ABSTRACT
Latin America’s role in the world has undergone extensive change in decades. Though progress was retarded in the 1980s by the oil and debt crises, the area’s involvement in global affairs had been expanding in the 1970s. Since Cuba’s incorporation into the Soviet system, the Soviet Union has supported the Cuban economy not only through trade, but also through furnishing convertible currency for Cuba’s trade with the Western states, financing trade deficits, buying Cuban sugar above the world price, providing military equipment, giving direct credit for economic development, and postponing credit repayment. The various forms of relations between the Communist states and Latin America—economic and trade, diplomatic, military, and political—reflect common interests as well as the state of Latin American-US and Soviet-US relations. The Communist states, especially the Soviet Union, are striving to enhance their influence—economic, ideological, and political—as well as to improve their economic situation.
