Gorbachev was no friend of Castro’s Cuba

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This article was published 27/09/2022 (1452 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THERE is no disputing that former USSR premier Mikhail Gorbachev, who died in late August, played a fundamental role in reshaping east-west relations and ending the Cold War. With precious little political leverage, though, he also made a number of concessions to the U.S.-led Western Alliance — including the reduction of nuclear missiles, an agreement to facilitate the unification of East and West Germany and the release of dozens of political prisoners.

In addition, the Ronald Reagan White House demanded that Gorbachev substantially downgrade diplomatic relations with its long-standing friends in Havana. In his quest to strengthen the USSR-U.S. relationship, the late Soviet leader was prepared to sacrifice historically significant relations (remember the Cuban Missile Crisis?) with Fidel Castro’s Cuba.

By the late 1980s, it was becoming increasingly clear the personal relationship between Gorbachev and Castro had soured considerably. Rightly or wrongly, the Cuban leader had come to believe Gorbachev was little more than a lackey of the U.S., which had a penchant for seeking the overthrow of the Cuban government since the early 1960s.

The cardinal precepts of Gorbachev’s reforms — that is, glasnost (opening), perestroika (restructuring) and especially “new thinking” (in the foreign policy realm) — all negatively impacted Cuba-USSR relations. Of course, it was Gorbachev’s hope that these transformational reforms, if embraced by Cuba, would hugely benefit the overall bilateral relationship.

The Cubans, however, had other ideas.

There was obviously an unsettling sense in Havana that Cuba and the USSR were no longer on the same ideological page. For instance, Moscow’s priorities now revolved around the Cuban government introducing more “efficiency” into its state-centric economic practices and programs. The central goal was apparently to make Cuba more self-sufficient (and to have it make better use of its own resources) and thus less reliant on Soviet largesse.

As perestroika brought painful economic changes to Soviet society, Gorbachev was adamant the Cubans should do likewise and jettison their state socialism. This outside pressure from an erstwhile friend clearly did not go down well in Havana.

For Gorbachev, though, it became uncomfortable for Moscow to back a Cuba unwilling to reform itself.

Indicative of the changing Cuba-USSR relationship was Gorbachev’s insistence on negotiating only a one-year (as opposed to the customary five) trade agreement with the Cuban government in late 1990. More ominously for the Cubans was Moscow’s insistence on sharply reducing Soviet subsidization (and restarting debt payments) and a preference to conduct bilateral trade at world market prices (especially for USSR crude oil exports to Cuba).

It was not that Gorbachev wanted to terminate relations with revolutionary Cuba altogether. Rather, he wanted relations with Cuba, in line with his own “new thinking” about international relations, to be no longer unique and “special” — and more like the Kremlin’s normal diplomatic relationship with any other country in the world. But that was a tough pill for the Cubans to swallow.

Things only got worse by the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, when it became obvious from a military standpoint that Cuba’s geo-strategic importance to Moscow had waned considerably. By September 1991, Gorbachev moved to withdraw every single Soviet soldier, at one point in the mid-1970s topping 3,000, stationed in Cuba.

And as a clear sign that Cuba-Soviet relations were in serious trouble, Moscow never even bothered to notify the Castro government beforehand.

With the implosion of the Soviet Union in late 1991, the already topsy-turvy Cuba-USSR relationship had come to an end after 30 years of mostly fraternal relations. It was unquestionably a major blow to Cuba economically, militarily, regionally and, of course, in terms of Havana’s wider foreign relations.

Curiously, Fidel Castro — never one to shy away from a good fight — refrained from openly criticizing Gorbachev and his ill-treatment of Cuba. (I suspect he knew full well that much of what Gorbachev was doing was intended to please Washington and to positively reset relations with the U.S.)

What he did do, however, was to speak out against the negative impact of Gorbachev’s reforms not only on Cuba-USSR relations (which he did behind closed doors), but also on the socio-economic structure of the Soviet Union itself.

It is also worth pointing out that the defeat of the communist hardliners in a coup attempt against Gorbachev in August 1991 also spelled bad news for Havana. Indeed, it meant the so-called “Cuban lobby” in Moscow had effectively been sidelined and thus was no longer in a position to slow-walk Gorbachev’s reform ideas for Cuba.

Gorbachev, then, may have signed a “friendship” treaty with Cuba on a tense visit to the island in April 1989. But given that the bilateral relationship had sunk to a new low by the early 1990s (and precipitated Cuba’s harmful “Special Period”), the two countries could hardly be considered friendly.

Perhaps that explains why there was nary a word about Gorbachev’s passing from both Cuban governmental and media sources.

Peter McKenna is professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown.