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Castro's Revolution, Cuban Communist Appeals, and the Soviet Response

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Edward Gonzalez
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Extract

Developments in the Cuban revolution between mid-1959 and early 1960 demonstrate both the interaction between the international and domestic systems and the bargaining process involved in Cuban efforts to secure Soviet support. Until the dispatch of First Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan to Havana in early February 1960, the Soviet Union had been hesitant about revolutionary Cuba. The radicalization of the revolution which preceded Mikoyan's visit, therefore, stemmed not only from Fidel Castro's perception of opposition to his regime and from his need to ensure revolutionary momentum, but also from his efforts to increase Cuba's bargaining leverage with Moscow. In turn, the Cuban Communists served as a key linkage with Moscow and, most important, as an aggressive negotiating agent for Castro. In formulating their response to revolutionary Cuba, the Soviets were thus forced to contend with covert and overt pressures from Castro and his Communist allies.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , October 1968 , pp. 39 - 68
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1968

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References

1 Castro's first public reference to the Guatemalan affair came on April 2, 1959. For the relevance of the Guatemalan experience to Castro's calculations, see Einaudi, Luigi Roberto, ”Marxism in Latin America: From Aprismo to Fidelismo,” unpubl. diss., Harvard University, 1966, 160–250Google Scholar.

2 For opposing interpretations of United States-Cuban relations, see Zeitlin, Maurice and Scheer, Robert, Cuba: Tragedy In Our Hemisphere (New York 1963), 62–106Google Scholar; and Bonsai, Philip W., ”Cuba, Castro, and the United States,” Foreign Affairs, XLV (January 1967), 260CrossRefGoogle Scholar–76.

3 Felipe Pazos, the former president of the National Bank of Cuba, who accompanied Castro to the United States, writes, ”In the conversations with the State Department and the [International Monetary] Fund I had the feeling that they were almost forcing me to accept loans . . .” (letter, March 22, 1963).

4 Revolution (the organ of the Twenty-sixth of July Movement and the Castro government), April i8, 1959, 9; and an interview with Felipe Pazos, July 2, 1964. Pazos also writes in his letter cited earlier that he overheard Castro express the fear that if he were invited to the White House and photographed with the President he would be considered ”as one more Latin American leader 'sold out' to imperialism.” On returning to Cuba, Castro time and again defended his performance in the United States on grounds that he had fulfilled his ”duty” as a revolutionary. See Revolución, May 9, 1959. 2.

5 For an account of Castro's erratic course, see Edward Gonzalez, ”The Cuban Revolution and the Soviet Union: 1959–1960,” unpubl. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1966, 361–403.

6 Bias Roca, the secretary-general of the PSP, warned the party in its May Plenum, ”We are now in a critical moment for the revolution,” and added that the attacks on the Communists created ”a grave threat of regression and derailment for the revolution” (Hoy [the newspaper of the PSP], May 26, 1959, 7).

7 Drawn up by Castro and his radical Left confidants, the Agrarian Reform Law was soon greeted in the nonrevolutionary press with public demands for its modification and for the prompt holding of elections. It was also a major factor in the resignations of five moderates from the cabinet on June 12.

8 The Dominican venture led to the Trujillo government's appeal for OAS action and to Castro's refusal to allow an OAS investigating team to enter Cuba. On the effect of the Dominican affair upon Castro's subsequent policy, see Suarez, Andres, Cuba: Castroism and Communism, 1959–1966 (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), 65–69Google Scholar.

9 Castro dismissed Escalante's criticism and announced that his government had the ”duty” to defend those who favored the revolution, adding that it would be ”hardly honorable” to attack the Communists in order to avoid being accused as Communist (Revolución, July 3, 1959, 22, 23; and July 4, 1959, 20).

10 To oust Urrutia, Castro had resigned the premiership on July 17. The mass meeting of July 26, augmented by peasants transported to Havana, restored Castro to office, at which time he singled out the peasantry for its loyalty and revolutionary commitment. See Revolución, July 28, 1959, 5.

11 Although individual Communists had fought in the Rebel Army, the PSP had not actively joined the anti-Batista struggle until the last months of 1958. The party therefore was generally discredited within the revolutionary camp, and its members were excluded from positions of power.

12 Although critical of Castro's failure to promote trade-union ”democracy,” the PSP's Executive Bureau nevertheless stressed that the party would assist him ”to the full extent of its strength” (“Acuerdos del Buró Ejecutivo del Comité Nacional del Partido Socialista Popular,” Hoy, February 21, 1959, 1, 3).

13 The PSP, however, was less radical than were the Castroites on the issue of agrarian reform: until early 1960, it opposed the premature collectivization of agriculture on doctrinal, tactical, and economic grounds.

14 Castro's trip to the United States produced considerable anxiety in the party, which was reflected in Hoy between April 4 and April 28.

15 Interview with Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, member of the Secretariat of the Communist party of Cuba and former editor of Hoy, August 14, 1967. The Soviet press frequently cited the Cuban media in reporting developments, and permanent Soviet ”correspondents” do not appear to have arrived in Havana until the end of 1959.

16 ”Qué clase de revolución es esta?” Hoy, April 11, 1959, 1, 3; and ”Conclusiones del Pleno del Comite Nacional del Partido Socialista Popular, realizado en los dias 25 al 28 de Mayo 1959,” ibid., June 7, 1959, 7–10. Bias Roca's assessment was also directed against the advocates of the ”Chinese road” led by Anibal Escalante. On the intraparty dispute over strategy, see Gonzalez, 343–61 and 404–16.

17 This interpretation was confirmed by Rodríguez in his interview of August 14, 1967.

18 ”Declarationes del PSP: Sobre la solución de la crisis creada por la traicion de Urrutia” (Hoy, July 19, 1959, 1, 5).

19 See Anibal Escalante, “Doctrina y acción—Concentración campesina y algo sobre la 'infiltración' comunista” (ibid., July 29, 1959, 1, 5) ; and Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, “Reflexiones ante un aniversario” (ibid., July 29, 1959, 7).

20 “Los Comunistas no ocultan nada” (Hoy Domingo, July 26, 1959, 1, 9).

21 For example, see Levin, V., “Cuba: Victory Over the Tyranny,” International Affairs, No. 4 (April 1959), 96–98Google Scholar; Levin, V., “Na mezhdunarodnyye temy: Manevry pokroviteley tiranii” [On international themes: Maneuvers by patrons of tyranny], Pravda, April 1, 1959, 6Google Scholar; and Kamynin, L., “Na mezhdunarodnyye temy: O tex, kto mechtayet povtorit' gvatemalii” [On international themes: On those who dream of a repetition of Guatemala], Izvestia, April 10, 1959, 1Google Scholar.

22 Thus, while noting that the Castro regime had broad class support, a Vravda writer went only so far as to assert that the regime realized “that the best defense of the revolution lies in the indefatigable advance forward, toward the radical solution of pressing social and economic problems” (Kalinin, A., “Kuba na novom etape” [Cuba in a new phase], Pravda, May 12, 1959, 6Google Scholar).

23 Kamynin, L., “Mezhdunarodnyi obzor: Vokrug poyezdki Fidelya Kastro v SShA” International review: Concerning Fidel Castro's visit to the USA], Izvestia, April 16, 1959. 5Google Scholar.

24 lakovlev, V., “Cuba: The Land Reform,” International Affairs, No. 8 (August 1950), 88Google Scholar.

25 Kamynin, L., “Kuba dayet otpor” [Cuba gives rebuff], Izvestia, July 21, 1959, 3Google Scholar.

26 The low priority of Latin America in Soviet policy may be seen by (1) the 1958 May Day slogans, which did not mention the region; (2) the 1959 slogans, which listed Latin America after the other underdeveloped regions, but did not mention Cuba; and (3) the August issue of World Marxist Review, which carried an abridged version of Bias Roca's report to the May Plenum, but omitted several of his key “lessons” for Latin America derived from the Cuban guerrilla-war experience.

27 Rodriguez, in his interview of August 14, 1967, confirmed this evidence. According to Rodriguez, the Soviets feared a repetition of the Guatemalan case in Cuba through an army revolt, external aggression, or internal disintegration of the Castro regime.

28 On July 13, following overtures by Khrushchev and Kozlov, President Eisenhower invited the Soviet premier to meet at Camp David; he received Khrushchev's acceptance on July 22 (Eisenhower, Dwight D., The White House Years: Waging Peace, 1956–1961 [Garden City 1965], 405Google Scholar–7).

29 For example, Marcelo Fernández, National Coordinator of the Twenty-sixth of July Movement and a leader of the anti-Communist offensive in May, was transferred to the Foreign Ministry (Revolución, August 4, 1959, 1).

30 Three majors and a captain were displaced for their anti-Communist sentiments (interview with José A. Duarte, former Rebel Army major, June 6, and June 27, 1967).

31 The conflict had erupted in late August with the PSP's campaign to obtain trade-union concessions by discrediting the Twenty-sixth of July labor leaders. Revolución's counterattacks ended with an article that alluded to the incompatibility of Soviet-style communism with the objectives of the revolution. See Candela, Euclides Vázquez, “Saldo de una polemica,” Revolución, September 14, 1959, 10Google Scholar.

32 During his three-month tour of the Near and Middle East, Asia, and Europe, Guevara had met Soviet representatives in Cairo, and two small Soviet sugar purchases were subsequently concluded between the USSR and Cuba. However, it does not appear that the Castro government was following Soviet instructions in radically restructuring the Cuban economy, given Moscow's apparently cool public response to the new economic course.

33 See Castro, Fidel, Informe Económico Sobre Cuba (Havana 1959Google Scholar), 38ff.

34 Pazos believes that Guevara did not want the post for tactical reasons, but that Castro made the appointment precisely to exaggerate the leap to the extreme Left in order to terrify the business community (interview, July 17, 1964).

35 Hoy, October 21, 1959, 3.

36 Castro, 36.

37 This was the evaluation given by Marcelo Fernández, Under-Secretary of State. See Revolución, October 16, 1959, 1, 13.

38 New York Times, October 17, 1959, 1; and Revolución, October 19, 1959, 1.

39 United States authorities were culpable in not preventing such exile operations; but a close reading of Castro's speeches prior to October 22 suggests that he seized upon the incident in order to justify the turn against the Center-Left and the United States.

40 Revolución, October 27, 1959, 5, 8.

41 Pazos recalls that the arrest and denunciation of Matos had been “terrible news” because it signified that Castro had “swept away” the “popular front” within the Rebel Army in which Communists and anti-Communists had been kept in “equilibrium” (interview, July 17, 1964).

42 In condemning Matos and his officers on October 26, Castro had noted that they were not of the peasant “class,” which provided “the elite and the flower and the cream of the most battle-tested, the most valiant, and the most firm [element] of the Rebel Army” (Revolución, October 27, 1959, 8) .

43 Henceforth he would “consult with the people,” Castro declared in his October 26 speech. The next day, the Revoluciónary Tribunals and the death penalty for terrorist crimes were restored in order to “defend the revolution.” Revolución later warned, “Here there are only two positions; either with Cuba or against Cuba. Or with the revolution or against it” (“La tercera posición,” ibid., November 10, 1959, 2).

44 On October 19, Castro had announced that he would rely “above all” upon the peasants and workers. They would be organized and trained in the militias, thereby enabling the revolution to calculate “how many federations and how many peasants it could rely upon” (Hoy, October 21, 1959, 3, 4).

45 See Revolución, November 20, 1959, 17; and November 23, 1959, 3, 5, 7, 8. Castro demanded the “cleansing” and “complete purging” of the CT C and its “regrouping” with the Communists. H e was forced to intercede personally because the overwhelming majority of the delegates to the Congress were affiliated with the Twenty-sixth of July Movement.

46 , Roa, In Defense of National Sovereignty (Havana 1959), 7–23Google Scholar.

47 Interview, August 16, 1967.

48 Bias Roca thus warned the October Plenum that the Communists ran “the risk of becoming stagnant, of falling behind events” (Hoy, October 7, 1959, 7).

49 The new course raised serious doctrinal, strategic, and tactical questions for the PSP. Hence, although endorsing Castro's program, Bias Roca also advised against precipitous statist and collectivist measure s that would unduly alarm the national bourgeoisie and the peasantry (“La gran tarea,” Hoy, September 20, 1959, 1, 8) .

50 First priority was thus give n to agrarian reform and agricultural diversification rather than to industrialization, and the state's new activities were further limited to areas “that are necessary and that have not been undertaken by private industry” (“Resolución del Partido Socialista Popular,” ibid., September 25, 1959, 1, 7). In his interview of August 14, 1967, however, Rodriguez maintained that the PS P had enjoyed complet e freedom fro m Moscow, that Moscow had not opposed Castro's new course, and that the apparent delay in the Executive Bureau's endorsement had been due to “technical problems.”

51 César Escalante, “Doctrina y acción—Los Comunistas y la gran tarea,” Hoy, September 29, 1959, 7.

52 Lazaro Pefia, for example, alerted the Plenum to favorable developments in th e forthcoming National Congress of the Confederation of Cuban Workers which woul d “appreciably modify the actual state of forces,” “produce new alignments,” and “open up new paths that coul d be positive” (ibid., October 10, 1959, 3).

53 Ibid., October 21, 1959, 2, italics added.

54 “See “Declaraciones del P.S.P.—La existencia de la Republica China; poderosa ayuda a la revolution cubana,” ibid., October 1, 1959, 1, 7; and Bias Roca, “Los varios partidos en china,” ibid., October 6, 1959, 1, 7.

55 Ibid., October 7, 1959, 7, italics added. Bias Roca later acknowledged that proletarian hegemony was necessary for the attainment of socialism. But he reminded the Plenum delegates that the crucial question was “‘how that hegemony is to be established’” and that this included “‘winning over to the ideology of the proletariat that part of the radical petty bourgeoisie which moves toward the proletariat’” (ibid., October 9, 1959, 7). In his interview of August 14, 1967, Rodriguez lauded Bias Roca's contribution to the October Plenum, specifically his having avoided the “question of hegemony” and his having foreseen the role of the radical petty bourgeoisie in the transition to socialism.

56 Roca, Bias, “El pueblo con la revolucion,” Hoy, November I, 1959, 10Google Scholar.

57 See Bias Roca's report to the Executive Bureau, ibid., November 8, 1959, 2–3.

58 In his interview, Rodriguez admitted that the PSP had become disturbed by the prospect of a Moscow-Washington accommodation that would adversely affect Soviet policy toward Cuba.

59 Hoy, August 18, 1959, 7.

60 See “Nuestra opinion—La visita de Jruschov,” ibid., September 17, 1959, 5; and “Saludo del Partido Socialista Popular—El cohete a la luna y la visita de Jruschov a EU,” ibid., September 18, 1959, 7.

61 Writing on the small Soviet sugar purchase of September 30, Bias Roca pointedly noted that China had made concrete offers to buy Cuban sugar in “unlimited amounts” (“La compra Sovietica de azúcar,” ibid., October 3, 1959, 1, 7) . In his report to the Executive Bureau, he also listed the solidarity of China ahead of that of the USSR (ibid., November 8, 1959, 2) . Finally, the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolución was commemorated in Hoy solely by a second-rank Communist.

62 “Nuestra opinion—La voz de la patria,” ibid., November 14, 1959, 8.

63 On August 12 and on September 30, the USSR had agreed to purchase in 1959 and i960 a total of 500,000 tons of sugar for $31,300,000. However, the USSR had purchased more sugar in 1955 (442,000 tons) and 1957 (351,000 tons) than it was committed to purchase in 1959 (270,000 tons) and i960 (230,000 tons). Further, because of the very low market price, the total Soviet cash commitment of $31.3 million for the 1959 and i960 deliveries was less than the cash outlays for the single years 1955 ($35.7 million) and 1957 ($47.1 million). The 1959 agreements, therefore, appear to have been routine commercial transactions with little political significance; this was evidently recognized byHoy's commentators on August 14 and October 3.

64 Hence, Pravda and Izvestia did not cover Cuban developments between September 6 and October 18; the first political analysis devoted entirely to Cuba did not reappear until Pravda's edition of November 11.

65 The Guatemalan refrain was markedly in evidence in the Soviet press following the Matos “plot” and the Florida-based raids. See L. Kamynin, “Yuzhnoamerikanskaya vesna” [South American spring], Izvestia, November 3, 1959, 3; and V. Levin, “Na mezhdunarodnyye temy: Kuba bditel'na i yedina” [On international themes: Cuba is vigilant and united], Pravda, November 11, 1959, 6.

66 Soviet writers thus stressed the primacy of agrarian reform as a liberationist and developmental vehicle, and they virtually disregarded Cuba's industrialization objectives. See Kamynin, “Yuzhnoamerikanskaya vesna”; A. Burlak, “Cuba—Enemy Provocations,” International Affairs, No. 12 (December 1959), 92; and Konstantin M. Obyden, Kuba v bor”be za svobodu i nezavisimost' [Cuba in the struggle for freedom and independence] (Moscow 1959), in U.S. Joint Publications Research Service, No. 3563 (July l8, 1960), 7–9.

67 These were listed in the following nonalphabetical order: India, Indonesia, UAR, Iraq, Burma, Sudan, Morocco, Tunisia, Ghana, Guinea, and Cuba (M. Lavrichenko, “Ekonoomicheskaia pomoshch SSSR slaborazvitym stranam” [The economic assistance of the USSR to the underdeveloped countries], Kommunist, No. 15 [October 1959], 110).

68 Brazilian and Chilean trade delegations were scheduled to arrive in Moscow in late 1959 and early 1960. On the need for Latin America to normalize relations with the USSR, see Andrianov, V., “Latin America—An Imperative Demand,” International Affairs, No. 10 (October 1959), 102Google Scholar–3; and Martillo, Trinidad, “Evolution of the Inter-American System,” International Affairs, No. 1 (January 1960), 62Google Scholar.

69 See Zagoria, Donald S., The Sino-Soviet Conflict, 1956–1961 (Princeton 1962), 245CrossRefGoogle Scholar–58; and Levinson, G., “Two Tendencies in the National Bourgeoisie,” World Marxist Review, No. 9 (September 1959), 75–77Google Scholar.

70 Bocharyov, Y., “Storm in the Caribbean,” New Times, No. 33 (1959), 8Google Scholar. The importance of the national bourgeoisie in Latin America's liberation movement was also stressed by Levin, V., “Latin America on the March,” International Affairs, No. 10 (October 1959), 73Google Scholar, 75, 78.

71 Pp. 6, 11–12.

72 “Segodnya i zavtra Kubinskogo naroda” [The present and future of the Cuban people], 5.

73 Castro warned on December 15, for example, that Cuba would have to remain on a “complete war footing” and that no quarter would be given to the counterrevolutionaries (, Castro, Una Sola Bandera, Un Solo Ideal: Cubal (Havana 1959), 34Google Scholar, 48).

74 Roa appealed for a revision of the U.S. tariff, expressed readiness to discuss compensation for expropriated American-owned properties, and indicated that nonagricultural foreign investments would be welcomed in Cuba (Hoy, December 11 and December 12, 1959, 1, 4).

75 See the report by Jiménez, Captain Nuñez in Revolución, December 4, 1959, 1Google Scholar, 4.

76 Ibid., December 21 and December 22, 1959, 1; and Hoy, January 6, 1960, 1.

77 Castro, Una Sola Bandera, 25–26, 38, 45.

78 See Hoy, December 4, 1959, 1, 3; December 12, 1959, 1, 3; and December 15, 1959, 1.

79 See ibid,. January 7, 1960, 1, 5; and Revolución, January 7, 1960, 4.

80 Hoy, December 17, 1959, 2.

81 Revolución, December 18, 1959, 2.

82 Three days later, Alexander Alexeyev (subsequently Soviet Ambassador to Cuba) registered in Havana as a Tass correspondent. According to Rodríguez, Alexeyev subsequently played an instrumental role in the formulation of Soviet policy toward Cuba (interview, August 14, 1967).

83 Revolución, December 29, 1959, 6.

84 See “Los industriales, los obreros y la revolución,” Hoy, December 9 and December 10, 1959, 1, 4.

85 “Nuestra opinión—Una fecha histórica,” ibid., December 11, 1959, 1, 4. The party's position was reversed a month later in an editorial that endorsed collectivization. See “Nuestra opinion—Un Suefio campesino hecho realidad, ibid., January 10, 1959, 1, 11.

86 For Escalante's public report, see “Sano orgullo nacional,” ibid., December 24, 1959> 1, 4.

87 Hoy's editorial line had been ambiguous between December 11–27, perhaps indicative of PSP uncertainty as to which position to adopt toward Castro and Moscow.

88 “Reflexiones sobre el primer aniversario,” Hoy, December 27, 1959, 1, 4.

89 “Nuestra opinión—Contra el entreguismo,” ibid. The PSP's anniversary statement also stressed the radical nature of the revolution. See “Alocución del PSP—A los obreros y campesinos; a todo el pueblo,” ibid., January 1, i960, 1, 4.

90 Ibid., January 14, 1960, 2.

91 In turn, the editorial defended Castro's posture toward the Eisenhower Administration, which it labelled as “one of the most representative of Yankee finance capital” (“Nuestra opinion—La historia pondra los puntos,” ibid., January 7, 1960, 1, 4, italics added).

92 “Nuestra opinion—Las medidas de desarme sovieticas, demostracion efectica de paz,” ibid., January 16, i960, 1, 4.

93 See “Sobre un mensaje de la juventud democratica cristiana,” ibid., January 17, 1960, 4.

84 Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, on the other hand, was among the delegates meeting Mikoyan (ibid., February 5, 1960, 1, 4). In his interview of August 14, 1967, Rodríguez mildly objected to the interpretation given above, maintaining that no serious rift had existed within the party or with Moscow and that the absence of the two PSP leaders had been due solely to “tactical considerations.”

95 Revolución, January 12, 1960, 1.

96 See the statement by Carlos Olivares in Hoy, January 7, 1960, 7.

97 B. Alexandrovsky, for example, declared that “the agrarian reform will radically change Cuba's social structure. . . . The leading role in the villages will be played by the free farmer and the national bourgeoisie will become the dominant factor in the economy” (“The Cuban Example,” New Times, No. 2 [1960], 11).

98 “The Cuban people and the Castro government are alive to the menace to their country. . . . Militia units have already been formed and tens of thousands of Cuban patriots are undergoing military training in them” (ibid., 12). See also V. Chichkov, “Slavnaya godovshchina revoluycionnoy Kuby” [Glorious anniversary of revolutionary Cuba], Pravda, January 6, 1960, 4. On January 7, Pravda also carried extensive excerpts from the January 4 editorial in Revolución, denouncing the proposed “revitalization of the Monroe Doctrine.”

99 On January 13, Pravda and lzvestia carried dispatches on Cuba's determination to proceed with the agrarian reform and to avoid becoming “a second Guatemala.” Thereafter there was a fifteen-day lapse in their coverage of Cuba.

100 See the Cuban report of the results of Roa's visit to Yugoslavia in Revolución, January 20, 1960, 1, 2.

101 Hoy, January 22, 1960, 3, 4.

102 New York Times, January 27, 1960, 10.

103 “Nuestra opinión—El 'Espíritu de Camp David' y las amenazas y los ataques a Cuba,” Hoy, January 27, 1960, 1, 4.

104 At the request of the United States, Argentine Ambassador Julio A. Amoedo held a lengthy conference with Castro on January 27 and at the last moment secured minor concessions from the Cuban Premier. He reports that his efforts “proceeded satisfactorily until the arrival of Mikoyan. From that moment on the Castro regime virtually paralyzed the negotiations . . . until the Cuban-Soviet pact was signed on February 13” (“Negotiating with Fidel Castro,” The New Leader, April 27, 1964, 10–12).

105 Kamynin, L., “Zametki obozrevatelya: Kuba dayet otpor” [Observer's notes: Cuba gives rebuff], Izvestia, February 3, 1960, 1Google Scholar.

106 Hoy, February 14, 1960, 1. Diplomatic relations were established on May 7, and Soviet-bloc military aid began arriving in the summer of 1960.

107 “Kubanskiy narod stroit novuyu zhizn” [The Cuban people are building a new life], Pravda, February 10, 1960, 5. Pravda also began reporting on the statist and col-lectivist plans of the Castro government on February 9; and the creation of a Central Planning Commission was reported on February 22.