The Soviet-Cuban Connection

Abstract

In late April 1982, a news story circulated that then Secretary of State Alexander Haig had privately described Cuban President Fidel Castro as anguishing over an unspecified U.S. offer that could lead to both a rupture in Cuban-Soviet relations and an improvement in Cuban-American ones. 1 If indeed Castro should at some point decide to break away from the U.S.S.R. as China, Yugoslavia, and Albania did before, Soviet foreign policy would suffer a major setback. Like Cuba and unlike the U .S .S .R/s East European allies, communist governments in China, Yugoslavia, and Albania came to power largely through the success of indigenous communist guerrilla forces. All three of them originally allied with the Soviet Union, but eventually broke with it due to Soviet attempts to exercise a greater influence over their domestic and foreign policies than they desired. Should Cuba also sever relations, the U.S.S.R. would lose an important ally that in the past has worked to advance Soviet interests in Africa and Latin America. A Cuban defection from the Soviet camp might, in addition, lead other Third World Marxist-Leninist nations and movements friendly to Cuba to join it (these might include Angola, Nicaragua, and the guerrilla movements in Central America). But will a serious rift between Moscow and Havana actually take place, or were Haig's reported comments merely wishful thinking? It would seem that Soviet economic and military assistance to Cuba is so great that Castro would be unlikely to give it up easily. It is doubtful that Cuba could obtain from the West the same level of economic assistance on as favorable terms as it now receives from the U.S.S.R. In addition, Soviet military assistance to little