ABSTRACT
The Soviet Union and Cuba have fashioned relations that have enabled both to play a larger and more effective international role than either could undertake alone. Cuba is objectively far weaker than the USSR and it depends on the Soviets for extensive support. This chapter examines the nature of the Soviet-Cuban connection as it can be used to advance their foreign policy objectives toward countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. A common thread in Cuban and Soviet policies toward Latin America and the Caribbean is their rivalry with the United States. The Soviet and Cuban governments began serious contacts in the Fall 1959, about ten months after Fidel Castro’s accession to power. Cuba adopted radical internal policies in the late 1960s somewhat akin to a “cultural revolution”.
