In November 1975, on the 58th anniversary of the October Revolution, a young officer of a Soviet anti-submarine frigate led a mutiny aimed at recovering the Bolshevik revolution. Inspired by the rebellion of the battleship Potemkin in 1905, which was immortalized in Sergei Eisenstein’s great film, the sailors of the Baltic Fleet’s frigate Sentinel headed to Leningrad (today Saint Petersburg), cradle of the 1917 revolution. Fearing a chain reaction, the Kremlin invented that the young sailors in rebellion were trying to hijack the frigate and defect to Sweden. Captured, court-martialed, and convicted, the historical truth would be revealed only two decades later, when the trial documents came to light.
In the novel by Tom Clancy (1984) and the film of the same name The Hunt of the Red October (1990), inspired by the events of 1975, the captain of a nuclear submarine (with nuclear missiles) tries to defect, pursued by the Soviet fleet, while NATO believes it to be an attack, and world war almost breaks out. The thriller and the Hollywood film are closer to the official Moscow version than to the heroic action of the Leninist sailors of the Baltic.
This example illustrates to what extent the deficits in the history of revolutions and socialisms are not made up for by serials, novels, or films, in which simplifying, toxic, or fantastic “narratives” of what really happened often proliferate. Historical gaps not only imply ignorance but also mark our visions of the world and our political culture here and now.
Among these deficits is that of Cuban-Soviet relations, as well as that of the U.S.-Cuba-USSR triangle, and its imprints beyond the Cold War, not only in mentalities but also in ongoing political reasons.
The first time I saw live Soviets was at the USSR Scientific and Technical Exhibition in March 1960. There were replicas of Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite launched into orbit three years earlier; photos of the dog Laika, the first living being in outer space; all types of agricultural machinery and construction equipment, which competed with those of International Harvester and Caterpillar. Etc.
That window that opened with such an advanced country, as relations with the United States cooled, was not only comforting but exciting for many Cubans, including teenagers like me. No wonder the fashionable foreign language among my friends was Russian; and that we were moved by Tatiana Samoilova and Alexei Batalov in the war drama The Cranes Are Flying, a Cannes prize winner two years before the exhibition, so different from the epics of the Americans on the islands of Japan and from the schemes of socialist realism.
What we did not know at that early encounter, more than six months before the major nationalizations, was that President Eisenhower was officially approving the Bay of Pigs plan, which the CIA had initiated in December 1959. Nor that for JFK’s strategists, as well as for National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, the policy of pushing Cuba into the arms of the USSR was a good way to put it within reach to facilitate its total war against the Revolution, beyond the economic sanctions in place since 1959.
Some scholars seem to forget that these sanctions preceded not only the closer relations with the USSR but socialist radicalization itself. In 1959 we had a market economy; large private companies, Cuban and foreign; several legally existing parties; as well as pluralism in the council of ministers, and other government bodies, such as the Central Bank, with the presence of very moderate figures.
In that context, U.S. sanctions were not aimed at countering totalitarian communism or protecting the free press, businesses, or the market — that is, democracy and freedom — as they later justified, but rather at intimidating and punishing Cuba for the Revolution. Let’s say, due to the economic and social modernization of the Cuban countryside driven by an agrarian reform, which kept intact most of the rural private property, and whose most notable antecedents were in Mexico and Bolivia, cases that had not previously unleashed the fury of the United States.
The curious thing is that even today some academics talk about U.S. Cuba policy as if they were “sanctions” aimed at promoting democracy and freedom. That is, to cause “changes on the island.” So, I say, how do you explain that these “sanctions” corrected and increased to the maximum possible have been maintained for more than sixty years, having rather counterproductive effects concerning their declared objectives, that is, adding fuel to the policy of a besieged fortress, closing the spaces for these freedoms and democratic and pluralistic practices to become a reality. I have asked if, except for Barack Obama, they are so clumsy that they have not realized its real effects. The most original answer I have heard I received recently: it is “a Cold War tradition.”
As text analysis teaches, the words chosen in the speech are not irrelevant. Calling the economic war “sanctions” is not a simple technical euphemism. Nor ignoring the meaning of “economic blockade” as a resource of force described in military manuals. When JFK (not the U.S. Congress) approved the Cuba Embargo Act, in February 1962, the Mongoose Plan is underway, the final step of which foresees the invasion of the island with U.S. troops (not a brigade of Cuban exiles).
When the crisis caused by the U.S. hyperreaction to the Soviet missiles in Cuba led to the Kennedy-Khrushchev pact, the axis of politics shifted from Mongoose to the multilateral-geopolitical-global siege called “embargo on Cuba,” and it has remained that way since then until today.
Of course, this siege is not limited to “economic, commercial and financial blockade,” as they say here in Cuba; since it not only pursues economic-financial transactions but also tracks all types of movements, educational, cultural, religious, informative, biomedical, family, personal, public and private, physical or digital exchanges, where the word Cuba appears.
For example, when trying to access any internet platform from Cuba, the response is “you do not have permission to access from the country where you are,” even though that platform is free and does not imply any economic benefit for the user.
The effects of this siege go beyond the scope of action of the institutions in which the United States has a presence, let’s say 20% of the shares. For example, when a state bank of the People’s Republic of China, ranked among the first in the world, is reluctant to open an account for a Cuban resident in that country or a professor invited to teach at a university.
The punitive nature of the siege directly and personally affects anyone, not only government officials or official Cuban institutions. For example, a Cuban citizen who attends an activity in the United States with a visa, complying with all established immigration and customs regulations, and without having violated any law, upon leaving is stripped of his personal mobile phone and laptop, without explanation or legal argument, with the promise that “they will be returned later.”
The consequences of this siege for Cuba’s foreign and domestic policy are difficult to exaggerate. As I have pointed out before, this centrality of survival has determined, for example, the weight of the defense and security bodies in the political order of Cuban socialism, externally and internally, from the 1960s to today.
There is no greater irony, to say the least, than maintaining that siege or collaborating with it, justifying it as a pressure mechanism for regime change, or doing nothing to move it a millimeter from where it still is, or identifying it as a kind of tradition, that, although counterproductive, would be legitimate as a political resource, instead of being an abuse of power, while at the same time demanding freedoms and democracy, human rights, extension of the private sector, reforms, pluralism, protagonism of civil society, expansion of the public sphere, etc.
For some scholars, this is post-revolutionary, post-Soviet, post-Castro, etc. Cuba. For those who maintain the siege from the United States, it seems to be the same regime as in 1959 and 1962, since its policy remains intact.
Some other consequences for Cuban politics derive from this unelected circumstance, as that of 1959-62 was not. Any foreign relations action, dictated by the logic of escaping this siege, that associates or seeks alliances with other actors (say, Russia, China, Iran…), is justified. Its raison d’être does not come primarily from the revolutionary ideological impetus and internationalism, but from that national security equation, which those familiar with realpolitik can explain, and which has been with us since the 1960s, as has U.S. hostility.
Less than two years ago, I experimented with posting a question on my Facebook wall (11/26/2022): “Does getting closer to Russia and China hurt a U.S.-Cuba change? Or does it favor it?”
Although I do not have space to discuss the interesting patterns emerging among the almost 80 responses, which I invite the reader to review, I list a few as a sample button. Those who said that these relations “had nothing to do” [with the United States], that “we should not expect anything from the United States in any way,” and that in any case we had “been the grass stamped by two elephants doing war,” that “disfavors and harms them,” that the question itself is “an academic dream-like mistake,” that “in any case, the rapprochement benefits us, and the blockade will continue anyway,” that “the solution lies in our productive forces, we do not have to look for someone to relate to,” that “allying with two betes noires for the United States cannot favor bilateral relations,” etc. A small minority responded that it could favor them.
The issue does not seem to have lost meaning, if we look closely at the progress of Cuba’s relations with both countries, in particular, the recent visit of a Russian naval group, including a nuclear submarine (without nuclear weapons), in the same period as a Canadian patrol vessel (NATO member country) and a U.S. fast attack submarine were anchored in Cuban waters, between Havana and Guantánamo.
Despite the strain in relations with Russia, the U.S. statement, in the mouth of a Pentagon spokesperson, seemed to calm the alarm of some, there and here. Translated into common language, he was saying something like “don’t worry, this is business as usual, nothing to worry about.”
I want to finish by reiterating an idea that I have pointed out before: the dialogue between the military on both sides, since the migration agreements, and cooperation on matters of mutual interest, maintained over almost three decades, has represented the main space of understanding between both sides. The reason lies not in union logic, but in shared problems, as reflected in the security agreements that predominated on the agenda during Obama’s short summer. To make it this way, naturally, both sides did their part.
The U.S. military has not been in the lobby that promotes isolating Cuba, quite the contrary. When they have been able to do so publicly, senior officers have reiterated that it is not a good idea to leave the Cuban space to Russia and China. But these Cuban-Russian relations are not objected to nor do they appear as an obstacle to cooperating with the island. If we think about these interests and compare them with economic ones, we can see that they have a much higher and clearer profile.
Closing with what some take to be “academic chatter,” I cite a Master’s thesis in Security Studies entitled “Security Cooperation with Cuba: The Impact of Normalization on the Coast Guard’s Relationship with the Cuban Border Guard” (2021). Its author is Coast Guard Commander Derek Cromwell, who during the Obama years was a liaison officer between the U.S. Embassy in Havana and the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR):
Trusting relationships develop gradually over time, and their strength depends on a foundation of mutual respect. The maritime security relationship between the Coast Guard and the Cuban Border Guard embodies this premise… [This relationship is] a model for use with other countries, especially those with political differences that otherwise limit constructive dialogue and cooperation…. Finally, by reviewing the after-effects of the Trump administration’s rollback of U.S.-Cuba policy, specifically the impacts on the Coast Guard-Cuban Border Guard security relationship, it can be recognized that such a policy reversal does not serve the national security interests of the United States. Despite Trump’s traditional hardline approach regarding Cuba, none of the 22 signed bilateral agreements stemming from normalization were vacated. The Biden administration should take this opportunity to renew bilateral security cooperation in areas of mutual concern, including the Coast Guard’s longstanding relationship with the Cuban Border Guard.
Can the Defense and National Security stars of both sides align to reactivate pending agreements of common interest? Will those who influenced Cuba to be removed from the list of “countries that do not fully cooperate with terrorism” be able to remove it from the “sponsors of terrorism” list? Is it that the triangulation of Cuba-U.S. relations with Latin America, Europe, Russia, China catalyze the first?
As was demonstrated ten years ago, the decision lies not in Florida or Congress, but in the White House.
We will see.
