ABSTRACT
During the Soviet period, Latin America, like Africa and Asia, was viewed in Moscow as a region promising revolutionary upheavals and hence opportunities for undermining Western domination and spreading Soviet influence. Mikhail Gorbachev's "new political thinking" led to a substantial revision of Soviet policy in Latin America. Ironically, the only successful Soviet-style socialist transformation in Latin America was carried out in Cuba, by "petty bourgeois" left-wing radicals. As for the Soviet-Cuban trade turnover, by 1990 it constituted 72 percent of Cuba's total foreign trade and 7 percent of the Soviet Union's. Despite increasing economic costs, Cuba was viewed as an important political and military asset in the Cold War confrontation with the United States. The Cuban delegation to the conference on human rights refused to enter into such discussions, whereupon in March 1993 the Russian delegation in the UN Human Rights Commission supported again the resolution condemning the Castro regime for systematic violations of human rights.
