Expectations versus reality: Cuban students’ encounters with late Soviet socialism

Abstract

Between 1960 and 1991, thousands of Cubans earned degrees from Soviet universities and professional-technical schools. Using interviews and archival documents, the article traces those students’ experiences during the late socialist period and the years preceding the Soviet collapse. Contrary to their expectations, many Cuban students witnessed glaring inconsistencies in everyday expressions of socialist values and, over time, became increasingly troubled by the paradoxes of late socialism in the Soviet Union. While Cubans were welcomed as socialist brothers and received a comprehensive education, they also noticed waning ideological commitment and simmering ethnic tensions among their Soviet peers. These contradictions did not diminish their gratitude toward the Soviet Union but did make them question whether their host country was truly a beacon on the path to developed socialism. Cuban students’ testimonies reveal not a singular narrative, but rather the complex interactions between two socialist nations at different stages of development and with different visions of the future.