awarded a
research grant from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland. I
would like to thank all the people involved for giving me this funding,
which enabled me to conduct my research.
I would like to thank Professor Natalia Yegorova of the Institute of
Cold War History of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow for the
help which she gave me in organising my visit to Russia. With relation to
my trip to Cuba I would particularly like to acknowledge the debt which
I owe Liliana Fernández of the University of Havana for her help, gen-
erosity of sprit and her time which made my visit such a success. I would
also like to thank her husband, Arturo, and daughter, Rachel, for making
me feel so welcome in their home. I also extend my thanks to the staff at
the Centro de Estudios Europeos in Havana for their help during my stay
in Cuba.
I would also like to thank Professor Stephen White for his continuing
support and advice on my trip to Moscow. I would also like to acknowl-
edge the debt which I owe to Professor Trevor Salmon of the University
of Aberdeen not just for assistance and suggestions in relation to this book
but also in general. In addition, I would also like to show my appreciation
to Professor John Kirk for his enthusiasm and support which he continues
to show not just to my work but also myself.

xi
xii Acknowledgments

However, most importantly I would like to thank members of my fam-

ily but particularly my parents and sister, Karen, and brother-in-law,
Steve, for their love and support not just with relation to the work for this
book but also in general. Without this it would not have been possible to
complete this book. Unfortunately, my grandfather never saw the com-
pletion of this book but I would like to thank him for his love, great gen-
erosity and interest that he always showed not just to me but to his whole
family. As a result, I jointly dedicate this book to his memory but also to
my newly arrived nephew, and I am extremely proud to say godson,
Jonathan.
 1

Russian and
Cuban Foreign Policy

I n October 1995, world leaders converged on the United Nations (UN)

headquarters in New York City to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of
the organisation’s creation, with the Russian Federation represented by
Boris Yeltsin and Cuba by Fidel Castro. Despite the very close nature of
relations between Havana and Moscow during the Cold War, people were
unsure whether the two leaders would even greet each other as a result of
the dramatic and sudden deterioration in relations that had taken place
between their countries in the years since the disintegration of the Soviet
Union in December 1991. In the end Yeltsin and Castro did shake hands
but this was the height of their pleasantries, with this incident being a
graphic illustration of the state of Russian-Cuban relations in the mid-
1990s. In the subsequent years Yeltsin has died and Castro, to the surprise
of many, relinquished the Presidency of Cuba but since their 1995 meet-
ing at the UN, relations between the two countries have improved but its
foundations are now very different from Soviet-Cuban relations. Despite
this, the relationship between Moscow and Havana in the post Soviet pe-
riod has surprisingly attracted very little interest from the international
academic community.
This was very different from the Cold War era when Soviet-Cuban re-
lations had been the focus of much scholarly attention with a number of
theories being evident in the academic research that focused on it, but as
with the Cold War itself, a great deal of this work was dominated by the
realist paradigm in International Relations theory. Its central theme is the
inherently anarchic state of international relations and that states act to
maximise their authority by utilising their power in order to achieve this

1
2 Chapter 1

with the foreign policies of both the United States and the Soviet Union
during the Cold War appearing to illustrate this. Realism is by no means
a new theory with its routes traceable to Thucydides’ work on the Pelo-
ponnesian War, but in the late 1970s Kenneth Waltz’s Theory of Interna-
tional Relations reinterpreted it. Waltz wrote that the structure of the inter-
national system was still key in deciding a state’s behaviour but that new
security challenges had appeared as a result of globalisation, chiefly in-
equality and economic disparity to challenge the traditional ones. In the
twenty-first century some believe that Washington’s foreign policy in
general, and its Cuban policy specifically, is still dominated by both real-
ism and neo-realism.1
Before the onset of the Cold War and the prominence of realist thinking,
the ideas of “collective security” and liberalism had been perceived as the
chief paradigm in international relations. U.S. President Woodrow Wil-
son’s “fourteen points” at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 and the sub-
sequent creation of the League of Nations, in the hope of preventing an-
other global war, had illustrated this. The events of the 1930s and the
advent of the Second World War were a fatal blow for liberalism, but
again in the 1970s, as with the advent of neo-realism, neo-liberalism
evolved from classical liberalism.2
Neo-liberalism has reduced the distinction between high and low poli-
tics as this theory believes that in an increasingly interdependent world
there are many more actors in international relations than simply states.
In addition, neo-liberalists believe that absolute gains are of concern to
states whereas neo-realists believe that they are more concerned with rela-
tive gains. In 1992, these ideas were revitalised with the publication of Fran-
cis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man, as the end of the Cold
War, the spread of democracy in Eastern Europe, and re-democratisation in
Latin America all appeared to prove his theory to be correct. In the early
1990s, these ideas in general became prominent within the United States’
governmental thinking, but specifically with relation to Latin America it
spawned the appearance of the Washington Consensus.3
The momentous events in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and in the
Soviet Union in the early 1990s may have brought Fukuyama’s ideas to
the fore, but conversely they also appeared to signal the death knell of
Marxist ideology, which had been of the utmost significance in the ideo-
logical battle between the Soviet Union and United States during the Cold
War. Marxist theory had replaced the classic billiard ball analogy of real-
ism in international relations with that of a model of an octopus and its
tentacles, as Marxists believed that class and not nationalism or state ac-
tors was the most significant aspect in international relations. Moreover,
Marxism stated that many global problems had economic reasons at their
core, which has resulted in some people believing that despite the events
 Russian and Cuban Foreign Policy 3

in the late 1980s and early 1990s disproving the inevitability of socialism,
much of the theory still retains its validity due to the adverse effects of the
globalisation process.4
This increase in global interdependence, along with the end of the Cold
War, is not just one of the most significant changes to occur in interna-
tional relations in the last fifty years, but also partly explains the emer-
gence of Dependency Theory in Latin America in the 1960s. This theory
tried to provide an explanation for why as both interdependence and
globalisation increased many countries in the South remained underde-
veloped. Dependency theory states that it is in the interests of the coun-
tries of the North for the countries in the South never to break their de-
pendency on them. In addition, some within these poorer countries will
act to protect their advantages with Fulgencio Batista in 1950s Cuba, often
cited as an example of this “comprador” class who would act in this way.
It has often been suggested that dependency has been a key element in the
formation of Cuban foreign policy, and will, therefore, be detailed in more
depth later in this chapter.5
Similarly, the Great Man Theory, which has also been of great signifi-
cance in Cuban foreign policy, will also be examined later in this chapter.
Throughout history an individual has sometimes emerged who appears to
have been able to control the political process due to their complete dom-
ination of their country. Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin are often seen in
this manner. This theory ignores the more formal networks of the foreign
policy making process and focuses instead on the idiosyncrasies of the par-
ticular individual involved.6 In this manner Moscow’s decision to station
nuclear weapons in Cuba in 1962 is sometimes explained by Nikhita
Khrushchev’s risk-taking personality. This does undoubtedly partly ex-
plain the decision, but ignores the role played in it by the remaining mem-
bers of the politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).7
Graham Allison’s seminal work on the Cuban Missile Crisis, Essence of
Decision. Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis reiterates this, as he outlines
three models that may provide an explanation for Moscow’s decision to
deploy nuclear weapons in Cuba, which are all very different from the
Great Man Theory. Security and stability are key in Model I, Model II sug-
gests that various organizations within a government all have their own
reasons for making a decision while Model III states that the individuals
involved all act while taking careful consideration of the political situation
within their own country. Allison analyses the Soviet decision-making
process in the summer of 1962 using these three different models, but they
can also be applied to the study of foreign-policy making in general.8
As stated, the end of the Cold War has been one of the most seismic
changes to occur in international relations, which many of these tradi-
tional theories had failed to predict. As a result of this, a number of new
4 Chapter 1

theories have recently appeared in international relations, not least con-

structivism. This theory attempts to explain international relations by util-
ising ideas from sociology with the actors’ knowledge being key in how
they interpreted and constructed social reality. Therefore, the significance
of ideas, history and culture are all prominent in constructivism, as it fo-
cuses not just on traditional military security but also on the increasing
number of different security threats that have come to the fore in the post
Cold War era and seeks to find alternative explanations for them. This has
included economic disparity, social issues, the environment, the prolifer-
ation of weapons of mass destruction, and not least since the 11 Septem-
ber 2001 attacks on the United States, which some believe has left inter-
national relations fundamentally altered, terrorism.9
These events have not just led to the evolution of constructivism but in
1993 Samuel Huntington published his article “The clash of civilisations?”
in the journal Foreign Affairs which provided a vastly different analysis
and conclusions from those drawn by Fukuyama on the same events.
Huntington divided the world into eight different civilisations and pre-
dicted a much less stable global situation with clashes appearing between
these different civilisations. Huntington believed that wars would no
longer occur as a result of ideology but instead due to these clashes.10
When published these ideas caused much controversy but attracted great
public interest in the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks
on the United States.
A vast variety of different theories have evolved since the creation of In-
ternational Relations as an academic subject with each attracting attention
before world events changed and focus has moved elsewhere. As a result
of the long duration of relations between Moscow and Havana that has
spanned the end of the Cold War a number of these different theories will
be significant for this work.

MOSCOW AND THE WORLD

Stephen White has written on a variety of occasions that with regards to

Russia’s relationship with the outside world some common themes and
questions transcend not just the Soviet and post-Soviet eras but also even
the czarist one. This includes the desire for warm water harbours but sig-
nificantly, as a result of geography, also the fundamental question of Rus-
sia’s role in world affairs.11 This is vital in explaining Moscow’s relation-
ship with Havana in the period since 1992 and will therefore be returned
to on a number of occasions throughout the remainder of this book.
Ideology, or more specifically Marxist-Leninist ideology, was key to
providing the answer to this question in the Soviet period as it formed the
 Russian and Cuban Foreign Policy 5

cornerstone of both its society and Moscow’s foreign policy. Moreover,

successive Soviet leaders from Joseph Stalin onwards also used it as a tool
to provide legitimacy and revolutionary heritage to Karl Marx, Frederick
Engels and Vladimir Lenin.12 With regards to foreign policy, Marxist-
Leninism did not just believe in the inevitability of world revolution but
also, as previously outlined, that class was more important than national-
ism. Partly as a result of this, Moscow was able to acquire a global pres-
ence during the Soviet era.
Marxist-Leninism may have provided the foundations of Soviet foreign
policy but this did not prevent a number of theoretical problems appear-
ing for Soviet ideologues throughout the twentieth century. This included
both the ideas of “peaceful coexistence” with the West and, due to the lack
of a working class, the decolonisation process that took place in the De-
veloping World after World War Two.13 Conversely, the accusation has
also existed that Soviet foreign policy during the Cold War was driven
more by the realist model rather than by Marxist-Leninism, with the
events in Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, and the subsequent
appearance of the “Brezhnev Doctrine,” all being motivated more by
Moscow’s desire for power for its own sake rather than by the theories of
Marx or Lenin.14
In the late 1980s not only was the “Brezhnev Doctrine” questioned by
the reforms implemented by Mikhail Gorbachev, but also even aspects of
Marxist-Leninism. The “new thinking” that appeared in Soviet foreign
policy fundamentally changed international relations as it reduced ten-
sion between the superpowers, helped end the Cold War, but also im-
pacted massively on Moscow’s relationship with Havana.15 This will be
outlined in more detail in chapter 2.
If Gorbachev’s reforms led to a re-thinking of many long-held foreign
policy beliefs a plethora of questions regarding Moscow’s foreign policy
appeared with the end of the Cold War and disintegration of the Soviet
Union. As stated, some of these were not new but others, such as the na-
ture of Russia’s security threats, were. However, the most fundamental
question was a return of the age-old one of Moscow’s role in the world.
On this White has written, “. . . the new Russia had to accommodate itself
to a world in which it was no longer a superpower, and in which its eco-
nomic weakness mattered more than a stockpile of rusting missiles.”16
As this quote suggests, Boris Yeltsin’s government did not just face
questions regarding its foreign policy but also a number of internal ones
including the continued poor state of the national economy. Moreover,
Moscow had to face a number of new problems that it never before had
to deal with. This was most certainly the case with the former Soviet re-
publics, as Moscow had to cultivate ties with its “near abroad.” On this
Margot Light has written, “The loss of the empire led to confusion about
6 Chapter 1

Russia’s role in the world.”17 This situation was only further complicated
by Russia becoming the legal successor to the Soviet Union. Aspects of
this inheritance, such as the Russian Federation obtaining the Soviet
Union’s place in the UN General Assembly and Security Council, made it
appear that Moscow still had a significant global influence. However, the
Russian Federation also inherited the debt that many countries in the De-
veloping World owed to Moscow which had been accumulated during
the Soviet era. This was most certainly the case with Cuba and it would
have a great impact on Russian-Cuban relations in the 1990s. This will be
examined at some length in chapter 4.
In this difficult situation the Yeltsin administration, most of whom had
very little foreign policy experience, turned to their Cold War enemy, but
the one remaining superpower, the United States, for help. Relations with
Washington would come to dominate Moscow’s foreign policy in the
early 1990s, and Bobo Lo would later write, “During the Yeltsin period,
America represented the single greatest external influence on Russian for-
eign policy.”18 Russian-United States relations in the 1990s undoubtedly
improved from the Cold War era with a great many summits being held
between the two countries throughout the decade.19
The result of this was that Russian foreign policy was not just very dif-
ferent from that pursued by Moscow during the Soviet era but also a de-
bate within the Russian Federation regarding foreign policy appeared,
with the main protagonists being Liberal Westernizers, Pragmatic Na-
tionalists and Fundamental Nationalists. This debate was also very
closely associated with the internal Russian situation, as a number of
Yeltsin’s polices, but particularly the implementation of market reforms,
were disliked by some Russians. Many thought that these reforms, in con-
junction with his pro-U.S. foreign policy, had resulted in an increase in
Russian dependency on the United States, which they found gravely of-
fensive to Russian nationalism. It also gave rise to the question of what
type of foreign policy Russia was following, which was only further com-
plicated by the haphazard nature of Yeltsin’s management style. Marxist-
Leninism may have been confined to history but it was replaced by a
number of other ideologies, with constructivism appearing to be signifi-
cant as were liberalism and great power ideology amongst others.20
Again, this was of utmost significance for Russian-Cuban relations and
will be examined in much more depth in chapter 3.
As the 1990s progressed, a change in Moscow’s foreign policy took
place with the importance of relations with the United States being re-
placed in Russia’s priorities by relations with its “near abroad” and Eu-
rope. This was partly driven by the electoral changes taking place within
Russia as more nationalistic parties began to come to the fore from the
time of the 1993 Duma elections onwards. People were not just unhappy
 Russian and Cuban Foreign Policy 7

with the importance which Moscow attached to its relationship with the
United States, but many also blamed the economic difficulties, which con-
tinued to plague Russia, on the West due to the policies which the Inter-
national Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank had imposed on Russia.21
Moreover, the Yeltsin government was becoming increasingly disillu-
sioned with Washington as it had not received the aid and assistance
which it had hoped for. Andrei Kozyrev, who had been closely associated
with the pro-U.S. stance, resigning as Foreign Minister in December 1995,
illustrated this change in policy. White has written of this, “In the end he
became a ‘virtual sacrifice’ to the new Duma.”22
Kozyrev’s replacement as Foreign Minister, Yevgeny Primakov, was not
just very different to his predecessor due to his education and career path
but also in his global outlook. Primakov believed in “spheres of influence”
and saw the world in much more multipolar terms than Kozyrev had, and
in conjunction with the nationalistic tendencies prevalent within the Rus-
sian Federation, wanted Moscow to try and reassert itself in international
relations.23 This led to a number of flashpoints with the West appearing.
The most prominent were over North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
(NATO) action in the former Yugoslavia which offended Slavic sensibili-
ties, and Moscow disliking the treatment that its friend Saddam Hussein
received from the West. In addition, Russia was gravely concerned at the
NATO expansion to the east that brought the organisation’s influence to
the very borders of the Russian Federation. These events did not go unno-
ticed in Cuba, with particularly Cuban academia commenting upon them,
as they had repercussions for Russian-Cuban relations and will therefore
be analysed more fully in chapter 5. Moreover, this chapter will also detail
the importance of Primakov himself in the improvement in Russian-
Cuban relations. By the end of the 1990s Russian foreign policy and its ob-
jectives were very different from the beginning of the decade with a much
less pro-U.S. and more multipolar stance being taken.24 It had appeared the
nationalistic tendencies had defeated the Liberal Westernizers.
As the world entered a new millennium Vladimir Putin became the
President of the Russian Federation, which prompted the question of
“Who is Mr Putin?” to arise in the West, as very little was known about
him except for his KGB past. Western uncertainty only increased as a re-
sult of his trips to North Korea and Cuba in the infancy of his presidency.
This led Andrei Grachev to comment, “In those first few months in office,
Putin seemed to be much more at ease with the leaders of former client
states of the Soviet Union . . . than with his Western counterparts.”25 This,
however, ignored the fact that when Putin became Russian President he
was the first resident of the Kremlin since Yury Andropov who had expe-
rience of living outside the borders of the Soviet Union or Russian Feder-
ation due to being stationed in the German Democratic Republic (GDR)
8 Chapter 1

from 1985 to 1990. This led some people to even believe that Putin had
somewhat of a pro-European outlook.26
However, this did not mean that he ignored the United States with re-
lations between Moscow and Washington visibly improving after Putin
met U.S. President George Bush in Slovenia in June 2001. Moreover, Putin
also gave the U.S. Russian backing and use of air bases in Central Asia af-
ter the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. If this had been done in the
hope of cultivating closer ties with the United States Putin was left disap-
pointed, as he did not appear to have gained what he hoped from Wash-
ington. This resulted in him aligning Russia with Germany and France
with regards U.S. and UK action in Iraq in 2003. On this Richard Pipes has
commented, “With the Germans and the French, the Russians can balance
the United States. Russia would not be a superpower, but it would be part
of a superpower complex. They can only be a junior partner with the
United States.”27
This has been important as Russian nationalism continued to be signif-
icant in the foreign policy pursued by Putin’s government. The economic
aspect of foreign relations has also increased in importance, as has been il-
lustrated by the sale of military hardware to Latin American countries
with the Venezuelan purchase of 100,000 Kalashnikovs attracting most at-
tention.28 The importance of this economic aspect in Russian foreign pol-
icy in Russian-Cuban relations cannot be overestimated, but has led many
to believe that Putin has in general been following a very pragmatic ap-
proach to foreign policy. This, however, has not prevented the recent ten-
sion between Moscow and Washington over U.S. plans to develop an anti-
missile defence system and U.S. concerns over the state of democracy
within the Russian Federation. Grachev has even suggested that a “Putin
Doctrine” has appeared which has close traditions to, and some Soviet
features, but also nationalistic sentiments and anti-Western reflexes.29
Dmitrii Medvedev may have won the Russian Presidential election in
March 2008 by winning just over 70 percent of the vote but this change in
the main resident of the Kremlin is unlikely to herald a dramatic change
in Moscow’s foreign policy. Some believe that Medvedev may oversee a
slight change in style but it would be a great surprise if this also applied
to the substance of Moscow’s foreign policy. This results from
Medvedev’s promise to continue with Putin’s policies, the fact that Putin
is likely to remain highly influential in Russian politics as a consequence
of being appointed Prime Minister and also because Putin’s United Party
easily won the elections held in December 2007. It won over 64 percent of
the vote and increased its representation in the State Duma to 315 seats
from a total of 450, not just illustrating the popularity of Putin’s policies
but also again making any great change in Russian foreign policy both un-
likely and difficult to implement.
 Russian and Cuban Foreign Policy 9

HAVANA AND THE WORLD

Revolutionary Cuba’s foreign policy has always attracted a great deal of

scholarly attention, in no small part as the result of a Caribbean island be-
ing able to become a prominent player in international relations, which
led Jorge Domínguez to write, “For many years . . . relatively weak Cuba
behaved as if it were a major power.”30 During the Cold War Havana’s re-
lationship with Moscow was vital to this, but since 1992 and the disap-
pearance of the Soviet Union, Cuban foreign policy has continued to at-
tract the attention of the academic community.
Michael Erisman in Cuba’s Foreign Relations in a Post-Soviet World has
outlined four basic ideas that he believes have been prominent in Cuba’s
foreign policy since January 1959. The first one is realism, which as de-
tailed, was prevalent in both Moscow and Washington’s foreign policies
during the Cold War as both superpowers attempted to maximise their
power. It is thought that Cuba used its foreign policy not just to maximise
its power but also to move the West’s attention from the Caribbean to
other parts of the world which it was hoped would help increase its own
security. This was particularly the case in the early 1960s as the Cuban
government feared a possible U.S. military invasion of the island.31
Some believe that it was not classical realism that the Cuban govern-
ment adhered to but instead realist pragmatism. This is very similar to the
realist model, but significantly the survival of the revolution was always
the most important consideration in all foreign policy decisions made by
the Castro regime even if some of these were not always what might have
been expected. One of the most famous examples of this was Castro’s de-
cision to back the Warsaw Pact action in Czechoslovakia in August 1968.
Edward González believes that it was also prevalent in the 1970s, with
Carlos Rafael Rodríguez being one of the main adherents of this prag-
matic approach. This was despite the Cuban Revolution having gone
through an institutionalization process, which resulted in the appearance
of a number of different groups in the Cuban elite, such as the one headed
by Rodríguez.32 Pragmatism if anything has even increased in importance
in Havana’s foreign policy in the post-Soviet world, as the island has at-
tempted to recover from the loss of its closest political and economic ally.
This had a number of implications for Russian-Cuban relations, some of
which were unforeseen, and will therefore be returned to on various oc-
casions throughout this book.
Erisman believes that although realism was and continues to be signifi-
cant in Cuban foreign policy it is much more complex and nuanced. He
writes that adherence to a strict realist model ignores the extremely strong
nationalist strands in the Cuban Revolution, which have been prevalent
since its victory in January 1959.33 The second core theme in Cuba’s foreign
10 Chapter 1

policy that Erisman outlines is that of a revolutionary crusade, and again

González’s writings coincide with this belief. In a similar fashion to the
Bolsheviks in Russia in the years immediately after the Russian Revolu-
tion, the Cuban ruling elite believed that the Cuban Revolution would her-
ald the appearance of other revolutions. This certainly appeared to be the
case in the 1960s with Havana’s very public, and high profile, internation-
alism which aimed to create revolutions in various parts of the world.34
This policy did not last long as it failed to produce another successful
revolution, graphically illustrated by Ernesto Guevara’s death in October
1967. From this point onwards Cuba attempted to cultivate state-to-state
relations, just as the Soviet Union had in the 1920s, which is a vastly dif-
ferent approach to foreign policy than the ideas of the revolutionary cru-
sade. These ideas decreased still further in the late 1980s and early 1990s,
but it could be argued that it has returned, but at a much reduced level,
with the appearance of a number of left leaning governments in Latin
America at the start of the twenty-first century that has spawned the ap-
pearance of both the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) and
an apparent anti-U.S. bloc within the region.35
As detailed earlier in the chapter, a person sometimes appears who is
able to dominate their country’s political arena, which since January 1959
has certainly been the case with Fidel Castro in Cuba. This resulted in
some believing that Fidelista peronalismo, the specific Cuban version of
the Great Man Theory, was prominent in Cuban foreign policy. Castro’s
force of character and personality would certainly suggest this to be the
case, and Carlos Montaner in Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution makes
this very point.36
However, Erisman writes that from the 1970s the revolution has be-
come increasingly institutionalized, which began partly as a result of im-
proved relations with Moscow, but that this safeguarded its future if Cas-
tro was to disappear from the political scene. The result was that Castro
could not simply do as he pleased with the Communist Party of Cuba
(PCC), the National Assembly and the Federation of Cuban Women
(FMC) all being significant in the Cuban decision making process. As out-
lined, González has written of the more pragmatic line followed by some
within the Cuban government but the Cuban Armed Forces (FAR), Min-
istry of Revolutionary Armed Forces (MINFAR) and the remnants of the
original ruling elite have also all been involved in the formation of Cuban
foreign policy since the mid-1970s. Writing in 1976 González wrote, “In
sum, Fidel and his brother remain solidly entrenched in the Cuban polit-
ical system. Nevertheless, it is evident that Cuba’s ruling coalition has
been significantly broadened in recent years.”37 This may have been writ-
ten over thirty years ago, but since August 2006 it has been graphically il-
lustrated to the world that Cuban politics in general, and foreign policy
 Russian and Cuban Foreign Policy 11

specifically, are not the subject of Fidel Castro’s personal whim due to the
decreasing role that he has played in the everyday political life of the is-
land that culminated in February 2008 in his decision to relinquish the
Cuban Presidency.
From the time of joint Cuban and Soviet action in Africa in the mid-
1970s, the surrogate/superclient thesis attracted much academic attention
with U.S. Senator Daniel Moynihan even describing the FAR as the
“Ghurkhas of the Russian Empire.” The surrogate thesis suggests that
Moscow had control over both Cuba’s internal and foreign policies,
whereas, the superclient thesis, although giving Havana more power in
the relationship, stated that the Soviet Union ultimately had the right of
veto over Cuba’s actions.38
During the Cold War, Havana’s relationship with Moscow was un-
doubtedly of the utmost significance for the Cuban Revolution, and the
security it provided helped explain Havana’s overseas adventures. How-
ever, during the Soviet era this thesis was criticised for ignoring the strong
nationalistic strands evident in the revolution since its inception. This is a
crucial omission and, moreover, speeches by the Cuban elite and docu-
ments that have recently become available also disprove this theory.39
However, in the post-Soviet world the surrogate/superclient thesis is
most certainly no longer relevant to Cuban foreign policy.
Erisman adds dependency and counter dependency to the theories
prevalent in Cuban foreign policy. Cuba would appear to be a classic ex-
ample of dependency as the island has been dominated by outside pow-
ers since the time of the conquest. This was firstly Spain and then, from
the end of the nineteenth century, the United States, and some would ar-
gue that this continued even after the Cuban Revolution with depen-
dency on the United States being merely replaced by dependency on the
Soviet Union.40
Even while Soviet-Cuban relations were in existence Erisman writes
that the Castro regime continually tried to end this situation, as a result of
the importance of nationalism in the Cuban Revolution. This was most
apparent in Havana’s attempts to reduce its reliance on Moscow by di-
versifying both its political and economic policies. The result Erisman be-
lieves is counter dependency, the antithesis of the surrogate thesis, as
these policies also resulted in the Cuban regime acquiring bargaining
power, or leverage, in Moscow, which provided Havana with a semblance
of ‘control’ over Soviet-Cuban relations.41 Throughout the relationship
Havana continually strove to show its independence from and reduce its
dependence on the Soviet Union.
In the 1990s as Cuba attempted to come to terms with the loss of the So-
viet Union and the emergence of the New World Order this has increased
in importance for Havana with John Kirk having written that at this time,
12 Chapter 1

“The greatest single task in terms of foreign policy facing the Cuban gov-
ernment in the early 1990s, however, was how to keep the traditional
(self-declared) enemy at bay.”42 Erisman believes that despite the odds be-
ing stacked against the Caribbean island it has been able to achieve this
by a diversification of its foreign policy, which was done in the pursuit of
acquiring greater economic and political space.43 The results of this policy
have been numerous and varied, but they have had a fundamental impact
of Havana’s relationship with Moscow in the period from 1992 onwards.
As stated, some of these may have been unforeseen, but this is a topic that
will be examined throughout this book.
In relation to this, dependency issues have retained their significance in
the island’s foreign policy, but it has evolved with Havana playing a
much more significant role in hemispheric organisations with the Cuban
government attempting to keep their influence in international relations
by championing development issues and anti-globalisation ideas. The
staging in the Cuban capital of anti-globalisation conferences in both 1999
and 2001 and the Nonaligned Movement Congress in September 2006 al-
lowed the island’s government to showcase the significance of these ideas
in their foreign policy.44 Moreover, with the recent appearance of the
ALBA in Latin America this has if anything increased in significance for
the Cuban regime. As the Cuban Revolution approaches its fiftieth an-
niversary Kirk does not only believe that this will remain an important as-
pect of Cuba’s foreign policy for the foreseeable future but also that its
outcome with regards foreign policy is that contemporary Cuba has “an
approach that is totally sui generis, following its own blend of principles
and pragmatism, self-interest and selflessness, and fuelled by a volatile
blend of nationalism and pride in being distinctive.”45
In a similar manner to Dmitrii Medvedev replacing Vladimir Putin as
Russia President it is unlikely that there will be any dramatic change in
Cuba’s approach to foreign policy as a result of Fidel Castro’s surprising
announcement in February 2008 to give up the Presidency of Cuba. Some
may perceive Raúl as a possible reformer but since August 2006 when he
became Cuba’s acting President due to his brother’s ill-health he has not
overseen any widespread reform of the island’s foreign policy. Moreover,
the chance of this commencing due to Fidel’s further removal from the
everyday politics of the island remains low especially as much of Raúl’s
attention may have to be focused on the economy, but the chances of any
widespread reform are further reduced as a the result of the appointment
of Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, another guerrilla war veteran, as Cuba’s
Vice President instead of one of the island’s younger politicians. This
would appear to signal that it is more likely that a cautious approach in
general and in foreign policy specifically will be pursued for the foresee-
able future instead of the implementation of far reaching reforms.
 Russian and Cuban Foreign Policy 13

The evolution of both Russian and Cuban foreign policy in the post-
Soviet world has obviously impacted hugely on Russian-Cuban relations
which since the disintegration of the Soviet Union in December 1991, has
become the almost ‘forgotten’ relationship in international relations and
been virtually ignored by the academic community. In 1992, their focus of
attention at first moved to the question of the very survival of the Cuban
Revolution after the loss of its largest trading partner and staunch politi-
cal ally, which only increased with the actions of the United States gov-
ernment in the 1990s, as it attempted to hasten the demise of the Castro
regime by tightening the trade embargo on Cuba still further. In relation
to this, the balsero crisis in the late summer of 1994, when many Cubans
fled the island for the United States, was taken as evidence of the Cuban
Revolution’s permanent decline. More recently academic scrutiny has
moved to the impact that Fidel Castro’s poor health has had for the island
with this only likely to further increase due to Raúl’s permanent succes-
sion to the Cuban Presidency in February 2008. With relation to Cuba’s
foreign policy academic focus will continue to be dominated by Havana’s
relationship with Washington to the detriment of both the island’s other
bilateral relationships in general and Russian-Cuban relations specifically.
In addition, the relationship between Moscow and Havana has also at-
tracted very little media attention with the situation regarding the Lour-
des listening post and Vladimir Putin’s trip to Cuba in December 2000 be-
ing notable exceptions.
As a result of this, very little has been written on the relationship that
has evolved between Moscow and Havana in the period since the dis-
integration of the Soviet Union, which is surprisingly also true of both
Russian and Cuban academics. In the early 1990s studies on the effects
of the disappearance of the Soviet Union for the Cuban economy were
published, most noticeably Cuba after the Cold War edited by Carmelo
Mesa-Lago, but these did not provide analysis on either why the rela-
tionship ended or the reasons for a semblance of it continuing after the
disintegration of the Soviet Union.46 Nicola Miller has, however, writ-
ten a chapter entitled, “Trying to Stay Friends: Cuba’s Relations with
Russia and Eastern Europe in the Age of U.S. Supremacy” that was in-
cluded in Morris Morely and Chris McGillion’s book Cuba, the United
States, and the Post-Cold War World. The International Dimensions of the
Washington-Havana Relationship. This chapter takes a much broader ap-
proach to the topic as it does not concentrate solely on relations be-
tween Havana and Moscow but also analyses Cuba’s relationship with
the other European countries of the former Soviet bloc. More recently
W. Alejandro Sanchez Nieto has published an article entitled “Cuba
and Russia: Love is Better the Second Time Around” that was published
in Cuban Affairs in 2007.47 This work is not only taken very much from the
14 Chapter 1

perspective of a Cuban American scholar but also only examines the pe-
riod from the year 2000 onwards. The result is that it omits the highly
significant period of the 1990s as relations between Moscow and Ha-
vana not only suffered a dramatic downturn when compared to the So-
viet period, but also an upturn from the mid-1990s onwards. This is
crucial as a number of the reasons for both are still of fundamental im-
portance to the relationship that continues to flourish between the two
countries as the Cuban Revolution approaches its fiftieth anniversary.
Some books have been published in Russia including Fidel Kastro
Politicheskaya Biogoafiya written by N.S. Leonov and V.A. Borodaev, Ga-
vana-Moskva: Pamiotnye Gody by Vitali Vorotnikov, Fidel Kastro: neistovgi
komandante Ostrava svobody written by I.U. Gavrikov and Politicheskaia
istorii Kuba XX Veka by Eugenio Larin.48 Not only do these utilise almost
exclusively Russian sources but are more general books on Cuba or the
relationship between Havana and Moscow which tend to concentrate
almost exclusively on Soviet-Cuban relations to the detriment of the
post-Soviet period.
This book will fill this scholarly gap that exists and provide analysis on
this ignored and ‘forgotten’ relationship and analyse both the period from
1992 to the year 2000 and the subsequent years of the new millennium. It
will examine not just the reasons and pressures which were instrumental
in its deterioration in the years immediately after 1991 but also in its im-
provement from the mid-1990s onwards, which resulted by the end of the
twentieth century in Russia remaining one of Cuba’s most important trad-
ing partners. This was very different from the years 1992 to 1994. More-
over, no other work of this length has been published on this specific
topic. Due to its contemporary nature and the characteristics of both gov-
ernments documental evidence at the moment does not exist. However,
this book will benefit from the publication of number of different memoir
sources since 1992 which includes Boris Yeltsin, Andrei Kozyrev, Yevgeny
Primakov and perhaps turning his attention to his legacy Fidel Castro has
also recently published, in conjunction with the French journalist Ignacio
Ramonet, his thoughts on his time in the Cuban political spotlight. Al-
though not a memoir in its truest sense it is undoubtedly highly signifi-
cant due to the general lack of such Cuban sources, which is partly the re-
sult of the island’s political system. Alina Revuelta Fernández, Castro’s
illegitimate daughter, has, however, published her memoirs after defect-
ing to the United States.49 Although it is more a personal account of her
relationship with her father rather than a political work it is still impor-
tant. These memoir sources that do exist will be augmented by both in-
terviews with Russian and Cuban academics who specialise in the study
of each other’s country if not the relationship between the two and also
the use of sources that are only available in Russia and Cuba. This in-
 Russian and Cuban Foreign Policy 15

cludes both data collected for the Cuban Foreign Ministry (MINREX) and
the Russian embassy in Havana.
The importance of counter-dependency in Russian-Cuban relations
may have fallen in the period since 1991 but the framework of depen-
dency, which Erisman has outlined, which was significant in Cuban for-
eign policy in general and in Soviet-Cuban relations has, in my opinion,
retained its significance in the relationship that has evolved between Ha-
vana and Moscow in the post-Soviet world and will be important for this
work. In addition, pragmatism and more specifically realist pragmatism
will also be crucial because they were also of great significance through-
out the revolutionary period of Cuban history, but in light of many of the
reforms made in Cuba in the 1990s and the globalisation process in gen-
eral, continue to be. Moreover, as the Russian Federation also adapted to
the appearance of the New World Order, realist pragmatism has also be-
come a fundamental aspect of the foreign policy pursued by Moscow in
the post-Soviet era. In addition to this, the high prevalence of nationalism
within the foreign policies pursued by both countries will also be signifi-
cant for this work.
Realist pragmatism and nationalism continue to be significant in con-
temporary Cuban foreign policy while Russian foreign policy also contains
realist pragmatism and nationalism but these ideas only partly explain the
deterioration and subsequent improvement in Russian-Cuban relations
that have occurred in the years since the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
The legacy from the Soviet era has cast a colossal shadow over the relation-
ship in the period since 1991. Due to the all-encompassing nature of Soviet-
Cuban relations this is not surprising, but this legacy was not just signifi-
cant in explaining the deterioration in the years 1992 to 1994 but, conversely,
also their improvement from 1995 onwards. In the Gorbachev era of Soviet-
Cuban relations a resentment towards the Caribbean island had begun to
appear in the Soviet Union, in no small part the result of glasnost, but this
continued after its disintegration with many in the Russian Federation de-
lighted to have this ‘noose’ finally removed from around their country’s
neck. However, over time the realisation began to form in both countries
that in many ways it was easier, and even cheaper, for some semblance of
the relationship to continue. It was not just economic reasons that drove
this, but also some within both countries continuing to have affinity for the
other. This was particularly the case in Russia but as the prominence of both
countries on the global stage diminished in the immediate aftermath of the
implosion of the Soviet Union a relationship between Moscow and Ha-
vana illustrated both countries’ more glorious pasts. A study of the work
of both academic and journalists in Russia and Cuba will also be con-
ducted which will further enrich this study as it will provide both an im-
portant, but different, perspective of these events. In addition to this, it will
16 Chapter 1

also help explain this change in perception which took place in both Russia
and Cuba of each other which is vital in the improvement in the relation-
ship from the mid-1990s onwards.
Apart from analysing the Soviet legacy an examination of the variety of
different pressures that now underpin the relationship will also be con-
ducted. Some of these are vastly different from those of the Soviet era, but
interestingly some have not only survived the end of Soviet-Cuban rela-
tions, while others have remerged in the 1990s but they have continued to
help shape the contemporary relationship. Both their significance and rea-
sons for their survival will be detailed. Chapter 2 will provide a general his-
tory of Soviet-Cuban relations, which is not just important in itself but will
also allow the Soviet legacy to be concluded. Chapter 3 will analyse the sig-
nificance of ideology in relations between Moscow and Havana, which in
the Soviet era provided a cornerstone of the relationship. The importance of
Marxist-Leninism may have disappeared but ideology, and ironically the
neoliberal economic model, has been very important in the ‘new’ relation-
ship that has evolved. Chapter 4 will detail the effects that the Soviet legacy,
as outlined above, has and continues to play in Russian-Cuban relations.
Chapter 5 will analyse the significance of both the United States and the
global community in general, in Russian-Cuban relations. Particular atten-
tion will be given to the recent apparent move to the left of many countries
in Latin America and the appearance of ALBA. In addition to this, the
changes made to both Russian and Cuban foreign policies, detailed earlier
in this chapter, will also be crucial in explaining relations between Havana
and Moscow in the post-Soviet world.

NOTES

1. Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, (Indianapolis: Hackett Pub, Co, 1998).

Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, (New York: Knopf, 1972). Kenneth
Waltz, Theory of International Politics, (New York: Random House, 1979). Jorge
Domínguez, “U.S.-Cuban Relations: From the Cold War to the Colder War” Jour-
nal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, Volume 39, No. 3 (Autumn 1997), 58.
2. Chris Brown, Understanding International Relations, (New York: Palgrave,
2001).
3. M.J. Smith, “Liberalism and International Reform” in Traditions of Interna-
tional Ethics, ed. T. Nardin & D. Mapel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1992). J.L. Richardson, “Contending Liberalism: Past and Present,” European Jour-
nal of International Relations, 3:1 (1997) 5–33. Francis Fukuyama, The End of History
and the Last Man, (London: Penguin, 1992).
4. Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto, (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books,
1982). Andrew Gamble, Timewalkers: The Prehistory of Global Colonisation, (Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999).
 Russian and Cuban Foreign Policy 17

5. Andre Gunder Frank, Latin America: Underdevelopment or Revolution: Essays

on the Development and Underdevelopment and the Immediate Enemy, (New York:
Monthly Review Press, 1969). Michael Erisman, Cuba’s Foreign Relations in a Post-
Soviet World, (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000), 43–45.
6. Erisman, Cuba’s Foreign Relations, 2000, 30-33. Daniel L. Byman & Kenneth
M. Pollack, “Let Us Now Praise Great Men: Bringing the Statesmen Back In,” In-
ternational Security, Vol 25, No. 4 (Spring 2001), 107–46.
7. Aleksandr Fursenko & Timothy Naftali, “One Hell of a Gamble” The Secret
History of the Cuban Missile Crisis, (London: John Murray, 1997), 177–83.
8. Graham T. Allison, Essence of a Decision. Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis,
(Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1971).
9. Emanuel Alder, “Constructivism,” in Handbook of International Relations, ed.
Walter Carlneas, Beth Simmons & Thomas Risse (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2003)
95–118. M. Hollis & S. Smith, Explaining and Understanding International Relations,
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1990) 196–216. Alan Collins, Contemporary
Security Studies, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
10. Samuel P. Huntington, “The clash of civilisations?” Foreign Affairs (Summer
1993), 22–49.
11. Stephen White has stated that the question of Russian identity has existed
throughout its history, with some believing that it possesses its own cultural her-
itage due to existence of the Orthodox Church. Moreover, geography further com-
plicates the question with Russia spanning both Europe and Asia. Stephen White,
Gorbachev and After, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) 179–80.
Stephen White, Russia’s New Politics. The Management of a Postcommunist Society,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) 213. Allen Lynch has also written
that with regards to its role in the world Russia faced an identity crisis in the early
1990s. Allen C. Lynch, “The Realism of Russia’s Foreign Policy,” Europe-Asia Stud-
ies, Volume 53, No. 1, (2001), 7–9.
12. Margot Light, The Soviet Theory of International Relations, (New York: St. Mar-
tin’s Press, 1988), 1–2, 319.
13. Light, The Soviet Theory, 1988, 316–21.
14. The basis of this doctrine was that once a country had become socialist it
was not theoretically possible for it to move back to capitalism. Although it was
given this name in 1968 it had also been the reason for the action taken in Hun-
gary twelve years earlier. In the aftermath of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czecho-
slovakia Brezhnev wrote “Defence of Socialism in the Highest International Duty”
which was published in Pravda. He wrote, “the defence of socialism in Czecho-
slovakia is not only the internal affair of that country’s people but is also a prob-
lem of defending the positions of world socialism.” Pravda 22 August 1968, 1.
15. A. Lynch, “Does Gorbachev Matter Anymore?” Foreign Affairs, 69, (Summer,
1990), 25. White, Gorbachev and After, 12–14. Richard Sakwa, Gorbachev and his Re-
forms 1985 to 1990, (New York: Philip Allan, 1990), 20–25. Mervyn J. Bain, Soviet-
Cuban Relations 1985 to 1991. Changing Perceptions in Moscow and Havana, (Lanham,
MD: Lexington Books, 2007).
16. White, Russia’s New Politics, 2004, 215.
17. Margot Light, “Foreign Policy” in Developments in Russian Politics, ed.
Stephen Hite, Zvi Gitelman & Richard Sakwa (London: Palgrave Macmillan,
18 Chapter 1

2005). 225. On Russia becoming the legal successor of the Soviet Union Martin
Malia has written, “the Yeltsin government inherited only rubble from the past.”
Martin Malia, “Martin Malia: History Lessons,” in Conversations on Russia: Reform
from Yeltsin to Putin, ed. Padma Desai, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006),
346.
18. Bobo Lo, Russian Foreign Policy in the Post-Soviet Era. Reality, Illusion and
Mythmaking, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 8.
19. White, Russia’s New Politics, 2004, 222–29.
20. For this debate see: Margot Light, “Foreign Policy Thinking” in Internal Fac-
tors in Russian Foreign Policy, ed. Alex Pravda, Roy Alison and Margot Light, (Ox-
ford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 33–100. Neil Malcolm and Alex Pravda, “De-
mocratization and Russian Foreign Policy,” International Affairs, 72, 3, (1996),
537–52. Paul Kubicek, “Russian Foreign Policy and the West,” Political Science Jour-
nal, Volume 114, Number 4, (1999–2000), 547–50.
21. Light, “Foreign Policy Thinking,” 82–83.
22. White, Russia’s New Politics, 2004, 229.
23. White, Russia’s New Politics, 2004, 230. Lynch, “The Realism of Russia’s For-
eign Policy,” 9–12.
24. White, Russia’s New Politics, 2004, 231–39.
25. Andrei Grachev, “Putin’s Foreign Policy Choices,” in Leading Russia. Putin
in Perspective. Essays in Honour of Archie Brown, ed., Alex Pravda, (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2005) 256. Andrew Jack has also made this point that Putin’s for-
eign policy during his first year in office “offered ambiguous signals.” Andrew
Jack, Inside Putin’s Russia. Can There Be Reform Without Democracy? (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2004), 258.
26. Bobo Lo, Vladimir Putin and the Evolution of Russian Foreign Policy, (Malden:
Blackwell Publishers, 2003), 16.
27. Richard Pipes, “Richard Pipes. The Past in the Present,” in Conversations on
Russia, 2006, 363. Jack has also made the point that Putin was disappointed with
the U.S. reaction to his offers after 11 September 2001. Jack, Inside Putin’s Russia,
2004, 289.
28. The sale of Russian military goods to Latin America has been a very impor-
tant aspect of the country’s recent increased interest in the continent. In April 2007,
RIA Novosti reported that Rosoboronexport was taking part in the Latin America
Aero and Defense (LAAD) arms exhibition held in Rio de Janeiro. See http://www
.rian.ru/russia/20070417 (25 April 2007). In June 2007, Hugo Chávez made a six-
day trip to Russia. See http://www.miamiherald.com (29 June 2007).
29. Grachev, “Putin’s Foreign Policy Choices,” 262–64. Sergei Rogov, “Sergei
Rogov. In Search of Checks and Balances at Home and Abroad,” in Conversations
on Russia, 2006, 219.
30. Domínguez, “From the Cold War to the Colder War,” 52.
31. Erisman, Cuba’s Foreign Relations, 2000, 23–26. The recently declassified Cen-
tral Intelligence Agency (CIA) documents on covert operations against Cuba fur-
ther illustrate Washington’s desire to topple the Castro regime at this time. See
http://www.foia.cia.gov/browse_docs.asp (21 Sept. 2007).
32. Erisman, Cuba’s Foreign Relations, 2000, 25–26. J. Levesque, The USSR and the
Cuban Revolution Ideological and Strategic Perspectives (New York: Praeger Publish-
 Russian and Cuban Foreign Policy 19

ers, 1978), 147–49. Edward González, “Complexities of Cuban Foreign Policy,”

Problems of Communism, Volume XXVI, (November–December 1977), 3.
33. Erisman, Cuba’s Foreign Relations, 2000, 26.
34. Erisman, Cuba’s Foreign Relations, 2000, 26–30. González, “Complexities of
Cuban Foreign Policy,” 3.
35. Erisman, Cuba’s Foreign Relations, 2000, 29–30.
36. Erisman, Cuba’s Foreign Relations, 2000, 30–33. Carlos Alberto Montaner, Fi-
del Castro and the Cuban Revolution: age, position, character, destiny, personality and
ambition, (Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1989).
37. Erisman, Cuba’s Foreign Relations, 2000, 32-33. González, “Complexities of
Cuban Foreign Policy,” 1–15. Domínguez also repeats this point. Jorge
Domínguez, To Make A World Safe For Revolution. Cuba’s Foreign Policy, (Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 248. Antoni Kapcia, “Political
Change in Cuba: The Domestic Context for Foreign Policy” in Redefining Cuban
Foreign Policy. The Impact of the “Special Period,” ed. Michael Erisman and John H.
Kirk, (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2006), 24–27.
38. Erisman, Cuba’s Foreign Relations, 2000, 33–36.
39. Erisman, Cuba’s Foreign Relations, 2000, 35–36. González, “Complexities
of Cuban Foreign Policy,” 10–13. Fidel Castro, “Angola: African Giron” in Fidel
Castro Speeches. Cuba’s Internationalist Foreign Policy, (New York: Pathfinder
Press, 1981), 91–92. “Transcript of Meeting between US Secretary of State Alexan-
der M. Haig, Jr, and Cuban Vice Premier Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, México City,
23 November 1981” in Cold War International History Project Bulletin, Issues 8–9,
210.
40. Erisman, Cuba’s Foreign Relations, 2000, 36–48.
41. Erisman, Cuba’s Foreign Relations, 2000, 43–47.
42. John H. Kirk, “Defying the Odds: Five Conclusions about Cuban Foreign
Policy,” in Redefining Cuban Foreign Policy ed. Erisman and Kirk, 2006, 334.
43. Michael H. Erisman, “Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Survival Strategy
in Cuba’s New Foreign Policy,” in Redefining Cuban Foreign Policy, 2006, 3–5.
44. “The Globalization Process and Latin America,” Latinskaia Amerika, No. 8,
2001, 9–21. In addition, Cuba has played a more prominent role in a number of re-
gional organisations including CARICOM and the Association of Caribbean
States (ACS). Erisman, Cuba’s Foreign Relations, 2000, 160–66.
45. Kirk, “Defying the Odds,” in Redefining Cuban Foreign Policy, 2006, 333.
46. Carmelo Mesa-Lago, “The Economic Effects on Cuba of the Downfall of So-
cialism in the USSR and Eastern Europe,” in ed. Carmelo Mesa-Lago, Cuba after the
Cold War, (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993), 133–96.
47. Nicola Miller, “Trying to Stay Friends: Cuba’s Relations with Russia and
Eastern Europe in the Age of U.S. Supremacy,” in ed., Morris Morley & Chris
McGillion, Cuba, the United States, and the Post-Cold War World. The International Di-
mensions of the Washington-Havana Relationship, (Gainesville: University Press of
Florida, 2005) 59-96. W. Alejandro Sanchez Nieto, “Cuba and Russia: Love is Bet-
ter the Second Time Around,” Cuban Affairs, Volume 2 No. 2 (2007).
48. N.S. Leonov & V.A. Borodaev, Fidel Kastro Politicheskaya Biogoafiya (Moscow:
Trud, 1999). V.I. Vorotnikov, Gavana-Moskva: pamiatnye gody, (Moscow: Fend imeni
I.D. Sytina, 2001). I.U. Gavrikov, Fidel Kastro: neistovgi komandante Ostrava svobody,
20 Chapter 1

(Moscow: Veche, 2006). E.A. Larin, Politicheskaia istorii Kuba XX Veka (Moscow:
Veschaya shkola, 2007).
49. Boris H. Yeltsin, Midnight Diaries, (New York: Public Affairs, 2000). Andrei
Kozyrev, Preobrazhenie, (Moscow: ‘Mezhdunov otnoshenii,’ 1995). Yevgeny M.
Primakov, Minnoe pole politiki, (Moscow: Molodai gvardii, 2006). Fidel Castro and
Ignacio Ramonet, My Life, (London: Allen Lane, 2007). Alina Revuelta Fernández,
Castro’s Daughter: An Exile’s Memoir of Cuba, (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1999).
 2

Soviet-Cuban Relations

I n January 1959, when Fidel Castro’s victorious guerrilla army marched

into Havana, a relationship between the new Cuban regime and the So-
viet Union would have appeared highly unlikely, especially as the Soviet
leader, Nikhita Khrushchev, would later write in his memoirs that he had
no idea of what type of revolution had occurred on the Caribbean island.1
This was despite previous contact between the two countries which had
not only seen Moscow buy sugar from Cuba but even diplomatic relations
exist for ten years from 14 October 1942. These had only been broken off
in the aftermath of the coup which had brought Fulgencio Batista to
power, but remarkably during this ten-year period Andrei Gromyko, a fu-
ture Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union, had traveled to the island from
New York City to present his credentials as the Soviet Union’s envoy to
the island.2 Khrushchev’s lack of knowledge was even more surprising as
reports exist that in December 1958 Castro’s guerrillas had made tentative
attempts to obtain weapons from Czechoslovakia and that the Czech gov-
ernment had consulted Moscow over this request. These weapons were
never delivered as Batista had fled the island before they could be trans-
ported to Cuba.3
It was not just the Soviet leadership that was unsure of the unfolding
events in Cuba in early 1959 but surprisingly also the U.S. one. However,
due to its hegemonic position within the region and large economic in-
volvement in the island, this quickly changed. Washington’s concerns were
partly alleviated by Carlos Manuel Urrutia Leo’s appointment as the Pro-
visional President but they quickly returned and intensified as a result of
both Castro’s trip to the United States in April 1959, and also that through-

21
22 Chapter 2

out 1959, guerrilla war veterans began to be promoted to increasingly

prominent roles in the new Cuban regime. Relations between the United
States and Cuba deteriorated during 1960 as Washington’s anxieties in-
creased due to the Castro regime moving increasingly to the political left, il-
lustrated by both the expropriation of United States owned property on the
island and the creation of the Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA).4
Moreover, the timing of these events was highly significant as the Cold
War appeared to be turning against Washington. It had only been ten
years since the United States had ‘lost’ China to communism, and when
this was coupled with the Soviet Union’s ever increasing global presence,
the United States administration was concerned about possible commu-
nist penetration in Latin America. In addition to this, the belief abounded
that Soviet nuclear parity with the United States had been achieved, fur-
ther increasing feelings of insecurity in the U.S. The result was that the de-
cision was made in Washington that events in Cuba could not be allowed
to run their own course and that Fidel Castro had to be removed from
power. This decision would not only lead to the attempted invasion at the
Bay of Pigs in April 1961 but would also form the cornerstone of Wash-
ington’s Cuban policy in the early 1960s.5
However, these very same events and Washington’s reaction to them
only increased Moscow’s interest in them. In an interview Aleksandr
Alekseev, the first Soviet citizen to be granted a visa to travel to Cuba af-
ter the victory of the revolution, said that although he was unsure of what
type of revolution had taken place in Cuba, the anti-American feeling that
was prevalent in it was its most important aspect for Moscow.6
In addition, Soviet foreign policy had begun to change in the aftermath of
Joseph Stalin’s death with the Soviet Union becoming more outward look-
ing and, as stated, attempting to acquire a presence in the Third World. This
had resulted from both the de-colonization process taking place throughout
the developing world, with Khrushchev’s risk-taking personality only aid-
ing this process. The Soviet leader’s speech to the Twentieth Party Congress
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in February 1956 illus-
trated this change in Soviet foreign policy when he said, “The awakening of
the African peoples has begun. The national liberation movement has
gained strength in Brazil, Chile and other Latin American countries.”7
Moscow strove to achieve this more prominent role in the developing
world by backing national liberation movements as the very small work-
ing class in this part of the world caused ideological problems for the So-
viet leadership. The Kremlin hoped that once these movements were in
power they would cut their traditional ties with their former colonial
masters, become increasingly left wing and align themselves with the So-
viet Union. Moreover, the newly independent countries were drawn to-
wards Moscow not just as a source of aid, but also as a result of the Soviet
 Soviet-Cuban Relations 23

development model that had produced rapid industrialization and mod-

ernization from the 1930s onwards. The Soviet Union’s lack of a colonial
past in this part of the world only further aided this process.8
Soviet interest in the Cuban Revolution was further fuelled by both the
timing of its victory, at the height of the Cold War, and the fact that these
events had taken place so geographically close to the United States. The
time was right for Moscow to gain an ally in the western hemisphere, es-
pecially one in such a significant geographical location, which made the
continuing presence of the new regime in Havana and Moscow’s rela-
tionship with it a spectacular propaganda coup for the Soviet Union. Fur-
thermore, other benefits of Soviet-Cuban relations existed for Moscow in-
cluding that it illustrated to Washington that the Soviet Union was now a
global rival to challenge the United States, but also to Peking that Moscow
was still the capital of the global revolution, therefore answering Chinese
accusations of revisionism. The result was that a relationship with the
Cuban Revolution had a number of benefits for Moscow which made So-
viet interest in it much less surprising than would first appear.9
Moreover, Khrushchev quickly formed a strong personal bond with his
young Cuban counterpart which only aided the burgeoning relationship be-
tween their two countries. By the time of the Cuban Revolution the Soviet
ruling elite no longer consisted of heroes of the 1917 Revolution but instead
comprised mainly middle-aged career politicians and the emergence in 1959
of the young bearded revolutionaries in the Caribbean captivated them.
This did not just happen to Khrushchev but also Anastas Mikoyan who in
1959 was not just the great survivor of Soviet politics but was also a mem-
ber of the Presidium of the CPSU. In relation to the Cuban Revolution he
would later comment, “You Americans must realize what Cuba means to us
old Bolsheviks. We have been waiting all our lives for a country to go com-
munist without the Red Army. It has happened in Cuba, and it makes us feel
like boys again.”10 Mikoyan quickly became one Havana’s closest friends in
Moscow and can be seen as one of the first members of the “Cuban lobby”
in the Soviet capital. This lobby comprised people who championed the
Cuban Revolution’s cause amongst the Soviet elite. It was important
throughout the Soviet era but was crucial in the Gorbachev period as it was
able to slow the effects of the reform processes on the relationship.
Moscow and Washington may both have been unsure of the unfolding
events in Cuba in the months after 1959, and a debate has existed about
the exact nature of the revolution, but the new regime in Havana’s think-
ing towards the Soviet Union at this time was also unclear. This was de-
spite Fidel Castro’s 26 July movement having signed an agreement with
the Cuban Socialist Party (PSP) in 1958 and Raúl Castro having been both
a member of Juventud Socialista while at university and also having even
visited Eastern Europe. This would suggest that a relationship between
24 Chapter 2

Cuba and the Soviet Union in some form was a possibility, but Aleksandr
Fursenko and Timothy Naftali have written that throughout 1959 Castro
was worried about the reaction of the Cuban population to closer ties
with Moscow and he was therefore uncertain of agreeing to this.11
Although this was the case, what was clear was that Castro wanted his
country’s relationship with Washington to change. This was partly the re-
sult of the U.S.’s hegemonic position on the island before 1959 on which
the Cuban leader would later comment, “We would not in any event have
ended up as close friends. The U.S. had dominated us for too long.”12
Moreover, the overthrow of the Arbenz government in Guatemala in 1954
by U.S.-backed exiles, which Che Guevara had personally witnessed, was
also crucial because when coupled with increased U.S. hostility towards
his fledging regime, which culminated in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion,
Castro’s decision to proclaim himself a Marxist-Leninist in December
1961 appears logical.13 The Cuban leader would have hoped that in-
creased Soviet security guarantees would have resulted, as he would have
known that for ideological reasons Moscow could not let the first com-
munist regime in the region be overthrown by the United States, espe-
cially one in such a significant geographic location. His proclamation that
he was Marxist-Leninist was designed to take advantage of this and in-
crease the pressure on the Soviet elite.14 In addition, the Soviet economic
and political models and economic assistance from Moscow all appealed
to the new Cuban government. The result was that close relations be-
tween the Soviet Union and Cuba were less strange than may first appear
as both countries gained from the relationship.
The appearance in December 1961 of the first Marxist-Leninist regime
in the western hemisphere was in no small part the result of the Cold War
setting in which it occurred. Moscow may have had some contact with
Cuba before January 1959 but the relationship that developed after this
occurred was to the benefit of both governments. The Soviet Union ob-
tained a priceless propaganda coup in the Cold War as it strove to have a
global presence, whereas Cuba was able to reduce its dependence on the
United States and at the same time obtain both a crucial economic partner
and some form of security from a hostile United States. In addition, in this
35 month period a number of pressures had appeared which would not
just drive the two countries together but also form part of the foundations
of the relationship for the next thirty years.

TENSIONS AND RECONCILIATION (1962–1972)

By the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis relations between Havana and
Moscow may have been in existence for less than 4 years, but even in this
 Soviet-Cuban Relations 25

short period a variety of pressures had come to bear on it that had not
only pushed the two countries together but would also be severely tested
by the events of the last two weeks of October 1962 and its aftermath. The
Cuban government was unhappy with the agreement reached on 28 Oc-
tober 1962 between the U.S. and Soviet governments that had ended the
crisis due both to its content but also as a result of being excluded from
the negotiating processes. In conducting bilateral discussions with Wash-
ington, Moscow may have been able to find a peaceful solution to the cri-
sis but they had also simultaneously both offended Havana and ignored
the strong nationalistic strands prevalent within the Cuban Revolution.
This would adversely affect Soviet-Cuban relations and Khrushchev
would later write in his memoirs, “Our relations with Cuba, on the other
hand, took a sudden turn for the worse.”15
As a result of this, the reception that Anastas Mikoyan received in No-
vember 1962 when he visited the island was particularly frosty, despite
his close links to the Cuban elite. During this visit Mikoyan did his best to
placate his Cuban hosts by stating that the result of the crisis had been
both to make the Monroe Doctrine irrelevant for Cuba and also that the
“the prestige of the socialist camp has strengthened.”16 This did not stop
Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, President of the National Institute of Agrarian
Reform, stating in a meeting on 4 November 1962, that the Cuban au-
thorities believed there had been secret communications between
Moscow and Washington during the crisis that they had not been in-
formed of.17 Mikoyan may have been specially chosen for this trip due to
his close ties to the Cuban government but his trip can not be seen as a
success as the outcome of Cuban Missile Crisis fundamentally altered
Soviet-Cuban relations for a number of years. The honeymoon period in
the relationship was most certainly over.
This was not, however, immediately apparent with Fidel Castro himself
visiting the Soviet Union twice between Mikoyan’s November 1962 trip
and the end of January 1964. His first trip was in May 1963 when he re-
ceived a hero’s welcome throughout his month-long visit and during his
second trip he stated in a speech, “And if today a socialist revolution is
under way in Cuba, it became possible because the socialist revolution of
1917 took place to begin with.”18 Moreover, during this trip in January
1964 the second trade agreement between the countries since the Cuban
Missile Crisis was signed. Not only did this suggest that relations were
not strained, but the 1964 agreement was highly significant as it was the
first 5-year agreement signed between Moscow and Havana. This pro-
vided increased economic security for Cuba as it guaranteed both the
amount and price of goods that the Soviet Union bought from Cuba. In
addition, it also provided a template for future trade agreements signed
between the two countries in the 1970s and 1980s.19
26 Chapter 2

Castro’s two trips to the Soviet Union appeared to illustrate the healthy
state of relations between the two countries and that problems as a result
of the Cuban Missile Crisis had not occurred. However, and conversely to
this, these trips also strengthened the Cuban leader’s feeling of betrayal
due to the events of October 1962, because it was during his May 1963 trip
that Castro had learnt of the agreement regarding the removal of the
United States missiles in Turkey made during October 1962. This in itself
was bad enough but was only made worse as Khrushchev had only mis-
takenly referred to it during a conversation.20
A public schism may not have appeared but from the mid-1960s on-
wards problems between the two countries became increasingly obvious
as Cuban radicalism increased. Internally this was illustrated by the at-
tempts to produce the “new man” and its radical foreign policy showed
itself in a number of ways. The first was a speech given by Che Guevara
in February 1965, in which he not only criticized the Soviet Union in gen-
eral, but also accused Moscow both of degeneration and of practicing im-
perialism towards the Third World. 21
Throughout 1966, the differences between Soviet and Cuban policies
were highlighted by a number of events beginning in February 1966 when
the Cuban capital staged the First Tricontinental Conference with repre-
sentatives from Africa, Asia, and Latin America in attendance. The pro-
ceedings of this conference were very different from the policies pursued
by Moscow at this time towards the Developing World due to their highly
radical nature. The 23rd Congress of the CPSU was held in Moscow in
April 1966 with Armando Hart, a member of the politburo and secretary
of the Central Committee for the PCC, being the Cuban representative.
His speech to the congress was met with complete silence because in it
Hart had said that the First Tricontinental Conference in Havana had been
correct in the ideas that national liberation movements would help speed
revolutions in the Developing World. This was again not only very dif-
ferent from Moscow’s policies but also highly controversial.22 The radical
content of both Castro’s May Day speech at the Plaza de la Revolución
and the First Congress of the Organization for Latin American Solidarity
(OLAS) held in Havana in August 1966 further illustrated the differences
between Cuba and the Soviet Union. Moreover, in November 1967 Castro
snubbed the celebrations for the fiftieth anniversary of the victory of the
Russian Revolution by not personally attending them illustrating graphi-
cally the strained nature of Soviet-Cuban relations.23
The tension in the relationship arose for a number of reasons, but pri-
marily as both countries did not completely understand each other with
Moscow in particular failing to realize the significance and importance of
nationalism within the Cuban Revolution which had been gravely of-
fended by the outcome of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Moreover, as stated,
 Soviet-Cuban Relations 27

the Castro regime also thought that the Soviet Union was suffering from
degeneration. This had manifested itself in Cuba wanting to choose its
own independent path and in conjunction with the Cuban government
believing that a radical foreign policy could help safeguard its survival by
moving capitalism’s attention from it to other parts of the world only fur-
ther increased the differences between Cuban and Soviet policies.24
However, a permanent schism had not materialized because even by
the mid-1960s a number of pressures had arisen in the relationship that
would have made this problematic. This included the 1964 trade agree-
ment that guaranteed Cuban economic security for five years; signifi-
cantly it was only after its signing that Cuban radicalism increased, and
even by this point of time some within the Soviet Union had felt that large
amounts of aid had been lavished on Cuba, which would have simply
been lost if a schism had appeared. This was something that Moscow was
unprepared to do. Moreover, Chinese accusations of Soviet revisionism,
and the fact that Maoism appeared to fit the developing world better than
Leninism, meant that Moscow could not break relations with Havana if it
wanted to retain its position at the pinnacle of the world revolution. The
outcome of the Cuban Missile Crisis further increased the pressure on
Moscow as it had defended its actions by saying it had helped to safe-
guard the Cuban Revolution. This would have been lost if relations were
broken off. The upshot was that despite their differences, a permanent
schism would not have benefited either country and the Castro regime
had taken advantage of this situation, and pressures, to pursue its radical
internal and external policies.
This situation began to change from 1968 onwards as Cuba’s relation-
ship with the Soviet Union improved. It was not the result, as is often
thought, of Soviet pressure on the Caribbean island but was rather the re-
sult of the failure of Cuba’s radical policies. With regard to foreign policy,
Che Guevara’s death was a graphic illustration of this, but also Cuban po-
litical isolation within the region appeared to be coming to an end after
the appearance in 1968 of a left-leaning military regime in Peru. Moreover,
Cuban security and Castro’s pragmatism were also highly significant in
this process. The Cuban leader’s backing of the Warsaw Pact invasion of
Czechoslovakia in August 1968 may have gone against world opinion but
it signaled Cuba’s return to the Soviet fold. However, even Castro’s
speech on this increased the pressure on Moscow as he asked if similar ac-
tion would be taken to safeguard socialism in Vietnam, North Korea and
Cuba, with the implication being very clear.25 The failure to move capital-
ism’s focus away from Cuba due to the inability to spark other revolu-
tions only increased Cuban feelings of insecurity. Moreover, Peter Shear-
man has written that Castro’s backing of this Soviet action was not as
surprising as it may have first appeared since Castro believed that the
28 Chapter 2

“Prague spring” was a dangerous phenomenon due to its possible detri-

mental effects on socialism.26
Even before this process had begun Castro had illustrated Cuba’s na-
tionalistic tendencies to both the PCC and CPSU leadership and also sent
a blunt message to Moscow that the Cuban Revolution was not going to
be dominated by the Soviet Union. This was done partly with a marathon
‘secret speech’ in January 1968 when he was very scathing in his account
of Mikoyan’s behavior during the talks held in November 1962 in the af-
termath of the missile crisis.27 In addition, even while backing Soviet ac-
tion in Prague in the summer of 1968, he stated that Czech sovereignty
had been violated, and the trial of Aníbal Escalante and his associates fur-
ther illustrated Cuban independence from the Soviet Union, as they were
accused of both encouraging Moscow to implement economic sanctions
against the island and also providing Soviet officials in Havana with false
information about Cuban personnel.28 The uniqueness and individual na-
ture of the Cuban Revolution was yet further illustrated when Cuba did
not send a representative to a Consultative Meeting of all Communist Par-
ties that was held in February 1968 in Budapest.29
Despite Castro’s graphic illustration of Cuba’s own revolutionary her-
itage, reconciliation in Soviet-Cuban relations only increased from this
point onwards. Salvador Allende’s electoral victory in 1970 may have fur-
ther reduced Cuban isolation in the western hemisphere but it also
showed that Moscow’s more cautious policy towards Latin America had
been more successful than Cuban radicalism. In addition, Havana was
pushed further towards Moscow as Cuban economic dependence on the
Soviet Union increased after the failure of Cuba’s much vaunted 1970
10m-ton sugar harvest, which had signaled the death knell of the island’s
internal radicalism, as the rest of the economy had been neglected in the
attempts to produce this record harvest.30
In November 1969, Soviet Defense Minister Marshal Andrei Gretchko
traveled to Cuba thus showing the improvement in relations that had
taken place as the absence of such trips since the mid-1960s had been a
very noticeable illustration of the tension in the relationship. In April
1971, the 24th Congress of the CPSU was held in Moscow and Osvaldo
Dorticos, a member of the politburo and secretariat of the PCC, repre-
sented Cuba. His speech was vastly different from Hart’s speech at the
previous congress in 1966 which, as stated, had been highly radical.31
In 1971 the Soviet-Cuban Intergovernmental Commission on Economic,
Scientific and Technical Cooperation was created and in June 1972 Cuba
gained membership to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance
(CMEA). Both events illustrated the vast improvement in relations since
the mid-1960s and as Shearman has written was the “logical” conclusion
of Cuba’s move back into the Soviet fold. Moreover, in June 1972 Castro
 Soviet-Cuban Relations 29

had visited the Soviet Union for the first time in eight years during which
he stated in a speech in the Kremlin, “We are deeply satisfied with the
present state of our friendship and the present state of our fraternal rela-
tions, sincere relations based on mutual respect, the type of relations that
should exist between the revolutionary parties and revolutionary peoples.
We shall continue to work tirelessly for sake of this friendship and its
strengthening.”32
Although relations had undoubtedly improved, and membership in the
CMEA was of great prestige to the Caribbean island, many scholars be-
lieve that Castro may have been hoping for much more. This arose from
the fact that he had left Moscow a matter of days before the signing of the
CMEA agreement, which led many to conclude that his actual goal had
been membership of the Warsaw Pact and the increased security guaran-
tees that this would have provided.33 It appeared that despite the im-
provement in relations Moscow was not prepared to do this as it could
have resulted in large numbers of Soviet troops having to be sent to the
Caribbean to offset possible U.S. aggression. After the Cuban Missile Cri-
sis Moscow’s unwillingness to allow Cuba to again become a flashpoint
between the superpowers had been shown in 1970 when the Soviet gov-
ernment had quickly backed down in the face of the U.S. pressure over the
“mini-crisis” of Soviet nuclear submarines being moored at Cienfuegos.34
In addition to this, Cuban membership in the CMEA was of great ben-
efit to Moscow. Even by the early 1970s some within the Soviet Union
were concerned at the levels of Soviet economic involvement with the
Caribbean island, and its membership of this organization not only gave
Moscow an increased control over the Cuban economy, but significantly
it also allowed Moscow to spread the economic ‘burden’ of the Cuban
Revolution across all of the CMEA states. The result was that economi-
cally Cuba was no longer the Soviet Union’s sole responsibility.35
The ten-year period from 1962 to 1972 was a highly turbulent one in
Soviet-Cuban relations. During it both the first five-year plan between the
two countries was signed and Cuba also gained membership in the CMEA
but in the eight years between these two events a termination of the rela-
tionship had appeared possible. A number of reasons accounted for this
tension with the outcome of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Caribbean is-
land’s radicalism both being very significant. Despite this a permanent
schism had not taken place as even by the mid-1960s a number of pres-
sures had come to bear on the relationship that made this both unlikely
and problematic. These included the already large amounts of Soviet aid
lavished on the Caribbean island, the continuing propaganda significance
of the Cuban Revolution for the Kremlin and the fact that the Soviet gov-
ernment, in the face of growing Chinese pressure, could not afford for the
Cuban Revolution to fail if Moscow was to remain as the capital of the
30 Chapter 2

world revolution. However, by the end of the1960s Cuba’s radicalism be-

gan to waver due to the failure of both its internal and external policies and
when coupled with the reduction in Havana’s political isolation within the
western hemisphere and some form of Soviet coercion the Caribbean is-
land moved back towards the Soviet fold. However, even while this
process was unfolding, both Havana’s desire for a form of independence
from the Soviet Union and also the Cuban Revolution’s uniqueness had
been made abundantly clear to Moscow.

THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF
THE CUBAN REVOLUTION (1972-1985)

The 1970s were very different from the turbulent days of the second half of
the 1960s as the two countries became increasingly intertwined, not least
economically. In addition, in January 1974 Leonid Brezhnev became the
first Soviet leader to visit Latin America when he travelled to Cuba, a fur-
ther illustration that the problems of the 1960s had been resolved. The So-
viet leader did not just travel throughout the island but was also awarded
Cuba’s highest honour, the Order of José Martí, and gave a speech in front
of one million Cubans on the Plaza de la Revolución in Havana. In this
speech he stated, “We are linked by bonds that are completely different
from those that are customary in the capitalist world. For the Soviet Union,
Cuba is not an object of exploitation and capital investment, not a strategic
base or a so-called sphere of influence. Our friendship, our closeness, is an
expression of the socialist nature of our countries, a living embodiment of
the lofty principles of socialist internationalism.”36
During the 1970s the two countries’ economies did not just become in-
creasingly interlinked but Cuba underwent a series of changes that made
it more closely resemble the Soviet Union. From the early 1970s the ap-
pearance in the top echelons of the Cuban elite of people more favorable
to Soviet policies, particularly Carlos Rafael Rodríguez and Blas Roca, her-
alded this, but this process culminated at the First Congress of the Cuban
Communist Party in December 1975. At this congress a new constitution,
which closely resembled the Soviet one, was ratified. On this Shearman
has written “Concomitant with CMEA membership came domestic Sovi-
etization of the economy and the polity.”37 In February 1976 in his speech
to the 25th Congress of the CPSU, Brezhnev stated, “The Congress of
Cuban Communists, the party’s programmatic platform and the country’s
new constitution show that the Western hemisphere’s first socialist state is
making steady progress.”38 However, even while this “sovietization” of
the Cuban Revolution was underway Castro again illustrated its distinct
nature. At the First Congress of the PCC he pointedly stated that the is-
 Soviet-Cuban Relations 31

land’s revolutionary heritage dated from the nineteenth century and more-
over the congress also ratified Popular Power, which was systematic of
Cuba’s wish to have some form of independence from Moscow.39
In addition to this, from the mid-1970s, as stated, the Cuban army had
to face accusations that they were merely acting as the “Ghurkas of the
Russian Empire” as the two countries became involved in first Africa and
then at the end of the decade Central America, with this action being an
important element in the end of the period of détente that had existed in
the 1970s between the Soviet Union and the United States.40 This new di-
mension to Soviet-Cuban relations was in no small part borne out of Cas-
tro’s “goal to become leader of the Third World,”41 but the Cuban leader
has spoken on a number of occasions about this action, and has always
stressed the links which the Caribbean island had with both the Popular
Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in Angola and Sandin-
istas in Nicaragua dating from the 1960s. He has even stated that the
MPLA asked for their assistance and that Cuba had only become involved
in any of these operations once the new governments were already in
power. In conjunction with this, the shared history and culture between
Cuba and both continents make Cuban involvement less strange than it
first appears.42
Havana and Moscow may have had shared objectives in these opera-
tions but contrary to this, the Cuban desire for a form of independence
from Moscow was also important, as was the fact that the spread of revo-
lution was an integral part of the Cuban Revolutionary philosophy. More-
over, it may have been hoped that Cuban security would increase as cap-
italism’s attention would be moved from the Caribbean to other parts of
the world. The timing of this action was also significant as by the mid-
1970s Cuba, for a number of reasons, could again employ a more expan-
sive foreign policy. This included the economic security that membership
in the CMEA gave the island, but also the of disintegration of the Salazar
dynasty in Portugal, that heralded the wars in Africa, and the overthrow
of the Somoza dynasty in Nicaragua gave the Cuban regime the opportu-
nity for these courses of action. Furthermore, the chance of a U.S. invasion
of the Caribbean island had by the mid-1970s receded due to the more in-
ward looking administration in Washington. This had resulted from both
the prevalence of war-weariness in the United States after its South-East
Asian debacle and the resignation of Richard Nixon in the aftermath of
the Watergate scandal.43
Cuba may have had to face accusations that it was acting merely as a
Soviet puppet but by taking this course of action the island’s leverage in
the Soviet capital increased, as the Castro regime would have hoped to
use this to obtain some form of severance from the Soviet Union for its ac-
tion in Africa and Central America. The result was that the pressure on
32 Chapter 2

Moscow with regards to Soviet-Cuban relations would have gone up. In

addition to this, this Cuban action was also very useful for the Castro
regime for a number of other reasons. It produced new markets, despite
Castro’s claims to the contrary, for both the sale of Cuban merchandise
but also the purchase of goods that the island required. Moreover, it also
helped resolve a number of internal problems that had appeared on the
island by the mid-1970s including a shortage of jobs. This was the result
of the Cuban Revolution producing a highly educated population, but the
supply of jobs on the island not increasing at an equivalent rate to its lev-
els of education. This was especially the case for teachers and doctors
whose skills could be utilized in both Africa and Central America. Ed-
ward González believes that it also helped to alleviate pressures that had
developed between members of the Cuban elite some of whom had ad-
vocated pragmatism, others revolutionary zeal while yet another faction
desired military missions in the island’s foreign policy.44
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 exerted new pres-
sures on Soviet-Cuban relations but ultimately showed the importance of
the relationship to Havana. In January 1980 a United States-backed reso-
lution in the United Nations (UN) condemned the Afghan invasion, with
Cuba voting with the Soviet bloc against it. This in itself was not surpris-
ing but the Caribbean island was put under great pressure and faced ac-
cusations that it was merely Moscow’s ‘mouthpiece’ in the Nonaligned
Movement.45 This arose as Cuba was not just the only member of this or-
ganization to vote in this way but Castro was also its President at the time.
This graphically illustrated the importance of its relationship with the So-
viet Union to Cuba as it outweighed the international scorn that the island
had had to face for this action in the UN.
In addition to this, Cuba voting in this manner also showed that by the
early 1980s the Caribbean island was an integral part of the socialist bloc,
which was further illustrated in December 1980 when it was awarded the
honour of having Konstantin Chernenko, a member of the politburo and
future General Secretary of the CPSU, represent the Soviet Union at the
Second Congress of the PCC.46 Partly as the result of this, and increased
Cuban leverage in Moscow, but also due to a worsening of Cuban-United
States relations in the early 1980s, Moscow supplied the Caribbean island
with some of its most sophisticated military hardware. The increase in
tension between Havana and Washington had resulted from the election
of Ronald Reagan as President of the United States, which had heralded a
new stage in the Cold War. During his Presidential campaign Reagan had
both very publicly courted the large and influential Cuban-American vote
in Florida, and also promised to “rollback” creeping communism. He be-
lieved that Havana’s increased role in the world had been a failure in
Carter’s diplomacy towards Cuba.47 In the early 1980s superpower rela-
 Soviet-Cuban Relations 33

tions deteriorated, resulting in a nuclear build-up in Europe and, as

stated, an increase in tension between Havana and Washington.
The robust nature of Soviet-Cuban relations was further shown on 10
November 1984 when Nikolai Tikhonov, a politburo member and chair-
man of the Council of Ministers, signed an agreement on cooperation be-
tween the two countries, while he was in Cuba.48 The significance of this
was its twenty-five-year duration as it meant that Moscow had commit-
ted itself to Cuba into twenty-first century. In addition, by the mid-1980s
the relationship had also become extremely expansive and developed an
all-encompassing nature. This saw some 8,000 Cubans per year studying
in the Soviet Union, and 140 educational centers completed on the island
with Soviet help. In general, Soviet investment in the Caribbean island
since the early 1960s had been colossal.49
Trade quickly became a vital aspect of Soviet-Cuban relations with both
countries benefiting from it. The Soviet Union purchased not only sugar
from Cuba but also nickel, citrus fruit and tobacco while it exported over
fifty different goods to the Caribbean island. These goods ranged from oil
and bulldozers to condensed milk, and affected all parts of Cuban society,
illustrating the significance of trade with the Soviet Union to Cuba. The
continual upward trajectory of figure 2.1 to the mid-1980s illustrates the
ever increasing levels of trade conducted between the two countries dur-
ing the Soviet era. If a comparison of various five-year plans is carried out
this becomes even more explicit. If 1965, the first year of the original five-
year plan, is used as a base year it allows all five-year plans to be compared

Figure 2.1. Soviet-Cuban Trade

34 Chapter 2

to the original one. If this is done, 1975 has a figure of 387.7, 1980 one of
674.4 and 1985 a figure of 1312. Soviet trade with Cuba had continued to
expand throughout this period but particularly in the 1980s because by
1985 it had increased 13 fold when compared to the first five-year plan, or
more than doubled from the previous five years.
The sale of Cuban sugar to the Soviet Union is vital in explaining the
dramatic increase in the levels of trade in the early 1980s and also its
subsequent decrease at the end of this decade. Moscow did not just buy
the vast percentage of Cuba’s sugar export, but in the early 1980s also
continually paid above the world price. In 1985 Moscow bought 61 per-
cent of the Cuban sugar harvest for 45.00 US cents per pound compared
to a world market price of just 4.05 US cents per pound. This was in ex-
cess of ten times that of the world price, when it had been more normal
for the Soviet Union to only pay between one and a half and two times
the world price.50 In the late 1980s, the terms of trade began to turn
against Cuba as the difference between the price Moscow paid and the
world price fell. It was predominantly this, but also to a lesser extent
some adverse affects of the Soviet reforms, which resulted in the level of
trade in 1990 being lower than in 1985. The 1985 sugar price may have
distorted the trade figures but it could still not hide the huge levels of
Soviet involvement in the Cuban economy as even in 1990 trade was in
excess of eleven times that conducted during the first five-year plan in
1965. On this Carlos Rafael Rodríguez would comment, “there is not a
single sector of our national economy which is to any degree important
in which this cooperation (with the USSR) does not already exist or is
not planned.”51
By March 1985, when Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary of
the CPSU, the original pressures that had appeared in Soviet-Cuban rela-
tions were not just still in existence but new ones had also come to the
fore, which provided still more robust foundations for the relationship.
This did not just entail Moscow’s colossal economic investment, but by
the mid-1980s the two countries had a shared ideology, twenty-year his-
tory and the nature of the relationship had impacted on all aspects of so-
ciety within both countries. In addition, the Cold War had taken a general
turn for the worse, continuing to make the Cuban Revolution an impor-
tant propaganda tool for Moscow. Washington may no longer have been
attempting to overthrow the Castro regime by force but successive U.S.
administrations did wish to see its removal from power. This was in no
small part due to the fact that Cuba remained both a domestic and foreign
policy issue as a result of the powerful and influential Cuban exile com-
munity in the United States. The result was that Moscow’s Caribbean
commitments had continued to adversely affect superpower relations and
played a part in the failure of détente in the 1970s, and the strained nature
 Soviet-Cuban Relations 35

of Cuban-U.S. relations increased still further the pressure on Moscow

with regards its relationship with Havana.
The relationship remained vital for the Cuban government, not least
economically, due to the continuing U.S. embargo against the island.
Moreover, the Castro regime had acquired a semblance of leverage in
Moscow due to the joint action in Africa and Central America from the
mid-1970s. This yet again increased the pressure on the Kremlin with re-
gards Soviet-Cuban relations but vitally in the mid-1980s it remained ben-
eficial for both governments.

REFORM PROCESSES (1985–1991)

By 1985 a variety of pressures may have impacted on Soviet-Cuban rela-

tions but during his time as General Secretary of the CPSU, Mikhail Gor-
bachev would have to face a number of new ‘explosive’ pressures that no
previous General Secretary had had to deal with. This resulted from the in-
troduction of different reform processes in both the Soviet Union and Cuba.
In March 1985 when Gorbachev became General Secretary of the CPSU
he was the fourth person to hold this position within three years. This in
itself would have a destabilising effect, but the Soviet Union faced a
plethora of problems and he would later write, “On taking office as Gen-
eral Secretary in 1985 I was immediately faced with an avalanche of prob-
lems. . . . The Soviet Union faced tremendous internal problems.”52 These
included a Soviet leadership that had turned into a gerontocracy, the
country’s science and technology falling increasingly behind the West, as
was the stagnating national economy that was still further adversely af-
fected by the large military spending that Moscow traditionally under-
took. Yegor Ligachev, Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, would
later comment, “our country’s economy approached the year 1985 very
short of breath.”53
Gorbachev quickly addressed these problems and in his speech at the
Central Committee plenum in April 1985 he introduced the process which
became known as perestroika. This program was a drive for more eco-
nomic efficiency, technological progress and the reduction in the need for
state subsidies.54 However, he soon realised that perestroika could not sur-
vive by itself and that other reforms were also needed to help to sustain
it. As a result of this, but also the deterioration in superpower relations
and the dire situation in Afghanistan amongst others, “new thinking” in
Soviet foreign policy was introduced, which questioned many long-held
Soviet foreign policy beliefs including both the desire for nuclear parity
and even the Brezhnev Doctrine.55 In a further attempt to help maintain
perestroika, glasnost was introduced and by ending the traditional secrecy
36 Chapter 2

within Soviet society it was hoped that this would simultaneously both
re-energize the country’s population and also end their practice of listen-
ing to Western radio broadcasts. This worried the Soviet government due
to the negative content that many of these reports contained on events
within the Soviet Union, which they feared could result in an increase in
tension within the population.56 These reform processes may have been
introduced to help alleviate the problems facing the Soviet Union in the
mid-1980s but they would all impact massively on Soviet-Cuban relations
during the remaining years of the Soviet era.
It was not just the Soviet Union that was undergoing problems in the
mid-1980s as the situation facing Cuba was also very grave. In his speech
in April 1986 to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Bay of Pigs, Fi-
del Castro expanded on what he had said at the 3rd Congress of the PCC
about this. He blamed the economic slow down on the effects of Hurri-
cane Kate that had hit the island in late 1985 and the continuing U.S. em-
bargo. Moreover, he also believed that the revolution was undergoing de-
generation due to increased bureaucracy, overstaffing and the effect of
allowing some forms of private enterprises to exist on the island. After
a number of years, degeneration in a socialist society is not unusual but
the island’s young population, many of whom could not remember pre-
revolutionary Cuba, only exacerbated this process.57
Castro’s proposed solution was the introduction of the campaign of rec-
tification of errors which would reduce bureaucracy and inefficiency and
also outlaw private enterprises and increase voluntary work.58 The first of
these ideas may have been similar to Gorbachev’s reforms but the others
were not and appeared to be a retrenchment of the revolution to the ideas
of the 1960s.
However, Western experts believe that other reasons were also impor-
tant for the campaign’s implementation. Marifeli Pérez-Stable believed
that the Cuban economic “model was largely exhausted” by this time due
to the changes in international economics in the late 1970s while it has
also been suggested that it was used to return power to the original rul-
ing elite in Cuba and away from Soviet trained technocrats, people such
as Humberto Pérez, the head of the Central Planning Board, who had be-
come increasingly powerful from the early 1980s onwards. In addition,
this continued the Cuban practice of being willing to experiment with dif-
ferent ideas, but the chances of this being an opening up of the system
were negligible due to Cuban fears of a possible U.S. invasion after Wash-
ington had invaded Grenada in 1983.59
As stated, the introduction of all of these reforms processes would have
a massive impact on Soviet-Cuban relations during the Gorbachev era,
but this was not immediately apparent, as both governments concen-
trated on the similarities between them.60 In addition, Moscow’s relation-
 Soviet-Cuban Relations 37

ship with Havana may not have been of the highest priority for the Soviet
government at this time as they instead concentrated both on the internal
situation in the Soviet Union and on superpower relations. Moreover, this
also illustrated the traditional low importance, with the noticeable excep-
tions of the initial period of the relationship’s inception and the Cuban
Missile Crisis, of Soviet-Cuban relations to the Soviet governing elite.
Although this was the case, some tentative or ‘veiled’ criticisms did
take place, with the highest profile examples being Ligachev’s speech to
the 3rd PCC held in February 1986 and Castro’s address to the 27th Con-
gress of the CPSU held in the Soviet capital during the same month.61
However, from 1987 onwards this situation began to change with Soviet
criticism of Cuba becoming ever more public and scathing from this point
onwards. It focused in particular on Cuban economic inefficiency, which
in light of perestroika was not surprising, as it would have appeared to go
against the very ethos of this process if Moscow continued to subsidize an
inefficient Cuban economy as it struggled to reform its own. With relation
to the CMEA this was certainly the case because an unreformed Cuban
economy and continued Soviet subsidies to it could have led to awkward
questions for Moscow from other member states. As a result it was not
surprising that Nikolai Ryzhkov, Chairman of the USSR Council of Min-
isters, was very forthright in his criticism of Cuban economic inefficiency
in July 1988 at the 44th session of the CMEA held in Prague.62
This may have increased the pressure on Gorbachev with regards to So-
viet-Cuban relations but so too did glasnost. Quite simply some Soviet citi-
zens could not understand why Moscow continued to spend colossal
amounts of money and aid on the Cuban Revolution as Gorbachev’s re-
forms failed to produce the desired results within the Soviet Union. This
feeling only further increased as the geostrategic importance of the island to
Moscow fell as the superpower relations improved.63 Moreover, the Cuban
government’s close association with what had become by the late 1980s dis-
credited former Soviet regimes only further increased this criticism.
This became apparent in a number of different ways but particularly in
the Soviet press and academic writings. In August 1987, New Times
printed the article “An Uphill Task” written by Vladislav Chirkov that
was so scathing in its criticism of Cuba that it drew a response two
months later from none other than Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, the island’s
leading economist and member of the politburo of the PCC.64 In October
1990, the Cuban government felt compelled to repeat this when Pravda
printed a rebuttal written by the Cuban Ambassador to the Soviet Union,
Jose Ramon Balaguer, to an earlier article in Komsomolskaya Pravda that
had belittled the Castro brothers’ personal lives.65 In addition, Moscow’s
practice of paying above the world market price for Cuban sugar came in
for particularly strong and repeated criticism. In June 1989 this even
38 Chapter 2

reached the Congress of People’s Deputies, despite the terms of trade in

this period turning against the Caribbean island. 66
This criticism of Soviet-Cuban relations and the Cuban Revolution itself
as a result of glasnost did not mean that everyone within the Soviet Union
agreed with it, as some newspaper and journal articles that were pub-
lished continued to be sympathetic towards the Caribbean island. This
was certainly the case with Sergo Mikoyan, who was the editor of Latin-
skaia Amerika, and also the son of Anastas Mikoyan.67 However, glasnost
had unquestionably introduced a dynamic new “explosive” element to
Soviet-Cuban relations as in the new increasingly democratic Soviet
Union of the late 1980s and early 1990s Gorbachev could not ignore these
negative sentiments amongst the population. This was something that no
previous General Secretary had had to face.
In the period from March 1985 to 1989 the Cuban government did not
appear to add to the pressures on Gorbachev regarding relations between
the Soviet Union and Cuba, as unsurprisingly the Castro regime wished
to see the status quo in Soviet-Cuban relations maintained. The nature
and importance of the relationship both economically and also the secu-
rity it provided in the face of continuing United States’ hostility explain
this. The Soviet reforms may have been very different from their own, but
for a large part of this period the Cuban government followed a trend that
had been prevalent in their foreign policy throughout the revolutionary
period; that of a pragmatist approach with the survival of the revolution
being the single most important aspect in it. They may not have liked the
Soviet reform processes but they employed a “wait and see” policy by
making as little comment on the unfolding events in the Soviet Union as
possible for fear that any made could adversely affect Soviet-Cuban rela-
tions.68 In addition, as the Castro regime had witnessed the demise of dé-
tente in the late 1970s, they may have hoped that the Soviet reforms
would have a similar fate in running their course and simply blow them-
selves out, and that Soviet-Cuban relations would return to its traditional
path before they had to make any comment that could potentially jeop-
ardize the relationship.
When Gorbachev visited Cuba in April 1989 many in the West thought
that it would be a turning point in Soviet-Cuban relations with the Soviet
leader imposing his own ideas on his Cuban counterpart. This, however,
was not the result with some believing that Cuba’s position may even
have been strengthened as a result of the two countries signing the Treaty
of Friendship and Cooperation during this trip.69 Although this was the
case, Gorbachev’s trip was indeed pivotal but not for the reasons many
had thought. It was during this trip that the Castro regime’s aversion to
the Soviet reforms, which they had been secretly harbouring for some
time, became very public. This resulted from the fact that when Castro in-
 Soviet-Cuban Relations 39

troduced the Soviet leader to the National Congress of People’s Power on

5 April 1989 he publicly lectured Gorbachev on the reasons why Soviet
style reforms were not needed in Cuba.70
This speech heralded a new stage in Soviet-Cuban relations as through-
out the remainder of 1989 the island’s government’s dislike of the Soviet
reforms became ever more obvious. This may have resulted from the be-
lief that the relationship had become fundamentally altered and therefore
the possible adverse impact on it of any negative comments would be re-
duced. In July 1989 the Cuban leader in his speech to mark the anniver-
sary of the attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953 was again scathing of
the Soviet reforms and the effect they were having on Eastern Europe.71
Moreover, the trial and subsequent execution of General Arnaldo Ochoa
and his associates, also in the summer of 1989, sent a very blunt message
to the Cuban population that reforms similar to those in the Soviet Union
were not going to be repeated in Cuba. This arose as a result of Ochoa
having become a figurehead for discontented army veterans from Angola
and Ethiopia with some believing that he could even have become a pos-
sible challenger to the Cuban leadership. It very much appeared that he
had faced a show trial as both Castro brothers spoke for the prosecution,
but this did end any tentative support that some within the ruling Cuban
elite may have had for the Soviet reforms. This had included Carlos Al-
dana, a member of the politburo of the PCC, and even Carlos Rafael Ro-
dríguez.72
In a similar vein the pro-reform Soviet periodicals Russian News and
Sputnik were banned in the aftermath of the “velvet revolution” in East-
ern Europe. Moreover, policies were implemented to try and offset the
negative economic consequences of the Soviet reforms on the Caribbean
island. This would eventually lead to the “special period in peacetime”
but it was hoped that the other policies would make the island become
more self-sufficient in food production and also that foreign investment
could be encouraged, particularly in tourism, to provide a source of much
needed hard currency.73 These had the effect of reducing Cuban depen-
dence on the Soviet Union but this second point would become vital for
the Cuban Revolution after the end of Soviet-Cuban relations.
As stated, it could be thought that if these programmes were successful
Cuban dependence on the Soviet Union would have decreased which
would have helped reduce the pressure on Gorbachev with regards to the
relationship between the two countries. However, this was not the case as
the events in Cuba in 1989 only further increased the pressure on the Soviet
leader. Many within the Soviet Union perceived the Caribbean island as an
anachronism and to be swimming against world opinion as democracy
swept through both Eastern Europe and Latin America in the late 1980s and
early 1990s. They could not understand why Moscow continued to back
40 Chapter 2

such a regime, and the ever-increasing number of calls for this to change
only increased the pressure on Gorbachev.
The decrease in tension between the two superpowers, as stated, had
reduced the geostrategic importance of the island for the Kremlin, fueled
further calls within the Soviet Union for the relationship to be terminated.
However, the pressure on Gorbachev only further increased as the U.S.
administration used this improvement in relations with Moscow to try
and influence it regarding its relationship with the Cuban Revolution. On
a number of occasions George H. W. Bush told Gorbachev that Soviet-
Cuban relations were hindering further improvement in U.S.-Soviet rela-
tions. By the late 1980s the Cuban Revolution may have been in existence
for 30 years but time had not resulted in Washington’s dislike of it reced-
ing. Moreover, in August 1991 Jorge Mas Canosa, leader of the Cuban
America National Foundation (CANF), made a historic trip to the Soviet
capital where it appeared that even the Cuban exile community were at-
tempting to have an impact on Moscow’s relationship with Havana.74
Contrary to this, and explaining the lack of change in the relationship, a
reading of the Soviet leader’s memoirs would suggest he might have felt
personal affinity towards the island. In conjunction with this, the two coun-
tries had a shared thirty-year history and the relationship may even have
provided a form of stability, and as the terms of trade turned against Cuba
in the late 1980s even a competitive source of sugar, in a fast changing
world. In addition to this, and mirroring the Soviet internal situation, Gor-
bachev was also subjected to pressures from those who wished to see the
status quo with Cuba preserved. In relation to this, the power and influence
of the “Cuban lobby” in preventing further reform cannot be overesti-
mated. The trade agreement for 1991 was very different from previous
ones, as it was to last for only one year and not the more traditional five,
and trade was to be conducted at world market prices. However, the agree-
ment may have been even more different if Konstantin Katushev, who was
not only a former Soviet ambassador to Cuba but also a member of this
lobby, had not been the head of Foreign Economic Relations in Moscow.75
The lobby’s ability to slow reform in the relationship was perfectly il-
lustrated in the aftermath of the August 1991 coup in Moscow as its fail-
ure had also simultaneously ended the lobby’s power as the most signifi-
cant members of the coup had also been Cuba’s closest friends in
Moscow.76 This explains the Castro regime’s lack of comment on the un-
folding events in Moscow at this time, perfectly illustrating both their
‘wait and see’ policy and realist pragmatism, as they could not afford to
back the wrong side for fear of jeopardizing the relationship. Comment
was only made once events in Moscow had been played out and the coup
had failed.77 However, within one month of these dramatic events in
Moscow Gorbachev announced the removal of the final Soviet troops
 Soviet-Cuban Relations 41

from Cuba, illustrating the influence that the lobby had been able to play
in Soviet-Cuban relations. In addition, the government in Havana was ex-
tremely unhappy about this announcement as not only had they not been
consulted about this decision, but Gorbachev had also made it during a
joint press conference in the Soviet capital with the U.S. Secretary of State
James Baker, resulting in accusations appearing that Washington had
been able to influence this decision.78
When compared to his predecessors Mikhail Gorbachev faced many
new and varied pressures with regards to Soviet-Cuban relations and
these had resulted in the relationship in December 1991 being very differ-
ent from what it had been in March 1985. With the reforms in Soviet for-
eign policy, both the geostrategic importance of the island and Marxist-
Leninism in the relationship had decreased. In addition, trade was
fundamentally different as it was by the end of 1991 conducted at world
market prices, an announcement that the final Soviet troops would be re-
moved from Cuba had been made and as a result of the August 1991 coup
in Moscow the island had lost its privileged position within the Soviet
governing elite. In short, Moscow’s relationship with Havana more
closely resembled that which the Soviet Union had with other countries.
The Cuban government may have generally employed a ‘wait and see’
policy, further illustrating the prevalence of realist pragmatism in their
decision making, as they had not wished to risk jeopardizing the rela-
tionship, but they had increased the pressure on Gorbachev regarding So-
viet-Cuban relations when their dislike of his reform processes had be-
come ever more vociferous from 1989 onwards. However, the relationship
continued to exist and at no point had Gorbachev called for it to be ter-
minated and it was only with the implosion of the Soviet Union that Soviet-
Cuban relations came to an abrupt end.

CONCLUSIONS

In the months after the victory of the Cuban Revolution as Havana’s rela-
tionship with Washington soured, it drastically improved with Moscow.
At first Cuba and the Soviet Union appeared very strange bedfellows but
their relationship was very much a product of its time due to the dynam-
ics of the Cold War and the fact that it benefited both countries. At this
time the Soviet Union was attempting to increase its global influence,
with the Cuban Revolution specifically appealing to Moscow due to both
its anti-American sentiments and also the geostrategic importance of the
island for the Soviet Union. In January 1959, closer relations with Moscow
may not have been one of the Cuban Revolution’s original goals but it
most certainly wished to change its relationship with Washington. At the
42 Chapter 2

height of the Cold War, if Havana did not have close relations with the
U.S. it required them with the Soviet Union especially as Washington ap-
peared determined to destroy the new regime in Havana. This would be
a constant factor throughout the Soviet era and would even continue af-
ter the end of the Cold War. In addition, the lack of a Soviet colonial past
and its political and economic models also all appealed to Cuba.
Very quickly a number of pressures appeared that would form the
foundations of the relationship for the next thirty years. Castro proclaim-
ing himself Marxist-Leninist and thus also the revolution in December
1961 was vital in this. Not only did the two countries now have a shared
ideology but this had also increased the pressure on Moscow regarding its
relationship with Cuba. By doing this, Castro had attempted to gain in-
creased security guarantees from the Soviet Union, significant in the af-
termath of the Bay of Pigs and continuing U.S. aggression, and although
these may not have been entirely forthcoming it certainly meant that
Moscow could not see the Cuban Revolution fail. This resulted from Cold
War geopolitics and the tensions that existed between Moscow and
Peking. In addition, the large amounts of aid and trade lavished on Cuba
by the Kremlin also resulted in pressures that ‘tied’ Moscow to Havana. If
the Cuban Revolution failed, these large amounts of money would have
simply been wasted, something that the Soviet Union could not afford.
The close personal affinity between Khrushchev and Castro was also
important in the burgeoning relationship between their two countries.
Khrushchev was very much a member of the “Cuban lobby” that had
quickly appeared after the inception of the relationship. These people
were vital throughout the Soviet era but also partly explains Cuba’s place
as ‘first among equals’ in the Soviet Union.
The events of the Cuban Missile Crisis added further pressure on
Moscow regarding Cuba because if the revolution failed the risks that the
Soviet Union had taken by deploying the missiles to Cuba would have
been in vain. Soviet prestige already dented by these events would have
suffered yet another blow. In addition, it may have also led to more ques-
tions about Soviet revisionism from China. This was something that
Moscow wished to avoid.
These pressures remained in place in March 1985 when Gorbachev be-
came General Secretary of the CPSU but new ones had also appeared in
the intervening years. These included the fact the Cuba remained an im-
portant propaganda tool for Moscow in the Cold War that had taken a
turn for the worse in the early 1980s, a shared twenty-year history and a
large number of joint projects that resulted in the relationship affecting
most parts of society in both countries. Joint education and social pro-
grammes were amongst these as were economic ones. The levels of trade
and aid had continued to escalate which was very beneficial for Cuba, but
 Soviet-Cuban Relations 43

also meant that Moscow continued to be ‘tied’ to Cuba because if the rev-
olution failed these huge amounts of money over twenty years would
have been wasted. Moreover, the “Cuban lobby” remained in place and
Havana had also been able to exert some forms of leverage over Moscow
resulting from, amongst other reasons, joint Cuban and Soviet involve-
ment in Africa and Central America.
However, for the remainder of the Soviet period the relationship would
be affected by a number of powerful new forces, some of which were un-
foreseen, resulting from the various reforms implemented in both coun-
tries. The results of perestroika increased the pressure on Gorbachev as not
only could the Soviet Union not afford to continue to subsidize an ineffi-
cient Cuban economy while it struggled to reform its own, but it could
also have led to awkward questions within the CMEA as to why an inef-
ficient Cuban economy continued to have large amounts of money lav-
ished on it. In light of this, it is surprising that it took so long for these
pressures to appear but this resulted from the traditional low importance
of Cuba for the Soviet elite and also due to the fact the internal Soviet sit-
uation acquired their full attention. Calls for reform only increased due to
glasnost which led many in the Soviet Union to criticise both Soviet-Cuban
relations and also the Cuban Revolution itself, as many began to perceive
it as an anachronism and due to its close association with previous, and
what had become by the late 1980s, discredited Soviet regimes. In the in-
creasingly democratic Soviet Union of the late 1980s and early 1990s this
was something that Gorbachev could not ignore. The result was that those
wanting reform were pulling him in different directions from those who
wished to see the status quo with Cuba preserved.
This situation was further complicated by the fact that the reforms insti-
gated in Cuba were very different from the Soviet ones and appeared to be
more of a return to the ideas of the 1960s. At first this was not apparent as
both governments concentrated on their similarities and the Cuban govern-
ment, although not liking them, employed a ‘wait and see’ policy to unfold-
ing events in the Soviet Union in fear of jeopardizing the relationship. Their
reaction to the August 1991 coup in Moscow was the most graphic illustra-
tion of this. However, this began to change in 1989 as Castro’s dislike of the
Soviet reforms became ever more public from this point onwards. This in-
cluded his very public denouncement of them during Gorbachev’s visit.
This only further increased the pressure on Gorbachev. Moreover, what
would be vital for Russian-Cuban relations after 1991 were the changes in-
stigated by the Castro regime from 1989 onwards in an attempt to offset the
negative consequences of the Soviet reforms, with the desire to attract for-
eign investment from outside the socialist bloc being particularly significant.
Moreover, the “Cuban lobby” remained in place and continued to be able
to exact pressure on the Soviet government regarding Cuba and was able to
44 Chapter 2

slow the rate of reform in Soviet-Cuban relations. Their ability to do this

was most apparent after the defeat of the August 1991 coup, which had si-
multaneously ended their influence as within one month of this Gorbachev
had announced the removal of the final Soviet troops from Cuba.
It appeared U.S. pressure may have been involved in this decision but
Washington had most certainly increased the pressure on Gorbachev to
try and bring influence to bear on Cuba. Moreover, and in relation to it, as
superpower relations improved as a result of “new thinking” in Soviet
foreign policy and the Cold War came to an end, the geostrategic impor-
tance of the island for the Kremlin receded. In addition, the role of Marxist-
Leninism had also decreased in both Soviet foreign policy and its internal
politics. Many of the foundations of Soviet-Cuban relations were begin-
ning to crumble. International relations in general and Soviet-Cuban rela-
tions specifically may have been very different at the end of 1991 but it
was only with the implosion of the Soviet Union that Soviet-Cuban rela-
tions disintegrated. Gorbachev never called for them to be terminated but
only reformed. A variety of pressures had impacted Soviet-Cuban rela-
tions throughout its existence, with some being constant while many had
changed and others had simply vanished. However, in the New World
Order of the 1990s some of these not only survived the end of Soviet-
Cuban relations but others would reappear which would be vital for the
relationship that evolved between Moscow and Havana.

NOTES

1. Nikhita Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, (New York: Penguin Books,

1971), 450.
2. Diplomaticheskii slovar A-U, Tom 1, (Moscow: Nauka, 1984), 319. Andrei
Gromyko, Pamiatnoe, Kniga Pervaya, (Moscow: Politizdat, 1988), 389–98.
3. Aleksandr Fursenko, and Timothy Naftali, “One Hell of a Gamble” The Secret
History of the Cuban Missile Crisis, (London: John Murray, 1997), 12.
4. Relations between Havana and Washington deteriorated at this time, illus-
trated by the effects of Castro’s April 1959 trip to the United States, the radical con-
tent of the 1960 Declaration of San Jose, which led Washington to believe that the
Monroe Doctrine, which gave Washington the right to intervene in Latin America
to prevent the influence of outside powers increasing in the region, had been in-
fringed and Castro’s counter to this, the Declaration of Havana on 2 September
1960. For these events see Dwight D. Eisenhower, The White House Years Waging
Peace 1956–1961 (London: Heinemann, 1966), 521–33. H. Thomas, Cuba or The Pur-
suit of Freedom, (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1971), 1234–54.
5. For analysis of Washington’s Cuba policy see: Morris Morley, Imperial State
and Revolution. The United States and Cuba 1952–1986, (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1987), 72–146. Juan Carlos Rodríguez, The Bay of Pigs and the CIA,
(Melbourne: Ocean Press, 1999).
 Soviet-Cuban Relations 45

6. Fursenko, and Naftali, “One Hell of a Gamble,” 27.

7. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, 475. On the Soviet foreign policy shift
that occurred after Stalin’s death see: Margot Light, The Soviet Theory of Interna-
tional Relations, (Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books, 1988), 99–124. P. Zwick, Soviet For-
eign Relations Process and Policy, (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice Hall, 1990), 37–45.
V. Zubok and C. Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War, (Cambridge, MA: Har-
vard University Press, 1996), 180–235.
8. The new regime in Moscow hoped that the Soviet Union could become
more influential in the Third World by offering trade or aid to the newly inde-
pendent countries. The agreement with Egypt was announced in Izvestia, 25 April
1954, 8; with Afghanistan in Pravda, 30 April 1954, 4; and with Iran in Pravda, 19
June 1954, 3.
9. G. J. Boughton, Soviet-Cuban Relations 1956–1962, (Michigan State Univer-
sity PhD Thesis, 1972), 10. Thomas, Cuba or The Pursuit of Freedom, 1216–17.
10. Samuel Farber, The Origins of the Cuban Revolution. Reconsidered, (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 147.
11. Raúl had not just traveled to Eastern Europe but on his return from Europe
had spent considerable time with the KGB officer Nikolai Leonov as they were
passengers on the same ship as they traveled from Genoa to Latin America in
1953. Thomas, Cuba or The Pursuit of Freedom, 826. Fursenko and Naftali, “One Hell
of a Gamble,” 33–34.
12. Wayne Smith, The Closest of Enemies. A Personal and Diplomatic Account of
U.S.-Cuban Relations Since 1957, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1987), 144.
13. Revolución 2 December 1961, 1. Ernesto Guevara, The Motorcycle Diaries: A
Journey Around South America, (London: Fourth Estate, 1995), 61–64.
D. E. Schulz, The Cuban Revolution and the Soviet Union, (Ohio University PhD The-
sis, 1977), 14–19.
14. As outlined in chapter 1 Erisman details five different paradigms in Cuban
foreign policy. These are the realist scenario, the use of foreign policy as part of a
revolutionary crusade, the role of Fidel himself, the surrogate/superclient theses
and dependency theory. Michael Erisman, Cuba’s Foreign Relations in a Post-Soviet
World, (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000), 22–48. This speech was just
one example of Castro trying to manipulate Cuba’s relationship with the Soviet
Union by attempting to increase the pressure on Moscow.
15. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers, 461. James Blight, and Philip Brenner,
Sad and Luminous Days. Cuba’s Struggle with the Superpowers after the Cuban Missile
Crisis, (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2002), 35–85. Yuri Pavlov,
Soviet-Cuban Alliance 1959–1991, (Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1994),
45–61. It has also been stated that the Castro regime did not want the Soviet Union
to try and carry out the deployment of the missiles covertly. Tomas Diez Acosta,
October 1962. The ‘Missile’ Crisis As Seen From Cuba, (New York: Pathfinder, 2002)
103–05.
16. Document 1, Cuban Record of Conversation, Mikoyan and Cuban Leader-
ship, Havana 4 November 1962 in Cold War International History Project Bulletin, Is-
sues 8-9 Winter 1996/1997, Washington DC: Woodrow Wilson International Cen-
ter for Scholars. Issues 8–9 (Winter 1996/1997), 339–42.
17. Document 1, Cuban Record of Conversation, 339–42.
46 Chapter 2

18. The Cuban leader may have traveled to the Soviet Union twice in the three
years immediately after the Cuban Missile Crisis but Che Guevara made three
trips in the same period. In addition, Cuba also signed two trade agreements with
the Soviet Union with the second being the first to last for a duration of five years.
Pravda, 18 January 1964, 1–2.
19. The 1964 agreement set both the levels of sugar and the price which
Moscow would pay until 1970. These levels were 2.1m tons in 1965, 3m tons in
1966, 4m tons in 1967, and 5m tons in both 1968 and 1969. The price was to be 6
US cents free alongside ship. This meant that delivery was included in the price.
Pravda, 23 January 1964, 1.
20. Blight and Brenner, Sad and Luminous Days, 35–85.
21. Ernesto Guevara, “Discurso en el Segundo Seminario Económico de Soli-
daridad Afroasiática” in Ernesto Che Guevara escritos y discursos, 7, (Havana: Edito-
rial de Ciencias Sociales, 1985), 341–54.
22. Granma, 7 February 1966, 1. Pravda, 2 April 1966, 7.
23. Fidel Castro, Fidel Castro Speaks, (London: Allen Lane The Penguin Press,
1969), 161–80.
24. Blight and Brenner, Sad and Luminous Days, 99-104. Erisman, Cuba’s Foreign
Relations, 80–82.
25. In relation to Cuban security Erisman states that the Cuban government
was happy with Soviet action as it illustrated that Moscow was prepared to use
military power to defend socialism, which after the Cuban Missile Crisis Havana
had been uncertain of. Erisman, Cuba’s Foreign Relations, 76.
26. Peter Shearman, The Soviet Union and Cuba, (London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul, 1987), 35.
27. Blight and Brenner, Sad and Luminous Days, 33–76.
28. Ibid. Pavlov, Soviet-Cuban Alliance, 90–92.
29. Cuba did not appear on the list of participating communist parties at this
conference. Pravda, 28 February 1968, 1.
30. J.D. Rudolph, The Evolution of a Crisis, (London: Praeger, 1992) 53–76.
31. Moreover, during this trip an exhibition was held in Cuba to mark the one
hundredth anniversary of Lenin’s birth. Pravda, 18 November 1969, 5. Pravda, 3
April 1971, 6–7.
32. Pravda, 3 September 1971, 4 and Granma, 12 July 1972, 1. Pravda, 28 June
1972, 1–2.
33. As Castro left Moscow five days before Cuba gained membership to the
CMEA Carmelo Mesa-Lago has written that he may have also wanted member-
ship to the Warsaw Pact. Carmelo Mesa-Lago, Cuba in the 1970s, Pragmatism and
Institutionalization, (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1974), 16–17.
M. Robins has suggested that this did not happen as it meant that Moscow did not
have to grant Cuba a formal defense treaty. M. Robins, “The Soviet-Cuba Rela-
tionship” in Soviet Foreign Policy in the 1980s, ed. Roger E. Kanet, (New York:
Praeger, 1982) 152.
34. Nicola Miller, Soviet Relations with Latin America 1959–1987, (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1989), 92.
35. Soviet-Cuban trade did not dramatically rise with the Caribbean island’s
membership to the CMEA. In 1972 it was 938,464 million pesos and for 1973
 Soviet-Cuban Relations 47

1,287,685 million pesos. However, Cuban trade with the other members of this or-
ganisation did increase sharply. Anuario Estadístico de Cuba, (Comité Estatal de
Estadísticas: Havana, 1975), 159. On the economic significance of the relationship
to Cuba Peter Shearman has written, “Unlike other distant Third World client
states of the Soviet Union, its very economic survival was dependent on aid from
Moscow. Shearman, The Soviet Union and Cuba, 29.
36. Pravda, 31 January 1974, 5.
37. Peter Shearman, “The Soviet Union and Cuba: the ‘Best’ of Friends” in Trou-
bled Friendships Moscow’s Third World Ventures, ed. by Margot Light, (London,
British Academic Press, 1993), 170.
38. Pravda, 25 February 1976, 3. Mesa-Lago, Cuba in the 1970s, 10–12. Shearman,
“The Soviet Union and Cuba,” 173. González has also stated this but on Castro’s
role in the process he wrote, “Fidel’s position as the supreme lider maximo has
now been institutionalized in his multiple roles as First Secretary, president of
both the Council of State and Council of Ministers, and commander in chief.” Ed-
ward González, “Institutionalization, Political Elites and Foreign Affairs” in Cuba
in the World, ed. Carmelo Mesa-Lago and Cole Blasier, (Pittsburgh, University of
Pittsburgh Press, 1979), 16.
39. Granma, 19 December 1975, 2–7. Munck, Revolutionary Trends, 53–57. In the
five different paradigms in Cuban foreign policy as outlined by Erisman he states
that Havana was continually striving for increased independence from Moscow.
Erisman, Cuba’s Foreign Relations, 22–48.
40. Erisman, Cuba’s Foreign Relations, 2000, 33–36.
41. Shearman, “The Soviet Union,” 172.
42. Domínguez, “Political and Military Limitations,” 107. Levesque, The USSR
and the Cuban Revolution, 188. Fidel Castro, “Angola: African Giron” in Fidel Castro
Speeches. Cuba’s Internationalist Foreign Policy, (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1981),
91–92. Erisman, Cuba’s Foreign Relations, 71, 80–82. On the decision to send troops
to Angola, Carlos Rafael Rodríguez told Alexander Haig, the United States Secre-
tary of State, in December 1981 during secret talks held in México City that “I can
assure unequivocally, in as much as I played a direct role in this matter, that when
the decision to dispatch Cuban forces into Angola was made, we communicated
nothing about it to the Soviet Union.” “Transcript of Meeting between US Secre-
tary of State Alexander M. Haig, Jr., and Cuban Vice Premier Carlos Rafael Ro-
dríguez, México City, 23 November 1981” in Cold War International History Project,
Bulletin, Issues 8–9, 210.
43. Jorge Domínguez, To Make a World Safe for Revolution. Cuba’s Foreign Policy
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 145, 229.
44. Erisman, Cuba’s Foreign Relations, 68–70. González, “Institutionalization,”
17, 23. Domínguez, To Make a World Safe for Revolution, 151. Domínguez, “The
Armed Forces and Foreign Relations,” 53.
45. Erisman, Cuba’s Foreign Relations, 103–4.
46. K. U. Chernenko, Izbrannye rechi i stat’I (Moscow: Politizdat, 1984), 424–28.
47. A change in United States foreign policy had taken place in the late 1970s with
it once again becoming much more pro-active. The catalyst for this had been the
Iranian Revolution but it soon spread to Latin America. This policy became known
as the “Carter Doctrine.” Morley, Imperial State and Revolution, 366. Washington’s
48 Chapter 2

Cuba policy had since the early-1960s been heavily influenced by the Cuban-
America exile community as a result of their great wealth, the significance of the
state of Florida in Presidential elections that meant no Presidential candidate could
afford to ignore them and the creation of the Cuban American National Foundation
that was excellent at lobbying politicians in Washington. Morris Morley and Chris
McGillion, Unfinished Business. America and Cuba After the Cold War, 1989–2001,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 12–13.
48. Pravda, 11 November 1984, 1, 4.
49. V. Lavrentyev, ‘USSR-Cuban Brotherhood and Cooperation,’ (FBIS
LD182341 Moscow Domestic Service in Russian 0615, 18 April 1985).
50. Anuario Estadístico de Cuba, 1975, 1980; 168, 184–205. For economic analysis
of Soviet-Cuban relations after Cuba had gained access to the CMEA see amongst
others: Julio Díaz Vázquez, Cuba y el CAME (Havana: Editorial de Ciencias So-
ciales, 1988). A.D. Bekareich, “USSR-Cuba. Collaboration of Experience and Per-
spectives” in USSR-Latin America. Collaboration of Writings and Perspectives,
(Moscow: Nauka, 1989), 41–53. J.L. Rodríguez, “Las Relaciones Económicas Cuba-
URSS” Temas de Economía Mundial l, (1986), 7–33.
51. González, “Castro and Cuba’s New Orthodoxy,” 11.
52. Pravda, 24 April 1985, 1.
53. Yegor Ligachev, Inside Gorbachev’s Kremlin, (Boulder, CO: Westview Press,
1996), 313.
54. Pravda, 26 February 1986, 5. It has been suggested that many of the out-
comes of the Soviet reform processes were unforeseen as this process had been
formulated on an adhoc basis. Ligachev, Inside Gorbachev’s Kremlin, 357–58.
55. In addition to this, the reforms in Soviet foreign policy also questioned the
ideas of the inevitability of the world revolution, reassessed traditional thinking
towards both the United States and its population, as Moscow wanted better re-
lations with the West, and a re-thinking of its nuclear strategy also commenced.
This change in foreign policy was aided by an enormous changeover in personnel
in the foreign policy making apparatus, with the highest profile example being
Andrei Gromyko being replaced as the Minister of Foreign Affairs by Eduard She-
vardnadze. Pravda, 26 February 1986, 6. The result of this, amongst others, was a
reduction in tension between the superpowers. For more analysis on this see:
Mikhail Gorbachev, Perestroika i novoe myshlenie dlia nashei strany i dlia vsego mira,
(Moscow: Politizdat, 1987), 158, 197–267. Stephen White, Gorbachev and After,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 174–214. Mikhail Gorbachev,
Zhizn i Reformy Kniga 2, (Moscow: Izdatelstvo “Novosti,” 1995), 312. S. F.
Akhromeev, and G. M. Kornienko. Glazami marshala i diplomata: kriticheskii vzgliad
na vneshniu politiku SSSR do i posle 1985 goda, (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye ot-
nosheniia, 1992), 55. Eduard Shevardnadze, Moi Vybor v Zashchitu Demokratii i Svo-
body, (Moscow: Novosti, 1991), 47.
56. The effects of glasnost were not, however, immediately felt and it was not
until after the Chernobyl disaster in April 1986, it had taken Moscow three weeks
to admit this accident had occurred, that the process accelerated. For a full analy-
sis of this see White, Gorbachev and After, 70–73.
57. Castro had talked about the problems facing the island on a number of oc-
casions see: Supplement to Granma 21 April 1986, Granma Weekly Review 2 August
 Soviet-Cuban Relations 49

1986, 3 and at the 3rd Congress of the PCC. Fidel Castro, Fidel Castro: ideología, con-
ciencia y trabajo político, (Havana: Editora Política, 1986).
58. Antoni Kapcia, The Cuban Revolution in Crisis, (Research Institute for
Study of Conflict and Terrorism, Conflict Studies, 1992), 256. Antoni Kapcia, Po-
litical Change in Cuba: Before and After the Exodus, (Institute of Latin American
Studies, Occasional Papers No. 19, University of London). Kapcia, “Political
Change in Cuba: The Domestic Context for Foreign Policy” in Redefining Cuban
Foreign Policy, 27–28. Jorge Domínguez, “The Political Impact on Cuba of the Re-
form and Collapse of Communist Regimes” in Cuba After the Cold War, 104–17.
Marifeli Pérez -Stable, The Cuban Revolution: Origins, Course and Legacy, (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 154. Andrew Zimbalist. “Cuban Political
Economy and Cubanology: An Overview” in Cuban Political Economy: Controver-
sies in Cubanology, ed. by Andrew Zimbalist, (Boulder, CO: Westview Press,
1988.), 72.
59. Supplement to Granma, 21 April 1986.
60. For examples of this see: Moscow in Spanish to Cuba 0244 GMT 27 Sep-
tember 1987 (FBIS-SOV 6 October 1987, 33, PA021650). Carlos Rafael Rodríguez,
“La Oportunidad Que No Podernos Rehusar” America Latina No. 8, (1986): 4–8.
61. Ligachev’s speech contained the reasons why the reforms were needed in
the Soviet Union and significantly also in CMEA countries, which included Cuba.
Granma 6 February 1986, 7. In his speech to the 27th Congress of the CPSU Castro
had pointedly talked of national liberation movements when Gorbachev’s earlier
speech to the same congress had not, illustrating the differences in opinions.
Pravda, 27 February 1986, 7.
62. At the 44th session of the CMEA held in Prague in July 1988, Nikolai
Ryzhkov’s, Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, stated in his speech, “It is
of paramount importance to make economic assistance significantly more effec-
tive and to improve the use that Vietnam, Cuba and Mongolia make of their own
resources, as well as of outside resources, to resolve key problems in these coun-
tries’ social and economic development and ensue their participation in the inter-
national division of labour.” Pravda, 6 July 1988, 4.
63. For this type of article see: Literturnaya Gazeta, 21 October 1987, 14. P. Bogo-
molov, “Plans by the Ocean. Journalist Raises Problem” Pravda, 1 June 1987, 5.
64. Vladislav Chirkov, “An Uphill Task” New Times, 33, (17 August 1987), 16–17.
Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, “A Difficult But Steady Ascent” New Times, 41, (19 Octo-
ber 1987), 16–21.
65. In an article in Moscow Komsomolskaya Pravda the Castro brothers’ personal
lives had been attacked with amongst other things the number of houses that they
owned was questioned as was even the number of children that each had fa-
thered. Moscow Komsomolskaya Pravda 28 August 1990, 2. (FBIS-SOV 4 September
1990, 44-45, PM3108115990). For the Cuban response to this see: Jose Ramon Bal-
aguer “Lies and Insults” Pravda, 26 October 1990, 5.
66. In his speech to the Congress the outspoken economist N.P. Shmelyev had
questioned Moscow paying 400 percent of the world market price for Cuban
sugar. Izvestia, 9 June 1989, 10.
67. For examples of these types of reports see: K. Khachaturov, “Latin America
and Us” International Affairs (10), (1992), 32–39. M.A. Belya, “Cuba: How Distant?”
50 Chapter 2

Latinskaia Amerika No. 9 (1991), 9. P. Bogomolov “Switching Spigots” Pravda, 24 Oc-

tober 1991, 4.
68. For this type of reporting see: Granma, 25 February 1988, 6; Granma, 14 July
1988, 5; Granma, 19 July 1988, 6; and Granma, 25 November 1988, 4.
69. Granma, 5 April 1989, 3. Yuri Pavlov, Soviet-Cuban Alliance 1959–1991, (Pis-
cataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1994), 134.
70. Granma, 5 April 1989, 2. It has been suggested that Gorbachev’s Perestroika i
novoe myshlenie dlia nashei strany i dlia vsego mira, published in Cuba in 1988, was
not the work of a socialist mind. Interview with Dr Rodolfo Fonte, a retired ideo-
logue to the Central Committee for the PCC, in Havana over a number of days be-
tween 14 and 30 November 2000.
71. Granma, 28 July 1989, 4.
72. Kapcia, The Cuban Revolution in Crisis, Kapcia, Political Change in Cuba. An-
dreas Oppenheimer, Castro’s Final Hour, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 91.
Domínguez, “The Political Impact,” 104–17.
73. On this decision Castro said, “We could not hesitate to prevent the circula-
tion of certain Soviet publications which have been against the policies of the
URSS and socialism. They are for the ideas of imperialism, change and the coun-
terrevolution.” Granma, 8 December 1989, 4. Castro announced the “special period
in peacetime” on 10 March 1990 at the Cuban Federation of Women (FMC) 5th
Congress. Granma Supplement, 10 March 1990, IV. The first hotel opened in con-
junction with foreign money in Varadero in May 1990. Granma International, 27
May 1990, 3.
74. Gorbachev talks about Bush attempting to influence him regarding Soviet-
Cuban relations on a number of occasion in his memoirs. Gorbachev, Zhizn i Re-
formy Kniga 2, 425–29. During his visit to Moscow Mas Canosa met both Boris
Yeltsin and Boris Pankin. Moscow Central Television First Programme Network
2055 GMT 6 September 1991 (FBIS-SOV 10 September 1991, 13, LD0609223691).
75. Gorbachev, Zhizn i Reformy Kniga 2, 417–29. Granma, 31 December 1990, 1.
Katushev had close ties to the Cuban ruling elite and on leaving his post as Soviet
ambassador to Cuba in November 1985 Castro had awarded him the Order of Sol-
idarity for his work on the island. Granma, 23 November 1985, 1.
76. Mervyn J. Bain, Soviet-Cuban Relations 1985 to 1991. Changing Perceptions in
Moscow and Havana, (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007), 94–95.
77. The Cuban government’s response to the August coup came ten days after
it had begun and had subsequently been crushed with a Granma editorial on 29
August 1991 that was very similar in content to Castro’s speech on 26 July 1989 as
it blamed the problems facing the Soviet Union on the policies implemented at the
27th Congress of the CPSU in February 1986. Granma, 29 August 1991, 1. This was
very different from the very concise report at the start of the coup that had simply
stated that Gennadii Yanaev had replaced Gorbachev as President of the Soviet
Union due to ill-health. Granma, 19 August 1991, 1.
78. Boris Pankin believed that Baker had been able to bring pressure to bear on
Gorbachev over this decision and that relations with the U.S. were certainly sig-
nificant in it. Boris Pankin, The Last One Hundred Days of the Soviet Union, (London:
I. B. Tauris Publishers, 1996), 71.
 3

The Continuing
Role of Ideology

A s detailed in chapter 2, Soviet-Cuban relations had been subjected to

a number of pressures throughout its duration which had not just
pushed the two countries together in the late 1950s and early 1960s but
had then formed its foundations for the next thirty years. However, the
implosion of the Soviet Union, which simultaneously ended Soviet-
Cuban relations, meant that many of these pressures simply vanished.
Chief amongst these was Marxist-Leninism which had been of the utmost
importance in the relationship. Moreover, its removal from the internal
policies pursued by the Kremlin would also impact on Russian-Cuban re-
lations, but the result was that the disappearance of Marxist-Leninism
was a key factor in the massive downturn in relations between Moscow
and Havana in the period from 1992 to 1994.
This downturn was so swift and dramatic that by the end of 1992 it
would have appeared to the casual observer as if the thirty-year relation-
ship between Moscow and Havana had never existed as many aspects of
the relationship had been destroyed, with the removal of Marxist-Leninism
being fundamental to this. The result was that Moscow was no longer
‘tied’ to Havana due to ideology, and in conjunction with improved rela-
tions between Moscow and Washington, this meant that the geostrategic
importance of a Marxist-Leninist state in the Caribbean for the Kremlin
had simply vanished. This could be seen in September 1992 when it was
announced that the final 1,500 Russian troops would be removed from
Cuba by mid-1993, as their presence in Cuba “no longer makes sense” with
the disappearance of the Soviet Union.1 In addition, it also meant that the
existence of joint projects between the two countries no longer illustrated

51
52 Chapter 3

the superiority of the Marxist-Leninist system compared to the capitalist

one and, therefore, also lost their importance for Moscow. This was illus-
trated on 7 September 1992 when Fidel Castro announced that the joint
project to build the nuclear power plant at Juragua had been mothballed.
The reason being the Russian Federation wanted $300,000 a month in hard
currency for the wages of the Russian experts working on this project, and
this was simply a prohibitive cost for the Cuban government.2
In 1992, further illustrating the very different nature of relations be-
tween Havana and Moscow with the removal of Marxist-Leninism was
that both the book, On Eve of Collapse, was published in Russia whose con-
tent was highly critical of the Castro regime, and also the first Cuban dis-
sident group, Cuba Union, was even created in Russia, neither of which
would have taken place during the Soviet era.3 Besides this, the Cuban
American National Foundation (CANF) attempted to increase the influ-
ence that it had gained in the Russian capital in the final months of the So-
viet Union by applying for three hundred visas for Cubans living in Rus-
sia to be allowed to relocate to the United States. In addition, the
prominent Cuban-Americans Carlos Alberto Montaner and Carlos Fan-
qui visited the Russian capital in May 1992 for a conference held on Cuba
which debated what would happen to the island with the end of Soviet-
Cuban relations. It was highly critical of the Caribbean island and its gov-
ernment with A. Tsipko of the Gorbachev Foundation not only comparing
Fidel Castro to Adolf Hitler but also mocking the phrase “socialism or
death” which the Cuban leader had taken to finishing his speeches with
when he said, “Today Fidel says ‘socialism or death.’ This phrase should
really be ‘My power or your death.’”4 Moreover, the Ochoa case was even
discussed, which they believed had been a call for change on the island
and the former head of the Cuban army in Africa was described as “an
outstanding person, who was not allowed to fulfil his potential.”5 Such
discussions had never taken place in 1989, further illustrating the very
different nature of Russian-Cuban relations.
Moscow’s voting behaviour at various United Nations (UN) forums
also highlighted both the fundamental change in relations between the
two countries, and also Russians’ attitudes towards the Caribbean island.
In October 1992, in a further attempt to hasten the demise of the Castro
regime in light of the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the Cuban De-
mocracy Act, or Torricelli Bill, which further tightened the U.S. economic
embargo against Cuba, became law. A resolution condemning it was
placed before the UN in November 1992, and in the ensuing vote the Rus-
sian Federation abstained.6 If this was not a big enough shock for Havana,
Moscow voted against Havana at the UN Convention on Human Rights
in Geneva in 1992. This was truly historic, as Moscow had never voted in
this manner before, but it was repeated in 1993 and 1995. Moreover, also
 The Continuing Role of Ideology 53

in 1992 the Russian parliament held hearings on the subject of Cuba’s hu-
man rights record.7 A number of reasons explain this which will be dis-
cussed in chapter 5, but the fact that Moscow no longer had to defend a
fellow Marxist-Leninist state in these forums was a key factor in the Rus-
sian Federation voting in this manner.
The deterioration in relations was not just political but also economic.
In 1991 delivery problems of Soviet goods to the Caribbean may have
been blamed for the sudden drop in trade levels, but they fell still further
in 1992, when it crashed to a mere 823 million pesos, a figure less than 25
percent of the 1991 level, or below 9 percent of trade conducted in 1988.8
In four short years Havana had had to withstand a drop in excess of 90
percent, in trade with Moscow. This dramatic fall in trade continued in
1993 and 1994 but is even more graphically illustrated if a comparison to
1965 or the first five-year plan between the Soviet Union and Cuba is
made. If 1965 has a base figure of 100, 1992 has a figure of 110, 1993 a fig-
ure of 71 and 1994 only has a figure of 43. In the late 1980s, even as the
terms of trade had begun to turn against Cuba, this figure had exceeded
1100 or even 1200, but in 1994, twenty-nine years after the first five-year
agreement, trade was less that half of the 1965 level.9 The trade that did
take place consisted mainly of Russian oil being exchanged for Cuban
sugar, and the reasons for this will be analysed in detail in chapter 4.
Figure 3.1 further illustrates this spectacular fall in trade between Ha-
vana and Moscow in the years immediately after the disintegration of the
Soviet Union, which had a catastrophic effect on the Cuban economy, as

Figure 3.1. Trade between Moscow and Havana

54 Chapter 3

over 70 percent of the Caribbean island’s trade had been conducted with
the Soviet Union. This had been despite continued Cuban attempts dur-
ing the Soviet era to reduce dependency on Moscow, but the situation was
so dire that in 1993 Raúl Castro described its effect on the Cuban economy
was “as if a nuclear bomb had exploded.”10
Moreover, the seriousness of the situation is further shown by Figure 3.2
which has an even steeper downward gradient than Figure 3.1. Cuban im-
ports of Russian goods were falling even more quickly than overall trade
between the two countries. In 1992 Russian imports made up only 23 per-
cent of total trade and in 1993 this fell to just 13 percent. The Soviet Union
had been the source of many important goods for Cuba and this downturn
did not only still further weaken the island’s economy, but it also adversely
affected its citizens with the “special period in peacetime” becoming in-
creasingly grave as amongst other things consumer goods virtually van-
ished in this period. A variety of socio-economic figures illustrate this
point, not least Cuba’s falling Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which fell for
four straight years from 1990 with the decrease in the years from 1991 to
1993 all exceeding 10 percent.11 The result of this was an increase in tension
on the island which many observers believed would be terminal for the
Castro regime. Although this did not happen it did lead to the balsero cri-
sis of August 1994 when over 25,000 Cubans had fled the island.12
As stated in chapters 1 and 2, Marxist-Leninism had been a cornerstone
of Soviet-Cuban relations but its importance had been reduced during the
Gorbachev era, which had badly affected the relationship, but in the years
after 1992 it was completely removed from it. This meant that one of the

Figure 3.2. Cuban Imports of Russian Goods

 The Continuing Role of Ideology 55

key reasons for the relationship’s continuation had simply evaporated

overnight, as had the importance for the Kremlin of a socialist state in the
western hemisphere, and this partly explains the massive downturn in
both political and economic relations in the period from 1992 to 1994. On
this Nadya Plankton, co-organiser of the cinema, video and graphic arts
project entitled ‘Days of the Russian contemporary culture in Havana’
which was held in Havana in November 2005, has written that for Russia,
“Cuba was the first country that has been stroked off the friends’ list, it was
wiped out from the world’s map.”13 Both Boris Yeltsin and the Liberal
Westernizers, apparent victory in the debate over Russian foreign policy
were fundamental to this. Not only was Yeltsin and their ideas most cer-
tainly not based on Marxist-Leninism, but they also believed that it was
not possible for Moscow in the early 1990s to have close relations with both
Havana and Washington and due to both the importance that the Russian
government attached to relations with the U.S. at this time, and the re-
moval of Marxist-Leninism from it, relations with Cuba suffered.14
In addition, internally Russia was also undergoing an economic transi-
tion as the Yeltsin government whole-heartedly embraced the ideas of the
neoliberal economic model, based on very different foundations from the
Soviet planned economy. This had a number of knock-on effects for
Russian-Cuban relations. A number of the new Russian companies that ap-
peared at this time who were no longer constrained by political motives
simply did not wish to trade with Cuba in the traditional manner but in-
stead wished to implement new terms of trade which the Caribbean island
simply could not afford. The Russian desire for Cuba to pay for its experts
working on the Juragua project in hard currency was a perfect example of
this. Moreover, as the Russian economy was thrown into turmoil by the
harsh policies implemented by the Kremlin, who wished to move to the
market economy as quickly as possible, more established Russian compa-
nies at this time were in no position to compete with their Western coun-
terparts in an increasingly competitive Cuban market. This was the logical
conclusion of neoliberal economics as it is simply the most efficient and
competitive companies that thrive in such a model. As stated, Russian ex-
ports to Cuba falling at a faster rate than imports from Cuba to Russia
graphically illustrated this point. In January 2006, Sergey Lavrov, the Rus-
sian Foreign Minister, wrote, “Our ties survived various stages: from
growth in the middle of the last century to an open decline of the 1990s,
partly due to Russia’s shift to a market model of development.”15
On this Yuri Pavlov has written that Yeltsin finished the de-ideologization
process begun by Gorbachev, and A. Ermakov, head of the Department on
Cuba in the Russian Latin American Department, stated in an interview
in February 1992 that ideology no longer played any part in relations be-
tween Havana and Moscow. Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev
56 Chapter 3

was much more forthright when he wrote that, “it is necessary to create
normal links between our two countries, after an abnormal fragile stereo-
type, which was based on ‘revolutionary romanticism’ which was politi-
cally and economically onerous for the USSR.”16
In addition, and related to this, the removal of Marxist-Leninism from
the relationship and the victory of the Liberal Westernizers in Russia was
also symbolic of the defeat of the “Cuban lobby” in Moscow who had
most certainly believed in this ideology. As stated in chapter 2, they had
been very influential in shielding the island from some of the adverse ef-
fects of Gorbachev’s reforms in the 1980s but their disappearance re-
moved this important brake to reform that resulted in changed relations
between Havana and Moscow not just speeding up, but the relationship
virtually disintegrating.
However, in the new democratic Russia Cuba remained a very emotive
subject for many Russians with Plankton believing that at this time a per-
son’s thinking on the “island of freedom” could even be used to show
their political orientation. Some were extremely unhappy with the effects
that Yeltsin’s policies were having for Cuba, blaming him for the grave sit-
uation that the Caribbean island found itself in, with the Russian Presi-
dent even being described as “a cowboy without the hat.”17 However,
with the Liberal Westernizers to the fore and as a result of both the Castro
regime’s previous close association with former discredited Soviet
regimes, and its refusal to change its socialist nature despite world events
which was illustrated by it being referred to as a “totalitarian regime”
during the 1992 Moscow conference which analysed the Cuban situation,
this for many simply provided further reasons for the relationship be-
tween the two countries to be terminated.18
The Cuban response to these events was extremely interesting and not
what may have been expected because although the Castro regime was no
longer constrained by a shared ideology or diplomatic protocol its reac-
tion was in many ways not dissimilar to the Gorbachev era of Soviet-
Cuban relations, as little or no analysis on events in Russia was given.
Granma did print a number of articles on the unfolding situation in the
former Soviet Union with many concentrating on the socio-economic
problems that faced the vast proportion of the population. A number of
Cuban academic articles at this time also commented upon this, as did
Castro who on a number of occasions also highlighted the socio-political
problems that engulfed Russia in the 1990s. He not only commented that
the effect of these reforms could be extremely dangerous due the fact that
Russia was a nuclear power, but interestingly he appeared to lay much of
the blame for Russia’s problems at forces from outside the Russian Feder-
ation, the implementation of International Monetary Fund (IMF) and
World Bank policies in particular, but also on the increased influence of
 The Continuing Role of Ideology 57

the mafia. As stated, Raúl Castro may have compared the effect of the loss
of the Soviet trade to the Cuban economy to that of a nuclear explosion
but he too blamed forces from outwith the Soviet Union for its collapse.19
This is not surprising due to their ideological aversion to both of these or-
ganisations policies but these attacks on the socio-political problems in
Russia also sent a very clear message to the island’s population: this was
the outcome of attempts to reform the socialist system, and would be the
fate awaiting them if a similar situation arose in Cuba.
Moreover, the Cuban academic Sofía Hernández Marmal, a researcher
at the Centro de Estudios Europeos (CEE) in Havana, has written that ne-
oliberalism resulted in an “economic Darwinism” appearing that hurt the
vast proportion of the Russian population. In addition to the criticism of
the IMF and World Bank the role of the United States was also attacked.
This will be examined in more depth in chapter 5 but Cuba was of the
opinion that the U.S. belief in free market economy and the influence that
Washington had in Moscow at this time had also been responsible for the
problems suffered by the Russian economy and in turn the country’s pop-
ulation. Moreover, this also had a knock-on effect for Russian foreign pol-
icy as specifically they believed that Kozyrev had fallen “in love with the
United States and the U.S way of life,” which had resulted in the appear-
ance of the “Kozyrev Doctrine” with its emphasis on good relations with
the West and U.S. in particular. 20
In August 1994, in a speech to Cuban solidarity groups in Colombia, the
Cuban leader was much more forthright on the economic effects that the
end of Soviet-Cuban relations had had on the Caribbean island. However,
it appears that the real intended audience was not an international one
but instead an internal Cuban one. In this speech he said, “when we are
subjected to a double blockade, because we practically do not have any
commerce with former socialist countries and with Russia.”21 This com-
parison to the U.S. economic embargo is significant for a number of rea-
sons, as it not only illustrated the impact that the Cuban leadership be-
lieved that the end of Soviet-Cuban relations had had for Cuba, but it was
also an attempt to absolve them of blame for the dire condition of the is-
land’s economy in the early 1990s. Traditionally the U.S. embargo had
been used by the Cuban elite to blame external reasons for the island’s
economic problems and Castro was using the fall in trade with Moscow
in a similar manner to ‘explain’ the worst economic crisis that had hit
Cuba in the revolutionary era. The timing of this speech was no accident
as it was at the very moment that the balsero crisis, due to the build up of
internal pressure as a result of the island’s failing economy, was about to
explode. Castro was attempting to use this speech to shift the blame for
this away from himself and his government to once again external reasons
beyond their control.
58 Chapter 3

More forthright criticism of the downturn in relations between Havana

and Moscow may have been expected from the Cuban government, but
in the situation they found themselves in the early to mid-1990s they had
a severe lack of alternative options as any influence that they may have
had in Moscow during the Soviet era as a result of a shared ideology, a
semblance of leverage or the role of the “Cuban lobby” had disappeared.
However, what was absolutely crucial was that even in 1992 exchanges of
Cuban sugar for Russian oil were mooted. As detailed, trade may have
been a fraction of earlier levels, but in these very difficult days for the Cas-
tro regime with the very survival of the revolution in question, any trade
was of great importance for the Caribbean island, but trade with Russia
was particularly significant as at this time it was one of the few sources of
much needed oil. Simply, the government in Havana did not wish to jeop-
ardise the exchanges that were taking place by being overly critical of
Russia. It appeared as if realist pragmatism, prevalent throughout the rev-
olutionary period, was still very much in evidence in the decision-making
apparatus of the Cuban government.
Interestingly, Cuban academia has been critical of the Council for Mu-
tual Economic Assistance (CMEA) and the effects that it has had on
Cuba. Dr Hiram Marquetti, a researcher at Centro de Investigaciones de
la Economía Internacional (CIEI) in Havana, has certainly done this
while José Bell Lara has written that Cuba’s membership in the organi-
sation was “fundamentally based upon Cuba’s continuing export of se-
lected primary goods, notably, sugar, citrus fruit and nickel, it was es-
sentially an insertion of the underdeveloped type. Precisely for this
reason, the external vulnerability of the economy was not eliminated by
a prolonged insertion in these relations.”22 Such forthright criticism may
be surprising but what is absolutely crucial was that when these articles
were written the CMEA no longer existed so therefore, the island’s rela-
tionship with the organisation could not be affected regardless of what
Cuban academics wrote about it. However, Russian-Cuban relations did
still continue and, although much reduced in comparison to the Soviet
era, they remained vital to the Cuban Revolution at this time. Therefore,
criticism of Russia and Russia-Cuban relations was avoided in fear of
jeopardizing them, with realist pragmatism still being very much in evi-
dence on the island.
This did not, however, mean that the Cuban leadership made no com-
ment on the state of Russian-Cuban relations in the early 1990s because
Castro did criticise Russia’s human rights record in Chechnya, and will be
discussed in chapter 5. In addition, Cuban displeasure at these events can
be seen in the Granma report of Boris Yeltsin’s death in April 2007 when
the article pointedly reminded its readers that it had been Yeltsin who had
been responsible for the dissolution of both the Congress of People’s
 The Continuing Role of Ideology 59

Deputies and Supreme Council of Russia, which had both been significant
institutions in the Soviet Union.23
The reforms implemented by Gorbachev in the late 1980s reduced the
significance of Marxist-Leninism in the relationship between Moscow and
Havana, but after the disintegration of the Soviet Union it completely dis-
appeared from both its internal policies and foreign policy, both of which
had grave consequences for the relationship and the Cuban Revolution it-
self. Moreover, both the Russian Federation looking to the West and the
United States in particular, and the Castro government’s refusal to devi-
ate from its socialist path further adversely affected Russian-Cuban rela-
tions. This downturn was both political and economic with the Cuban
economy suffering greatly from the loss of its most important trading
partner. The result was that the disappearance of Marxist-Leninism from
relations between Moscow and Havana was a fundamental aspect in the
spectacular downturn in their relationship in the years 1992 to 1994.

CUBA EMBRACES REFORMS

As detailed, the disintegration of the Soviet Union had a catastrophic ef-

fect on the Cuban economy with the island’s total trade plummeting in
the years 1992 and 1993 to below $3b, which had severe repercussions on
the standard of living of Cuban citizens and led to unrest on the island in
the summer of 1994. This situation was something that the Cuban gov-
ernment could not allow to continue and although their rhetoric on the
socialist nature of Cuban society may not have changed after 1992 a series
of reforms were introduced which it was hoped would alleviate these eco-
nomic problems. As these appeared to be very different from the socialist
economic model, it perfectly illustrated the prevalence of realist pragma-
tism within the Cuban Revolution as its very survival was at stake.
As has been outlined, throughout the Soviet era the Castro government
made repeated attempts to reduce its dependence on Moscow and in the
late 1980s a further attempt, in light of the adverse repercussions for the
island of Gorbachev’s reform processes, had been made which had in-
cluded amongst others the hope of encouraging tourism to the island.
This was to be partly funded by permitting foreign companies to invest in
the Cuban tourist industry, which as stated in chapter 2, would be vital to
the Cuban government in the 1990s as it attempted to economically re-
cover from the loss of the Soviet Union.
These Cuban attempts were aided by the fact that the end of the So-
viet Union and Soviet-Cuban relations had coincided with the increase
in the globalisation process, partly as a result of the lack of an alterna-
tive to the international capitalist system with the disappearance of the
60 Chapter 3

socialist economic model. In the final years of the twentieth century glob-
alisation was at the centre of a multifaceted scholarly debate, which did
not just concentrate on the process in general, but also over a definitive
definition of it and whether it is even a new process or not.24 In relation to
this, investment in Latin America in general and Cuba in particular before
1959 from outwith the region was not new, but in the 1990s it was on a
truly global scale and not predominantly from the United States, as had
previously been the case.
The effects of globalisation have led some to believe that it has impinged
on states’ sovereignty, questioned the continued significance of national-
ism and resulted in the appearance of a number of new security dilemmas
as it has not just increased the power of multinational companies and
transnational enterprise but also impacted on many other parts of society
including politics. Although this is the case and the effects of globalisation
on countries even within the same region have not been universal, what
can be concluded is that interdependence between various world
economies has increased with the pre-eminence of international capital-
ism, illustrated by the growth of transnational investment.25 This was vital
for not just the Cuban Revolution but also Russian-Cuban relations.
As outlined, in the late 1980s Cuba had made attempts to encourage
foreign investment to the island from outwith the socialist bloc, but in the
1990s this process increased dramatically, with various legislation being
passed to encourage this. In 1992 the National Assembly changed the con-
stitution so that state property could be transferred to joint ventures with
foreign money and in September 1995 a new foreign investment law was
passed which not only allowed foreign companies to move their entire
profits abroad, but also very significantly allowed 100 percent foreign
ownership of investments in Cuba. This was truly historic due to the
prominence of nationalism in the Cuban Revolution. As stated, it was
hoped that Cuba’s tourist industry would be particularly attractive to for-
eign investors; with significantly the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR)
and Raúl Castro being at the forefront of this.26 Moreover, in January 1995
it became legal for joint ventures with foreign capital to be created in both
oil and mineral exploration and production. In relation to this, in 1992
Consulting Associates (CONSAS) and in 1994 the Ministry of Foreign In-
vestment and Economic Cooperation (MIECE) had been created to help
facilitate foreign investment. Then, in 1997 free trade zones were created
in a further attempt to attract yet more foreign investment. In addition, in-
ternal reforms were also implemented which not only legalised both agri-
cultural and artisan markets to try and alleviate food shortages, but also
the possession of U.S. dollars on the island.27
These economic reforms perfectly illustrated the strong prevalence of
realist pragmatism that has existed within the Cuban ruling elite since the
 The Continuing Role of Ideology 61

victory of the Cuban Revolution. They may have ideologically disliked

globalisation and neoliberal economics and were not slow to attack them
or the effects that they had on the Russian economy but they had had to
embrace them to a certain extent due to the dire economic situation which
the island found itself in during the early to mid-1990s that resulted from
the loss of their socialist trading partners and the continuing U.S. eco-
nomic blockade. With regards to this José Bell Lara describes the island’s
relationship with capitalist countries very much as a marriage of conve-
nience when he wrote, “In a world in which wealth dictates power, al-
liances must be formed with the wealthy in order to beat the wealthy. The
strategy could be approximately formulated as follows: a policy of al-
liance with some sectors or factions of the international bourgeoisie as to
successfully resist and overcome imperialist harassment and to achieve
paths towards development.”28 This would very much appear to be an ex-
tremely eloquent description of realist pragmatism.
A series of political reforms were simultaneously passed in order to pre-
vent the island’s economic problems also becoming political. This in-
cluded amongst others a change to the constitution that introduced direct
elections for deputies for both the National Assembly and provincial as-
semblies of the Organs of People’s Power (OPP). Moreover, in an attempt
to broaden the appeal of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) religious
believers were allowed to become members of the party. Mindful of the
Soviet situation of the late 1980s that had run out of control, but also il-
lustrating their pragmatism, political reforms were cautious and not
nearly as far reaching as many of the regimes’ opponents, especially in the
United States, had wished for. On this point Max Azicri has written, “The
domestic changes proceeded cautiously, avoiding costly mistakes, but not
everyone welcomed a balanced approach. Dissidents at home and oppo-
nents abroad were not satisfied with the paucity of political change.
Though economic change was generally welcomed, some critics found it
inadequate. Orthodox cadres in the regime took the opposites tack: they
believed that the changes had gone too far and could only jeopardize the
socialist system, weakening its true nature.”29
The results of the economic reforms have been numerous, varied and
some even unforeseen. This has led some to believe that aspects of the rev-
olution have even been eroded, and not just because these reforms em-
braced neoliberal economics, the very antithesis of earlier Cuban eco-
nomic models. In relation to tourism María Espino has written,
“International tourism has been targeted as a key sector and is a major
component of the Cuban economic adjustment program” because “the
economic importance of international tourism lies in its ability to generate
benefits for the host country.”30 These include revenue for the government
and jobs amongst others. However, tourism has also caused inequality on
62 Chapter 3

the island to increase as citizens working in this industry have access to

foreign currencies and their experiences are very different from those who
do not have this luxury. On this Azicri has written, “A heart surgeon paid
in pesos would have a lower salary and live a more difficult life than a
tourism worker, including not only hotel and restaurant managers but
lower ranking employees, taxi drivers, etc.”31 Cubans who either receive
remittances from abroad or are involved in the burgeoning black market
repeat this. Moreover, tourism has also resulted in the return of prostitu-
tion to the island, which has seen an increase in sexually transmitted dis-
eases amongst Cuban women.32
In addition to this, Cuba’s biotechnological industry has also been im-
portant to the Cuban economic strategy in the 1990s, which Julie Feinsil-
ver has described as a “First World approach to development.”33 This at-
tempted to take advantage of the island’s excellent levels of education
and reputation in medicine and medical services, but if successful would
also help Cuba break its reliance on primary produce, which continues to
be a problem for many developing countries. Moreover, this process has
also spawned the appearance of health tourism which has seen an in-
creasing number of wealthy foreigners being prepared to pay in hard cur-
rency for Cuban medical expertise. Cuba’s biotechnological industry has,
however, been hampered by international property rights which has pre-
vented it from manufacturing more affordable alternatives to First World
produced goods, and also as a result of both the lack of an expensive mar-
keting campaign that many pharmaceutical companies have and the con-
tinuing U.S. embargo that has tried to prevent the island trading with
third party countries. Although this is the case, Cuba’s biotechnological
produce has become even more important as levels of sugar production,
Cuba’s traditional export, have recently fallen.
Jorge Pérez-López has on a number of occasions described Cuba’s eco-
nomic reforms as having been partially successful, which is undoubtedly
correct but the question must be asked of what would have happened to
the Cuban economy and the revolution itself if they had not been imple-
mented? Trade may not have returned to levels enjoyed in the Soviet era,
and problems within the Cuban economy still exist, not least the island’s
levels of foreign debt, but trade has recovered from its nadir of the early
1990s, and steadily increased throughout the 1990s to reach 5.8b pesos in
1999, with Cuban experts believing that the island’s economy had moved
from its initial period of instability immediately after the disintegration of
the Soviet Union to a more settled second.34 In addition to this, the com-
position of Cuba’s trading partners changed dramatically from the Soviet
era when, as stated, over 70 percent of the island’s trade was conducted
solely with the Soviet Union and over 80 percent with the socialist bloc.
Spain, France, Italy, Mexico, China, Canada and Venezuela are the coun-
 The Continuing Role of Ideology 63

tries which Cuba now conducts most trade with. In the last year of the
twentieth century Spain was Cuba’s largest trading partner with
881,180m pesos worth of trade being conducted, or 15 percent of Cuba’s
overall trade.35
In addition to this, large quantities of foreign investment have also been
attracted to the island. By mid-1995, 212 joint ventures had come to
fruition with over nine different countries from around the world, and in
the period from 1998 to 2001 a further 190 joint enterprises, in conjunction
with twenty-eight countries, were created. In comparison in 1991 there
were only eleven joint ventures excluding those with socialist bloc coun-
tries. Mexican companies have tended to concentrate on Cuba’s telecom-
munications links while Canadian ones have invested in the island’s
nickel industry. European countries have taken an interest in the tourist,
tobacco and alcohol industries, with one of the highest profiles being in
1992 when the French company Pernod Ricard bought an interest in and
the global distribution rights for Havana Club rum. In the similar manner,
in the year 2000 the French-Spanish company Altadis bought 50 percent
of Habanos, the international distributor of Cuban cigars.36
The result has been that Cuba has once again returned to the global
economy having been removed from it for a number of years, illustrated
by the involvement of companies from over one hundred countries with
the island. This has been a remarkable change from the Soviet era, and is
made even more so when it has been achieved despite Washington’s con-
tinued attempts to economically strangle the Castro regime with the pass-
ing of both the Cuban Democracy Act, or Torricelli Bill, in 1992 and four
years later the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, or Helms-
Burton Act, which attempted to prevent companies from third party
countries trading with Cuba. In addition, this was also achieved despite
the Caribbean island not having access to money from the IMF, World
Bank or the Inter-American Development Bank.
Ironically, the United States embargo, despite being the antithesis of ne-
oliberal economics, has conversely made Cuba a more appealing invest-
ment opportunity for foreign companies, as they do not have to face com-
petition from U.S. companies, who held the pre-eminent position within the
Cuban economy before 1959. This has allowed foreign companies to gain a
foothold in the Cuban economy before the embargo ends when U.S. firms
will once again be permitted to invest in it. In 2005 a survey conducted in
Florida illustrated this, as 65 percent of the 417 executives polled would be
“likely to do business in a post-Castro Cuba.”37 Moreover, once U.S. citizens
are free to travel to Cuba, these foreign companies would hope that their
profits would further increase due to the expected influx of U.S. dollars.
The implosion of the Soviet Union had a catastrophic effect on the Cuban
Revolution, not least economically as the island also simultaneously lost its
64 Chapter 3

most important trading partner. Throughout the revolutionary period both

realist pragmatism and attempts to reduce dependency have always been
prevalent in the Cuban elites’ thinking and they were again very evident in
the years immediately after the disintegration of Soviet-Cuban relations.
The process of encouraging foreign investment in the island, begun in the
late 1980s, increased as a number of different reforms were implemented
that aimed to take advantage of the increase in transnational investment
with the global dominance of the neoliberal economic model. This was de-
spite their ideological aversion to these ideas, but they were vital to the sur-
vival of the revolution and have helped the Cuban economy recover from
its acute problems of the early to mid-1990s. However, it has also had other
unforeseen results with some arguing that aspects of the revolution have
been eroded, but the composition of the island’s trading partners has also
changed dramatically from the Soviet era as companies from around the
world invested in the Cuban economy. This would be vital for relations be-
tween Moscow and Havana.

THE EFFECTS ON RUSSIAN-CUBAN RELATIONS

This change in the composition of the countries that the Caribbean island
traded with when compared to the Soviet era, which saw the Soviet pre-
eminent position in the Cuban economy being usurped, was vital to the
improvement in relations between Cuba and Russia from the mid-1990s
onwards. This occurred because in the early to mid-1990s Russian com-
panies came to realise that they had lost out due to the economic changes
made in Cuba. In March 1993, the journalist Nikolai Vlasov wrote in
Moscow News, “As last year’s experience has shown the Canadian, Span-
ish and Mexican companies started immediately to fill the vacuum
formed after the curtailment of Russian-Cuban investment cooperation.
They become firmly established in the most promising branches, using
with great benefit the industrial infrastructure created with our country’s
assistance.”38 Moreover, Stanislav Kondrashov, another journalist, wrote
on this subject, “in Cuba’s nickel industry, Canadian capital now reigns
supreme. And the Chinese dominate the consumer goods market. The
Spanish, the British and the Mexicans are investing in Cuba.”39
A number of politicians and academics also commented upon this
process including Yevgeny Primakov, the Russian Foreign Minister in the
mid to late 1990s. In addition, in the two-year period from 1995 to 1997,
260 joint projects with Cuban and foreign money were opened but only
two of these were with Cuban and Russian money. This was something
that Russian companies wished to address and once again become more
involved in the Cuban economy to take advantage of the investment op-
 The Continuing Role of Ideology 65

portunities that it offered. Dr Rodolfo Humpierre of CEE in Havana

stated that this was most certainly the case with companies which had ex-
perience of trading with Cuba from the Soviet era.40 Moreover, as with
other foreign companies investing in Cuba it was only made more ap-
pealing, as stated, by the lack of competition from U.S. companies. In
short, Russian companies wanted a ‘piece of the action’ in the Cuban
economy.
In implementing the economic reforms in the 1990s the goal of the Cas-
tro regime had not been to specifically stimulate trade with Russia but just
increased trade in general as the revolution’s very survival had been at
stake. As an increasing number of foreign companies became involved in
the Cuban economy Russia witnessed the loss of their pre-eminent posi-
tion within it. A desire to address this situation was key to the increase in
Russian interest in the Cuban economy from the mid-1990s onwards. This
was only aided by the thirty-year links between the two countries from
the Soviet era, which will be examined in the next chapter. However, the
upshot has been that a bi-product of these reforms, although not planned
but resulting from the effects of neoliberal economics, has been significant
in Russian-Cuban relations. The irony was that ideology, or more specifi-
cally the ideas of the free market but most certainly not Marxist-Leninism,
remained crucial to relations between Havana and Moscow at the end of
the twentieth century.
This was aided by the, as stated, economic changes that took place in
Russia throughout the 1990s, which saw the country move to a market
economy. After the initial shock of this economic transition had been sur-
vived, on this Boris Yeltsin has since written, “The Russian economy was
like a patient . . . , having survived a life-threatening fever,”41 Russian com-
panies in the mid-1990s were able to begin to compete with Western com-
petitors in the international market, which logically also included an in-
terest in Cuba. Humpierre believes that this process was very significant
for the increase in Russian interest in the Cuban economy.42 In July 1994,
the umbrella organization RosKuba, consisting of twenty-five Russian
companies, was created to help facilitate trade between the two countries
and in 1995 S. Batchikov, co-chairman of the Russian Foreign Economic
Policy Fund, commented, “Any country, including Russia, that is building
a market economy is interested in expanding the assortment of goods in
its consumer market. And this means that high-quality Cuban tropical
produce is of considerable interest to us, especially considering Russia’s
natural and climatic conditions.”43 This consisted of not just traditional
Cuban exports of sugar and tropical fruit but also high-quality Cuban
rum and tobacco. In addition, Russian agriculture production fell dra-
matically in the aftermath of the disintegration of the Soviet Union and
the implementation of neoliberal economics which resulted in a drastic
66 Chapter 3

fall in tobacco production which increased the importance of the purchase

of this commodity from Cuba. In relation to this, in May 1999 La Casa del
Habano, a Cuban cigar emporium very much concentrating on the exclu-
sive end of this market, was opened in Moscow.44
Moreover, further illustrating the importance of trade for both countries
was the fact that in late 1995 Oleg Soskovets, First Deputy Prime Minister
of Russia, signed a package of economic agreements with Cuba while on
the island and in May 1996 the Russian Duma ratified the decision to de-
velop commercial relations with Cuba. Directly linked to this was the cre-
ation in 1997 of the Russian-Cuba Commission on Commercial, Eco-
nomic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation, which did not just provide a
much more robust foundation for trade to be conducted in but also illus-
trated the growing importance that the Russian Federation attached to
trade and commerce with Cuba.45
As stated, levels of trade in general may not have returned to those en-
joyed during the Soviet era but trade with Russia was a vital component in
the partial recovery of the Cuban economy. This increase was due to both
an upturn in Russian imports to Cuba but as Batchikov’s quote suggests
also significantly Cuban exports to Russia. As well as primary produce
the island’s biotechnological goods have also increased in significance for
Russian-Cuban trade. In addition, intergovernment agreements have also
been signed, which in 1996 included the hope of an increase in Information
Technology (IT) and telecommunication links between the two countries.46
The result was that in 1996 the Russian Federation was Cuba’s single
largest trading partner, which had most certainly not been expected or

Figure 3.3. Russian-Cuban Trade 1995-1999

 The Continuing Role of Ideology 67

predicted in 1992. The fact that this upturn in Russian-Cuban trade was
based on an increase in Cuban exports to Russia, very different from
Cuban trade with other countries that were primarily based on Cuba im-
porting goods and not exporting them, was equally remarkable. This led
Ricardo Cabrisas, Cuban Foreign Minister, in 1997 to even suggest that by
1999 or the year 2000 trade between Havana and Moscow may even re-
turn to the 1991 level.47
This, however, has not materialised as since 1996 trade with other coun-
tries, most noticeably Spain and Canada, has overtaken that which has
been conducted with Russia. This is partly explained by the economic cri-
sis that hit Russia in August 1998, but it most certainly does not mean that
Russian interest in the Cuban economy has waned. For example
Rosvooruzheniya, the Russian state arms company, never closed its Cuban
office while it did in other parts of Latin America. This would become very
significant in the twenty-first century as Russian interest in Latin America
increased.48 The result was that in the period from 1995 to 1999 Russia re-
mained in the top five of Cuba’s most significant trading partners.
Again the increase in trade was despite the Helms-Burton Act that had
seen Washington attempt to restrict Cuban trade with third party coun-
tries, and moreover, this act had even contained a section that concen-
trated specifically on Russia due to the listening post at Lourdes that re-
mained open throughout the 1990s. The importance of this will be
discussed in both chapters 4 and 5. Moscow not only voted against the
implementation of the act in the UN resolution that condemned it but ap-
peared to be prepared to both ignore and circumvent it. A Russian Foreign
Ministry declaration stated, “We confirm our intention to develop and
broaden beneficial co-operation with Cuba as well as sectors of mutual in-
terest, particularly in the commercial and economic sphere.”49
As has been suggested this increase in trade was partially driven by
Russian companies wishing to try and address the situation which had
seen the Soviet pre-eminent position within the Cuban economy usurped
by companies from other countries. This had occurred due to both the
globalisation process in general and the economic changes made in Cuba
in the 1990s, which resulted in making the Cuban economy an inviting in-
vestment opportunity for transnational capital. Other reasons, such as a
number of Cubans having a Russian language ability that made trade ne-
gotiations easier, as well as other aspects of the Soviet legacy were also
important and these will be analysed in detail in the next chapter. How-
ever, neoliberal economics was one of the key reasons that resulted in the
improvement of relations between Moscow and Havana from the mid-
1990s onwards. Just as in the Soviet era it appeared as if ideology was
again significant in the relationship, but ironically it was not Marxist-
Leninism but instead its very antithesis.
68 Chapter 3

This, however, gives rise to another very important question. Due to the
nature of the globalisation process was this Russian interest in the Cuban
economy not simply a result of the process in general and not due to the
Russian desire to correct the losses it sustained in it in the 1990s? If this was
the case it could also be expected that Russian trade with other Latin Amer-
ican countries would have also increased at an equivalent rate. However,
this is not the case as trade between Russia and Cuba far exceeded Russian
trade with any other Latin American country in the period from 1995 to
1999, with only trade with Brazil even approaching this level.50 It can there-
fore be concluded that it was not just a result of globalisation in general that
caused this upturn in Russian-Cuban trade, but instead the Russian desire
to correct the ‘wrongs’ of the 1990s that was more important.
The irony is that one of the key reasons for the improvement in Russian-
Cuban relations has been the effects of neoliberal economics. This was no
means by design, as it had not been the goal of the Castro regime to specif-
ically stimulate Russian interest in the Cuban economy, but was instead a
side effect of the reforms that were instigated in Cuba in the early to mid-
1990s in an attempt to deal with the economic effects of the disintegration
of Soviet-Cuban relations. This had again shown the prevalence of realist
pragmatism in the Cuban Revolution because ideologically the Cuban
regime may not have liked the nature of these reforms but they were fun-
damental in its economic revival from the mid-1990s onwards. As foreign
companies invested in Cuba the realisation formed in Russia that their
pre-eminent position within the Cuban economy had been lost and their
desire to address this was one of the key reasons for the improvement in
relations between Moscow and Havana from the mid-1990s onwards.

VLADIMIR PUTIN: A RETURN TO MARXIST-LENINISM?

As has been suggested in chapter 1 Vladimir Putin’s KGB past and trips
to North Korea and Cuba in the infancy of his Presidency caused concern
in the West to arise that the Russian Federation’s foreign policy may have
been returning to a more traditional Soviet stance. Moreover, this was not
helped by the fact that during his trip to the Caribbean island the Russian
President visited both the monument to the unknown Soviet soldier and
the highly contentious Lourdes listening post on the outskirts of the
Cuban capital. Did this mean that Marxist-Leninism would return to
prominence in Russian-Cuban relations in the twenty-first century to the
detriment of neoliberal economics that had been one of the factors in the
improvement of relations from the mid-1990s onwards?
The short answer to this question is a resounding no, as the Russian
President demonstrated during his trip to Cuba. The Cuban government
 The Continuing Role of Ideology 69

may have been delighted about his visit with Granma stating “The visit of
excelentismo Mr Vladimir Putin and his important delegation is met with
the great joy of our people and is of great importance for relations be-
tween Cuba and the Russian Federation.”51 Moreover, Professor Eugenio
Larin, Director of Latin American Studies at the Institute of Cold War His-
tory of the Russian Academy of Sciences, has written, “A new stage in
Russian-Cuban Relations officially opened with the visit of the President
of the Russian Federation V. V. Putin between 13 and 16 December
2000.”52 This visit was unquestionably significant as Putin became the first
Russian leader to visit Latin America but it did not mean that Marxist-
Leninism was increasing in importance in the relationship. While on the
island Putin stated: “We lost a lot of positions which were a top priority
for both countries, and our Russian companies in Cuba have been re-
placed by Western competitors.”53 It appeared that the trend of improved
Russian-Cuban relations being partly based on economic reasons and not
Marxist-Leninism was continuing.
This was also borne out with the agreements signed during Putin’s
visit. It was announced that the Norilisk Nickel company was to invest
$300m in the nickel-ore processing plant at Las Camariocas in Holguin
province and a joint agreement to build diesel equipment for the Cuban
sugar industry was signed. Moreover an exchange deal for 2001 to 2005
involving Cuban sugar, rum, medicines and medical equipment being ex-
changed for Russian oil, machinery and chemicals was also signed.54
In light of this agreement the downturn in trade between Cuba and
Russia, illustrated by Figure 3.4, is surprising, but most certainly shows

Figure 3.4. Russian-Cuban Trade 2000–2005

70 Chapter 3

that Marxist-Leninism has not returned in importance in the relationship,

because if it had it could be expected that the trajectory of the graph
would have been upward and not downward, as relations would once
again have been driven by political and not economic reasons.
The closure of the Lourdes listening post in January 2002 did briefly ad-
versely affect Russian-Cuban relations, and the reason for Moscow’s de-
cision will be examined in more detail in chapter 5. However, the down-
turn in Russian-Cuban trade does not mean that either the Cuban
economy has contracted, as overall trade has increased to 9.5b pesos in
2005, or that Russia has lost economic interest in the Caribbean island.
Russian-Cuban trade may have fallen but interestingly its composition
has changed greatly with 70 percent of the trade conducted in 2005 made
up of Russian imports to Cuba. This was not just a return to the pattern
seen from the Soviet era but was also very different from the late 1990s
when trade between the countries had been dominated by Cuban exports
to Russia.
In addition, Russian-Cuban relations have been affected by other
events, which have seen a partial retrenchment in Cuba from the reforms
of the 1990s. Amongst other things the U.S. dollar is once again no longer
legal tender on the island. However, the appearance of an apparent anti-
U.S. bloc in Latin America, which has seen Cuba in conjunction with
Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela create the Bolivarian Alternative for the Amer-
icas (ALBA) to challenge the U.S.-backed Free Trade of the Americas
(FTAA) has been highly significant.55 This in conjunction with Russia’s re-
cent increased interest in the region, which also partially possesses politi-
cal motives, a shared global outlook and a willingness to challenge the ap-
parent unipolar nature of world politics, has questioned the significance
of neoliberal economics to this process in general and in Russian-Cuban
relations specifically.
Economics, however, remain important to Russian interest in both
Cuba and Latin America as the sale of military hardware to the region is
a crucial aspect of this. The Venezuelan purchase of 100,000 Kalashnikov
rifles, fighter planes and helicopters in 2005 may have attracted interna-
tional attention, but in April 2007 18 Russian companies exhibited goods
in Rio de Janeiro at the Latin American Aero and Defense (LAAD) trade
fair, the largest and most important such fair in the region.56 Moscow is
not selling these goods to a few specific countries that they may share a
political outlook with, but is instead attempting to diversify its markets in
the whole region. In addition, Russia also faces competition from other
global arms manufacturers, and with relation to Russia selling arms to
Latin America, Alexander Yakovenko, a spokesman for the Russian For-
eign Ministry, stated in an interview, “Russia is a recognized producer of
arms, which are in demand on world markets, including in this region.”57
 The Continuing Role of Ideology 71

The result is that the ideas of the neoliberal economic model are a signifi-
cant factor in Russia’s recent increased interest in the western hemisphere.
Moreover, Russia’s interest in Cuba began before the appearance of this
apparent anti-U.S. bloc in the region, which does not diminish the impor-
tance of neoliberal economics to the start of the upturn in Russian-Cuban
relations. However, it has undoubtedly had repercussions for Russian-
Cuban relations, as Cuba’s relationship with Venezuela has become vital
to the Cuban Revolution, not least as a source of oil which may only in-
crease in importance with the recent surge in the price of oil, and the Rus-
sian share of the Cuban trade has subsequently fallen. In the year 2000,
Venezuela replaced Spain as Cuba’s most important trading partner, as it
supplied almost 19 percent of the island’s total imports. Moreover, in the
year 2004 total trade between Cuba and Venezuela reached 1.368b pesos,
which was the first time since 1991, when trade between Cuba and the So-
viet Union had been 3.3b pesos, that trade between Cuba and any other
country had exceeded 1b pesos. In 2005, Cuban-Venezuelan trade contin-
ued to increase to over 2b pesos.58 Moreover, China has also become a sig-
nificant player in the Cuban economy with trade in 2005 reaching almost
1b pesos. In addition to this, Peking offers the most attractive interest
rates on loans to the Cuban government, which tend to be 3 percent per
annum over twenty years, which far exceeds what any other country can
offer.59 This has made trade with China economically advantageous for
Havana, as has its close political ties with Venezuela, but this has not sig-
nalled a reduction in Russian interest in the Cuban economy stimulated
by the effects of neoliberal economics. This was illustrated in 2002 when
Dr Juan Triana Cordai of the Centro de Investigaciones de la Economía
Cubana (CEEC) in Havana wrote, “In 2001 Cuba had commercial links
with 166 countries. Venezuela, Spain, Canada, Russia and China are the
five principle countries that Cuba traded with in 2001.”60
Moreover, in 2002 Cuba remained Russia’s second largest trading part-
ner in Latin America and in 2005 its sixth. In March 2003 Leonid Reyman,
Russian Minister of Communication and Information Technology, spoke
of this trend while in Cuba when he said, “We are worried about a slow-
down in the bilateral trade and economic relations and we would like to
reverse the process with the Cuban side.”61 Reyman’s presence in Cuba il-
lustrated that it was hoped that Informational Technology and telecom-
munications could be part of this desired improvement. In addition, dur-
ing the previous year an international trade fair had been held in the
Cuban capital, which ten Russian companies had attended. Raúl de la
Nuez, Cuban Minister of Foreign Trade, had commented upon this when
he said, “Our countries have years of long good traditions of trade and co-
operation. Russia is one of the 10 biggest trade partners of Cuba.”62 In
2003 Russia was again represented at this fair with the Volga Car factory,
72 Chapter 3

VAZ, having one of the most prominent exhibits at it.63 These trade fairs
illustrate that despite the decrease in trade it remains significant for both
countries and Russia has by no means lost interest in the Cuban economy.
In addition, the presence of the different types of Russian companies at
these trade fairs also illustrate that economic ties between Havana and
Moscow have diversified. As suggested this includes IT but also projects
involving gas and oil fields, which would revolutionise the relationship,
are also desired. In February 2005, Fidel Castro told Grigory Elkin, head
of Russian Federal Technical Regulation and Metrology Agency that Rus-
sia could enter energy projects in Cuba and that they would like to pur-
chase electric generators from Russia. In February 2007, the Russian oil
company Gazprom (GAZP) and India’s Oil and Natural Gas Cooperation
(ONGC) discussed the possibility of joint work in Cuba while Jorge
Martínez, Cuban ambassador to Russia, said that the car industry and
modernization of railroads were also projects that Russia could become
involved in. The continuing Russian interest in the Cuban economy was
further illustrated in May 2005 when 132 Russian companies from the
Moscow area attended a Cuban trade fair held in the Russian capital and
Russian companies such as Grupo GAZ, Salyut, RusiaAutomotriz,
Zvezda S.A, Transchemexport S.R.L and Rosoboronexport all attended
the international trade fair held in Havana in November 2006. Ricardo
Alarcón, President of the Cuban National Assembly, spoke of his desire
for economic relations between Russia and Cuba to improve during his
trip to Moscow in late 2006, and moreover an agreement was signed in
April 2007 over the production of enriched food.64 Cuba has also pur-
chased two Russian made IL 96-300 airplanes, which have been partly
funded by a £200m credit from a syndicate of Russian banks, illustrating
their confidence in the Cuban economy. Moreover, further agreements on
the Cuban purchase of Russian made planes have recently been signed. In
a similar manner, in September 2006 Russian Prime Minister Mikhail
Fradkov signed a £355m grant with the Cuban government for the pur-
chase of Russian goods.65
In 2007, the official publication of the Cuban Chamber of Commerce
commented, “In short, it can be said that the following 10 countries have
been among the top countries of Cuba’s foreign trade in recent years:
Venezuela, Spain, China, Canada, Holland, Russia, Italy, Brazil, Mexico
and France. More than 70 percent of the country’s trade exchange is car-
ried out with these countries.”66 More than fifteen years after the disinte-
gration of the Soviet Union, Russian’s inclusion on this list was remark-
able and not what would have been expected in 1992. Furthermore and
very interestingly on 31 July 2007 the Cuban Economic Press Service
stated, “Russia, the principle nation of the former Soviet Union, is inter-
ested in increasing its commercial ties with the island.”67 This would ap-
 The Continuing Role of Ideology 73

pear to suggest that Russian interest in the Cuban economy has most cer-
tainly not waned and if anything trade between the two countries might
increase in the future.
This diversification of economic ties between the two countries has also
included tourism, with Jorge Martínez commenting, “Investment in
tourism and hotel business might become a major sphere of cooperation
in the future.”68 In 1996 the ‘Latina’ travel agency opened in Moscow that
specialised in travel to Latin America and in addition, the Russian travel
agencies Atlantic Travel Agency, Atlas and Druzhina have all opened of-
fices in Havana. Moreover, in August 1999 the airline companies Air
France and KLM began flying routes from Russia to Havana with
stopovers in Paris and Amsterdam respectively. In December 1999
Aeroflot and Cubana began their own joint service from Russia to Cuba.69
Russian tourists may only make up a very small percentage of the total
number of tourists visiting the island, 1.5 percent in 1994 and less than 1 per-
cent in 2005, but as Figure 3.5 illustrates their number has steadily increased.
The introduction of the Air France, KLM and joint service from Aeroflot and
Cubana has undoubtedly made travel from Russia to Cuba easier, as is the
fact that Russians do not require visas to travel to Cuba. Moreover, the ap-
pearance of more wealthy Russians who can afford vacations in the
Caribbean has also helped this increase. In addition, in January 2004 Ernesto
Senti, acting Minister for Foreign Investments and Economic Cooperation,
stated that tourism was an area that it was hoped could be expanded. This
was shown in January 2007 when Mario Fernández, head of the Cuban

Figure 3.5. Russian Tourists Visiting Cuba

74 Chapter 3

Tourism Foreign Relations department, stated that it was hoped that soon
100,000 Russian tourists would be visiting the island each year. Moreover, in
March 2007 a number of Russia tour operators attended the presentation of
the Cuban tourist board (MINTUR) at the Inturmarket Fair held in the Rus-
sian capital.70 Furthermore, and interestingly the Official Portal of Tourism,
Cubatravel.cu, has a Russian language option, further illustrating the im-
portance that the Cuban government attaches to Russian tourists.71

CONCLUSIONS

Ideology, or more specifically Marxist-Leninism, was a key cornerstone of

relations between Moscow and Havana for over thirty years after Fidel
Castro proclaimed himself, and thus also the Cuban Revolution, Marxist-
Leninist in December 1961. However, ideology has remained crucial to
the relationship in the period since 1992, as it partly explains both the
downturn in the relationship in the years 1992 to 1994 and also its subse-
quent improvement from the mid-1990s onwards.
Marxist-Leninism may have become less important in the relationship
during the Gorbachev era, but once it was completely removed after the
disintegration of the Soviet Union, the relationship suffered a massive po-
litical and economic downturn. As the Russian Federation’s political sys-
tem changed and it looked to the West it no longer felt ideologically tied
to Havana and this became apparent with Moscow’s voting behaviour at
various UN forums. This was only exacerbated by many Russian citizens’
perception of the Cuban Revolution, which they believed was fast be-
coming an anachronism in the New World Order due to the lack of reform
on the island.
Economically, the removal of Marxist-Leninism was also vital to the
downturn in the relationship because as Russia embraced the ideas of ne-
oliberal economics its companies were no longer instructed by the Krem-
lin whom they could trade with for political reasons and instead had the
choice of whom they wished to conduct business with. In the early 1990s
this was most certainly not Cuba. At this time not only were Russian com-
panies in no position to compete with Western competitors in the Cuban
market due to the Russian economic transition, but the new companies
that had appeared in Russia simply did not want to trade with Cuba. Rus-
sian exports to Cuba falling at a faster rate than Cuban imports to Russia
illustrated this. However, even at this point some trade was still being
conducted between the two countries, the reasons for this will be exam-
ined in chapter 4, but this was very important in explaining the surpris-
ing lack of comment by the Cuban government on events in the former
Soviet Union as they did not want to jeopardize this trade.
 The Continuing Role of Ideology 75

However, the economic changes instigated by the Castro regime as it

tried to recover from the loss of trade with the Soviet Union did not just
illustrate both the strong prevalence of realist pragmatism in the Cuban
Revolution and attempts to end dependency, but was also of fundamen-
tal importance to the upturn in relations between Moscow and Havana.
Some accusations of an erosion of the revolution may have appeared as
these reforms were based on neoliberal economics, but they helped the
Cuban economy partially recover from its severe contraction of the early
1990s. Furthermore, they also saw the island’s economy return to the
world economy after being removed from it for a number of decades. In
addition, the composition of the island’s trading partners changed dra-
matically as the Soviet Union’s pre-eminent position within it had been
usurped by companies from other countries.
As Russian companies witnessed this, the realisation began to form that
they were missing out on the investment potential that the Cuban econ-
omy offered. A desire to address this was a key driving force in the upturn
in relations from the mid-1990s onwards as was the fact that they had suf-
ficiently recovered from the economic transition and were in a position to
compete with global competitors in the Cuban market. Remarkably in
1996 this resulted in Russia being Cuba’s largest trading partner.
It could be thought that due to the globalisation process in general Rus-
sian interest in the Cuban economy would have taken place anyway, but
if this had been the case it could be expected that Russian investment in
Latin America as a whole would also have occurred. This however did
not happen as Cuba remained Russia’s largest trading partner in Latin
America up to the beginning of the new millennium and even today with
an increase in Russian interest in the region it remains one of its most im-
portant. This has been aided by a diversification in economic links be-
tween the two countries. The desire to right the ‘wrongs’ of the early 1990s
as a result of the effects of neoliberal economics was crucial to Russian-
Cuban relations.
It must, however, be stressed that this was not by design as it had not
been the goal of the Cuban government in making these reforms to en-
courage Russian interest specifically but just much needed investment in
general. This Russian interest had been an unforeseen side effect of the
economic reforms of the early to mid-1990s. A partial retrenchment and
fall in the Russian share of the Cuban economy may have subsequently
taken place but this does not reduce the importance of it to the relation-
ship’s upturn. Ironically, neoliberal economics, the antithesis of Marxist-
Leninism, provided a key reason for both the deterioration in relations in
the years 1992 to 1994 and its subsequent improvement. The result is that
ideology remained significant to relations between Havana and Moscow
in the post 1992 era.
76 Chapter 3

NOTES

1. Izvestia, 17 September 1992, 5.

2. Granma, 8 September 1992, 3–6.
3. Izvestia, 11 January 1993, 3. Moreover, Yury Pavlov, former head of the Latin
American Directorate of the USSR Foreign Ministry, has written that the Cuban
government requested that one Cuban student have his Ph.D. degree from a Rus-
sian university withheld as he had attempted to gain an exit visa for the United
States while studying in Russia. Yury Pavlov, “Russian Policy Toward Latin Amer-
ica and Cuba” in Russian Foreign Policy Since 1990, ed. by Peter Shearman, (Boul-
der, CO: Westview Press, 1995), 250.
4. Izvestia, 4 May 1992, 5. In January 1993 Montaner again travelled to Moscow
and met Russian Foreign Minister Kozyrev. Izvestia, 11 January 1993, 3. Nezavisi-
maya gazeta, 18 August 1992, 4. A. Tsipko, “Extract from speech at International
Conference. Russia-Cuba: From Totalitarianism to Democracy,” Latinskaia
Amerika, Nos. 10–11, (1992): 32. Castro’s phrase “Socialism or Death” was not just
an adapted version of José Martí’s “Fatherland or Death” but also illustrated his
resolve not to change Cuba’s political model.
5. A. A. Blenova, “My Cuba,” Latinskaia Amerika, Nos. 5–6 (1992), 46.
6. Cuban Democracy Act of 1992, see http://www.state.gov/www/regions/
wha /cuba/democ_act_1992.html. (4 April 2006) Izvestia, 25 November 1992, 5.
7. Izvestia, 12 March 1993.
8. Vneshiaia Torgovliia v 1989–1990, 5 and Vneshiaia Torgovliia v 1986, 259 and
265. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL) 1991, 135.
Anuario Estadístico de Cuba 2000, see http://www.camaracuba.cu/TPHabana /Es-
tadisticas2000/estadisticas2000.htm (14 July 2007). VI-5-VI-7. Direction of Trade
Statistics Yearbook 1999, (Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund), 392.
9. Trade in 1992 was 825,977 million pesos, 533,131 million in 1993 and just
322,882 million in 1994. Anuario Estadístico de Cuba 2000, VI-5-VI-7, see
http://websie.eclac.cl/anuario_estadistico/anuario_2000/datos/2.1.1.1.xls (14
July 2007). Direction of Trade Statistics Yearbook 1999, 392.
10. Raúl Castro, “Raúl Castro: Reasons and Revelations,” Latinskaia Amerika, No.
9 (1993): 22. Carmelo Mesa-Lago has written of the debate that existed over
whether Cuba’s economic problems from 1986 to 1990 had resulted for internal or
external reasons. However, he states that after 1990 external reasons were the
causes of the worsening economic situation on the island. Carmelo Mesa-Lago,
“The Economic Effects on Cuba of the Downfall of Socialism in the USSR and East-
ern Europe” in Cuba after the Cold War, ed. by Carmelo Mesa-Lago, (Pittsburgh:
University of Pittsburgh Press), 181–84. On the situation in 1994 Archibald Ritter
wrote, “Cuba’s world has fallen apart. It has become an international orphan, eco-
nomically and politically, having lost its mentor and supporter, the Soviet Union,”
A.M. Ritter, “Cuba’s Economic Strategy and Alternative Futures,” in Cuba at a
Crossroads: Politics and Economics After the Fourth Party Congress, ed. by J. Pérez-
López, (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1994), 67. Carmelo Mesa-Lago and
J. Pérez-López, Cuba’s Aborted Reform. Socioeconomic Effects, International Compar-
isons, and Transition Policies, (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005), 71–130.
 The Continuing Role of Ideology 77

11. In 1990, Cuba’s GDP fell by 2.5 percent, 1991 by 10.1 percent, 1992 by 10.2
percent and 1993 by 13 percent. “1990–2005: Depresión, crisis, reanimación” IPS, Año
18, No. 22, 30 November 2005, 20. This was also illustrated by the falling calorie
consumption of the Cuban population at this time and that in August 1993 the is-
land had been experiencing twelve hours a day with no power due to fuel short-
ages. Delai Luisa López García,”Economic Crisis, Adjustments and Democracy in
Cuba,” in Cuba in the 1990s, ed. José Bell Lara, (Havana: Editorial Jose Marti, 1999),
23. Elena Díaz González, “Cuban Socialism: Adjustments and Paradoxes,” in Cuba
in the 1990s, 60. Castro’s illegitimate daughter Alina Revuelta has written on the
effects that the end of the socialist bloc had for Cubans’ daily lives and the ways
that they attempted to cope with this. Alina Revuelta Fernández, Castro’s Daugh-
ter: An Exile’s Memoir of Cuba, (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1999), 217–19.
12. Recently Castro has commented upon the 1994 balsero crisis and the reasons
for it when he said, “The exodus of 1994 was brought on by the Soviet crisis, the
fall of the USSR, the beginning of the special period in Cuba.” Fidel Castro and
Ignacio Ramonet, My Life, (London: Allen Lane, 2007), 341.
13. Nadya Plankton, “Inferiority complex of Post-pioneers.” Paper presented at the
Symposium “Cuba, Russia and the Post-Soviet Experience,” the University of
Connecticut, Conn, February 2007, 3. Igor Ivanov, “Russian Diplomacy’s Latin
American Vecotr, Nezavisimaya gazeta, 18 September 1999, 6.
14. A. Glinkin, “After Perestroika” Hemisphere. Volume 4, Number 2, (Win-
ter/Spring 1992), 14. Yury Petrov, “Latin America’s Relations with Russia and
Other Former Socialist Republics. Implications for U.S. Policy” North-South: The
Magazine of the Americas, Volume 2, Number 4, (December 1992–January 1993), 6.
15. Dr Rodolfo Humpierre of Centro de Estudios Europeos (CEE) in Havana
made this point to me about new Russian companies in the early 1990s being pre-
pared to trade with Cuba but only under new terms of trade during an interview
conducted in Havana on 14 February 2008 in Havana. The internal Russian situa-
tion was so grave at this time that Professor Nikolai Ivanov, Deputy Director of
the Center of Latin American Studies at the Institute of Cold War History of the
Russian Academy of Sciences, said it looked like Russia “may not survive.” Pro-
fessor Ivanov expressed these sentiments to me during discussion in Moscow on
9 January 2008. S. Lavrov, Latinskaia America, No. 1 2006, 3.
16. Pavlov, “Russian Policy Towards Latin America and Cuba,” 253. A. Er-
makov, “Cuba desde la nueva perspectiva de Moscú,” Hispano Americano, Numero
2599, (21 February 1992): 33. Andrei Kozyrev, Preobrazhenie, (Moscow: ‘Mezh-
dunov otnoshenii,’ 1995), 269–70.
17. Professor Eugenio Larin, Director of Latin American Studies at the Institute
of Cold War History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, used this phrase to de-
scribe the former Russian President during an interview conducted in Moscow on
9 January 2008. V. I. Vorotnikov, former Soviet ambassador to Cuba, has also
blamed Yeltsin for the problems which the Cuban Revolution was experiencing at
this time, which is not surprising due to his close association with it from the So-
viet era. V. I. Vorotnikov, Gavana-Moskva: pamiatnye gody, (Moscow: Fend imeni I.
D. Sytina, 2001), 390.
18. Tsipko, “From Totalitarianism to Democracy,” 27.
78 Chapter 3

19. For this type of reporting see for example Granma, 2 January 1992, 4 and
Granma, 3 January 1992, 4. F. Laguera in Bohemia wrote about the economic strug-
gle that most Russians faced and that state pensions were simply not enough to
survive on due to the spiralling prices. F. Laguera, “Especulación callejera” Bo-
hemia, 31 July 1992, 15–17. In 1993 Sofía Hernández Marmal, a researcher at the
Center of European Studies in Havana, wrote, “the Russian economy is in ruins.”
Sofía Hernández Marmal, “El conflicto de pobres en Rusia: herencia y desafío,”
Revista de Estudios Europeos, Nos. 25–26, (January–June 1993): 7. Ariel Dacal Díaz,
“Rusia: el sueno postergado de una ‘gran potencia,” Revista de Estudios Europeos,
(September–December 2001): 69. Fidel Castro, “Main Report to the 5th Congress of
the Communist Party of Cuba,” Main Report. Speech at the Closing the 5th Congress
of the Communist Party of Cuba, (Havana: Editora Política, 1998), 32–33. Fidel Cas-
tro, “Master Lecture at the autonomous university of Santa Domingo,” 24 August
1998. De Gorbachov a Yeltsin. Correra Rusia la misma suerte que le Union Sovietica? (Ha-
vana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales) 78–84. Fidel Castro, Una Revolución Solo Puede ser
Hija de la Cultura y las Ideas, (Havana: Editora Política, 1999), 23. A number of articles
appeared in Bohemia throughout the 1990s written by Eleana Claro which were
highly critical of the situation in Russia. For this see: “Expediente Peligroso,” Bo-
hemia, 28 February 1992, 46–47. “Jornada difícil,” Bohemia, 13 November 1992, 42–43.
“De galgos, podencos y abedules,” Bohemia, 5 July 1996, 45–47.
20. Hernández, “El conflicto de podres en Rusia,” Revista de Estudios Europeos
(January–June 1993): 9. Humpierre made this comment about Kozyrev during an
interview conducted in Havana on 14 February 2008 in Havana. Francisco Brown
Infante, “La política exterior rusa en el periodo 1991–2000. Del romance con Occi-
dente a la búsqueda de un mundo multipolar,” Revista de Estudios Europeos, (Jan-
uary–April 2001): 22–23.
21. Havana Cuba Vision Network in Spanish 0027 GMT 11 August 1994, FBIS-
LAT-94-155 FL1108133194.
22. José Bell Lara, Globalization and the Cuban Revolution, (Havana: Editorial José
Marti, 2002), 52.
23. “Falleció ex presidente ruso Boris Yeltsin,” Granma Digital, 23 April 2007. In-
terestingly, Castro has recently commented upon Yeltsin when he said, “back then
we had a high opinion of him, because of his radicalism. This was quite some time
before the disaster of the [Soviet Union’s] disintegration.” Castro and Ramonet,
My Life, 364.
24. M. Castells, The Rise of the Network Society, (Cambridge: Blackwell Publish-
ers, 2000). Richard Gilprin, Global Political Economy: Understanding the International
Economic Order. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). R. N. Gwayne, and
C. Kay, Latin America Transformed. Globalization and Modernity, (London: Oxford
University Press, 1999). R. Robertson, The Three Waves of Globalisation. A History of
Developing Global Conscousiness. (Nova Scotia: Zed Books, 2003).
25. R. Munck, “Neoliberalism, necessitarianism and alternatives in Latin Amer-
ica: there is no alternative (TINA)?” Third World Quaterly, Vol. 24, No. 3, (2003):
495–511. R. L. Harris, “Resistance and Alternatives to Globalization in Latin Amer-
ica and the Caribbean,” Latin American Perspectives, Issue 127, Vol. 29, No. 6, (No-
vember 2002): 136–51. Robert C. Dash, “Globalization. For Whom and for What,”
Latin American Perspectives, Issue 103, Vol. 25, No. 6, (November 1998): 52–54.
 The Continuing Role of Ideology 79

26. Ley de le Inversión Extranjera, (Havana: Editora Política, 1995). J. Pérez-

López, “The Cuban Economy in the Age of Hemispheric Integration” Journal of In-
teramerican Studies and World Affairs, Vol. 39, No. 3 (1997): 15–22.
27. J. Pérez-López, “The Cuban Economy,” 3–47. The Cuban reforms have been
compared to a wide variety of other countries. See Alvaro Taboada Teran,
Nicaragua: Political Processes and Democratic Transition - Possible Lessons for Cuba’s Fu-
ture, 2003, see http://ctp.iccas.miami.edu/Research_Studies/ATaboadaTeran.pdf
(10 November 2005). Michael Radu, The Cuban Transition: Lessons from the Romanian
Experience, 2003, see http://ctp.iccas.miami.edu/Research_Studies/MRadu.pdf
(10 November 2005). Carlos Alberto Montaner, The Spanish Transition and the Case of
Cuba, 2002, see http://ctp.iccas.miami.edu/Research_Studies/CAMontaner.pdf
(10 November 2005). Mesa-Lago and Pérez-López, Cuba’s Aborted Reform, 131–54.
28. J. Bell Lara, Globalization and the Cuban Revolution, 2002, 114.
29. Max Azicri, Cuba Today and Tomorrow: Reinventing Socialism, (Gainesville:
University Press of Florida, 2000), 101.
30. María Dolores Espino, “Tourism in Cuba: A Development Strategy for the
1990s,” in Cuba at a Crossroads, 147.
31. M. Azicri, Cuba Today and Tomorrow, 74.
32. M. Azicri, Cuba Today and Tomorrow, 81. On this Carmelo Mesa-Lago has writ-
ten, “These changes resulted in significant increases in income inequality and other
socio-economic disparities, reversing many of the previous accomplishments of the
Cuban regime.” Carmelo Mesa-Lago, Growing Economic and Social Disparities in
Cuba: Impact and Recommendations For Change, 2002, i, see http://ctp.iccas.miami
.edu/Research_Studies/CMesaLago.pdf . Sergio Diaz-Briquets and Jorge Pérez-
López have argued that corrupton which has always been evident in Cuba has re-
cently increased and affected all parts of Society. S. Diaz-Briquets and J. Pérez-
López, Corruption in Cuba. Castro and Beyond, (Austin: University Press of Texas,
2006), 123–79.
33. Julie Feinsilver, “Cuban Biotechnology: A First World Approach to Devel-
opment,” in Cuba at a Crossroads, 185.
34. J. Pérez-López, “The Cuban Economy,” 38. J. Pérez-López, “Foreign Invest-
ment in Cuba,” in The Cuban Economy, ed. Archibald R. M. Ritter (Pittsburgh: Uni-
versity of Pittsburgh Press, 2004) 166. Anuario Estadístico de Cuba 2000, VI-5-VI-7.
“1990–2005: Depresión, crisis, reanimación.” IPS, Año 18, No. 22, 30 November 20.
35. Anuario Estadístico de Cuba 2000, VI-5-VI-7.
36. J. Pérez-López, “The Cuban Economy,” 33–34. Hernando Ospina, Bacardi
The Hidden War. (London: Pluto Press, 2002). J. Amberg, “Co-President of Altais
SA Sees More Opportunties in Cuba,” see http://www.cubanet.org/Cnews/y00/
jul00/03e7 .htm (3 July 2006).
37. “Execs have eyes on Cuba,” see http://www.herald.com (13 Oct 2005).
38. Nikolai Vlasov, “Economic cooperation with Cuba is in Russia’s interests,”
Moscow News, 19 March 1993, 5.
39. Stanislav Kondrashov, “Language of Gestures in Putin’s Diplomacy,” Vre-
mya, 22 December 2000, 3.
40. Yorgeny Primadov. For comments upon the change in Cuba’s trading see:
Evgeny M. Primakov, Minnae pole politiki, (Moscow: Molodaia gvardii, 2006), 149.
Vorotnikov, Gavana-Moskva, 402–12. I. U. Gavrikov, Fidel Kastro: neistovgi komandante
80 Chapter 3

Ostrava svobody, (Moscow: Veche, 2006), 294. E.A. Larin, Latinskaia Amerika is-
torii.vtoraya polovina XX Veka. (Moscow: Nauka, 2004) 134. S. Batchikov, “The Cuba
That We are Losing and Everyone Else is Finding.” Nezavisimaya gazeta, 14 No-
vember 1997, 2. Moreover, the title of this article is also significant as it illustrates
the feelings that some people within Russia had about the loss of their pre-emi-
nent position within the Cuban economy, as companies from other countries in-
vested in the island. Dr Rodolfo Humpierre stated this during an interview con-
ducted in Havana on 14 February 2008 in Havana.
41. Boris Yeltsin, Midnight Diaries, (New York: Public Affairs, 2000), 200.
42. Humpierre, interview conducted on 14 February 2008 in Havana.
43. S. Batchikov, “Rossiisko-Kubinskie otnosheniia: retropektiva, nas-
toiashchee, perspektiva,” Rossiiskii ekonomicheskii zhurnal, No. 11 (1994), 38, 45.
44. For the dramatic fall in Russian tobacco production see I. Glasov, G. Kara-
Murza and A. Batchikov, El Libro Blanco. Las reformas neoliberales en Rusia,
1991–2004, (Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 2007) 119. Izvestia, 19 May
1999.
45. Professor Eugenio Larin stressed the particular importance of both sugar
and the creation of the Russian-Cuba Commission on Commercial, Economic, Sci-
entific and Technical Cooperation for Russian-Cuban relations during an inter-
view held in Moscow on 9 January 2008. Batchikov, “The Cuba That We are Los-
ing,” 1997, 2. Cronología de Cuba 1996, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MINREX), 32.
46. Cuba may have been exporting more goods to Russia than it was importing
but it did still import goods, and particularly machinery. In 1996, it was reported
that 450 ChMZAP8335 trailers were imported from Russia. Inzhenernaya Gazeta,
No. 6 1996, 2. Moscow Rossiyskaya Gazeta, 26 September 1996, 5.
47. C. Mesa-Lago and J. Pérez-López, Cuba’s Aborted Reform, 33–35. Interfax in
English 1753 GMT 6 June 1997.
48. Ilya Bulavinov, “Détente at Rosvooruzheniye,” Kommersant, 24 September
1998, 2.
49. Granma International, 17 April 1996, 13.
50. Direction of Trade Statistics Yearbook 2006. (Washington DC: International
Monetary Fund), 409.
51. Granma, 13 December 2000, 1.
52. Eugenio Larin, Politicheskaia istorii Kuba XX Veka. (Moscow: Visshaya
shkola, 2007), 164.
53. L. Newman, “Cuba, Russia Seek New Post-Cold War Relationship.” 1999,
see http//.www.cnn.com (24 February 2003).
54. This agreement involved Russia supplying $25–32m rolled steel prod-
ucts, $10-20m spare parts for agricultural machinery, $25–40m spare parts for
the motor and railroad transport, 100,000–150,000 tons of mineral fertilizers,
5,000–6,000 oil plant protective chemicals, 100,000–150,000 sets of car tyres and
$60–80m worth of other goods. Cuba was to supply $10–40m worth of medi-
cines, vaccines and medical equipment, 2,000–5,000 nickel and cobalt products,
4–9m cigarettes and $60–80m worth of citrus fruits, citrus concentrates, rum and
other products. Moscow Interfax in Eng 1203 GMT 22 March 01 FBIS-SOV 2001
0322027 CEP20010322000270.
55. Granma, 29 April 2005, 1.
 The Continuing Role of Ideology 81

56. “Russia to exhibit Buk-M2 air defense system at LAAD 2007”

<http://www.rian.ru/russia/20070417> (25 April 2007) The importance of eco-
nomic links between Venezuela and Russia was shown by Hugo Chavez’s recent trip
to Russia when this topic dominated talks. “Reafirma Venezuela su alianza con Ru-
sis y Bielorussia,” (2007), see http://juventudrebelde.cu/internacionales/2007-06-
30/reafrima-venezuela-su-ali (4 July 2007).
57. Interfax Interview with Alexander Yakovenko 16 November 2004. Ministry
of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Information and Press Department,
electronic version.
58. Anuario Estadístico de Cuba 2006, VII-4, see http://websie.eclac.cl /an-
uario_estadistico/anuario_2006/datos/2.1.1.1.xls (14 July 2007).
59. Yelena Lashkina, “Cocktail of Freedom,” International Affairs November
2006.
60. Juan Triana Cordai, “La economía cubana en el 2001, una perspectiva
global, La Economía Cubana en el 2001, (Havana: Centro de Estudios de la Economía
Cubana, 2002), 13.
61. In 2002, Brazil was Russia’s largest trading partner in Latin America and in
2006 Moscow conducted more trade with Brazil, Argentina, Bahamas, Ecuador,
Mexico, and Panama than with Cuba. Direction of Trade Statistics Yearbook 2006,
409. Moscow ITAR-TASS in R 0817 GMT 25 March 2003-FBIS-SOV-2003-0325
CEP20030325000089.
62. Moscow ITAR-TASS in Eng 09092 GMT 8 November 02 FBIS-SOV-2002-11-
8 CEP20021108000013.
63. ITAR-TASS 18 September 2003.
64. ITAR-TASS 27 February 2005. “Gazprom to join India’s ONGC in upstream
activities,” RIA Novosti 9 February 2007. See http://rian.ru/russia
/20070209/6041916-print.htm (28 Feb.2007). ITAR-TASS 1 January 2005. Moscow
Prensa Latina, 17 December 2005. “Rusia con pabellón absoluto en la FIHAV-
2006,” El Ruso Cubano, Boletín Informativo de le Embajada de le Federación de Rusia
2006, No. 5, 2 November 2006, 3. “Ricardo Alarcón comenta la colabarcion entre
Rusia y Cuba,” Boletín Informativo 2 November 2006, 5. Ana Margarita González,
“Cuba and Russia sign contract to produce enriched foods,” see http://www .tra-
bajadores.co.cu,/2007/abril/20/textos_y_fotos/amg-contract.htm (4 May 2007).
65. “Russia banks syndicate $203m aircraft loan for Cuba” RIA Novosti 22 De-
cember 2006. See http://rin.ru/business/20061222/57603049-print.html (4 Jan.
2007). “Russia to grant Cuba $355m 10-year loan—PM Fradkov,” RIA Novosti 28
September 2006. See http://rian.ru/russia/20060928/54353408-print.html (4 Jan.
2007). As stated, Chinese loans have been more attractive than Russian ones due
to lower interest rates. The Chinese offer is for twenty years at 3 percent per an-
num whereas the Russian one is for ten years at 5 percent per annum. Lashkina
“Cocktail of Freedom,” 2006.
66. “Nuevas tendencias y Alternativa del ALBA,” Cuba Foreign Trade. Publica-
cion Oficial de la Cámara de Comercio de la Republica de Cuba, No. 3, 2007,
15–16.
67. “Logros e insatisfacciones en la economía cubana,” IPS, Año 20, No. 14, 31
July 2007, 16.
68. ITAR –TASS, 21 January 2004.
82 Chapter 3

69. Havana Prensa Latina in Spanish 1550 GMT 96 FBIS-LAT-96-082 p21

PA2604001396. Caribbean Update, 15 (11) 7 December 1999.
70. ITAR-TASS 21 January 2004. ITAR-TASS 31 January 2007. See
http://www.granma.cu (19 March 2007).
71. On the Cubatravel homepage there are only four language options, Span-
ish, English, German and Russian. The number of Russian tourists visiting Cuba
may be considerably less than from these other countries but this illustrates the
importance that the Cuban government attaches to them. See http://www.cuba-
travel.cu/client/home/index.php (20 Aug. 2007).
 4

The Soviet Legacy

A s detailed in chapter 2, relations between the Soviet Union and Cuba

did not just last for over thirty years but due to their all-encompass-
ing nature they impinged on virtually every part of life in both countries.
By the mid-1980s this had seen over 5,000 joint projects completed in
Cuba and some 8,000 Cubans a year studying in the Soviet Union. More-
over, Cuba had acquired some of the Soviet Union’s most modern mili-
tary and industrial equipment partly as a consequence of the island’s
place as “first among equals” for many within the Soviet elite. As a result
it could be expected that some sort of legacy from the Soviet era would
have existed in the relationship that evolved between Russia and Cuba in
the post 1992 period.
This is certainly not without precedent as throughout history various
examples exist of a legacy existing between two countries which have had
a relationship lasting for as long a time period as that which had occurred
between Moscow and Havana. This has taken various forms including
cultural links and a shared language, but Dependency Theorists have par-
ticularly criticised the economic and political aspect of it.1 In this manner,
and in part due to the creation of the Commonwealth of Nations, the
United Kingdom has relations of varying degrees with a variety of its for-
mer colonies, as does France. This is not to suggest that Cuba was a
colony of the Soviet Union, as shown by the prevalence of nationalism in
the Cuban Revolution and Havana’s repeated attempts throughout the
Soviet era to reduce its dependence on Moscow. In addition to this,
Cuba’s ruling elite most certainly did not lack political experience or its
population suffer from poor levels of education as occurred in many

83
84 Chapter 4

newly independent countries, but as suggested it would be unusual if

some type of legacy from the Soviet era did not exist in Russian-Cuban re-
lations in the post 1992 period.
However, this did not appear to be the case, because as outlined in
chapter 3 in the aftermath of the disintegration of the Soviet Union the
downturn in relations between Havana and Moscow was so swift and de-
cisive that by the end of 1992 it would have looked to a casual observer as
if a relationship had never existed. The nature of this break had parallels
to the one which took place between Havana and Washington after the
victory of the Cuban Revolution, which due to the characteristics of U.S.-
Cuban relations in the first half of the twentieth century has been unusual
in both its severity and duration. International relations may have been
vastly different in the early 1990s when compared to the late 1950s and
early 1960s, but it did not make the apparent split between Moscow and
Havana any less surprising.
The termination of joint collaboration projects that had been in
progress at the end of 1991 was evidence of this break and lack of a
legacy from the Soviet era. As stated in the previous chapter, work on
the nuclear project at Juargua was stopped due to cost, which at the time
Izvestia described as, “the last beacon of ‘fraternal cooperation’ in Cuba
is being extinguished.”2 This may have been the most high-profile ex-
ample, but it was by no means the only one. In a similar manner educa-
tion programmes that had seen students from Cuba and the Soviet
Union study in each other’s respective countries also died out as the
scholarships simply did not provide sufficient levels of money for the
students to live on and further illustrating the break in relations Russian
language television programmes simply disappeared from Cuban tele-
vision screens.3
On 11 February 1994, Izvestia published an article on joint collaboration
projects, which stated, “For Decades Kremlin leaders tried to carry out
grandiose plans on the island, plans that were comparable, considering
the countries’ difference in size, to reversing the flow of our northern
rivers.”4 This left no one in any doubt about what many within the “new”
Russia felt about these projects as they believed considerable amounts of
time, effort and no little money had been wasted on them. This sentiment
is important in explaining the apparent lack of a legacy from the Soviet
era existing in the years from 1992 to 1994.
However, these feelings are certainly not without precedent in the So-
viet era, as similar ones had started to come to prominence when the full
force of Gorbachev’s reforms in the Soviet Union began to affect relations
between Havana and Moscow in the late 1980s. As an increasing openness
swept through the Soviet Union, as a result of glasnost, people began to
question various aspects of the relationship, not least the levels of eco-
 The Soviet Legacy 85

nomic aid that Cuba received as the Soviet economy continued to under
perform despite the implementation of perestroika.5
It could therefore be seen that this downturn in relations in the years
from 1992 to 1994, and apparent lack of a Soviet legacy, was in fact a con-
tinuation of what had taken place during the Gorbachev era of Soviet-
Cuban relations and was consequently a legacy from this period if not
earlier ones. However, after the disintegration of the Soviet Union this
process unquestionably accelerated, as these feelings which may have
been fermenting for some time were suddenly brought to the surface
without fear of recrimination. Moreover, Cuba’s association not only with
the mistakes of past discredited Soviet regimes but also a political and
economic system which many Russians were delighted to see confined to
history only accelerated this process, as did both the removal of Marxist-
Leninism from the relationship and improved relations with the West be-
ing top of Moscow’s foreign policy priorities. In relation to the lack of re-
form on the island, the continued refusal of the Cuban government to
embrace reform in light of the fundamentally altered nature of interna-
tional relations in the 1990s simply made it an anachronism to many.
These feelings within Russia were very evident in 1992 with both the cre-
ation of the anti-Castro group Cuba Union and the publication of Eve of
Collapse, as detailed in the previous chapter.6
In addition to this, and most certainly a legacy from the Gorbachev pe-
riod, but also earlier ones in the Soviet era, was the low importance that
the Kremlin attached to relations with Cuba. Apart from some noticeable
exceptions, predominantly the period of the relationship’s inception and
the Cuban Missile Crisis, Cuba had never been at the top of the Soviet
government’s priorities. Relations with Washington and internal policies
were of more importance. This continued in the years from 1992 to 1994
when Russia was undergoing fundamental internal change in conjunction
with the importance of improved relations with the United States for the
Kremlin further explains the downturn in the relationship in these years.
As has been suggested the break in relations between Havana and
Moscow in 1992 was so swift and decisive that it appeared that a general
Soviet legacy did not exist. This is however, not completely accurate as the
continued presence of Soviet-designed Lada cars on Cuban roads, the use
of Russian names such as Olga, Niurka, Boris and even Vladimir on the
island and Lenin Park in the suburbs of Havana all testify to. Old Havana
may be a World Heritage sight, in no small part due to the Spanish colo-
nial architecture, but on the outskirts of the Cuban capital much less aes-
thetically appealing Soviet era housing blocs remain and the Miramar dis-
trict of Havana continues to be dominated by the former Soviet and now
Russian embassy. In short, despite the spectacular break in relations in
1992 a Soviet legacy does exist in Cuba and it is a vital component in
86 Chapter 4

explaining not just the continuation of relations between Moscow and

Havana, but also their improvement from the mid-1990s onwards.

1992–1995: RELATIONS SURVIVE THE CATACLYSM

As detailed in chapter 3 the final remaining troops from the former Red
Army returned to Russia from Cuba in the summer of 1993, but this by no
means heralded the end of Russian citizens living and working in Cuba.
A number of Russians remained on the island after this as a result of mar-
riage, which is again not surprising due to the long duration and the num-
ber of Soviet citizens who had visited Cuba while Soviet-Cuban relations
had existed. This process was repeated as a number of Cubans attempted
to remain in Russia in the 1990s rather than return to the Caribbean, as
outlined in chapter 3. This is significant as it not just illustrates that de-
spite appearances in 1992 a complete break in relations between Havana
and Moscow did not take place, but also due to intermarriage it resulted
in the appearance of a number of palavinos. This is the Cuban term for chil-
dren born on the island who have Cuban and Russian parents.
The importance of this is increased as it is partly as a result of inter-
marriage and the existence of palavinos that Cuba possesses a unique Rus-
sian speaking ability in Latin America. It is this, in conjunction with the
legacy of the education programmes that existed during the Soviet era
which saw many Cubans learn Russian with some believing this could be
as high as 20 percent of the population, and many Russians Spanish, that
explains this phenomenon. In 1996 when Yevgeny Primakov, the Russian
Foreign Minister, was in Cuba K. Khachaturov, President of Russian Com-
mission of Cooperation with Latin America, wrote about these Cubans
who had been educated in the Soviet Union as their “experience and
knowledge may be used successfully for the development of economic
and trade as well as scientific and technical ties.”7 This Russian language
ability not only eased the various types of talks that took place in the
1990s, but would also increase in importance at the beginning of the
twenty-first century as the Russian Federation became increasingly inter-
ested in Latin America. This will be analysed in more detail in the next
chapter.
In the aftermath of the break-up of the Soviet Union the Russian Feder-
ation became its legal successor, which did not only mean that Russia
gained the Soviet seat on the Security Council of the United Nations (UN)
and that throughout the world the Russian flag replaced the Soviet one
above former Soviet embassies but also that Boris Yeltsin’s government
inherited the debt which many countries, but particularly ones in the De-
veloping World, owed to Moscow. Cuba was certainly no different and
 The Soviet Legacy 87

the generous levels of aid and assistance which Moscow had supplied to
Havana during the Soviet era had been both very important for the Cuban
Revolution but had also become increasingly contentious once glasnost
had begun to impact on the relationship. However, the debt that Havana
owed to Moscow would be both highly significant in relations between
the two countries in the 1990s and also cast a long shadow over them.
After 1991 not only was payment of the debt not forthcoming but the
two countries could not agree on the actual level of the debt, the currency
it was to be paid in or even the exchange rate that was to be used to cal-
culate it. In January 1995, a Russian State Duma hearing on Russian-
Cuban relations was held and in the Sevodnya report on this the journalist
Leonid Velekhov wrote, “The Russian side (and it is not alone; interna-
tional estimates are similar) puts Cuba’s debt at 17 billion transferable
rubles, which according to accepted practice is equivalent to the same
number of dollars. Cuba insists that its debt be calculated at a ratio of one
dollar to 50 transferable rubles.”8
Cuba’s debt to Russia was both a legacy from the Soviet era but also an
important reason in explaining the relationships continuation. Moreover,
the fact that it was a topic that the two countries continually discussed
throughout the 1990s meant that the relationship between Havana and
Moscow was never completely severed. The chances that Moscow would
be repaid were very small if not negligible due to the economic crisis that
engulfed the Caribbean island at this time, but if relations between the
two countries had been completely terminated the slim chance that it may
be repaid would have completely disappeared. As the Russian Federation
was also experiencing economic difficulties at this time, this was some-
thing that Moscow simply could not afford to do. In the aftermath of the
Cuban Missile Crisis, Moscow had been unable to cut its links with Ha-
vana due to the economic implications for the Soviet Union, and in a not
identical, but similar way the Russian Federation could also not afford to
write off the Cuban debt. This was shown by the fact that at the Russian
State Duma hearings it was even suggested that the Russian Federation
could be paid in the form of real estate and land on the island rather
than in hard currency.9 This may not have been the ideal scenario for
Russia, but it would have at least meant that the debt had been hon-
oured. The result was that an old pressure from the Soviet era appeared
to be re-emerging to impact on the relationship.
The debt may have been a controversial issue between Havana and
Moscow at this time, but it was not the most high-profile example of a
legacy from the Soviet era existing in the years immediately after 1991.
Moscow’s decision to keep the listening post at Lourdes on the outskirts
of Havana open was not just important for Russian-Cuban relations but
was also a large bone of contention between Moscow and Washington
88 Chapter 4

throughout the 1990s. Officially the Russian government stated that Lour-
des was “necessary in order to maintain stable communications with our
embassies in Latin America,”10 but by making this decision Moscow ob-
viously attached much importance to the information that they continued
to acquire from this facility. It also illustrated that relations between
Moscow and Washington, although undoubtedly improved, were per-
haps not as cordial as may at first appear. Moreover, the facility also acted
as a counterweight for Moscow to NATO expansion to the east. This will
be examined in chapter 5. However, with the end of the Cold War the U.S.
administration could not understand why the Russian Federation did not
close Lourdes.
In addition to this, and in light of the economic embargo against the is-
land being tightened still further in the 1990s in an attempt to herald the
end of the Castro regime, Washington was also unhappy with the fact that
Lourdes proved a valuable source of income for the Cuban government.
Initially the Cuban government had hoped to receive $1b a year in rent
from Russia for the use of Lourdes but eventually in November 1994 a
compromise deal was signed by Colonel General M. Kolesnikov, Russian
Chief of General Staff, while he was in Havana. This agreement stated
that Cuba would receive $200m a year and this would be paid in the form
of fuel, timber and spare parts for equipment which included military
equipment. Russia was delighted with this agreement and Sevodnya even
described this as a “rather modest sum.”11 The Cuban government may
have been hoping to receive a larger amount of money but due to their
economic situation it was still invaluable for the Caribbean island.
In relation to this and due to the nature of relations between Moscow
and Havana the source of both military hardware and industrial machin-
ery for Cuba during the Soviet era had been the socialist bloc countries
but particularly the Soviet Union. Moreover, the Soviet Union had also
supplied over 80 percent of the cars found on Cuban roads.12 As the 1990s
progressed this equipment became increasingly old and therefore in need
of repair, which resulted in Cuba requiring spare parts as the Castro
regime could most certainly not afford to replace this equipment due to
the economic problems which had befallen the island with the end of
Soviet-Cuban relations. However, these spare parts were becoming in-
creasingly difficult to find and Russia paying for the use of Lourdes in
kind, and especially spare parts, was a vital source of these for the
Caribbean island. Besides this, the Soviet equipment had proved to work
well in Cuban conditions and, in direct relation to this, the island’s work-
ers had been both trained to use this equipment and were also familiar
with it as it had been used on the island for a number of decades. This
made the continuation of its use appealing to the Cuban government, but
in conjunction with not being able to afford replacements it increased the
 The Soviet Legacy 89

importance of these spare parts for the Cuban government. Moreover,

Russia, lacking alternative markets for these goods, proved a more than
willing vendor. This illustrated not just the continuation of the relation-
ship, but also provided an important reason for it.
Cuba requiring spare parts for its Soviet era machinery was a signifi-
cant reason for relations between Moscow and Havana never being com-
pletely terminated in this period, but so too was the Russian need for
sugar and Cuban need for oil. Again, this was a legacy from the Soviet era
as Russia has traditionally been an importer of sugar as it on average con-
sumes three times the level of sugar that it produces. During the Soviet
era this shortfall had been met by the purchase of Cuban sugar. In a sim-
ilar manner the Soviet Union had been the Caribbean island’s main source
of oil throughout the revolutionary period. After 1991 the realisation
quickly formed in both capitals that it was easier and cheaper to continue
trading with each other in terms of these goods rather than try and culti-
vate links with new vendors, illustrating the existence of pragmatism
within both governments. In addition, the Cuban economist Hiram Mar-
quetti believes that due to the complexities of the international finance
system Russia’s alternative sources of sugar were somewhat limited.13
This was most certainly the case for the number of possible sources of oil
for the Caribbean island as a result of both the United States embargo and
cost, as it was unlikely that vendors would allow the Cuban government
to buy oil on a credit basis due to the economic problems engulfing the is-
land. In January 1992 an Izvestia article stated, “. . . it will be to our ad-
vantage to buy sugar from Cuba.” 14 On 26 October 1992, Yevgeny Bai, the
Izvestia Cuban correspondent, expanded on this when he wrote, “Cuba
sold the sugar that it had produced last year anyway . . . while we were
forced to buy sugar on the world market through middlemen and at
higher prices.”15 Moreover, Moscow had only paid between 15 to 20 per-
cent of the price for Cuban sugar in hard currency with the rest being paid
in kind. The journalist Nikolai Vlasov reiterated the economic benefits for
Russia of continuing to buy sugar from Cuba in March 1993 when he
wrote, “If Russia enters . . . the so-called free market where the produce is
sold without preliminary agreements (up to 10 million tons a year) a
sharp rise in prices will occur there. It will be impossible to compensate it
by additional incomes in hard currency from sales of withdrawn goods
meant for Cuba . . . Besides, sugar is bought in Cuba without media-
tors.”16 In addition, in 1993 in an interview with Latinskaia Amerika Lionel
Soto, vice president of the Cuban Council of Ministers, very succinctly ad-
dressed this issue when he said that it was normal for Moscow to buy
Cuban sugar and he saw no reason why it should stop.17
As stated in the previous chapter Russian agricultural output had
plummeted in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and this
90 Chapter 4

was most certainly the case with production of sugar which continued to
fall throughout the 1990s. The effect of this was to only increase the sig-
nificance of the purchase of Cuban sugar for Moscow. In addition to this,
during the Soviet era sugar refineries were able to work in a constant
twelve-month cycle due to the import of Cuban sugar as a result of the So-
viet and Cuban sugar harvests being at different times of the year. The
loss of this only further reduced Russia’s already poor agricultural out-
put.18 In the fast changing world of the 1990s, as both the Russian and
Cuban economies struggled to adapt to the new global situation oil for
sugar swaps were not just beneficial due to both cost and the lack of al-
ternative sources of these commodities for Russia and Cuba but it also
provided a very much needed semblance of stability for both countries,
while illustrating the existence of pragmatism within both governments.
It appeared somewhat ironic that the Russian purchase of Cuban sugar
as a result of it being more competitively priced than other sources was an
important reason for the continuation of the relationship in the post 1991
period as the price that Moscow paid for this commodity had attracted
much criticism in the final years of the Soviet era. This was despite both
Cuban attempts to reduce dependency on the Soviet Union and also the
terms of trade turning against the Caribbean island at this time. Even as
late in the Soviet period as August 1991, V. Churkin, Soviet Minister of
Foreign Economic Cooperation, had stated in an interview that economic
relations between Moscow and Havana were “doomed” to continue. This
was despite them being greatly affected by the Soviet reform processes,
but his attitude was synonymous with the negative feelings felt by many
within the Soviet Union at this time about both trade being conducted
with Cuba and Cuban-Soviet relations in general. However, the realisa-
tion had quickly formed in Russia after 1992 that contrary to this belief the
continuation of relations, due to the nature of Soviet-Cuban relations, was
in fact beneficial to both countries. In 1997, Olga Gridchina, a Russian
economist who lives and works in Cuba, likened the importance of sugar
for Russian-Cuban relations to that of oil in the relationship between the
United States and Saudi Arabia.19 The irony is still further increased as
Cuba’s traditional export since colonial times was still of the utmost sig-
nificance for the island and its relationship with Russia at the end of the
twentieth century. It appeared that Cuba was still heavily dependent on
this primary product.
The importance of trade with Cuba for the Russian Federation was
shown in 1992 by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations’s
reaction to the Cuban Democracy Act, or Torricelli Bill, that aimed to
tighten the U.S. embargo against the Caribbean island. In an interview
with Izvestia, a spokesmen from this ministry said, “there is a possibility
that Russia can circumvent the US embargo. The trick is to charter ships
 The Soviet Legacy 91

of European states—France for example—to buy goods from Cuba, and

ships belonging to Latin American states to carry oil to the island.”20
The Castro regime was not slow to highlight the point that Russia had
realised that there were economic benefits of its relationship with Cuba in
the post 1991 period. On 9 June 1993, Radio Rebelde broadcast a report of
an interview that A. Rubinskiy, Deputy Chief of the Latin America De-
partment of the Russian Ministry of Economic Relations, had given to
Komsomolskaya Pravda in which he had stated that “strengthening rela-
tions with Cuba is vital.”21 As a result of this in December 1993 a swap
deal involving 1.5m tons of sugar being exchanged for 4m tons of oil was
mooted, which was greatly beneficial to both countries. This resulted in
the Bohemia journalist, Fernando Davolos, commenting on the radio pro-
gramme “Straight Talk” that ties between Cuba and Russia were stabiliz-
ing.22 This sentiment and agreement were very important as they were
further illustrations of relations never being completely severed, continu-
ing and the significance of the Soviet legacy in them. It appeared that in
terms of sugar and oil Russia was Cuba’s ‘traditional’ trading partner and
Cuba Russia’s, and this remained the case even after the end of Soviet-
Cuban relations.
In relation to this, the Cuban government’s surprising lack of comment
on Russia, the unfolding events there and their effects for the Cuban Rev-
olution, as detailed in chapter 3, which at first appeared somewhat
strange due to the removal of diplomatic protocol, can most certainly be
perceived as a legacy from the Soviet era. A report does exist that in Au-
gust 1994 the Cuban embassy in Moscow complained to the editor of
Izvestia, I. Golembyovskiy, about Yevgeny Bai’s reporting of the balsero cri-
sis. Prensa Latina stated that, “Yevgeny Bai demonstrates in his work a
lack of professional ethics and of civilised behaviour and norms em-
ployed in journalism.”23 This was however very unusual because al-
though Cuban academia may have been more critical, in the main little
comment was made. This, and the reaction of the island’s academic com-
munity, were both a legacy from the Soviet era as this was a very similar
response to the negative effects of Gorbachev’s reforms on Soviet-Cuban
relations.24
In the Gorbachev period the lack of comment had occurred as a result
of both diplomatic protocol and the wish not to jeopardise the relation-
ship. Realist pragmatism had always been very prevalent throughout the
Cuban Revolutionary period with this being an important aspect in the
explanation for this reaction in the late Soviet era, but it was once again
fundamental in the post 1991 period, because as detailed in chapter 3, the
Cuban government did not wish to endanger the links, outlined above,
which had survived the end of Cuban-Soviet relations. These may have
been vastly reduced when compared to the Soviet era, but they remained
92 Chapter 4

vital to the Cuban Revolution, not least the Russian supply of oil, as the is-
land struggled to adapt to the loss of its closest economic and political ally.
As has been stated, it is not unusual for some semblance of a relation-
ship to continue between two countries which have a history such as that
which had existed between Moscow and Havana, as in many ways it is
simply easier for it to continue rather than attempt to cultivate links with
other countries. The title of Velekhov’s 22 December 1993 article in Sevod-
nya, “Old Friends: Russia and Cuba. It seems They Are Brothers Forever
After All,” certainly suggests this to be the case.25 However, the military
in both countries also played a part in this. In the 1990s with the Cold War
confined to history both militaries suffered a downturn in their fortunes.
However, a continuation of relations between Moscow and Havana was
an illustration of their more glorious past, and when this is coupled with
the very close ties that existed between them throughout the Soviet era, a
number of Soviet military officials had been members of the “Cuban
lobby,” it again provided evidence of both a Soviet legacy and also the im-
portance of the relationship that developed between the two countries in
the period after 1991. In November 1993 Izvestia stated that the Russian
military were fighting to keep their presence in Cuba. Lourdes remaining
open certainly showed this as did General Kolesnikov’s visit to Cuba in
November 1994, because the number of such visits had fallen drastically
with the end of the Soviet era.26
In the years immediately after the termination of Soviet-Cuban rela-
tions it may have appeared that a legacy from the Soviet era did not exist
in the relationship between Moscow and Havana, but the reality was
somewhat different, as it not only existed but was in fact multifaceted. It
included Russians remaining in Cuba and Cubans in Russia, the listening
post at Lourdes not being closed with the end of the Cold War, Russia be-
ing a more than willing vendor of spare parts for Soviet era machinery
that continued to be used in Cuba and close ties between the two mili-
taries. In addition, the legacy also comprised both Havana’s debt to
Moscow accumulated during the Soviet era, which Russia had inherited
on becoming the legal successor to the Soviet Union, and also that quickly
the realisation had formed in both countries that it was easier and cheaper
for oil for sugar swaps to be conducted rather than either country attempt
to cultivate new trade links. This did not just highlight the existence of
pragmatism within both ruling elites but also benefited both countries
due to a lack of alternative sources for either commodity. Moreover, in
Latin America Cuba has a unique Russian language ability due to inter-
marriage and educational programmes from the Soviet era which made
the bi-lateral talks which did take place easier. It could have been thought
that some form of a legacy could have been expected due to the duration
and nature of Soviet-Cuban relations, but the legacy was a vital reason for
 The Soviet Legacy 93

the fact that even as relations between Moscow and Havana suffered a
downturn in the years immediately after the disintegration of the Soviet
Union they were never completely severed.

RELATIONS WARM AND THE ADVENT OF A NEW MILLENNIUM

Relations between Moscow and Havana may have deteriorated in the pe-
riod from 1992 to 1995 but they were never completely broken with a
legacy from the Soviet era being an important element in this. However
the legacy was also important as relations between the two countries im-
proved from the middle of the final decade of the twentieth century on-
wards and was particularly prominent at the aforementioned Russian
State Duma hearings on Russian-Cuban relations held in January 1995.
The very fact that these meetings were even convened illustrate that the
significance of relations with Cuba was becoming an increasingly impor-
tant topic within Russia and that attitudes towards the Caribbean island
were beginning to change. Perhaps unsurprisingly the Russian Commu-
nist Party under the leadership of Gennady Zyuganov were very sup-
portive of these meetings and called not only for the revival of economic
ties with Cuba, but also for those who had been responsible for their
downturn immediately after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, which
had led to the “collapse of the Cuban economy,” to be prosecuted.27 The
Russian Communist Party, many of whom had been members of the
“Cuban lobby” during the Soviet era, would have continued to have felt
an ideological tie to the Cuban regime. This was apparent in both June
1998 when Zyuganov travelled to Cuba at the invitation of the Central
Committee of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) and met Fidel Castro
and also in April 2007 when Zyuganov was again in Havana and Carlos
Lage, member of the politburo of the PCC and then Vice-President of
Cuba, accepted a medal on behalf of Fidel Castro from the Russian Com-
munist Party for his “distinguished merits in the construction of socialism
and belief in the ideas of the October Revolution.”28 In addition to shared
ideological beliefs, members of Russian Communist party, as with the
military in both Russia and Cuba, would have also felt that improved re-
lations between Moscow and Havana would have illustrated the halcyon
days of the Soviet era. Again, it appeared that even in the mid-1990s a
legacy from the Soviet era had been a large driving force behind these
meetings being convened, but they illustrated the changing attitude in
Russia towards its relationship with Cuba.
In addition to these feelings of affinity, a legacy also existed from the
massive economic investment that the Soviet Union had made in the
Cuban Revolution for over thirty years, which was again very important
94 Chapter 4

in explaining the improvement in relations from the mid-1990s onwards.

As detailed in the previous chapter, a desire within the Russian business
community to address the loss of their pre-eminent position within the
Cuban economy had also been significant to this, and in a not dissimilar
manner the realisation formed in Russia that due to the sudden deterio-
ration in relations in the period from 1992 to 1995 the Soviet investment
in the Cuban economy had simply been wasted. As stated, this had seen
the completion of in excess of 5,000 joint programmes by the end of the
Soviet era. Again, as in the early 1960s when the number of these projects
escalated massively it appeared that even in the 1990s Moscow could not
afford to simply cut its ties with these projects due to the economic impli-
cations this would have for the Russian Federation. A pressure, which had
been a significant part of the foundations of Soviet-Cuban relations, had
re-emerged in the post 1991 period, although at a much reduced level, to
once again be important in the relationship. S. Batchikov, co-chairman of
the Russian Foreign Economic Policy Fund, wrote in 1997, “One wouldn’t
want to think that in Cuba . . . Russia is ignominiously squandering the
legacy built by the selfless labor of several generations of our fellow coun-
trymen.”29 The idea that the legacy from the Soviet era may be being lost
was returned to during Vladimir Putin’s trip to Cuba in the year 2000
when Aleksei Chichkin wrote, “According to Cuba’s Minister of Foreign
Investment, more than half of the old Soviet projects on the Isle of Free-
dom have been taken over by foreign firms.”30
In relation to this economic legacy a very interesting article appeared in
Moskovskiye novosti in the summer of 1995. It stated, “According to some
estimates, in the course of 30 years of Soviet-Cuban cooperation, we in-
vested more than $100 billion in the island’s economy. One should also re-
member that no other country in the world has so many factories built
with Soviet assistance and so many specialists trained in the USSR. Had
we managed to preserve our dominant status in Cuba’s nickel industry,
Russia might have a monopoly on this raw material in the world market.
Today there are more than five hundred joint production facilities on
which all work has halted. And although relations with Cuba will never
be what they once were, one thing is clear: No matter who is in power in
Havana—Fidel Castro or the leaders of the Miami-based opposition—
Russia will continue to have economic interests in Cuba. And for this rea-
son the thaw in our relations can only be welcomed.”31
Moreover, Professor Eugenio Larin, Director of Latin American Studies
at the Institute of Cold War History of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
has stated that due to the “good and sincere” relations that existed from
the Soviet era, the relationship between Havana and Moscow will con-
tinue for the foreseeable future regardless of who the specific leaders in ei-
ther capital actually are. This is particularly significant in light of the
 The Soviet Legacy 95

events of late February and early March 2008 which saw Dmitri
Medvedev win the Russian Presidential elections and Raúl Castro perma-
nently succeed his brother as Cuban President. It could even be suggested
that due to Raúl’s military past and close association with the Russian
military for a number of decades, agreements between the Russian mili-
tary and FAR were signed throughout the 1990s, that the importance of
Russian-Cuban relations may increase for Havana in the future.32
Besides this, in November 1995, S. Tsyplakov, head of the Russian Fed-
eration Government Department of International Cooperation, pointedly
commented that Cuba was “tied” to Russia due to this legacy.33 This was
despite Cuba’s continued attempts to reduce its dependency on Moscow
throughout the Soviet era and the dramatic change in the composition of
the Caribbean island’s trading partners in the 1990s detailed in the previ-
ous chapter. As has been suggested some form of a relationship continu-
ing to exist between two countries which have a shared history such as
Russia and Cuba is not unusual but in this specific case due to the colos-
sal Soviet economic investment in the Caribbean island it appeared par-
ticularly strong, which has resulted in some of the pressures that had
formed the foundations of Soviet-Cuban relations re-emerging in the
1990s, but at a reduced level from those during the Soviet era. In addition,
it also highlighted the prevalence of pragmatism within both govern-
ments, but as with the continued purchase of Cuban sugar, it appeared
somewhat ironic that this legacy from the Soviet era was so significant in
Russian-Cuban relations in the 1990s as they had been so heavily criti-
cised in the final years of the Soviet Union. Moreover, some believed it
had been so powerful that it could even outlive the Castro regime in Cuba
and the then expected influx of U.S. dollars from the north. This economic
legacy from the Soviet era was of the utmost importance, and was vital to
the improvement in relations between Cuba and Russia from the mid-
1990s onwards.
It was this desire not to waste the investment in the Cuban economy
from the Soviet era, and wish to reclaim some of their lost influence in it,
that drove this phenomenon and not the result of the globalisation
process in general. As argued in the previous chapter, some Russian in-
terest in Cuba in the 1990s may have been expected due to globalisation,
but, if this had been the case it would be logical to think that at this time
Russian interest in the rest of Latin America would also have been at a
similar level to that which had taken place in Cuba. This, however, was
not the case and it was the wish to reclaim some of their lost influence in
the Cuban economy that was more significant. This situation only arose
due to investment from the Cold War era or as a result of the economic
legacy from the Soviet period, further illustrating its importance in the
upturn in relations.
96 Chapter 4

It was not just an upturn in trade that symbolised the improvement in

relations, but from 1996 visits by top ranking officials to each other’s re-
spective countries recommenced, whose absence since 1992 had been both
very conspicuous and also a graphical illustration of the downturn in the
relationship. The first of these was in June 1996 when the Russian Foreign
Minister Yevgeny Primakov travelled to Cuba. During his visit he not
only met both Castro brothers but a programme on bilateral co-operation
on education, science and technology and culture was also signed. As Pri-
makov was leaving Cuba, Fidel Castro spoke about the state of relations
between Cuba and Russia when he said, “Recently, relations have been
improving little by little. There have been good moments, there have been
critical moments and now there’s an upswing.”34 In a similar manner, Pro-
fessor Eugenio Larin has compared the relationship between Havana and
Moscow to being like a marriage which has its good moments and bad
moments but does not end in divorce.35 Primakov’s visit was important in
itself, but the significance of Primakov himself to Russian-Cuban relations
will be analysed in the next chapter.
Roberto Robaina, the Cuban Foreign Minister, reciprocated this trip in
March 1998 when he visited the Russian capital, and in September 1999
the new Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov travelled to Cuba.36 During
his trip Ivanov partly explained the reasons for the improvement in rela-
tions, but also the importance of the Soviet legacy in it, when he said: “It’s
evident that our taking into account the wealth accumulated in the many
years of relations between both nations, it’s logical that the ties between
Cuba and Russia continue to develop.”37 This was certainly the case with
these type of visits because it would have been more surprising if they
had not taken place as relations between the two countries improved.
In January 1999, Robaina was again in Moscow by which time relations
had undoubtedly improved but as detailed Cuba’s unpaid debt to Russia
had been both an important factor in the relationship never being com-
pletely severed, but had also become a thorny issue between the two
countries. On this Gennady Charodeyev, an Izvestia journalist, wrote,
“Minister Roberto Robaina declined to give a detailed answer to a ques-
tion from Izvestia as to whether Cuba recognised any debt to Russia. But
it’s no secret to anyone that the foreign-debt problem wasn’t solved this
time either. Moscow, realizing that the issue has become a vexing and pro-
tracted one, proposed a step-by-step process in which the sides would
first reach agreement on capitalizing—on portion of the debt by convert-
ing it into shares in joint ventures and facilities built in Cuba with Soviet
assistance.”38
As outlined in chapter 3 practical, economic reasons and not a return to
Marxist-Leninist thinking were the driving forces in Vladimir Putin’s trip
to Cuba in December 2000. The outcome of this visit appeared to be very
 The Soviet Legacy 97

positive with a number of agreements being signed, but the issue of

Cuba’s debt continued to loom large over relations between the two coun-
tries. In the aftermath of this visit, Aleksei Chichkin, a journalist, wrote in
Rossiiskaya gazeta, “Russia’s Ministry of Economic Development and Trade
puts Cuba’s debt at £20 billion. Cuba didn’t even recognise this debt until
last year. And for understandable reasons, it brought a counterclaim—
namely, that the sudden break-off of economic, scientific and technologi-
cal ties with the USSR and Russia in 1989–1992 had cost the Cuban econ-
omy at least $15 billion (including adjustments for the subsequent “lost”
years). Moreover, Havana proposed that Russia compensate for this by
drastically lowering and then abolishing import duties on all Cuban
goods and services. It promised to extend the same benefits to Moscow.”39
Cuba’s unpaid debt to Russia may have been a contentious issue be-
tween the two countries since the end of Soviet-Cuban relations, but its
importance to Russia can be further illustrated by the fact that in Septem-
ber 2005 Moscow announced that it was deferring payment of the debt.40
This was a first for the Russian Federation and significantly it was not
simply cancelled. Cuban payment of this remains unlikely, but by not
merely writing it off it appears that Moscow continues to cling to the hope
that it may be repaid with the debt not only having been a very important
issue in the relationship, but this remains so. Again, a legacy from the So-
viet era has been a crucial factor in Russian-Cuban relations in the post
1991 period.
However, it is also highly significant that Moscow took this decision be-
cause, as stated, they had never done this before, but by doing this it il-
lustrates that the Russian government still attaches great importance to
their relationship with Cuba. The issue of the debt may not have been re-
moved from the relationship permanently but it could be argued that this
decision has invigorated the relationship as a number of significant eco-
nomic agreements between the two countries have since been signed.
This includes both the Cuban purchase of Russian aircraft and a $365m
grant from the Russian government. These will be analysed in more depth
later in this chapter but it has been significant that they were signed once
the Cuban debt had been deferred. Moreover, as a result of this decision
it might not be beyond reason to think that Cuba has been treated differ-
ently from other countries by Moscow. This most certainly has parallels to
the Soviet era.
The issue of Cuba’s debt may have been a major issue between the two
countries when Putin visited Cuba, but a number of articles appeared in
the Russian press at this time which illustrate both the change in Russian
citizens thinking towards Cuba and also the important role that the Soviet
legacy played in the improvement in relations. On 15 December 2000,
Izvestia reported that “Putin began his visit to Cuba by declaring that the
98 Chapter 4

breaking off of relations with Havana after the Soviet collapse had been a
historical mistake. This was music to the ears of Fidel Castro (who wel-
comed Putin at Jose Marti Airport in person).”41
On the following day in the previously quoted article by Aleksei
Chichkin, the significance of the Soviet legacy was shown even more
clearly. Chichkin wrote, “Before reporting on the agreements reached in
Havana, let us recall that over the past 10 years or so, since the break-up
of the USSR, we have changed more than our ideology. For some reason,
we thought that the foreign economic interests of the new Russian state
would be completely different, and that there would be no place in them
for ties (mainly economic) with the allies of the former USSR. Russia vol-
untarily pulled out of markets in which it had operating for some time (an
unprecedented occurrence in world economic history), where our manu-
factured goods were and remain in great demand. Mongolia and Cuba
were among the first countries that we ‘abandoned.’ The only remaining
economic link between Moscow and Havana is ‘Russian oil for Cuban
raw sugar.’ Most of our sugar mills process Cuban raw sugar during the
winter months, after our own sugar beets have run out. So there was no
compulsion to apply ideological clichés to this sector. From an overall per-
spective, however, Russia’s long-term economic interests were sacrificed
to political expediency.”42
Also during his trip to Cuba the Russian premier presented the Order
of Friendship to Carlos Dortes, the Cuban Health Minister. This was
awarded to thank the Cuban nation for both its health and development
ties with Russia, and also due to the fact that by the year 2000 some 19,000
children who had been affected by the Chernobyl disaster in April 1986
had enjoyed a period of convalescence in the Caribbean paid for by the
Cuban government. This was important as it provided further evidence
for both the fact that relations between Moscow and Havana had never
been completely broken in the early 1990s and also the existence of a
legacy from the Soviet era. In addition, it was quite remarkable that this
program, which showed the Cuban government’s continued belief in in-
ternationalism, had remained in place when relations between the two
countries had soured in the early 1990s and especially as its cost may have
become prohibitive when the Cuban economy had deteriorated drasti-
cally after the disintegration of the Soviet Union.43
As outlined in the previous chapter, Cuba’s biotechnological industry
has in general been both very significant for the recovery of the island’s
economy, but also for Russian-Cuban relations specifically due to Russian
interest in it. Although not directly a part of the Soviet legacy, it is again
important as Moscow has attempted to use its links to the Cuban Revolu-
tion from the Soviet era to try and gain access to the island’s biotechno-
logical products. Moscow’s desire to do this was evident during Putin’s
 The Soviet Legacy 99

trip to Cuba when the Russian President visited the Center for Genetic
Engineering and Biotechnology in Havana and that the agreements he
signed while on the island involved Russian goods being exchanged for
Cuban medical ones. The Cuban economist Hiram Marquetti has also
written of the importance of pharmaceutical goods for the relationship
and Russia’s interest in it was seen by the fact that during the 2006 inter-
national trade fair in Havana a special presentation and workshop was
held where the possibilities of increased collaboration in biotechnology
were discussed.44 This again illustrated the significance and power of the
Soviet legacy to the post 1991 relationship between Havana and Moscow
as the Russian government was even trying to use it, and their friendship
built up over a number of decades, to cultivate links to parts of the Cuban
economy that had only begun to come to fruition in the final years of the
Soviet era.
Cuba’s recent purchase of two Russian-made IL 96-300 airplanes may
again not be a direct result of the Soviet legacy with a variety of other rea-
sons being significant, particularly the £200m credit from a syndicate of
Russian banks that helped to fund this transaction, but it does play a part
in it.45 The confidence that this syndicate of banks has shown in the Cuban
government would have been acquired over a period of time and the long
history of relations between Moscow and Havana will certainly not have
harmed this process. Moreover, as with Soviet era machinery in general
which had worked very well in Cuban conditions so too had Soviet
planes and in addition the island’s pilots and mechanics have consider-
able experience of working with Russian and Soviet made aircraft, many
of which were used for a considerable time period after the end of Soviet-
Cuban relations, and this will only have made the purchase of these
planes more appealing to the Cuban authorities.
The improvement in relations between Moscow and Havana and the
agreements signed between the two countries have been very important
for the Cuban Revolution as it has struggled to adjust to the loss of the So-
viet Union. In December 2000 during Putin’s trip to the Caribbean island
Fidel Castro commented upon the agreements signed when he said they
“reaffirm the traditional sentiments of friendship between our two peo-
ples.”46 Moreover, the Cuban academics Graciela Chailloux, Rosa Lopez
and Silvio Baro have written with regards to Cuba’s relationship with
Eastern Europe, “the Cuban foreign policy objective—based on the con-
sideration that these countries had had friendly relations with Cuba for
three decades—is directed to foster bilateral relations in the prevailing
conditions based on the ever-present mutual respect, continuity of the re-
lationship in all possible fields and ways.”47 Specifically they believed
that relations with Russia were the most important as a result of the much
larger volumes of exchange involved in comparison to the other former
100 Chapter 4

socialist countries of Eastern Europe. Russian-Cuban relations may have

endured a turbulent period and undergone fundamental change but the
significance of the great history which the two countries shared and its
role in the evolution of the relationship from the mid-1990s onwards was
not lost on either the Cuban leader or the island’s population.
Due to the all encompassing nature of Soviet-Cuban relations the
legacy from it is not just very strong but, unsurprisingly, can be seen in
many parts of the ‘new’ relationship between Moscow and Havana. This
even includes cultural links between the two countries, which would not
have been expected as during the Soviet era they had often been made
light of and even mocked. As stated, Nadya Plankton, joint organiser of
the cinema, video and graphic arts project entitled ‘Days of the Russian
contemporary culture in Havana,’ believes that in the early 1990s Cuba re-
mained an emotive subject in Russia but as time has passed these feelings
have gradually receded and people within both countries have begun to
embrace the cultural links that existed between their countries. This is a
very different sentiment to the one that existed in the late 1980s and early
1990s when many felt that the relationship was “doomed” to continue.
This is not to say that cultural links have returned to levels enjoyed in
the Soviet era as Plankton’s difficulty in trying to find funding within
Russia for her project that was staged in Havana in November 2005 and
even how some Cubans perceived their efforts, but this does not diminish
the importance of this phenomenon. This is apparent not just from Plank-
ton and her associates staging the above titled project, but in other ones
that have also taken place. In June 1999, this has included readings of
Alexander Pushkin’s work organised by the Cuban Ministry of Culture,
Institute of Language and Literature of the University of Havana and the
Jose Marti Library to commemorate the two-hundredth anniversary of the
Russian writer’s birth, the signing of an agreement whereby sports sci-
ence expertise would be shared between the two countries, the hope that
a Russian cultural center may be built in Havana and more recently the
construction of a Russian Orthodox Church in the Cuban capital, with this
church symbolising both the changes which have taken place in Cuba in
the 1990s and also the Soviet legacy.48
Many Cubans may still comment on the great differences in general be-
tween the two peoples while also stressing how well they got on with in-
dividual Soviet citizens that they may have come into contact with, but
some very tentative interest in this cultural aspect of the Soviet legacy has
been seen in Cuba. This has been apparent with the appearance of the
project entitled “Proyecto mir xxi cu” whose aim is to promote within
Cuba the interests of those born of Cuban and Russian parents and in 2002
the video of the punk rock group “Porno para Ricardo” even mirrored as-
pects of Cuban-Soviet relations.49
 The Soviet Legacy 101

This recent increase in the cultural links is an excellent illustration of the

power and strength of the Soviet legacy in relations between Moscow and
Havana more than fifteen years after the disintegration of Soviet-Cuban
relations as in the early 1990s it would have appeared that a cultural
legacy was somewhat tenuous and even highly unlikely. However, it is
occurring quite simply because Soviet-Cuban relations existed because
this phenomenon is not being repeated by Russians with other Latin
American peoples.
The point which Plankton makes about Cuba still being a controversial
issue in Russia in the early 1990s and that it has only been with the passing
of time that this began to change, was not only important in the re-emer-
gence of cultural links between the two countries, but was pivotal for the
relationship in general. As has been discussed, in the late 1980s many
within the Soviet Union had become disillusioned with both Soviet-Cuban
relations and the Cuban Revolution itself. This was perfectly illustrated by
Churkin’s comment in August 1991 that trade between the two countries
was “doomed” to continue. With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, re-
lations between Moscow and Havana changed dramatically, with many of
these disillusioned people in Russia being glad that the Soviet Union had
disintegrated, while some were also being highly critical of the Cuban Rev-
olution and its government. However, as time passed these negative feel-
ings began to recede with some Russians beginning to have feelings of nos-
talgia for the Soviet era. This did not just occur, as stated, amongst former
members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) or the Red
Army but also among Russian citizens in general. During the Cold War
Moscow had been the capital of a superpower and not on the periphery of
international relations as had occurred in the 1990s. Moreover, the eco-
nomic situation of many Russians had often been far superior during the
Soviet era than in the 1990s. This phenomenon did not go unnoticed in
Cuba. In 2001 the academic Ariel Dacal wrote that in a survey conducted in
the year 2000 61.1 percent of Russians polled would like to return to the
“old times” while only 27.7 percent would like to remain in the “present sit-
uation.”50 As stated, due to the socio-economic situation endured by many
Russians after the break-up of the Soviet Union these sentiments are not as
surprising as they may first appear but the Cuban authorities would have
also perceived them as justification of continuing to pursue their political
and economic models in the aftermath of the end of Soviet-Cuban relations.
In the specific case of relations between Moscow and Havana the reali-
sation formed, that, as a result of the unique relationship between the two
countries from the Soviet era, there had been a number of positive factors
for Russia from its relationship with Cuba and it was in their national in-
terest to try and foster these again. Ironically, in the early to mid-1990s this
had even included the purchase of sugar from the Caribbean island. This
102 Chapter 4

change in attitude was sown by another opinion poll held in Russia in

2006. Of those questioned, 63 percent believed that Fidel Castro had been
a great political figure of the twentieth century, 56 percent thought that the
Cuban population had benefited from his time as Cuban President while
only 8 percent disagreed with this sentiment.51 The importance of this
change in attitude cannot be overestimated as it has been of absolutely fun-
damental significance and is another aspect of the Soviet legacy which has
been vital in Russian-Cuban relations in the years since 1992.
In a similar manner the alteration in Russian foreign policy which took
place in the mid-1990s, that was detailed in chapter 1 and will be exam-
ined in chapter 5, was also of great importance. This change, which saw
Moscow try and reassert itself on the world politics, resulted in the Rus-
sian Federation and Cuba having similar political outlooks on many is-
sues. Moscow once again began to back Havana over various disputes
that the Caribbean island had with Washington, with this most certainly
being a legacy from the Soviet era when it had been the norm for the two
countries to side with each other over various political issues.52
The legacy from the Soviet era has unquestionably been highly signifi-
cant in both the fact that relations between Moscow and Havana were
never completely severed even in the years 1992 to 1995 when the rela-
tionship suffered a massive downturn when compared to earlier periods,
but it has also been important in the upturn in the relationship from 1995
onwards. Moscow’s decision to keep the listening post at Lourdes open
was, as outlined, the most high-profile example of the legacy in this first
period after 1992. This facility remained in operation throughout the
1990s much to the ire of Washington who made repeated attempts to in-
crease the pressure on Moscow to close it, which will be detailed in the
next chapter.
However, this illustration of the Soviet legacy no longer existed after
Lourdes was closed in January 2002.53 As stated in the previous chapter
this decision did briefly adversely affect relations between Havana and
Moscow and the reasons for Moscow’s decision will be analysed in more
depth in chapter 5, but they were of such significance that they out-
weighed the power and strength of the Soviet legacy which has been a
fundamental aspect in relations between Moscow and Havana in the post
1991 period.
As outlined in the previous chapter, in the twenty-first century China
and Venezuela have replaced Russia as Cuba’s chief trading partners with
the South American country being the island’s main source of oil. More-
over, it was also detailed that recently the levels of Cuban sugar harvests
have fallen. Earlier in this chapter it has been argued that oil for sugar
swaps were an illustration of both relations between Moscow and Havana
never being completely severed in the aftermath of the disintegration of
 The Soviet Legacy 103

the Soviet Union and also the presence of a legacy from the Soviet era in
it. This is unquestionably true, but as the importance of oil and sugar in
Russian-Cuban relations has fallen the relationship has evolved and other
ones such as nickel and biotechnological products have replaced these
products. This, however, does not reduce the significance of the Soviet
legacy in the relationship that has evolved from the mid-1990s, as it was
vital to the improvement in relations before this change regarding oil and
sugar took place, or the fact that it continues to play in the relationship at
the beginning of the twenty-first century.

CONCLUSIONS

As has been suggested, throughout history it has often been the case that
a legacy exists between two countries which have had a shared history
such as that which existed between Moscow and Havana during the Soviet
era. This by no means is to suggest that Cuba was a colony of the Soviet
Union, due in no small part to both the prevalence of nationalism in the
Cuban Revolution and repeated attempts by Havana throughout the So-
viet era to reduce its dependency on Moscow. Contrary to this, and in-
creasing the likelihood that a legacy would exist, is the fact that the
Caribbean island was ‘first among equals’ for many within the Soviet rul-
ing elite which had meant that it had received huge levels of aid and trade
but also some of the most up to date Soviet military and civilian hardware.
Therefore this makes the sudden and dramatic break in relations be-
tween the two former Cold War allies in the immediate aftermath of the
collapse of the Soviet Union, when it appeared that a legacy didn’t exist,
unusual. However, even this could be perceived as a legacy from the Gor-
bachev era of Soviet-Cuban relations if not earlier ones, when great
change had occurred and many Soviet citizens perception of the relation-
ship and Cuba itself had soured.
Although this was the case, even in the years 1992 to 1995 a complete
break in relations between Russia and Cuba did not take place with a
legacy from the Soviet era being vital to this. This took a number of forms
including citizens of both countries remaining in the other country and
not returning to the one of their birth. This heralded the appearance of a
number of palavinos, and this in conjunction with a legacy of Cubans
studying in the Soviet Union, resulted in Cuba having a unique Russian
language ability in Latin America and, due to Soviet-Cuban relations a
large number of Russians learnt Spanish. In addition to this, the pro-
gramme whereby children affected by the Chernobyl disaster enjoyed a
period of convalescence in Cuba continued and Moscow also took the de-
cision to keep the listening post at Lourdes open, which was perhaps the
104 Chapter 4

most high-profile example of relations not only continuing but also of the
legacy itself.
Besides this, a number of the pressures that had been of the utmost sig-
nificance for Soviet-Cuban relations began to re-emerge as the 1990s pro-
gressed, although at a reduced level when compared to the Soviet era.
This most certainly included the enormous debt that Havana had accu-
mulated to Moscow during the Soviet era and was both a further illustra-
tion of this legacy and a vital component to the relationship in the 1990s.
Moreover, the legacy also contained further economic aspects as the
Caribbean island required spare parts for Soviet era machinery that con-
tinued to be used on the island, and also the realisation formed that in
many ways it was easier, cheaper and beneficial for both countries that oil
for sugar swaps continue. This did not just show the existence of prag-
matism within both governments, but was also particularly ironic when it
had been the economic element of Soviet-Cuban relations that had been
so widely criticized within the Soviet Union in the final years of the So-
viet era. Moreover, the irony is further increased that despite Cuban at-
tempts to both reduce dependency on the Soviet Union during the Cold
War period and diversify their economy, sugar, their primary export since
colonial times, proved to be such an important aspect in the continuation
of relations between Moscow and Havana in the post 1991 period.
In relation to this, the fact some semblances of the relationship had sur-
vived the end of the Soviet-Cuban relations also partly explains the sur-
prising lack of comment made by the Cuban government about the un-
folding situation in Russia, because although not constrained by
diplomatic protocol as they had been during the Soviet era they did not
want to jeopardize the trade that was continuing. Not only was this a
legacy in itself from the Soviet era, but it was also vital for the ailing
Cuban economy at this time. In addition, trade with Russia was only
made easier due to the ties which had existed between Havana and
Moscow for over thirty years. Moreover, this Cuban reaction was yet an-
other example of the strong prevalence of realist pragmatism in the
Cuban Revolution.
The legacy did not only illustrate that the relations between Moscow
and Havana were never completely severed but they were also vital in the
improvement in the relationship from the mid-1990s onwards. In January
1995 hearings on Russian-Cuban relations were held in the Russian State
Duma and unsurprisingly it was members of the Russian Communist
Party who were particularly prominent in these as they would have felt
‘tied’ to the Cuban Revolution for ideological reasons but also as it illus-
trated their more glorious past. This was repeated by the military in both
respective countries. However, it also signalled a change in Russian citi-
zens’ thinking towards Cuba which was vital. Contrary to the belief in the
 The Soviet Legacy 105

late Soviet era that relations were “doomed” to continue many began to
realize that there were in fact benefits for Russia of the continuation of its
relationship with Cuba and that it remained mutually beneficial to both
countries.
This was certainly the case with the Russian business community as the
realisation formed that the huge Soviet investment in the Cuban economy
was simply being wasted by the downturn in relations. A desire to ad-
dress this was important as relations improved. Again, a pressure from
the Soviet era was re-emerging. The legacy has also been significant as
Russia has also tried to use it to gain access to Cuba’s biotechnological in-
dustry despite it only coming to fruition in the final years of the Soviet
era. Moreover, it also partly explains the Cuban purchase of Russian
planes, which had been found to work well in Caribbean conditions, as
Cuban pilots and mechanics would have experience of working with Rus-
sian technology from the Soviet era.
Cuba’s debt has continued to be significant in the relationship despite
an agreement over both its payment and even its size failing to have been
reached. In 2005 Moscow even deferred its payment, but significantly did
not simply cancel it, illustrating that not only did the Russian government
hope it would be repaid, but also as it was the first time Moscow had done
this it also resulted in Cuba receiving very different treatment compared
to other countries. This was most certainly a legacy from the Soviet era.
During the 1990s as Russian foreign policy evolved it resulted in the
two countries having a similar shared political outlook and Moscow back-
ing Havana over its various disputes with Washington. Again this was no
different from the Soviet era and a further illustration of the existence of
a legacy. Also its importance was highlighted by various official visits to
each other’s respective countries, with the return of such visits highlight-
ing the improvement in the relationship.
As has been outlined, Russian citizens’ thinking towards Cuba began to
change as the 1990s progressed. This was repeated to a lesser extent in
Cuba but it has resulted in the appearance of a number of recent cultural
events. This has been remarkable and would certainly not have been ex-
pected in the early 1990s as cultural links between the two peoples had of-
ten been mocked during the Soviet era. It does however show the strength
and power of the Soviet legacy. This changing attitude in both countries
has been absolutely vital to the upturn in relations and due to the nature
of Soviet-Cuban relations it is not surprising that it has taken a number of
years for this to occur.
It has been suggested that Russia continuing to use the listening post at
Lourdes was the highest-profile example of both relations between Ha-
vana and Moscow never being completely severed and the Soviet legacy.
It has however disappeared as this facility was closed in January 2002.
106 Chapter 4

This in conjunction with China, but particularly Venezuela, having a

larger share of the Cuban economy than Russia could make it appear that
the importance of the Soviet legacy is decreasing in the relationship. How-
ever, this is not the case as Russian involvement in the Cuban economy,
partly as a result of the legacy, began before this, continues and has
evolved since. The importance of the Soviet legacy, despite Havana’s at-
tempts to reduce its dependence on Moscow during the Soviet era, to the
relationship between Moscow and Havana in the post Soviet period sim-
ply cannot be overestimated.

NOTES

1. Luis Eugenio di Marco. International economics and development; essays

in honor of Raúl Prebisch, (New York: Academic Press, 1972). Ronald H. Chilcote,
“Issues of Theory in Dependency and Marxism,” Latin America Perspectives, Vol-
ume 8, Nos. 3–4, (1981): 3–16. Chilcote, “A Question of Dependency,” Latin America
Research Review, Volume 13, No. 2 (1978) 55–68.
2. Izvestia, 17 September 1992, 5.
3. Granma, 8 September 1992, 3–6. Yury Sigov, “Forgotten Cuba. Moscow-
Havana: Have We remembered Each Other Too late?” Noviye Izvestia, 13 January
2000, 6. “Los rusos y el idioma rusa en Cuba,” El Ruso Cubano, Boletín Informativo
de le Embajada de le Federación de Rusia 2006, No. 8, 29 December 2006, 7.
4. Izvestia, 11 February 1994, 3.
5. For the specific effects that glasnost had on relationship see Mervyn J. Bain,
Soviet-Cuban Relations 1985 to 1991: Changing Perceptions in Moscow and Havana,
(Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007), 73–93.
6. Izvestia, 11 January 1993, 3.
7. K. Khachaturov, “Ye. Primakov in Latin America,” International Affairs Vol-
ume 42, No. 4, (1996): 54.
8. Leonid Velekhov, “Full Circle: Fidel Castro is State Duma’s New Friend.
Deputies Eager to ‘Revive Cuban Economy,’” Sevodnya, 13 January 1995, 3. Eugenio
Espinosa Martinez, “The Cuban Economy in the 1990s: From Crisis to Recovery,” in
Cuba in the 1990s, ed. José Bell Lara, (Havana: Editorial José Marti, 1999), 91.
9. Bell Lara, Cuba in the 1990s, 91.
10. Izvestia, 4 November 1992: 5
11. Sevodnya, 12 November 1994, 2.
12. Professor Eugenio Larin, Director of Latin American Studies at the Institute
of Cold War History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, stated this during an in-
terview conducted in Moscow on 9 January 2008. Dr Rodolfo Humpierre of Cen-
tro de Estudios Europeos (CEE) in Havana also made this point to me about the
importance of Russian spare parts to the Cuban economy during an interview
conducted in Havana on 14 February 2008 in Havana.
13. Hiram Marquetti, “Cuba-Rusia: Situación actual y perspectivas de las rela-
ciones económicas y comerciales,” Revista Estudios Europeos, No. 41, (January–March
1997): 14.
 The Soviet Legacy 107

14. Izvestia, 6 January 1992, 1.

15. Yevgeny Bai, “Torricelli Bill Also Affects Russia. U.S. Toughens Sanctions
Against Cuba,” Izvestia, 26 October 1992, 7.
16. Nikolai Vlasov, “Economic Cooperation with Cuba is in Russia’s Interests,”
Moscow News, Number 12, 19 March 1993, 5.
17. Lional Soto, “The Reasons for the Establishment of Relations with Russia,”
Latinskaia Amerika, No. 9, (September 1993): 39.
18. I. Glasov, G. Kara-Murza and A. Batchikov, El Libro Blanco: Las reformas ne-
oliberales en Rusia, 1991–2004, (Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 2007), 111.
Dr Rodolfo Humpierre spoke of the importance of sugar for Russia during an in-
terview conducted in Havana on 14 February 2008 in Havana.
19. Moscow INTERFAX in English 1200 GMT 2 August 1991 (FBIS-SOV 5 Au-
gust 1991, 29–30, OW0508045391). The benefits of relations with Cuba for Russia
was discussed at a roundtable event held at Latin American Studies at the Insti-
tute of Cold War History of the Russian Academy of Sciences in late 1992. A num-
ber of participants commented on the benefits with the academic A. A. Ermakov
stating that at this time they were being ignored in Russia. “Russia-Cuba: A Per-
spective of Relations in the New Era.” Latinskaia Amerika, Nos. 10–11, 1992, 44–57.
Vladimir Borodaev, a Ph.D. student at Latin American Studies at the Institute of
Cold War History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, also commented on the
mutual benefits for both countries in 2001. “Perspectives for the development of
international ties with Cuba.” Latinskaia Amerika, No. 1, (2001): 24. Professor Larin
also spoke of the benefits for Russia and in particular with regards sugar, because
as the Cuban sugar harvest has decreased Russia has had to find new markets
with in 2005, 50 percent of the country’s needs being bought from Brazil. Inter-
view conducted in Moscow on 9 January 2008. Olga Gridchina, “El Mercado de
azúcar en Rusia: posibilidades para Cuba,” Revista Estudios Europeos, No. 41,
January-March 1997, 45.
20. Yevgeny Bai, “Torricelli Bill Also Affects Russia. U.S. Toughens Sanctions
Against Cuba.” Izvestia, 26 October 1992, 7.
21. Radio Rebelde in Spa 2300 GMT 9 June 93—FBIS-LAT-93-110, p3
FL1006015293.
22. Radio Rebelde in Spa 1700 GMT 6 Dec 93-FBIS-LAT-93-234 pp 2–4
FL0712174893. Leonid Velekhov, “Full Circle: Mr Shumeoko Finds Golden Mean
in Relations with Cuba,” Sevodnya, 29 December 1993, 3.
23. Prensa Latina in Spa 1707 GMT 17 August 94—FBIS-LAT-94-160 p.9
PA170820094.
24. Bain, Soviet-Cuban Relations, 95–123.
25. Leonid Velekhov, “Old Friends: Russia and Cuba. It seems They Are Broth-
ers Forever After All,” Sevodnya, 22 December 1993, 3.
26. Izvestia, 30 November 1993, 3. “A Narrative Visit. What Underlies General
Kolesnikov’s Trip To Havana,” Nevzavisimaya Gazeta, 4 November 1994, 4.
27. Velekhov, “Full Circle,” Sevodnya, 13 January 1995, 3.
28. Jose Canton Navarro and Martin Duarte Hurtado, Cuba: 42 años de Revolu-
ción. Cronología historia 1983–2000, (Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 2007),
284. “Comunistas rusos entregan medalla a Fidel Castro,” El Ruso Cubano, No. 15,
30 April 2007, 5.
108 Chapter 4

29. S. Batchikov, “The Cuba That we are Losing and Everyone Else is Finding,”
Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 14 November 1997, 2.
30. Aleksei Chichkin, “Mutual Interest Replaces External Friendship,” Rossi-
iskaya Gazeta, 16 December 2000, 1, 7. Professor Eugenio Larin also emphasised the
importance of the Russian desire to become more involved in the Cuban economy
due to having lost their pre-eminent position in it. Interview conducted in
Moscow on 9 January 2008.
31. Aleksei Bausin, “Cuban Poker: It’s America’s Turn,” Moskovskiye novosti,
No. 38., May 28–June 4 1995, 12.
32. Interview conducted in Moscow on 9 January 2008. Dr Rodolfo Humpierre
also stated that a change in the leadership of Russia in March 2008 was unlikely
to affect Russian-Cuban relations. Interview conducted in Havana on 14 February
2008 in Havana. In December 1998 an agreement between the two militaries was
signed by Raul Castro and General Anatoli Kvashnin while he was in Cuba.
Navarro and Martin Duarte Hurtado, Cuba: 42 años de Revolución, 315.
33. Sevodnya, 1 November 1995, 2.
34. Granma International, 5 June 1996, 3.
35. Larin used this description of the relationship during an interview con-
ducted in Moscow on 9 January 2008.
36. I. Ivanov, “Russian Diplomacy’s Latin American Vector, Nezavisimaya gazeta,
18 September 1999, 6.
37. L. Newman, “Cuba, Russia Seek New Post-Cold War Relationship,” 28 Sep-
tember 1999. See http://www.cnn.com (24 February 2003).
38. Gennady Charodeyev, “Moscow Takes New View of Isle of Freedom,” Izves-
tia, 20 January 1999, 3.
39. Chichkin, “Mutual Interest,” Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 16 December 2000, 1, 7.
40. ITAR-TASS News Agency, 15 September 2005.
41. Gregory Bovt, “Visit to a ‘Lennonist’—Vladimir Putin Visits Fidel Castro,”
Izvestia, 15 December 2000, 3.
42. Chichkin, “Mutual Interest,” Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 16 December 2000, 1, 7
43. Moscow ITAR-TASS in Eng 2051 GMT 15 December 00 FBIS LAT 20001216
CEP20001216000078. This project has since been stopped with the facilities used
by the children now housing foreign students studying in Cuba, but it was re-
markable that this project survived for so long after the disintegration of Soviet-
Cuban relations.
44. Granma, 16 December 2000, 1. Marquetti, “Cuba-Rusia: Situación actual y
perspectivas,” 1997, 17. “Celebración el Día de Rusia en Feria de la Habana,” El
Ruso Cubano, No. 5, 2 November 2006, 3–4.
45. “Russia banks syndicate $203m aircraft loan for Cuba,” RIA Novosti
22 December 2006. See http://rian.ru/business/20061222/7603049-print.html
(4 January 2007).
46. Granma, 15 December 2000, 1.
47. Graciela Chailloux, Rosa Lopez and Silvio Baro, Globalization and the Cuban-
U.S. Conflict, (Havana: Editorial José Marti, 1999), 193.
48. Ibid, 5. Valerie Morodev and Yu. Korchagen, “History of Russian-Cuban Re-
lations,” No. 7, 2002, 99–102. “Un acuerdo ruso-cubano en las esfera deportiva,”
 The Soviet Legacy 109

El Ruso cubano, No. 5, 2 November 2006, 6. “Los rusos y el idioma ruso en Cuba,”
El Ruso cubano, No. 8, 29 December 2006, 7.
49. J. Loss, “Wandering in Russia,” presented at the Sixth Cuban Research In-
stitute (CRI) Conference on Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, Florida Interna-
tional University, 6 February 2006.
50. Ariel Dacal Díaz, “Rusia: el sueno postergado de una ‘gran potencia,” Re-
vista de Estudios Europeos, (September–December 2001): 70.
51. “Rusia: el sueno postergado de una ‘gran potencia, Para la mayoría de los
rusos Fidel Castro as una gran figura política,” El Ruso cubano, No. 1, 7 September
2006, 3.
52. These will be examined in more detail in chapter 5 but has included in May
1996 the downing of two planes owned by the exile group “Brothers in Arms,” the
situation that developed over Elian González between Havana and Washington in
the year 2000 and the further tightening of the embargo in 2004.
53. The announcement that this facility was to close was made in October 2001.
Granma, 18 October 2001: 1.
 5

Washington and
the Wider World

A s has been previously detailed Cuba since the time of the Spanish
conquest has been dependent on various world powers which has
meant that events occurring outwith the island have always impacted on
it. This may have firstly resulted from the role that Spain and subse-
quently the United States played in Cuba, but more recently the relation-
ship that developed between Moscow and Havana during the Soviet era.
In relation to this, the foreign policy pursued by the Castro regime not
only further increased the significance of global events for the island but
also allowed Cuba during the Cold War to break traditional international
relations thinking and acquire a disproportionately large amount of in-
fluence on the global stage. This influence, in conjunction with Moscow’s,
may have waned in the aftermath of the implosion of the Soviet Union
and disintegration of Soviet-Cuban relations but this has not decreased
the significance of world events for the Caribbean island in general, or
more specifically its relationship with Moscow.
As outlined in chapter 2, since the victory of the Cuban Revolution and
inception of relations between Moscow and Havana, Washington has
made repeated attempts to both destroy the Cuban regime and bring
pressure to bear on Moscow regarding its relationship with Havana. Even
with the end of the Cold War, improved relations between Moscow and
Washington, the implosion of the Soviet Union and disappearance of So-
viet-Cuban relations, Washington has continued to act in this way. On this
William LeoGrande has written, “Before 1991, Cuba’s partnership with
the Soviet Union and ideological antagonism towards the United States
made it a serious issue for Washington. Aiding revolutionaries in Latin

111
112 Chapter 5

America, sending troops to Africa, denouncing global capitalism in the

Non-Aligned Movement—at every juncture Cuba stood opposed to U.S.
foreign policy. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, any plau-
sible Cuban threat evaporated.”1
A number of different reasons explain Washington’s unchanged Cuba
policy after 1991, including history, the fact that despite events in Febru-
ary 2008 a Castro brother remains the President of Cuba and that since the
early 1960s Cuba has been both a domestic and foreign policy issue in the
United States. This resulted from the appearance of the influential and
powerful Cuban exile community who have also been able to prevent the
‘Cuban issue’ disappearing from the U.S. political scene.2
A New World Order may have appeared in the early 1990s but, as
stated, this did not appear to be the case regarding Washington’s policy
towards Havana, as many in the U.S. believed that the end of Soviet-
Cuban relations was merely the forerunner to the demise of the Castro
regime. As John Kirk has succinctly written, “Washington could smell
blood.”3 This did not just apply to the administration in Washington but
also the Cuban exile community, or the Cuban American National Foun-
dation (CANF) in particular, who appeared to be trying to use the influ-
ence in the ‘new’ Russia that they had gained from Jorge Mas Canosa’s
trip to Moscow in August 1991. Not only did he return to the Russian cap-
ital in May 1992 in an attempt to acquire exit visas for Cubans living in
Russia to relocate to the United States, but the Russian academic V.A.
Borodaev believed that they may even have been able to influence Rus-
sian thinking regarding the Torricelli Bill.4 As stated in chapter 3, Moscow
had sensationally abstained in the United Nations (UN) vote over this.
In relation to the United States government, Washington may have in-
creased sanctions against the island in the hope of speeding the demise of
the Castro regime but, as stated, the practice begun during the Cold War
of trying to influence Moscow’s Cuba policy also continued. Borodaev
thought that the U.S. administration, as well as the Cuban American exile
community, had also played a part in ‘helping’ Moscow to decide to ab-
stain in the aforementioned UN vote on the Torricelli Bill. Throughout the
1990s a number of Russians attacked U.S. attempts to influence Moscow’s
policies towards Cuba with Professor Eugenio Larin, Director of Latin
American Studies at the Institute of Cold War History of the Russian
Academy of Sciences, writing, “In order to improve political ties Wash-
ington demanded of B. H. Yeltsin that he must cut ties with Cuba. This
course of action dominated the 1990s.”5
This belief certainly abounded in Cuba with a number of academics
writing about the influence which Washington had in Moscow with re-
gards to its Cuba policy in the years immediately after the disintegration
of the Soviet Union. They thought that the Kremlin had allowed this situ-
 Washington and the Wider World 113

ation to develop in order to acquire the “help” of the United States in their
economic and political transition but its result was, as stated in chapter 3,
the appearance of the “Kozyrev Doctrine” which was not just very differ-
ent from Soviet foreign policy but was also very Western orientated. They
thought that the Developing World in general had been adversely affected
by this but that with regards to Cuba specifically Richard Dello has written,
“Cuba was almost immediately subjected to a wave of hostile measures on
the part of the United States as Washington sought to exploit the opportu-
nities afforded by the moment. Intense diplomatic pressure was placed on
the tenuous Yeltsin regime, demanding that Moscow cease all commerce
with Cuba. Washington even succeeded in winning a series of sharp criti-
cisms of the Cuban government from its newfound Russian ally.”6
The most public example of Washington attempting to influence
Moscow’s Cuba policy was also the most high-profile illustration of the
existence of the Soviet legacy in Russian-Cuban relations and the fact that
relations between Moscow and Havana were never completely severed
even in the years from 1992 to 1995; the listening post at Lourdes. As
stated, Washington could not understand why Moscow would want to
continue to covertly gather information on the U.S. with the Cold War
consigned to history. It not only illustrated that relations between the two
former superpowers were not as cordial as may first appear, but Russia’s
continued use of the facility provided the Cuban government with much
needed revenue as Washington attempted to economically ‘strangle’ the
Castro regime.
Washington’s desire to try and get this facility closed was most obvious
in 1996 with the Cuban Liberty and Solidarity Act, or Helms-Burton Act,
which the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MINREX) described as an il-
lustration “of the attempt to impose on Cuba the hegemonic and expan-
sionist ideas that persist in the minds of the ruling elite in the United
States.”7 This act attempted to not only prevent third-party countries in
general from trading with Cuba, but also contained a section that focused
solely on Russia. The act read, “the President shall withhold from assis-
tance provided . . . for an independent state of the former Soviet Union un-
der this Act an amount equal to the sum of assistance and credits, if any,
provided on or after such a date by such state in support of intelligence fa-
cilities in Cuba, including the intelligence facility at Lourdes, Cuba.”8
However, this did not seem to have the desired result for Washington
because Moscow had backed Cuba in the UN vote that condemned this
act, and as stated in chapter 3, the Russian government appeared to be
prepared to ignore this piece of legislation as a Russian Foreign Ministry
declaration stated, “We confirm our intention to develop and broaden
mutually beneficial cooperation with Cuba as well as sectors of mutual in-
terest, particularly in the commercial and economic sphere.”9
114 Chapter 5

As during the Cold War, Washington was trying to bring pressure to

bear on Moscow with regards to its relationship with Havana, but apart
from Washington’s possible successes at the UN votes on the Torricelli Bill
and human rights, which undoubtedly had been a shock to the Castro
regime but by no means fatal for it, pressure from the United States ap-
peared to continue to be largely unsuccessful. Moreover, the Russian Fed-
eration disliked the Helms-Burton Act due to Washington’s attempts to
influence international organisations and third party countries in general
with regards to Cuba. This is something that Moscow had profound con-
cerns about. In addition, an extremely tense situation had developed be-
tween Washington and Havana in 1996 with regards to the shooting
down of planes belonging to the exile group “Brothers in Arms” by the
Cuban air force. Some even believed that the outbreak of war between the
United States and Cuba over this had been possible.10 This only made
Russian backing for this and the Helms-Burton Act all the more important
for Havana.
Russian concerns about the Helms-Burton Act were symbolic of the al-
teration in Moscow’s perception of the changing nature of international re-
lations in the post 1991 period which had seen the end of bipolarity that
had lasted for over forty years. Moscow disliked the apparent unipolar na-
ture of international relations as a result of the appearance of U.S. hege-
mony and instead believed in a multipolar world. As stated in chapter 1,
Yevgeny Primakov replacing Andrei Kozyrev as Russia’s Foreign Minister
was important in this change in Russian thinking, but the belief in a mul-
tipolar world was significant in Moscow wanting to cultivate closer ties
with Havana. This was seen by the fact that as the 1990s progressed Rus-
sia very much wanted to reassert itself in geopolitics, illustrate that it was
not on the periphery of international relations and change the poor global
perception which many had of Russia, which had not been helped by Boris
Yeltsin’s increasingly erratic behaviour. It appeared that the Russian bear
was awakening from its slumbers and an improved relationship with
Cuba was very much part of this process. Moscow desiring a global pres-
ence had been highly significant to the inception of Soviet-Cuban relations
and in the 1990s it again appeared to be important. Again, a part of the
foundations of Soviet-Cuban relations had re-emerged in the 1990s to im-
pact on the relationship. Moreover, Moscow most certainly did not want to
be dictated to by Washington regarding its relationship with Havana as
this would have at the least gravely offended Russian nationalism. As
stated in chapter 1 nationalism had become increasingly prominent in Rus-
sian politics from the time of the 1993 State Duma elections onwards.
This change in Moscow’s Cuba policy obviously delighted the island’s
government, but Cubans were aware of the part that the United States ad-
ministration had played in this. Just as they had been aware that Wash-
 Washington and the Wider World 115

ington had been able to influence Moscow’s policies towards Havana in

the early to mid-1990s due to the Russian desire to gain assistance from
the United States in their economic and political transition, they also re-
alised that Russia may not have received what they had hoped for from
Washington and that this had been an underlying reason for this change
in Moscow’s policies. On this Dr Rodolfo Humpierre of Centro de Estu-
dios Europeos (CEE) in Havana commented that Russia may have been
hoping for much more but all that Russia got from the United States was
“chewing gum, Coca Cola and McDonalds.”11 This belief may partly be
the result of the continued Cuban dislike and mistrust of Washington, but
regardless of the reasons for this change in Russian policy it did not di-
minish the importance of it for the island’s government and population.
Yevgeny Primakov becoming Russian Foreign Minister was also very
significant for Russian-Cuban relations and not just because he oversaw
this general change in Russian foreign policy which Cuban academics be-
lieve heralded the appearance of the “Primakov Doctrine” which was
very different from the “Kozyrev Doctrine,” as it was much less Western
orientated. As stated, this in itself was highly significant and delighted
Havana after the traumatic period of the years 1992 to 1995. However, it
also appears that Primakov personally wanted to foster closer relations
between the two countries. His expertise may have been in the Middle
East but it appeared that his political outlook was in many ways similar
to that of the Cuban ruling elite and, moreover, it seems that he held the
island in special affection after he visited Cuba in April 1981. As a result
of his policies Boris Yeltsin may have subsequently accused him of trying
to take Russia back to its Soviet past, but he most certainly enjoyed a good
relationship with Cuba and the Castro brothers. This was illustrated by
the fact that after his resignation he received a personal invitation from Fi-
del Castro for himself and his family to holiday on the island. This again
could be perceived as a throwback to a previous time, as during the So-
viet era Cuba had always had people within prominent positions in the
Soviet elite championing their cause. A variety of reasons explain the up-
turn in Russian-Cuban relations but Primakov becoming Russian Foreign
Minister was an important part in this.12
Moreover, the significance of this change in Russian foreign policy
overseen by Primakov, which was so important for the Cuban Revolution,
is further increased as Cuba perceives Putin’s policies as a continuation of
them. In general the belief abounds amongst the island’s academic com-
munity that Putin has been good for both Russia in general and also more
specifically for Moscow’s relationships with Havana. They may have dis-
liked the “Kozyrev Doctrine” and the policies pursued by the Yeltsin
regime in the early to mid-1990s that were heavily influenced by Wash-
ington, but they do not think of Moscow’s move away from these policies
116 Chapter 5

occurring with Putin becoming Russian President but rather when Pri-
makov became Foreign Minister.13
In the face of increasing U.S. hostility that continued to offend Cuban
nationalism with the Cuban Chamber of Commerce describing the ongo-
ing embargo as, “the longest and cruellest in the history of mankind. An
economic war that qualifies as an act of genocide,”14 this alteration in
Moscow’s policies and the Kremlin’s refusal to bend to pressure from
Washington regarding its Cuban policy obviously delighted Havana.
Moreover, this was only helped by a shared belief between Cuba and Rus-
sia over the desire for a multipolar world. The Cuban government has
been continually critical of the appearance of a unipolar world and the ef-
fect that it has had on the Developing World.15 As a result of their long his-
tory of strained relations with the United States and their ideological
aversion to neoliberal economics, this is not surprising, but Russia also
wanting to see this situation come to an end was music to the ears of the
Cuban government.
In relation to this, and as has already been detailed, a diversification in
the island’s foreign policy had been a fundamental aspect in the way in
which the Cuban Revolution had been able to survive the collapse of the
socialist bloc. Closer relations with Moscow most certainly constituted
part of this. In September 1999, this shared belief in a multipolar world
was touched upon when the then Russian Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov,
travelled to Cuba and commented “Cuba and Russia support a multipo-
lar world order.”16 Moreover, in the twenty-first century the appearance
of the “Putin Doctrine” in Russian foreign policy, which as stated in chap-
ter 1 has some Soviet features but also nationalistic sentiments and anti-
Western reflexes, has only increased Moscow’s desire to witness the emer-
gence of a multipolar world. Closer ties with Havana certainly constituted
part of this but the result is that this common belief only made an im-
provement in relations between Havana and Moscow logical for both
governments.
The Helms-Burton Act and the UN vote condemning it did not end
Lourdes being a contentious issue between Washington and Moscow, or
discourage the United States attempting to change Russia’s policy by in-
creasing the pressure on the Kremlin. In March 2000 Congresswoman
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, one of three Cuban-American representatives from
Florida in the U.S. Congress, attempted to get the $200m that Russia paid
Cuba annually linked to Russia’s debt with the Paris Club of creditors. Yet
another illustration of the exiled community’s power and ability to shape
U.S.-Cuba policy.17 Moreover, the significance that Washington attached to
this facility was seen yet again in July 2000 when the United States Con-
gress stated that the Russian debt would not be rescheduled until Lourdes
was closed. This decision was deeply unpopular in Russia with the Rus-
 Washington and the Wider World 117

sian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov commenting that “it’s inappropri-

ate to link these two things—our installation on Cuba and the debt.”18 This
was further shown by the provocatively entitled article “Caribbean Crisis”
written by the journalist Aleksandr Chudodeyev published in Sevodnya in
July 2000 in which he wrote, “A cold wind from the past began blowing
again in relations between Moscow and Washington yesterday.”19
A slight change in the U.S. embargo appeared at the turn of the millen-
nium for a variety of reasons including the lobbying power of the exile
community being challenged by that of the U.S. business community.
Moreover, the death of Mas Canosa in 1997, the reaction towards the ex-
iles’ behaviour in the case of Elian González that had even seen anti-exile
protests in Miami, and a recent change in the attitude of some younger
members of the community all adversely impacted on their influence. De-
spite this, Washington’s policy towards Havana soon returned to its more
traditional position as it was affected by global events, which included the
increase in the importance of the promotion of democracy within U.S. for-
eign policy. On the effects that this had for U.S.-Cuban relations,
LeoGrande has written, “This shift in the United States rationale made
normalization even more difficult, because Washington was now de-
manding not just an end to objectionable Cuban behaviour abroad but to
the very character of the socialist state.”20 Moreover, the inauguration of
George W. Bush and the aftermath of 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks
on the U.S. have resulted in relations between Washington and Havana
ploughing new depths.
After 11 September 2001, as Washington focused on its “war on terror,”
events in the Middle East and security issues in general it resulted in Latin
America not being of the highest priority for the U.S. administration.
However, in this situation, despite Cuba giving its backing to the U.S. af-
ter 11 September 2001, LeoGrande argues that vested interests took this
opportunity to use security issues for their own agenda and it was a re-
sult of this that saw Cuba placed on the “axis of evil” in January 2002. The
Caribbean island has been on the U.S. list of sponsors of state terrorism
since 1982, but it was also accused of conducting biological warfare re-
search, supplying “dual-use biotechnology” to other rogue states and was
placed on the 2006 National Security Strategy.21
Havana was very unhappy with this turn of events, which again of-
fended Cuban nationalism, but as has been the case for a number of years
Cuba believes that many of Washington’s policies towards the island are
driven by the dynamics of U.S. internal politics. With regards to the shoot-
ing down of two planes owned by “Brothers in Arms” exile group in Feb-
ruary 1996, just three weeks before the Florida primaries, Richard Dello
has written, “In short, the aerial incidents offered the Cuban exile commu-
nity of Miami an opportunity to influence U.S. policy towards the island
118 Chapter 5

like never before.”22 In a similar manner, and in relation to Washington’s

accusations of Cuba supplying “dual-use biotechnology,” the Cuban aca-
demic Sorraya Castro Marino has written, “Washington’s inclusion of
Cuba on the list of suspected countries with a capability in the area of
weapons of mass destruction (WMD) was probably an attempt to shore up
domestic support for the antiterrorism war by bringing the threat closer to
home—putting it in familiar territory with a familiar enemy.”23 In addi-
tion, Fidel Castro has described Bush’s 20 May 2002 speech in which the
U.S. President called for a change to the island’s political system as “a real
harangue for his friends in Miami.”24
Moreover, further illustrating the new strained nature of Cuban-U.S. re-
lations was the creation of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba
in October 2003. Its mandate was “to focus United States government ef-
forts on achieving this objective,” and in 2004 TV Marti, the more high-
tech successor to Radio Marti, began broadcasting to the island.25 More re-
cently, in October 2007 George Bush announced the new initiative Freed
Fund for Cuba which would “give Cubans— especially Cuban entrepre-
neurs— access to grants, and loans and debt relief to help rebuild their
country.”26 Access to these would only be instigated once a variety of re-
forms had been implemented on the island including freedom of the press
and multi-party elections. Illustrating the continued personal animosity
between the Cuban and U.S. leaders was that throughout the press con-
ference to announce this initiative Bush refused to refer to either Castro
brother by name.27
Unsurprisingly, due to importance of both nationalism and anti-
American rhetoric in Cuba throughout the revolutionary period, Ha-
vana’s response to this has been very negative and highly critical. A large
proportion of Castro’s 26 July speech in 2005 concentrated on Cuban-U.S.
relations with the “Transition Plan” being described as “loathsome.”28 In
addition, the Cuban leader also repeated the accusation that the U.S. In-
terest Section in Havana was conducting covert operations on the island.
This had first been made in the aftermath of the 2003 crackdown on dis-
sidents but Castro stated, “The US Interests Section offices and residence
in Cuba, protected by diplomatic immunity, have become the venues for
meetings to organise provocations, facilitate communications and openly
give orders to mercenaries inside the country.”29
As detailed, Washington had made repeated attempts to influence
Moscow over its relationship with Havana, which throughout the 1990s
had been unsuccessful. This changed dramatically in October 2001 when
the Russian government announced that Lourdes was to be closed. This
facility, which had been the most high-profile example of both the contin-
uation of Russian-Cuban relations and the Soviet legacy in it, eventually
closed in January 2002 with the Russian government claiming that this de-
 Washington and the Wider World 119

cision had been made due to cost.30 This appeared somewhat strange as
in November 1994, when the agreement on Lourdes had been reached be-
tween Moscow and Havana, the $200m a year Russia paid for the use of
this facility was described by the Russian press as a “rather modest
sum.”31 The Cuban government certainly believed that cost was not the
main reason for this decision with Granma at the time stating that the
$200m, ‘was not an extraordinary figure if one considers that it is barely 3
percent of the damage to our country’s economy by the disintegration of
the Socialist bloc and the USSR’.32 More recently Castro has likened the
decision to close Lourdes to the agreement at the end of the Cuban Mis-
sile Crisis when he said of the agreement over Lourdes, “it was a fait ac-
compli—they informed us, hoping we’d go along.”33 This certainly leaves
no doubt that the Cuban leader believed that a bilateral agreement be-
tween Moscow and Washington had been reached regarding Lourdes. In
2007 very interestingly the Cuban academic Dr Rodolfo Humpierre
wrote, “Moscow has suffered a number of frustrations with its ‘prag-
matic’ approach. In the aftermath of 9/11 Moscow dismantled its elec-
tronic radio listening station in Cuba and its naval base at Cam-Rang in
Vietnam. The U.S. responded by installing an electronic radio espionage
center in Estonia and deploying a number of spy planes to the Baltics.”34
It appears that Cuba very much believes that Moscow’s decision regard-
ing Lourdes was not as simple as the Kremlin attempted to make it ap-
pear, that U.S. pressure had also had a part to play in it and that Russia
may have hoped that this decision may win it favour in the U.S., but that
this has not been forthcoming.
This decision not only questioned the idea of the existence of the “Putin
Doctrine” with it very much appearing that it was not cost that explained
Moscow’s decision but rather U.S. pressure. Putin certainly left himself
open to this accusation because in June 2001 he met Bush in Slovenia, and
although no official statement was made on Lourdes, many felt that
Washington had been able to exert pressure on him regarding this facility
as the announcement on it was made so soon after this meeting. In an in-
terview, Igor Rodionov, former Russian Defense Minister, said of this de-
cision, “The intelligence-gathering center on Cuba is a defensive installa-
tion that enabled Russia to monitor the airwaves throughout the Western
Hemisphere and make appropriate domestic and foreign policy decisions
based on reliable information. Closing the center strikes another blow to
the security of Russia and its allies, a blow inflicted by our own hand in
the interests of the U.S. and NATO.”35 The Russian press also believed this
to be the case, with Fydor Lukyanov and Aeksei Slobodin writing in Vre-
mya novostei, “The Russian President is heading to his meeting with
George W. Bush in Shanghai tomorrow with a gift that no one expected of
him at this particular juncture. Mosocow’s decision . . . to close the
120 Chapter 5

Lourdes electronic tracking and intercept center in Cuba . . . seems like

going overboard to accommodate our erstwhile adversary.”36 In addition,
Professor Larin has called the decision a “grave mistake” and Alexander
Karmen wrote in Vremya that “Russia may be mistaken when it cooper-
ates with the United States and neglects small states like Cuba.”37 In a
speech in February 2008, as relations between Russia and the West have
deteriorated, Putin has returned to the issue of Lourdes. He commented,
“We pulled out of bases in Cuba and Vietnam. And what did we get? New
American bases in Bulgaria and Romania.”38 This gives credence to the
idea that he may have hoped to win favour in Washington by making the
decision to close Lourdes, but this has not been forthcoming.
If this was not the case, Moscow had most certainly decided that the
benefits of the information that could be gathered from this facility no
longer outweighed the potential economic implications of continuing to
keep it open. Moreover, the Russian military have tried to suggest that the
technology in Lourdes had become outdated and superseded by that
which is contained in satellites, thus reducing the potential benefits of
keeping Lourdes open. However, other facilities with similar technology
have remained open elsewhere in the world reducing the strength of this
argument, but due to the timing of the announcement and Putin’s com-
ments in February 2008 it did very much appear that Moscow had been
able to bring pressure to bear on Washington over this.39
The Bush administration were obviously delighted with this decision
but they were very much mistaken if they believed that this would herald
a new stage in Russian-Cuban relations where they were to be able to in-
fluence Moscow’s Cuba policy. This is certainly not without precedent as
it has been on very few occasions since the inception of relations between
Moscow and Havana in the late 1950s and early 1960s that Washington
has been able to do this.40
Protests in Cuba over the closure of Lourdes may have taken place but
any problems in relations between Havana and Moscow were short lived,
yet further illustrating the continuing significance of realist pragmatism
prevalent in the Cuban ruling elite because although unhappy with the
decision they did not let it adversely affect its relationship with Russia
due to its continuing importance for Cuba. However, it also graphically il-
lustrated that any leverage that the Castro regime may have had in
Moscow was very much reduced, or virtually extinct, when compared to
the Soviet era as they had simply been informed by the Putin administra-
tion that the facility was to be closed.
The chances that problems between Moscow and Havana over the clo-
sure of Lourdes could escalate have been reduced due to the fact that in the
period since, relations between Moscow and Washington have deterio-
rated. This has included U.S. concerns about the state of democracy in Rus-
 Washington and the Wider World 121

sia, including the March 2008 Presidential elections, and a lack of freedom
in the press, which Bush warned Putin about in 2005. Moreover, further
problems exist over Russian membership of the World Trade Organization
(WTO), illustrated in March 2006 by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey
Lavrov, who during a press conference with Condolezza Rice held in
Washington, stated, “we have expressed certain concerns of the Russian
side with regards to the slow process of Russia’s WTO accession since the
United States is the only country of today which has not yet signed the
protocol on Russia’s WTO accession.”41 Even more worrying has been
Moscow’s reaction to Washington’s proposed nuclear military shield being
located in Europe with Putin stating, “If part of the U.S.’s strategic nuclear
arsenal is located in Europe and our military experts find that it poses a
threat to Russia, we will have to take appropriate retaliatory steps.”42
In March 2008 Dmitrii Medvedev won the Russian Presidential elec-
tions, but as stated in chapter 1, it is unlikely that his Presidency will her-
ald a great change in Russian foreign policy or its relations with the United
States. The same is also likely with whomever replaces George Bush as the
President of the United States as the attention of the new incumbent of the
White House is very much more likely to be focused on the Middle East or
the U.S. economy rather than relations with the Russian Federation. In re-
lation to this, Dr Rodolfo Humpierre suggested that no real great change
in either Washington’s or Moscow’s policies towards Havana were likely
to occur as a result of the elections in Russia and the United States during
2008. Moreover, it also appears that the Cuban government are not ex-
pecting any great change to occur when Medvedev becomes Russian Pres-
ident. The Granma report of his victory may have stated that the Russian
Communist Party had come second but it also pointedly stated that dur-
ing his campaign Medvedev had promised to continue Putin’s policies.
Cuba may have preferred if the communists had won but as relations be-
tween Moscow and Havana have been robust under Putin, Havana ap-
pears unconcerned by this change of Russian President.43 Raúl Castro re-
placing his brother as Cuban President in late February 2008 also appears
unlikely to affect Moscow or Washington’s policies towards the island. In
the case of the United States this was illustrated by the reaction of not just
U.S. Presidential candidates to this news but also the Cuban exile commu-
nity, who received this news much more stoically than they had to the an-
nouncement of Fidel Castro’s ill-health in August 2006.
In light of this, it appears that Moscow’s decision over Lourdes was very
much a ‘one off’ with regards to possible U.S. influence over Moscow’s
policies towards Cuba under Putin’s Presidency. This can be seen by the
fact that the Russian Federation has backed Cuba over its various disputes
with the United States. This has been apparent at UN Human Rights Con-
vention in Geneva where Moscow has continued to vote with Cuba which
122 Chapter 5

has been particularly significant after the crackdown against dissidents on

the island in 2003. In an interview published in May 2003 in Vremya novostei
Andrei Dmitriyev, the Russian Ambassador to Cuba, said, “As far as accu-
sations connected with violation of human rights in Cuba are concerned,
this is the only pretext for imposing the embargo on the republic. This is an-
other relic from the Cold War.”44 In addition to this, in Geneva the Russian
government not only voted for the Cuban resolution condemning the treat-
ment of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay in 2005 but also backed the
Caribbean island’s membership to UN Human Rights Council in 2006 de-
spite Washington’s attempts to prevent Cuba gaining membership to this
new forum.45 Moreover, with regards to Cuba’s inclusion on the “axis of
evil” and U.S. accusations that the island is both conducting biological war-
fare research and supplying “dual-use biotechnology” to other rogue states
Moscow has criticised Washington over these issues. In the aforementioned
interview Andrei Dmitriyev said “Such statements are unfounded. No one,
including the U.S., has convincing evidence.”46 In September 2004, the Rus-
sian Foreign Minister Lavrov stated, “I think that I will not exceed my pow-
ers if I say that I have never seen any hostility toward the United States on
the part of Cuba during my contacts with Cuban friends.”47
Besides this, further illustrating the fact that the Russian Federation has
continued to back Cuba despite pressure from the United States and that
the decision over Lourdes was by no means the norm, Putin’s government
has also voted with Cuba at the UN resolution condemning the U.S. em-
bargo which most recently in October 2007 was defeated by 184 votes to 4
with one abstention.48 In November 2003 Yuri Isakov, Russian Deputy Rep-
resentative to the UN, commented upon the U.S. embargo when he said,
“Russia thinks that further American blockade of Cuba contradicts the
modern realities and international relations. It is Cold War residue, which
artificially brakes formation of a world order based on the UN Charter, in-
ternational law and justice.”49 Moreover, in 2004 when George Bush tight-
ened the embargo in the lead up to the U.S. Presidential election of that
year, sections of the Russian press described this act as the “dumbest pol-
icy of the world”50 In addition, in November 2006 when Ricardo Alarcon,
President of the Cuban National Assembly of Peoples Power, visited
Moscow, the State Duma published a statement which stated that UN par-
liaments “should urge the United States to lift this embargo.”51
The Russian Federation voting in this way at these UN forums has been
very important for Cuba and not just as a result of the numbers backing
Cuba increasing by one single vote. In the 1990s as Cuba struggled to
adapt to the New World Order and continued aggression from the United
States, it began, as detailed, to diversify its foreign policy, again illustrat-
ing the strong prevalence of pragmatism in the Cuban ruling elite. An im-
proved relationship with Moscow certainly constituted part of this with
Russia proving to be a particularly valuable friend, which resulted from
 Washington and the Wider World 123

Havana’s perception of Moscow being able to provide a counter balance

to Washington’s power and influence, not least within various UN fo-
rums. This may partly be a legacy from Russia’s Soviet past, and its per-
manent seat on the UN Security Council but also due to the general in-
crease in Russian influence in international relations. Havana hoped that
Moscow would be able to use its global diplomacy to get other countries
to vote with it and thus Cuba. This has been of great significance to the
Cuban government in its various disputes with the United States. The re-
sult has been that with regards to Havana and Moscow’s relationship
with Washington closer relations between Cuba and Russia have been of
benefit to both countries. For Russia, Cuba illustrates to Washington its re-
emergence in international relations while for Cuba Russia provides a
counterbalance to the United States in the UN and other forums.52
As stated, animosity between Havana and Washington has recently re-
turned to levels not seen since the 1980s but this may end in the near fu-
ture as by January 2009 George W. Bush will no longer be the President of
the United States. It will, however, remain unlikely that this will herald a
sudden improvement in U.S.-Cuban relations regardless of who becomes
the new resident of the White House for the reasons outlined above, not
least the continuing power and influence of the exile community. More-
over, Washington may well continue to try and influence Moscow’s Cuba
policy but again a successful outcome for the United States is unlikely.
Neither Russia nor Cuba for nationalistic sentiments wish to have their
policies in general or specifically with each other dictated by the United
States, and in relation to this, both Moscow and Havana wish to see the
emergence of a more multipolar world.
After 1994 the situation regarding Lourdes was very much a “one off” as
illustrated by the various other examples that have seen the Russian Feder-
ation side with Cuba over its disputes with the United States. Russia pro-
viding a counterbalance to the U.S. is important for Cuba, while Russian-
Cuban relations illustrate to Washington Moscow’s increased global
influence. Again, a reason for the relationship from the Cold War era has re-
emerged in the 1990s. The result is that Russian-Cuban relations continue
to benefit both countries. Moreover, relations between Moscow and Wash-
ington, judging by recent events, are if anything more likely to deteriorate
than improve, further reducing the chance that Moscow’s Cuba policy will
dramatically change as a result of pressure from the United States.

GEOPOLITICS AND THE WIDER WORLD

The continuing strained nature of relations between Havana and Wash-

ington that shows little sign of abating has impacted on relations not just
between the Russian Federation and Cuba, but also with the Caribbean
124 Chapter 5

island’s other bilateral relationships. This has occurred not least because
of legislation such as the Helms-Burton Act. However, many other global
political situations have also affected Russian-Cuban relations in the post
1991 period.
As has been discussed at some length in chapter 3, the economic tran-
sition that the Russian Federation went through in the early to mid-1990s
had grave consequences for Russia, Russian-Cuban relations and the
Cuban Revolution. In a not dissimilar manner, the dissolution of the So-
viet Union which heralded the appearance of a number of new indepen-
dent countries also affected relations between Moscow and Havana. As
the Kremlin struggled to adapt to this and form relations with its “near
abroad” its relationship with Havana suffered as it was not of the highest
priority. Conversely, the importance of the “near abroad” was very sig-
nificant for Moscow for both geostrategic reasons, and also due to the fact
that large sections of the Soviet nuclear arsenal had been stationed in
these countries. Simply, at this time relations with the “near abroad” took
precedence over relations with the “island of freedom.” This was an im-
portant reason for the downturn in Russian-Cuban relations in the imme-
diate aftermath of the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was created in April
1949 to offset the Western powers’ perception of possible Soviet aggres-
sion. Its basis was the ideas of collective security but with the end of the
Cold War in the late 1980s this organization, as with many others, had to
try and adapt to the New World Order with the very reasons for its cre-
ation, possible Soviet and Warsaw pact aggression, having disappeared.
The result was that NATO appeared somewhat of a relic from a previous
age, or even redundant.
It could therefore have been thought that due to this situation NATO
may have been disbanded, but instead of this taking place during the last
decade of the twentieth century it actually expanded with a number of the
former socialist countries of Eastern Europe gaining membership to this
organisation. This was very worrying for the Russian Federation as
NATO had after all been originally created to stop possible aggression
from Moscow. The result of this NATO expansion was to increase both
mistrust of the West and paranoia in the Russian capital.53 The NATO-
Russia Council may have been created in 1997 but before this, NATO ex-
pansion was a very contentious issue between Russia and the West, and
this remains the case. This has only been exacerbated by, as has been
stated, the fact that from the mid-1990s the Liberal Westernizers began to
be pushed to the periphery of the foreign policy decision making process
in Moscow as nationalistic thinking once again returned to prominence in
the Russian capital, which was gravely offended by NATO expansion. In
addition, the Kremlin disliked the expansion of NATO as it was perceived
 Washington and the Wider World 125

as the West encroaching on their traditional “sphere of influence” in East-

ern Europe, and in relation to this it has even been suggested that this
played a part in Moscow’s decision to keep the listening post at Lourdes
open as it countered NATO expansion to the east. The result was that this
facility continued to have a geostrategic significance for the Russian Fed-
eration.
These reasons were all vital in explaining Russian attempts to reassert
itself in international relations and increase Russian prestige in general
with a closer relationship with Cuba fulfilling a number of different ob-
jectives in this desire. It not only graphically illustrated to Washington
Moscow’s growing global influence but Russia also believed it helped to
counter NATO expansion to the east and specifically the continued use of
Lourdes achieved this, particularly due to controversy surrounding this
facility. In these matters the importance of Cuba for Russia was increased
due to the continued strained nature of Cuban-U.S. relations. As part of
Russia’s attempts to increase their global influence from the mid-1990s
Moscow wished to “tickle the Americans’ underbelly” and closer rela-
tions with Cuba certainly did not go against this desire.54
In a similar manner to this, Russia also disliked NATO action in the for-
mer Yugoslavia during the 1990s which culminated in the bombing of Bel-
grade in March 1999 with Russian displeasure being shown by Boris
Yeltsin describing this as “undisguised aggression.”55 Moscow was un-
happy about this for a number of different reasons, not least that it once
again felt that it was being marginalised in one of its traditional “spheres
of influence.” Besides this, it also disliked the treatment which their fel-
low Serbs were receiving from the West with Boris Yeltsin commenting
upon the affect that the Kosovo crisis had for the Russian populations
when he wrote, “the Kosovo crisis increased the anti-Western sentiment
in society.”56 This did not only upset Russian sensibilities but again also
provided powerful reasons for Moscow’s desire to play a more assertive
role in international relations and illustrate to the West that it had not
been pushed to the periphery of geopolitics. This was very different from
the period immediately after the disintegration of the Soviet Union when
Moscow had pursued a foreign policy that had been closely aligned to the
West. Again a closer relationship with Cuba would eloquently make this
point to Washington in particular, but it was an important reason in ex-
plaining why Moscow wished to pursue a closer relationship with Ha-
vana from the mid-1990s onwards.
This did not go unnoticed in Cuba with academics on the island com-
menting that the situation in the former Yugoslavia resulted in a number
of problems appearing between Russia and NATO with Dr Francisco
Brown of CEE writing, “the aggression in Yugoslavia caused major differ-
ences between Moscow and the West to appear.”57 Moreover, the Cuban
126 Chapter 5

government was in complete accordance with the Russian one when they
too criticised NATO action in Kosovo describing it as, “in direct correla-
tion of this organisation’s new strategic doctrine of organised aggressive
war.”58
This process was also seen in Moscow’s reaction to the West’s treatment
of Iraq throughout the 1990s. Russia may have backed the Allied forces
during the first Gulf War in 1991 but the Kremlin disliked the sanctions
subsequently put in place against the Arab country and most certainly did
not side with the United States and the United Kingdom over their action
in 2003. Again, this was a sentiment that was shared with the Cuban gov-
ernment, who perceived it as another example of U.S. aggression.59 Some
in the West may have questioned Moscow’s motives regarding Iraq but
the Russian government did not only believe that the invasion went
against international law but Moscow had enjoyed a relationship with
Baghdad throughout the second half of the twentieth century. This was
shown by the fact that Saddam Hussein was one of the first foreign lead-
ers to travel to Moscow after Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secre-
tary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in March 1985.60
In a similar manner to NATO expansion, Moscow wished to make the
point to the West and Washington in particular that Russian concerns
could not simply be ignored as it attempted to reassert itself in interna-
tional relations. Again, closer relations with Havana would vividly make
this point with the result being that geopolitics, and Russia jockeying for
increased global influence, once more provided powerful reasons for the
improvement in Russian-Cuban relations.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s the geostrategic importance of the is-
land for the Kremlin had been a very important reason for Moscow’s in-
terest in the Cuban Revolution. International relations may have changed
massively by the 1990s when compared to this earlier time but it appeared
that even in the 1990s and 2000s Cuba retained some of this importance
for Russia. Again an old pressure from a previous age had reappeared,
but at a reduced level.
Washington’s “war on terror” has also affected the relationship be-
tween Moscow and Havana in other ways. The Kremlin dislikes the fact
that U.S. influence has increased in Central Asia due to the continued and
prolonged presence of both U.S. troops being stationed in Afghanistan
and also the U.S. air force use of facilities in the region as part of this war.
Again, it felt that the West, or the U.S. in particular, has encroached on one
of its traditional “spheres of influence.” This has only further increased
Moscow’s desire to reassert itself in international relations with, as stated,
improved Russian-Cuban relations being very much part of this wish.
As has been discussed at some length both earlier in this chapter and
also in previous ones, Moscow’s voting behaviour at the UN Convention
 Washington and the Wider World 127

on Human Rights in Geneva in the 1990s was very different from the So-
viet era as the Russian Federation voted against Cuba in the period 1992
to 1994. As this was truly historic it attracted much international attention.
Furthermore, evidence also exists that Russian authorities passed infor-
mation to the West about political prisoners on the Caribbean island.61 As
stated in chapter 2 the removal of Marxist-Leninism from the relationship
was important in this but D. Cobaliev, head of the Russian delegation in
Geneva, explained some of the other reasons for this decision to Cuban
émigrés as, “the moment has come for Russia to pay its debt to the inter-
national community of human rights.”62 In 1998 Vladimir Parshikov,
deputy head of the Russian delegation to the UN commission in Geneva,
spoke of Russia’s early voting behaviour when he said it had been, “to
demonstrate its resolve not to allow double standards where respect for
human rights is concerned.”63 Moscow’s wish to appear a responsible
member of the international community and repay it for some of its own
previous human rights abuses was important in this, but in light of the
importance of Russian-U.S. relations to Moscow at this time it may also
have been an attempt to gain favour in Washington.
However, from 1995 onwards Russia began to once again vote with
Cuba in this forum, with this practice since continuing. This occurred not
just for the variety of reasons that have been previously outlined but also
due to Russia’s involvement in the Chechen war. As the situation in
Chechnya deteriorated and the Russian army became embroiled in this
war, an increasing number of reports began to appear of human rights
abuses perpetrated by the Russian military against the Chechen popula-
tion. As stated, the Russian Federation very much wanted to appear a re-
sponsible member of the international community but these reports
greatly damaged this. International attention on this and Moscow’s vot-
ing behaviour in the UN only increased due to the groundbreaking nature
of the way it had voted regarding Cuba. Moreover, Fidel Castro managed
to bring further international focus to the Chechen situation by dispens-
ing with diplomatic protocol and stating, “This made me think of Chech-
nya. Strange things happen in this world. Let me be clear: I am against the
disintegration of any country. . . . However, the dispatches carried news
of who knows how many thousands of cannons shelling the region, hun-
dreds of planes and helicopters bombing the region, tens of thousands of
soldiers fighting, and civilian casualties. Yet, they voted against Cuba at
the Human Rights Commission, against a country that has never had a
single missing person, where never in 36 years of Revolution has there
been a political crime, where no one is tortured.”64 This was very differ-
ent from the traditional situation as it had been extremely unusual for the
Cuban leader in Soviet or post-Soviet times to make such comments about
Moscow’s actions.
128 Chapter 5

However, a number of other motives appeared to lie behind these com-

ments apart from a simple dislike of the events in Chechnya. Cuba could
not understand why the United States had such focus on this situation but
not on what they believed to be human rights abuses that were being per-
petuated in Israel against Palestinians.65 This they believed was just yet
another example of both Washington’s selective attention on human
rights and also its double standards. As human rights is such a con-
tentious issue between Havana and Washington, Castro’s comments can
be seen as an attempt to draw international attention to what he perceived
as U.S. hypocrisy.
Specifically regarding Russian-Cuban relations his comments could be
perceived as both a throwback to an earlier time and also an illustration
that perhaps both counter dependency and Cuba’s ability to influence the
Russian ruling elite were not completely extinct. If it had been an attempt
by Castro to try and once again influence Moscow’s Cuba policy it ap-
peared to have worked, as the Kremlin did change the way in which it
voted in this forum from this point onwards. However, the Russian gov-
ernment hoped that by beginning to vote with Cuba again in the UN Con-
vention on Human Rights it would result in international attention mov-
ing away from events in Chechnya, which although not strictly part of the
“near abroad” was certainly a new problem for Moscow in the post Soviet
era. However, events in Chechnya were highly significant in Russia
changing its voting behaviour and again backing Cuba in this forum but
any role that Castro may have played in this was a peripheral one as
Moscow very much wanted to be perceived as a responsible member of
the international community. This desire was further illustrated by
Putin’s government framing its actions in Chechnya not as a question of
Chechen independence but rather as part of the global “war on terror.”
As has been stated, Moscow voted against Washington in the UN on the
resolution condemning the Helms-Burton Act, and in addition it very
much appeared as if the Russian Federation was going to ignore this piece
of U.S. legislation. Moscow voting in this manner was not just the Kremlin
showing its support for Havana or due to the profits that its companies
could make in Cuba, but was also the result of being unhappy at Wash-
ington’s policy on the situation in Latvia and Estonia, where the U.S. ad-
ministration believed that non-Russians were being subjected to human
rights abuses. In a similar manner to Castro’s comments on Chechnya, the
Kremlin believed that by voting against the U.S. on the Helms-Burton Act
it was highlighting the double standards that Washington was employing
with regards to human rights because Washington was unconcerned about
the implication of this legislation for Cuba, which the Kremlin perceived
as infringing the human rights of the island’s population, but very con-
cerned about the situation in the Baltics.66 Therefore, Moscow’s backing of
 Washington and the Wider World 129

Cuba over this matter was somewhat nuanced with some of Russia’s mo-
tives relating to events very much geographically closer to Moscow than
Havana, and in addition also unrelated to the Caribbean island.
As has been detailed, the common belief in the desire to create a multi-
polar world has been of great significance to the improvement in relations
between Moscow and Havana from the mid-1990s onwards. The impor-
tance of this has even increased since Putin became the Russian premier,
which was illustrated during his December 2000 trip to Cuba. While on
the island he commented, “The unipolarity that we oppose is an attempt
to monopolize and dominate world affairs. History has seen several such
attempts. And what came of these is well known. There is no place for
monopolism in today’s world.”67 His Cuban counterpart, Fidel Castro
also spoke on this topic when he said, “Cuba is not alone in feeling alarm
at the domination of a single country: This alarm is shared by such coun-
tries as Russia, China and the states of Europe.”68
This shared belief has also become apparent in both Cuba and Russia
trying to increase their influence within Latin America. Havana’s interest
in the region may appear logical for geographical, cultural and historical
reasons but it became very important in the 1990s as the Caribbean is-
land’s foreign policy evolved as it struggled to adapt to the loss of its for-
mer socialist allies. Increased ties with Latin America illustrated both the
diversification of Cuba’s foreign policy and the prevalence of pragmatism
within in it as new relationships had to be cultivated in order for the rev-
olution to survive. This strategy can be perceived as having been a great
success because although Cuba may still be excluded from the Organisa-
tion of American States (OAS), Havana now enjoys more cordial relations
with the region when compared to previous eras.
Moscow’s interest appears somewhat different as it does not possess the
geographical, cultural or historical ties with the region that Havana has,
and in addition the region has traditionally been perceived as being within
the United States “sphere of influence.” In chapter 3 it was argued that eco-
nomic reasons, and especially the sale of military hardware, have been
very important in the increase in Russian interest in Latin America but so
has the Russian Federation’s belief in a multipolar world. This has become
apparent from the mid-1990s onwards due to the change in Russian for-
eign policy that has been previously outlined, which resulted in it moving
away from a pro-Western perspective with Moscow trying to reassert itself
in international relations. In December 1997 Yevgeny Primakov became
the first Russian Foreign Minister to visit Latin America when he travelled
to Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Costa Rica. During this he signed a
number of bilateral agreements on a variety of different subjects including
attempts to combat the international drugs trade but when questioned on
the reasons for his visit he said, “Russia was and still is a great power. As
130 Chapter 5

a great power or one of the main players in the international arena, Russia,
naturally, should have multilateral ties with all continents, with all regions
of the world.”69 Further illustrating the increased importance of Latin
America to the Kremlin was Vladimir Putin’s telegram, published by
Latinskaia Amerika, welcoming participants to a conference on Latin Amer-
ica held in the summer of 2006 in Moscow in which he stated, “Russia be-
lieves that it is important to create political dialogue and economic links
with Latin America. We are convinced that the construction of this will be
mutually beneficial for our peoples and strengthen links in science, educa-
tion and culture.”70 Moreover, in January 2006 Foreign Minister Lavrov
published an article in Latinskaia Amerika in which he outlined the impor-
tance that Moscow placed in its relations with Latin America. He wrote,
“In recent years the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean Basin
(LACB) occupy an increasingly noticeable place in the system of contem-
porary international relations. Our contacts with them, representing a sep-
arate thrust in Russian foreign policy, integrally blend into the fabric of
global and interregional cooperation and are an important component of
the international efforts of Russia in tackling the problems common to the
entire world community, in combating new challenges and threats, in
maintaining strategic stability and reinforcing security.”71 In addition,
Lavrov, but also Russian academics, attached great importance to Putin’s
2004 trip to Mexico, Brazil and Chile.72
What was also significant was that during Primakov’s 1997 trip he
spoke out against the Helms-Burton Law that had been put in place in the
previous year and was supported in his condemnation of it by the Latin
American countries. This shared outlook on the state of Cuban-U.S. rela-
tions was very important as it was also symbolic of the improved relations
that Cuba was enjoying with both Russia and Latin America. However,
Havana’s relationship with Moscow was also significant for the Russian
Federation attempts to cultivate closer ties with the Western Hemisphere.
Professor Eugenio Larin has suggested that regarding this it was logical
for Moscow to try and improve relations with Cuba before the rest of the
region as it was the country that it had a history of relations with and
knew best.73
However, just as economically Moscow had hoped that goods could be
produced in Cuba for sale in Latin America, politically closer ties between
the two Cold War allies increased Moscow’s prestige in the region. Russia
could use its improved relations with Cuba to illustrate to the rest of the
region its belief in a multipolar world and interest in the Western Hemi-
sphere. In addition, it would have been problematic for Moscow to try
and improve relations with Latin America if it did not have cordial rela-
tions with Cuba as accusations may have appeared of Moscow both hav-
ing abandoned a former close ally but also of not trying to help it in the
 Washington and the Wider World 131

face of increased U.S. hostility. This increased in significance as Havana’s

relations with the rest of the continent improved and was seen by the re-
action to Fidel Castro throughout Latin America to his decision to stand
down as Cuban President in February 2008. During the Cold War Wash-
ington had been very concerned that Cuba would act as a bridgehead for
further Soviet penetration in Latin America, but in the late 1990s as
Moscow’s interest in the rest of the region increased so too did the strate-
gic importance of Cuba for the Kremlin. This may have resulted for very
different reasons when compared to the earlier period, but the result was
that it further increased the significance of Russian-Cuban relations for
the Kremlin.
However, this has become even more important with the political move
to the left of many countries in the Western Hemisphere and appearance
of an apparent anti-United States bloc within the region which Cuba in
conjunction with Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela is at the forefront of. These
leaders are not just challenging Washington politically within the region
but also economically with the creation of the Bolivarian Alternative for
the Americas (ALBA), which is based on very different principles to those
that the United States had hoped would become predominant within
Latin America.74 Cuba and Venezuela may be the most prominent mem-
bers of this movement but they have been joined by Bolivia and
Nicaragua since the respective electoral victories of Evo Morales and
Daniel Ortega. Castro believes Morales’ electoral victory is particularly
significant as it perfectly illustrates the political changes taking place
within Latin America. On this he has commented, “He embodies a con-
firmation of the bankruptcy of the political system traditionally applied to
the region, and the determination by the masses to achieve full indepen-
dence. His election is the expression of the fact that the political map of
Latin America is changing. New winds are blowing in this hemisphere.”75
The result of this has been to further complicate relations between Ha-
vana and Washington because although the Cold War may be consigned
to history, the Caribbean island’s foreign policy is continuing to cause
problems between the two countries. This was illustrated in March 2006
when the National Security Strategy was published which stated, “In
Cuba, an anti-American dictator . . . seeks to subvert freedom in the re-
gion.”76 However, and conversely to this, it has also increased the impor-
tance of relations between Havana and Moscow for the Russian Federa-
tion. It not only shows both countries’ belief in a multipolar world but
Cuba’s close links to this new wave of left-leaning Latin American coun-
tries has meant that Moscow’s association with Havana, and its unwill-
ingness to have its Cuban policy dictated by Washington, with the ap-
pearance of the “Putin Doctrine” further reducing the chance that U.S.
pressure may come to bear on Moscow’s foreign policy, has increased its
132 Chapter 5

prestige amongst these new leaders. This last point is particularly signifi-
cant as U.S. prestige in Latin America is at the moment very low, which has
led Egor Gaidar, the former Russian Prime Minister, to even state that “it is
not necessary to be heroic or a powerful person” to be anti-American.77
The upshot is only to increase further the importance of relations between
Cuba and Russia for the Kremlin.
Russian interest in the appearance of this new wave of leaders in Latin
America was shown by both the number of articles appearing in Latinskaia
Amerika on this issue and also sections of the Russian press describing
Morales victory as ending “ . . . years of crypto-fascist oligarchic regimes
supported Washington, which has treated the continent like its back yard
for decades.”78 This willingness to challenge the United States and a
shared belief in a multipolar world has also been significant for the im-
provement in relations between Russia and Venezuela which was high-
lighted during Hugo Chávez’s trip to the Russian capital in June 2007. In
an interview with the RIA Novosti news agency Russian Foreign Minister
spokesman Mikhail Kaminin stated that Russian-Venezuelan relations
were based on this principle and that Russia hoped that relations could be
increased. Moreover, after his 2006 trip to Moscow Latinskaia Amerika de-
scribed Chávez as a “remarkable individual.”79 This is significant because
although trade is a very important element in this process, as discussed in
chapter 3, closer links between Russia and Latin America also contain a
political aspect.
Closer ties between Moscow and Caracas has delighted Havana, which
was illustrated by the Cuban newspaper Juventud Rebelede quoting the
Venezuelan President during his 2007 trip as telling the Russian State
Duma leader Boris Grizlov, “Venezuela is ready to increase the new wave
of relations and bilateral cooperation.”80 This is the result of not only
Venezuela and Russia both being major oil producers, which in an in-
creasingly resource conscientious world has increased both countries im-
portance, but also both governments have a distinctively anti-U.S. foreign
policy which challenges Washington’s influence both in Latin America
but also the apparent uniploar nature of international relations. If this re-
lationship was to develop, despite recent political events in Venezuela, the
Cuban regime would be extremely happy as it may result in the appear-
ance of a substantial counterweight to Washington in international rela-
tions, a very different scenario from the early 1990s. Again, it appears Ha-
vana and Moscow have shared ideas with close ties between the two
countries being mutually beneficial to both. On this Dr Alexander Sizo-
nenko, a history professor at the Latin American Studies at the Institute of
Cold War History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, has written, “the
Russian Federation and Cuba have a common approach and desire to see
the same conclusions to the world’s problems.”81
 Washington and the Wider World 133

Increased Russian interest in both Latin America and Cuba has not just
been the result of reacting to the above geopolitical events or trying to re-
assert itself in international relations with regards to the United States but
also due to the increased role of China and the European Union (EU) in
the region, something which has not gone unnoticed in Russia. As U.S. in-
fluence within the region has waned and Washington’s focus has moved
to the Middle East in the aftermath of 11 September 2001 China, the EU
and Russia have all become more involved in the region. In the specific
case of Cuba the diversification of the island’s foreign policy aided this
process, but since the 2003 crackdown on dissidents on the island, Cuban-
EU relations have suffered.82 Russia, however, is able to use the advan-
tages that it has over both China and the EU, its shared thirty-year history
with Cuba, to increase its own prestige for the reasons detailed above and
therefore its influence in the region to prevent being pushed to the pe-
riphery in Latin America in general or more specifically in Cuba by China
and the EU. This again increases the importance that Moscow attaches to
its relationship with Havana.
Close relations between Russia and Cuba continue to benefit both coun-
tries. For the Russian Federation this includes its belief in a multipolar
world and attempts to reassert itself in international relations. Havana
continuing to face U.S. hostility still perceives Russia as an important
counterweight to Washington in various international forums and this
again reduces the likelihood that Russian-Cuban relations may deterio-
rate in the near future. Even in the twenty-first century for a variety of rea-
sons the relationship between Moscow and Havana remains mutually
beneficial to both countries.

CONCLUSIONS

During the Soviet era world events have always impacted on the Cuban
Revolution and affected its relationship with Moscow and this has re-
mained the case in the period since the disintegration of the Soviet Union
with a number of these providing very powerful reasons for both the
downturn in relations between Moscow and Havana in the early 1990s
and its subsequent upturn from the middle of the last decade of the twen-
tieth century.
This was most certainly the case with the United States which attempted
to take advantage of the disintegration of Soviet-Cuban relations to hasten
the demise of the Cuban regime by tightening its economic embargo
against the island. Moreover, Washington continued the practice of trying
to influence Moscow with regards its relationship with Havana. At first this
appeared to be successful as the Kremlin attached such importance to an
134 Chapter 5

improved relationship with the U.S. This manifested itself in Moscow’s vot-
ing behaviour in the early 1990s in various UN forums where it either ab-
stained or voted against Cuba. This was very different from the Soviet era.
Although this was the case, the U.S. also had an unwitting part to play
in the upturn in Russian-Cuban relations. As the 1990s progressed,
Moscow became increasingly disillusioned with its relationship with
Washington partly it is thought because Russia may not have gained what
it had hoped from the United States. Moreover, the Kremlin began to dis-
like the unipolar nature of international relations, a belief shared with Ha-
vana, and wanted to reassert itself in global politics. Nationalistic senti-
ments started to become much more prominent in Russian politics, with
many being deeply unhappy at the decrease in Russian global influence
and how the country had been pushed to the periphery of international
relations. The result was that from the mid-1990s a change in Moscow’s
foreign policy took place and part of this was the wish to reassert itself in
global politics. This would eventually lead to the “Putin Doctrine,” and
an improvement in Russian-Cuban relations, only increased in signifi-
cance for Moscow due to the continued strained nature of U.S.-Cuban re-
lations, was very much part of this desire to reassert itself on the global
stage and was an important reason for the upturn in the relationship.
The appearance of a unipolar world and Russian feelings of being mar-
ginalised with regards global events were also apparent in NATO expansion
to the east, the treatment that their fellow Serbs in the former Yugoslavia re-
ceived from this organisation throughout the 1990s and, due to Russia’s long
friendship with Iraq, by the West’s action towards Saddam Hussein that cul-
minated in the U.S. and UK led invasion of the country in 2003. These all
gravely offended Russian nationalistic sentiments with again the belief that
closer relations with Havana illustrating to the West and Washington in par-
ticular that Moscow still possessed a global influence. At the inception of the
Soviet-Cuban relations this had been a very important element in Moscow’s
interest in the Cuban Revolution but although international relations may
have been vastly different in the mid-1990s compared to the late 1950s and
early 1960s, it was again a highly significant reason for the improvement in
the relationship from the middle of the last decade of the twentieth century.
Again, a pressure from the Soviet era, although at a much reduced level, had
remerged in the 1990s to impact on the relationship.
This was repeated after 11 September 2001 with the continued presence
of U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan, Moscow perceived this as to be
infringing on its “sphere of influence,” and also in the decision in the pre-
vious decade to keep Lourdes open as it could be used to counter NATO
expansion to the east. The significance of Lourdes for Moscow was only
increased due to its contentious nature for Washington. It appeared that
once again Cuba had a geostrategic importance for the Kremlin.
 Washington and the Wider World 135

This was also the case with regards to Russia’s increased interest in
Latin America that began in the late 1990s and has continued with the ap-
pearance of more left-leaning governments in the region with Russian in-
terest again being an illustration of Moscow’s increased prestige in inter-
national relations. Good relations with Cuba were important with regards
this as the Caribbean island was enjoying improved relations with the re-
gion as part of its diversification of its foreign policy in the 1990s. If Russian-
Cuban relations had not been cordial it would have had a negative impact
on Russian prestige in Latin America as it could be perceived that the
Kremlin had left Cuba to fend for itself in the face of continued U.S. ag-
gression. This, in conjunction with it making sense for Moscow to begin
its increased interest in Latin America with the country it knew best, was
another important element in the improvement in the relationship.
However, new pressures also emerged in the 1990s that also impacted
on the Russian-Cuban relations. The significance of Moscow having to
cultivate ties with its “near abroad” immediately after 1991 was not just
new but also resulted in the importance of relations with Cuba not being
of the highest priority for the Kremlin at this time partly explaining the
downturn in the relationship. Moreover, the situation in Chechnya would
also impact on Moscow’s relationship with Havana. As an increasing
number of reports emerged of human rights abuses, the Kremlin did not
wish to increase international attention on this by continuing to vote
against Cuba in the UN Human Rights Convention. The desire not to do
this was very important in Moscow once again voting with Cuba in this
forum. In addition, it may have been apparent that Fidel Castro had at-
tempted to increase the pressure on Moscow with regards this, and both
Cuba and Russia used this as a way to illustrate U.S. double standards on
human rights due to what they perceived as its selective interest in this
subject. However, the Russian desire not to draw more international at-
tention was of great importance in this.
Again events far removed from the Caribbean had impacted on Russian-
Cuban relations but the improvement in the relationship did not just bene-
fit Moscow but also Havana. As stated, in the 1990s the Caribbean island
had diversified its foreign policy in an attempt to survive the end of Soviet-
Cuban relations. In the face of continuing U.S. hostility, Russia siding with
Cuba in its various disputes was of great importance for Havana. Moscow’s
influence on the global stage may not have returned to the level of the Cold
War but it was still a permanent member of the UN Security Council and
the Cuban government believed that it could act as a counterweight to
Washington in not just this forum but also other ones. It was very much
hoped that this could lead to the emergence of a more multipolar world
with this common belief between Moscow and Havana being not just a rea-
son for the improvement in the relationship but also symbolic of it.
136 Chapter 5

The change in Russian foreign policy that was so important for Russian-
Cuban relations was symbolised by Yevgeny Primakov replacing Andrei
Kozyrev as Russian Foreign Minister. However, Primakov himself was
very important for relations between Moscow and Havana as it appeared
that he had a similar political outlook to the Cuban ruling elite and had a
personal affinity for the island. This again could be perceived as a throw-
back to an earlier time with members of the elite in Moscow championing
Cuba’s cause. The importance of Primakov did not go unnoticed in Ha-
vana with Cuba believing that Putin’s policies towards the island were a
continuation of what Primakov had started.
Russian-Cuban relations may have been adversely affected by
Moscow’s decision to close Lourdes but problems did not last for a sub-
stantial period of time despite Havana being deeply unhappy, with this
being another illustration of the prevalence of realist pragmatism in the
Cuban Revolution. However, it did appear that Washington had been able
to influence Moscow with regards this decision with the Cuban govern-
ment certainly believing this to be the case. However, it has not been the
beginning of a trend but instead a ‘one off’ as relations between Moscow
and Washington have since deteriorated and show no sign of immediate
improvement. Dmitrri Medvedev won the March 2008 Russian Presiden-
tial elections, Raúl Castro has replaced his brother as Cuban President and
a new resident of the White House will be in place by the end of January
2009 but it is unlikely any of these events will result in a massive change
in relations between any of these three countries. The result is that for
both Moscow and Havana the relationship between their two countries
will continue to have benefits for both with regards the international sit-
uation. Global events have always had a large impact on this relationship
and this has continued in the post 1991 period. They both partly explain
the downturn immediately after the disintegration of the Soviet Union
but also the improvement from the mid-1990s onwards.

NOTES

1. William M. LeoGrande, “The United States and Cuba. Strained Engage-

ment.” in Cuba, the United States and the Post-Cold War World: The International Di-
mensions of the Washington-Havana Relationship, ed. Morris Morley and Chris
McGillion (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005), 13.
2. LeoGrande, “The United States and Cuba.” Philip Brenner, “Overcoming
Asymmetry: Is a Normal U.S.-Cuban Relationship Possible?” in Redefining Cuban
Foreign Policy. The Impact of the ‘Special Period” eds. H. Michael Erisman and John
M. Kirk (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2006), 280–304.
3. John M. Kirk, “Defying the Odds: Five Conclusions about Cuban Foreign
Policy,” in Erisman and Kirk, Redefining Cuban Foreign Policy, 336.
 Washington and the Wider World 137

4. V.A. Borodaev, “Russia-Cuba: Prospective Relations in a New Era,” Latin-

skaia Amerika, Nos. 10–11, (1992): 48.
5. Eugenio A. Larin, Politicheskaia istorii Kuba XX Veka. Moscow: Visshaya
shkola, 2007), 164. V.A. Borodaev, “The Question of Foreign Military Presence in
Cuba,” Latinskaia Amerika, No. 4, 1992, 27. Anton Dannenberg, “URSS-Cuba: the
perfect model of collaboration,” Latinskaia Amerika, No. 2, 2006, 46. Nikolai
Leonov, “I am confident of Cuba’s future,” Latinskaia Amerika, No. 12, (1993): 64.
6. Richard A. Dello, “The hostile tides of Cuban-U.S. Relations,” in Cuba in the
Twenty-first Century: Realities and Perspectives ed. José Bell Lara and Richard A.
Dello, (Havana: Editorial José Marti, 2005), 235–36. For the influence that Wash-
ington had regarding Moscow’s Cuba policy see: Francisco Brown, “La política
exterior rusa en el periodo 1991–2000. Del romance con Occidente a la búsqueda
de un mundo multipolar,” Revista Estudios Europeos, January–April 2001, 23–25.
Iván Ruano, “Evolución de las reformas económica rusa en el nuevo año escenario
política,” Revista Estudios Europeos, January–March 1995, 35. Ariel Dacal, “Rusia: el
sueno postergado de una ‘gran potencia,” Revista Estudios Europeos, September-
December 2001, 66–68.
7. Jose Canton Navarro and Martin Duarte Hurtado, Cuba: 42 años de Revolu-
ción: Cronología historia 1983–2000, (Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 2007),
232.
8. US: Cuban Liberty and Democratic (Libertad) Act of 1996 (Helms-Burton Act).
9. Granma International, 17 April 1996, 13.
10. Anatoly Sosnovsky, “Russia and the Cuban Crisis,” Moskovskiye novosti, No.
10, 14-20, March 1996, 5. Jorge Domínguez, “U.S.-Cuban Relations: From the Cold
War to the Colder War” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, Volume
39, No. 3 (Autumn 1997), 64.
11. Dr Rodolfo Humpierre, Centro de Estudios Europeos (CEE) in Havana,
made this comment about what Russia had gained from the United States in the
early to mid-1990s during an interview conducted in Havana on 14 February 2008
in Havana.
12. Yevgeny M. Primakov, Minnoe pole politiki, (Moscow: Molodai gvardii,
2006), 149–152. Boris. H. Yeltsin, Midnight Diaries, (New York: Public Affairs, 2000).
Brown, “La politica exterior rusa.” Revista Estudios Europeos, 26–28. Rodolfo
Humpierre, “El pragmatismo como paradigma de la Política Exterior Rusa en el
siglo XXI,” Revista Estudios Europeos, (January–April 2007): 31.
13. Humpierre, “El pragmatismo,” 31. Interview with Dr Rodolfo Humpierre
conducted in Havana 14 February 2008.
14. “Situación actual y perspectiva,” Cuba Foreign Trade. Publicación Oficial de la
Cámara de Comercio de la Republica de Cuba, No. 3, 2007, 78. This article also states
that the U.S. embargo since its start has cost the Cuban economy about $86 billion.
15. For an example of this see Fidel Castro, Una Revolución Solo Puede ser Hija de
la Cultura y las Ideas, (Havana: Editora Política, 1999). Fidel Castro, Cold War. Warn-
ings For a Unipolar World, (Melbourne: Ocean Press, 2003).
16. L. Newman, “Putin, Castro talk on trade, debt issues” 14 September 2000.
See http://www.cnn.com (21 February 2003).
17. “Russian-American Trust and Cooperation Act,” March 2000. Morley and
McGillion, Unfinished Business, 190–93.
138 Chapter 5

18. Aleksandr Chudodeyev, “Caribbean Crisis” Sevodnya, 21 July 2000, 2.

19. In Russia, the Cuban Missile Crisis is known as the Caribbean Crisis and it is
often perceived as a great humiliation for the Soviet Union and an example where
Washington was able to dictate to Moscow its Cuba policy. Therefore, Chudodeyev
using this title illustrates his dislike at Washington’s attempts to link the money that
Russia paid for the use of Lourdes to its debt. Chudodeyev, “Caribbean Crisis.”
20. LeoGrande, “The United States and Cuba,” 13.
21. Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs Fact Sheet, 30 July 2003.
http://www.state.gov. J. Miller, Washington Accuses Cuba of Germ-Warfare Re-
search.” New York Times, 7 May 2002, 6. Bush also has very close ties to the exile
community through his brother, Jeb, who is Florida’s state governor.
22. Dello, “The hostile tides,” in Cuba in the Twenty-first Century, 2005, 246.
23. Sorraya M. Castro Marino, “Cuba-US Relations 1989-2002. A View from Ha-
vana” in Erisman and Kirk, Redefining Cuban Foreign Policy, 321–22.
24. Fidel Castro and Ignacio Ramonet, My Life, (London: Allen Lane, 2007) 422.
25. “Fact Sheet: Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba,” 8 December 2003.
See http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases (18 Aug. 2005). Domínguez,
“U.S.-Cuban Relations: From Cold War to the Colder War,” 58. Morley and
McGillion, Unfinished Business, 2002, 59–60.
26. “Remarks by the President on Cuba Policy,” 24 October 2007. See
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases (26 Oct. 2007).
27. “Remarks by the President on Cuba Policy,” 24 October 2007.
28. See www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/2005 (17 April 2006).
29. See www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/2005 (17 April 2006). On the in-
volvement of the U.S. Interests Section Castro has recently stated, “all the leaders
and all the ringleaders of all the counter-revolutionary groups, groups against the
Revolution, are organised by the American Interests Section.” Castro and Ra-
monet, My Life, 426.
30. Pravda, 29 October 2001, 3.
31. Sevodnya, 12 November 1994, 2.
32. Granma, 18 October 2001, 1.
33. Castro and Ramonet, My Life, 287.
34. Humpierre, “El pragmatismo,” 49.
35. Vremya novostei, 19 October 2001, 3.
36. Fydor Lukyanov and Aeksei Slobodin, “Sharp Turn” Vremya novostei 19 Oc-
tober 2001, 3.
37. Professor Larin, Director of the Latin American Studies at the Institute of
Cold War History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, made this point during an
interview conducted in Moscow on 9 January 2008. Alexander Karmen, “Russia,
Cuba, Military Base. Gift on the Occasion,” Vremya, 24 October 2001, 5.
38. Shaun Walker, “A new phase in the arms race is unfolding,” The Independent
9 February 2008, 2.
39. This point is made in the article written by Svetlana Babayeva, Andrei Lebe-
dev and Aleksandr Chuiko, “Base Value. Russia is Giving Up Its Military Presence
in Cuba and Vietnam” Izvestia 18 October, 1, 4. Professor Larin also stated that the
technology had been superseded by that contained in satellites. Interview con-
ducted in Moscow on 9 January 2008.
 Washington and the Wider World 139

40. Since the inception of relations between Moscow and Havana direct pres-
sure from Washington on Moscow to change its Cuba policy worked on very few
occasions. The times when it did appear to work were during the Cuban Missile
Crisis, in 1970 over the discovery of Soviet nuclear submarines moored at Cien-
fuegos, Gorbachev’s 11 September 1991 announcement over the removal of the fi-
nal Soviet soldiers from the Caribbean island, possibly over Moscow’s voting be-
haviour in various UN forums in the period from 1992 to 1995 and with regards
to the closure of Lourdes.
41. Bobo Lo, Vladmimir Putin and the evolution of Russian foreign policy, (Oxford:
Blackwell Publishers, 2003) 102-132. “Bush flies in to Russian Tensions” 8 May
2005. See http://www.news.bbc.co.uk (19 May 2005). Press Conference 7 March
2006. See http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases (12 April 2006).
42. “Putin warns of measures against U.S. missile shield in Europe,” Ria Novosti,
4 June 2007. See http://rian.ru/russia/20070604/66620997-print.html (7 June 2007).
43. Catherine Belton, “Medvedev to hand baton back to Puitn,” 11 December
2007. See http://www.ft.com/cms/s (3 March 2008). With relation to Cuba, Dr.
Rodolfo Humpierre stated that a victory for either the Republican or Democratic
candidate in November’s U.S. Presidential elections was unlikely to make any
great change for Cuba or its relationship with the United States. Interview con-
ducted in Havana on 14 February 2008. Granma, 3 March 2008, 1.
44. Andrei Zlobin, “Security: A Threat From Cuba is Science Fiction,” Vremya
Novostei, 15 May 2003, 5.
45. “Cuba 9 USA 0,” 24 March 2005. See http://pravda.ru/printed.html (4 July
2007). W. Hoge, “New U.N. Rights Group Includes Six Nations With Poor
Records,” New York Times, 10 May 2006.
46. Zlobin, “Security,” 5.
47. “Axis of Evil Stretched,” 8 May 2002. See http://pravda.ru/printed.html (4
July 2007). Interfax, Russia, 29 September 2004.
48. Only the United States, Israel, the Marshall Islands, and Palau voted against
the resolution with Micronesia abstaining. Granma, 31 October 2007, 1.
49. Itar-Tass Weekly News, 4 November 2003.
50. “Cuba: Bush insists with the ‘dumbest policy of the world,” 5 October 2005.
See http://www.pravda.ru/printed.html (27 October 2005).
51. “Ricardo Alarcón comenta la colaboración entre Rusia y Cuba,” Boletín In-
formativo, 2 November 2006, 5.
52. Castro commented upon the importance of this during Yevgeny Primakov’s
visits to Cuba in May 1996 when he said, “For us it is indispensable to take into
consideration the importance of that country, a permanent member of the UN Se-
curity Council. We must consider its power, its clout. We cannot be happy with the
idea of a unipolar world under the control of the United States.” Radio Havana
Cuba in Spa 000GMT 24 May 96-FBIS-LAT-96-102 p8 PA2405032096.
53. Throughout history Russia has always been concerned about possible inva-
sion to such an extent that attempts to stop the possibility of this occurring has be-
come part of the national psyche.
54. Vladimir Borodaev, “Perspectives for the development of international ties
with Cuba,” Latinskaia Amerika, No. 1, (2001): 25. A. Sosnovsky, “On the Benefit of
Routine Professionalism” Moskovskiye novosti, No. 21, 26 May–2 June 1996, 5.
140 Chapter 5

55. Rossiiskaya gazeta, 26 March 1999, 2.

56. Yeltsin, Midnight Diaries, 2000, 271.
57. Brown, “La política exterior rusa,” 28. Humpierre, “El pragmatismo,” 43.
58. Emil Dabaguian, “The Latin American opinion of the Kosovo Crisis,” Latin-
skaia Amerika, No. 3, (2000): 35.
59. For the Russian reaction to the events in Iraq in March 2003 see: John Tagli-
abue, “Threats and Responses: Discord; France and Russia Ready to use Veto
against Iraq War,” New York Times 6 March 2003, 16. Humpierre, “El pragma-
tismo,” 45.
60. Pravda, 17 December 1985, 1.
61. Izvestia, 4 May 1992, 5.
62. Radio Rabelede Network in Spanish 1255 GMT 29 February 1992 (FBIS-
LAT-92-041,9-10, FL2902181292).
63. Andrei Smirnov, “Moscow Decides Cuba is No Worse than Latvia.” Sevod-
nya, 23 April 1998, 6.
64. Castro Gives 5th FEU Congress Address, (FBIS-LAT-95-061 FL3003014895
Havana Tele Rebelde in Spa 2200 GMT 26 March 1995).
65. Dr. Rodolfo Humpierre stated both the importance of events in Chechnya
to the change in Russia’s policies and he also made this comparison between
Chechnya and the situation with regards Israel and Palestine during an interview
conducted on 14 February 2008 in Havana.
66. Andrei Smirnov, “Moscow Decides Cuba is No Worse than Latvia” Sevod-
nya, 23 April 1998, 6.
67. Dmitry Gornostayev, “Putin and Castro Jointly Criticise the United States,”
Nezavisimaya gazeta, 16 December 2000, 1.
68. Gornostayev, “Putin and Castro,” 1.
69. Trud, 3 December 1997, 4. Kommersant Daily, 2 December 1997, 5.
70. V. Putin, “Message from Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federa-
tion, to the participants of the 10th Congress of FIEALC,” Latinskaia Amerika, No.
8, 2001, 8.
71. Sergei Lavrov, Latinskaia Amerika, No. 1, January 2006, 2.
72. Lavrov, Latinskaia Amerika, 2. Interview with Professor Larin conducted in
Moscow on 9 January 2008.
73. Viktor Sokoslov, “Moscow’s Constructive Approaches to Foreign Policy,”
Nezavisimaya gazeta, 3 December 1997, 4. Interview conducted in Moscow on 9 Jan-
uary 2008.
74. For information on the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) see:
http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/secciones/alba/ (19 May 2006).
75. Castro and Ramonet, My Life, 522. On a number of socio-economic prob-
lems that currently exist Castro has said, “and the FTAA is not a solution, and ne-
oliberal globalization is also not a solution.” Castro and Ramonet, My Life, 537.
76. National Security Strategy, see http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss/2006
(19 January 2007).
77. The problems which face the United States in Latin America were evident
with the poor reception which George Bush received when he attended the Sum-
mit of the Americas in November 2005. Larry Rohter, “Bush Faces Tough Tome in
 Washington and the Wider World 141

South America,” New York Times, 2 November 2005. Egor Gaidar, “Interview with
Egor Gaidar,” Latinskaia Amerika, No. 10 (2006): 62.
78. “Bolivia: Nightmare scenario for Bush.” See http://pravdaru/opinion
/columnists/9306-bolivia-0 (23 March 2006).
79. “Reflexionando en viz alta sobre la visita de Hugo Chávez a Rusia,” Latin-
skaia Amerika, No. 9, (September 2006): 52.
80. “Reafirma Venezuela su alianza con Rusia y Bielorrusia” Juventud Rebelde 30
June 2007, see http://www.juventudrebelde.cu/internacionales (29 July 2007).
81. Alexandr Sizonenko, “The Presidential Diplomacy: The ‘model of visits’
with the New Actors in Relations between Russia and Latin America,” Latinskaia
Amerika, No. 4, (2007): 45. The problems for international relations of there not be-
ing a counterweight to the United States was also commented upon by Vladimir
Sudarev, another professor at the Latin American Studies at the Institute of Cold
War History of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Vladimir Sudarev, “The United
States and the ‘move to the left’ in Latin America,” Latinskaia Amerika, No. 5,
(2007): 6.
82. Igor Sheremetiev, “Latin America in the twenty-first century: the start of
problems,” Latinskaia Amerika, No. 4, 2006, 26.
 6

Continuing Camaraderie

D uring the Cold War, Soviet-Cuban relations attracted much interna-

tional attention particularly during the Gorbachev era as a great
change occurred in the relationship. However, even this final period of the
Soviet era would appear ‘stable’ in comparison to the sudden and dra-
matic end to Soviet-Cuban relations that resulted from the implosion of
the Soviet Union in December 1991, which had the effect of appearing to
send the Cuban economy into a terminal tailspin. Not only has the Cuban
economy recovered from this shock, but from the mid-1990s onwards a re-
lationship between Moscow and Havana began to emerge from the rub-
ble of Soviet-Cuban relations. This occurred for a variety of different rea-
sons some of which had been responsible for the downturn in the
relationship in the early 1990s but had subsequently evolved to again be
significant in the relationship; others which were new and remarkably
even some from the Soviet era, although at a reduced level, began to re-
emerge as the twentieth century drew to a close.
By the end of 1992 it would have appeared to many as if the thirty-year
relationship between Moscow and Havana had never existed due to the
speed and degree of the end of Soviet-Cuban relations. This was both po-
litical and economic but of fundamental importance to this was that simul-
taneously many of the foundations of the relationship had also disap-
peared. Key to this was the complete removal of Marxist-Leninism from
both Russia’s internal and external policies, which had been vital for Soviet-
Cuban relations. With Marxist-Leninism confined to history, Moscow’s ide-
ological ties to the Caribbean island had been removed as Russian foreign
policy was no longer underpinned by this theory. In relation to this, the

143
144 Chapter 6

Cuban government also no longer had people in the top echelons of the rul-
ing elite in Moscow championing their cause as they had throughout the
Soviet era due to the unpopularity of Marxist-Leninism in the ‘new’ Russia
of the early 1990s.
The removal of this ideology also affected Russian-Cuban relations in
other ways as internally the Kremlin replaced it with the ideas of neolib-
eral economics. As Boris Yeltsin’s government wholeheartedly embraced
these ideas and Russia entered its economic transition, trade with Cuba
crashed partly as a result of Russian companies not being able to compete
with other foreign companies in the Cuban economy as they struggled to
survive the Russian economic transition. In addition, other Russian com-
panies wished to see the terms of trade with Cuba decided by the market
rather than by Marxist-Leninism ideology, which had the effect of making
Russian goods prohibitively expensive for Cuba. This phenomenon can
also be seen in Havana’s decision in September 1992 to stop construction
of the nuclear plant at Juragua as a consequence of not being able to af-
ford to pay for the Russian specialist working on this project.
These changes were systematic of the debate taking place within Rus-
sia which regarding foreign policy was won by the Liberal Westernizers.
They did not just want the removal of Marxist-Leninism from Moscow’s
foreign policy but also for it to be much more pro-Western, with relations
with the United States being particularly important. This was not just
done for ideological reasons but it was also hoped that assistance in the
Russian transition could be obtained. Russian Foreign Minister Andrei
Kozyrev was extremely closely associated with these policies. However,
this also had a fundamental impact on Moscow’s relationship with Ha-
vana as a result of the continued strained nature of Cuban-U.S. relations
which simply meant that the Kremlin could not enjoy good relations with
both Washington and Havana and due to the importance which it at-
tached at this time to relations with the United States, those with Cuba
suffered.
In relation to this it also appears that the U.S. administration may also
have been able to bring pressure to bear on Moscow regarding its Cuba
policy. They had continually tried to do this during the Soviet era and this
practice not only continued in the post 1991 period but if anything in-
creased. Washington believed that the end of Soviet-Cuban relations was
a mere forerunner to the demise of the Castro regime and attempted to
speed this by passing both the Torricelli Bill and Helms-Burton Act, which
had a section specifically focused on the Russian Federation, during the
1990s. It was not just the U.S. administration who attempted to influence
Moscow regarding its relationship with Havana but also the Cuban exiles.
Washington certainly appears to have been able to do this regarding
Moscow’s voting behaviour in various United Nations (UN) forums in
 Continuing Camaraderie 145

the period from 1992 to 1995 when Russia either abstained or voted
against Cuba. This was very different from the Soviet era with the desire
to both win favour in Washington, and regarding human rights, appear a
responsible member of the international community being key motivating
factors in this.
This change in Russian foreign policy, the improvement in relations be-
tween Moscow and Washington and the removal of Marxist-Leninism
from Russian-Cuban relations had yet further ramifications for the rela-
tionship, as it resulted in the geostrategic importance of the island for the
Kremlin falling dramatically when compared to the Cold War era. This in
itself provided yet another reason for downturn in the relationship. Sim-
ply the importance of the Cuban Revolution for Moscow had decreased
which was only exacerbated by Moscow’s need to cultivate relations with
its “near abroad” in the immediate aftermath of the disintegration of the
Soviet Union. This was systematic of the traditional low importance that
the Kremlin attached to its relationship with Havana with the noticeable
exceptions of the initial period of contact in the late 1950s and early 1960s
and during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
This situation was further complicated by the government in Havana’s
refusal to fundamentally alter the socialist nature of the Cuban Revolu-
tion, which in the New World Order of the 1990s meant that it appeared
to be swimming against world opinion and for some even made it an
anachronism. This was most certainly the case in Russia where many peo-
ple were delighted to see an end to both the Marxist-Leninist nature of
their own country and its ties to Cuba. They disliked the Cuban political
model and the economic burden that they believed the Caribbean coun-
try had been for Moscow. This process had first appeared in the Soviet
Union of the late 1980s and early 1990s due to the effects of glasnost, but
the result was that a legacy from the Gorbachev era, if not earlier ones,
had a large impact on Russian-Cuban relations in the post-Soviet era.
However, it undoubtedly accelerated after 1991, and was highly signifi-
cant in the downturn in the relationship.
As stated, by the end of 1992 it may have appeared as if the thirty-year
relationship between Moscow and Havana had never existed, but it was
never completely terminated. Mainly as a result of marriage a number of
Russians remained in Cuba while some Cubans continued to live in Rus-
sia. Other aspects of a Soviet legacy also survived including the use of
Russian names and cars in Cuba while partly the result of education pro-
grammes the island also possesses a unique Russian language ability in
Latin America. Moreover, even in the years immediately after the end of
Soviet-Cuban relations, oil for sugar swap deals were mooted.
This not only illustrated the fact that the relationship was never com-
pletely terminated but also explained the surprising lack of comment
146 Chapter 6

from the Cuban government regarding both the situation within Russia
and Russian-Cuban relations. Havana may no longer have been con-
strained by diplomatic protocol but it most certainly did not wish to en-
danger the possibility of these deals, vital for the very survival of the
Cuban Revolution due to the dire economic situation it faced, by being
overly critical. Criticism of the Council for Mutual Assistance (CMEA) did
appear but this was a very different scenario as this organisation had been
disbanded while, although massively reduced, a semblance of the rela-
tionship with Moscow continued to exist. Realist pragmatism was still
very much in evidence within the Cuban ruling elite.
What also illustrated this strong prevalence of realist pragmatism were
the changes implemented by the Cuban government in an attempt to ad-
just to the situation which they faced in the 1990s. This entailed a diversi-
fication of foreign policy in an attempt to cultivate links with countries
with which they had not previously had ties. Regarding its economic
strategy a variety of legislation was passed which did not just try and take
advantage of the increase in transnational investment and trade which oc-
curred in the early 1990s, but also whose basis was very different from
their previous economic model as parts of it were much closer to the ideas
of neoliberal economics rather than a planned economy. The Cuban elite
may have had an ideologically aversion to these, but they were of the ut-
most importance to the partial recovery of the Cuban economy while also
having important repercussions for Russian-Cuban relations.
Apart from helping the Cuban economy begin to recover from the
shocks of the early 1990s these reforms also dramatically changed the
composition of Cuba’s trading partners as its economy returned to the
world economy after being removed from it for a number of decades. This
was also vital for relations between Moscow and Havana as in short the
pre-eminent position of the Soviet Union in the Cuban economy had been
usurped. As the 1990s progressed the realisation began to form in Russia
that they were losing out on the investment potential that the Cuban econ-
omy offered. A desire to try and remedy this was of great significance for
the improvement in Russian-Cuban relations, and it was this and not the
effects of globalisation that caused this as increased Russian interest was,
at this time, not repeated elsewhere in Latin America. This was, however,
a very much unforeseen result of these economic reforms as the goal of
the Cuban government in instigating them had not been to specifically at-
tract Russian interest but just much needed increased levels of trade.
However, they were vital in the improvement in Russian-Cuban relations
from the mid-1990s onwards.
In a not dissimilar manner Russia also came to realise that the colossal
investment from the Soviet era was simply being squandered as a result
of the downturn in relations and the desire not to see this happen was
 Continuing Camaraderie 147

again important for the upturn in the relationship. As relations between

Moscow and Havana soured in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis,
a permanent schism had not occurred partly as a result of some within the
Soviet Union not wishing to see the investment at this time wasted. There-
fore, in the 1990s this very same pressure, although at a reduced level, had
re-emerged to once again impact on Moscow’s relationship with Havana.
Some form of legacy from Soviet-Cuban relations is not surprising due
to the length and nature of the relationship, with the fear of the invest-
ment from the Soviet era being wasted constituting part of it, but it was
and continues to be crucial for Russian-Cuban relations. As stated, this
does not just entail Cuba’s unique Russian language ability in Latin
America but also the Cuban use of Soviet machinery, for which the island
required spare parts with Russia proving a more than willing vendor. In
addition links between the two respective militaries are also important as
they illustrated their more glorious pasts and the debt that the island had
accumulated during the Soviet era. The debt was very important because
although the two countries could not even reach agreement on its size,
and Cuban payment was not forthcoming, the talks that took place re-
garding it throughout the 1990s illustrated that the relationship had never
been completely terminated. Moreover, it also provided another reason
for its continuation as Russia, due to the economic problems it faced dur-
ing the 1990s, simply could not afford to write it off. Payment may remain
unlikely but the Kremlin appears to cling to the hope that it may be repaid
as illustrated in September 2005 when Moscow deferred its payment but
crucially did not simply cancel it. This not only shows the debt’s continu-
ing significance, but as it was a first for the Russian Federation it appeared
Cuba had received very different treatment from other countries. This
most certainly had parallels to the Soviet era.
Another crucial element of the Soviet legacy was the fact that oil for
sugar swaps remained important for both countries. Ironically this oc-
curred in part as a result of price as not only did middlemen have to be
paid if these commodities were bought on the open market but also they
had to be paid for in hard currency and not in kind as had traditionally
been the case in Soviet-Cuban relations. This was particularly advanta-
geous due to poor states of both counties’ economies in the 1990s and
therefore provided a semblance of stability for both in a fast changing
world. In relation to this, Russian agricultural production plummeted
due to its own economic transition but was further adversely affected by
the end of Soviet-Cuban relations because its sugar mills could not work
on a full twelve-month cycle without the import of Cuban sugar as a re-
sult of the differences in the timing of the two harvests. This increased
the significance of the purchase of sugar but other Cuban primary prod-
ucts including citrus fruit and tobacco were also important due to the
148 Chapter 6

poor agricultural performance of the Russian economy. This appeared

ironic for a variety of reasons including the fact that the purchase of
Cuban sugar had been so heavily criticised within the Soviet Union in the
final years of Soviet-Cuban relations, and that despite Havana’s repeated
attempts during the thirty years of this relationship to end its dependency
on the Soviet Union the sale of its traditional primary product retained its
importance and was vital to the upturn in Russian-Cuban relations.
The importance of trade to the improvement in relations cannot be
overestimated but the reasons for this were very different from the Soviet
era as it was not driven by Marxist-Leninist ideology but rather practical
economic reasons, illustrating the existence of pragmatism within the
Russian government. The significance of trade was highlighted by the cre-
ation in 1997 of the Russian-Cuba Commission on Commercial, Eco-
nomic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation, which gave trade a much
more robust foundation. Moreover, in 1996 Russia had been Cuba’s most
important trading partner, which had most certainly not been predicted
in 1992.
Other countries may have since overtaken the Russian Federation re-
garding trade with Cuba but this has not been the result of a loss of Rus-
sian interest in the Cuban economy. China and Venezuela have become in-
creasingly important for the Cuban Revolution with relations between
Havana and Caracas having a distinctive political aspect to it. In addition,
Cuban sugar production has fallen but Russian interest in the Cuban
economy has since diversified as illustrated by the large and varied col-
lection of companies that have attended Cuban trade fairs in both
Moscow and Havana. In addition, Cuba appears to want to entice Russian
tourists to visit the island and although they constitute only a small per-
centage on those vacationing on the island it is hoped that their numbers
will increase in the future, creating a new and possibly dynamic element
to the relationship.
As stated, Russia is no longer Cuba’s chief trading partner but this does
not reduce the significance of either the effects of neoliberal economics on
Russian-Cuban relations or Russian companies wishing to right the
“wrongs” of the early 1990s when they witnessed the loss of their pre-
eminent position in the Cuban economy. The improvement in economic
ties for these reasons began before the increase in Cuban trade with either
China or Venezuela and despite this subsequent fall in Russian-Cuban
trade, the Russian Federation remains one of the island’s most important
trading partners.
What has also been significant is the perception which each country is
held in within the other. As detailed, in the immediate aftermath of the
end of Soviet-Cuban relations, Cuba was most certainly not well per-
ceived within Russia, but as time has passed this has begun to change
 Continuing Camaraderie 149

with the realisation forming that there are a number of benefits for both
countries of the relationship’s continuation. In this manner a sufficient
time period has now passed where the relationship can now be analysed
more subjectively than in the early 1990s. This, in conjunction with feelings
of nostalgia generally increasing, particularly in Russia, has resulted in
even some cultural links re-emerging, but significantly also the relation-
ship between Moscow and Havana being seen in a very different light.
In a not dissimilar manner the change that has occurred within Russian
thinking on global events has been of the utmost significance for the im-
provement in the relationship. A number of events throughout the 1990s
including North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) expansion to the
east, this organisation’s treatment of Russia’s fellow Serbs in the former
Yugoslavia and Western action in Iraq amongst others all gravely of-
fended Russian nationalism as many in Russia perceived them as the
West in general and United States in particular encroaching on Moscow’s
traditional “spheres of influence.” This returned to the age-old question of
Russia’s place in the world as Russian pride had been dented by feelings
of marginalisation with regards international relations. This, combined
with nationalism in general becoming increasingly prominent in Russian
politics has resulted in a seismic shift in Moscow’s foreign policy when
compared to the period immediately after 1991.
These feelings have continued with the prolonged presence of Western
military personnel in Afghanistan in the aftermath of 11 September 2001
terrorist attacks on the United States. However, Washington also played
an unwitting role in this alteration to Russian foreign policy as it appears
that Moscow did not receive what it had wished for from the United
States in the early 1990s when it hoped that its foreign policy would win
it favour within the U.S. administration. These feelings manifested them-
selves in Moscow’s dislike of the unipolar nature of global politics in the
post-Soviet era. This belief was shared with Havana, but this change in
Moscow’s thinking and consequently its foreign policy was vital for the
upturn in relations with Cuba.
The Kremlin wanted to reassert itself in international relations and im-
proved relations with Havana was very much part of this belief as it il-
lustrated to the United States Moscow’s increased role in the world. It has
even been suggested that part of the decision to keep Lourdes open had
been to counter NATO expansion to the east. The importance of Cuba to
Moscow as it attempted to do this was only increased due to the contin-
ued strained nature of U.S.-Cuban relations. These very same reasons had
been highly significant for the interest that Moscow had originally shown
in the Cuban Revolution in the late 1950s and early 1960s. As the twenti-
eth century drew to a close, international relations were vastly different to
the Cold War era but despite this the geostrategic importance of the island
150 Chapter 6

for Moscow had increased when compared to the years immediately after
the end of Soviet-Cuban relations. An old pressure had again re-emerged,
although much reduced from the earlier period, to once again impact on
the relationship.
The strategic importance for Cuba for Moscow has further increased
with its increased interest in Latin America which was representative of
this change in its foreign policy. It is not only logical for Russian interest
to begin with the country it has the longest history of relations with and
knows best, but Russian prestige in the region could have been adversely
affected if it did not have cordial relations with Cuba as Moscow could
have been perceived as having abandoned Havana in the face of increas-
ing U.S. pressure. This only became more important due to the good rela-
tions that the Caribbean island now enjoys with Latin America as a result
of the diversification of its foreign policy and the low regard which the
United States is held in by many within the region. Moreover, the ap-
pearance of left-leaning governments in Latin America, and in particular
Hugo Chávez in Venezuela with the subsequent creation of the Bolivarian
Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) and Chávez’s relationship with
Moscow all appearing to show an end to unipolarity in world politics.
This has delighted both Russia and Cuba due to their belief in a multipo-
lar world.
Yevgeny Primakov replacing Andrei Kozyrev as Russian Foreign Min-
ister which was symbolic of this change in Moscow’s foreign policy was
also important for Moscow’s relationship with Havana. This resulted
from the fact that it very much appeared that he wanted to cultivate closer
ties with Cuba due to both the personal affinity that he had towards the
island and a common outlook on global events shared with the Cuban
ruling elite. This again appeared to be a throwback to a previous time
when Cuba had always had people within the top echelons of power in
Moscow championing their cause. Havana certainly preferred Primakov
to his predecessor Kozyrev, illustrated by Fidel Castro’s personal invita-
tion to holiday on the island after his resignation. In addition, Primakov’s
importance is increased due to the fact that Putin’s policies are perceived
in Cuba as a continuation of those started by Primakov.
This change in Moscow’s foreign policy and improvement in the rela-
tionship has also been of great benefit for Cuba. The aim of the diversifi-
cation of the island’s foreign policy had been to cultivate links with a va-
riety of different countries and close relations with Russia most certainly
did not go against this desire. Moreover, the history of the relationship be-
tween the two countries aided this but Russia’s increased influence in in-
ternational relations was of particular benefit for Havana as it could pro-
vide a potential counterbalance to U.S. hegemony. This has been
particularly important in light of the continued poor state of U.S.-Cuban
 Continuing Camaraderie 151

relations, which has continued to offend Cuban nationalism but became

increasingly strained under the Presidency of George W. Bush. Russia still
being a permanent member of the UN Security Council only increases its
significance for Havana as since 1995 Moscow has once again voted with
Cuba in various UN forums, a very different scenario from the years 1992
to 1994.
In particular with regards to Moscow’s voting behaviour in UN resolu-
tions regarding Cuban human rights other global events have also im-
pacted on this. The Chechen war and reports of human rights abuses per-
petrated by the Russian military were important in explaining this change
in Moscow’s voting which significantly occurred in 1995, the year Russia
became increasingly embroiled in this war. The Kremlin most certainly
did not want to bring increased international attention to this situation
which had occurred from the groundbreaking nature of it voting against
Cuba in the years 1992 to 1994. Moreover, it appeared as if counter de-
pendency and Cuba’s leverage in Moscow may not have been completely
dead due to Fidel Castro’s attempts to exert some pressure on Moscow re-
garding Chechnya. However, any influence he may have had seems pe-
ripheral at best as the situation in Chechnya and not wishing to draw in-
creased international attention to it were more significant.
However, what may also have been a contributing factor to Castro’s
speech on Chechnya was his desire to illustrate what he perceived as the
double standards and selective nature of the focus which the United
States employed regarding human rights. This most certainly had great
relevance for U.S.-Cuban relations. Moscow also began to think that
Washington did not have a uniform approach to human rights as it was
very concerned about minorities in Latvia and Estonia but not about the
effects that the U.S. embargo had on Cuban citizens, which they believed
infringed the island’s population’s human rights. Russia no longer voting
against Cuba on this matter in the UN was very important for the island
but the reasons behind this decision were somewhat nuanced and in some
cases geographically far removed from the Caribbean.
There is one exception to this steady improvement of the relationship
from the mid-1990s onwards. This was Russia’s decision to close the Lour-
des listening post, with it appearing that Washington had been able to ex-
ert pressure on the Kremlin regarding this. Protests may have taken place
in Cuba over this but any problems were short lived because although it
may have enraged the Cuban government, they were not prepared to let
it escalate and affect the relationship in the long term, again illustrating
the strong prevalence of realist pragmatism within their thinking. More-
over, this decision appears very much a ‘one off’ as relations between
Russia and the United States have since deteriorated for a variety of rea-
sons making another similar one highly unlikely.
152 Chapter 6

Rául Castro succeeding Fidel as President of Cuba in February 2008 and

Dmitri Medvedev winning the Russian Presidential elections in March
2008 are unlikely to affect the relationship with it continuing to evolve
and remain in place for the foreseeable future. The relationship not only
survived the end of Soviet-Cuban relations but began to improve from the
mid-1990s onwards with this improvement having now been in place
for over ten years. A variety of reasons explain this, including the re-
emergence, although at a reduced level, of some from the Soviet era.
Changes to both Russian and Cuban foreign policies, resulting from the
importance of pragmatism and nationalism in both cases, have been key
as it has led to Moscow and Havana having similar global outlooks and
in particular a shared desire for a multipolar world. International rela-
tions may now be very different from both the Cold War era and the early
1990s, but Russian-Cuban relations continue to benefit both countries in a
number of different ways with continuing camaraderie being a central el-
ement to this.
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 Index
Afghanistan, 32, 35, 45n8, 126, 134, 149
Africa, 11, 22, 26, 31–32, 35, 43, 52, 112
Agreements and treaties, 66, 72, 95,
97–99, 129. See also Putin; sugar;
trade
Alarcón, Ricardo, 72, 126
Aldana, Carlos, 39
Alekseev, Aleksandr, 22
Allende, Salvador, 28
Andropov, Yury, 7
Angola, 31, 39, 47n42
Arbenz, Jacob, 24
August 1991 coup, 40–41, 43–44,
50n77. See also “Cuban lobby”
“axis of evil,” 117, 122
Azicri, Max, 61–62
Baker, James, 41, 50n78. See also troop
withdrawal from Cuba
Balaguer, Jose Ramón, 37
balsero crisis, 13, 54, 57, 77n12, 91, 13
Batchikov, S., 65–66, 94
Batista, Fulgencio, 3, 21
Bay of Pigs, 22, 24, 36, 42
biotechnology, 62, 66, 98–99, 103, 105,
117–18, 122
163
Bolivarian Alternative for the
Americas (ALBA), 10, 12, 16, 70,
131, 150
Bolivia, 131. See also Evo Morales
Brezhnev, Leonid, 30; “Brezhnev
Doctrine,” 5, 17n14, 35. See also
Czechoslovakia; “Prague spring”
“Brothers in Arms,” 109n52, 114, 117.
See also Cuban American National
Foundation; Cuban exiles
Brown, Francisco, 125
Bush, George H. W., 40, 50n74
Bush, George W., 117, 120–21, 123,
140n77, 151; meeting with Putin, 8,
119; relations with Cuba, 118, 122,
138
Cabrisas, Ricardo, 67
campaign of rectification of errors, 36
Canada, 62, 67, 72
Castro, Fidel, 1, 14, 21, 31, 102;
speeches, 26–28, 36–37, 49n61, 118,
127–28, 151; meeting with Putin, 7,
13, 68–69, 94, 96–99, 129. See also;
Chechnya; Cuban foreign policy;
fidelismo; glasnost; globalisation;
164 Index
Gorbachev; “new thinking;”
neoliberal economics; Russia,
perestroika; Soviet Union; United
States; Yeltsin
Castro, Raúl, 23, 45n11, 54, 57, 60, 95;
President of Cuba, 12–13, 96, 121,
136
Castro, Sorraya, 118
Central America, 31–32, 36, 43
Centro de Investigaciones de la
Economia Internacional (CIEI), 58
Centro de Estudios Europeos (CEE),
57, 65, 106n12, 115, 125, 137n11
Chávez, Hugo, 70, 81n56, 131–32, 150.
See also Bolivarian Alternative for
the Americas, Venezuela
Chechnya, 127–28, 135, 140n65; Castro
and, 58, 127, 151
Chernenko, Konstantin, 32
Chernobyl, 46n56; convalescence of
child victims in Cuba, 98, 103,
108n43
Chile, 22, 130
China, 22, 42, 62, 71–72, 102, 106, 129,
133, 148
Churkin, V., 90, 101
Cold War, 2–3, 22–24, 41–42, 92, 111,
123–24. See also; Cuba; Soviet
Union; United States
colonialism, 22–23, 42, 85, 90, 104
Commission for Assistance to a Free
Cuba, 118; See also Cuban American
National Foundation, Cuban
Americans, George W. Bush
communism, 22, 32
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
(CPSU), 3, 23, 26, 101; congresses
of, 22, 28, 30, 49n61, 50n77
Consulting Associates (CONSAS), 60
Council for Mutual Economic
Assistance (CMEA), 28–31, 37, 43,
46n33, 46n35, 49n61, 49n62, 58, 146.
See also Nikoli Ryzhkov
Cuba, 3, 7, 13–14, 21, 60, 67, 85. See
also agreements and treaties;
Castro; Cuban foreign policy;
Cuban economic reforms; debt;
joint collaboration projects; Russia;
trade; United States
Cuba Union, 52, 85
Cuban American National Foundation
(CANF), 47n47, 52, 112. See also
“Brothers in Arms,” Cuban exile
community, Mas Canosa
Cuban Armed Forces (FAR), 10–11, 60,
95
Cuban Communist Party (PCC), 10,
26, 28, 30, 32, 36–37, 39, 61, 63
Cuban Democracy Act (Torricelli Bill), 52,
63, 90, 112, 114, 144. See also Helms-
Burton Act; United States economic
embargo against Cuba
Cuban Economic Reforms, 59–64, 146;
impact on Russian-Cuban relations,
64–68, 69–75, 146
Cuban exile community, 34, 40, 52,
112, 117, 121. See also Cuban
American National Foundation;
Mas Canosa
Cuban foreign policy, 9–10, 13, 45n14,
47n39, 99; dependency within, 3, 11,
15, 64, 75, 90, 95, 103–04, 148;
pragmatism within, 9, 12, 15, 27, 32,
40–41, 61, 64, 75, 91, 104, 120, 122,
129; nationalism within, 11–12, 15
Cuban Liberty and Solidarity Act
(Helms-Burton Act), 63, 67, 114,
124, 128, 130, 144; effect on Lourdes
listening station, 113, 116. See also
Torricelli Bill; United States
economic embargo against Cuba
“Cuban lobby,” 23, 40, 42–43, 56, 58,
92–93. See also “August 1991 coup”
Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs
(MINREX), 15, 113
Cuban Ministry of Foreign Investment
and Economic Cooperation
(MIECE), 60
Cuban Ministry of Revolutionary
Armed Forces (MINFAR), 10
Cuban Missile Crisis, 3, 24, 37, 46n18,
46n25, 138n19, 139n40; effects on
 Index
Soviet-Cuban relations, 25–27, 29,
42, 86–87, 119, 145, 147
Cuban Revolution, 9, 13–14, 21, 32, 71,
91, 133, 145; prevalence of
nationalism in, 26, 60, 83, 103,
116–18, 151. See also Cuba; Cuban
Foreign Policy; Russia; Soviet
Union; United States; United States
economic embargo
Cuban Socialist Party (PSP), 23
Czechoslovakia, 5, 9, 17n14, 21, 27. See
also “Prague Spring”
debt, Cuban debt to Moscow, 6, 62,
86–87, 92, 96–97, 104–05, 147
Dependency, 3, 83. See also prevalence
of dependency within Cuban
Foreign policy
Domínguez Jorge, 9, 19n37
Dorticos, Osvaldo, 28
Engels, Frederick, 5
Erisman, Michael, 9–12, 15, 45n14,
46n25, 47n39
Escalante, Aníbal, 28
Ethiopia, 39
Fanqui, Carlos, 52
Federation of Cuban Women (FMC),
10, 50n73
Feinsilver, Julie, 62
fidelismo, 10
five-year plans, 33, 46n19
Fonte, Rodolfo, 50n70
Fradkov, Mikhail, 72
France, 8, 14, 62–63, 72, 83, 91
Free Trade Agreement of the Americas
(FTAA), 70, 140n75
Fukuyama, Francis, 2, 4
Glasnost, 15, 25, 37–38, 43, 48n56, 84,
87, 106n5, 145
globalisation, 2–3, 12, 12, 59, 61; effects
on Cuba, 60; effects on Russian-
Cuban relations, 60, 7–68, 75, 95,
144. See also neoliberal economics
165
González, Edward, 32, 47n38
González, Elian, 109n52, 117
Gorbachev, Mikhail, 23, 34–44, 49n61,
50n74, 50n78, 54–56, 59, 91, 126,
139n40, 143; legacy from Gorbachev
era, 85, 103, 145. See also Castro;
Cuba; glasnost; “new thinking;”
perestroika; troop withdrawal;
United States
Great Man Theory, 3, 10. See also
Fidelismo
Gridchina, Olga, 90
Gromyko, Andrei, 21, 48n55
Grupo GAZ, 72
Guantánamo, 122
Guatemala, 24
Guevara, Ernesto,10, 24, 26–27, 46n18
Haig, Alexander, 47n42
Hart, Armando, 26, 28
Hernández, Sofia, 57, 78n19
Humpierre, Rodolfo, 65, 77n15, 78n20,
106n12, 108n32, 115, 119, 121,
139n43, 140n65
Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA),
22, 25
institutionalization, 9, 30
Inter-American Development Bank, 63
International Monetary Fund (IMF), 7,
56–57, 63
International Relations, 9, 12–13,
84–85, 111, 122–23, 125–26, 150. See
also multipolar: New World Order;
unipolar;
internationalism, 10, 30, 98
Iraq, 8, 126, 134, 149
Israel, 128, 140n65
Italy, 62, 72
Ivanov, Igor, 96, 116
Ivanov, Nikolai, 77n15
joint collaboration, 33, 42, 84, 92, 145.
See also agreements and treaties;
Cuba; Soviet Union
Juragua, 52, 55, 144
166 Index

Kasyanov, Mikhail, 117 Medvedev, Dmitrii, 8, 12, 95, 121, 136,

Katushev, Konstantin, 40, 50n70 152
KGB, 7, 45n11, 68 Mesa-Lago, Carmelo, 13, 46n33, 76n10,
Khachaturov, K. 86 79n32
Khrushchev, Nikhita, 22; Cuban Mexico, 62, 72, 81n61, 130
Missile Crisis, 3, 25–26; relationship Mikoyan, Anastas, 23, 25, 28, 38
with Cuba, 21, 23, 42 Mikoyan, Sergo, 38
Kirk, John H. 12, 112 Monroe Doctrine, 25, 144
Kolesnikov, M. 88, 92 Montaner, Carlos, 10, 52, 76n4
Kozyrev, Andrei, 7, 14, 56–57, 78n20, Morales, Evo, 131–32. See also Bolivia
114, 136, 144, 150 Multipolar, 7, 114, 116, 123, 129–33,
“Kozyrev Doctrine,” 53, 113, 115 135, 150, 152

Larin, Eugenio, 94, 96, 107n19, 108n30,

National Assembly People’s Power, 39
112, 120, 130, 138n39
national liberation movements, 22, 26,
Latin American Aero and Defense
49n61
(LAAD), 18n28, 70
“near abroad,” 5–6, 124, 128, 135, 145
Lavrov, Sergey, 55, 121–22, 130
neo-liberalism, 2
Liberal Westernizers, 6–7, 55–56, 124,
neoliberal economic policy, 2; effects
144. See also Russian Foreign Policy
on Cuba, 61, 63–64, 75, 116, 146;
League of Nations, 2
effects on Russia, 55, 57, 61, 65, 71;
Legacy, from the Soviet era, 14–16, 67,
impact on Russian-Cuban relations,
83–87, 89, 91–106, 113, 118, 123, 145,
2, 55, 65, 67–68, 70–71, 74–75, 144,
147
148. See also globalisation
Lenin, Vladimir, 5, 46n31, 85
neo-realism, 2
LeoGrande, William, 111, 117
“new thinking,” 5, 35, 44, 48n55
liberalism, 2, 6, 57
New World Order,10, 15, 44, 74, 112,
Ligachev Yegor, 35, 37, 49n61
122, 124, 145
Light, Margot, 5
Nicaragua, 31, 131. See also Daniel
Lourdes, 13, 68, 70, 88, 92, 102–03, 105,
Ortega
120, 125, 134, 136; effect on Russian-
Nickel, 33, 58, 63–64, 69, 80n54, 94,
U.S. relations, 67, 87–88, 102, 113,
103. See also trade agreements
116, 118–23, 138, 139n40, 149, 151
Nixon, Richard, 31
Nonaligned Movement, 12, 32, 112
Machado Ventura, José Ramon, 12
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
Marquetti, Hiram, 58, 89, 99
(NATO), 119, 124; expansion to the
Marti, José, 30, 76n4, 100
east, 7, 88, 124–26, 134, 149;
Martínez, Jorge, 72–73
treatment of Serbia, 7, 125–26
Marx, Karl, 5
North Korea, 7, 27, 68
Marxist-Leninism, 16, 51–52, 54–56, 59,
65, 67–70, 74–75, 85, 127, 143–45.
See also “new thinking;” Soviet Ochoa, Arnaldo, 39, 52
foreign policy Oil, 58, 60, 89–92, 132. See also
Mas Canosa, Jorge, 40, 50n74, 112, 117. agreements and treaties; trade
See also Cuban American National On the Eve of Collapse, 52, 85
Foundation; Cuban exile Organization for Latin American
community Solidarity (OLAS), 26
 Index
Organisation of American States
(OAS), 129
Organs of People’s Power (OPP), 61
Ortega, Daniel, 131. See also Nicaragua
Palavinos, 86, 103
Panama, 81n61
Pankin, Boris, 50n74, 50n78
Pavlov, Yuri, 55, 76n3
“peaceful coexistence,” 5
perestroika, 35, 37, 43, 85
Pérez, Humberto, 36
Pérez-Lopez, Jorge, 62
Pérez-Stable, Marifeli, 36
Peru, 27
Plankton, Nadya, 55–56, 100–01
Popular Movement for the Liberation
of Angola (MPLA), 31
“Porno para Ricardo,” 100
pragmatism: prevalence within Cuban
elite, 58–60, 68, 150; prevalence
within Russian elite, 146; prevalence
within both Cuban and Russian
elites, 89–90, 92, 95, 104, 136, 152
“Prague Spring,” 28. See also
Czechoslovakia
“Prayecto mir_xxi_cu,” 100
Primakov, Yevgeny, 7, 14, 116, 129–30;
“Primakov Doctrine,”115; visit to
Cuba, 86, 96, 115, 139n52; impact on
Russian-Cuban Relations, 64, 96,
114–15, 136, 150
Putin, Vladimir, 7–8, 12, 18n27, 68,
115–16, 119–22, 128–30, 136, 150;
“Putin Doctrine,” 8, 115–16, 119,
131, 134; visit to Cuba, 7, 13, 68–69,
94, 96–99, 129. See also Russian
foreign policy, United States
Radio Marti, 118
Reagan, Ronald, 32
realism, 2, 9
Revuelta, Alina Fernández, 14, 77n11
Rice, Condalezza, 121
Ritter, Archibald, 76n10
Rodríguez, Carlos Rafael, 9, 25, 30, 34,
37, 39, 47n42
167
Roca, Blas, 30
Robaina, Roberto, 96
Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana, 116
RosKuba, 65
Rosoboronexport, 18n28, 72
Rosvooruzheniye, 67
Russia, 1, 58, 84, 86, 121–22, 133, 135,
146. See also Cuba; globalisation;
neoliberal economics; New World
Order; Russian Foreign Policy,
Soviet legacy; trade; United
Nations; United States
RusiaAutomotriz, 72
Russian Communist Party, 93, 104,
121. See also Gennady Zyuganov
Russian-Cuban Commission on
Commercial, Economic, Scientific
and Technical Cooperation, 66,
80n45
Russian Economic Reforms, 55, 57,
65–66, 71, 74, 85, 144
Russian Foreign Policy, 6–8, 15, 102,
105, 121, 129–30, 145. See also
“Kozyrev Doctrine”; Liberal
Westernizers; “Primakov Doctrine”;
“Putin Doctrine”
Russian State Duma, 6–8, 66, 87, 93,
104, 114, 122, 132
Ryzhkov, Nikolai, 37, 49n62
Salyut, 72
Sandinistas, 31. See also Daniel Ortega,
Nicaragua
Shearman, Peter, 27–28, 30, 47n35
Shevardnadze, Eduard, 48n55
Shmelyev, N. P. 49n66
socialism, 3, 17n14, 27–28, 46n25,
50n73, 52, 76n4, 93. See also
Czechoslovakia; international
socialism; Marxist-Leninism;
“Prague Spring”
Soskovets, Oleg, 66
Soto, Lionel, 89
Soviet Union, 1–11, 21–44, 45n18,
50n77, 65, 74–75, 83–90, 101, 133,
136, 146–48; Disintegration of
51–52; 64; 66, 72; 112; 125; 143; 145.
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See also agreements and treaties;
Castro; Cuba; Gorbachev; joint
collaboration; New World Order;
troop withdrawal; United Sates
Soviet-Cuban Intergovernment
Commission on Economic,
Scientific and Technical
Cooperation, 28
Soviet foreign policy, 5, 22, 41. See also
“new thinking”
Spain, 11, 62–63, 67, 71–72, 111
“spheres of influence,” 7, 125–26, 149
Stalin, Joseph, 3, 5, 22
sugar, 21, 28, 37, 49n66, 58, 80n45,
89–92, 101–04, 107n18, 107n19, 145,
147–48. See also agreements and
treaties; Cuba; five-year
agreements; Soviet Union; trade
surrogate/superclient thesis, 11, 45n14
terrorist attacks on the United States,
4, 8, 117, 133–34
Tikhonov, Nikolai, 33
Tobacco, 33, 63, 65–66, 147. See also
trade, treaties
Tourism, 39, 59, 61–62; Russian
tourists, 73–74
trade: Cuban trade with third party
countries, 71–72, 81n61; levels of
Russian-Cuban trade, 53–54, 59,
62–70, 72, 76n9, 80n54; Russian-
Cuban trade; 55, 57, 74–75, 77n15,
90, 101–04, 132, 144, 146, 148;
Soviet-Cuban trade; 33–34, 38,
40–42, 45n8. See also agreements
and treaties; five-year agreements;
nickel; oil; sugar; tobacco
trade fairs, 72, 99, 148
Transchemexport S. R. L., 72
Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation,
38
Tricontinental Conference, 26
troop withdrawal from Cuba, 40–41,
44, 51
TV Marti, 118. See also Radio Marti
Index
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
(USSR). See Soviet Union
United Nations (UN), 1, 32, 86, 112,
144; Human Rights Commission,
127; Human Rights Convention, 52,
121–22, 127
United States, 2, 13, 16, 32, 52, 57, 90,
150. See also Bush; Castro; Cold
War; Cuba; Cuban exile
community; economic embargo;
Gorbachev; Putin; Russia; Soviet
Union; Yeltsin; Reagan; Rice;
Russia; Soviet Union
United States economic embargo
against Cuba, 13, 35–36, 57, 62–63,
88 109n52, 116–17, 133; impact on
Russian-Cuban relations, 89–90,
122, 151. See also Helms-Burton Act;
Torricelli Bill
Unipolar, 70, 114, 116, 129, 134, 139n52,
149–50
Urrutia Leo, Carlos Manuel, 21
“velvet revolution,” 39
Venezuela, 8, 62, 70–71, 102, 106,
131–32, 148, 150. See also Hugo
Chávez
Vietnam, 22, 49n62, 119–20
Vorotnikov, Vasili, 14, 77n17
Waltz, Kenneth, 2
“war on terror,” 117, 126, 128
Warsaw Pact, 9, 17n14, 27, 29, 46n33,
124
White, Stephen, 4–5, 7, 17n11
World Bank, 7, 56–57, 63
Yeltsin, Boris, 65, 77n17, 87, 114–15,
125, 144; relations with Cuba,
78n23, 112–13
Yugoslavia, 7, 125, 134, 149
Zvezda SA, 72
Zyuganov, Gennady, 93
 About the Author

Mervyn J. Bain (M.A, MPhil and PhD, University of Glasgow) is a Lec-

turer in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the Uni-
versity of Aberdeen (United Kingdom). His research interests are Latin
America, but specifically Cuba’s relationship with the Soviet Union and
Russia. He has presented papers at various national and international
conferences and has published articles on Cuba’s relationship with the So-
viet Union and Russia in journals including the Journal of Latin American
Studies, the Journal of Transatlantic Studies and International Politics. He has
a chapter in Redefining Cuban Foreign Policy. The Political Impact of the ‘Spe-
cial Period,” published by the University Press of Florida in April 2006. He
is also the author of the book “Soviet-Cuban Relations 1985 to 1991. Chang-
ing Perceptions in Moscow and Havana,” published by Lexington Books in
January 2007.

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