Soviet Policy in Latin America

Herbert S. Dinerstein

American Political Science Review, 1967, vol. 61, issue 1, 80-90

Abstract: The general conclusions of the study will be stated at the outset in the broadest terms to aid the reader in his evaluation of the argument as it is unfolded in more detail.The Soviet leaders expected to make great advances in the underdeveloped world as it decolonized. They hoped that the Communists would lead the nationalist rebellions and convert them into Communist states. Only in the North of Indochina has the Communist party been able to do so; the South is still in contest. High hopes in Indonesia, Algeria, and the Congo have come to naught. The successful seizure of power in Cuba has taken place in an unanticipated manner.In this case, a non-Communist revolution converted itself into a Communist one. Before Castro's assumption of power in Cuba, the Soviet Union viewed Latin America in general, and the Caribbean in particular, as an area where American power severely limited Communist opportunities. The overthrow of the Arbenz regime in Guatemala in 1954 seemed to prove the point. But for a time after the Bay of Pigs episode, the Cubans believed, and seemed to have convinced the Soviets, that the Cuban revolution could be exported. But the failure of several attempts to do so, and the outcome of the missile crisis in the fall of 1962, caused first the Soviets and somewhat later the Cubans to revise their hopes for new Communist states in Latin America in the near or foreseeable future. Now several years after the windfall of Castro's conversion, Soviet attention is increasingly centered on the costs to be borne. First, although Castro will probably remain a Communist, he will continue to be as defiant as he can afford to be. Second, Castro has cost the Soviet Union a great deal of money and, although these contributions have been reduced, the end is not yet in sight.

Date: 1967
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