The political economy of Cuban dependence on the Soviet Union

Abstract

The history of Cuban-Soviet relations is one of transition from independence to integration within a Soviet dominated sphere of influence. In the early 1970s the Soviet Union emerged as the dominant political force in Cuba. By 1973 the Cuban economy had been securely subordinated to the Soviet economy. Also, in the domain of ideology Cuba had come to support the Soviet line on revolutionary strategy and “socialist” diplomacy, and had abandoned the “Cuban road”. Important contradictions continued to disrupt the unity between Cuba and the USSR at a political level until 1972. With the consolidation of a strong PSP faction within the PCC and state administration, together with Soviet trained technocrats, the Soviet ruling circles had gained influence over the Cuban State. Contradictions persisted with Castro's faction which, together with the group around his brother Raul, controlled the armed forces. Cuba's relations with the Soviet Union evolved in the direction of “asymmetric interdependence,” of dependence, for the following reasons: 1) the ratio of foreign to domestic economic transactions was high; 2) foreign economic transactions were distributed among a small group of countries, the Soviet bloc, which were under the political and economic hegemony of the USSR; 3) the ratio of Soviet to Cuban domestic sources for capital, technology, and factories was high; 4) foreign trade in terms of markets and sources for imports were highly concentrated in the direction of the USSR, although it has become more diversified since 1973; 5) there were limited options for Cuba to diversify so as to replace the USSR with other patrons or to dispense with the particular eonomic, military, and political resources controlled by the Soviet Union; 6) the economy of Cuba became reliant on the fluctuations of demand in the Soviet bloc and not on the growth of domestic demand, because of the centrality of sugar monoproduction; 7) within the ruling party, government administration, and management of enterprises a stratum allied with and responsive to the Soviet ruling circles was formed; 8) with the coordination of economic planning the development of the Cuban economy was very closely conditioned by and complementary to that of the Soviet Union; and 9) there developed great deficits in the balance of payments because of the rigidities in exports, the terms of trade, and massive imports from the USSR. Dependence on the USSR was also related to the smallness and isolation of Cuba and her proximity to a hostile superpower, the US. As well, China's inability to compete with the USSR in providing economic and military inputs reduced Cuba's capacity to replace the Soviet Union. The US economic embargo also presented Havana with limited options. Cuba was trapped in a situation of bipolar balance in which one superpower was implacably hostile and the other exercised an increasingly inevitable magnetic attraction. Cuba could not replace or dispense with the Soviet Union. Unlike the US, the Soviet Union's influence was not based on the direct ownership of Cuba's productive resources, on equity interest in enterprises. This was an important reason for Cuba's greater relative autonomy from the USSR than from the US. On many occasions Havana and Moscow coalesced, at times differences arose. The USSR enjoyed a varying capacity to enforce policy changes on the Cuban government. If one general evaluation of the relationship could be made it would be this: in the trade-offs between Havana and Moscow, the Cubans were able to attain their objectives on many occasions by utilizing Soviet aid; the price they paid was to compromise their independence and damage the possibility of a transition to a communist mode of production. Growing dependence on the USSR led Cuba to adopt a bureaucratic and authoritarian political and economic structure. Divisions between mental and manual labor, between party and masses were widened. “Commandism” triumphed over the “mass-line”. Collectivism is confined to formal public ownership of property. In marxism, a basic distinction is made between two modes of production: the capitalist and the communist. “Socialism” refers to the period of transition from the former to the latter. Although the Cuban leadership claims to be pursuing the goal of communism, the road they have taken will not lead them there, but to the type of repressive society we find in the USSR. Cuban economic dependence has enabled the USSR to insert its own particular form of “socialism” in Cuba.