Socialism as the Main Soviet Legacy in Cuba

Abstract

In January 2009 the Cuban revolution completed 50 years, defying impossible odds. The leftist radical revolutionary regime in Havana wouldn’t have survived the US economic blockade and the CIAsponsored armed counterrevolution, if Fidel Castro hadn’t asked for— and received—massive Soviet economic and military assistance. The US administration’s decision to use economic sanctions, the CIA subversive operations, and outright military intervention against Castro’s regime has given the Cuban revolutionaries only one acceptable alternative. They had to throw in their lot with the Soviet Union—the only major power at the time that was not subservient to the United States and that was able and willing to ensure that Cuba did not share the fate of Guatemala.