what spurred the soviet union to support fidel castro in cuba
American Comandante | Article
Castro and the Common cold War
Fidel Castro's life story is non the story of the leader of a poor underdeveloped nation struggling to survive against the fierce opposition of the United States. For four decades, Castro purposely stood at the heart of the dangerous game the United States, the Soviet Wedlock and sometimes Communist china played for political pre-eminence in the Tertiary Earth. Past deftly manipulating the opportunities afforded Republic of cuba by the Cold War, he managed to plow his island into a launching pad for the projection of his leadership throughout the world.
Soviet Protection
Castro's courtship of the Soviet Union began shortly after the revolution with a visit to Havana past Soviet Vice Premier Anastas Mikoyan. As he took on the United states he knew he needed Soviet protection in guild to survive. The Soviets played a cautious game, simply could not pass up an opportunity to gain a toehold in the Western Hemisphere, xc miles from the United States. At the finish of Mikoyan's visit, the Soviets agreed to purchase Cuban carbohydrate in exchange for Soviet oil. The Usa, already concerned with Castro'due south anti-American rhetoric, saw the agreement as a betrayal, and asked U.S. companies in Cuba not to refine the Soviet crude oil. Relations began spiraling downwards, until their terminal pause in January 1961.
Nuclear Crisis
In December 1961, only a few months after the U.S.-sponsored exile invasion at Bay of Pigs, Fidel Castro declared himself a Marxist-Leninist, obligating the Soviet Union to protect his new, vulnerable socialist nation. Soon thereafter he asked the Soviet Union for weapons, directorate, and even Soviet soldiers. The Soviets proposed a different defence force -- medium-range ballistic missiles. Castro agreed. When in Oct 1962 American U-2 spy planes photographed missile sites in Cuba, the earth approached the brink of a nuclear confrontation. As the tensions of the Missile Crisis escalated, Castro wrote Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev urging him to use the missiles and to sacrifice Cuba if necessary. Unbeknownst to the Cuban leader, Khrushchev had already reached an agreement with President John F. Kennedy to withdraw the missiles, without consulting Castro. The Cuban leader plant out from a friend, the editor of the newspaper Revolución, Carlos Franqui. Castro was infuriated to discover that the Soviet Matrimony would treat Cuba but equally the United States had -- as an insignificant island in the centre of the Caribbean area.
Covert War
In the stop, Castro emerged a winner. President Kennedy secretly pledged to Khrushchev that the U.s.a. would not invade Cuba. Yet the Cuban revolution continued to face threats, equally a U.South. covert war lawmaking-named Operation Mongoose proceeded. And the economic embargo the U.South. had imposed in 1961 continued unabated.
Committed to Globe Revolution
Castro was fiercely committed to creating his own revolutionary globe and to fighting imperialism whenever and wherever the opportunity arose -- in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East. "Any revolutionary movement, in whatsoever corner of the world, can count on the help of Cuban fighters," he told a audience of Third World revolutionary leaders in early on 1966. When his revolutionary goals clashed with those of his Soviet benefactor he nevertheless pursued them. Amid Kremlin officials he became known every bit "the viper in our breast."
Defeat and Betrayal
Castro's world revolution eluded him. His guerrilla armies were defeated past U.South. animus forces and betrayed by Soviet-run Communist parties the world over. Most poignantly, in Bolivia, Che Guevara Castro'southward chief instrument of world revolution, met his death in 1967.
Adept Neighbors
As the Cold War settled into détente in the early on 1970s, Fidel Castro, following the Soviet line, began to soften his ain antagonistic rhetoric confronting the United states. "We are neighbors," he told reporter Barbara Walters in 1974, "and we ought to get along." Cuban and American officials met secretly at La Guardia Airport and at the Hotel Pierre to work out a rapprochement. When Secretarial assistant of State Henry Kissinger announced in 1975 that the U.South. was set up to "begin a new human relationship," the two nations stood on the brink of an understanding.
Castro'south Selection
And then, 15 years after the triumph of the Cuban revolution, Fidel Castro made what was perhaps the most important choice of his life, ane which would decide the futurity of Republic of cuba-U.Due south. relations into the 21st century. In 1974-75, just equally the normalization of relations between the U.Due south. and Republic of cuba seemed imminent, Fidel Castro saw an opportunity to rekindle his international revolution.
Angola
After five centuries as a colony of Portugal, Angola in West Africa was due to receive its independence in November 1975. The country edged toward civil war every bit iii carve up groups bid to rule the country. Cuba had been supporting the Movement for the Independence of Angola (K.P.Fifty.A.) since the 1960s. The Marxist leader Agostinho Neto had shut ties to Havana and was favored by the Cubans. Castro faced a option: intervention in Angola or relations with the Us. On November seven, 1975, he personally saw the departure of an airlift taking Cuban special troops into Angola's majuscule, Luanda, followed by two rider ships carrying regular troops into the field of battle. When Cuba took the initiative, Moscow followed with support. "They've made a pick which, in issue, and I do mean very literally, has precluded any comeback in our relations with Cuba," President Gerald Ford said.
Afghanistan
Angola launched Castro onto the world stage. In the words of Cuban analyst William Leogrande, "the Cuban intervention in Republic of angola identifies Cuba every bit a state that is willing to take a adventure, willing to put its own interests on the line, willing to provoke a confrontation with the United States in support of national liberation in Africa." On the strength of his wild popularity in Africa, Castro, in September 1979, was elected leader of the Non-Aligned Movement. That October he traveled to New York to address the U.North. General Associates, demanding an international redistribution of wealth and income in favor of the poor countries of the world. "Those months in the fall of 1979 were the apogee of his power," CIA analyst Brian Latell later observed. "How tin you be a loyal, dependable Soviet ally and take virtually $half dozen billion of Soviet aid annually, and at the same time exist the leader of the non-aligned nations? Well, Castro was able to carry out that exquisite, seemingly impossible balancing act." Then, on New Twelvemonth's Day 1980, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, a not-aligned nation. Castro's foreign policy received a burdensome accident.
Latin America
President Ronald Reagan came into office determined to fight the spread of Communism, beginning close to home. The Sandinistas' 1979 victory had been a huge triumph for Fidel Castro. A leftist regime, loyal to Republic of cuba, was the foothold he had been looking for since the 1960s. Now he could support a growing insurrection in neighboring Republic of el salvador and in Republic of guatemala. In 1980 he acquired another ally, Maurice Bishop in the Caribbean isle of Grenada. The Reagan administration went on the offensive. Reagan tightened the U.S. economical embargo, funded the Contras to wage war against the Nicaragua'south Sandinistas, invaded Grenada in 1983, and launched a campaign to expose Cuba'southward human rights record. Castro, in turn, put Cuba on high alert, calling the Reagan assistants "a reactionary extremist clique," waging "an openly warmongering and fascist foreign policy." Reagan checked Castro's advances in the Northern hemisphere. Simply once again, it was the superpowers who would determine Fidel Castro's fate.
The End of the Common cold War
In 1985, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev launched glasnost and perestroika, economic and political reforms designed to save Communism and revive the Soviet Matrimony's economy. Castro rejected Gorbachev's reforms, which he believed "represented a threat to fundamental socialist principles." But even Gorbachev's reforms could not salvage Communism, and in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed. For Castro, it was an enormous blow. "To speak of the Soviet Union collapsing is as if to speak of the sunday non shining," he had said. And the sun went abroad. Castro lost more than than $6 billion in annual economical assist. The socialist world, the earth he had chosen to join, had come to an end.
"Similar a human being at the horse races he bet all his money on a equus caballus." Cuba critic Ricardo Bofill has said, "And he bet on the incorrect equus caballus."
*This commodity was originally published on the site for the 2005 American Experience documentary Fidel Castro.
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Source: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/comandante-cold-war/
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