ABSTRACT
The deeply ingrained political illiteracy concerning Cuba in the United States has been framed by various factors. The unbreachable abysses corroding the fiber of "charismatic hardship communism" made institutionalization necessary, if Castro was to retain even part of his former power. The neomodernizers offer a more complex and sophisticated version of the institutionalization process than that of the Sovietization theorists or the Havana watchers. The fact that these models continue to be applied to the Cuban situation says something about the literature dealing with Cuba. The core of this thesis is the idea that, in both foreign and domestic policy, Cuba has become little more than a dupe, a copy, and an agent of the Soviet Union. The Havana watchers do not disagree with this litany. They likewise argue that a "client-state" relationship exists between Cuba and the Soviet Union and that the "institutionalization of the revolution has proceeded toward the 'sovietization' of Cuba's domestic order.".
