A Foreign Policy in Transition: Moscow’s Retreat from Central America and the Carribbean, 1985–1992 9780822383017

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A FOREIGN POLICY IN TRANSITION

A FOREIGN POLICY IN TRANSITION Moscow's Retreat from Central America and the Caribbean 1985-1992

JAN S. ADAMS

D U K E U N I V E R SIT Y PRE S S Durham and London

1992

© 1992 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 00 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book.

Contents

Introduction

1

1. Baseline for Change: The Brezhnev Legacy

5

2. The Early Impact of New Political Thought, 1985-1989

26

3. Reshaping the Establishment

46

4. Ripple Effects of Perestroika on Relations with Cuba

76

5. Nicaragua: Test Case of Superpower Cooperation

107

6. Relations with the Other Countries of the Isthmus

132

7. Relations with the Island and Rim Countries of the

Caribbean

163

8. Prospects for the Future

192

Notes

199

Index

241

Introduction

The changes unleashed ill the Soviet Union by Mikhail Gorbachev during his years of leadership, from 1985 through 1991, are universally recognized as revolutionary in the fullest sense of that term. Few observers are willing to prophesy the end results, but all agree that the fundamental bases of Soviet society were violently uprooted and refashioned by the destructive yet creative forces of perestroika. Thus shaken from its foundations, the Soviet Union itself had already ceased to exist when, on December 25, 1991, Gorbachev officially ended his presidency. In the area of foreign relations, Gorbachev's policies brought about transformations that would have seemed the stuff of dreams just a few months earlier-the intensive cultivation of ties with the United States and other nations in the West, significant advances in arms control agreements, freedom for indigenous political reform in Eastern Europe, and the unification of Germany. And these changes were accompanied by the Soviet leader's emphatic declarations of his nation's desire, in an interdependent world, to end its self-imposed political and economic isolation, to join with other nations around the world for the preservation of peace, to cooperate in resolving such matters of general significance as ecological problems and the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and to replace ideological conflicts with dialogue and negotiation. The foreign policy principles enunciated by Gorbachev and his supporters and the actual policies put into practice had worldwide impact, touching the political, social, and ideological interests and aspirations of governments and political movements everywhere. Their impact was felt by the Western powers great and small, as well as by communist regimes, Third World nations, and revolutionary groups around the globe that for decades had looked to the Soviet Union for advice and concrete support. Observers and actors alike were challenged to adapt to a new world of radically

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shifting international relations. Finding the correct responses, however, was rendered all the more imperative and difficult because many developments remained in mid-course, promising further radical outcomes yet to be imagined. Within the overarching framework thus outlined, it is possible to go from the general to the particular, to trace in one or another region of the world the concrete pattern of policy change that has occurred, and thus to reach a clearer and more realistic understanding of both the micro- and macro-processes involved. The following pages make this attempt. They chart the changing Soviet policies toward Central America and the Caribbean during the seven Gorbachev years, examine the effects of these policies, and seek to predict the role that Russia and the other Sovietsuccessor states will play in this region in the 1990S. A special effort is made to assess the durability of the Gorbachev changes. This is accomplished, first, by focusing upon Soviet actions in the Central American context in order to identify the differing degrees of change-versus-continuity in these actions between the earlier and later segments of the period under study, and second, by analyzing the ephemeral-versus-Iasting nature of the specific sources of change affecting policy. In gauging the permanence of the changes, a distinction is made between new policies that resulted from a line of action articulated by Gorbachev, which might be reversed by subsequent leaders or undercut in implementation, and policies rooted in the new conditions emerging from the radical economic and political restructuring of Soviet institutions or from new elements in the operation of the foreign policy process itself. Such analysis helps to determine in what ways and to what extent Soviet policy changed through the Gorbachev years; it also suggests which policy trends may persist in the post-Soviet period and thus provides a basis for speculation about how the policies of Russia and the other former republics are likely to evolve. In the early 1980s Washington's policy toward the Caribbean Basin expressed the overriding concern of the Reagan administration with fighting communism and containing Soviet expansionism, militarily, ideologically, and politically. The U.S. approach displayed an acute awareness of the irreconcilable confrontation of U.S.lSoviet interests in this region. Fundamental to this policy

Introduction

3

was a seemingly reasonable assessment of the Soviet threat that had developed over the Brezhnev years, an assessment that took into account the Soviet achievement of nuclear parity with the United States, the steady growth of Soviet land and air forces and blue sea navy, and the expansion of the Soviet global military reach. In the late 1980s, however, Washington began to reassess the existing Soviet threat in Central America and the Caribbean and the nature of the role that Moscow might be expected to play in this region in the years ahead. Important new questions arose: How real were the changes in Soviet policy triggered by "the new political thought"? To what extent were these changes irreversible? What continuities of past practice were reflected in the implementation of Gorbachev's policies? To what extent did his policies induce changes of behavior among regional actors, particularly the Soviet client states, Cuba and Nicaragua? Looking ahead, how would Soviet-U.S. cooperation affect the relations of both superpowers with the nations and peoples in this part of the world? In the post-Soviet era, answers to these and related questions remain of vital concern to U.S. policymakers. The proximity of Central America and the Caribbean to the United States and the enduring urgency of their unresolved social and political problems continue to make essential an accurate reading of the intentions and influence of the former Soviet republics in this region. It was vitally important, for example, for Washington to recognize in a timely fashion that the tremendous implosion of the Soviet imperial house of cards in 1989 simultaneously dispelled the likelihood of militant Soviet aggression in the Western hemisphere and ended the Kremlin's long-standing threat to U.S. national security interests in this region. It was equally important for Washington to put aside the trauma and associated memories of the past and respond positively to Moscow's new role as "ordinary neighbor" and partner. In the future, as in the recent past, the achievement of U.S. policy objectives in Central America and the Caribbean may well depend upon how realistically and perceptively the United States is able to reassess the new and rapidly changing political landscape in the Caribbean Basin. Such an assessment must weigh the

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impact of the power vacuums left by the withdrawal of East bloc support to militant Marxist forces and ideologies. More important, it must be based on a full understanding of the transitional Gorbachev policies which form the legacy upon which Russia and the other former Soviet republics are building their Caribbean Basin policies in the post-Soviet era.

Baseline for Change: The Brezhnev Legacy

Post-Stalin Policies toward the Third World Soviet policy toward Central America and the Caribbean was often shaped fortuitously by unexpected regional events and opportunities, such as the triumph of the Sandinista revolution or Cuba's interest and success in pursuing overseas adventures. At the same time, through the post-Stalin period, the Kremlin's Central American relations closely followed three broad shifts in the Third World policies of Stalin's heirs. Today, therefore, to understand Moscow's relations with countries in the Central American region, it is helpful to view these current relations in the larger context of Soviet policies toward the Third World in the postStalin years. Mikhail Gorbachev shattered well established and long practiced Stalinist-Brezhnevian policies when he introduced glasnost and "new political thought," extensively reoriented Soviet foreign policy, and shook up the foreign policy establishment. Yet his reforms had precedents rooted in the vigorous efforts of Brezhnev's predecessor, Nikita Khrushchev. In contrast to the relative faithfulness with which the Brezhnev course clung to Stalinist orthodoxy, Khrushchev had given special impetus to a lengthy process of dismantling the Stalinist foreign policy model that had been under way for years. This process, thoroughly documented by Jerry Hough in his study of the debates of experts on Third World affairs, began, in fact, with the death of Stalin.! Soviet Third World policy in the post-Stalin years may be divided into three periods, each marked by an abrupt change of course, and each providing an important conceptual framework for a distinctly different policy direction. Khrushchev, in a speech to the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CP5U) in 1956, showcased and justified the first great policy reversal. Shifting the Kremlin's foreign policy away from Stalin's blanket rejection of contacts with the newly liberated na-

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A Foreign Policy in Transition

tions of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, he called for a policy of peaceful competition between East and West for influence in the Third World. 2 The second great shift, which emerged well into the Brezhnev regime in the second half of the 1970s, veered away from economic aid policies designed to win friends, toward vigorous support of armed revolutionary movements in the Third World. The third and final shift was sparked by the "new political thought" of the Gorbachev era and swung back toward peaceful coexistence of a new kind, based on the concept of an interdependent world. 3 These three Soviet policy orientations toward the Third World successively dominated Soviet-Central American policy during the regimes of Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev. To dominate did not mean, of course, that each change of direction immediately obliterated the policy lines of its predecessors. Through the post-Stalin period, regardless of the prevailing policy trend at any moment, various groups within the Soviet political elite cultivated conflicting preferences and sought to shape Soviet Third World policies accordingly. Thus threads from earlier periods remained into the Gorbachev years as part of the historical context and provided continuities that either contested or reinforced Gorbachev's new course and policies.

The Khrushchev Policy: Peaceful Competition Khrushchev reversed the pessimistic policies of Stalin, based on the old dictator's perception of all noncommunist governments as essentially "lackeys of imperialism," enemies of the Soviet Union, and proper targets of violent revolutionary action. 4 Acknowledging the new dangers of superpower confrontation in a nuclear era, Khrushchev called for peaceful coexistence with the United States, renounced armed struggle as the vehicle for socialist victory in the Third World, and predicted the triumph of Soviet socialism worldwide by peaceful methods that would be facilitated by expanded state-to-state and economic relations. Material aid from socialist countries and the superiority of their systems and ideology were to become mainsprings of the "liberation" of Third World countries from the "capitalist-imperialist camp." And although Soviet arms continued to flow to various liberation groups, the Khrushchev line placed a new emphasis upon

The Brezhnev Legacy

7

strengthening economic, political, and ideological support of such movements. In Central America this policy translated into instructions from Moscow to indigenous communist parties to encourage contacts with the local middle class and the military in order to reinforce Soviet efforts to stimulate diplomacy and trade. The efforts set in motion by Khrushchev to develop diplomatic ties scored solid gains in the Western hemisphere over the next quarter century. At the start of his drive, in 1960, the USSR had no formal state-tostate ties in Central America and only three embassies in all of South America (Argentina, Mexico, and Uruguay), but by 1985 the Kremlin had forged linkages with eighteen Latin American countries. 5 Among the Soviet diplomatic partners in the Caribbean Basin in the pre-Gorbachev period were the Central American states of Costa Rica, Guatemala (diplomatic ties, but no embassy), and Nicaragua; the Caribbean island states of Cuba, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago; and the Caribbean littoral states of Colombia, Guyana, Mexico, Surinam, and Venezuela. For a brief time in 1982-83, the list also included Grenada. 6 Initially, Cuba was slow to accept the Khrushchevian line, which the Soviets continued to pursue during Brezhnev's first decade. Indeed, until 1968, Cuban policy remained firmly committed to the concept of armed revolution as the path to power, and Fidel Castro resolutely refused to cooperate with other proSoviet Latin American parties. As Robert Leiken notes, the Cuban leader was still visibly demonstrating his independence as late as August 1967 at a meeting of the Organization of Latin American Solidarity (OLAS) in Havana: "There Castro attacked those 'antiquated' parties for betrayal of the revolution and conspiring against Cuba. He accused Soviet bloc countries of 'aiding the oligarchs' of Latin America by pursuing economic ties [with them]."7 Through the 1960s, according to W. Raymond Duncan, tensions between the two countries escalated, and the situation became "so strained during 1966-1968 that a break in relations seemed possible over the question of armed revolution in the Third World, especially in Latin America."8 Yet, sometime in 1968 Havana and Moscow appeared to have struck a deal. In Duncan's words, "For a number of reasons, including but not limited to, the application of Soviet economic

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leverage on Cuba, Castro realigned his foreign policy with Moscow during the summer of 1968."9 And in addition to adopting a strict official observance of the Soviet foreign policy line, Castro consented on the domestic scene to a reshaping of Cuban party and state institutions in the Soviet image. For their part, the Soviets pledged to provide the Cuban armed forces with a substantial buildup of military equipment. 10 The deal resulted in an anomalous situation, for on the one hand while Castro apparently agreed to observe Moscow's line with respect to downplaying armed revolution in Latin America, his freshly equipped troops soon became actively engaged in several other Third World settings in support of "proletarian internationalism" and national liberation. These Castro initiatives strongly resembled the earlier, more militant, revolutionary Soviet mystique of the Stalin era as well as Castro's own preferences. In hindsight it is easy to see that the rearming of Cuban forces heralded the delayed shift in Soviet Third World policies from the Khrushchev to the Brezhnev model which finally emerged in the mid-1970s.11

The Brezhnev Policy: Armed Revolution During the Brezhnev era Soviet Third World policy, while continuing to promote commercial ties with key countries such as Brazil and Argentina, gradually abandoned Khrushchev's tactics of enticing Third World countries to socialism through a peaceful transition. 12 As Soviet experts looked more deeply into actual conditions in Third World areas, they questioned the correctness of the notion that the newly liberated countries would "grow into socialism" without a push; that is, without arms, organization, and training. A dualistic approach, suited to two quite different categories of countries, was developed, which Daniel Kempton has identified as a "strict ally strategy," used to court, through commerce and diplomacy, regionally important, large, nonsocialist states, and a "revolutionary model strategy," reserved for giving aggressive support and guidance to radical, Marxist-led (or inclined) states and national liberation movements. 13 Emphasis upon the revolutionary model strategy coincided with a slow but formidable expansion of Soviet military capability.14 By the mid-1970s, military assistance had begun to replace economic

The Brezhnev Legacy

9

aid as Moscow's key to promoting the advance of socialism in the Third World. 1s The Brezhnev shift was facilitated in part by changes in what Soviet policy experts described as a "global correlation of forces" favoring the socialist camp, and by disappointing results from Soviet efforts to establish economic ties in the Third World. Starting in 1975 in the economic sphere, Soviet-Third World trade not only failed to expand, but experienced a downturn. 16 Meanwhile, Soviet ideologues were expressing renewed confidence in the power of political and military forces, vanguard parties, and governments of socialist orientation to tip the world balance in favor of the socialist camp. By 1977 the influential Third World specialist Karen Brutents, then deputy chief of the cpsu's International Department, was cautioning that, because times had changed, a simple defense of the first socialist revolution against imperialism was passe, saying, "Today it is a question of carrying on the offensive against imperialism and world capitalism as a whole in order to do away with them."17 Soviet Third World experts were slow to acknowledge Central America as a fruitful breeding ground for pro-Soviet states until after the Sandinista victory in Nicaragua. One reason was the apparent failure of Soviet scholars to take the Central American countries seriously. A recent study of the work of Soviet Latinamericanists in the Brezhnev period concludes that while some Soviet internationalists-both scholars and practitionersshowed a marked improvement in the quality and sophistication of their analyses of South American countries, others still parroted the old Stalinist stereotypes and orthodoxies, especially in their studies of Central America, writing these countries off as "'banana republics' dominated by U.S. capital."18 In 1980, however, Boris Ponomarev, chief of the cpsu's International Department, in a definitive article in Kommunist, identified Central America, along with Asia and Africa, as the locus of newly emerging states of socialist orientation, and Sergo Mikoian, chief editor of Latinskaia Amerika, endorsed the military road to power in Latin America: "There is not a single example of a victorious revolution in the continent that has pursued the peaceful road."19 Echoes vibrated in Central America, where pro-Soviet party leaders in Costa Rica and EI Salvador hailed armed struggle as the path to victory.2o

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As Soviet policy toward Central America became more activist, Cuba's role in support of revolutionary movements burgeoned. Indeed, earlier, while the world's attention was captured by Cuba's African adventures, Castro had pursued a quiet, yet effective agenda close to home. Thus Cuba had provided key assistance to the Sandinista victory by funneling arms to the Sandinista forces and by helping them to unify. In addition, as captured Grenada documents established conclusively, Cuba had actively assisted the New Jewel Movement in its rise to power. After Maurice Bishop's coup d'etat in 1979, Castro had supplied political and foreign policy advice, technicians, and training, transshipped military supplies from the USSR, and helped to shape the new Grenadian foreign policy line. 21 According to Mark Falcoff, Cuba's relation to Grenada amounted to "a kind of subcontracting of Soviet influence in certain areas of the world where Moscow lack[ed] experience, knowledge, and geographic proximity, but possess[ed] a reliable surrogate."22

The Gorbachev Policy: Global Interdependency Gorbachev's model called for an end to the global, ideological contest proclaimed by Andrei Zhdanov in 1947 between "peace, socialism, and democracy" and "capitalism, imperialism, and war."23 Recognizing that relations between the protagonists had already changed by the very fact of their interdependency, Gorbachev's approach brought a floodlight to bear upon the urgency, in a nuclear age, for peaceful U.S.-Soviet relations. In the 1970S and early 1980s, regional military conflicts in the Third World, fueled by the aggressive confrontation of U.S.Soviet interests and ideologies, were a major factor in undermining U.S.-Soviet detente. Gorbachev's Third World and East/West policies emphasized the dangers of this linkage as well as the added peril of nuclear escalation from regional disputes. He therefore renounced armed revolution as the road to power for nationalist liberation forces and, echoing Khrushchev's calls for peaceful coexistence and competition, he went further than Khrushchev to demand an even greater degree of cooperation between the superpowers. Indeed, the key concept in Gorbachev's policy was interdependency. For U.S.-Soviet relations this implied cooperation

The Brezhnev Legacy

11

in disarmament, trade, and-of the greatest relevance to Central American affairs-the solution of international problems by joint action. Interdependency, Gorbachev argued, makes all nations vulnerable to local violence that may erupt in any Third World setting, but it poses a particular challenge to Washington and Moscow. Living in a world wracked by armed conflicts that appear insoluble by military means, given the economic and political problems that fuel them, and facing a possible nuclear catastrophe likely to preclude any winners, the superpowers, he asserted, must seek for solutions together. Evgenii Primakov, then director of Moscow's Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), restated this view clearly: "Instead of viewing ongoing events in different regions through a prism of AmericanSoviet confrontation, the U.S. and USSR should work together to solve regional conflicts."24 Such was the main thrust of the "new political thinking" as it began to shape Soviet policy during the first years of Gorbachev's tenure. Applying the new perspective to Central America, Soviet internationalists hailed local peace initiatives, such as the Contadora process and the Guatemala accord,25 as evidence that elements of the Soviet "new political thought" had appeared in Central America. They praised these regional efforts as indications of the preference of Latin American countries for a political solution of their difficulties, reflecting their "own sovereign initiative over the onesided dollar doles of the U.S."26 The United States was criticized for obstructing the political settlement of Central American issues by refusing to go along with the "realistic proposals" of the Contadora nations to end the Nicaraguan conflict and by continuing military aid to the contra forces and to the government of Honduras. 27 Castro continued in the old ways, just as he had in the more aggressive Brezhnev times, carrying on activities in the region to advance Soviet interests, while allowing the Soviets to remain discreetly in the background. Thus Cuba, without visibly involving Moscow, and therefore without disrupting U.S.-Soviet cooperation, kept arms flowing to irregular forces in Central America. The Cubans provided other services as well. These included education and training (technical, military, and ideological) to Third World nationals. And Havana remained a popular conference site

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for numerous meetings Moscow arranged for international front organizations. According to one Western observer, "Havana was second only to Moscow as an important site for meetings of the fronts during 1987."28 Even the Soviet diplomatic "reach" in Central America was extended by the formal relations of its ally, Cuba. For example, in Panama, where the USSR did not have diplomatic representation until 29 March 1991, Cuba maintained its second largest embassy.29

Three Soviet Foreign Policy Paradigms The purpose of this section is to examine the foreign policy perceptions of Soviet analysts and compare the conceptual frameworks underlying three major policy positions-of Stalin, Khrushchev, and Gorbachev. While this categorization greatly oversimplifies the positions of individual Soviet Latinamericanists, it delineates clearly diverse components of the tangled skein of debate about Soviet policy, and it provides a useful measure of the changes that occurred in policy advice and practice in the postStalinist period. The following categorization is based on three contrasting interpretations,of the superpower relationship. Each view implied a different image of the United States, as "antagonistic," "competitive," or "cooperative"; and each required a different foreign policy response from Moscow. 30 Briefly defined, Image I, the image of the United States as an "unalterable antagonist," called for the Soviet Union unceasingly to build its political and military power in the world and to recognize that the United States was and would remain the "inevitable enemy"; this perspective regarded as illusory political efforts to reduce confrontatioll with the West. Image II, the competitive view, saw America as "a rival in an economic contest," a rivalry which offered rewards to both superpowers and which could best prosper if international tensions were kept to a minimum. Image III, the cooperative view of U.S.Soviet relations, pictured the United States as an "adverse partner," and not only sought to avoid provoking military confrontation with the United States in Third World areas, but saw the ultimate interests of both superpowers served by joint efforts to solve global and regional problems. 31 These three approaches dis-

The Brezhnev Legacy

13

played different degrees of optimism or pessimism about current and future Soviet prospects and objectives in Central America. They differed as well over tactics, over the opportunities or constraints they perceived attached to these tactics, and the priority they assigned to avoidance of superpower confrontation.

Image I: Unalterable Antagonist Representing continuity with the Stalinist past and the late Brezhnev period, the image of the United States as "unalterable antagonist" was based on the post-World War II "two-camp doctrine of hostility."32 This was the view of those individuals aptly described by Aleksandr Bovin as "men of the past."33 Predominant in this mindset was the global confrontation between capitalism/imperialism and socialism, forming an inescapable prism through which regional, and indeed, world affairs were perceived. A subtle sign of official Soviet repudiation of this viewpoint, as Elizabeth Valkenier noted, was the disappearance in the first post-Brezhnev years of the May Day slogan describing the "struggle against imperialism" as a goal of international solidarity. Yet the old view was slow to fade away, especially from the pages of military publications. 34 To those who continued to view the United States as unalterable antagonist, the Central American and Caribbean countries were proper targets of long-term, patient effort and a considerable investment of resources to advance Soviet interests. Proponents believed that these countries-and in fact all Latin American countries-were receptive to the argument long used in the Soviet courtship of Third World countries, that Moscow was a natural ally of the Nonaligned Movement and national liberation movements. Image I approaches tailored to Latin America emphasized the vulnerable aspects of U.S. policy in the region that offered opportunities for Soviet advances. Image I adherents propagated an imperialist image of the United States and sought to fan national resentment of U.S. hegemony throughout Latin America. They were clearly optimistic about the erosion of the U.S. position in the face of rising nationalism and aspirations for greater independence in Latin America, and the states in the region were quick to encourage this optimism

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and to exploit the room for maneuver opened to them by superpower competition for their favor. Even the logic of Gorbachev's new political thought, though flatly contradicting the basic premises of the Image I perspective, was used by some Image I adherents to urge Latin American countries to cond_emn the United States for militarism, renewal of cold war tactics, and antiSovietism. Attacks upon U.S. imperialism took many forms. In the realm of information, for example, the U.S. monopoly of international news was condemned for allegedly putting Latin American countries in the position of "informational dependency," and permitting the "intellectual-propagandistic empire" of the United States to expand southward. Latin American countries were invited to fight against U.S. informational imperialism, which was defined as "a special form of struggle of the moribund capitalist order against the revolutionary, progressive forces of contemporary world socialism and the national-liberation movement." The promise was that Latin Americans could join the powers of progress against reaction and become the partisans of free peoples against the defenders of neocolonialism. 35 Latin American countries were called upon to reject "the propaganda of anti-Sovietism and anti-communism [which] is transformed by world transnational agencies together with the whole imperialistic press into an instrument to whip on an arms race-an instrument to pressure world public opinion to return to the epoch of the 'cold war,' and to force the developing countries to repudiate a reforming and independent policy."36 Image I adherents, following Castro's lead, claimed that the "predatory politics of imperialism" were responsible for the Latin American and Caribbean Basin debt problem. In the spring and summer of 1985 Havana was the site of five international conferences on the subject. 37 Referring to foreign debt as the "long noose" and linking it to the "anti-Christian virus of anti-communism" in the region, the conferees put forth a number of "antiimperialistic" solutions for it. 38 Prominently featured in the discussion at a conference of trade union representatives from twenty-five countries of Latin America and the Caribbean Basin held in Campinas, Sao Paulo, in May 1987, were proposals to persuade debtor nations to default on foreign loans-justified because the loans were said to be "one of the clear symptoms of

The Brezhnev Legacy

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present day imperialistic exploitation, illegal and dishonorable international usury." The conference called for designating the second week of October 1987 as a "Continentwide Week of Struggle against the Payment of Foreign Debt," and declared that 1988 was to be the "International Year of Struggle against Foreign Debt."39 From the Image I perspective of the Soviet reporter who viewed this four-day assembly of trade unionists, the conference was an important step forward in the organization of what was intended to be a massive campaign throughout the South American continent to push for the nonpayment of debts-a campaign clearly designed with one eye on the devastating impact it might have on the capitalist/imperialist antagonist. In short, Image I adherents expounded the traditional ideological views of the past-views that kept alive the "zero-sum" concept of conflicting U.S.-Soviet interests in Central America and other Third World settings, and their arguments long continued to provide an ideological context of support for activities carried on by Soviet party, military, and clandestine agencies. Until late 1990, as official Soviet foreign policy in the Gorbachev period distanced itself from Image I views, the "men of the past" tended gradually to fall silent. Only sporadic comments and events served as a reminder that the old orientations endured. On 20 December 1990, however, the impassioned resignation speech of Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze flashed a warning that reactionary voices, critics of the new foreign policy, were increasingly being heard on the domestic political front in Moscow. There was little doubt that among Shevardnadze's opponents-the "lads in a colonel's epaulets," as he called them-some Image I views still found ready support. 40 And as late as 20 August 1991, the day before the coup failed, Shevardnadze described the coup leaders as reactionaries, whose takeover would mark the "end of a peaceful existence, the start of the cold war, the new beginning of an arms race," in other words, a return to the domination of Image I perspectives. 41

Image II: Economic Competitor The image of the United States as economic competitor had roots in Khrushchev's overly optimistic notion of engaging and besting

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the United States on its home field. This perspective was characterized by the effort of Soviet social scientists to make hardheaded, nonideological, neutral, and realistic analyses of the international economic environment affecting U.S., Soviet, and Central American relations. The focus of most studies in this category was economic, and a clear purpose was to strip away the ideological blinders that were seen as having caused errors in earlier Soviet appraisals of developments in the world capitalist system, errors that, as one consequence, blunted Soviet international economic competitiveness. Soviet contacts with the Third World were criticized by scholars in this group for having been limited in the past to "a rather narrow group of states of socialist orientation and several other friendly states."42 This was not simply the result of a lack of resources, as R. Avakov, a Soviet specialist in the field of Third World studies, has pointed out, but was primarily due to a mistaken conception of foreign economic relations, which gave preference to the country, and not, as it should have, to the market and to forming interstate and interfirm economic complexes-a mistaken approach, in other words, that selected economic partners for ideological rather than economic reasons. Another early assumption needing reexamination, according to Avakov, was the doctrine that prophesied doom for the world capitalist economy as a result of the integration in it of periphery capitalism. He argued that even though the crisis of foreign indebtedness admittedly creates some tension between developed capitalist and developing countries, on the whole this indebtedness tends to assist the integration of the world capitalist economy, for it "strengthens it [integration] in the extremely important moneycredit sphere."43 Although the portrait of the United States painted by some Image II adherents in the early Gorbachev years still bore underlying traces of the unalterable antagonist, the efforts of these writers to explain U.S. policy toward Central America and the Caribbean were more frequently based on facts than on ideological assumptions. For example, accounts appearing in SShA, the journal of the Institute of the United States and Canada, dealing with the successive U.S. congressional debates and opposition to the White House over funding to the contras often contained careful analyses of the contemporary Washington political scene. 44 Even

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such an emotionally titled account as "The Contras: War of the Doomed," while overemphasizing the roles of the CIA and former Somocistas, was addressed for the most part to an analysis of the facts rather than to the advocacy of unassailable convictions. 45 And an argument that one result of the U.S. economic blockade of Nicaragua might be to limit U.S. hegemony in Central America was based on data showing that between 1980 and 1986, while Nicaraguan trade with the United States fell from 30 percent to zero, it increased with the socialist countries (including Cuba) from 1 percent to 40 percent; and with Western Europe from 17.6 percent to 40 percent. 46 In sum, just as the Image II perspective appears to have marked a transition between two contradictory views of U.S.Soviet relations, so the literature of Image II scholars seems to have played a useful role in preparing a foundation for, and bridge to, the new political thought. Important as this bridge may have been, it should be noted that the Image II approach, as a transitional concept, is not as useful for the comparative purposes of this study as Images I and III. As a consequence, the analysis that follows will emphasize contrasts between old and new political thought, with very few references to Image II argument or practice.

Image Ill: Cooperative Partner Image III proponents went further than did Image II experts to attack old ideological positions and to insist on their obsolescence. Early in 1987 an article significantly designed for use in the system of party schools emphasized the need to renounce "old doctrine and foreign policy stereotypes that block cooperation among nations in questions of strengthening international security" and quoted Gorbachev's statement that "Lenin expressed a thought of colossal depth about the priority of the interests of social development,

of universal human values over the interests of this or that class. "47 Abandoning the Marxist class struggle between nations to seek shared human interests in international relations was a bold step that outraged many Image I proponents. The Image III perspective of course also had major implications for Soviet Third World policy. One startling corollary was an-

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A Foreign Policy in Transition

nounced flatly by Primakov in Pravda in mid-1987, when he wrote: "Refraining from the export of revolution is an imperative of the nuclear age." 48 With respect to such Third World issues as finding ways to stimulate development and solving the vexing problem of the staggering foreign debt in Latin America, Image III adherents advocated expanding constructive international cooperation. 49 The noted Soviet economist Nikolai Shmelev, for example, criticized what he called the extreme measures mistakenly proposed by those Image I scholars who counseled debtor nations to default. According to Shmelev, a collective refusal to pay debts would only worsen the situation of the Third World debtor states. 50 This position was echoed by I. S. Korolev (IMEMO deputy director), who cited the world's growing economic interdependency as the justification and necessity for joint action to solve developmental and debt problems: "Not only do the developing countries have a stake in this, but objectively speaking, the capitalist states do also. The socialist states have an interest in this as well. In my view, it has long been necessary for everyone to sit down at one table and hold an international conference on global economic problems-including the debt issue."51 Gorbachev himself, early on, summarized his evolving approach to international relations by describing the relations then existing between the world systems of capitalism and socialism as a combination of competition and confrontation. Charles Glickham argued that at this early stage, in 1986, while in Gorbachev's view the United States remained "the locomotive of militarism," the Soviet leader also thought it important to recognize that the United States had "genuine national interests" that were "not the same as those pursued by its 'military-industrial complex.'''52 This image of the United States, along with Gorbachev's assertion that military superiority was no longer the key to national security for the two superpowers, were early harbingers of the successful negotiations that were to take place later between the superpowers in efforts to settle regional conflicts. One further aspect of the Image III approach which should be noted here was its impact on the Soviet selection of friends in the Third World. Writing in 1987 Francis Fukuyama observed, "The new Gorbachev leadership has come to recognize that political power lies not with narrowly based Marxist-Leninist groups in the

The Brezhnev Legacy

19

Third World, but with powerful nationalist states such as Mexico, India, and Argentina. Thus, the best strategy for expanding Soviet influence in the world may be the'opportunist' one of allying with the existing national governments, irrespective of their ideological coloration."53

Impact of Glasnost Under Gorbachev the heightened freedom of secular investigation enjoyed by foreign policy experts and other social scientists who provided input to Soviet policymakers, as well as the added numbers and growing political influence of scholars who began to occupy policymaking roles, greatly augmented the significance of the work of the Image III scholars and their role in shaping policy. Two kinds of work were being carried out by these scholars. First was the job of the "scholar-explicators," who, during the first years of the Gorbachev regime were engaged in drawing out specific policies that followed logically from the broad premises of Gorbachev's "new political thought," essentially a kind of scholasticism familiar to Soviet academics. Second was the work of the "secular investigators" given a green light to pursue inductive avenues of thought which were not so predictable. As one scholar put it, the social scientist's new methodology was no longer "a pounding of accepted formulas in a scholastic mortar."54 Soviet analysts began to apply the Socratic method of investigation to their respective fields in ways and to a degree hitherto virtually denied them as glasnost challenged the secular investigators in the sphere of social science research not to portray reality as a reflection of some accepted line but to approach it in as scientifically neutral a manner as possible. The Soviet political scientist Georgii Shakhnazarov, pinning down one aspect of this process, said it meant overcoming an old cleavage in the sphere of scientific knowledge: "If with us the epithet 'bourgeois' was applied to the social sciences, it meant that this was not science at all, but a magic trick or even charlatanism, while on 'that other side' the same kind of connotations were given to the concept 'Marxist.' Both sides suffered losses, but most of all science itself."55 While some social scientists had been attacking old orthodoxies since the 1960s, the new openness, combined with severe official

20

A Foreign Policy in Transition

criticism of the Soviet model of economic development, broke down ideological barriers that previously corseted thought, action, and policy. Lengthy critical discussions of the socialist model challenged "the original claims to infallibility and to the scientific nature of socialism"56 and redefined and explored new directions for socialist development. The difference between this scholarly debate and the product of academic efforts two decades earlier is suggested by two strikingly different works of the same author, R. M. Avakov. In 1974 Avakov, a specialist on the economics and politics of developing countries, served as chief editor of a book on dependent capitalism among Third World countries, a book which was wryly criticized by Jerry Hough as "capable of real simplicity." It advanced the following theory: "The greater the tie with statemonopoly capitalism, as a rule, the greater the dependence. The greater the dependence-in the final analysis-the greater the relative backwardness, which leads in turn to greater dependence, and so forth."57 In a 1987 article, the same R. M. Avakov launched a far from simplistic attack upon a group of scholars studying socialistoriented Third World countries whom he criticized for antiquated notions and "declarative and ceremonial statements." Scolding them for "ideological myopia" (a criticism, as Avakov was doubtless aware, applied to his 1974 work), he charged that "the quantity of publications on problems of socialist orientation is inversely proportional to the level and quality of the studies." The reason for this, he explained, was that for Soviet social scientists it had become "nearly a ritual analysis in the case of countries of socialist orientation experiencing crises and other negative processes, including failure in the economy and in domestic and foreign policy, to substitute sacramental phrases of the type 'they ran into difficulties,' 'they had to overcome the opposition of internal reaction and the remnants of colonialism,' etc." He added, "Difficulties, reactionary resistance, and the intrigues of imperialism do exist, of course. But there are other phenomena demanding objective study, such as contradictions inherent in development along the path of socialist orientation, intraparty struggle, degeneration of a leadership and regime, violation of the norms of good neighborliness and international law, etc." Avakov cited Nicaragua as a case where Soviet readers had not been adequately

The Brezhnev Legacy

21

informed about the many sides of the actual domestic political situation. 58 The fact that a new and welcome era had opened for Soviet social scientists was especially important for the future Soviet foreign policy process because the experts were now called upon for analysis of social affairs, not to prove an ideological point, but to contribute to a broad, international, scientific pool of knowledge. These conditions encouraged the secular investigators, scholars no longer bound by communist strictures, to provide national and international policymakers and the Soviet public with increasingly sound and realistic appraisals of foreign and domestic affairs, as well as a broader range of policy choices, including alternatives earlier precluded for ideological reasons. Much academic analysis of international affairs was specifically designed by its authors to influence policy decisions. 59 In mid-1987, IMEMO director Primakov told a Western reporter that the institutes "are closely involved in the formulation of foreign policy," and that his institute "receives assignments from the leadership and itself raises issues."6o Shortly after that Primakov, a doctor of economic science, found himself in a series of government posts that allowed him to affect policy even more directly. In 1989 he became chairman of the restructured Supreme Soviet Council of the Union, and in April 1990 he joined Gorbachev's Presidential Council. Rumored in 1990 to be a possible successor to Shevardnadze as USSR foreign minister, he traveled to Baghdad and Washington in a futile effort to avert the outbreak of Persian Gulf hostilities. Similarly, Primakov's predecessor as director of IMEMO, Aleksandr Iakovlev, became CPsu Central Committee secretary for international affairs in March 1986, a full member of the Politburo in June 1987, and head of the party's Commission for International Affairs in late September 1988, holding all these party posts until mid-July 1990, when he joined Gorbachev's Presidential Council. In 1991, after the Presidential Council was dissolved, Primakov became a member of Gorbachev's important new National Security Council, and Iakovlev headed an influential group of presidential advisors. At this time both men occupied third-floor offices in the Kremlin just down the hall from Gorbachev. 61 The prominence of such scholars in Gorbachev's party-state apparatus,62 the hearings given to academic experts by the new

22

A Foreign Policy in Transition

Soviet legislature (where advice was often concrete and policyoriented), and the appearance in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of consultative councils, in which, according to the eminent historian and deputy director of the Moscow Institute for Eastern Europe and International Studies V. I. Dashichev, "scholars participate and at which various foreign policy problems are freely discussed,"63 indicated that with respect to the shaping of policy the opinions of the analysts had begun to exert a far greater impact than at any time in the past. For Soviet-Central American and Caribbean policy the Image III views of these scholars were to have a growing impact toward pulling the USSR back from its previous vigorous support of proxies; putting limits on Soviet economic and military commitments to Marxist-Leninist clients and leftist revolutionary movements; pressuring client states to seek political rather than military solutions to their internal and external problems; and engaging in superpower competition less for ideological reasons than for great power interests. The following chapters will describe how, over time, as the Image III perspective was more forcefully articulated, its impact upon Soviet policies grew more decisive, and how, by 1990, as the honeymoon of new thinking faded, a striking pluralism of Soviet foreign policy approaches emerged, with many elements of all three images remaining clearly visible in policy implementation and legislative debate. 64

The Brezhnev Foreign Policy Establishment Brezhnev, like all of Stalin's heirs, was faced with a fundamental disagreement among his colleagues over foreign policy objectives, a disagreement mirrored in the Image I and Image III approaches to Soviet foreign policies discussed above. This debate in Brezhnev's leadership circle was between those whose foremost concern was the continued aggressive pursuit of Soviet influence and the promotion of Marxist-Leninist socialism around the world-the men of the past-and those who gave first priority to cooperative U.S.-Soviet relations-the men (as it turned out) of the future. In an important sense this dualism was a continuation of the conflict that had existed for decades between party and state,

The Brezhnev Legacy

23

between the Soviet party's ideological thrust toward world communism and the foreign ministry's cautious efforts to preserve the nation. Of particular significance, the policy cleavage was powerfully reinforced by functional differences of the institutions involved. Thus a basic antagonism existed between the missions of the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Brezhnev's handling of this fundamental debate between the agencies of his foreign policy establishment and among the members of his Politburo set the stage for his successors and provides the student of these events with insights into the kinds of problems, of policy and politics, that Gorbachev was to face. In Brezhnev's Politburo during the 1970s, the division over foreign policy goals was sharp. Brezhnev himself pushed, with initial success, for detente with the United States. Through the decade, however, the general secretary's efforts to encourage detente met with successive obstacles. Within both the International Department and the Politburo itself the overwhelming majority of his colleagues favored activist, anti-U.S., anti-Western Third World policies. Largely because of the dominance of this group, Soviet foreign policy into the 1980s was forceful and aggressive. 65 A good illustration of this point was the Soviet response to the 1982 crisis in Lebanon. 66 Highly placed military leaders (Grechko until his death in 1976, and then Ogarkov) had advocated strong political and military support to Syria and the PLO as part of a general policy of "forcible resistance to 'imperialist aggression' wherever it might be perpetrated."67 This aggressive, interventionist position was also supported by party ideologues, especially Mikhail Suslov (until his death in January 1982), and by influential members of the International Department (notably First Deputy Chairman Vadim Zagladin and Deputy Chairman Rostislav Ul'ianovskii). The coalition of interventionists managed to dominate Soviet policymaking toward the Middle East and the Third World for almost a decade, from 1973 into Brezhnev's last year, 1982. In mid-1982, however, a new power configuration formed within the Politburo, and the policy pendulum began to swing back toward a less militant posture. Among the Politburo leaders who opposed the interventionists and favored a cautious Soviet policy were Brezhnev himself and

24

A Foreign Policy in Transition

Andrei Gromyko. 68 In mid-1982 this group found itself suddenly in the ascendancy. One by one the most ardent interventionists (Grechko, Shelepin, and Suslov) had departed from the leadership circle. Meanwhile, the ideologues who remained were weakened by quarrels among themselves over specific issues such as how far to go in supporting the PLO.69 As a consequence, Brezhnev was able to defeat those who were pushing for a stronger military presence and political influence in the Third World, and he won Politburo support for his conviction that U.S.Soviet cooperation was the best guarantee of Soviet national security. In this final policy debate, Brezhnev managed to leave Gorbachev a positive legacy, for Brezhnev's efforts to work out an accommodation with the United States, though weak and beset by difficulties, provided helpful groundwork for Gorbachev's subsequent policy preferences and initiatives. Most of Brezhnev's legacy affecting the USSR's international position and Soviet Third World policy was less felicitous for detente. A major component of the legacy was the steady buildup of military capabilities throughout the Brezhnev years, which provided the nation with an unprecedented global military reach and ability to supply friendly nations, directly or through surrogates, with arms, military assistance, and training, fueling the expansionist dynamic of Soviet Third World policy.70 Undermining these burgeoning military capabilities, however, were the diminishing economic capabilities of the Brezhnev regime, revealed by a steady slackening of the nation's overall economic growth, which was accompanied by a reduced Soviet ability to provide economic aid to new Third World allies. The USSR itself had become an expansive military superpower with a Third World domestic economy. 71 Other features of the Brezhnev regime strongly reinforced its expansionist foreign policy. Among these was the emphasis the Brezhnev leadership placed on the growing international stature of the USSR as a legitimation of the regime, the strong commitment of the official Communist Party ideology to world revolution and national liberation movements in the Third World, and the institutional dynamics of the Soviet party organization concerned with Third World affairs-the International Department of the Central Committee-which pushed steadily forward in pursuit of the traditional goals of international communism. 72

The Brezhnev Legacy

25

This did not mean that the Brezhnev regime placed a higher priority on the support of revolutions and communist takeovers abroad than on guaranteeing Soviet national security or protecting Soviet interests in Eastern Europe. Nevertheless, support of national liberation movements and related goals, such as control of foreign communist movements, remained important, and opportunities and costs were carefully evaluated on a case-by-case basis, as illustrated by the fine tuning of relations with Cuba and Nicaragua. To the extent that these factors continued to dominate Soviet foreign policy through the Brezhnev era into the Gorbachev period, the dynamics of this policy were expansionist, militaristic, and messianic in ways that inevitably affected the USSR's policies toward Central America and the Caribbean. In 1986, summing up the Brezhnev legacy to Gorbachev, Seweryn Bialer wrote: "The Soviet Union is the only major power that is not committed to the status quo and that considers gradual change and socio-political and economic evolution in the non-Soviet world as no substitute for violent change, revolutions, civil wars, and regional military conflicts. It is to those forms of change that Moscow is committed, and it is on those forms that the leadership rests its hopes for expansion and influence."73 When Brezhnev died in November 1982, he was seeking an improved modus vivendi with the United States. But his concern for detente was heavily outweighed by policies and practices shaped by "men of the past." Moreover, Brezhnev's foreign policy establishment was left largely in the hands of foreign minister Gromyko, who had earned the unpromising title of "Mister Nyet" in his dealings with the West. Thus to all appearances the Brezhnev legacy was sterile and unpromising and gave little forewarning of the foreign policy revolution that was in store for the Soviet Union in the mid-198os.

The Early Impact of New Political Thought,

1985-1989

Dramatic, unprecedented events in Central America, such as Nicaragua's democratic transfer of political power in 1990, are explained only in part by regional factors, by the efforts in the 1980s of Central American states to settle their conflicts in concert, by the role of the contras, or by U.S. intervention. This book argues that a full explanation must include the growing impact on Central American and Caribbean affairs of the innovative Soviet policy introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev's policy was driven by his "new political thought," which contained three broad guidelines affecting Soviet actions in Central America and the Caribbean. This chapter presents Gorbachev's brief statement of his guidelines, along with a restatement of each directive in operational terms by Soviet "scholarexplicators." The bulk of the chapter describes the first, hesitant application of the guidelines in the early years and their deepening impact on Soviet policy in the Central American and Caribbean context through 1989. The signal for a change in Soviet policy toward the region was sounded in Gorbachev's early prescriptions for superpower behavior toward regional conflicts. Briefly stated, the directives were: (1) demilitarize regional conflicts and seek political solutions based on a balance of interests; (2) secularize (deideologize) interstate relations; in other words, stop viewing regional conflicts through a prism of East/West, ideology-guided confrontation; and (3) refuse to violate the sovereignty of another nation; hence, oppose the export of revolution (or counterrevolution).

Early Impact of New Political Thought

27

Demilitarizing Regional Conflicts With respect to demilitarizing regional conflicts, Gorbachev argued: "Regional conflicts in Asia, Africa, and Latin America . . . are spawned by the colonial past, new social processes, or recurrences of predatory policy, or by all three. . . . The main thing here is to take the interests of all sides into consideration and . . . search for a just political settlement."l Soviet analysts were quick to point out the implications of this position. An authoritative elaboration by Evgenii Primakov appeared shortly after the Twenty-seventh Congress of the CPsu in 1986 and was designed to guide Soviet foreign affairs experts in their research. In this article Primakov called upon the United States and the USSR to mount "a joint search for a way to solve regional conflicts-in the Near East, in Central America, in South Africa-everywhere where breeding grounds exist for a military threat."2 Accordingly, in August 1987, when the five Central American presidents signed the Guatemala accord initiated by President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica, Soviet scholars hailed this signing as "unquestionable evidence of the acceleration of elements of new political thought on the [American] continent, a step toward the beginning of a perestroika [restructuring] of subregional relations." 3 In the first four years of the Gorbachev period, from 1985 through 1988, doctrinal change in Soviet foreign policy was slow to translate into action in the Central American and Caribbean context, and much Soviet behavior in this region failed to fit the Gorbachev approach. As for the Soviet press, while an array of viewpoints from Image I to Image III characterized official and academic commentary, unmistakably clear was the continuing presence of many enduring Image I components of theory and practice, ranging from reflections of great power conflicts of interest to repeated invocations of Marxist-Leninist theory and practice that ran counter to Gorbachev's new directives. Soviet propagandists, government agents, and party activists continued to find Central America a fertile field for virulent ideological attacks on the United States (depicted as an unalterable antagonist) and continued to exploit irresistible opportunities to give support and

28

A Foreign Policy in Transition

encouragement to political and military groups capable of contesting U.S. influence and advancing Soviet interests. A particularly vicious story circulated by major Soviet news media in mid-1987 described the existence of "baby farms" in Honduras and Guatemala where newborn babies were said to be held for transshipment to the United States to provide vital organs for transplants. According to Sotsialisticheskaia industriia, "these staggering disclosures have shown how far exploitation of the developing countries, in particular the Latin American ones, has gone. First, the United States plundered their mineral wealth, seized their coffee and sugar, and sucked out thousands of liters of poor people's blood for its own pharmaceutical companies, and now it has turned to the children of peoples living in poverty and hunger."4 And Izvestiia a month later wrote: "There is only one step from American arrogance, from racist contempt for the Latin American peoples, to cannibalistic totallicense."5 One pervasive theme of Soviet Third World propaganda in the 1980s, as Roger Kanet has pointed out, portrayed "the crucial role played by the Soviet Union in the struggle for peace and security in the world" and condemned "the United States and its imperialist allies (supported by reactionary elements in the Third World) . . . as the primary source of conflict and war." 6 In the early Gorbachev years the USSR's international news services remained tireless expounders of the thesis that the United States was the chief cause of all Central American problems. Thus Pravda argued on 19 March 1987, "It is quite obvious that the crisis situation in Central America is primarily linked with the undeclared U.S. war against Nicaragua," and explained, "It is common knowledge. that the tension in the region has been artificially created and equally artificially whipped up, because, you see, the United States does not find the Sandinista regime 'to its liking.'''7 In the same article Pravda attacked a Washington Post column by Roland Evans and Robert Novak for identifying Soviet military aid to Nicaragua as the source of the crisis: Yes, there are Soviet weapons in Nicaragua provided at the request of the Sandinista government. But these weapons are exclusively defensive. They serve one purpose-helping the Nicaraguan people to defend their freedom and independence from incursions by imperialist circles and their mercenaries. This has

Early Impact of New Political Thought

29

repeatedly been stated by competent Soviet circles and there is no need to repeat these statements. They are well known in Washington. . . . Reading the Evans and Novak article, you can see a kind of microcosm of the entire U.S. policy of neoglobalism. Washington is trying to make the generally local struggle of the contra" renegades against the people's Sandinista power regional and even global in nature. /I

A year later, "U.S. neoglobalism" was still being targeted, this time by Moscow Radio Peace and Progress, broadcasting in Spanish: "Some years ago Pentagon strategists created a concept of neoglobalism that gave the United States the right to intervene in any corner of the world. Such a concept constitutes a threat to liberty and democracy. Washington's anti-Panamanian policies offer the entire world an example of that truly disgusting neoglobalism." 8 And in June 1988, TASS described the U.S. role in Panama by quoting a Panamanian legislator's comment that "for a year now Panama has been the target of an aggression by the U.S. unprecedented in scope." Going further, T ASS repeated General Noriega's claim that "one of the aims of the U.S. current policy with regard to Panama is to use it as a bridgehead for the implementation of aggressions against other countries of the region in case of need."9 Ideological warfare was combined with systematic organizational activities worldwide aimed at attacking U.S. interests and diminishing U.S. influence. These were adapted to the Latin American scene with telling effect. Frequently international conferences whose themes placed the United States in a disadvantageous position vis-a.-vis the Third World were used as the context of this activity. An example was the three-week "International Conference on the Relationship between Disarmament and Development" held in New York under United Nations auspices in August 1987, which assembled representatives of 122 countries to discuss how savings from future disarmament agreements might be used to stimulate economic development in the Third World. The United States refused to take part, anticipating that it would be the target of anti-imperialist attacks and unpleasant discussions of its alleged obligations to Latin America and other Third World countries for neocolonial exploitation. IO The same year at a similar conference in Stockholm-the "Conference

30

A Foreign Policy in Transition

of Nongovernmental Organizations on the Problem of the Interdependence of Disarmament and Development" -the presence of a Latin American contingent was applauded by a Soviet commentator. He was also pleased to note that for the first time the Soviet Committee of Solidarity with the Peoples of Latin America was participating in a conference of this kind, as he put it, along with, "envoys of Cuba and Nicaragua, of the peace-loving nations of Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, and Uruguay."ll Gatherings to discuss the foreign debt problem of Latin American countries provided added forums for the castigation of world capitalism and the United States that attracted Soviet support. Thus, when a trade union conference in Brazil in May 1987 addressed the problem of the foreign debts of Latin American and Caribbean countries and resolved to carry on a steady campaign against their payment, this action was encouraged by a Soviet observer. 12 And when the United States used economic sanctions to put pressure on Nicaragua and Panama, Soviet analyst Ushnurtseva advised these countries to seek greater economic independence by turning away from U.S. markets and expanding their trade with East bloc, West European, Middle East, and other Western hemisphere countries. 13 Meanwhile, despite the apparent intentions of Gorbachev to curb the Soviet party's overly aggressive pursuit of Third World revolutionary activities, the CPS u, through its International Department, continued to develop networks and channels of access to power in friendly states in Central America and the Caribbean, to maintain its links and deepen its influence with out-of-power communist parties and leftist groups.14 The periodic visits of high-ranking representatives of the Soviet party apparat to client states in Central America illustrated this activity. Such an event was the visit in 1987 of ID first deputy chief Vadim Zagladin, who stopped in Managua with the news that after curtailing Managua's oil supplies earlier in the year, Moscow was willing to turn the spigot back on for another 100,000 tons in 1987.15 The following year it was ID deputy chief Andrei Urnov who visited Managua in mid-June to brief Daniel Ortega on the results of the 1988 Moscow superpower summit. 16 Such meetings conveyed the Soviets' strong moral support for the Sandinista cause, provided a chance to align strategies, strengthened party linkages and the Sandinista client status, and further coordinated the growing dip-

Early Impact of New Political Thought

31

lomatic, military, and cultural contacts between the two countries. The economy was another sphere where, under Gorbachev, Moscow was inclined to jettison the policy legacy of the Brezhnev years and cut back sharply on economic aid to Marxist clients. However, reversing commitments made by previous Soviet regimes, despite strong incentives on Moscow's part to do so, proved difficult. Soviet efforts to reduce economic aid to Nicaragua illustrate this point. 17 Development projects on the drawing board before 1985, which included some Nicaraguan irrigation projects, could not lightly be abandoned. In the case of Cuba, trade and aid agr~ements signed in the early 1980s spanned the years to 1990 and even called for increases in project assistance during this period; trade credits alone, according to Cuban reports in 1985, were to increase in 1986-1990 by 50 percent over the previous five years. 18 From a purely economic point of view, Cuba offered a likely target for Soviet savings, for Cuba alone claimed "far more of Moscow's aid resources than any other LDC [Less Developed Country], about $4.5 billion annually (half of Moscow's total)," with price subsidies to Cuba on Soviet oil and Cuban nickel accounting for about three-fourths of these disbursements. 19 But Cuba's political and military services to Moscow merited special consideration. Thus, past commitments and Cuba's continuing importance to Moscow as an advocate of Soviet interests continued to shape Soviet aid policies toward this client. Into the late 1980s, the impact of Moscow's new political line with respect to any marked effort to curtail economic assistance to Caribbean Basin clients was observable only in Soviet-Nicaraguan negotiations. The decisive test of what effect Gorbachev's call for demilitarization was having in Central America was whether Soviet military support slackened or continued to flow from the Soviet Union to the Caribbean Basin. Figures for 1985 to 1987 indicated that Soviet arms transfers to Cuba and Nicaragua-the two Caribbean Basin countries then receiving more than 80 percent of their arms from the Soviet Union-were not slackening. In 1984, Cuba imported arms worth $1.4 billion; in 1985, the total was $2.4 billion; in 1986, $1.6 billion; and in 1987, $1.8 billion. Nicaraguan arms imports in 1984 were $350 million; in 1985, $280 million; in 1986, $600 million;

32

A Foreign Policy in Transition

and in 1987, $500 million. 2o Meanwhile, the militarization of both countries continued, as indicated by the growth in the size of the armed forces, which increased in Sandinista Nicaragua from 6,000 troops in 1979 to 74,000 in 1985, and in Cuba from 120,000 troops in 1975 to 297,000 in 1985. The proportion of the population under arms grew in Nicaragua from 2.2 citizens in the armed forces per 1,000 in 1979 to 23.4 in 1985; in Cuba the proportion was 12.9 in 1975, and 29.5 in 1985. 21 Particularly striking with respect to the fueling of military conflict in Central America at this time is the size of Soviet arms transfers to Nicaragua and Cuba compared to U.S. arms transfers to Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, and the contras of Nicaragua. In 1986, when the Soviet Union exported close to $2 billion in arms to Cuba and Nicaragua, U.S. military aid to Central American governments and the contras was less than $185 million, with an additional $60 million going to the contras for nonmilitary and humanitarian aid-only one-seventh of the 1986 Soviet military investment in the Central American conflict. 22 In December 1987, at a congressional hearing in Washington, the unexpected testimony of a high-level Nicaraguan military defector gave the world a glimpse of the expansionist, Image I dynamic of Soviet foreign policy still at work in the Caribbean Basin region. Soviet plans for the further militarization of Nicaragua into 1995 were revealed by Major Roger Miranda Bengoechea, who, until his defection, had worked as a staff officer for Defense Minister Humberto Ortega Saavedra. Major Miranda showed Congress a Soviet-Nicaraguan agreement that was to have been signed in Moscow in early 1988, which projected an expansion of the Nicaraguan armed forces to 600,000 troops by 1995. The Soviet promise of arms and equipment, he said, was to include "a number of small warships, self-propelled 122-millimeter artillery, and even a squadron of twelve MiG-21 fighters."23 Surprisingly, instead of denying the truth of Miranda's testimony, Defense Minister Humberto Ortega and his brother, President Daniel Ortega, both publicly confirmed it. 24 The case was clear evidence. that during the first Gorbachev years certain leadership groups within the Soviet Union were persisting in efforts further to militarize this Soviet client in Central America. As time went on, however, Soviet policy in the region provided concurrent evidence that Image III thinking was exerting

Early Impact of New Political Thought

33

counter tendencies. In early 1989, in a significant article on how to resolve regional conflicts, a Soviet international relations expert, V. P. Sudarev, observed that "the call of the Soviet Union to restructure international relations on the basis of the principles of new political thought and the positive progress in SovietAmerican relations have facilitated the creation of more favorable conditions for beginning a process of settling a series of regional conflicts." Sudarev listed five concrete steps the superpowers should take to end regional conflicts: "Limit direct military presence, halt the supply of weapons to crisis regions, refrain from any kind of acts to destabilize the fragile processes of political regulation, take on international obligations to guarantee the implementation [of these regulations], and finally, purposefully pressure their allies with the aim of hastening the settlement of conflicts." He called these steps "constituent parts of a great power 'code of conduct' in regional conflicts."25 Sudarev's code was reflected in a number of Soviet actions in Central America, the most dramatic of which was the announced cutoff, in January 1989, of Soviet weapons shipments to Nicaragua (an event reserved for fuller discussion in later pages and another context). Supporting the arms cutoff, the Soviet General Staff claimed that in February 1989 the USSR had only seventeen military specialists in Nicaragua, "in the servicing of military hardware," which, however, begged the question of how many Cuban advisors remained. 26 There was evidence as early as 1987 that the USSR was pressuring its allies to negotiate, and urging them systematically, openly, and emphatically, to participate in political talks to settle military crises. For example, a Soviet cutback of economic aid to Nicaragua in 1987 accompanied Moscow's advice to the Sandinistas to seek accommodation under the Guatemala accord, and the accord itself, to which Moscow gave much verbal support, outlined procedures for a political settlement that echoed the Gorbachev line for ending regional strife in an area where East/West interests were in conflict. The suspension of oil deliveries to Nicaragua reflected, one Western observer said, the Kremlin's unwillingness to "pour money endlessly into a regional conflict that jeopardized U.S.-Soviet relations."28 On this point Moscow could hardly have sent a clearer message, since Soviet oil was essential to the Sandinista war effort.

34

A Foreign Policy in Transition

In April 1989, when Gorbachev visited Havana and signed the Soviet-Cuban Friendship Treaty, Article 7 of the treaty pointedly stated: "[The two parties] will spare no efforts in making the principle of rejecting the use or threat of use of force a universal norm of conduct in inter-state relations and fostering the settlement ofconflicts between states solely by peaceful and political means. "29 Moscow consistently applauded Nicaragua's unilateral cease-fire declarations in 1988-89, urging (with less than complete success) a cutoff of weapons to El Salvador's insurgents. 3o As Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze put it, Nicaragua's "original, innovative approach . . . fully accords with the spirit of the new political thinking and with modern progressive tendencies in international policy and . . . substantially contributes to a just political settlement in Central America."31 Further reflecting the spirit of Sudarev's code, the USSR called for the use of multinational forces to police demilitarized areas. 32 Meanwhile, "old political thought" was hard to expunge from Soviet perceptions of the regional situation. Fancied or real obstacles to the implementation of Gorbachev's new thought continued to be blamed by some Soviet analysts on the United States alone and explained in terms of familiar Image I doctrine. Given the aggressive posture of U.S. policies in the region at the time, such Soviet responses should perhaps be faulted mainly for their simplistic bias and passion. To these analysts Sudarev's stricture against military intervention meant that only U.S. troops were viewed as the interlopers in Central America, and only U.S. military aid to El Salvador, Honduras, and the contras was blamed for keeping the military conflict going. Even Primakov, while calling on the United States to cooperate with the USSR to end regional conflicts, went beyond a cool assessment of the U.S. role. Stating the facts somewhat emotionally, he attacked Washington for "whipping up tension around that country [Nicaragua], supporting the Somocista bandits, from whom the so-called contras have been recruited, supplying them with up-to-date weapons, and urging on neighboring Honduras against Nicaragua by giving the former military assistance."33 Soviet propagandists seized upon aggressive moves by Washington to foment resentment among the latter's southern neighbors. 34 In Marxist-Leninist terms, the United States, identified as the major imperialist power, was still tagged by some Soviet an-

Early Impact of New Political Thought

35

alysts as the sole source of military aggression in the region, and the U.S. military presence in Panama and Honduras was interpreted as evidence of continuing and deliberate u.S. military aggression against all of Latin America. Radio Moscow, labeling the U.S. invasion of Panama in December 1989 "an act of blatant international terrorism," pointed out that, "it seems Washington will continue to regard the countries of Latin America as its backyard and impose its orders on them by fire and sword."35 Pravda, in an article entitled, "Recurrence of Imperial Thinking," asserted that the real U.S. motives for the intervention were "maintaining military bases on Panamanian soil and control of the Panama Canal, wanting to teach a lesson to other Latin American countries."36 And the well-known political commentator Aleksandr Bovin, in Izvestiia, blamed the "President's imperial ambitions and willingness to put personal dislike [presumably of Noriega] above state interests," explaining further that "the Americans revel in strength and power in what they regard as their own 'backyard.'''37 It is difficult to evaluate the relative importance of this verbal sniping at the U.S. military presence in Central America as one component of Soviet policy. It is apparent, however, that by 1990 most of these comments were less blatantly ideological and destructive in their criticism of U.S. policies than earlier commentary had been. Nor was this criticism sufficient to deter the generally positive impact on political events in Central America of Soviet efforts to play down force and play up diplomacy in the region.

Secularizing Interstate Relations Gorbachev's second mandate-to secularize interstate relationshad a very direct application to U.S.-Soviet relations. He expressed this new ideological position succinctly: "I have often encountered leading Western politicians who regard the very existence of regional conflicts as the product of 'Kremlin conspiratorial activity,'" and he countered, "The Soviet Union, on the other hand, holds that these conflicts should not be used to engender confrontation between the two systems [capitalist and socialist], especially when they involve the USSR and the USA."38 Echoing Gorbachev, Primakov's advice to scholars based on

36

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the new line of the Twenty-seventh Party Congress warned against "viewing ongoing events in different regions through a prism of American-Soviet confrontation." He added, "in the present conditions, hostility between capitalism and socialism objectively can proceed exclusively in forms of peaceful competition and peaceful rivalry. Foreign policy in such conditions must not be a sphere of ideology."39 Shevardnadze buttressed this in August 1988 by saying: "The struggle between the two opposing systems can no longer be considered a leading tendency of the contemporaryera."40 A further elaboration of this point was made by Gorbachev's advisor Georgii Shakhnazarov in a February 1989 article entitled, "East-West: On the Question of Deideologizing State-to-State Relations." 5hakhnazarov rejected the "thesis about the fatal confrontation (and resulting implacable hostility) of socialism and capitalism," and proposed that "a better means of dealing with an enemy is to turn him into one's friend, or at the worst, into an ordinary neighbor."41 He argued, "It is basically false to liken the relations between states or groups of states to relations between systems. That which can be called 'inter-system' relations is wholly related to the sphere of ideology, of theoretic and political principles. The relations between states are material. States carry on talks between themselves and conclude agreements; systems cannot do this; they are not in a condition to exchange memoranda and to search for compromises. In essence, the concept 'social system' is a high level of abstraction and to transfer it to the ground of political struggle means to do violence to reality."42 This view had very different implications in the Central American setting, depending upon which superpower was being judged "ideological" or "nonideological." Ideological behavior on the part of the United States was seen as appropriately describing aggressive U.S. actions, such as U.S. intervention to support counterrevolutionary forces. On the other hand, nonideological, secular behavior as applied to the USSR referred to actions aimed at the achievement by the USSR of a new image as a country capable of cultivating diplomatic and trade relations with a broad spectrum of countries, of becoming the "ordinary neighbor" of countries throughout the world. Thus Soviet "secular behavior" was closely linked with Gorbachev's third directive, condemning the export of revolution.

Early Impact of New Political Thought

37

Evidence appeared quite early in Gorbachev's tenure that Moscow's nonideological approach was having an effect upon the relations of both the Soviet party and government with their counterparts in the Caribbean region. Regarding party-to-party relations, it became clear that the CPsu was making a major effort to play down ideology and lighten its former heavy-handedness toward its Latin American colleagues. A group of Western scholars observed in 1987 that "the Soviets . . . have not been concerned with actively directing the Latin American communist parties," quoting as evidence the following comment Gorbachev made to the head of the Argentine party in March: "It is impossible for the Soviets to give advice on how the Argentine communist party should act or for the PCA to advise the CPSu; each party knows its situation better than anyone else."43 And Moscow greeted the Argentine communist party on its seventieth anniversary without using the fighting rhetoric of international party messages of the past. Instead of a call to militant revolutionary action, the CPsu thanked the PCA for its support of Soviet perestroika, new thinking, and the U.S.-USSR signing of the INF treaty, and reminded the PCA of the "shared responsibility" of the two parties "in the face of the new realities of the world today." 44 A similar avoidance of ideological rhetoric characterized the discussions of CPsu delegations to Colombia and Peru in May and June 1987, which "focused primarily on the restructuring process currently under way in the USSR."45 In the past, the extensive political efforts of the International Department of the CPsu to increase its ties with communist parties and liberation movements, while crowned with stunning success in Cuba, Nicaragua, and (unti11983) Grenada, hindered Soviet diplomatic efforts to establish relations with regimes that felt threatened by the party activity, as, for example, with the governments of Guatemala, Honduras, and EI Salvador. 46 In the Gorbachev period the Kremlin set out to develop more lasting, open, and "secular" relations with countries in the Caribbean Basin with which it still lacked diplomatic relations. Seeking to multiply its contacts through the efforts of a new breed of diplomatic staff in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,47 Moscow also initiated and systematically pursued exchanges of legislative delegations with Guatemala, Honduras, and elsewhere in the Caribbean Basin. In 1987 a delegation of Guatemalan legislators paid a first-ever visit

38

A Foreign Policy in Transition

to the USSR on the invitation of the USSR Supreme Soviet, and in January 1988 a Soviet legislator visited the president of Surinam "to further the development of relations and cooperation." 48 A parliamentary exchange was begun with Honduras, with the visit of a Honduran delegation to Moscow in August 1988 and a reciprocal visit by Soviet legislators to Honduras in August 1989.49 The first visit of Soviet legislators to Guatemala took place in October and November 1989.50 In countries like Guatemala where local political struggles involving leftist groups were fiercely joined,51 the Soviets hoped parliamentary, cultural, and citizen exchanges, by achieving more contacts of an apolitical, less structured, and spontaneous character at the state-to-state level, would facilitate the establishment of diplomatic ties. In the same vein, Moscow also pressed Castro to play down revolutionary rhetoric and seek to normalize relations with his Latin American neighbors. 52 Change could also be seen in the management style of Soviet agencies, both party and government, in dealing with front organizations, the Nonaligned Movement, trade unions, and other international organizations. For one thing, the International Department's guidance of front organizations appeared to have grown less stridently ideological under the leadership of Anatolii Dobrynin, who in 1988 set forth a generally acceptable plea for "vigorous actions of the public forces, people's diplomacy, in support of world peace and cooperation." 53 One change with a debatable impact was the creation, in May 1986, of a new department within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to handle Soviet relations with the Nonaligned Movement (NAM). Because these relations had been a traditional concern of the party's International Department, the shift of responsibility to the less ideological foreign ministry raised the possibility that Soviet relations with the N AM might now become more politically neutral. However, some U.S. State Department analysts found counter evidence indicating to them that ministry control had actually increased Soviet influence over the Nonaligned Movement in support of anti-American tendencies. One measure of Moscow's continuing anti-U.S. influence, they said, "might be gauged in the results of the special ministerial session of the NAM'S Coordinating Bureau held in Georgetown, Guyana, in March 1987. A communique was issued containing twenty-six specific anti-U.S.

Early Impact of New Political Thought

39

citations-a new record for a NAM document on a geographic region." 54 The degree of Soviet influence remained debatable; however, Moscow had to applaud the results when the Coordinating Bureau of NAM held its first discussion of disarmament problems on 28-31 May 1988, in Havana, with more than one hundred representatives of nonaligned countries, national-liberation movements, and international organizations in attendance. The bureau's concluding resolution attacked the United States with traditional Image I rhetoric. Expressing "serious concern over increased American military presence in this [Central American] region," the resolution called for setting up "a zone of peace and cooperation in Central America with the withdrawal of all foreign troops from there, which . . . would facilitate the solution of the regional conflict."55 Meanwhile, the Soviet Communist Party had not abandoned its ideological partners in the region nor forsworn all of its Image I, anti-imperialist rhetoric. In September 1988 the first deputy chief of the cpsu's International Department, Karen Brutents, visited Panama, where he contacted leaders of both the communist and the ruling parties, and in November, Moscow Radio Peace and Progress, broadcasting in Spanish, provided a forum for the leader of the People's Party of Panama, Ruben D. Souza, to call for a united front with General Noriega and other "patriotic forces" to repel U.S. oppression. 56 Similarly, the Soviet scholar P. F. Litavrin, in a generally wellbalanced study of U.S. responses to political developments in Latin America during the 1980s, nevertheless weakened his argument against the U.S. position by the use of ideological jargon. Thus, Litavrin said, "The USA strives to secure control over the process of political change, preventing its development in a truly democratic, anti-imperialistic channel." He added that the general approach of the Reagan administration to the process of democratization in Latin America "bears a clearly expressed imperialistic, narrowly class character," and that, "fearing the uncontrolled development of democracy, the Reagan administration continues to support close ties with the armed forces of Latin American countries."57 "Neoglobalism" and "imperialism" were buzzwords often

40

A Foreign Policy in Transition

used by Soviet analysts criticizing the United States for its ideological behavior-for injecting an East/West confrontation and ideological debate into regional conflicts. Aleksandr Golts used both terms in an article in the military newspaper Krasnaia zvezda in March 1989, when he accused U.S. Vice-President Daniel Quayle of illustrating the legacy of the previous administration's relations with Latin American countries. Golts said Quayle had "both feet firmly planted in the soil of 'neoglobalism'" when he talked about the "worldwide contest between the USSR and the U.S." and "ways to achieve 'victory' in it." Golts added: "Grenada was trampled in the name of 'combating communism.' There was no hesitation in deceiving Congress for the sake of providing weapons to the contra formations. In general, the former administration's activity may be compared with those 'Boy Scouts' who, wishing to earn credit, escorted an old lady across the street in threes. When asked why three were needed for this, they answered: 'She put up a lot of resistance.' "58 Many variations of Marxist arguments were used by Soviet propagandists to blame Latin America's crushing foreign debt on U.S. imperialism, an~ by implication to place the USSR on the side of the Latin American (and other Third World, and nonaligned) countries. Latinskaia Amerika's Havana-based reporter, V. N. Lunin, covering a Havana 1985 meeting of Latin American leaders to discuss the debt problem, described the foreign debt crisis of the Latin American countries as "one of the basic instruments of imperialist enslavement and dependence," explaining: "Imperialism tries to gain the upper hand over the forces of the national-liberation movement. Leaving, as a rule, the application of military force in reserve as a sort of 'Damocles sword,' its first step is to instigate the force of the shock financial troops-the transnational corporations and transnational banks, supported by the IMF ." He reported that the meeting in Cuba proposed "different variants of a radical solution of the foreign debt problem . . . from cancellation to an indefinite moratorium, to an immediate stopping of payments."59 A year later, the radical recommendations of a conference of Latin American trade unionists to institute a systematic campaign in Latin America for the nonpayment of foreign debts met with Soviet endorsement. 6o And A. P. Karavaev, in a more objective analysis appearing in early 1989, nonetheless stated his purpose was "to identify the cost to the

Early Impact of New Political Thought

41

Latin American region of its unequal and dependent position in the world system of capitalist economy." He described the "gigantic growth of foreign debt" as "one of the most important instruments of financial exploitation."61 Another solution for the debt crisis, dubbed "interesting" by the Soviet broadcaster who discussed it in February 1990, was the proposal of a conference of Andean jurists in Lima that "the United States convert the Bolivian, Colombian, and Peruvian foreign debt into a fund to finance the fight against drug trafficking."62 Despite the lingering on of scattered ideological potshots, an increasing number of analyses of the debt problem were characterized by the Image III perspective. Thus in March 1989 the Izvestiia correspondent, A. Cherepanov, in a dispatch from Mexico City gave a completely unbiased account of a realistic strategy (combining debt reduction, interest reduction, and new loans) worked out by the seven "Rio de Janeiro Group" countries to deal with their foreign debt problems. 63 It was an important sign of the times that a topic such as the foreign debt crisis was being used less often in the Soviet press as a weapon of ideological warfare and had become instead the subject of serious economic observation and analysis worthy of the secular-investigators. The success of Soviet efforts to pursue a new diplomacy with all Central American states, regardless of their political systems, was contingent upon the ability of all sides to stop viewing the present in terms of the old issues of EastlWest confrontation. This, in turn, was closely linked to Gorbachev's third guideline, with much depending on how well Soviet actions adhered to it and laid to rest the twentieth-century specter of world revolution.

Opposing the Export of Revolution Proclaiming the right of every nation's freedom of choice, Gorbachev flatly denounced the concept of the export of revolution: "U.S. right-wing forces and propaganda portray our interest in Latin America as an intention to engineer a series of socialist revolutions there. Nonsense!" And he argued, "Every nation is entitled to choose its own way of development, to dispose of its fate, its territory, and its human and natural resources. Interna-

42

A Foreign Policy in Transition

tional relations cannot be normalized if this is not understood in all countries."64 The advice of the Twenty-seventh Party Congress in 1986 was similarly emphatic on this point: "Marxism-Leninism always assumed that it is useless and intolerable to instigate a revolution from outside. At the same time no one is able artificially, by means of the export of counterrevolution, to preserve the social-political status quo in the world."65 Primakov reinforced this thought a year later: "Back at the dawn of Soviet power, V. I. Lenin spoke out resolutely against the transformation of the first state of victorious socialism into an exporter of revolution to other countries, limiting its international influence to the framework of setting an example. Excluding the export of revolution is an imperative of the nuclear age."66 Although in neither of these statements was the whole truth about the past presented, it was significant that the anti-export point was the one being emphasized. A particularly important corollary of this perspective was pointed out in 1989 by Karen Brutents, the leading spokesman on Third World affairs of the International Department of the CPsu Central Committee: "Every regional conflict has its specific origins. If compromises are needed to resolve them, they must be acceptable to all sides so that they can subsequently be respected by all. They cannot be imposed." Brutents contrasted this with the situation under Brezhnev, which, he said, "was based on a rationale of force and blocs," while today the settlement of regional conflicts requires "fastidious respect for each people's right to choose their own path and to forge their own destiny without external intervention."67 Here again, the connotations of this message for the actions of the two superpowers in Central America were quite different. For the USSR and its allies in the region the mandate called for an end to efforts to spread revolution. Gorbachev, in his speech to the Cuban National Assembly on April 5, 1989, used it forcefully to wave Castro away from revolutionary adventurism when he renounced "any theories and doctrines that justify the export of revolution" and called for the "cessation of [the supply of] military arms to Central America from any quarter." 68 This was an unequivocal warning to Castro on his home turf that the Soviet Union opposed aggressive revolutionary activity as unlawful interference in the affairs of another nation. At the same time,

Early Impact of New Political Thought

43

avowing "noninterference" in Cuban affairs, Gorbachev could claim he was not trying to push Cuba in the direction of Soviet reforms. For Castro, nevertheless, the signal was clear. Ultimately dependent on Soviet oil and other economic support, he was being told to avoid openly stoking revolutionary fires in Central America. As for the Soviet military presence, Gorbachev told the Cuban National Assembly, "The USSR does not have and does not intend to have, naval, airforce, or missile bases in Latin America."69 And Iurii Pavlov, speaking for the Soviet foreign ministry, asserted that "neither the USSR nor Cuba is exporting revolution. Nor should the United States suspect the USSR of trying to use its Latin American relations to undermine U.S.- or Western-Latin American relations."7o Applied to the United States, the principle of "non-interference" meant no U.S. interference in Central American affairs, especially for the purpose of maintaining the status quo and reversing revolutionary movements. The principle provided the Soviets with a convenient moral basis for attacking the Monroe Doctrine and championing the rights of Central American countries. Demonstrating this, Gennadii Gerasimov, then public affairs chief of the Soviet foreign ministry, titled an article about the U.S. armed intervention in Panama "Displaying the Monroe Doctrine to the World."71 Some other commentators at the time felt justified in referring to the "Gringos'" actions in pejorative terms plainly intended to appeal to a Latin American audience. Radio Peace and Progress, for example, beamed a report in Spanish claiming that it was on orders of the "Yankee government" that "U.S. soldiers ravaged the headquarters of the People's Party of Panama [communist], destroying its archives. The same type of destruction was also carried out in the offices of other parties that advocate the return of the Canal Zone to the Republic." And the radio commentator, Aleksei Pavlov, concluded: "Those who continue to hang on to the old political idea of using force risk being paid with the same token. The confirmation of this possibility is the following information: Several extremist organizations in Chile and Colombia have announced that they would attack U.S. facilities in those countries. The first outbursts have already occurred."72 Moscow's support for the sovereignty of Latin American states found ready sympathy among Central American countries, of

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course, and while this sympathy did not automatically translate into pro-Soviet support, it did permit the USSR to occupy a moral high ground in its relations with countries in this hemisphere. While doctrinal change in Soviet foreign policy during the first Gorbachev years had an undeniably positive impact in furthering bilateral U.S.-Soviet relations and arms control negotiations, in creating a more open and expansive Soviet diplomacy, and in initiating the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan, its impact in the sphere of Central American and Caribbean affairs remained limited. In part this is explained by the inevitable time lag between the formulation of policies and their implementation and by the fact that Gorbachev's new foreign policy initiatives in late 1989 had been in place for only a brief period. Poor implementation could also be attributed to the fact that at the start of the Gorbachev period Soviet doctrine and policy toward Central America and the Caribbean were burdened with contradictory assumptions, attitudes, and judgments about what Soviet policy should be. In addition, mixed signals from Moscow met with numerous obstacles on the local scene, where both superpowers continued to experience consequences of the cold war. Moscow and Washington would not find it easy to eradicate the cold war mentality that had been created in the Caribbean region by the EastlWest struggle over a period of years. For small states, the temptation to court and exploit two giant suitors continued to be irresistible; similarly, for Moscow, opportunities to act with impunity to undermine U.S. influence in a region of vital concern to the latter were hard to ignore. Thus, the Gorbachev appeal for superpower cooperation to settle regional issues faced many problems in the Central American and Caribbean setting, not least of which were contradictions in the USSR's formulation of its own discrete foreign policy objectives in the region and the extent to which incompatible objectives influenced practice. As time went on, the forceful application by Soviet leaders of policies shaped by Gorbachev's guidelines were to produce a decisive realignment of forces throughout Central America and the Caribbean which would have been unthinkable a few years earlier. The echoes of old orthodoxies and practices would recede, and Soviet policy would become more firmly based upon the principle of cooperation between the United States and the USSR.

Early Impact of New Political Thought

45

That the prospects for negotiated settlements of local conflicts in Central America had improved so much by 1989 raised a haunting question: Had the East/West confrontation of the superpowers, rather than local economic, political, and social conditions, played the preeminent role in sustaining these conflicts?

Reshaping the Establishment

This chapter looks at the context and processes of Soviet foreign policy making and considers how the various institutional changes during the Gorbachev period had, by mid-199°, irreversibly transformed the Soviet foreign policy establishment and its operation. This transformation was to have a significant impact on Soviet Central American and Caribbean policy, as well as on Soviet international relations worldwide. A series of factors are examined. Of first importance are the deliberate and direct institutional changes in Gorbachev's foreign policy establishment affecting where, how, and by whom policies are made. Relevant to this discussion are the changes that resulted from Gorbachev's radical reorganization of the entire Soviet political power structure, switching decision-making authority from Politburo to president and parliament and substantially widening the circle of decision makers. In this process, Soviet policy came to be the product of a growing number of factors, including public opinion, that dictated the range of policy options decision makers could consider. How this change affected Soviet policy in the Caribbean Basin was well illustrated by the government's various efforts to cut back on the assignment of Soviet resources to military and economic projects in Cuba and Nicaragua. The "new political thought," which in the beginning initiated many structural and staff changes, became an integral part of further developments by producing ripple effects that exerted their own impact in shaping policies and the policy process. Thus Soviet acknowledgment of the failure of the Stalinist economic and political model, and Gorbachev's sweeping rejection of the ideological world view that underlay the cold war, not only affected policy directly, but also functioned as powerful instigators of further changes by reshaping the playing field of international relations itself. Caribbean Basin countries continued to register effects from the seismic shock of political and economic reforms in

Reshaping the Establishment

47

the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe long after the first tremors of perestroika had subsided in the USSR.

Gorbachev's Foreign Policy Establishment Over the six years from 1985 through 1990, Gorbachev's restructuring of the Soviet foreign policy establishment formed an integral part of his comprehensive, revolutionary transformation of the Soviet party and government policymaking machinery. The overhaul of the foreign affairs bureaucracy was not achieved overnight, but proceeded in three stages. In phase one, during Gorbachev's first years, his immediate aim was to strengthen his personal control-as general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party-over foreign policy and over the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs so that he could achieve his foreign policy goals. His foreign policy aim was twofold: a genuine rapprochement in U.S.Soviet relations and serious progress toward mutual superpower disarmament. In the second and third phases, while retaining tight personal control over the policymaking process, he proceeded in concert with his like-minded and brilliant minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, to launch a further restructuring of the foreign policy establishment consonant with the overall reshaping of the Soviet party and government bureaucracies. During the second phase, beginning in September 1988, Gorbachev's power as USSR president began to supersede his authority as CPsu general secretary, the role of the foreign ministry in policy making grew as the agency was reshaped and restaffed, and a broad array of additional new foreign policy goals were vigorously pursued. The third phase began in 1990, with the amendment of Article 6 of the USSR Constitution, which legally ended the monopoly of power by the CPsu and opened the way to the final elimination of the dominance of the party's international institutions over the Soviet foreign policy process. In the beginning, the first task Gorbachev faced was to reshape party-state relations by transferring control of foreign policy from the foreign ministry to his party apparat. Part of Brezhnev's legacy was the dominant role in policy making that had come to be played in the early 1980s by the venerable foreign minister, Andrei Gromyko. Gromyko had attained full voting membership in

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the Politburo in 1973, and owing to his lifetime of hands-on experience as diplomat and foreign minister, and the dearth of comparable international experience among other party leaders at the highest level, he enjoyed an authority to make decisions in foreign affairs that in the post-Brezhnev era far exceeded that of any other Politburo member. Among the full Politburo members, only Iurii Andropov could claim as much as a three-year ambassadorship in Hungary and ten years as chief of the Central Committee department for liaison with ruling communist parties. Boris Ponomarev, whose international experience rivaled Gromyko's in longevity, was only a candidate member of the Politburo and was therefore not entitled to vote in Politburo decisions. Gorbachev adroitly dealt with this Brezhnevian problem by promoting the experienced and formidable foreign minister, Gromyko--removing him in July 1985 from his key international post and placing him in a position of honor, as nominal president of the USSR, where Gromyko continued (until Gorbachev superseded him on 1 October 1988) to be useful as an advisor and performer of official duties both international and domestic, but where he was no long~r making major policy decisions. Gromyko's replacement by Shevardnadze, a party professional with no previous international experience,l made very clear the point that for the immediate future the party was to be the agency of decision making, and Gorbachev himself, the agent of decision making. .Gorbachev tapped this point home at a May 1986 meeting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he addressed the assembled ministry staff flanked by his three CPsu Central Committee secretaries with international expertise: Anatolii F. Dobrynin (foreign affairs), Vadim A. Medvedev (cPsu relations with ruling communist parties), and Aleksandr Iakovlev (propaganda). He announced his new directions for the MFA and prepared the ministry for dramatic changes, which were quick to follow. Through the ensuing year the roster of the ministry was speedily transformed, so that by May 1987, 60 percent of the ambassadors had been replaced (74 out of 124), and 9 of 11 first deputy and deputy ministers of foreign affairs were new to their posts. 2 Gorbachev's (and Shevardnadze's) choice of a party apparatchik, Valentin M. Nikoforov, as deputy minister with respon-

Reshaping the Establishment

49

sibility for handling cadres in the foreign ministry provided the requisite new broom and strengthened party influence and the general secretary's hand in reshaping the ministry. When he was appointed to the ministry post, Nikiforov was serving as deputy head (under party secretary Egor Ligachev) of the CPsu Central Committee Department for Party Organizational Work. Five years later, in an interview with a staff member of the ministry's bimonthly house organ Vestnik Ministerstva inostrannykh del SSSR (The Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Herald), Nikoforov, still hard at work in the ministry, recalled the circumstances of his appointment. The reporter, referring to Nikoforov's lack of international experience, had boldly asked him to speculate on "why the choice had fallen on him," and specifically how he happened to "come direct from the Central Committee of the CPsu to the post of deputy minister of foreign affairs in such an intricate area as work with cadres." Nikoforov acknowledged that his career credentials, as a party professional who had in fact begun his working life as an electrical engineer in shipbuilding, were far from ideally suited to the ministry post. He added that in a conversation with Gorbachev at the time of his appointment in 1985, he had expressed his own personal misgivings to the general secretary about his selection, admitting that he knew nothing at all about the foreign ministry. Gorbachev's revealing answer was, "But it's good that you don't know anything there." Only then, explained Nikoforov, did he understand why he had been selected for his new assignment. 3 During his first year, Gorbachev sought to advance his foreign policy objectives with respect to U.S. rapprochement and disarmament by reshaping the international organs of the party's apparat, in particular by restaffing and restructuring the International Department. Even before he had established his control over the foreign ministry and the shaping of foreign policy decisions, his reorganization of the international party organs was under way. He had started by carefully coopting the kind of expertise into his party apparat that he would need for effective decision making in the policy areas he intended to emphasize. This meant, first, bringing into the central party apparat experienced diplomatic and military personnel, and second, creating a new unit for arms control in the International Department-

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changes that blurred some of the traditional functional and institutional distinctions between the foreign ministry and the ID. 4 It included as well a redefinition of the ID'S missions. With respect to restaffing the International Department, the most important change was the retirement of the venerable Boris Ponomarev, who had headed the International Department since it was formed in 1943 to be the successor to the Comintern. Replacing him was Anatolii Dobrynin, an accomplished diplomat with twenty-four years of experience as Soviet ambassador to the United States. Dobrynin lacked the personal political clout that Ponomarev as a candidate member of the Politburo from 1971 to 1986 had enjoyed, for although Dobrynin assumed Ponomarev's former post of Central Committee secretary with responsibility for international affairs, he was not brought into the Politburo. Yet Dobrynin's advice was undoubtedly essential to Politburo deliberations in the international arena; his personal expertise must have been indispensable in discussions of major U.S.-Soviet issues, on which Gorbachev was placing so much emphasis, and he very likely had support from Politburo member Aleksandr Iakovlev in pushing for specific options favored by the general secretary.5 In addition, as chief of the I D, he enjoyed considerable influence in selecting which international issues should appear on the Politburo's agenda. 6 During this first stage of Gorbachev's restructuring, Dobrynin, some observers suggest, was also given ultimate responsibility for the nomenklatura of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA).7 An important ministry posting which appears to bear this out was the selection of Gennadii Gerasimov to head the reorganized press department, which now became a much more important unit, the Administration for Information. 8 Gerasimov, who was not a diplomat but a journalist with training in international affairs, was well known to Dobrynin. Equally at home with the press and in America, having served as Novosti representative in New York for a number of years, Gerasimov was a sF kesman with style, humor, and savvy, well able to give Western, and especially American, audiences a clear understanding of Soviet foreign policy positions. In one very important respect Dobrynin's appointment to head the International Department was as startling and unusual a break with tradition as the Shevardnadze and Nikoforov appointments

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had been. The expertise of an Americanist clashed with the genealogy and historic mission of the party's International Department. The 10 had inherited from the Soviet party's long Comintern experience a revolutionary thrust and charge to cultivate relations among communist parties and pro-Soviet, anticapitalist movements around the world. Boris Ponomarev's academic credentials and experience in ideological argument had appeared perfectly suited to this Image I mission. However, in changing times, given the urgency Gorbachev placed on seeking a new accommodation with the United States, it indeed made eminent sense to appoint a secretary of international affairs who thoroughly understood Washington. Similarly, the choice of Georgii Kornienko, another Americanist and foreign ministry careerist, as Dobrynin's first deputy chief made the same kind of sense. Vadim Zagladin, who had been serving since 1975 as the International Department's only first deputy chief and who had seemed to be positioned to succeed the octogenarian Ponomarev as head of the 10, now shared honors and some of his duties with Kornienko. Zagladin's duties in the sphere of policy making were further circumscribed by the creation within the 10 of a completely new unit, the Arms Control Sector, to deal with disarmament issues, a responsibility that Zagladin had previously combined with many other tasks. 9 Brought in to head this new unit was a former general staff officer with extensive experience in arms control negotiations, Lieutenant General Viktor Starodubov. Meanwhile, however, both Kornienko and Zagladin retained minor responsibilities for arms control, as indicated by Kornienko's chairmanship of the special commission of the Supreme Soviet conducting ratification hearings on the INF treaty and by Zagladin's frequent and continuing press comments on this subject. 10 In sum, the appointments of Dobrynin, Kornienko, and Starodubov and the creation of the arms control sector in the International Department clearly signaled Gorbachev's serious intent to seek active cooperative negotiations with the United States to achieve arms reductions. Although arms negotiations continued to be carried on by senior MFA and military personnel, the existence of an institutional infrastructure for the consideration of disarmament issues within the party apparat was, in the short term, extremely important in

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strengthening the general secretary's control over negotiations and policy.II At the same time, the foreign ministry, in a move suggesting Shevardnadze's desire to have the MFA playa greater role in national security deliberations,12 established its own unit, the Administration for Problems of Arms Reduction and Disarmament, headed by a former key arms negotiator, Ambassadorat-Large Viktor Karpov. Together the appearance of these two civilian units not only broadened and institutionalized civilian participation in the arms control decision-making process, but emphasized Gorbachev's determination to pursue a new policy line on arms limitations. The appointment of Americanists to head the International Department was intended to reshape the agency and to correct tendencies within the 10 itself that could frustrate the achievement of Gorbachev's new policy objectives. In the past this agency supported revolutionary activities throughout the world in ways that frequently proved counterproductive for Soviet foreign policy as a whole. Thus the 10'S Third-World activism that nurtured antiU.S. forces in such Third World settings as Vietnam, Angola, and Nicaragua in the 1970S had undermined Brezhnev's efforts to achieve detente and impeded the favorable economic results he had anticipated from it. Harry Gelman has described the contradiction that existed within the 10 itself during the Brezhnev period because separate units of the 10 were intent upon accomplishing these conflicting missions: "The International Department's operations came to mirror the breadth and contradictory nature of Soviet policy toward the West." While some of its units were encouraging diplomatic and economic ties with the United States and Western Europe (anticipating Image III objectives), others were seeking the old Image I goals, "to promote the expulsion of Western influence from Third World areas that had once been totally oriented toward the Western powers."13 For decades the work of the 10 had fostered a tenacious institutional commitment to the goals and ideology of the Soviet party's involvement with nonruling party organizations, liberation movements, and front organizations, as well as a special interest in Third World affairs. The resulting militant, ideological thrust existing within the 10 itself was a serious challenge to Dobrynin as he tried to reshape the agency in the directions prescribed by Gorbachev. 14 He made an important staff change, therefore,

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when he retired the IO'S chief spokesman on Third World affairs, Deputy Chief Rostislav Ul'ianovskii. UI'ianovskii had long been known for his lifelong professional interest in the national liberation movements of Third World countries and his "revolutionary optimism."15 His retirement advanced Deputy Chief Karen Brutents to first place as the IO'S senior specialist on Third World affairs and promoted Andrei Urnov, the former sector head for southern African affairs, to deputy chief. Brutents's elevation was especially significant because of his nontraditional views on Soviet-Third World relations. He was pessimistic about the immediate future of Third World states with ruling Marxist-Leninist vanguard parties and doubted the great value to Moscow of pursuing relations with them. Instead, he advocated Soviet cultivation of relations with the large, geopolitically important Third World countries "traveling the capitalist road."16 Thus, Brutents's Third World policy fitted well into the broad, overall perspective propounded by Gorbachev's close international affairs advisor, Aleksandr Iakovlev, who recommended that the Soviet Union seek to establish wide-ranging, multilateral relations with "powerful countries in the developed world."17 Pursuit of this policy was soon evident in new Soviet diplomatic overtures to Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, India, Japan, and Saudi Arabia. Another slight shift in staff responsibilities affected Brutents's assignments and was perhaps aimed at curbing the IO'S activism in the Third World. In addition to overseeing Third World affairs in the Middle East (his professional area of expertise) and Latin American affairs, Brutents was now given responsibility for the IO'S U.S. desk. A rationale for combining U.S. and Middle East responsibilities has been suggested by Jerry Hough, who noticed a similar arrangement in the MFA. Writing in 1986, Hough said: "In recent years the Soviet deputy minister of foreign affairs with senior responsibility for the United States has also handled relations with the Middle East, almost surely a step deliberately designed to prevent policy toward the Middle East from leading to a confrontation with the United States."18 In any case Brutents, as the party's senior Third World specialist, was fairly warned by his U.S. assignment that party activities and policies in the Third World should not interfere with EastlWest relations. In the first stage of Gorbachev's restructuring, aside from these leadership changes the 10 did not experience the kind of exten-

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sive turnover that was taking place in the foreign ministry. Beyond the appointments of Dobrynin, Kornienko, and Starodubov from outside, the influx of new faces into the 10 was apparently kept to a minimum. Thus openings left by the retirement or advancement of three veteran officials were filled by moving up two staff members from within the agency.19 Similarly, even though the number of sector chiefs appeared to have grown between June 1986 and June 1987, from seventeen to twenty, the three new sector chiefs had all previously worked as "senior officials" of the ID. 2o This renewal from within, indicating minimal change at lower, operational levels, suggested that more drastic measures would be needed to trim this staff before the work of the agency would successfully jettison the ideology, values, and procedures of the past. A preliminary look at the activity of the International Department during the first phase of Gorbachev's reshaping of the foreign policy establishment seemed to indicate that under Dobrynin the ID was attempting to control directly an even greater range of activities of both government and party agencies than in the past, for the full panoply of his department's interests and activities was more than ever a variegated one. Along with its traditional oversight of Soviet party relations with communist parties, nationalliberation movements, and front organizations around the world, the agency was putting new emphasis upon national security issues, arms control, U.S.-Soviet relations, relations with capitalist countries, and other regional and global concerns. The following items from Dobrynin's own calendar for the first two months of 1988 indicate the scope of his agency's activities. In just two months of 1988, Dobrynin met with the leader of the Italian communist party (5 January); the six East bloc ambassadors, to discuss European security (9 January); a delegation from the American Council of Young Political Leaders (9 January); J. Giffen, American-Soviet Economic Council president (12 January); U.S. Senator William Bradley (13 January); Armand Hammer (17 January); Arthur Schneier, president of the "Appeal to the Conscience Foundation" (Dobrynin also attended its founding meeting in Moscow) (18 January); Lebanese party officials W. Jumblatt, chairman of the Progressive Socialist Party of Lebanon, and G. Hawi, general secretary, Lebanese communist party (23 January); Gopi Arora, special representative of India's

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prime minister and secretary of the Indian Ministry of Information (24 January); a delegation from the European Parliament Communist Group (26 January); a delegation from the French National Defense Council (27 January); the Iranian ambassador (29 January); the Bulgarian minister for economic relations (3 February); Indian Foreign Minister Menon (4 February); India's defense minister (9 February); General Colin Powell, U.S. National Security Advisor (22 February); and Susan Eisenhower, board member, "Foundation for the Survival and Development of Humanity" (26 February). In addition, he co-chaired with Egor Ligachev the joint meeting of the Foreign Affairs Commissions of the Supreme Soviet to consider ratification of the INF treaty (9 February); presided as a member of the presidium of the UNESCO meeting devoted to "World Decade for Cultural Development," at which the chairman of the Soviet Peace Committee spoke (26 February); and on 28 February he and V. Medvedev left for a three-day meeting of CEMA international secretaries in Havana. 21 This impressive roster of Dobrynin's activities in early 1988 seemed to mean that the 10 was exercizing a large and growing mandate. In fact the IO'S days of power and glory were numbered. Changes were already under way during 1988 to reduce the policymaking role of the party's International Department. The fact that Dobrynin, during his tenure as party secretary for international affairs, had failed to achieve the Politburo status of his predecessor, Ponomarev, was a straw in the wind. In midOctober 1988, Dobrynin lost his job as Central Committee secretary and head of the International Department. The first stage in Gorbachev's remodeling of the foreign policy establishment had come to an abrupt close. The groundwork for stage two had been laid at a brief (onehour-long) Central Committee plenum that took place on 30 September 1988. At this plenum and the scant, hour-long meeting of the Supreme Soviet the following day, Politburo member Gromyko stepped down as chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (nominal president of the USSR) and Gorbachev was appointed to succeed him in this government post. The party plenum also witnessed a large-scale reorganization of the party's apparat, aimed ultimately at shifting policy making within the Soviet political system as a whole from the CPsu Politburo to the USSR president and parliament. Stage two of the reshaping of the

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foreign policy establishment effected a parallel shift of power, launching a period of restaffing and restructuring in which policymaking authority was deliberately removed from the International Department and returned in large measure to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. During this process both the foreign ministry and the party's ID were radically transformed. The reorientation and reduced role of the International Department in policy making was signaled by the removal, on 16 October 1988, of its three top officers, Dobrynin and his first deputy chiefs Kornienko and Zagladin, and by the advancement to department chief of Valentin Falin, a prominent Soviet expert on Western European affairs. Zagladin was repositioned as an advisor in the government staff unit serving Gorbachev, but Dobrynin and Kornienko, at ages sixty-eight and sixty-three respectively, were eased into retirement. Falin, meanwhile, was not immediately handed Dobrynin's important title and set of responsibilities as Central Committee secretary for international affairs. Instead, the September plenum radically reorganized the central party apparat by creating six new Central Committee commissions, each headed by a cc secretary to whom the respective department heads were subordinate. Falin's superior, as the new international cc secretary chairing the International Policy Commission, was Aleksandr Iakovlev. Falin's background and expertise implied that the International Department's Americanists had successfully completed the tasks that had mattered so much to Gorbachev in phase one-the U.S.Soviet rapprochement and arms negotiations-and that now relations with Western Europe would be stressed. The sixty-twoyear-old Falin had spent the first twenty years of his professional career in various posts in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs dealing mainly with Western European affairs, which included service as ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany from 1971 to 1978. For the next decade he was active in journalism: from 1978 to 1983 as first deputy chief of the Central Committee's International Information Department (until it was dismantled), from 1983 to 1986 as an editor of Izvestiia, and from 1986 to 1988 as board chairman of the Novosti Press Agency. More drastic changes were in store for the International Department in the form of retrenchments, reorganization, and the absorption of staff from other disbanded Central Committee

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departments. These measures resulted from a general plan announced at the September plenum to eliminate party jobs and units that duplicated the work of government agencies. One goal of this plan was to trim the central apparat of at least half of its thirty-odd Central Committee departments. A senior official of the Central Committee, Georgii Kriuchkov, commenting on the reduction of personnel in the Central Committee apparat expected to follow the 30 September 1988 plenum, explained the rationale as follows: "That we have to restructure the apparatus now stems from the fact that the party is now shedding the functions of dealing with day-to-day problems as they arise, because these problems are within the competence of state, managerial, and public bodies. The idea of the structural change is to abandon parts of the apparatus that parallel appropriate government and managerial bodies. Now the question arises how far the proposed cuts in the apparatus will go. . . . As I've said, we shall be closing down departments paralleled in the state structure. I believe that the number of such departments . . . may be halved."22 The newly appointed party spokesman for ideology, Vadim Medvedev described problems he anticipated in dealing with what he called "major reductio!1s in the numerical strength of the Central Committee apparatus." He said, "This is a complex problem, because skilled cadres with great political and professional experience are concentrated in the party apparatus. It is a question of creating favorable conditions for the people who will cease their activity in the Central Committee apparatus to transfer to other sectors of work-in the state and economic management apparatus, teaching work, or work in their specialty."23 Two of the three Central Committee departments concerned with international affairs-the Department for Relations with Socialist Countries and the Department for Cadres Abroad-were absorbed by the International Department, enlarging the IO'S missions. The new first deputy chairmen were Karen Brutents and Rafael Petrovich Fedorov. While no one was suggesting aloud that the 10 as a unit might itself be eliminated on the grounds that its work was duplicating that of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, its staff was roughly overhauled. In August 1989, Aleksandr Tsipko, an ID consultant on Polish and Hungarian affairs, claimed that an extensive turnover of personnel had taken place in the International Department "over the past couple of years." Said Tsipko,

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"As many as 80 percent of the staff of the 10 are said to be new. "24 Evidently the restaffing of the lower echelons, left unfinished in the first phase of the IO'S perestroika, had been completed in phase two. During this period, as the power and prerogatives of the party apparat waned, the vigorous minister of foreign affairs, Eduard Shevardnadze, infused his ministry with new powers, structures, and responsibilities. In July 1988, a ministry-wide conference was held to discuss "The 19th All-Union CPsu Conference: Foreign Policy and Diplomacy." More than one thousand ministry officials, along with heads of other government agencies, journalists, and scholars, heard a definitive address by Shevardnadze. 25 Outlining the ministry's restructuring, he described its progress as still incomplete with respect to both the central apparatus and the overseas installations, but he praised the progress of new units set up earlier. These included administrations for: problems of limiting weapons and disarmament, information, humanitarian and cultural ties, and international economic relations. The amount of work they were handling, he said, fully justified their establishment. He stressed that because of the importance of economic affairs, economic cells had been set up in all administrations and departments. And he called for the creation of additional units: a department for the Nonaligned Movement, and administrations for the socialist countries of Europe, for Asia, for the countries of the Near East and North Africa, for the Pacific and Southeast Asia, and for Southern Asia. He announced the consolidation of the three existing African departments into a single African administration, and the two Latin American departments into one administration for Latin America and proposed that the chiefs of these units be selected according to a new practice by competition among candidates from within and outside the ministry. Over time, said Shevardnadze, competitive selection of diplomatic posts would also be introduced, and age limits would be set to ensure the upward mobility of the younger staff members. He deplored the fact that the current average age of attaches was more than thirty. Going beyond structural and housekeeping matters, Shevardnadze boldly stalked into the policy arena. Addressing changes that would affect the policymaking process and make it more democratic, Shevardnadze said, "The decision of the nine-

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teenth all-Union party conference on organizing a constitutionally empowered mechanism for discussing and adopting the most important foreign policy decisions has been gained by the suffering of our people. It has been gained by the sad experience of Afghanistan. . . . The conference decision to have supervision exercised by bodies elected by the people on the basis of democratic procedures has been a gain of our diplomacy. The full realization of this decision will restore its authority and return the initial functions inherent solely to it."26 Democratic supervision should, Shevardnadze emphasized, be brought to bear in particular where national security issues were concerned: "From the decision of the nineteenth party conference on establishing a constitutionally empowered mechanism there follows the necessity of introducing a legislative procedure whereby all the agencies engaged in military and military-industrial activities would be supervised by a superior body elected by all the people. This would concern both the questions of the use of military force beyond the nation's national boundaries, the plans for defense development, and the openness of defense budgets in relation to the problem of national security."27 Concluding with a brief summary of the fruits of the ministry's activities by mid-1988, Shevardnadze quoted the report of the nineteenth party conference: "We have improved or for the first time established relations with a large number of states, both neighboring and very distant. And relations have not been spoiled with any states." The following year, on 23 October 1989, in a precedentbreaking move, Shevardnadze delivered a report to the recently reconstituted USSR Supreme Soviet of people's deputies, entitled "The Foreign Policy and Diplomatic Activity of the USSR, April 1985-0ctober 1989."28 In this report the foreign minister covered a great deal of territory in an effort to establish new ground rules for cooperation between the foreign ministry and the parliament in the policymaking process. One hundred of the report's 111 pages dealt with national security and foreign policy issues, Soviet-bilateral relations worldwide, and Soviet participation in various international agencies and activities. Remaining sections offered the people's deputies concrete details about the restructuring and operation of the diplomatic service, discussed the need for the heightened role of an informed public in the foreign policy process, and outlined the appropriate responsibility (in Shev-

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ardnadze's eyes a substantial one) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for framing the nation's policies. Shevardnadze's account was in part an effort to educate the new parliament about the current staffing of the ministry and to boast about the efficiency of its operation. On 1 July 1989 the total personnel in the central apparatus of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he said, numbered 3,737; half of these were diplomatic officers, and the remainder, clerical, administrative, and technical workers. The ministry also had 9,038 persons posted to Soviet missions abroad, 40 percent of whom were diplomatic personnel. These totals, claimed Shevardnadze, did not represent an increase in personnel over the past five years, even though the ministry's workload had grown. He claimed, in fact, that the ministry had reduced the expenses of the central apparat during 1989 by 1.5 million rubles, out of a total budget (which included overseas institutions as well) of 212.6 million rubles. The building of Soviet embassies abroad and the maintenance of the Moscow State Institute for International Relations, the Diplomatic Academy, and other ministry schools cost an additional 50.8 million rubles, which still compared favorably, Shevardnadze argued, to the U.S. State Department budget in 1989 of $2.3 billion. Shevardnadze gave the deputies a progress report on the continued restructuring of the ministry. He stressed the key importance to the legislators of the creation in August 1989 of the ministry's Department for Liaison with the USSR Supreme Soviet and for Inter-parliamentary Cooperation, designed expreSSly to work with the Supreme Soviet deputies and with the recently created International Affairs Committee of the Supreme Soviet. 29 Both units at that time appeared destined to figure more and more prominently in the evolving foreign policy process. In view of the attacks later directed at the foreign minister by military deputies, it is worth recalling the hopes Shevardnadze expressed in this report for the fruitful collaboration of ministry and parliament in decision making and his faith that the new openness of the process would guarantee that correct decisions would be made: Within the framework of the USSR Constitution, the Foreign Ministry has the duty of taking part in the government's presentation to the USSR Supreme Soviet of foreign policy issues that are of vital

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significance for the state and the Soviet people. The decisions of the USSR Supreme Soviet on these issues create reliable guarantees that could totally rule out in the future any unpublicized adoption of foreign policy decisions on matters of basic importance. This means, in particular, that such important decisions as the use of contingents of the USSR armed forces outside the borders of the national territory in the event of there being a need to fulfill international treaty obligations in maintaining peace and security will in the future be discussed by the organs of representative power, and the USSR Foreign Ministry will have the duty of presenting its conclusion both on the existing situation and on the prospects for its evolution, something that will enable the deputies to weigh all the consequences. A situation like the Afghan one will never be repeated again. 3D At the start of 1990 Shevardnadze appeared to expect solid support from the parliamentarians for his views. Later in the year, however, the crisis in the Persian Gulf was to remind him that the enlarged circle of decision makers in parliament included a vocal contingent representing the defense establishment. This group increasingly challenged his position, especially on issues concerning troop movements and national security, but also on foreign policy and even domestic issues. The third and final stage in the reshaping of the foreign policy establishment under Gorbachev began on 14 March 1990, when the Third Extraordinary Congress of USSR People's Deputies amended Article 6 of the USSR Constitution to end the monopoly of power of the CPsu in the Soviet political system. This action removed the party's legal basis for dominating the Soviet political process to the detriment of the government institutions and left the party without any legal leverage for a possible reversal of the processes of political change Gorbachev had initiated. As Aleksandr Dzasokhov, the newly appointed Politburo member and secretary responsible for ideology, put it bluntly in a press conference on 25 July 1990, "The Congress confirmed the transition to a multiparty system."31 During the Twenty-eighth Congress of the CPSU (2-13 July 1990), and the subsequent Central Committee plenums in July and October, the Soviet party experienced a metamorphosis that confirmed the waning of its power. With an announced deficit of

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over a billion rubles in its 1990 budget, the central staff of the CPsu faced deep personnel cuts in addition to those already made. In 1989, 536 senior officials had been released from the Central Committee apparat. Of the 1,493 full-time employees remaining, another 603 were marked for dismissal in 1990 to reduce the total apparat to 890 officials, divided among thirteen departments. 32 In addition, the Politburo and Secretariat were reorganized and restaffed to eliminate the previous overlap between government and party. This exceedingly portentous stricture meant that, except for Gorbachev, officers of the government or members of the presidium of the Supreme Soviet were excluded from membership on the Politburo to ensure a separation of party and government at this highest level and to maintain the Politburo strictly as a party organ. Politburo members like Aleksandr Dzasokhov were called upon to exert party influence and push party policies within government bodies by acting as people's deputies in parliamentary roles (such as Dzasakhov's chairmanship of the USSR Supreme Soviet International Affairs Committee) and not by holding ministry or other executive posts in the government. Meanwhile, the Politburo itself was expanded to an unwieldy size of twenty-four members. In the wake of the Twenty-eighth Party Congress Aleksandr Iakovlev, previously the party's chief spokesman for foreign affairs, left the Politburo and exchanged his party roles to concentrate his energies full-time on the President's Council. He was succeeded in the party by two Central Committee secretaries, Valentin Falin and Gennadii Ianaev, at a time when the role of secretary no longer carried great policymaking authority outside the party. Falin headed the party Commission on Problems of International Policy and Ianaev, head of the trade unions and newly appointed to the Politburo, was given responsibility for international affairs in that body.

Institutional Change and the Foreign Policy Process By the end of 1990, six years of Gorbachev's structural and staff changes had decisively and irreversibly transformed the Soviet foreign policy establishment. With respect to these developments, two questions need to be answered here: How had the

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policymaking process been affected? And what impact were the changes in this process likely to have on future Soviet policies toward Central America and the Caribbean? To answer these questions it will be useful first to recall how the Soviet decisionmaking process had worked in former times. 33 Valentin Falin provided the Western press with one of the earliest glimpses from a Soviet viewpoint into the context of decision making in the Brezhnev period. Interviewed by an American journalist in 1979, Falin said: "Our decision-making system differs from the American in that it is more centralized. In international or national security affairs the American Secretaries of State and Defense can make a good many decisions on their own. In our case all foreign policy and national security questions must be discussed and decided in the Politburo." With respect to foreign policy decisions, Falin said: "The process is about as follows: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs prepares a paper that deals with the issue in question on the basis of concrete facts. If the issue includes national security aspects, then the Ministry of Defense and possibly other Ministries are drawn into the preparation of the paper, and a summary of views is drawn up. This summary is then handed to the relevant Department in the Central Committee [i.e., the International Department], which employs its own experts and consulting staff, who check the facts before it is submitted to the Politburo."34 "Checking the facts," as Elizabeth Teague has observed, gave the International Department a tremendous leverage over the policy process, permitting it to decide what issues were presented for discussion and how these issues were framed. Another description of the shaping of the Soviet foreign policy line in the 1970S and early 1980s, this one by Marshal Akhromeev, also placed the locus of decision making within a limited circle of Politburo leaders: As a rule positions on all fundamental issues were worked out by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the KGB, the Ministry of Defense, and the cpsu International Department and were submitted to the cpsu Central Committee (cc) Politburo by A. A. Gromyko, Iu. V. Andropov, A. A. Grechko (or D. F. Ustinov following his [Grechko's] death), and B. N. Ponomarev. . . . Their decisions were made on a collegial basis."35 By mid-199°, in sharp contrast with this Brezhnevian model, the locus of foreign-policy decision making had moved decisively 1/

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from the party's Politburo to the government. The Politburo itself, as noted above, had been changed beyond recognition and was now composed only of party professionals whose most important government function was service in the legislature. The International Department's influence was similarly diminished. In a report to the 8 October 1990 session of the CPsu cc plenary, Oleg S. Shenin, cc secretary for local party organizations, briefly addressed the question of the party's new role with respect to foreign policy, indicating that the 10'S activities in the future would be strictly limited to the party's ties with "foreign parties and organizations": "Bearing in mind that foreign-policy problems and interstate relations are handled by the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations, the USSR Supreme Soviet, and, lately, the Presidential Council too, the functions of the International Department-which will focus more on implementing ties with foreign parties and organizations-will be clarified."36 "And," he might realistically have added, "sharply circumscribed." In November 1991, former International Department chief Valentin Falin told T ASS reporter Viktor Chistiakov in Bonn that the party had taken no part in decision making on the main issues of domestic or foreign policy for the past two years. 37 The major point to be made concerning the new model of foreign policy making is that, released from party control, it became the business of a large and growing number of participants-both institutions and individuals. By late 1990 actual decisions were made by and/or affected by the input of all the governmental units listed by Shenin, plus the Ministry of Defense, republic ministries of foreign affairs, and the public at large. New constraints had been placed on the policymaking process by the expectation that policies should be responsive to public interests and public opinion. The greatest change in the context of decision making was introduced by the new legislature-the Congress of Deputies and Supreme Soviet. In their very first sessions these parliamentary bodies raised questions about how the USSR was spending its budget for foreign assistance. Thus the maiden address of the noted economist Nikolai P. Shmelev, on 8 June 1989, before the Congress of USSR People's Deputies, dealt specifically with the question of Soviet foreign aid to Cuba. Said Shmelev: "It is

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reasonable to ask whether anyone has ever thought how much our interests in, for instance, Latin America cost us. According to professional U.S. [CIA] estimates it is $6-8 billion every year. A considerable amount of that in hard currency_ And, bafflingly, we spend a considerable proportion of this sum on, for instance, paying four times the going rate for Cuban sugar (compared with the world price), and we pay in hard currency. This source alone would be enough to keep the consumer market in balance for the few years we need in order to turn ourselves around somehow and really embark on the road of reform."38 This was only the beginning. Six months later Elena Arefeva, a scholar in the Institute of World Economics and International Relations, scolded the legislators for not reacting more forcefully to Shmelev's criticism of the foreign aid budget and for having refused to examine this question more closely: "I think that even a cursory discussion in the Supreme Soviet of the structure of expenditure on economic aid would cast doubt on the advisability of a substantial proportion of this expenditure."39 In a followup Izvestiia article, Arefeva went on to argue that the USSR's national security problems were at home and not in the Third World: "The clearest example of the contradictoriness in our actions is the painstaking work to lower the arms level in the negotiations with the United States and in parallel the rendering of mass military assistance to the neighbor of the United States-Cuba (and until the beginning of 1989, Nicaragua as well). . . . While rejecting our false ideological goals within the country, we still cannot get rid of them in our relations with the Third World, especially Latin America."4o Such comments, echoed in parliamentary chambers and the press, illustrated the kinds of pressures legislators increasingly were exerting toward limiting financial and military aid abroad, and especially aid to such countries as Cuba, a bastion of Stalinist orthodoxies long discredited in the USSR. The Supreme Soviet also began with some boldness to exercise its oversight responsibilities. With respect to the approval of ministerial appointments, for example, although Shevardnadze received a unanimous vote of approval, other ministerial nominees, including Minister of Defense Iazov, were grilled extensively. Shevardnadze's lengthy and detailed 1989 report to the legislature on the foreign ministry's work since 1985 was an important acknowledgment of ministerial accountability to the legislature.

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Similarly, the meeting of the Supreme Soviet Foreign Affairs Committee on 12 April 1990 to approve ambassadorial appointments for the first time indicated, as committee chair Dzasokhov said, that the parliamentarians intended henceforth to pay "special attention to this important sphere of activity of the Soviet state." At that April meeting, committee member F. M. Burlatskii, chief editor of Literaturnaia gazeta, indicated some of the reasons why the legislators felt it important to monitor the new ambassadorial appointments. He remarked that "in the past, ambassadorial appointments, especially those to countries of Eastern Europe and countries of socialist orientation of the Third World, were often given to failed members of the party and state apparat, much to the detriment of our country's international relations." On the present occasion, Burlatskii noted that the ministers being approved were not only highly qualified candidates in their special fields but also-because four of the ambassadors had been serving as deputy ministers in Moscow, where they had closely observed the processes of perestroika-had a special "understanding of the interconnection of internal and external policies," which, Burlatskii felt, would be of particular value for their new positions. 41 One of the deputy ministers, the new ambassador to Washington, Aleksandr Bessmertnykh, explained why he did not consider his ambassadorial appointment a step down in rank: "I consider that we have begun a time when the ambassador and the embassy must not only gather, select, and analyze information, but also on the basis of this information provide viewpoints and concrete proposals, and help make decisions. In other words, go over to that phase of a process of decision making which earlier, essentially, began in Moscow." The presence of ambassadors like Bessmertnykh, who were determined to participate in decision making, indicated that the deputies in the Kremlin would need to maintain close liaison with major embassies as well as with the ministry staff in Moscow. The Supreme Soviet also made clear very early its intention to demand a voice in national security decisions, especially with regard to the appropriate size of the armed forces or the deployment of troops outside of the country. En Un Kim, a member of the USSR Supreme Soviet International Affairs Committee, told the press that the following question had been raised at the 3

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October 1990 session of the parliament: liOn what grounds does Eduard Shevardnadze tell the Security Council session in New York that if the United Nations decides to dispatch troops to the Persian Gulf region the Soviet Union will also take part in that action?" Kim protested, IISending Soviet troops abroad is the right of the Supreme Soviet, but . . . no one consulted us. It is true that our country does have definite commitments determined by membership in the United Nations, but the Constitution, which does not permit ministries to infringe parliament's rights, must not be forgotten either. . . . We deputies should perhaps also take a more active part in talks on international problems of great importance, those concerned with disarmament, for example."42 To answer the legislators Shevardnadze appeared at a parliamentary debate ten days later and promised the assembled deputies that "any use of Soviet troops outside the country demands a decision of the Soviet Parliament." One of the military deputies, however, Colonel Nikolai S. Petrushenko, remained sharply critical of what he termed the ministry's"casual approach to the possible use of military force" and its vacillating Iraq policy. He complained that, "We army political workers cannot keep pace with the reorientation of the political course of the foreign ministry."43 In the course of raising policy questions, the debates of the USSR people's deputies provided a forum for the airing of bureaucratic differences of opinion not only on national security and foreign policy issues, but on underlying questions of turf. At some point, Shevardnadze's efforts to extend his ministry's influence in the sphere of national security policy was bound to draw fire from military deputies in the Soviet parliament. Shevardnadze opened the turf war. In July 1988 he had declared to his ministry colleagues that a number of past mistakes had been made by the former Soviet leadership with respect to defense issues, such as the decisions to deploy SS-20S and to stockpile chemical and nuclear arsenals, all of which, he argued, could have been prevented with advice from the foreign ministry. He proposed in fact that in the future, "fundamental innovations in the area of defense development should be tried out in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for their legal conformity to current international agreements and stated political positions."44 He also demanded that more publicity and scrutiny be given to defense budgets.

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Backlash from military deputies was predictable. When, in December 1990, Shevardnadze announced his resignation from the foreign ministry in an impassioned speech before the deputies, it was clear that the attacks upon him from Petrushenko and other military deputies had contributed in large measure to this personal decision. With or without Shevardnadze the bureaucratic conflict and its fallout on policy making would go on. 45 Besides taking a direct hand in shaping foreign policy, Supreme Soviet deputies were playing a modest but growing role as informal diplomats in visits to other nations. The exchange of parliamentary delegations in fact became a systematic instrument of diplomacy, a calculated first step in the Soviet effort to reach out diplomatically to states that previously had no formal relations with the Soviet Union. Legislators, representing the Soviet government and not the Soviet party, with its Bolshevik aura, were able to downplay communist rhetoric and establish an ideologically neutral relationship with a variety of political regimes. In his July 1988 speech Shevardnadze showed his awareness of the emergence in the Soviet Union of public opinion as a force that was shaping foreign policy. He announced the creation in the foreign ministry, with the help of the Institute of Sociological Research, of a Center for Public Opinion Research, "making it possible on the one hand to correlate public opinion with planned foreign policy actions and, on the other, to foster and shape it."46 He went on to urge each diplomat to become a public affairs specialist in order to strengthen the ministry's ties with society and to study and shape public opinion. Nikolai Shishlin, in a radio discussion of Soviet relations with Japan, demonstrated the important influence public opinion was already exerting on foreign policy decisions when he tried to explain why Gorbachev had taken a hard-line position on Japan's claim to the Kurile Islands. The major reason in his view, said Shishlin, was that Soviet public opinion was adamant on this point and would not even countenance a discussion of the issue: "The imperial traditions are embedded so deeply in our consciousness that when I say [on domestic radio], not that I would hand the islands over, but that I would merely consider ways of resolving the territorial problem, I get letters asking me whether my salary is paid in yen."47 As this brief survey indicates, Soviet decision making on for-

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eign policy was by 1990 no longer a covert process carried on by a very limited group of decision makers at the apex of an immense party-and-government hierarchy. It had become public property; it involved participants from among the presidential, legislative, and ministerial branches of government and from budding private commercial sectors; and after February 1991 policy makers could expect to receive inputs from the newly established Foreign Policy Association, designed according to its founder Shevardnadze to "provide independent expert foreign policy assessments and to develop connections and contacts at a nongovernmental level." 48 Responsive to a growing number of interests, the decision makers were also bound by the new constraints and pressures arising from domestic interests and public opinion. Soviet foreign policy had become the product of an open negotiation of a multitude of conflicting demands; ultimately, when the nation's security and international interests were at stake, it required the consent and consensus of the governed. These changes, along with the radical restructuring of the Soviet political system, irreversibly reshaped Soviet policies toward Central America and the Caribbean. Until the Gorbachev era, Soviet policy in this world region was largely framed by the Soviet party ideologues, based on their Image I analyses, with encouragement from the defense establishment. The International Department of the CPSU, chief overseer of Soviet ideological interests in the Third World and backed by the tremendous resources of a powerful, party-dominated government, provided an overwhelming bureaucratic thrust to support national liberation and revolution in the Third World. To societies wanting violent change, the USSR offered revolutionary dreams, blueprints, training, cash, arms, and an international fellowship. By the 1990s, all this was gone. The models, the economic and military aid. Cheap oil. Even the international publications and the communist front organizations were in disarray. The Praguebased monthly journal of communist and workers' parties, Problems of Peace and Socialism, closed its doors on 15 May 1990 after some thirty-two years of publication to 145 countries; Radio Peace and Progress, the source of many didactic broadcasts in Spanish to Latin America, announced on 31 May 1991 that it was signing off for good; and the World Peace Council, headquartered in

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Helsinki, was the subject of a Komsomol'skaia pravda expose which revealed Moscow as the source of 90 percent of its funding and much of its policy guidance. 49 Among those framing Soviet foreign policy in mid-1991, the chief actors had become the president and his National Security Council, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Supreme Soviet; meanwhile the defense ministry, the KGB, and the party also played specialized roles in a process that was increasingly pluralistic and open to public scrutiny. Castro, examining the Soviet scene from his perspective and trying to ferret out the source of growing threats to Soviet-Cuban relations, pinpointed a I'rise in the influence of forces in the Soviet parliament and society as a whole," forces that in his eyes appeared "unquestionably connected with reaction and with imperialism."50 But the changes were not over. Forces still more destructive of the old Soviet order shook that system from its moorings by the end of 1991--ending the seventy-four-year-old reign of MarxismLeninism in the USSR-and once again transformed the context of decision making in Moscow.

From USSR to Russia and the Commonwealth The trigger event was the failed coup in Moscow on 19-21 August 1991, ineptly assayed by eight reactionary leaders (five of whom Gorbachev had handpicked for his National Security Council).51 A series of apocalyptic events ensued, starting with Russian President Boris Yeltsin's forceful move to uproot the Soviet communist party's remaining bastions of power throughout Russia and culminating at year's end with the demise of the USSR and Gorbachev's resignation. Within the foreign policy establishment, the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs was immediately caught up in post-coup politics, personnel changes, and increasingly desperate struggles to maintain its authority and unique role as the voice for the Soviet Union. However, the outcome of these skirmishes depended upon the larger battle being fought by the republics for independence from Moscow's central control. The Union ministry finally passed into the hands of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 21 December 1991, when Gorbachev's concept of the Union of Sovereign States, intended to preserve at least a mod-

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icum of central direction and structures, was officially rejected at Alma Ata by eleven of the republics in favor of a Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Meanwhile, actions with immense impact on reshaping the policymaking machinery of the Soviet Union were taken by Boris Yeltsin. With a move as fateful as his successful defiance of the coup leaders, he broke the cpsu's remaining grasp on power in Russia by outlawing party activities (including the party's incomeproducing operations, such as publishing houses), confiscating its extensive properties in Moscow and instructing local authorities to do the same elsewhere throughout Russia. Spotlighting this act, the building on Staraia ploshchad' where the CPsu Central Committee apparat had long resided in elegance was seized overnight and occupied by the Russian government bureaucracy. Equally significant were Yeltsin's move to assume major financial responsibility for various bankrupt agencies of the USSR and, early in November, his vow to slash Russian financial support to most of the Union ministries and to cut the staff of the Soviet foreign ministry by 90 percent. 52 To understand the orientation of the new foreign policy establishment that finally emerged with the creation of the Commonwealth, it is necessary to survey briefly the trials and restructuring experienced by the USSR foreign ministry in the post-coup months up to 21 December. During that period the Union ministry fought for survival, arguing that although the foreign policy interests of individual republics might be adequately served by the separate republican foreign ministries, only the central agency of the USSR foreign ministry could represent the shared and unified interests of the republics taken as a whole. Thus it was claimed in the Union ministry's offices on Smolenskaia ploshchad' that while individual republics might become members of the United Nations General Assembly, the permanent Soviet seat on the UN Security Council and membership in international economic organizations like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund must be held by a centralized agency. 53 In the months immediately following the August coup attempt, the Union ministry was handicapped in its fight for survival by the heightening disarray and uncertainty pervading its ranks. On August 23, Shevardnadze's successor as minister of foreign affairs, career diplomat Aleksandr Bessmertnykh, had

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been forced to resign, charged with showing insufficient resistance to the coup. His replacement was Boris Pankin, a former journalist with only nine years of diplomatic service. 54 Pankin's appointment disturbed a large number of ministry veterans, who wanted a stronger leader for the bureaucratic infighting with republican foreign ministries that was threatening the Union ministry's leading role and its very existence. On 30 August 1991, more than eight thousand ministry employees and their relatives reputedly signed petitions demanding Shevardnadze's return. 55 Under Pankin's stewardship the ministry dealt gingerly with staff dismissals, despite outcries from parliamentarians and the press demanding a wholesale clearance of suspected party hardliners. Immediate casualties were lulii Kvitsinskii (who, left in charge by Bessmertnykh during the crisis, gave ministry support to the coup leaders), Valentin Nikiforov (the former party careerist in charge of ministry staffing), and a number of ambassadors who had reportedly been quick to remove Gorbachev's picture from their embassy walls. Pankin's greater challenge was to come up with reorganizational plans to preserve the ministry within the Union of Soverign States that Gorbachev sought to establish. On 4 November 1991, Gorbachev's State Council approved a plan to abolish the trade ministry (the USSR Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations) and transfer its staff and missions to the USSR foreign ministry. 56 The new ministry was renamed "USSR Ministry of External Relations," and Soviet embassies were instructed to provide new kinds of services to Soviet and republican trade missions and the republican diplomats who were now expected to appear on the diplomatic stage. First Deputy Minister Vladimir Petrovskii explained to journalists that this reorganization would permit the ministry to "draft and implement the sovereign states' uniform foreign and trade policies," and he emphasized that "coordination between the republics is becoming particularly important, because the new ministry must act on behalf of both the Union and the republics. "57 The pressures for more radical change, however, were far too great, and on 19 November, in a last desperate attempt to save the Union ministry, Shevardnadze was brought back to head the agency, as it turned out, for its final month. In the meantime, as the Union ministry faded, the government of the Russian Federation swept in to fill the power vacuum that

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had resulted from Yeltsin's routing of the communist apparat, and the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs flourished. Symbolizing the change in his ministry's stature, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrei Kozyrev moved into the former Staraia ploshchad' office of coup leader Gennadii Ianaev; while Russia's first diplomatic representative to the United States, Andrei Kolosovskii, occupied the old office of the International Department's V. Falin. With the signing of the Commonwealth agreement on 21 December 1991, the Russian ministry (with a staff of 240) officially absorbed the Union ministry (with a staff of 5,000 in Moscow and 9,000 diplomats abroad), and Russia assumed the permanent seat on the UN Security Council formerly occupied by the USSR.58 Simultaneously, the stature of the Russian minister of foreign affairs skyrocketed. A career diplomat, Andrei Kozyrev had risen rapidly within the USSR foreign ministry, where by October 1989 he had become chief of the International Organizations Administration, a unit responsible for UN and arms control issues. In this capacity, in June 1990, he had briefed the press concerning an international seminar being conducted in Moscow on the future of the UN .59 Subsequently, taking a bold plunge, he left the USSR foreign ministry for the fledgling Russian ministry, where, as Russia's minister of foreign affairs, he became one of Yeltsin's trusted advisors. By the time of the Commonwealth negotiations he had become known as a member of the Russian president's "three-man brain trust," which included Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Shakrai and First Deputy Prime Minister Gennadii Burbulis. 60 Kozyrev's growing preeminence as a policymaker for Russia and the CIS make his foreign policy ideas worthy of serious scrutiny. In late December 1991 he explained to a military audience his view of Russia's foreign policy goals, which gave first priority to instituting a new set of values: "the same system of values that unites the West, i.e., market economic values and the priority of the individual." Hence one of Russia's foreign policy priorities, as he put it, "is to get back into the ranks of our natural partners and allies. At the end of the last century and at the beginning of this century Russia held its proper place among states like France, Germany, and the United States. We need to get back to that circle."

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A second priority, he said, "is to subordinate our foreign policy actions not to some sort of global schemes [a reference to Image I ideology and military expansionism], but to normal economic interests. Everything that promotes economic development and normal life for Russians will be in line with our interests in foreign pOlicy."61 Elsewhere he listed among the foremost tasks of the Russian foreign ministry, "securing Russia's succession in the international sphere, as well as giving appropriate assistance to the other independent states of the Commonwealth."62 Russia had become responsible for certain issues that were formerly Union concerns (such as arms control talks, membership in international organizations), but it remained unclear just how these would be handled in the future if the Commonwealth endured. In the meantime, as the former republics moved vigorously to establish their own foreign policies and foreign relations, with commercial considerations obviously ranking high among their priorities, Russia was pledged to help them. On this topic Kozyrev said, "I would like them [the former Soviet republics] to be citizens of a civilized free world. I hope that the other sovereign states will also [like Russia] move along this road [of radical democratic changes in foreign policy], and we will give all possible assistance and provide the most favorable conditions both for using Russian embassies and for using the central apparatus so that the republics, the present sovereign states, are able to join the world community in full measure."63 The full implications of these views and of the various institutional and policy changes accompanying the dismemberment of the USSR in the closing months of 1991 remained unclear as the new year got under way. Yet the outlines of some future trends were already visible. Of first importance, Kozyrev's remarks indicated that the deideologization of foreign policy begun under Gorbachev and Shevardnadze would go forward with renewed strength. Second, the old communist party, having lost its institutionalleverage within the political system, had forfeited its ability to shape a global strategy for the Commonwealth. Yeltsin's attacks upon the CPsu guaranteed that the remnants or successors of that party would be only one of many political groups seeking to provide input into the foreign policy process by participating in future legislative bodies in Russia and the other former Soviet republics. Third, a major locus of foreign policy making would

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remain in Moscow, where the individual foreign ministries of the Commonwealth states were already meeting under the aegis of the Russian foreign ministry to deal with shared international interests. The non-Russian Commonwealth states, however, were closed out of the legislative debate in Russia's parliament, for they were without the representation they had enjoyed in the former Soviet parliament. Diffusion of foreign policy making to the separate state capitals, and perhaps legislatures, would therefore characterize the foreign policy process in the post-Gorbachev period. In sum, as the Gorbachev era ended, the prevailing winds of change were centrifugal. The likelihood was that in future all the Commonwealth states, acting largely on their own, would seek as vigorously as their economic and political health might allow to expand their diplomatic and commercial relations with neighboring countries and throughout the world. With images now free of the stigma of Stalinism and the burden of Soviet ideology, they might expect their initiatives to meet generally with a high degree of acceptance.

Ripple Effects of Perestroika on Relations with Cuba

Four years of Gorbachev's new political thought, glasnost, and perestroika not only had a direct, jarring impact on Soviet domestic and foreign policies; they produced as well new factors that worked as separate stimuli in a chain reaction to shape Soviet relations in Central America and the Caribbean. Disruptive effects upon Soviet-Cuban relations were beginning to show by the time Gorbachev visited Havana in April 1989. Even more disruptive "ripple effects" of perestroika were to surface later. By April 1989 preliminary efforts to move the Soviet economy from a command-administrative system toward a market economy had already created a striking contrast between the Soviet and Cuban models. Some Soviet innovations that would have an eventual impact on Moscow's foreign policy, as, for example, the use of economic instead of ideological criteria to make foreign policy decisions, had not yet affected Soviet relations with Cuba. Down the road, however, it was clear that disaster loomed for Cuba if the Soviet oil which kept Cuba's economy alive were to be used instead to earn hard currency for the Soviets in world markets. Soviet-U.S. rapprochement was another factor with disturbing implications for Cuba in both the near and long term. And the abandonment of world revolution by Moscow shattered the bedrock beneath the great Marxist ideological edifice of world revolution which had served Castro as the rationale for many of his domestic and foreign initiatives and contributed to his stature as a world leader. By late 1989, for Castro perhaps the most ominous ripple effects of Gorbachev's perestroika were the actions of the East bloc countries in repudiating the Stalinist political and economic models and Soviet permissiveness in sanctioning the collapse of the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance (CEMA). When the

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Eastern European countries denounced communism and transformed their own systems, they also reviewed and discarded commitments forced upon them by the "international unity" of their former alliances. And once they became free agents they quickly scrapped promises made earlier to their CEMA affiliate, Cuba. Gorbachev's visit to Cuba in April 1989 offered Western observers intriguing glimpses of the yawning gap that had widened in Soviet-Cuban relations during the Gorbachev era. The contrast in the two leaders' apparel-Gorbachev's Western-cut business suit and Castro's military uniform-was appropriately symbolic, highlighting the conflicting policy perspectives of the two leaders. Castro's combat fatigues trumpeted his past and present reliance upon military instruments in policy implementation and reflected his long-standing, Image I posture toward "U.S. imperialism." Gorbachev's appearance, on the other hand, quietly suggested certain approaches of his new political thought: reliance upon diplomacy to settle regional conflicts and a perception of the United States as a partner instead of an unbending antagonist in a zero-sum game. As the astute Soviet political commentator Nikolai Shishlin remarked on Radio Moscow shortly after Gorbachev's visit, this pragmatic approach meant working to settle regional problems "with the partners God gave us and not with some ideal partner."l Castro, in his public speeches before and during Gorbachev's visit, subscribed to the Gorbachev line with something less than great enthusiasm, encouraging a spate of journalistic speculation in the West about just how little impact Soviet reforms and pressures were having upon Cuba's foreign and domestic policies. 2 Ironically, the militarized and centralized Cuban regime of the 1990S owed a great deal to past Soviet guidance and aid. 3 Soviet pressures in the late 1960s, by squeezing off the vital artery of oil to Cuba, had hastened a domestic restructuring of Cuba's economy in the Stalinist mode and produced a highly centralized domestic economy and repressive political control. When the oil again began to flow, so did arms and military equipment. As noted in a previous chapter, in the decade before Gorbachev came to power (1975 to 1985), the Cuban armed forces, with Soviet support, grew from 120,000 to 295,000, and the number of citizens under arms increased from 12.9 per 1,000 inhabitants to 29.5. 4

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Armed by the Soviets, Cuban forces in 1989 were the largest in Latin America, with a regular army of 145,000, ready reserves of 110,000, and a Territorial Troops Militia of over a million men and women. 5 With Moscow's help, Cubans were able to promote nationalliberation and socialism in Central America, the Caribbean, and elsewhere in the Third World, where they not only engaged in direct military actions but transshipped arms, provided training and organizational advice to national-liberation and proMarxist leaders, and served as a revolutionary model for political movements in recently liberated colonies. 6 In Central America and the Caribbean, Cuba played a pivotal role in the effort to erode U.S. influence in the region. Through the early Gorbachev years, as in the past, Castro continued to act as the front man for actions the Soviets did not want to take openly, such as the transshipment of arms to guerrillas in El Salvador and Guatemala, and the organization and training of these groups. 7 Cuba also served Soviet military interests in other ways, a point attested to by the 6,000 Soviet military advisors remaining in Cuba in the 1990S.8 Joseph Treaster reported in the New York Times on 11 January 1989 that the Soviets were using Cuba as a base for reconnaissance aircraft and naval exercises, and as the site of a sprawling electronic intelligence center monitoring U.S. communications. In addition, while advancing pro-Soviet policies in international forums, such as meetings of the Nonaligned Movement,9 Cuba had become a conference center for many kinds of international meetings. IO Finally, Cuba's sponsorship of leftist regimes served as a model for Central American and Caribbean island revolutionaries. II Over a period of almost three decades the two countries had developed an intricate, bilateral network of aid, trade, and military and political relations that constituted a marriage of convenience for both. Thus the ceremonious signing of the first SovietCuban Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation during Gorbachev's visit to Havana was a pro forma recognition of their twenty-eightyear-old alliance that was long overdue. One aspect of the Soviet-Cuban linkage was expressed in human terms. According to Soviet sources, in 1987 some 83,000 Soviet citizens visited the "Island of Freedom," and over 9,000 Soviet citizens were in residence in Cuba on a long-term basis, while 4,000 lived there permanently. By 1989 some 377,000 Cuban spe-

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cialists had been trained in the USSR, and over a third of Cuban candidates and doctors of science had defended their dissertations in Soviet academies. Seven thousand Cuban students were enrolled in Soviet educational institutes in April 1989.12 The diversity and number of high-level contacts between the two countries provided evidence that both sides were seriously committed to maintaining their extensive linkages. In 1988 alone, Moscow's distinguished emissaries to Havana included two CPsu Central Committee (cc) secretaries (Anatolii Dobrynin and Vadim Medvedev), two deputy chairmen of cc departments (Andrei Umov and G. K. Kriuchkov), the USSR minister of internal affairs (Colonel General Aleksandr Vlasov), a deputy chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, who made two separate trips, in January and May (V. M. Kamentsev), two deputy ministers of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs (V. G. Komplektov and Anatolii Adamishin), Foreign Trade Minister Boris Aristov, USSR Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces Sergei Akhromeev, who led one of several high-level military delegations that visited Cuba during the year, and Vice-Admiral I. Kasatonov, who brought to port in Havana a Soviet naval squadron (including a large anti-submarine ship, a Zadomii escort ship, and a diesel submarine).13 During the same year, a steady stream of Cuban officials visited Moscow to confer with their Soviet counterparts. They included representatives from the Cuban party's Politburo and Secretariat, Cuba's government ministries (representing various fields of the economy, education, science, and technology), and Cuba's armed forces. Multiple agreements were signed covering joint activities in all these areas. 14 Behind the marriage facade, however, sources of tension in the Soviet-Cuban linkage persisted for a number of reasons. One of these was Cuba's stark economic dependency on the USSR. With respect to trade relations, for example, the USSR supplied almost 100 percent of Cuba's oil and petroleum products, coal, pig iron, cotton, newsprint, and wood products; 92 percent of its wheat and flour; 70 to 90 percent of its rolled ferrous metals, tractors, and road construction equipment, and 70 percent of its trucks and automobiles. IS The USSR also served as Cuba's chief market, taking 70 percent of Cuba's exports. 16 By contrast, Cuban exports were not of great strategic value to Moscow, even though Cuba provided one-third of the sugar consumed in the

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Soviet Union and ranked. sixth among the Soviet Union's trading partners. 17 Trade and aid were closely linked, with much Soviet aid to Cuba consisting of subsidies paid on Soviet purchases of Cuban sugar and nickel at prices higher than the world market. In 1986 Soviet subsidies to Cuba totaled $3.8 billion for sugar and $100 million for nickel. These subsidies and the fact that the Soviets were making 20 percent of their payments for sugar in convertible hard currency were Soviet concessions to Cuba that were major bones of contention in periodic trade negotiations. 18 Another source of acrimony was Cuba's failing command economy, demonstrated by its inability to meet contract obligations. While Cuba's trade with the Soviet Union had been growing at 10 percent per year until 1987, in the first quarter of 1988 Cuba's exports to the USSR fell by 14 percent (from $1.62 billion to $1.39 billion). Other financial indicators also slumped. In 1987, Cuba's GNP declined by 3.5 percent; its "social consumption" sector declined by 4.7 percent. Cuba's hard currency reserves on December 31, 1987, were $55.3 million, down 54 percent from the previous year. And Cuba:s debt to foreign creditors in Western Europe grew from $2.1 billion to $2.5 billion between 1986 and 31 December 1987.19 In order to conserve the hard currency needed to service that debt, Cuba slashed its annual imports from $1.2 billion in 1984-1986 to $900 million in 1987,20 with consequent negative repercussions on the quality of life of Cuban citizens. According to the CIA'S Handbook of Economic Statistics, 1991, the main burden of Cuba's economic failure fell upon the Soviet Union to the tune of annual subsidies (exclusive of arms transfers) ranging from an estimated $5.3 billion in 1985; $3.28 billion in 1986; $3.73 billion in 1987; $3. 27 billion in 1988; $3.72 billion in 1989; to $3.95 billion in 1990. An additional source of tension was Cuba's estimated tenbillion-dollar debt to the Soviet Union for past credits. According to a UPI report (4 April 1989), at the Havana news conference following his speech to the Cuban National Assembly, Gorbachev adroitly parried a reporter's question on this point by saying that while he was willing to write off Cuba's debt, more talks were necessary with Castro "before taking concrete steps."21 It was inevitable, too, that some difficulties in the working relationship of the two partners would arise from the asymmetries

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characterizing relations between a dominant and a subordinate power, and from ideological and historical differences. Gorbachev's perestroika poured oil on these slumbering coals.

Cuba's Positive Response to Gorbachev's New Thought Long before March 1988, when Gorbachev's book Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World belatedly appeared in Havana's book stores, it was plain that Soviet perestroika posed major challenges for Cuban foreign and domestic policies. In the international arena, Gorbachev's new orientation confronted Cuba with at least three demands: to seek to demilitarize regional conflicts (in Africa and Central America), to normalize (deideologize) and expand Cuba's relations with other states, and to work through multilateral, international organizations to address global problems. On the domestic front, perestroika put strong pressure on Cuba to follow the Soviet example by decentralizing and "modernizing" the Cuban economy to make it more efficient and productive. Soviet and Cuban media through 1988 reflected how Cuba was responding to these several imperatives of perestroika and how Moscow felt about the Cuban response. From the Kremlin's viewpoint, it was a mixed bag. Reports from Moscow describing the Cuban scene served as thinly disguised instruments for offering advice obliquely, depending on whether they were glowing accounts (registering full approval of Cuban actions as described), faint praise (suggesting Moscow's preferences were being only partially fulfilled), or outright but careful criticisms (indicating Moscow's disapproval). And while Havana's foreign policy did not completely fulfill the mandates of Gorbachev's perestroika, Cuba took several forceful steps to respond positively to all three of the foreign policy demands listed above. It was only in the domestic sphere that Castro emphatically and most visibly dug in his heels and refused to follow the Soviet example. Concerning the first mandate-to demilitarize local conflictsCastro moved with surprising alacrity in Angola. An early indication that Cuba was discussing with the Soviets the possibilities of ending this conflict was the meeting, on 31 March 1988, of Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Anatolii Adamishin with Castro in

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Havana. Appearing on a Havana telecast following the meeting, Adamishin said that the two parties had given "great attention to regional conflicts" in South Africa, Central America, and elsewhere, and that lithe identical position of the Soviet Union and the Republic of Cuba was confirmed during the talks; namely, aspiration toward a political solution, with political methods, of these conflicts."22 In this case, Cuba gave crucial support to Gorbachev's efforts to demilitarize and defuse regional conflicts by cooperating in the subsequent negotiations for a peaceful settlement of the Angola conflict. In mid-January 1989 Castro announced the withdrawal of the first 3,000 Cuban troops.23 It should perhaps be pointed out that he may have had his own reasons for being so accommodating. This was suggested by a highly placed Cuban defector, General del Pino, in the Spanishlanguage edition of the Miami Herald, 11-12 July 1987. Referring to Angola as "the Cuban Vietnam," General del Pino claimed that the high command of Castro's armed forces were saying among themselves that the Angola war had been lost and that they had been converted into a mercenary army." But Cuba's demilitarization had definite limits. This was indicated by Castro's unresponsiveness to certain points Gorbachev made to the Cuban National Assembly on 5 April 1989, such as Gorbachev's renunciation of "any theories and doctrines that justify the export of revolution" and his call for a "cessation of [the supply of] military arms to Central America from any quarter."24 Castro's remarks to his legislature dwelt instead on Cuba's need for a military buildup "proportionate to the threat of aggression [by the United States] which has hung over Cuba all these years."25 Thus Castro fell back on a very old complaint to justify the fact that Cuba's militarized society was out of step with East/ West detente. Earlier, in his speech to the Cuban National Assembly on 23 December 1988, he had railed that the eight years of the Reagan regime had been "a period of constant threat against Cuba," forcing his nation to consolidate its defense capability. Interestingly, on that occasion Pravda blandly went along, commenting on its front page on Christmas day that "Cubans intend to strengthen defense in order to oppose any aggressive design by the adversary."26 With respect to Gorbachev's mandate to normalize, deideologize, and expand Cuba's relations with other states, Cuba in the

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late 1980s took a number of steps that were positive from Moscow's point of view. For example, in an interview on 20 April 1988, the anniversary of the victory of Castro's forces at Playa Giron, Castro expressed his readiness to move from confrontation to dialogue in international relations, even with the United States. A. Moiseev, Pravda's man in Havana, quoted Castro as saying: "We do not want eternal antagonism between the United States and Cuba." And Castro added, "We are ready to live in peace with the United States and believe that the day will come when U.S. policy will be wiser than now."27 The signal was clear; Moscow was encouraging this kind of talk. Moscow also sought to encourage Cuba to normalize and expand its relations with nations throughout Latin America. As noted in the previous chapter, one method valued by the Gorbachev regime for developing contacts with noncommunist or anticommunist states in Latin America was the exchange of parliamentary delegations. Thus, in April 1988, the Kremlin appeared to be inviting Castro to emulate its own prototype for legislative exchanges in the Caribbean when a group of Soviet parliamentarians, visiting Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and Jamaica for the first time, stopped off at Cuba on the way. Their purpose was outlined by Aleksandr Mokanu, a vice-president of the USSR Supreme Soviet and leader of the group of Soviet MPS, in a TASS interview on 10 April: "[The USSR and the Caribbean countries] are united by a common desire for equitable and mutually beneficial cooperation in many fields and for stronger peace and lower international tension. . . . Parliament-to-parliament exchanges make a sizable contribution to this noble cause and we hope that the visit will facilitate better mutual understanding between the Soviet Union and Caribbean countries."28 Castro's response to the call to normalize Cuba's relations with other states was dramatic and direct. In August he personally attended the inaugural of the new Social Democratic president of Ecuador, R. Borja Cevallos. For Castro, whose visit to Chile in 1971 had been his last trip to South America, this journey was an important break with the past, and the fallout from it, according to the Soviet scholar E. S. Dabagian, was considerable. Dabagian praised this "new page in Cuban-Ecuadoran relations," arguing that thanks to the presence there, along with Fidel Castro and Daniel Ortega, of "participants holding different and to some ex-

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tent oppositional ideological political views," the event amounted to "a new summit meeting."29 To emphasize this point, Dabagian quoted the judgment of the Costa Rican paper Universidad that "the end of the cold war has begun in Latin America, and the United States is no longer in a position to reactivate it." The Ecuador visit opened other doors to Castro. He was able to meet and talk with the leaders of Colombia and Costa Rica, two states lacking formal diplomatic ties to Cuba. And he used the occasion to gain Ecuador's endorsement of a demand by the nations of the "Eight" (Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Panama, Peru, and Uruguay) for Cuba's readmission to the Organization of American States. To Moscow, Castro's overture was an important step toward deideologizing and expanding Cuba's relations in the Western hemisphere. 30 In January 1989, following up on this success, Castro attended the inaugural of Mexico's President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, where he initiated contacts with the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago, Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela. 31 February found him at the installation of Venezuela's President Carlos Andres perez. 32 With respect to another of Gorbachev's international mandates-working through international organizations to solve global problems-Castro's role as a leader of the Nonaligned Movement was already well established, and his activity and stature in Third World affairs, which had long served both Cuban and Soviet interests well, continued to grow. Thus Moscow had to be pleased when Havana was designated as the site of the first meeting of the new Coordinating Bureau of the Nonaligned Movement on Disarmament Problems. The timing of this meeting, in May 1988, just before the special session of the UN General Assembly on disarmament problems, allowed representatives from over one hundred nonaligned countries, national-liberation movements, and international groups to coordinate their views-views which, at that time, appeared to mesh fortuitously with Moscow's Third World policies. An illustration of this was the Havana forum's proposal to set up a zone of peace and cooperation in Central America, demanding the withdrawal of all foreign troops. As T ASS observed, the Havana appeal "expressed serious concern over the increased American military presence in this region."33 Moscow counted as evidence of Cuba's growing role in the

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Nonaligned Movement the Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation between Cuba and the People's Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, which Nagibullah signed in Havana in June 1988 during his tour at Castro's invitation. 34 Similarly, an alignment of views among nonaligned countries was one subject of discussion in January 1989, when for the first time a Cuban foreign policy department head was received in China by Premier Li Peng. 35 Castro's new role as senior diplomat in the Western hemisphere symbolized the changes in Cuba's foreign policy after Gorbachev came to power in the Soviet Union. By the spring of 1989 this role fitted in well with the USSR's vigorous efforts to mount a diplomatic and commercial offensive in Latin America. According to certain Soviet and Cuban theorists at this time, two great integrational processes were taking place in the world, one uniting and strengthening the socialist world, and the second bringing together the forces of the Latin American countries. Cuban VicePremier Rodriguez predicted an expanded role for Cuba in this context. He told Izvestiia on 2 April 1989, "Cuba could become the 'connecting link' between the two integration processes-the socialist process and the Latin American process."36 And indeed, Castro, as the world leader ideally placed to effect a juncture between these two systems, appeared to have seized on this opportunity with genuine enthusiasm. Thus, while Castro had not yet visibly forsworn his image as revolutionary high priest, he appeared to be reaching out forcefully in new directions to accommodate Soviet demands for a new kind of statesmanship in the Western hemisphere, one that might indeed help to open doors for Soviet diplomats, businessmen, and citizens. This accommodation on Castro's part may have given the two leaders some small ground for agreement with respect to Soviet and Cuban foreign policy goals during their meeting in Havana.

Cuba's Negative Response to Perestroika Castro's chief negative response to Gorbachev's perestroika was his absolute rejection of domestic reforms. Into April 1989 he refused to follow Moscow's lead on the domestic front. He refused to decentralize the Cuban economy in ways that would threaten the central command structure, and he clung to revolutionary ideol-

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ogy, refusing to take any steps that might undermine his effort to build a socialist nation. In November 1988, a month before Gorbachev's originally scheduled visit to Havana, the Cuban consul general in Leningrad told Politburo member Iu. F. Solovev that from Cuba's perspective, Gorbachev's domestic restructuring fitted the Soviet case-and, by implication, only the Soviet case. "We are convinced," the consul general said, "of the necessity of restructuring in your country, and we believe in it because its aim is to improve the Soviet people's way of life."37 Later, during Gorbachev's visit, Castro was more blunt. At the press conference following Gorbachev's talk to the Cuban National Assembly, Castro "rejected as 'madness' the possibility of a similar reform drive for Cuba, because of the geographical and demographic differences between the USSR and Cuba."38 After all, since Cuba's present system was the result of earlier Soviet pressures, grudgingly acceded to some twenty years earlier, Castro justifiably wondered how soon the latest instructions from Moscow might be reversed. During his stay in Havana, Gorbachev wisely refrained in public from giving any advice that could be interpreted as interference in Cuba's internal affairs. In private talks between the two leaders, however, the Kremlin's complaints about Cuban economic inefficiency would certainly have been aired. As recently as 15 October 1988 Pravda's Moiseev had taken a long and serious look at Soviet-Cuban economic projects and cataloged the following shortcomings typical of Castro's command economy: "a chronic shortage of skilled manpower at joint construction sites, an inadequate standard of labor organization, and a failure to provide facilities with a satisfactory supply of local construction materials and mechanisms." Said Moiseev, "Boosting the quality of labor is still on the agenda." He indicated that Moscow expected to exert pressure for change obliquely, by cultivating direct ties between Cuban and Soviet firms: "It is a question not only of eliminating 'bottlenecks,' but also of establishing and developing direct production ties" through joint enterprises. He remarked that while the first shoots of direct ties already existed, enterprises on both sides were failing to move ahead with proper alacrity, despite the important agreements signed in May 1988 at a Havana meeting of the Soviet-Cuban Commission for Economic, Scientific, and Technical Cooperation to establish joint ventures and to

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develop trade and economic relations over the next twenty years. Pointedly, Moiseev entitled his article "Time Won't Wait."39 Whether direct ties between firms would increase mutual productivity remained an open question. In addition to the drawbacks Moiseev had targeted, the fact was that no more than nine Cuban companies had even signed contracts with Soviet counterparts by the end of 1988. Moreover, as Moscow Radio's Havana correspondent Viktor Dmitriev noted in a March 1989 broadcast, the hard reality was that in changing times Soviet enterprises were finding new reasons for failing to live up to their contract obligations with respect to exports to Cuba. "Soviet industrial plants that have received independence," he said, "have found it more profitable to sell their products to capitalist countries and socialist countries in Europe than to Cuba."40 For public consumption, Gorbachev and Castro had little to say about their private talks on domestic Cuban issues. Pravda captured the essence of this inconclusiveness in its recap on 14 April, echoing the Soviet Politburo's comment: "During the talks, an understanding was reached about the need to enhance the effectiveness of Soviet-Cuban cooperation in every area, above all in the economy."41 As Moiseev had prophesied, time would not wait, and the failures of the Cuban domestic economy would be openly acknowledged in the Soviet media within the following year. In Moscow Gorbachev's Cuban trip had been conceived of as part of a larger Soviet political and economic offensive targeted upon Latin America as a whole, an offensive in which it was clear Moscow hoped its Cuban client would participate. Official Soviet sources emphasized this broad, upbeat perspective and the increased Soviet efforts to "normalize" interstate and commercial relations, noting that Shevardnadze was the first Soviet foreign minister ever to have visited Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil. Foreign ministry spokesman Gennadii Gerasimov put it most simply: "So we are trying to be everywhere."42

Ripple Effects of Perestroika, 1990-199 1 As the decade of the 1980s ended, Soviet-Cuban relations faced two severe challenges. One was the situation that resulted from

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the year of revolution in Eastern Europe and the unraveling of the alliances of the East bloc countries. The other was a temporary breakdown of trade relations between the USSR and Cuba. Both threatened Cuba with severe economic consequences and ended by increasing Cuba's already overwhelming economic dependence upon the USSR. Alarms for Cuba were sounded at the forty-fifth meeting of the ten CEMA states in Sofia, Bulgaria, 9-10 January 1990. The session opened with a declaration that the mechanism of cooperation of the bloc countries was Stalinist and obsolete and that efforts to boost the less-developed CEMA countries (Cuba, Mongolia, and Vietnam) had failed. 43 Most menacing to Castro was the proposal, "as of 1991, to switch in mutual trade to current world prices, with payment in hard currency." The disturbing point was stressed that "all commodities, including fuel, raw materials, and power, must be sold at real world prices." 44 Soviet Prime Minister Ryzhkov, representing the USSR at the Sofia session, described the opinion of the group in general as "firm and united for radical change," but with "nuances." Cuba, not surprisingly, voiced the opinion that the status quo in CEMA should be maintained: Said Ryzhkov, "The Cuban side considers that one should not go over to world prices and make payments in convertible currency in reciprocal trade." And he added, "We appreciate that we have to help [Cuba, Vietnam, and Mongolia] . . . but at the same time need to seek on the whole new approaches. This stance was firmly supported by Mongolia and Vietnam."45 Cuba, apparently, was unwilling to go along. Meanwhile, Soviet officials tried to minimize the extent of Cuba's growing isolation in CEMA. Raphael Fedorov, first deputy head of the International Department of the CPsu Central Committee, expressed Soviet solidarity with Cuba by attending the 9 January celebration at the Cuban embassy in honor of Cuba's National Liberation Day, which by an ironic quirk of fate coincided with the start of the CEMA meeting that highlighted Cuba's desperate dependence on the East bloc countries. 46 Leaning very far over backwards, P. Bogomolov, vice-president of the USSRLatin American Association of Friendship and Cultural Relations, took the occasion to call Cuba's "so-called 'international isolation' . . . mythical," although he acknowledged the existence of

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a "threat to the preferential or favorable condition of Cuba's interaction with its basic [fraternal] partners." He argued that far from being "known in history as the year the traditional ties of SovietCuban friendship seemingly fell apart," 1989 was the point when Soviet-Cuban relations had reached their highest point in the thirty-year history of the new Cuba. 47 Press attention to the CEMA restructuring spurred further discussion in the Soviet media on the question of Soviet aid to Cuba, which had been so prominently raised in the very first session of the Congress of People's Deputies in May 1989. It was just at this time, while the Sofia meeting was in session, that lzvestiia published the article by Elena Arefeva, already quoted in Chapter III, in which she criticized Moscow's policy of arming Cuba. In her essay Arefeva also attacked what she termed "concessions" to Cuba: "Excessively low prices for exported oil and excessively high prices for imported sugar and nickel, for example, belong to this category of concessions. According to CIA estimates, these concessions taken as a whole account for 75 percent of all aid [the USSR supplies] to its biggest recipients, such as Cuba."48 Reactions from Cuba revealed Castro's fears that the USSR as well as the Eastern European countries were abandoning him. Coining a new slogan-"Socialism or Death!"-to serve as his battle cry for the extraordinary campaign he was preparing to wage in the days ahead, Castro criticized what he called "the processes going on in Eastern Europe," identifying them as the real source of Cuba's economic difficulties. He wondered publicly whether these fraternal countries would honor the economic agreements they had made to Cuba for 1990: "We cannot be sure, since there have been so many disturbances, strikes, distortions, and stoppages of production that we do not know whether we will get the output traditionally supplied to us. It is proposed to adopt a five-year plan for 1991-1995, but on what basis, with whom, and what output can be guaranteed for our market? What price will they pay for our sugar? Perhaps they will try to pay for it at the price of the international garbage pit which is the world sugar market?"49 lzvestiia quoted Castro's remarks published in the Spanish newspaper El lndependiente to the effect that if the USSR continued to sell to Cuba at increasing prices while buying agricultural and raw materials at increasingly lower prices, "this will amount to the same policy which the United States is imple-

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menting with respect to developing countries. Thus the USSR . . . will ultimately join the U.S. blockade of Cuba."so Castro's mounting distrust was being fed in mid-January of 1990 by a disruption in Soviet-Cuban trade that could very well have seemed intentional on the Soviet side. It would not have been the first time that the Kremlin had withheld expected deliveries to Cuba in order to signal its displeasure. Earlier the flow of oil had slackened. This time it was grain-advanced deliveries of cereals promised for 1990 in Moscow's trade agreement with Havana, which, according to past practice, Havana had counted upon receiving in advance. With a noisy show of alarm, Havana announced a cut, effective February 1, in the existing bread ration in the provinces and raised the prices of bread and eggs in the capital. The measures were publicly blamed on the Soviets' failure to send the expected advance deliveries on the current year's account. 51 As Soviet journalists dug into the reasons for the grain shortfall, they uncovered a complex picture of transactions with failures by both partners. Their search confirmed, however, that Soviet contracts to supply grain to Cuba in 1989, which included one million tons of wheat, 300,000 tons of corn, and 170,000 tons of flour, had been completely fulfilled and could therefore not have contributed to the current problem. On the other hand, a lack of ships was found to have caused a Cuban shortfall of fruit to the USSR in 1989 amounting to 90,000 tons. 52 Vladimir Benediktov, a Soviet representative on the Soviet-Cuban Intergovernmental Commission for Economic, Technical, and Scientific Cooperation, explained that the Soviets had had to hire ships (for hard currency) for 1.6 million tons of shipping to Cuba in 1989.53 The dwindling of the Soviet merchant fleet evidently contributed to this problem, as did the inefficiency of Cuban ports. Three hundred ships were required to carry on trade with Cuba, but every day one hundred of these ships waited in Cuban ports, to be unloaded and reloaded. 54 Because of this slowdown, fruit for the Soviet Union rotted on the dock. Recriminations flew in both directions, with the Soviets blaming the Cubans for not planning ahead to create grain stockpiles. Meanwhile, Vladimir Shatalov, cosmonaut and president of the Soviet-Cuban Friendship Society, mildly protested, "We have never said that there are no problems in Soviet-Cuban economic relations."55

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Indicative of the special urgency felt by Cuba to work out these problems, Cuban Ambassador Julio Camacho Aguilera asked for meetings in Moscow with Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze on 26 January to discuss "a number of questions." He also met with USSR Council of Ministers Deputy Minister Leonid Abalkin on 31 January; and with Valentin Falin, chief of the International Department of the CPsu Central Committee, on 8 February 1990.56 For their part the Soviets at this time took several steps that seemed intended to reassure the Cubans without great expense to themselves or to Soviet-U.S. relations. They agreed to replace Cuba's outdated MiG-23s with MiG-29s, blaming "abnormal U.S.-Cuban relations."57 In addition, they beamed repeated radio broadcasts in Spanish to Cuba expressing condemnation of u.S. efforts to "step up the campaign for the defense of human rights in Cuba, to support the anti-Cuban radio and television, and to tighten the economic blockade against Cuba."58 In this manner, by the end of February Moscow and Havana appeared to have weathered the 1990 grain crisis. However, the shock of events in Eastern Europe continued to reverberate in Cuba. Castro asserted that the changes in the economic and political systems of the Eastern European countries had pumped up U.S. leaders with euphoria and thereby increased the military threat Cuba faced from Washington. As evidence of this he pointed to the invasion of Panama. To respond appropriately, he claimed, his country must be placed in military readiness to repel an imperialist attack. The Soviet media coddled Castro, faithfully reporting his diatribes against the East Europeans and Americans without softpedaling them. Thus Komsomol'skaia pravda quoted Castro's blunt assertion that a process of socialist transformation was impossible "when [in Eastern Europe and the USSR] they slander socialism, destroy its values, undermine the party's authority, demoralize the vanguard by refusing it a leading role, reduce public discipline to nothing, and sow chaos and anarchy everywhere. That is how counterrevolutionary activity can be conducted." And the Soviet newspaper added, "It is therefore not surprising, according to F. Castro, that all these changes are meeting with 'the delighted support of the head of the most powerful, aggressive, and greedy empire mankind has ever known.' Today, when 'the socialist camp no longer exists politically,' Washington feels that its hands

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have been untied and, in the Cuban leadership's opinion, its aggressiveness is increasing many times over."59 Other concerns-the elections in Nicaragua and actions in the United Nations-clouded Castro's horizons at this moment and fed his discontent. Speaking to the Federation of Cuban Women in early March, he described the electoral defeat of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua as leading to an "unreal, absurd situation" in that country-one which, he said, called for a reexamination of Cuban-Nicaraguan cooperation and a definite end to their military cooperation. 6o In the same speech he denounced the recent vote of the UN Human Rights Commission to include on the coming year's agenda an investigation into the observance of civil rights in Cuba. Particularly galling to Castro was the fact that this measure, proposed by the United States, had been passed with affirmative votes by Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Bulgaria. In Castro's words, "these countries, which only yesterday were allegedly socialist, are now behaving in a similar way to the Yankee empire, the enemy of mankind."61 Izvestiia's comment on this outburst suggested that official Soviet patience with Castro was running thin. Said Izvestiia, "The situation that has arisen with the Geneva vote shows that the Cuban leadership finds the principle of deideologization of international relations unacceptable and is prepared, even in isolation, to keep a firm grip on the banners of the world revolutionary movement."62 Despite such strong indications of friction, the USSR and Cuba were at this moment treating one another with extraordinary caution. Castro stopped short of accusing the USSR of willfully betraying promises, and the Soviets, though allowing themselves to criticize Cuban foreign policy, indicated a willingness to mend their alliance. The crucial test was to come in negotiations over a new trade agreement, which both parties evidently hoped could be consummated without major difficulties. The occasion was the twentieth session of the Intergovernmental Soviet-Cuban Commission for Economic and Scientific-Technical Cooperation, held in Havana 13-17 April 1990. Underlining the economic importance of the occasion and the difficulty of the issues to be faced, the Soviet government sent its foremost economist, Leonid I. AbaIkin, deputy chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, to head its delegation. In anticipation of the Havana meeting, friendly overtures from

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the Kremlin supplied a favorable backdrop. Visiting the Cuban capital for talks on international topics was Viktor Komplektov, USSR deputy foreign minister, who carefully stopped first in Cuba before going on to Nicaragua for his initial visit with the president-elect, Violeta Chamorro. At the same time, it was announced in Moscow that an invitation had been extended by Army General M. A. Moiseev, chief of the USSR Armed Forces General Staff, to his Cuban counterpart, Division General Ulises Rosales del Toro, to visit Moscow later in Apri1. 63 The several days of trade talks were evidently tough, but perhaps as reassuring as Cuba could expect. The trade a.greement that emerged did not differ remarkably from the previous year's protocol signed in March 1989. Both, in fact, projected the same target of growth, "up to nine billion rubles," without acknowledging past shortfalls. And both indicated that continuing efforts would be made to bring unfinished joint construction projects into production (with the infusion in 1990 of 600 million rubles in technical aid) and to expand opportunities for exchanges. 64 One difference in 1990 was the identification of a promising new area-pharmaceuticals and modern medical equipment-where Cuban exports were expected to increase. Another was that while the 1989 agreement had specified that prices would be kept at their 1985 levels, the public statements about the 1990 agreement avoided mentioning prices. This problem and the work of devising a new five-year plan of bilateral relations for 1991-1995 were left for the future, to be taken up by a separate working group. Nevertheless, important groundwork had been laid by the commission. An unflinching look was apparently taken at the sources of past difficulties in the bilateral trade relations, and genuine agreement was reached on the need to hammer out new arrangements that would take into full account the recent, wrenching changes in international affairs. As Abalkin phrased the prospects for the future: "Provided both sides demonstrate sufficiently serious approaches, balanced judgment, and statesmanlike wisdom coupled with the maintenance of their traditional friendly ties, opportunities will open up substantially, in my view, for extending the volume of our business relations in the next five years."65 A major outcome of the commission's meeting was a clear acknowledgment by Castro that "the Soviet Union, notwithstand-

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ing its own difficulties, is making efforts toward further developing economic relations between our two countries."66 For this moment at least, Abalkin's team had succeeded in putting SovietCuban relations on an even keel, with each side apparently accepting the other's readiness to negotiate in good faith. And Moscow could proceed with confidence borne of the knowledge that despite Castro's verbal abuse during the past year as Cuba's ties with the other East bloc countries weakened, its economic dependence on the USSR, and hence Soviet leverage, had increased. Ultimately the strength of the economic ties between Moscow and Havana rested upon their reciprocal needs expressed in the barter exchange of oil for sugar. In Abalkin's words, "The Soviet economy today cannot do without Cuban sugar . . . which makes up 30 percent of all the sugar consumed in our country, or nickel [70 percent], just as Cuba cannot exist without our oil. This is the complementary nature of our economies. "67 In some cases, the mutually disgruntled tolerance of deficiencies helped to make an exchange of goods possible. For example, Cuba supplied 40 percent of Soviet citrus fruit imports, which, according to Moscow News reporter Viktor Piatigorskii, actually amounted to a kind of charity on the part of the Soviets, since "Cuban citrus fruit is noncompetitive on the world market due to poor quality."68 And Cubans returned the favor. Cuban First Vice-Minister Jose Raul Viera told Soviet commentator Elena Gorovaia that Cubans were by no means inclined to overestimate Soviet aid, one reason being that not all Soviet deliveries to Cuba met world standards in terms of quality. Said Viera, "Your trucks, machine tools, and equipment are iron which no one buys."69 For the most part, however, inefficiencies of production and the inequities of the trade arrangements posed intractable problems for future Soviet-Cuban trade relations. As the Soviet press made clear, while the oil-for-sugar exchange in 1990 amounted to the Soviets' paying five tons of oil for one ton of sugar, world prices would require only three tons of oil for this transaction. Meanwhile, Cuba's unproductive economy was noncompetitive. According to the Moscow News, "despite all ardent calls from lofty rostrums," even Cuba's sugar production was stagnant. "As of today the yields amount to 55.5 tons per hectare, as opposed to 100 to 120 tons in other leading exporter countries."70

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Added to these difficulties was the certainty of future cuts in Soviet aid. In early June, Konstantin Katushev, USSR minister of foreign economic relations, traveled to Havana for the first meeting of the "Working Group to Improve the Mechanisms of Economic Cooperation between the USSR and the Republic of Cuba." These talks began a difficult, long-term process during which a major task of Katushev and his aides was to pressure Cuba to solve its economic problems with less Soviet assistance. Lending weight to the Soviets' arguments were events in Moscow, where the Supreme Soviet slashed the nation's overall foreign aid budget for 1990 by some 25 percent. 71 Meanwhile, several voices were raised to counter the critics like Shmelev and Arefeva who had questioned the use of military aid "as an ideological instrument that would keep one country or another in the camp of our allies."72 One of these was Aleksandr Alekseev, deputy chairman of the Soviet-Cuban Friendship Society, who had been the USSR's first ambassador to Cuba. In a broadcast beamed to Havana, Alekseev said that people who opposed aid to Cuba "overlook the principles of the international proletariat" and try "to blame all of our economic evils on the supply of Soviet aid to Soviet friends."73 In Cuba, Castro still harbored his revolutionary schemes. In March 1990 an open letter was issued in Havana by the communist parties of Cuba, Argentina, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, and EI Salvador, addressed to "revolutionary and progressive movements" in Latin America and the Caribbean. The letter claimed that developing countries were going through an unprecedented crisis linked with the "deepening general crisis of the world capitalist system and the crisis of the bureaucratic model of socialism," which the Soviet Union and East European countries were said to be abandoning. It therefore challenged the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean to become the world center of revolutionary struggle. 74 The same month Castro, after attending the inaugural of Brazil's new president, Fernando Collar de Mello, took advantage of a lengthy press conference to declare (in straightforward, Image I rhetoric) that for Cuba it was "a great honor to be the enemy of an empire" and "a great historic privilege to be chosen by fate to be socialism's standard-bearer." The Soviet correspondent present at this conference ended his brief account by saying, "It seems, that the new

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political thought is by no means making easy headway everywhere."75 As time passed, Soviet media criticism of Cuba, especially on points of official policy differences, grew bolder. Often the carefully chosen excerpts from Castro's speeches needed no comment to spark an indignant response, at least from reformist Soviet readers. An example was the following explanation Castro gave for banning the Soviet publications Sputnik and Moscow News in August 1989: "It was without any hesitation that we banned certain Soviet publications spitting venom at the USSR itself and socialism. They obviously play into the hands of imperialist reaction and counterrevolution. Some of these publications are already demanding an end to the kind of equal and fair trade relations that has taken shape between the USSR and Cuba in the course of the Cuban revolutionary process."76 An oblique method of criticizing Castro, used effectively by two Soviet scholars, V. Borodaev and G. Levykina, in an article exploring the political background of the trial and execution of General Ochoa, was to quote Western press accounts without contradicting them: "Complex and far from unambivalent processes have been taking place in Cuba of late. Extensive world comment has been elicited, for example, by the Cuban government's measures pertaining to a purge of the ministries of the revolutionary armed forces and interior affairs of corrupt elements, and by two trials of generals and officers accused of complicity in narcotics trafficking. The Western press sees these processes as the Cuban government's suppression of political opponents. Articles are appearing which compare Cuba with North Korea and Albania, predicting for it a Romanian version of the development of events." Raising the question, "Is there an opposition in Cuba?" they replied: "A dissident movement whose activity is being covered extensively in the Western media began to take shape in the country at the end of the 1980s."77 Some Soviet criticism was far more direct. In an analysis of Cuban socialism, Vladimir Orlov pulled no punches. Recalling Castro's battle cry, Socialismo 0 Muerte, he asked, "Which socialist model are Cubans supposed to defend till the last drop of blood?" In Orlov's opinion, Castro's model was simply the same old story. It was, he said, "based on the total rejection of a market economy, prevalence of moral over material incentives, sacrifices for the

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idea, militarization of the state which defends itself both against the external and the internal counterrevolution, the inviolability of the party and government elite, the ban on a multiparty system and even on all discussion of it being possible."78 In addition to more and more of this kind of plain talk in the Soviet media, there were Soviet efforts to familiarize Cubans with the new approaches of perestroika and to pass along friendly advice, nudging Cuba toward the adoption of Soviet foreign policy practices. The visit of a USSR Supreme Soviet delegation, headed by o. D. Baklanov, a USSR people's deputy and CPsu Central Committee secretary, was used to remind the Cubans once again of the importance the Soviet Union attached to parliamentary exchanges and nonideological contacts with other nations. Even more pointed was the message Baklanov delivered in his major public address in Havana with Castro in attendance. At a ceremony dedicated to the thirtieth anniversary of the restoration of relations between the USSR and Cuba, Baklanov took the occasion to observe that lithe normalization of U.S.-Cuban relations would be an appreciable contribution to the process of the improvement of the atmosphere in the region and the world as a whole. The Soviet Union is prepared to assist the development of such a dialogue."79 Castro, however, neither leaped to express acquiescence, to renounce U.S.-bashing, nor to embrace per-

estroika. In July 1990, another ripple effect stirred Havana, this time from Albania, where the Czechoslovak embassy had provided asylum for Albanians seeking to leave that country. Seizing upon the Albanian example, Cuban citizens began to seek asylum in Havana embassies. An embarrassed Cuban government blamed their actions on the United States, charging that CIA agents had staged the events as a provocation. But the evidence presented by the authorities, in the form of statements by Cuban human rights activists, at that time in prison in Havana, was not credible. Meanwhile, a clash between Cuban and Spanish authorities at the Spanish embassy, combined apparently with the well-intended but uninvited efforts of Spain's prime minister, Felipe Gonzalez, to advise Castro to adopt "a peaceful transition to democracy," resulted in the breakdown of relations between Spain and Cuba. Spain withdrew its ambassador and halted its economic aid. 80 In mid-199° Castro had become a modern Don Quixote, unable to

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abandon outmoded dreams, succeeding only in adding to Cuba's dependence and misfortunes. As the year wore on the Cuban economic situation worsened. The effect of what was to be a 20-percent shortfall in Soviet oil deliveries was already apparent, and Castro declared a national emergency. The "Special Period in Peacetime" triggered energysaving measures designed for use in wartime. Uncertainty reigned above all about Soviet-Cuban trade arrangements for the coming year. In mid-December, Cuban Politburo member Jorge Risquet admitted that the five-year agreement between the USSR and Cuba, usually signed by that time, was still pending. Hundreds of thousands of ox yokes, he said, were being prepared for use in agriculture. 81 Seven hundred thousand bicycles had been ordered from China. Rationing was in effect for canned meat and fish, biscuits, razor blades, footwear, fabric, goods made from fabric, household goods, furniture, and toys. Severe restrictions were placed on the sale of radios and electrical appliances, including fans, and no refrigerators at all were to be sold in 1991.82 On October 1 uncertainty about the supply of newsprint from the USSR, Cuba's sole source, caused the closing or curtailment of many newspapers and magazines.83 Meanwhile, Cuba's relations with its former Eastern European trading partners continued to sour. In January 1991 Czechoslovakia, having cut off economic aid to Cuba and joined UN efforts to censure Cuba for human rights violations, refused any longer to house the Cuban Interest Section in its embassy in Washington. The Cubans were forced to find another sponsor. 84 In the eleventh hour, on 29 December 1990, the long-awaited trade agreement for 1991 between the USSR and Cuba was signed in Moscow, providing a legal basis for continuing cooperation in commercjal exchange and investment. 85 The commodities to be exchanged broke no traditions, but the trade arrangements did. Commenting on the proposals Moscow had tabled in the meeting of the joint committee to draw up the treaty, a secretary of the committee, V. Benediktov, said, "Both countries will begin using current world prices to settle their payments in trade. Oil and petroleum products as well as other Soviet-made goods will be delivered in exchange for raw sugar, citrus fruits, nickel, cobalt, and other products on a value-balanced basis. "86 How precisely the agreements had been spelled out in world prices remained un-

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clear. Discussing the difficulties in reaching the new agreement, deputy foreign minister Viktor Komplektov commented, "As for our economic links . . . the Cuban economy was regrettably built on our model. In order to adapt to recent changes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union which affect the character of those links and our mutual economic agreements, there must be a transition period."87 The rule of thumb guiding future negotiations was to be a search for "mutually advantageous ties." In Moscow the question of whether or how mutually advantageous economic relations between Cuba and the USSR could be developed continued to be debated. Critics argued openly, as did one Izvestiia reporter, that "we have spent too much time in the channel of Cuban policy, which has not always and in all things been in keeping with our interests. 88 In response Krasnaia zvezda was just as plain spoken. Reporter S. Sergeev wrote, "There have been statements often very close to philistinism, which boil down to the following: Why are we helping Cuba when we have a great many problems of our own? The people who make such statements do not seem to realize that our difficulties are not due to the fact that we are helping someone else but lie within ourselves and in the disorganization of our economy." Soviet-Cuban relations, he stressed, are a "priceless asset [which] must be cherished."89 The question of Soviet aid to Cuba became such a heated issue that the USSR Council of Ministers, passing a resolution on the transition to a market economy, adopted instructions to reduce all future foreign aid packages wherever possible. In an article on the front page of Izvestiia, 25 July 1990, Elena Arefeva hailed this ruling and called for its application not only to Cuban economic aid, but to Soviet military ties with Cuba as well. She pointed out that U.S. observers were concerned by "our military bases and huge tracking station." And she argued, "Such aid, determined by the former ideological tasks of the 'struggle between the two systems' or geared to outdated military aims, must be cut back without fail on every continent, not just in Latin America." Arefeva's argument, fully in accord with policies of Gorbachev and Shevardnadze, drew fire on this occasion from Marshal Akhromeev, whose attack, despite his intentions, demonstrated the enduring importance in the Soviet defense perspective of Cuba's geopolitical advantages. More important, it indicated that these military views were indeed on a collision course with those

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of the foreign ministry. First, said Akhromeev, "there are no Soviet naval or air bases on Cuba, nor are there any military bases for ground forces. There is a single ground forces training center there comprised of a few hundred people who help to retrain junior commanders and officers in Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces. Second . . . intelligence gathering. Clearly, there is a grain of truth in what you write with regard to our intelligence interests."9o He justified these modest military outposts by pointing to the numerous U.S. observation posts ringing the Soviet Union, but he did not address the point Arefeva had raised about the need to allay U.S. concerns over the Soviet-Cuban military presence. Although Akhromeev avoided mentioning other military advantages enjoyed by the Soviets in Cuba, such as the deep sea ports where Soviet battleships and submarines dropped anchor and the airports that permitted surveillance flights along the east coast of the United States, his attack was a reminder that Soviet military experts saw advantages in Soviet-Cuban relations that tended to be discounted by civilian observers. 91 Exchanges of military delegations in 1990 underlined the continuing Soviet military interest: in April the chief of Cuba's General Staff, Division General Ulises Rosales del Toro, was invited by the USSR to spend four days in Moscow on his way to North Korea; and in July Army General and Chief of USSR Armed Forces General Staff Mikhail Moiseev entertained Cuban Rear Admiral P. Betancourt, commander of Cuba's navy. Moiseev himself spent five days in Cuba in October. New economic conditions were making it impossible to continue some of the old "internationalist" practices carried on by the two countries. Cuba highly touted the generous medical aid it extended to Soviet children who suffered from the Chernobyl disaster. Some two thousand children were treated in 1990, with all of the expenses of their stay paid for by the Cubans. The Cubans went so far as to purchase the airfares for two planeloads of the children, an expensive gesture even in Soviet rubles. Sources in the USSR, such as the Soviet Children's Fund, sponsored other flights. In January, however, Aeroflot began asking to be paid in hard currency, and the Ukrainian party organization could not come up with the necessary cash. 92 Glasnost and new economic rules were putting old programs in jeopardy.

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Through 1990 the critical spotlight which Soviet glasnost fixed upon Cuba turned the old "fraternal socialist partners" into "bad friends." Thus the Soviet media released a number of startling facts about Cuba's elite, airing details about Castro's private life not publicly acknowledged by the Cubans (such as the size of his personal guard [9,700], his second marriage, his thirty-two houses and three yachts), criticized certain aspects of the care given the Chernobyl children, and declared that "the Cuban path of rectification" touted by Castro as "the Cuban version of perestroika" was "essentially, its opposite. "93 Moscow News even published an interview with the noted Cuban defector, and former deputy commander of the Cuban air force, General Rafael del Pino, under the title, "Castro Is the Caribbean's Saddam Hussein." Among the reasons the general cited for leaving Cuba were "the total economic dislocation screened by ideological propaganda, the people's poverty against the background of the upper crust's luxury, the militarization of every sphere of life . . . [and] the absolute power of one man whose every extravagance is being sanctified by Marxist theory." General del Pino's visit to a Soviet missile site in Astrakhan, where "dying-out villages" hinted to him of "Cuba's 'radiant future,'" also weighed in his decision to leave Cuba. Asked about dissenters in Cuba, del Pino replied that there were still Cubans who believed in "the myths of the regime." He added, "but, you know, when MiG planes fly at zero altitude to scare up ducks to make it easier for party bosses to hunt, the number of those believing in socialism dwindles catastrophically."94 Cuba's rebuttals to Soviet criticism and pressures for change were measured but pointed. Jose R. Balaguer, Cuban ambassador to the USSR, admitted to a Krasnaia zvezda reporter that "some of our current difficulties are the result of our own miscalculations," but "there have also been blunders . . . due to borrowing from the experience of other states where people are now saying that their experience is no good. We have now finally concluded that we have to act on the basis of our own experience and rely on our own ideas. The times when Cuba could allow itself, as Fidel said, 'to copy bad things well and good things badly' will not return." He summed up regretfully, "The economic difficulties in your country, Cuba's main trading partner, have now compounded everything else."95

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Despite the exchange of verbal abuse, the leadership of both countries tried hard to salvage good working relationships. In October 1990 a CPsu delegation spent an intensive three-day visit, which included a five-hour conversation with Castro. At the close of the visit, the leader of the delegation, Politburo member Oleg S. Shenin, stated his impression that efforts were being made by the Cuban Communist Party to democratize its party functions. And, indeed, these impressions were confirmed by T ASS reports from Havana on 2 January 1991, indicating that the party apparatus had been slashed by 50 percent and that the electoral system had been democratized, although the party's monopoly position remained steadfast. Shenin roundly denounced the "fabrications that have appeared in the press about Cuba's negative attitude to Soviet perestroika," and said he thought the Soviet government should make an official statement countering such "wholesale vilification," which is "an insult to the Cuban people."96 In the sphere of foreign policy, Cuba's position in 1991 was bifurcated. On the one hand, Castro could not completely ignore Soviet pressures that were strongly urging him toward a rapprochement with the United States. On the other, Cuba resolutely asserted its independence in pursuing an "anti-imperialist" global course and cultivating ties with the Third World, with North Korea, Afghanistan, the People's Republic of China, and the PLO. The approaching crisis in the Persian Gulf brought this dichotomy into particularly sharp focus when Cuba refused to follow Soviet advice with respect to the Security Council vote authorizing the use of force to remove Saddam Hussein's troops from Kuwait. Events in the Persian Gulf provided a fortuitous opportunity for heightened diplomacy not only between Moscow and Cuba, but also between Washington and Cuba. In December, two highlevel Soviet officials, Georgii S. Mamedov, chief of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Department for North America, and Valerii D. Nikolaenko, chief of the Department for Latin American Affairs, traveled to Cuba to talk with Castro about the upcoming vote in the U.N. At almost the same time an unprecedented meeting took place in New York between U.S. Secretary of State James Baker and Cuba's foreign minister, Isidoro Malmierca, toward the same end. Though these negotiations failed to alter Cuba's vote,

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Izvestiia hastened to minimize the damage to U.S.-Cuban relations by reprinting an editorial from Granma, the official organ of the Cuban Communist Party's Central Committee, which denied that Cuba's vote was intentionally anti-American. Said Granma, "We have never voted with an eye to the United States. We were acting as a nonaligned country, as a friend of Kuwait and Iraq and of the fraternal Arab nation, and with a sense of solidarity with the Palestinian cause."97 T ASS called the Baker-Malmierca meeting "a first step on the way to a long awaited normalization of bilateral relations disrupted in 1961."98 And Mamedov assured Izvestiia's reporter that "the Soviet side intends to raise the problem of Cuban-U.S. relations at the meeting between M. S. Gorbachev and George Bush at the beginning of next year."99 Illustrating the increasingly determined effort of the Soviet foreign ministry in 1991 to mediate the U.S.-Cuban conflict, Viktor Komplektov spoke on Moscow Radio to Latin America on 2 January 1991, saying that the biggest problem existing between the U.S. and Cuba was simply "mutual distrust." He said Moscow wanted to help "establish a process of mutual understanding between the United States and Cuba to make possible a direct dialogue between the two countries."l00 The euphemism "distrust" covered a package of concrete demands that would provide sticking points in any future dialogue-demands that the United States end its economic blockade of Cuba, lower its military presence in Guantanamo, and refrain from insisting on democratic changes in Castro's regime, which Soviet foreign ministry spokesmen called "inadmissible interference in Cuba's internal affairs." A U.S.-Cuban rapprochement, ending the economic blockade of Cuba, might have relieved Moscow of the increasingly impossible burden of trying to backstop the ailing Cuban economy. But this was not to happen. In January 1991, the USSR Supreme Soviet signified its decision to ease the burden by approving a budget for 1991 which cut aid to Cuba, formerly running at around $4 billion a year, to $95 million for 1991.101 To achieve reductions, Moscow planners counted in part upon certain sleight-of-hand adjustments to be made in the trade arrangements stipulated in the 1991 Soviet-Cuban trade agreement. Since Soviet aid in the past had been chiefly generated by the unequal terms of trade favoring Cuba, shifting to world prices and hard currency would substantially reduce Soviet subsidies. The key to Moscow's solu-

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tion of this economic problem, therefore, was how well the trade pact would work. Halfway into 1991, the implementation of the pact was clearly in doubt. For Havana the good news was that Soviet oil shipments to Cuba were continuing; the bad news was that they had been cut 25 percent for the year. 102 And all the other news was bad. Soviet foreign trade agencies responsible for the transport of 600,000 tons of sugar to the Soviet Union had reneged, "because of a row with domestic shipping companies over the cost of freight to and from Cuba."103 Also for the first five months of 1991, with the exception of oil, Soviet exports to Cuba were held up because the Soviets "couldn't meet their commercial commitments under a new commercial agreement signed on 29 December 1990, calling for cash payments at market prices." A Soviet embassy official, trying to sound upbeat, surmised that shipments would "probably resume in approximately forty-five days."104 Castro said the situation reminded him of the first few years of the Cuban revolution when the United States' economic blockade of the island had paralyzed the republic's economic life. He declared that "it) the first five months of this year alone, we didn't receive a single ton of raw materials for basic industrial enterprises."105 This in a country where, only recently, 89 percent of the production capacity and consumption volume had depended on deliveries from Eastern Europe and the USSRpo6 Given the Soviet domestic disarray in mid-1991, the outlook for Cuba was grim. Viktor Gorbachev, a Soviet correspondent in Havana, made the following perceptive comment: "After all, the Cuban economy cannot operate normally without Soviet assistance. But the crisis in our country is disrupting plans and dictating its own terms. . . . Cuba is now paying dearly for the fact that Soviet-Cuban cooperation was based for three decades not on economic laws but on ideological and political interests. "107 In December 1991, Cuba, the "Island of Freedom," kept afloat for thirty years on a sea of Soviet oil, was about to register the "ultimate ripple effect": the demise of the Soviet Union itself. As the Russian Federation took over relations with former Soviet diplomatic and trade partners, not only did the prospects for Cuba's economy continue to worsen, but the ability of the regime in Moscow to alleviate Cuba's economic anguish no longer existed. At the year's end, the hard facts about Soviet exports to

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Cuba were summed up by Ambassador Balaguer to Nezavisimaia gazeta reporters. Cuba, he said, had received practically no metal or fertilizers, very little timber (for paper and packaging), and food shipments for only the first half of the year. Ten million tons of oil had been delivered, instead of the 13 million tons promised. loB This lifeline was slowly closing off. The gazette article went on to suggest that the climate of political opinion in Moscow was in its turn being affected by a cooling of relations between the new, democratic Russia and Castro's regime, for the editors used Balaguer's complaints as a chance to voice Russia's counter complaints and to point out the sizable and irrational costs to the Soviet Union of its past subsidies to Cuba. Noting that "the volume of aid ($5 to $6 billion a year) was equal to 10 percent of the USSR budget deficit," they added that it had "comprised up to 25 percent of Cuba's gross national product." The Russian editors flatly denied Ambassador Balaguer's assertion that the Cubans had used all the Soviet oil for domestic purposes, noting that 30 percent of it had been reexported to earn hard currency. 109 On 26 December 1991, a Radio Moscow broadcast to Latin America prematurely announced that a Russo-Cuban agreement was ready to be signed according to which in 1992 Russia would receive 2.5 million tons of Cuban sugar in exchange for 4.5 million tons of oil. However, a month later Cuban Politburo member Carlos Lage denied that trade agreements had been signed with any of the former Soviet republics, although he said progress was being made toward some general agreements and several contracts had been signed. 110 A five-year economic cooperation agreement and a 1992 trade accord had been finalized with Lithuania. In addition, a Cuban-Lithuanian enterprise producing electric meters had begun operation in Villa Clara. 111 These scaled-back initiatives indicated the probable modest nature of future economic relations of Cuba with the former Soviet republics who had made up the bulk of Cuba's trading partners for three decades. According to Aleksei Ermakov, a Russian foreign ministry official, Russia's cooperation with Cuba was now limited to "mutually beneficial trade cooperation," and military cooperation was winding down. In November, as the commander-in-chief of the USSR Navy, Admiral V. N. Chernavin, was ending an official visit

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to Havana, a delegation of Soviet Foreign and Defense Ministry officials was beginning talks on the withdrawal of the Soviet training brigade of some three thousand servicemen from Cuba. 112 While the intention of the civilian Russian government was to minimize the Russian military presence in Cuba, practical as well as political obstacles seemed likely to delay this effort for some time. Practical difficulties included the expense and logistics of providing housing for the returning servicemen and their families. Political obstacles were raised by Cuba's insistence on linking the removal of the brigade with concessions from the United States with respect to Guantanamo. There were also nagging questions about the effect that removing the brigade might have upon Russian control of the electronic intelligence-gathering operations at Lourdes. It may be anticipated that serious professional concerns within the defense establishment in Moscow as well as Havana will keep this issue alive for some time. And extremists, like the Liberal Democratic party leader Vladimir Zhirinovskii, may keep public controversy going by campaigning against Yeltsin for abandoning Castro. Zhirinovskii has asserted that he would never have left Castro in the lurch, and that consequently: "We would receive Cuban sugar and have Russian officers rest at seaside resorts in Cuba. "113 December 1991 marked the dawn of Russo-Cuban relations. In the years ahead how they will evolve depends in great measure on the working out of internal economic and political developments within each nation. Meanwhile, Russia's intentions concerning its future relations with developing countries have ominous possible implications for Castro's regime. These intentions were succinctly expressed by Russia's Minister of Foreign Affairs Kozyrev in a New Year's address outlining Russia's new position in a transformed world. Said Kozyrev, "We will share with and help those developing countries who are in real need and use the resources obtained not for building up their military and police forces, but for the socioeconomic development of their countries." And Kozyrev warned, "a policy of channeling flows of socalled aid to various kinds of dictators while our population is experiencing a lack of the most basic necessities can only be described as immoral."114

Nicaragua: Test Case of Superpower Cooperation

As Castro foundered, cut adrift by Gorbachev's drastic redirection of policies at home and abroad, the Sandinistas in neighboring, pro-Soviet Nicaragua faced equally fateful consequences. In Nicaragua, however, Moscow's pressures for policy change, the Sandinista response, and Nicaragua~s distinctive history, geographic location, and political-economic orientations developed a unique Soviet-Nicaraguan relationship that differed in very important ways from Soviet relations with Cuba. The Brezhnev regime, reflecting its expansionist, militaristic, and messianic foreign policy, had greeted the Sandinista revolution in 1979 as a welcome opportunity to extend the Soviet Union's global reach into Central America.! Particularly appealing to Moscow was the fact that the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) had firm ideological roots in Marxism-Leninism, which were expressed in their political program: the "General Political-Military Platform of the FSLN for the Triumph of the Popular Sandinista Revolution." 2 Thus the Soviets leaped to recognize the new Government Junta of National Reconstruction on 20 July 1979, just one day after the latter came to power, and in January 1980 Boris Ponomarev, CPsu secretary for international affairs, hailed the Nicaraguan revolution as the "path to a new life for the Nicaraguan people" and an advance for the world revolutionary process. 3 Despite this warm welcome, Moscow's subsequent behavior suggested that Soviet leaders had acquired caution from their experience with Cuba. In the Cuban case, Politburo member Anastas Mikoian had visited Havana in 1960 even before the USSR had established diplomatic relations with Cuba, but with Nicaragua the Soviets maintained a relatively low profile in their official contacts. Indeed, eight years passed and Gorbachev's new policies were in place before the first visit to Managua by a candidate member of the Soviet Politburo. That member was Boris Yeltsin, who in 1987 headed a parliamentary delegation. He was

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followed in July 1989 by another candidate member of the Politburo, Aleksandr Vlasov, who attended the tenth anniversary celebration of the Sandinista revolution in Managua. 4 The Brezhnev regime was hesitant, above all, to prop up Nicaragua's ailing economy as it had done with Cuba, recognizing the truth in what some Soviet experts were already saying about the questionable economic health of the USSR-that the economic capacity of the nation did not match its political aspirations. 5 Still, in the early years of the Sandinista regime, as Jiri and Virginia Valenta have made clear, ties between the Soviet bloc and Nicaragua burgeoned "in the realms of inter-party affairs, military assistance, and economic relations."6 Military assistance to Nicaragua was, of course, readily available, and was funneled discreetly at first through the services of third parties. The Sandinistas had received Soviet military hardware from the Cubans in their struggle against the Somoza regime. New supplies from the Soviets and their allies, especially Cuba and North Korea, began appearing in early 1980 in a growing stream that by early 1985 was estimated by U.S. sources to total almost $500 million. 7 In their first two years, that is, by 1982, the Sandinista armed forces had more than quadrupled in size, from less than 10,000 men under arms to 40,000, comprising the largest force in Central America. 8 Economic aid, harder to come by, was nevertheless forthcoming. During the Sandinistas' early years, from July 1979 to February 1982, Moscow's contribution was relatively small, totaling $7.9 million. 9 In 1983 and 1984, however, Soviet aid grew and was bolstered by support from East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria. By June 1985 the total contributions of communist countries had reached $600 million. lo Trade between the USSR and Nicaragua also increased. Soviet exports to Nicaragua during 1980-1983 grew from 0.1 million rubles to 42.4 million rubles; and Nicaraguan exports to the USSR, from 5.5 to 9.5 million rubles. By 1985 Nicaragua was dependent on Moscow for oil, had joined CEMA as an observer, and (in April) had established a joint Commission on Cooperation in Economics, Trade, Science, and Technology with the Soviets. II With respect to interparty relations, the Sandinistas, as leaders of a national liberation movement, expected (and were rewarded by) strong support and guidance from the Soviet communist

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party. From Moscow's perspective, party-to-party ties between the CPsu and the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) formed the basis of an important network of relationships aimed at transforming the Nicaraguan state and extending the influence of the Soviet party and government within Nicaragua. In March 1980 the first high-level Sandinista delegation to visit Moscow signed a party-to-party agreement between the CPsu and the Sandinistas, and in 1982 the Soviets officially recognized Nicaragua's ideological status as a "people's democracy."12 By 1983 the Sandinistas had also signed agreements with the parties of East Germany, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia, and Nicaragua had become affiliated with all major international communist front organizations. 13 Such party linkages, as the Grenada documents indicate, were important to the Soviets, providing them with greater control "than usually exists in the diplomatic relations between a great power like the USSR and a dependent nation."14 In sum, Soviet-Nicaraguan relations in the pre-Gorbachev years aptly demonstrated the Image I, expansionist, militaristic policy of the Brezhnev era, with its "anti-imperialist," revolutionary thrust. The opportunity offered to the Soviets by the Sandinista victory in Nicaragua to undermine U.S. influence and extend the Soviet global reach, militarily and politically, was quickly seized upon by Moscow, but implemented with some caution and much use of surrogates (East bloc nations and Cuba), indicating Moscow's unwillingness to risk a direct confrontation with the United States in the latter's backyard.

The Impact of New Signals from Moscow Gorbachev's "new political thinking," by reversing several fundamental foreign policy positions of the Brezhnev regime, not only affected the kinds and amounts of assistance the Soviets were willing to provide to Nicaragua, but even more important, altered the nature of the Kremlin's advice to the Sandinistas about the foreign and domestic policies they should be implementing. Four basic changes in Soviet policies were most important in this respect. First-and most significant-Moscow strongly advised the Sandinistas to settle Nicaragua's internal conflict by political rather than military means. Second, Moscow denounced

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world revolution and sought to depoliticize Soviet relations with other nations, pointedly providing a model for the Nicaraguans to follow. Third, the Kremlin leaders encouraged the integration of Nicaragua's economy into the world economy; and fourth, they urged domestic reforms to decentralize the economy and facilitate political pluralism. The first section of this chapter will look at how these new policy guidelines actually affected SovietNicaraguan relations during the early Gorbachev years while the Sandinistas were in power. In a following section, because the Soviet actions toward the end of 1989 into 1990 focused so vigorously upon seeking a multilateral political solution to Nicaragua's military conflict, the consequences of this course on the reshaping of Soviet-U.S.-Nicaraguan relations will be examined. The final section will consider how the Soviet Union has dealt with Nicaragua under the presidency of Violeta Chamorro.

Moscow Pressures Sandinistas to Demilitarize Like his predecessors, Gorbachev justified Soviet "solidarity with Nicaragua" on the basis of the Soviet sympathy "with the liberation movements of peoples fighting for social justice," claiming that Nicaragua's "only fault is that it wants to live in its own way, without interference from the outside."ls But from the start, he denied explicitly that the Soviet Union had aggressive military intentions in the region: "We find it preposterous when we hear allegations that Nicaragua 'threatens' U.S. security, and that Soviet military bases are going to be built there-bases which the Americans supposedly know about but which I, for one, have never heard Of."16 Both the context and timing of Article 7 of the Soviet-Cuban Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation signed by Gorbachev and Castro on 4 April 1989, in Havana, had linked this article directly to the Nicaraguan conflict, with its message clearly intended to be heard, loud and clear, by Daniel Ortega as well as Fidel Castro: In the interest of "global international security," the parties pledged to "contribute to the solution of regional conflicts and hotbeds of tension through negotiated political means."17 Although the new Soviet insistence upon negotiated settlements was an about-face from the overwhelming reliance of the

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Brezhnev regime upon military power and the global extension of that power, it was not immediately clear that this new theoretical posture actually changed Soviet behavior toward Nicaragua. In December 1987, Nicaragua's defense minister, Humberto Ortega, claimed that the country was embarked on a long-term plan, with Soviet and Cuban support, to build up a national defense force of regulars, reserves, and militia that was intended to total 600,000 troops by 1995. 18 Meanwhile, from 1985 to 1988, USSR arms transfers to Nicaragua, which provided the Sandinistas with the means of pursuing a military conflict, increased significantly. In 1984 Nicaragua imported from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe arms worth $350 million in current prices; in 1985 the total was $280 million; in 1986, $600 million; in 1987, $500 million, and in 1988, $525 million. 19 However, a dramatic break in this pattern of Soviet arms transfers to Nicaragua was first indicated in the spring of 1989 in a letter from Gorbachev to President Bush, stating that the Soviets had stopped shipping arms to Nicaragua at the end of 1988.20 Not all Soviet sources immediately reflected this line; for example, TASS, on 3 May 1989, noted that Bush, in a speech to the Council of Americas Organization, had demanded an end to Soviet aid to Nicaragua, "[aid] which is being provided," explained T ASS, "to ensure the country's security against the U.S.-backed contras."21 But on 11 August 1989, on CBS television's morning news show, Costa Rican President Arias quoted a highly placed Soviet source to the effect that the Soviets had indeed halted arms shipments to the Sandinistas in order to encourage progress toward the peaceful disbandment of the contras and a negotiated settlement of the conflict. Through 1989, various Soviet authorities, including a high-ranking spokesman for the Soviet armed forces, Bronislav Omelichev, first deputy chief of the General Staff, repeated the claim that the Soviet Union had stopped supplying weapons to Nicaragua after 1988. In October U.S. administration officials affirmed that "Mr. Gorbachev was abiding by the letter of his commitment."22 This position, prominently reiterated by the Soviets, put undeniable pressure on the Sandinistas to rely upon political instruments to maintain their hold on power. Acknowledging this point, the Nicaraguan government in mid-October 1989 "formally committed itself to a suspension of all new Soviet military supplies until the February elections."23

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There is substantial evidence that during this time Moscow advised and pressured the Sandinistas to seek a negotiated settlement with the contras. Under terms laid down by the Central American presidents at Esquipulas and follow-up meetings, the peace process required the Sandinistas to take a number of steps toward democratizing political conditions in Nicaragua. Whether the measures taken would allow the political opposition an opportunity to break the Sandinistas' monopoly of power through fair elections in 1990 remained to be seen. Nevertheless, throughout the electoral process Moscow apparently urged the Sandinistas not only to stay at the negotiating table, but also to make concessions. 24 Moreover, Moscow was in a position, as Nicaragua's chief source of oil-vital not only for the country's economy but also for the war effort-to put teeth in its advice. The Kremlin illustrated this point by halting its oil deliveries to Managua temporarily in 1987.25 Even the 100,000 tons promised in 1987 did not meet Nicaragua's needs, and in 1988 Soviet oil deliveries dropped to 70,000 tons. Showing the squeeze, Managua doubled the price of fuel in October. 26 In 1989 Moscow kept these screws tightened on the Sandinistas by guaranteeing delivery of only 60,000 tons, an action that plainly nudged the Sandinistas toward a political settlement of Nicaragua's conflict. 27 For whatever reasons, the fidelity with which Nicaraguan practice paralleled the Soviet line during this period was notable. Admittedly the congruence of policies did not mean that Nicaraguan policy was made in Moscow or even initiated there. On the other hand, Nicaragua's leaders frequently appeared to be tailoring their behavior to win Kremlin approval, which was duly recorded in the Soviet press. With respect to Moscow's advice to lay down arms and seek a regional political settlement, the following actions taken with seeming alacrity by Daniel Ortega were illustrative of a general policy position that closely adhered to Moscow guidelines. In August 1987 Ortega sat down with the presidents of the other fOUf major Central American countries and signed the Guatemala accord presented by President Arias of Costa Rica. Subsequently, in March 1988, he signed a cease-fire with the contras, extended it unilaterally when it lapsed, and committed his government to hold national elections in February 1990. And on 23 April 1989, as

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noted with manifest satisfaction, Ortega took the following steps to meet the pre-election requirements stipulated by negotiations of the Central American presidents:

T ASS

Nicaragua released 1,894 former members of the Somozan guards, lifted a ban on the operation of Radio Cat6lica and other opposition radio stations. The authorities permitted ten Catholic priests involved in counterrevolutionary activities to return to the country. The republic carried out a reform of the electoral law and adopted a general law on the mass media. Nicaragua suggested for the consideration of other Central American countries a plan of demobilization, voluntary repatriation or stationing in other countries of Honduras-based contra units. All these measures by the Nicaraguan government, Ortega said, "conform to obligations of the republic under the Salvadoran agreements. . . . Nicaragua declares that, despite obstacles raised by the United States and its allies in Central America, it will continue activities in favor of a peaceful settlement in the region."28 In Moscow's eyes, Nicaragua's president was publicly fulfilling to the letter a major Gorbachev mandate.

Moscow Bans the Export of Revolution Reinforcing Gorbachev's position on settling regional conflicts was his ban on the export of revolution in the Third World. This radical ideological twist had tremendous implications for the Central American scene. And certainly Gorbachev's speech to the Cuban National Assembly on 4 April 1989 was consciously addressed to the regional audience when he said, "We are resolutely

opposed to any theories and doctrines justifying the export of revolution or counter-revolution, all forms of foreign interference in the affairs of sovereign states."29 This was a far cry from earlier Soviet endorsements of world revolution. 3D In the Central American context it raised many intriguing questions about what kind of Soviet support would continue to be provided to guerrilla groups seeking to overthrow incumbent Central American regimes. Adding further questions on this score, Soviet foreign ministry spokesman Gennadii Gerasimov commented on Soviet willingness to negotiate with the

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United States to "reduce or eliminate the supply of arms to Central America" (which would presumably include all irregular armed groups), with the aim of creating a "zone free of foreign military presence and arms."31 Such a willingness, of course, did not prevent Cuba and Nicaragua from shipping arms to guerrilla units in El Salvador and elsewhere, and in early 1989 it remained unclear' how much pressure the Soviets could exert, or indeed cared to exert, to interdict the flow of arms from these nations to revolutionary groups.32 In mid-1989 Aleksandr Iakovlev, at that time Gorbachev's chief foreign policy ideologist and the Central Committee secretary heading the Soviet party's policymaking Commission for International Affairs, took the occasion of the bicentennial celebration of the French Revolution to pull another rug from under Third World advocates committed to spreading communist revolution by force of arms. He flatly rejected the Marxist acceptance of violence as an appropriate motive force for social change, international or domestic: "The idea of violence as the midwife of history has outlived itself, just as has the idea of the power of dictatorship relying directly on violence." Stressing that "violence only begets violence," he added, "We must rethink the permissibility and limitations of violence in history. "33 These changes in ideology represented a theoretical approach diametrically opposed to the Sandinistas' familiar militaryrevolutionary posture. On this point it is useful to recall that the Sandinistas came to power with the help and inspiration of the Cuban revolution, that Cubans fought shoulder-to-shoulder with Sandinistas against Somoza in a war of liberation, and that Cuba's influence and presence in Nicaragua continued to be strong. 34 In Nicaragua it can be assumed, therefore, that the Soviet position on the export of revolution continued to encounter opposition from Cuban sources. Meanwhile, the implications of the new Soviet view for future Sandinista practice were nothing short of catastrophic. Carried to logical conclusions Moscow's approach obligated the Sandinistas to jettison revolutionary ideology and cooperate with the class enemy within their own country (which was precisely what they were asked to do by the proposed February 1990 elections). In addition it directed the Sandinistas to renounce pursuit of the

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"revolution without borders" and to stop supporting groups seeking to overthrow the class enemy in nearby El Salvador. Nicaragua's early actions in response to Gorbachev's renunciation of the export of revolution were ambiguous. Public sources did not reveal how much help the Sandinistas continued to give the Salvadoran Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) in the form of arms and sanctuary.35 On this point even Moscow showed some ambivalence by giving public endorsement to Ortega's continued support of the FMLN. At the August 1989 meeting of Central American presidents in Tela, Honduras, when the leaders of El Salvador wanted to link consideration of the disarmament of the contras in Honduras with that of the rebel detachments in El Salvador, Ortega apparently had Moscow's blessing to walk out of the discussion, despite the inflexibility and inconsistency this seemed to display on Ortega's part. 36 Moscow's backing had been expressed earlier in a statement by first deputy head of the Soviet foreign ministry's Information Administration, Vadim Perfil'ev, at a news conference in Moscow: The Soviet Union thinks that Honduras's proposal to link this issue [procedures for the demobilization, repatriation, and movement of the contras] to the demobilization of Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front detachments in El Salvador, which was supported by Costa Rica and El Salvador, contradicts the spirit and letter of the agreements reached at the latest meeting of Central American presidents. 3 ? In this case Moscow's explicit approval of Ortega's position ran counter to its own new political logic against interfering in other countries, transporting revolution, and fueling regional military conflicts with weapons. In doing so, it raised questions about the persistence of old, Image I objectives and practices in SovietNicaraguan relations. How strong were all those underground and covert apparatuses that had for so long constituted an integral part of Soviet relations with allied, pro-Marxist countries? Did Soviet approval of Nicaraguan support to the FMLN in fact indicate the continuation of covert assistance to revolutionaries both sides were determined to conceal? As Vernon Aspaturian has pointed out, without a Nicaraguan equivalent of the Grenada Documents, we cannot answer these

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questions. 38 The "documents" provided a revealing look at the internal party affairs and organizational links between Grenada's New Jewel Movement and the CPsu and brought to light such secret schemes as the Grenadian party's effort to gain stature in Moscow by bringing neighboring Surinam and Belize into the communist fold. In the case of Soviet-Nicaraguan relations the public record lacks such revealing details. At most it offers an impressive list of contacts between the Sandinista and Soviet leaders whose importance has to be conjectured. Thus it was symbolically significant that Daniel Ortega, in the first years after coming to power, was received in turn by all four secretary generals of the CPsu in rvloscow. More important, however, from a practical point of view, were the subsequent, repeated visits of various Sandinista leaders with CPS U International Department officials and Soviet government and military leaders. Through 1988 and 1989, the exchanges of delegations between Moscow and Managua continued at a pace that indicated Moscow's unflagging interest in maintaining close ties. Interparty ties included the following: On 14 March 1988, Comandante Bayardo Arce (responsible for political affairs within the FSLN), on a visit "to several socialist countries," met in Moscow with Chairman Dobrynin and Deputy Chairman Brutents of the CPsu International Department to sign a new plan of cooperation between the FSLN and the CPSU .39 On 10 June, another deputy head of the CPsu International Department, Andrei Urnov, was received by Daniel Ortega in Managua. 4o On 6 September, Carlos Nunez, chairman of Nicaragua's National Assembly, met with Dobrynin. 41 On 25 November, Aleksandr Iakovlev received Minister of External Cooperation Henry Ruiz in Moscow. 42 And in March 1989, Ruiz, on another Moscow trip to meet with foreign ministry officials Shevardnadze and Komplektov, also visited with party official Urnov. 43 Among the more important Soviet-Nicaraguan contacts between government agencies in 1988-1989 were the following: Starting in January 1988, the third session of the NicaraguanSoviet Intergovernmental Joint Commission for Economic, Technical, and Scientific Cooperation met in Managua. At the five-day session, Aleksandr Kachanov, first deputy chairman of the USSR State Committee for Foreign Economic Relations, and Henry Ruiz discussed plans for 1988-1990 and signed a three-year protocol,

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containing "ambitious plans for industry, commerce, mining, agriculture, and transportation."44 In February, foreign ministers Eduard Shevardnadze and Miguel D'Escoto conferred in MosCOW. 45 In March, when Bayardo Arce, Nicaragua's Coordinator of the Executive Commission of the FSLN was in Moscow talking with officials of the cpsu's International Department, he also met with Vladimir Kamentsev, chairman of the USSR Foreign Economic Commission, along with Nicaraguan planning and finance officials. 46 From 25 July through 7 August, a Nicaraguan military delegation visited Moscow at the invitation of the Soviet Army and Navy Main Political Directorate, where it was received by General D. T. Iazov, minister of defense, and General A. D. Lizichev, chief of the Army and Navy Main Political Directorate. 47 In mid-October of 1988 Nicaraguan officials met with representatives of the CEMA countries in Leipzig for the fifth session of the multilateral commission for cooperation between CEMA and Nicaragua to review their economic and technical cooperation and agree upon new measures. 48 On 25 October, Deputy Foreign Minister Komplektov received Nicaragua's deputy foreign minister, V. H. Tinoco, in Moscow for discussions. 49 On 22-25 November the fourth session of the Soviet-Nicaraguan Intergovernmental Commission for Economic, Trade, Scientific, and Technical Cooperation was held in Moscow. 50 During the year other joint agreements were signed with less fanfare; for example, the program of scientific and cultural exchanges between the USSR and Nicaragua for 1988-89 signed at the Nicaraguan foreign ministry on 22 June, which provided for "strengthening many-faceted cooperation in the fields of science, education, public health, art, mass media, sport, and tourism."51 In early 1989 Henry Ruiz paid two visits to Moscow, the first in March, when he met with Viktor Komplektov and Andrei Urnov,52 and the second in April, to discuss prospects of further bilateral economic ties. 53 In the summer of 1989 (27 June to 4 July) a Nicaraguan Air Force delegation was hosted by Soviet Marshal of Aviation A. N. Efimov. 54 A steady flow of official exchanges and parliamentary visits continued through the year, including the first visit to Managua by a full Politburo member, when Shevardnadze, in October 1989, participated in "three lengthy working sessions with Mr. Ortega, as well as other meetings with the

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entire nine-member Sandinista National Directorate and the diplomatic corps."55 By means of these various contacts, the Kremlin clearly hoped to strengthen its influence upon the Sandinistas, but at the same time to refrain from actions that could appear confrontational from the U.S. perspective. The new political thought and the nature of the policy advice the Soviets were offering publicly to Nicaragua's leaders went far to give Soviet relations with Nicaragua an appearance of much greater political neutrality than had characterized these relations in former years.

Moscow Urges Integration in the World Economy A third fundamental about-face in Soviet foreign policy with important implications for the Sandinistas was the Soviet economic advice to Nicaragua to follow the USSR's own example and seek integration into the international capitalist economy. A forthright statement of Soviet aspirations in this regard appeared in the following principle enunciated by the USSR Congress of People's Deputies, in its"Address to the Peoples of the World" on 12 June 1989: "The Soviet economy must be included organically in the world economy on a basis of equality and mutual advantage, and must actively participate in the shaping and observance of the rules of contemporary international division of labor, scientific and technical exchange, and trade."56 With respect to Nicaragua's economy, while the Soviets in the early Gorbachev years continued to emphasize the importance of the East bloc socialist countries as economic partners for Nicaragua, they made it very clear that economic assistance from the socialist bloc countries would necessarily be limited and that the Sandinistas should seek trade and credits from capitalist countries as well. In some cases the policies pursued by Nicaragua's leaders, while corresponding to the latest Soviet advice, were continuations of courses of action the Nicaraguans had earlier taken on their own. The Soviet advice to Nicaragua to seek integration into the international capitalist economy is a case il1 point. Nicaraguan leaders, even before the advent of Moscow's new thinking, had embarked on a number of efforts in the early 1980s to gain accep-

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tance and assistance from countries in Western Europe. In 198182, Nicaraguan delegations had visited several of these countries, and Nicaragua's Minister of Foreign Affairs D'Escoto, after important talks in France, West Germany, Spain, and Switzerland, had negotiated a number of economic agreements with them. Between 1982 and 1984 economic aid from West Europe had amounted to $174.9 million. 57 In 1984, however, as one Soviet observer noted, the Sandinista leader Bayardo Arce was unsuccessful, while visiting Spain, Portugal, and France, in dispelling "the growing disappointment of West European countries with Sandinista policies," such policies as the Sandinistas' establishment of ties with radical Third World regimes, their increasing militarization, their refusal to sign the Contadora Act of Peace and Cooperation, and their growing alignment with Cuba and the USSR, which called into question their professed policy of nonalignment. 58 In 1985 Vice President S. Ramirez and Daniel Ortega made separate forays to Europe soliciting support and ties; Ramirez, to France, Spain, England, Ireland, the Netherlands, and West Germany; Ortega, to Spain, Italy, France, and some Scandinavian countries; but they continued to meet resistance. Thus efforts by Nicaraguan leaders in Western Europe over a seven-year period (197~1986), netted the relatively small amount of $600 million in economic and financial aid. 59 The meager results of these efforts no doubt sensitized the Sandinistas to the international unpopularity and counterproductivity of their pursuit of radical, militaristic policies. In 1989 Daniel Ortega appeared to have carefully timed his April-May courtship of Western European governments in search of funding so that it followed his announcement on 23 April of the impressive list of steps taken by his government to "fulfill its obligations under the Salvadoran agreements."60 Ortega subsequently conferred with leaders of twelve countries and netted $50 million in aid from Norway, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, and Finland. 61 In addition the European Economic Community included Nicaragua in the group of Central American countries targeted to receive financial aid. Soviet observer Paul Bogomolov, lapsing into oldthink, commented that while the EEC credit was small ($216 million to all the Central American countries, plus $180 million to stimulate regional trade), it was symbolically important as evidence of the acceptance by West European countries

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of the Sandinista position "vis-a-vis the United States." He could not resist adding that the EEC gesture demonstrated "an element of interimperialist rivalry and competition in this stand, of course."62 As a footnote to these West Europe contacts, it is of interest that the Sandinistas commissioned Japanese specialists to make a technological study for a canal connecting the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans through Nicaragua. 63 Thus the new Soviet policy advice to Nicaragua continued to encourage (but cannot be said to have originated) Nicaragua's return to traditional economic relationships within the international capitalist system.

Moscow Urges Domestic Reforms A fourth area of Soviet policy advice to the Sandinistas concerned Nicaragua's domestic economy. The new economic guidelines from Moscow were openly opposed to the kind of highly centralized, over-bureaucratized command economy that had so long served as a model for developing countries seeking to follow the path of "socialist orientation." Gorbachev, during his stay in Havana, while protesting that he would not try to dictate policies to another sovereign state, nevertheless described in some detail the new Soviet economic reforms designed to overcome inefficiencies of the command economy. In so doing he appeared to be lecturing both Havana and Managua on the new "approved solutions": We are confronted with a stark alternative. Either we continue moving down the old, much traveled track-toward even greater stagnation and the economic, social, and even political dead end with the ensuring risk of being pushed to the sidelines of progress, or we embark on an arduous but vitally important path of our society's revolutionary renewal . . . radical economic reform. . . . This purpose is being served by the consistent implementation of the socialist principle of distribution according to labor input, the elimination of social parasitism, the transfer of enterprises to cost accounting, and the promotion of leaseholding, cooperative projects, and other economic forms stimulating people's creative activity.64

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Some Soviet observers, identifying problems in the Nicaraguan economy brought on by earlier tendencies toward "gigantomania" in planning and capital investment, offered advice to the Sandinistas on appropriate restructuring and suggested tying future Soviet credits to the better use of resources. 65 A list of early Sandinista economic errors compiled by Tat'iana Vorozheikina included "miscalculations and mistakes in economic policies linked with contradictions inherent in the initial [Sandinista] economic model," failure to find "an optimal degree of state regulation of the economy giving adequate space to private initiative," and neglecting to curb sufficiently the monopolistic positions of certain ministries. 66 Vorozheikina drew the following economic lesson from the Sandinista case: "Rigid centralized rule by warcommunism methods in economic leadership is not inevitable even in a civil war situation." And she added, "stability in the economic development of Nicaragua will mainly depend on how successfully the private sector will be integrated into the transitional economy." Finally, Foreign Minister Shevardnadze, while visiting Managua in October 1989, warned that existing Soviet economic aid to Nicaragua (then estimated at about $465 million a year) "would have to be reorganized to make it more efficient." According to a New York Times report, he also pointedly praised the Sandinista government's "recent economic recovery program, which relies on

traditional Western techniques for economic stabilization. "67 With respect to the Soviet domestic reforms and their appropriateness as guidelines for the Nicaraguan economy, it should be emphasized that the Nicaraguans did not receive their "mixed economy" from recent Soviet models. On the contrary, from the start the Sandinista government had proclaimed as its goals: a mixed economy, political pluralism, and a nonaligned foreign policy.68 Subsequent Nicaraguan efforts at reform that paralleled Soviet advice were in large measure needed correctives for the cumbersome command model imposed by the Sandinistas and aggravated by Nicaragua's civil war. In short, domestic analyses and practices, as well as acceptance of Gorbachev's new directions, must be taken into account in any attempt to explain the Sandinistas' efforts to improve their economic system in the late 1980s.

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This is borne out by the criticism Nicaraguans leveled at themselves. The following statement of a Nicaraguan economist quoted by a Soviet journalist is typical: "[Economic changes] must be introduced with the aim of correcting mistakes permitted earlier. Our administrative apparat is inflated. It is very expensive from an economic point of view."69 Responding to these and other problems of the economy, the Nicaraguan government had taken a number of steps by early 1989: "Defense and security spending has been reduced by one-third, the implementation of many of the state projects halted, and social programs reduced. As a result of reductions in ministry personnel, approximately twelve thousand state employees may find themselves out of work. "70 These and other efforts by the Sandinistas to correct the shortcomings of an overly centralized system were a rational response to Nicaraguan realities, as well as the reflection of forceful encouragement from Moscow. One other example of congruence was the remarkable ease with which some Sandinistas adjusted, in both theory and practice, to the Soviet rethinking of revolutionary ideology and class conflict. Minister of External Cooperation Ruiz, one of the nine ruling Comandantes, showed a lively interest in experimenting with capitalist methods. A reporter had asked him the following loaded question: "Some people appear concerned that the economic measures taken by the [Sandinista] leadership will lead to breaking away from the revolution. What can you say about this?" Ruiz replied: "Capitalism appears to be an outstanding means of independent production, of solving the most urgent problems thanks to its flexibility and immunity to the automatic application of general 'prescriptions.' This does not come from changes in the nature of capitalism. Why must we strictly follow the established recipes from fear that searches for new forms of resolving contraditions will lead to distortions af our principles? We are living in a changing world, which demands new approaches. ' '71 Ruiz' statements suggested that the Sandinistas were not bound by rigid ideological constraints in confronting their economic problems, and that they had heard and accepted Moscow's advice. In the political arena, however, the Sandinistas' flexibility was soon to be tested by how firmly they supported democratic procedures for the February 1990 elections and how willing they

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showed themselves to cooperate with opposition parties (representing class opponents).

Political Settlement of the Nicaraguan Conflict When Gorbachev announced, in his 6 May 1989 letter to Bush, that the USSR had halted arms shipments to Nicaragua, this action turned out to be a decisive step toward a series of unprecedented behind-the-scenes maneuvers by both superpowers to seek a political settlement of the Nicaraguan conflict. The full consequences of these efforts could not have been predicted at the start, but the partnership that eventually grew between the USSR and the United States surpassed anything that early Image III theorists might have dreamed of. At a meeting in Moscow just four days after Bush received the Gorbachev message, U.S. Secretary of State Baker picked up on the possible implications of the Gorbachev claim by seeking Soviet agreement to a five-point understanding proposed by Washington. This proposal contained three key bargaining points: it indicated, first, that "early concrete steps by Managua toward complying with Esquipulas [the Guatemala accord] would result in improved U.S.-Nicaragua relations"; second, that "if the contemplated election were free and fair by U.S. standards, Washington would accept a Sandinista victory"; and third, that "an overall regional settlement (by which Baker meant an end to the war in El Salvador) would free up American aid to the region and thus get Moscow off its financial hook."72 This proposal was accepted by Gorbachev and became the basis of a remarkable superpower cooperation whose immediate goals during the next nine months were to end armed hostilities and ensure a fair election in Nicaragua. In hindsight it is apparent that although these goals were achieved, their success was far from inevitable. U.S.-Soviet cooperation and mutual trust were sorely tried during the development of this new relationship by a number of regional events that aroused echoes of the cold war and recurrent doubts of each partner about the sincerity of the other. For example, U.S. doubts about Soviet good intentions were triggered by evidence in the fall of 1989 that Cuba and Nicaragua

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were continuing to ship arms to the Salvadoran guerrillas. The latter, it turned out, were building up for a critical November offensive. Several covert arms shipments were discovered, including a van loaded with largely Soviet-made arms intercepted in Honduras in mid-October and the remains of two light planes flown from a Nicaraguan airport to El Salvador in November. One of the planes had been destroyed after delivering its load; the other, a Cessna 310, had crashed in eastern El Salvador carrying a cargo of arms that included twenty-four SA-7 surface-to-air missiles, considered particularly lethal in the Central American context. The Cessna discovery, occurring on 25 November, just a week before the Bush-Gorbachev summit at Malta, seriously threatened to nip the new superpower partnership in the bud. Moscow officials were forced to repeat to the Americans improbable Nicaraguan assurances that no such air deliveries had been made. Meanwhile the United States put new demands on the Soviets to show their commitment to demilitarizing the Central American conflict by compelling Cuba and Nicaragua to cease all arms shipments to the Salvadoran guerrillas and by forcing the Sandinistas to deny the use of Nicaragua's territory to third parties arming the Salvadorans. In response, the Soviets took several serious steps designed to demonstrate their commitment to making the superpower partnership work. One action was to deny the Sandinista's request for emergency funds to improve the Nicaraguan economy, a request which, if granted, might have strengthened the Sandinista appeal to voters in the upcoming election. Another action was to persuade Ortega in effect to turn his back on the FMLN and to sign a declaration with the other Central American presidents at San Isidro, Costa Rica, on 12 December, calling on the FMLN forces to disarm and enter into negotiations with the Salvadoran government. According to Time reporter Michael Kramer, the Soviets offered a further, decisive demonstration of their good faith which impressed Washington at a crucial moment. This was their recall to Leningrad, on 7 December, of a Nicaragua-bound freighter loaded with four Mi-17 Hip helicopters. Discovery of this shipment so alarmed the U.S. State Department that Washington was even questioning the Soviet cutoff of arms to Nicaragua. According to later Soviet accounts, these planes had in fact been mistakenly tagged by U.S. intelligence sources as military aircraft.

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One month later, the same helicopters, correctly identified as civilian aircraft, were duly rerouted to Nicaragua without apparently ruffling U.S. feathers. 73 The important point was that in the intricate minuet by two great powers testing one another's sincerity, the USSR was able to prove its good intentions at the right moment. Meanwhile, during this period, several aggressive military moves by the United States gave Moscow reason to question Washington's peaceful intent in Central America. Among these acts were the U.S. armed intervention into Panama in December (during which American troops forcibly entered the Nicaraguan ambassador's residence, alarming Managua), and Washington's intention, announced in early January, to station an aircraft carrier off the coast of Colombia to combat drug trafficking. Soviet official disapproval of these actions was expressed unequivocally, but Soviet behind-the-scenes advice to Managua undoubtedly urged a cautious response. Quite opportunely Moscow's deputy foreign minister, V. Komplektov, was paying a visit to Daniel Ortega in Managua just two days after the first U.S. troops entered Panama. Not surprisingly, T ASS found Ortega's subsequent course of action exemplary-especially when U.S. forces surrounded the Nicaraguan embassy in Panama-for not being provoked into actions that could, it was suggested, have given Washington a pretext for invading Nicaragua. 74 Not all Soviet analysts agreed with T ASS. Some Soviet observers felt Managua was threatened by U.S. military actions wherever the latter might occur in the region. One account, for example, labeled as naive the assumption that Washington wanted to position an aircraft carrier in the Caribbean to intercept drug traffickers. The true purpose, said this source, was to "interfere in the election process in Nicaragua, where the forces opposing the Sandinista government are threatened with defeat."75 Some Cubans and Nicaraguans sensed and quickly condemned the superpower cooperation that had sprung from the Malta summit and that was changing the power configuration in Central America. They accused the Soviets of having made a superpower deal which subsequently permitted the United States to flex its military muscle in Panama without serious consequences. A broadcast of 3 January 1990 by Moscow Radio's World Service in English alluded to this criticism: "Some of my Western col-

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leagues," said the Soviet reporter, "intimate that the decision on introducing American troops was taken not so much in Washington as in Malta, in the meeting between Mikhail Gorbachev and George Bush. Panama, they hint, fell victim to collusion between the two superpowers." On the contrary, he protested, though with a plaintive air of wishful thinking, "The Malta meeting encouraged political solutions of all regional problems, security, and trust building measures."76 Despite these and many other difficulties in the period leading up to 25 February 1990, the day of Nicaragua's national election, the "collusion" of the superpowers survived. It was only one component-but arguably, the pivotal component-in the winding down of the Nicaraguan conflict. In the second half of the 1980s, Soviet policy was one factor shaping Sandinista foreign and domestic policies. Among others were the pressures exerted by the U.S.-backed contra forces, the erosion of the political and economic power of world communism, the potential rewards to Nicaragua of cooperating with Western European countries and with Central American neighbors, and the possible future benefits to Nicaragua of developing a constructive relationship with a friendly administration in Washington. In some cases where Nicaraguan and Soviet policies concurred, Nicaragua had already started down the roads marked out later by Gorbachev, with both nations sharing ideas and policies that served their national interests for quite separate reasons. In other cases Soviet efforts to shape Nicaraguan policies met entrenched resistance. A major obstacle was the impact of Havana's advice and example. The Cubans-with their deep commitment to world revolution and their pride in Castro's anomalous international stature, won by effectively playing his outdated game-had long-standing and very close ties with the Sandinistas. Cuban advisors holding key positions within Nicaragua remained eloquent advocates of the ideology and practice that had guaranteed power to their Marxist leaders in the past. And within the Soviet and Nicaraguan foreign policy establishments themselves, an Image I mentality doubtless lingered among old-line apparatchiki working to strengthen revolutionary policies and networks. In September 1990 Tomas Borge Martinez, the only surviving founder of the FSLN, illustrated the tenacity of the revolutionary

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mindset. Speaking to an audience of Spanish communists in Madrid, he stated that, in his opinion, "Marxism hasn't failed." What failed, he said, was "dogmatism, bureaucracy, authoritarianism" in Eastern Europe and the USSR. He added, "I come from the new Nicaragua, which hasn't permitted its banners to be torn to shreds; from a revolution whose essence remains intact, although, for the moment and not for long, it has disguised itself in the eye-catching and tasteless costume of a traditional, sad, unjust, and boring democracy. "77 Despite such defenders of the Image I position, the Soviet about-face and the subsequent changes in Soviet-Nicaraguan relations began a substantial reorientation of Nicaragua's international position. The reconceptualization by both the USSR and Nicaragua of the potential opportunities of their new policy directions and the prohibitive costs of the old ones helped to lay the groundwork for a new international playing field in Central America. By means of nonideological, "benign," competitive economic and political relations with other states in the region, both Soviets and Sandinistas hoped to open doors previously barred to them (largely in response to their own actions), and thereby to advance their national interests.

Soviet-Nicaraguan Relations under the Chamorro Regime In a time of unexpected and frequently unbelievable events, on 25 February 1990, the Marxist-Leninist regime of the Sandinistas was voted out of power. With 40.8 percent of the votes (as opposed to 55.2 percent for the National Opposition Union [UNO ]), they still carried weight in the National Assembly, and they also dominated the armed forces, the national bureaucracy, and the unions, but they no longer exercized executive authority. The election of Violeta Chamorro as the new president of Nicaragua opened a dramatically new phase in Soviet-Nicaraguan relations with important implications for the continuing evolution of Gorbachev's foreign policy initiatives. From the Soviet perspective, the Sandinistas' loss of power could be viewed in several different ways. In terms of oldthink the event was an unadulterated calamity, but from the point of view of the new political thought, or simply from a pragmatic economic

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approach, the situation had to be deemed positive. The economic burden to the USSR of propping up the Sandinista regime far exceeded Soviet capabilities. Igor Ivanov made this point in Literaturnaia gazeta just after the election. He said, "We really had good luck" that the Nicaraguan elections were held in 1990, because "USSR obligations expire in 1990 for deliveries resulting from credits extended Nicaragua. Trading in conformance with principles of international solidarity, and not the laws of mutual benefit, the Soviet Union last year exported a variety of products to Nicaragua valued at approximately 180 million rubles, and in exchange received just 200,000 rubles' worth. Another year or two of such trading and Nicaragua's debt to Soviet creditors would cross the billion mark."78 Future Soviet trade agreements with Nicaragua, Ivanov observed, would have to be structured on a "mutually beneficial" basis. This point of view was officially endorsed by deputy foreign minister Komplektov in an interview with Pravda on 22 Apri11990. He noted that with the lifting of the U.S. blockade of Nicaragua and Washington's anticipated grant to Nicaragua worth "many millions," the USSR c~uld indeed review and amend old forms of aid most burdensome to the Soviet economy. Komplektov also indicated the direction in which Soviet-Nicaraguan political ties might now move. Responding to sharp questions from Pravda's readers about why the USSR should continue to aid a Nicaragua no longer bound to the Soviet Union by "either spiritual proximity or traditions of close cooperation in the international arena," he claimed that for the past ten years it had been the Nicaraguan nation and its people with whom the Soviet Union had been allied, and emphasized that "the particular forces at the forefront of Nicaraguan political life were only of secondary importance."79 Thus the rationale of the new, nonideological political ties between Moscow and Managua began to emerge. The Soviet political relations with the Chamorro regime in early 1990 were in fact creating a model of the new diplomacy the Soviets hoped to apply throughout Latin America. This model was based on establishing formal, nonideological relations both with the incumbent regime and with the chief opposition party, in this case the Sandinistas. The viability of this arrangement would depend on how successfully Moscow could cultivate a nonideological approach in dealing with local leftist parties, how

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cleanly Moscow could extricate itself from the kind of aggressive communist party networks of the past that constituted subversive threats to incumbent regimes. In accord with this model, immediately after the Nicaraguan election Soviet authorities established formal government contacts with the president-elect without breaking off ties with the Sandinistas. Following the final returns, the Kremlin sent carefully worded congratulations to both candidates. To Ortega the Soviet telegram stressed that "the Nicaragua elections were possible primarily thanks to the selfless activity of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, which completely devoted itself to defending the Nicaraguan people's independence and sovereignty, and achieving national consensus, democracy, and political pluralism in the country."80 The underlying message was unmistakable. The Sandinistas were called upon to accept gracefully the results of the democratic process and hand over power peacefully. To the president-elect the Soviets expressed hope that the past friendly relations between the USSR and Nicaragua could be continued. Chamorro also had hopes. She commented to a TASS reporter, "I want relations between the USSR and Nicaragua to be excellent. I want them to be the same as in the past. I hope that the Soviet Union's humanitarian aid to Nicaragua will continue because the republic needs it right now to restore the economy."81 In Nicaragua through the uncertain period leading up to the transfer of power on 25 April, Moscow managed to maintain its relations with both political camps, and apparently used its influence with the Sandinistas in ways that were helpful to the ChamOITO regime. On 9 April 1990, Komplektov met with Sandinista leaders, and T ASS announced, "The Soviet side reaffirmed its support for the Sandinista leadership's efforts to democratize the country, to provide for a normal handover of power to the new government and to solve the rebel problem."82 The next day Komplektov called on the president-elect. For ChamoITo's inauguration, the USSR sent a delegation of its legislators led by V. I. Matvienko, member of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet, who emphasized Soviet intentions to regularize future parliamentary exchanges. The new Soviet diplomacy, fairly launched by the events in Nicaragua in 198~1990, pursued an unswerving course in early 1991. Despite mounting criticism from some disgruntled San-

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dinistas, Soviet foreign ministry officials continued to fine tune the effective working relationship between the United States and the USSR that had been indispensable in bringing about the political settlement of the Nicaraguan crisis. In January 1991 after Salvadoran guerrillas had downed a series of Salvadoran and U.S. planes with Soviet missiles, four officers in the Sandinista PopUlar Army (EPS) were arrested for smuggling Soviet missiles stolen from EPS warehouses to the FMLN. Moscow was reported to have helped the United States verify the origin of the missiles. Going even further, the Soviets volunteered to send a delegation to Nicaragua to inventory the remaining Soviet arms from pre-1989 shipments still held by Nicaragua's army. One Sandinista military officer criticized this proposal as undue interference in Nicaragua's affairs. A former Sandinista diplomat labeled Moscow's actions throughout this period, "a dark chapter in the relations between Nicaragua and the USSR, which has opened the doors to a new campaign against the EPS and the Revolution."83 Other Sandinista critics spoke scathingly of Soviet actions as "the USSR's submission to Washington's interests" and "collaboration among the powerful."84 Despite such criticism, the U.S.-Soviet partnership which took shape so effectively in negotiations to settle Nicaragua's crisis seemed destined to serve as a prototype for the further development of Soviet relations throughout Latin America. In early 1991 there were signs that the Nicaraguan experience of U.S.-Soviet cooperation so intimately shared by Iurii Pavlov, then the most important Latinamericanist in the foreign ministry, and Valerii Nikolaenko, the ambassador in Managua (both of whom were actively involved in the negotiations with the U.S. State Department), might have a wider application as a result of the reassignment of these two officials in late 1990. When Pavlov vacated his Moscow office for the challenging post of ambassador to Chile, Nikolaenko was recalled to replace Pavlov in the foreign ministry. In his new post, Nikolaenko was quick to confirm the salience of U.S.-Soviet cooperation for Soviet-Latin American relations, waxing eloquent about ambitious new commercial schemes in tandem with the United States: "I do not rule out that in the. not-toodistant future we could make joint investments with the United States in some Latin American country, conduct third-

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party trade, and cooperate jointly in certain Latin American projects."85 In retrospect, it is clear that superpower cooperation in settling the Nicaraguan conflict was a momentous first step in the new post-cold-war era in U.S.-Soviet diplomacy. After Nicaragua, the next test case for the superpowers was to be their startling "collusion" in dealing with Iraqi aggression in the Persian Gulf. Concerning this regional conflict, Admiral William Crowe summed up the impact of the new Soviet foreign policy as follows: "The most remarkable thing about the whole crisis, which distinguishes it from any other in the postwar period, has been that the Soviet Union has not been at cross-purposes with the United States. This has thrown the whole business in a new light. . . . If this crisis had taken the pattern of the past-with the Soviet Union continuing to support Iraq and supplying it with arms-we could not have done what we are now doing."86 We need only to substitute "Nicaragua" for "Iraq" in Admiral Crowe's statement to gain a proper sense of the pivotal impact on international affairs of the 1989-1990 Nicaraguan test case of superpower cooperation.

Relations with the Other Countries of the Isthmus

At the start of the 1990S, the USSR exchanged ambassadors with only two of the seven countries of Central America: Costa Rica and Nicaragua. However, Soviet officials were visibly determined to increase this number. Karen A. Khachaturov, doctor of historical sciences and chairman of the Soviet Committee of Solidarity with the Peoples of Latin America told Izvestiia in January 1990: "Central America is the only subregion of the world where the Soviet Union does not maintain relations with the majority of the countries. One can hardly consider this situation normal. Both the Soviet side and the general public of the Central American states are now coming to this conclusion."l This comment reflected Moscow's serious determination to chart a new course in Central America based upon the fundamental changes that had been made by 1990 in the Kremlin's foreign policy position. It also indicated that policy directives had been slow to transform Soviet actions and attitudes toward the Caribbean Basin countries. Not only had diplomatic relations remained sparse, but, as demonstrated here in earlier chapters, Soviet arms shipments had kept on flowing to Cuba and Nicaragua throughout the early Gorbachev years, and Image I attitudes continued to characterize Soviet behavior and verbal posturing despite the sharp reversals of policy enunciated by the leadership of the foreign policy establishment. The key to change, as events in Nicaragua showed, was the winding down of the cold war in Central America and the emergence of the U.S.-USSR partnership. With East/West confrontation in eclipse, and with a reduction in Soviet military support to revolutionary and national liberation movements, enticing opportunities to solve regional problems appeared to hover on the horizon. Moscow's partnership with the United States had already rewarded the Soviets by enabling them to play a critical role in settling the Nicaraguan conflict. It appeared possible that Moscow could exercise similar influence and develop an enduring political

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and economic presence-perhaps even some mutually beneficial commercial ties-with all the Central American countries. The focus of this chapter is upon Moscow's relations with Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, and Belize, and upon how these relations were altered as the new political thought transformed Soviet practice. Since the effects of Gorbachev's policies became increasingly evident in 1989-90, change will be demonstrated by contrasting the conduct of Soviet relations before and after this watershed period. Soviet political ties with most of the countries of Central America were dual-track, with party linkages on one track and government linkages on another. Nicaragua was the only country of Central America where for a time (from 1979 to 1990 when the Sandinistas were in power) the two party and government tracks overlapped and reinforced one another, mirroring the Cuban model. In all other Central American countries, local party relations with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union were generally isolated from, and frequently disruptive of, diplomatic contacts between the local governing regime and the Soviet government establishment. On the Soviet side, since party-to-party relations were managed by the International Department of the Central Committee of the CPSU, and state-to-state relations by the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and since the goals and methods of these Soviet organizations tended to diverge, the two agencies often found themselves operating at cross purposes. In El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, for example, the dual nature of Soviet linkages with counterpart agencies was particularly counterproductive. In these countries the party-to-party ties between the CPsu and local Marxist groups and the subversive nature of these groups long ruled out any chance for Soviet diplomats to create lasting government linkages. It is not surprising, therefore, that through most of this century the communist regime in Moscow, symbolizing twentieth-century revolution, found it far easier to establish relations with Latin American communist parties than to develop diplomatic ties with the governments of the region, and that the first Soviet contacts in Latin America to take root and flourish were the CPSu's contacts with local Marxist parties. An important consequence was that party channels became the major conduit to Moscow of informa-

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tion-ideologically biased information-about local conditions. The dominance of party relations in shaping Soviet foreign policy toward Latin America has been pointed out with particular clarity by Cole Blazier: "Studying Soviet relations with Latin America without studying the relations between the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CP5U) and the Latin American communist parties would be as unrealistic as ignoring multinational corporations in examining U.S. policies toward the area."2 Another factor that powerfully conditioned the development of Soviet relations with Central American countries was Moscow's effort to avoid encroaching too publicly on U.S. interests in an area considered by the United States to be its own preserve. Soviet caution on this score gave rise to a Moscow preference for covert linkages. Secrecy encouraged, on the one hand, party-toparty contacts, which operated with deliberate furtiveness, and on the other, the Kremlin's use of regional surrogates, Cuba and Nicaragua, to transship arms and give general support to local national liberation groups.

Costa Rica The longest continuous diplomatic relationship enjoyed by the USSR in Central America was with Costa Rica. Formal ties dated from mid-1971, when the first Soviet ambassador established residence in San Jose. In recent decades Costa Rica has repeatedly found itself drawn into the affairs of its neighbors and has played some exceedingly important roles in regional politics. In the 1970S the government offered significant amounts of arms and support to Nicaraguans fighting Somoza. In the 1980s, given its location, Costa Rica could not avoid being used as sanctuary or staging area by both sides in the Nicaraguan conflict. Cubans manned an observation post on Costa Rican territory to monitor the conflict, and various antiSandinista forces camped there. More recently Costa Rica's involvement with its neighbors deepened when President Oscar Arias's peace plan was adopted by his counterparts from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua at Esquipulas, Guatemala in August 1987, initiating a series of remarkable multilateral peace efforts. 3

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In 1990 the Kremlin's diplomatic relationship with Costa Rica provided a model of the kind of neutral, state-to-state relationship that the Soviets appeared interested in developing throughout Central America and the Caribbean Basin in the years ahead. Well-established party and state relations coexisted without noticeable friction. At the party-to-party level, Soviet relations with Costa Rica linked the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (cpsu) with local communists represented by two Marxist parties, the Popular Vanguard party (Partido Vanguardia Popular, pvp), founded in 1931, and the Costa Rican People's party (Partido del Pueblo Costarricense, ppc), which split off from the pvp in 1984. Through the years both parties have remained small. Indeed, the combined membership of all leftist parties in Costa Rica was estimated in 1990 to be 7,5 00 .4 Both of the Costa Rican communist parties enjoy legal status and have participated in past elections, though without much success. They have earned one seat apiece in a legislature of fiftyseven members. The weakness of these parties and the fact that Costa Rica has enjoyed a relatively stable political system over an extended time help to explain why the contacts of the local communists with the Soviet communist party did not disrupt the development of Costa Rica's diplomatic relations with the USSR. In the Gorbachev period, the determination of the Soviet party to play down ideology could only have contributed positively to this situation. Sensitivity was shown by the cpsu, for example, in its congratulatory note on 16 September 1988, to the Popular Vanguard party on the occasion of the Costa Rican party's sixteenth congress. The Soviet message was largely free of Image I, inflammatory rhetoric. It pledged friendship and solidarity in the pursuit of international security, emphasized the commitment shown by the latest cpsu party conference (the nineteenth) to the democratization of Soviet society, and exhibited restraint in criticizing "external enemies," with but one brief reference to "the imperialist circles' aggressive policies."5 While there is slim evidence with which to compare the relative importance of the party and state activities, to the outside observer the state-to-state contacts seem to have been by far the most impressive. At the state-to-state level, ~·.Jviet government contacts with Costa Rica in the Gorbachev period took mainly

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three forms: direct messages between the two presidents, visits of parliamentary delegations, and ambassadorial exchanges. On occasion all three of these instruments were used simultaneously by Moscow as channels of communication in an effort to involve the USSR as a participant in negotiations in the Central American context. The following example illustrates how this worked on one occasion when presidential messages, carried first by a group of legislators and then by an ambassador, were used by the Soviets to push for the demilitarization of Central America. In April 1988 Gorbachev sent an important message to President Arias, containing a categorical denial that the USSR was supplying arms to the rebels in El Salvador and Guatemala. 6 Gorbachev appeared to be replying to an Arias letter hand-delivered to him a few days earlier by a Costa Rican parliamentary delegation visiting Moscow. The Arias note had requested the USSR to suspend all weapons shipments to Central America. While in Moscow the Costa Rican legislators, talking with Supreme Soviet officials, had made a point of elaborating on the topic of their president's note and'had also discussed the improved prospects for peace in Central America as a result of the signing, in August 1987, of the Guatemala accord. 7 These exchanges were followed in April by a small flurry of diplomatic action on the part of the Soviet ambassador to Costa Rica, Vadim L. Rozanov, which outlined a bargaining position. He informed President Arias that the Soviet Union refused to discontinue arms shipments to Nicaragua unless the United States would end its supply of arms to Honduras. 8 In effect these moves by the Soviet government, using its diplomatic channels with Costa Rica, were efforts to bring pressure on u.S. policy indirectly through the agency of a third country, and in this way to enable the Soviet Union to become a participant in Central American negotiations. Viewed in the broader context of Moscow's new diplomatic offensive worldwide, this example suggests one of the regional goals of the offensive. By extending the application of this "Costa Rican model" of increased and interacting governmental contacts more fully throughout the Central American region, the USSR hoped to gain not only an enhanced presence in the Western hemisphere but also increased influence in regional affairs.

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EI Salvador In 1991 the only close political ties between El Salvador and the Soviet Union were those linking their communist parties-the party-to-party agreements between the Communist Party of El Salvador (PCES) and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. At Washington's urging during World War II the Salvadoran government had briefly (from April 1945 until the war was over) established relations with the USSR, and in the afterglow of U.S.-Soviet detente in 1974 the USSR and El Salvador had signed mutual most-favored-nation agreements. However, into 1991 not only were diplomatic ties nonexistent, but there were only a few signs that they might develop soon. In fact, mistrust of the Soviet Union on the part of the Salvadoran authorities was so strong that in May 1988, when Iurii Stroev, Pravda's special reporter on developing countries' affairs, attempted to become accredited as the first Soviet correspondent in El Salvador, he was kidnapped "by four unidentified men" and expelled from the country within four days.9 In El Salvador-a country destabilized by civil war, where the local communist party had not only been outlawed from its founding in 1930, but remained, into the 1990S, aligned with insurgent forces against the government-it was hardly surprising that Moscow's blessings to the local communist party would serve to undermine any possibility of the Kremlin's developing normal state-to-state relations. El Salvador, moreover, had the ominous historical distinction of having experienced, in 1932, the very first communist insurgency in Latin America. The event was fateful, for the failure of the insurgency and the trauma surrounding the experience left a lasting imprint on Salvadoran minds. The ruthless suppression of the uprising decimated the ranks of the party for a dozen years and crushed for decades the party's early spirit of insurrection. 10 In fact, well into the 1980s the PCES numbered only about two hundred members and appeared content to pursue the path of nonviolent political struggle that Mo~cow was prescribing to the pro-Soviet parties in Latin America at that time. In 1990 the party's membership did not exceed one thousand. II The surprising success of the Nicaraguan revolution brought a reversal of the PCES'S tactics and an about-face in the advice the

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Salvadoran party was receiving from Moscow, where the Sandinista victory rekindled optimism about the chances for further Marxist gains in Central America by means of armed struggle. 12 The PCES followed the new line in March 1980 by creating its own small military formation, the Armed Forces of the Liberation (FAL). Other militant leftist groups in El Salvador, such as the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Movement (FMLN), the People's Revolutionary Army (ERP), and the Armed Forces of National Resistance (FARC) claimed thousands of followers. 13 In October 1980, in a move strongly supported by Moscow, these various Salvadoran opposition forces (including the PCES) were united under the umbrella of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Movement and the Democratic Revolutionary Front (FMLN-FDR),14 and the stage was set for more than a decade of armed, revolutionary struggle. Despite the small size of the PCES, the ties of the Salvadoran communists with Moscow gave them an exaggerated stature within the coalition of leftist forces, since ultimately it was Moscow's largess that ensured the military supplies (funneled to the FMLN-FDR by Cuba and Nicaragua) which kept the rebels on the battlefront. In late 1980 the PCES secretary general, Shafik Handal, made a well-publicized trip to the USSR, Eastern Europe, Vietnam, and Korea .in search of arms the Salvador guerrillas needed to mount a "final offensive," which they hoped would bring them to power in San Salvador in 1981. Handal claimed to be displeased with the results of his trip; nevertheless, his demonstrated access to power in the socialist bloc allowed him to cast a larger shadow on the local scene than might have seem warranted otherwise. When Moscow Radio Peace and Progress, the voice of the international communist movement, broadcasting in Spanish to Latin America, wanted to present the views of the FMLN, it was Shafik Handal in his role as a member of the General Command of the FMLN who spoke. IS Later, in the 1990 talks between the FMLN and the Salvadoran government, Handal starred as one of the chief negotiators. Through nine years of the civil war that started in 1980, Moscow backed the armed struggle of the FMLN-FDR in El Salvador indirectly through its surrogates, and directly through its close party ties with the PCES. However, beginning in 1988 there were increasing signs, not only that Moscow wanted to implement Gor-

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bachev's "new political thought" in the Salvadoran context to end military action and seek a negotiated settlement, but also that the Kremlin was watching Washington very closely for indications of the new Bush administration's possible readiness to help end the war. Moscow admonished the guerrillas for attacking polling places during the March 1988 elections. 16 Later, when it became obvious that the Sandinistas, after promising the Soviets that they would cut off arms supplies to the Salvadoran rebels, were in fact responsible for sending two planes loaded with arms for the rebels' big November 1989 offensive, the Soviet Latinamericanist K. Khachaturov wrote reprovingly that this action was not "in keeping with the mutual commitments of the Central American countries. "17 Two public statements by Handal just a year apart, the first in February 1988 and the second in February 1989, illustrated the strong shift in Moscow's position. In 1988, using old, Image I concepts, he assured listeners in Latin America that the "armed revolutionary struggle is legitimate," explaining that "we are facing the United States, with its strategy of low-intensity warfare, which is based on the premise that others should fight in place of the U.S. army." But he insisted that the insurgents were winning the fight: "One by one the counterinsurgency plans drawn up by the Pentagon are getting defeated."ls Handal's February 1989 statement came after the Soviets had put pressure on the Salvadoran insurgents to meet in Mexico City with thirteen other Salvadoran political parties for two days of talks on how to end hostilities. In the comments of Handal and his FMLN colleague Comandante Robert Roco, who were interviewed by Izvestiia following the meeting, there was no reference to the United States as antagonist. All emphasis was on negotiation. Said Handal then: "In the next few months a situation must be created in the country such that none of the opposing sides can go back to military operations. "19 Throughout 1990 the position of the Soviet Union was repeatedly made clear: Talks should take place between the Salvadoran government and the FMLN, mediated by the UN .20 In January the Soviets proposed that the FMLN should lay down its arms if the United States halted military aid to the Salvadoran government, a suggestion publicized by Moscow at a time when the U.S. Congress was debating a new military aid package to the Salvadoran

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government. 21 On 6 February 1990 T ASS declared that in a Washington meeting between U.S. and USSR representatives to discuss a Central American settlement, both sides "favored the resumption of a dialogue between the Salvadoran government and the FMLN ,"22 indicating some degree of "collusion" by the superpowers on this issue. From spring into summer 1990 the Soviet press closely followed the progress of the talks between representatives of the FMLN and the Salvadoran government, expressing full support for this effort. Moscow dubbed "hopeful" the April meeting in Geneva under the auspices of UN Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar. 23 And Soviet accounts of the talks in Mexico applauded the discussions about the army and human rights issues, the attempt to draft a cease-fire to draw the insurgents back into the fabric of Salvadoran society, and the agreement to resume talks in July in Costa Rica. 24 Moscow and the peES could not, of course, guarantee the unanimous satisfaction of all the Salvadoran rebels with its new course. An FMLN political officer in San Salvador complained about the communists' about-face to a New York Times reporter, saying: "For years, the Communists have been telling us to be more radical. Now they're telling us we have to be more practical and pragmatic." And a Roman Catholic priest working with the largest FMLN faction was confused because, he said, "We used to march chanting, 'Socialism, Socialism!' Now we march chanting, 'Democracy, Democracy!'" A young woman in the ranks of the rebel forces was also bewildered: "I'm constantly asking the question, but what about taking power?"25 Particularly important was the attention given to Central American issues at the U.S.-Soviet June 1990 summit in Washington. In working groups preparing for the summit it was agreed that "the two sides favored a political solution to the international conflict in El Salvador and supported the nascent dialogue between representatives of the government and the FMLN ."26 Just as the Sandinista revolution in 1979 had triggered a decade of civil war in El Salvador and minor insurrections elsewhere in Central America, in 1990 the effects of Nicaragua's election and peaceful transfer of power were now spilling over into neighboring countries with a seminal impact. And in 1990, as in 1979, the United States and USSR, both, were significant actors in the local

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drama. The U.S. contribution toward demilitarizing the conflict was to withhold $42.5 million in military aid promised to the Salvadoran government. (This good-faith gesture, however, did not survive the rebels' new offensive begun in late November, which inflicted heavy losses on Salvadoran aircraft and involved the execution of U.S. military advisors.) Moscow's influence was felt at the February 1991 peace talks in Mexico City mediated by a UN official, where the Moscow-backed Salvadoran communist party continued to be the leading moderate force in the five-part coalition of rebel groups. The communists were pushing for a settlement that would allow them to participate in democratic elections to be held in March. 27 Moscow's hand was also shown at this time in the remarkable action taken by the FMLN to return to Nicaragua Soviet missiles that the guerrillas had received from sympathetic Sandinista forces. These were missiles stolen from Nicaraguan regular army stores despite Moscow's strictures against their transfer to third parties. During 1991 the U.S.-USSR partnership grew even closer. On 1 March Valerii Nikolaenko and Bernard Aronson held talks about the Salvador situation and declared their views to be in full accord. 28 Commenting on this topic in June, Pravda said: "It has been pointed out in the Soviet-U.S. consultations held on regional problems in recent months that neither punitive expeditions against Salvadoran insurgents nor sallies by them in return are capable of bringing a settlement nearer. In other words, there are virtually no disagreements between Moscow and Washington over the fact that it is time for the opposing sides in El Salvador to end the armed struggle. And this was confirmed, in fact, by the recent meeting between USSR Foreign Minister A. Bessmertnykh and U.S. Secretary of State J. Baker in Berlin."29 With a changing political climate in El Salvador and improved prospects for the winding down of the disastrous armed conflict, there was a chance that at long last steps could be taken to establish diplomatic relations between EI Salvador and the Soviet Union. Hope for this outcome brought an unmistakable gleam to Moscow's eye, but progress was slow. On 14 July 1990, at the request of the Salvadoran government, the first meeting of official representatives of the two countries took place in Washington. The chief negotiators were Iurii Pavlov, then head of the Latin American Department of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs,

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and Jose Pacas, El Salvador's foreign minister. They agreed that a peace settlement must be found for the military crisis and that talks toward this end must continue. 3o More important, however, was the formal expression by both governments of a willingness to begin dealing with one another on a state-to-state basis. Despite this hopeful beginning, a year later the diplomacy between the Soviet Union and El Salvador had not visibly progressed. None of the harbingers of future relations, such as exchanges of parliamentary delegations, for example, had yet materialized. A reminder of difficulties still facing Soviet overtures was the experience of the T ASS reporter, Iurii Dmitriev, who had hoped to cover the meeting of Central American presidents in El Salvador in July 1991. When Dmitriev arrived at San Salvador's airport, his visa, secured from the Salvadoran consulate in Managua, was declared to have been issued without the approval of President Cristiani's office. After being held under guard at the San Salvador airport for twelve hours, he was unceremoniously shipped back to Managua without a chance to fulfill his mission. 31 Evidently the president's rightist party was not as ready as Moscow to depoliticize its responses and "normalize" relations with old enemies. In mid-1991 it was obvious that Soviet diplomacy still faced an uphill battle to establish state-to-state ties with El Salvador, hindered first and foremost by El Salvador's persistent civil war, which continued to fuel old animosities. Through 1991 the Soviet foreign ministry worked to do all in its power to help bring about a settlement of the Salvadoran armed conflict. Moscow's strategy mirrored its earlier actions to help end Nicaragua's war. Actions taken by the diplomatic offensive included the following: Soviet foreign ministry officials held meetings concurrently with the Salvadoran peace talks to discuss progress; the ministry published exhortations to both sides to bargain in good faith, and cheered appreciatively when progress in negotiations was announced; and-most important-the Soviet ministry entered into serious collaboration with the U.S. State Department to patch together a viable peace process. The Soviets applauded each step toward a final settlement, such as the successful meeting in late September between Salvadoran President Cristiani and FMLN representatives under UN auspices. Close Soviet interest in these proceedings was shown by

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the presence of Soviet deputy minister Nikolaenko in a meeting on the following day in New York with the Salvadoran foreign minister I. Pacas, J. Handal, representing the FMLN, and UN representative Alvaro de Soto to discuss the next steps to be taken in negotiations. 32 In November, when the FMLN announced that it had ceased offensive operations on 16 November, the Soviets were again quick to applaud. 33 And through the year, four joint U.S.-Soviet statements were issued emphasizing the united U.S.Soviet position and calling for serious compromises on the part of El Salvador's combatants to bring about a settlement of the war. In December Izvestiia, viewing this collaboration in historical perspective, recalled that, "the first attempt to coordinate the two countries' efforts in resolving conflicts in Central America was clearly the 1989 talks between Shevardnadze and Baker on ending armed help to the warring sides in Nicaragua." Next, the paper pointed out, the two countries had turned their attention to El Salvador, where there had recently been a perceptible evolution of the joint actions: "From the simple exposition of their positions a year ago, the USSR and U.S. foreign policy departments have switched to coordinated action."34 Beneath the visible tip of this iceberg lay the solid fact that the superpower underpinning for this war was gone. On 31 December 1991 the agreement to end El Salvador's twelve-year-old war was signed in New York, and the most intractable obstacle to Soviet-Salvadoran relations at last seemed to have been removed. But now the USSR was gone. Soviet diplomacy was not to be rewarded, except by the knowledge that a sound new basis had been laid for future Russo-Salvadoran relations. Nikolaenko, who attended the formal signing of the Salvadoran peace accord in Mexico City on 16 January 1992 as special representative of the Russian Federation, announced to reporters that Russia hoped to establish diplomatic relations, trade relations, and joint enterprises with El Salvador in the near future. The outlook for Russian diplomacy was promising.

Guatemala Soviet-Guatemalan relations offer another textbook example of the diplomatic failures Moscow has encountered in Central Amer-

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ica because of its concurrent support of world revolution. In recent decades, successive Guatemalan governments have been locked in sporadic, bloody struggles with Marxist insurgents, the latter supported and inspired by Moscow and its allies, Cuba and Nicaragua. Against the backdrop of this troubled history of civil strife, the contradictory nature and resulting difficulties of Soviet efforts to carry on dual-track, party-and-state relations in Guatemala stand out with special clarity. Despite the pro forma establishment of diplomatic relations on 19 April 1945, for only one brief period (during the presidency of Jacobo Arbenz, 1951-1954) did relations warm between the Soviet and Guatemalan governments. During this time Arbenz legalized the Guatemalan communist party (a status revoked by Arbenz's successors), and shortly before his removal, he negotiated a deal with Moscow to supply Guatemala with several hundred tons of Czechoslovak arms. 35 Party relations, on the other hand, flourished, and Soviet and Guatemalan communists enjoyed a long friendship. The first Guatemalan communist party was, in fact, created by the Comintern, in 1920. Today's pro-Moscow communist party in Guatemala is the Guatemalan Labor party (Partido Guatemalteco del Trabajo, PGT). Over the years the PGT, along with a number of Marxist radical leftist guerrilla groups that operate quite independently, has supported the revolutionary movement in Guatemala and remains illegal. 36 In 1988 there were strong indications that the path of violent revolution was being abandoned by the PCT and that some of its leaders were cooperating with a Marxist umbrella group, the National Revolutionary Unity of Guatemala (Unidad Nacional Revolucionaria de Guatemala, URNC) to negotiate an end to the armed conflict. Moscow, it seemed, was effectively exerting its influence on the Guatemalan leftist movement through the pro-Moscow PGT and the URNG. While the URNG, which was founded in 1982, did not have sufficient power by 1988 to dictate the activities of the leftist groups, it nevertheless enjoyed an important position as a spokesman for the leftist movement as a whole. In a PCT policy statement, given Soviet approval by its appearance in the Soviet-sponsored Information Bulletin, the URNG was officially recognized by the leadership of the PCT as "the military-political vanguard of the revolutionary movement in our country." The

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document went on to say: "We Guatemalan communists wholeheartedly uphold the principled statements and proposals of the National Revolutionary Unity of Guatemala on talks with the government and a national dialogue; we believe it to be the only road leading to peace. . . . We are urging all Guatemalan parties . . . to abandon political and ideological sectarian attitudes."37 This document, published in January 1988, was entitled "Guatemala: For a National Dialogue and Genuine Peace with Respect for Human Dignity and Social Justice, a joint statement of the Central Committee and the National Leadership of the PGT on the occasion of the party's thirty-eighth anniversary." Its publication indicated that the policy line of Guatemalan communists and of the majority of the Marxist insurgents in Guatemala was in full agreement with Moscow's support for the negotiation of regional armed conflicts. Only a few of the most radical elements of the PGT left it to form a splinter group (Central Resistance FrontGuatemalan Party of Labor, FCR-PGT). This group was bent on remaining outside the PGT-URNG fold and determined to carry on a terrorist revolutionary war. In 1990, the Soviet foreign ministry publicly pledged USSR government support to the negotiations between the URNG and the Guatemalan government to end Guatemala's hostilities. Speaking for the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ian Burliai, deputy chief of the Directorate of Latin American Affairs, said that the rebel commanders and President Vinicio Cerezo appeared to be ready to "search for mutually acceptable agreements," and that "the Soviet Union welcomes these intentions."38 Shortly after this, on 26-30 March, a meeting in Oslo, Norway, produced results which Burliai applauded as steps in the direction of eventually ending Guatemala's civil war: "One would like to hope that the spirit of democratic changes, which is becoming established in Central America, and the example of the Nicaraguans, in holding democratic and free elections and entering into the process of handing over power to the opposition, will have the appropriate influence on the opposing sides in Guatemala and will spur them on to engage more actively in seeking political methods of resolving the problems of their country."39 The foreign ministry's underlying hope was, of course, that the winding down of the military confrontation, combined with a PGT

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growing public awareness within Guatemala of how radically Soviet foreign policy goals and ambitions in Central America had changed, would provide felicitous conditions for the future development of "politically neutral" contacts between the Soviet Union and Guatemala. Into early 1990, however, the foreign ministry's hope for progress on the state-to-state track remained largely unfulfilled. Diplomatic relations with Guatemala existed only on paper; the USSR did not have an embassy or even a mission in Guatemala City.40 The highly charged environment left by years of bloody insurgencies and their suppression continued to thwart Soviet efforts to establish normal ties of any sort. The kind of difficulties the Soviets encountered was illustrated in March 1988, when the Soviet news agency T ASS, hoping to establish the first official Soviet presence in Guatemala since the Arbenz era, opened an office in Guatemala City. After barely two months, the building housing the T ASS office was destroyed by two bombs, amid threats from a right-wing organization, the Mano Blanco. 41 In August, despite public assurances by President Cerezo of government protection, the T ASS agency, unsure that its future safety could be guaranteed, closed its doors and moved to Costa Rica. 42 Despite such temporary setbacks, the Soviets persisted through the Gorbachev years to try to develop "normal" government relations, using formal messages of goodwill and exchanging parliamentary delegations. In April 1988, Soviet legislators attended the Seventy-ninth Conference of the International Parliamentary Union, held in Guatemala City. In their speeches they urged the peaceful, political solution of Central American conflicts and the involvement of legislators in working out such solutions. 43 The exchange of parliamentary delegations begun in 1987 was systematically continued. In April 1991, when Soviet deputies were in Guatemala City, led by A. A. Mokanu, deputy chairman of the Council of the Union of the USSR Supreme Soviet, the formal invitation they extended to Guatemalan legislators for a reciprocal visit was promptly accepted. Guatemalan President Jorge Serrano publicly urged these Soviet parliamentarians to press their government to take advantage of every opportunity to promote a peaceful settlement of Guatemala's conflict. 44 Meanwhile, the foreign ministries of both countries worked

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together steadily to improve state-to-state ties. In December 1989, Soviet-Guatemalan consultations between officials of the foreign ministries of both countries took place in Guatemala City.45 With both the Soviet party and government united in support of a single policy position toward Guatemala-a policy position, moreover, that convincingly renounced revolution-the outlook for these talks was promising. The following August Guatemala's Vice-President Roberto Carpio, on a visit to Moscow, told a TASS reporter that his country sought to maintain relations with all nations and that he saw no obstacles to a resumption of diplomatic relations between Guatemala and the USSR.46 On 3 January 1991, the Guatemalan foreign ministry announced the reestablishment of full diplomatic relations with the USSR and the anticipated arrival in Guatemala City of the first Soviet ambassador in thirty-seven years. 47 In a ceremony at the United Nations, the respective foreign ministers signed a definitive joint communique "normalizing" relations and expressing the hope that their common efforts could bring an end to all the conflicts in the region. 48

Honduras The USSR and Honduras remained without formal diplomatic relations until October 1990. This was not surprising, considering the Honduran government's strongly anticommunist posture through the 1980s, which reflected the views of the Honduran national security establishment. After the Sandinista takeover in Nicaragua, the Honduran government had assumed an increasingly hard line toward leftist movements. In fact, under the influence of General Gustavo Alvarez, who served as commanderin-chief of the Honduran armed forces from 1982 to 1984, the government's anti-communist orientation was significantly enhanced. Alvarez believed the Sandinista revolution to have been, in his words, an "armed aggression from the Soviet Union via Cuba." He stated bluntly: "Nicaragua has been converted into a base for a war of conquest in the Caribbean Basin . . . [it] is a Soviet base for subversion. How can we defend ourselves against a Soviet

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base designed for permanent aggression? . . . I don't believe that we can coexist. There's no way it can be done."49 Alvarez was removed from power by military subordinates on 31 March 1984, but he had used his two years as commander to effect a remarkable expansion of the Honduran military forces. He sought and received heavy U.S. funding, and he increased Honduran cooperation in the contra war against the Sandinistas. For a time Honduras became a staging area for the contra forces supported by the United States in a regional conflict fueled by the East/West confrontation of the superpowers. Lacking diplomatic lines of communication with Honduras, the Soviet Union maintained its contacts in the country through party-to-party ties between the CPsu and the Communist Party of Honduras (Partido Comunista de Honduras, PCH). This party was founded in 1927, outlawed in 1957, and remained without legal status in 1990. Until the 1980s, its activities were for the most part nonviolent, a position which, however, became increasingly unpopular among Honduran leftists after the Sandinista victory in Nicaragua. With a membership that totaled only one thousand in the mid-1960s, the party continued to dwindle away, losing members to groups advocating more violent revolutionary action. By 1989 the PCH'S membership had fallen to an estimated one hundred. 50 The struggle of the Sandinistas to retain their power in neighboring Nicaragua encouraged and guided the actions of those leftist Honduran groups favoring armed insurrection and pushed all Honduran leftists toward integration. In April 1983, the proMoscow PCH, in a move that was fully in accord with Moscow's militant Central American line at that moment, joined a coalition of leftist Honduran groups to form an umbrella organization, the National Directorate of Unity (Direcci6n Nacional de Unidad, DNU).51 The strong hand of the Sandinistas was also apparent in this action, for the unification of the DNU took place in Managua, where the DNU set up its headquarters. In 1987 the Honduran communists officially announced that "the defense of the Sandinista people's revolution is our bounden duty and obligation."52 Henceforth the DNU took a strongly nationalist stand and denounced the Honduran government for condoning the country's militarization by the United States and allowing Honduras to be

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used as a staging area for the Nicaraguan contras. The Honduran communist party echoed this line faithfully. In April 1988, when the Honduran government cooperated in the extradition and arrest by u.s. authorities of the Honduran drug trafficker Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros, the Honduran communist party opposed the government's action, calling it detrimental to "national sovereignty and dignity.// Later, when the U.S. embassy was attacked over the same incident by protesters, the secretary general of the PCH labeled this action "a real flare-up of anger and protest against the presence of U.S. forces . . . against the gross infringement upon our sovereignty.//53 Eventually, when the PCH, consistent with the Gorbachev line, endorsed the Guatemala accord, its endorsement came last on a list of pledges, trailing a series of nationalistic, anti-U. S. positions: "Our party has now put forth slogans for a restoration of national sovereignty, the immediate expulsion of the contras, a review of military treaties with Washington 'legitimizing' the presence of U.S. troops on our territory, and scrupulous fulfillment by the Azcona Hoyo government of the Guatemala accords.// 54 The PCH also condemned the Honduran government for the way it was conducting its negotiations with the United States, claiming that agreements were being finalized without proper consultation with the Honduran legislature (practices dating back to 1982 and the Alvarez era). The party pointed out that this behavior signified disregard for Honduras's national sovereignty. Meanwhile, Moscow's propaganda machine in 1988, ignoring new political thought, continued to support the Honduran communist party's "Image 1// appeals to Hondurans in the name of their national interests to oppose the further development of military installations desired by the United States. In December, Moscow Radio broadcast to Latin America a message of the Honduran communist party protesting their government's negotiations with the United States to install a radar site on the Honduran Atlantic coast, as the commentator put it, "to increase the presence of the Pentagon.// 55 Despite the persistence with which the Soviet party backed the antigovernment demands of the Honduran Marxists for greater national sovereignty and the demilitarization of their country, initial efforts of the Soviet foreign ministry to establish stateto-state relations with Honduras began to make some headway.

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In January 1988, the Soviet ambassador to Costa Rica, Vadim Rozanov, explained to reporters that the two governments were able to maintain formal contacts through the Soviet and Honduran embassies in Costa Rica. Using this arrangement, the USSR and Honduras had managed, in 1987, to sign several economic and commercial contracts to exchange Honduran bananas and some other commodities for Soviet machinery. Drawing from his personal experience, Rozanov observed that he had visited Honduras only once, eighteen years earlier, for a stay of three days, when he was en route to Costa Rica with a group of Soviet artists. But the situation was now changing, he reported. In 1987, as a first step in the major initiative undertaken in recent years by the Soviet government to open up diplomatic channels, the USSR Supreme Soviet had invited members of the Honduran National Congress to visit the Soviet Union. "One has to wonder why there is no USSR embassy in Honduras," the ambassador said. "Naturally, we have to do something; we have to work to organize exchanges for the next ten years, and exchange artistic groups and plan cultural exchanges each year. We are going to work for this."56 Through 1988 and 1989 Soviet-Honduran relations inched forward. A visit of Honduran legislators to the Soviet Union took place from 30 August to 7 September 1988, the first time that such a high-level Honduran delegation had visited the USSR. Both sides officially welcomed the occasion to develop further trade ties and to establish regular legislative exchanges. The Soviet side also used the opportunity to emphasize its commitment to the political solution of regional problems and its full support for implementation of the Guatemala agreements in Central America. 57 In October 1988 T ASS registered Soviet approval of a statement by the Honduran government to the forty-third session of the United Nations General Assembly. This was the proposal of the Honduran minister of foreign affairs, Carlos L6pez Contrera, that a UN peace force be sent to patrol the Honduran borders with Nicaragua and El Salvador. T ASS pointed out that this proposal coincided with the request for an international patrol force along Nicaragua's border with Honduras, which Nicaragua's president had promised to endorse at the next (November) meeting of the

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Central American presidents. T ASS'S statement thus included a gentle nudge to Ortega that Moscow was expecting him to follow through on his promise. 58 From the perspective of the Honduran government, effective efforts to monitor and hence to diminish the activities of guerrillas, whether domestic or from neighboring countries, had to be gratifying, since, as Michael Radu has observed, "foreign guerrilla forces have posed greater challenges to Honduras than domestic ones."59 In December 1989, a further warming on the part of the Honduran government toward the USSR was indicated when President Azcona received the delegation representing the Soviet Committee for Solidarity with Latin American Peoples. 60 In 1990 state-to-state relations between Honduras and the USSR continued to strengthen, while regional events weakened the position and traditional posture of the Honduran communist party. Of particular importance in the latter respect was the Sandinistas' loss of power in the February 1990 elections, which deprived Honduran Marxists of the Nicaraguan regime's strong support, guidance, and sanctuary, which had helped to sustain the Honduran party throughout the 1980s. In September 1990, Honduran President Callejas announced his intention to meet shortly with Shevardnadze at the United Nations and officially establish diplomatic relations between Honduras and the USSR. And indeed, under President Callejas's watchful eyes the necessary accord was duly signed on 30 September by the two countries' foreign ministers, along with a trade agreement. The Soviet foreign ministry stressed the importance of Honduras in Soviet eyes, citing its key role in Central American regional affairs. 61 The following May the Soviet ambassador to Nicaragua, Evgenii Astakhov, was appointed ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to the Republic of Honduras on a dual assignment. 62 President Callejas, explaining why Honduras's new relationship with the USSR had come about, quite simply ascribed it to the end of the cold war: "It is a historical landmark in our country's foreign policy, which became possible due to the SovietAmerican summit off Malta, which determined the superpowers' noninterference in Central American affairs, to political changes in Nicaragua, the end of the actions of Nicaraguan contras and their withdrawal from Honduras."63

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Panama Until March 1991, the establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and Panama was an unfulfilled goal on Moscow's foreign policy agenda. For several decades contacts between the two countries were limited to close party-to-party ties. Only in recent years had the Soviets begun to cultivate some commercial ventures in Panama. Soviet experts long classified the government of Panama as a IIprogressive" and "anti-imperialist" capitalist regime, IIwilling to be friendly to the Soviet Union and to stand up to the United States."64 This classification fitted both General Omar Torrijos's regime of twenty-three years (1958-1981) and the later governments controlled by General Manuel Antonio Noriega. Under General Torrijos, Panama openly snubbed U.S. preferences, supported Cuba, and sided with Third World countries in various international organizational settings. Noriega, in his turn, also adopted an independent, nationalistic posture, and as hostility mounted between his regime and the United States, he tilted more and more toward Moscow as an anti-U.S. gesture. In the early stages of Noriega's conflict with the United States, the general found ready support in Moscow. The anti-imperialist issues he raised neatly paralleled the argumentation of world communism favored by Image I propagandists in Moscow. The possibility of extending Soviet influence through the actions of Panamanian communists in league with Noriega evidently beguiled some members of Moscow's International Department who persisted into 1989 in following many old tactics, supporting Noriega even when Gorbachev's new political thought was shaping Soviet foreign ministry policy in other directions. In 1990, however, when it seemed that the Soviet party and its Panamanian counterpart might be brought into line with the new Soviet policies, the crisis of authority faced by the Soviet party at home appears to have weakened cpsu guidance of Panama's communists. Panama's pro-Moscow communist party, the People's Party of Panama (Partido del Pueblo de Panama, ppp), had evolved in 1943 from the Communist Party of Panama, which was founded in

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1930. Outlawed in 1953, the PPP in its early years was weak. By 1966 it still numbered only about 150 members. Even during the

regime of General Torrijos, although the PPP benefited from his legalization of political parties and his "open neutrality" in Panamanian foreign policy, the membership remained small. 65 In 1984 the communists were unable to certify a membership amounting to 3 percent of the electorate, which would have given them the legal right to participate in the elections. By September 1988 they had somewhat improved their showing, and after a concerted effort to gather signatures, the PPP submitted almost 25,600 signatures (in a population of 2.3 million people) to become officially registered for the 1989 elections. 66 Despite limited success in local politics, the PPP diligently cultivated its ties with the Soviet party and coordinated its efforts with Moscow to carry on a vigorous propaganda campaign against U.S. policies in Panama. In July 1988, the general secretary of the PPP, Ruben Dario Sousa, touching base personally in Moscow, used his visit to deliver an anti-U.S. message on Moscow Radio. He complained that the number of u.S. troops in Panama at that time far exceeded the limits set by the Torrijos-Carter treaty. He theorized that "the United States does not want to go home and . . . does not want to wind down its bases by the year 2000, as envisaged in the Canal agreements. Its aim is to build new military installations on our territory and to turn Panama into a U.S. military appendage. All this is part and parcel of the overall U.S. imperialist strategy which suppresses all national-liberation movements both in Central and South America. Panama is very conveniently situated in terms of its geographical location and could serve as a good bridgehead."67 The Panama party encouraged exchanges with Moscow. On his return to Panama, Sousa hosted members of the Soviet Committee for Solidarity with the Peoples of Latin America. This group came to Panama as guests of an organization identified as the "Torrijos Fund" to meet with members of the PPP, with leaders of the Democratic Revolutionary party (PRD-the official government party controlled by General Noriega), and with groups representing the socialist parties of Latin America. Moscow radio, commenting on the visit, was careful to include a brief but persistently ideological message, noting that "the members of

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the Soviet delegation expressed solidarity with Panama's struggle for true national independence and against foreign interference in the internal affairs of the republic. "68 The same month, Krasnaia zvezda published an analysis of the current Panama situation full of "Image I" rhetoric, using as its source the Panama press. A Panamanian newspaper had just published what was described as "a secret U.S. National Security Council document," which the Soviet paper presented without questioning its authenticity. The document purported to be a "special plan for [U.S.] actions aimed against Panama." It stated the following aims of the United States: lito destabilize the situation in Panama without, however, jeopardizing our [U.S.] presence and influence there, and to obtain legal grounds for canceling the treaties concerning the Panama Canal. We need a policy which will guarantee our control over the canal even after the year 2000."69

In mid-August Moscow Radio's domestic service continued to quote General Noriega as its source of information for the Soviet public about events in Panama. At a time when the United States was exerting extreme economic pressures on Panama to force Noriega's resignation, Noriega claimed (and the Soviet radio repeated his charges) that the U.S. motive was to prevent Noriega from making public information he had that compromised President Bush. He stated further that Panamanian funds, withheld by the United States, were being diverted to support the Nicaragua contras in a kind of "Panamagate."70 Moscow's party support for Panama's communists, then in league with Noriega, was given a special boost by Moscow in September 1988 when Karen Brutents, then first deputy chairman of the Soviet party's International Department, spent six days in Panama meeting with PPP leader Sousa, with members of the National Executive Committee and the Political Commission of Noriega's PRD, and with leaders of the Panama National Trade Union Center. This was Brutents's fourth visit to Panama in three years at the invitation of the PPP. Closely following on Brutents's heels, a Soviet trade union delegation, headed by Karatai Turyzov, secretary of the Soviet All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, met with Panamanian trade unionists in an effort to regularize contacts between Soviet and Panamanian trade unions. 71

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In October and November 1988, with tension between the United States and Panama mounting, U.S. policy toward Panama was the target of criticism both by Soviet broadcasts to Latin America and by Moscow newspapers, as the following series of comments shows. At the Fifth Congress of the Latin American Federation of Journalists in Acapulco, Mexico, a journalist from Panama revived old charges about U.S. complicity in the unsolved mystery of General Torrijos's death, which Moscow's Radio Peace and Progress duly parroted. 72 T ASS reported a denunciation of U.S. interference in Panamanian affairs by Panama's interior and justice minister, who was interviewed at a conference of ministers of justice in Acapulco. Minister Rodolpho Chiari de Leon labeled U.S. actions against Panama "psychological warfare" and an effort to manipulate domestic Panamanian affairs under the pretext of fighting drug traffickers. 73 Pravda, on 22 November 1988, quoted unidentified "reports in the French press" that described U.S. plans for the creation of an immense military base in Panama "to instill order" in Latin America. And Moscow radio told listeners in Latin America on 27 November about the assertions of a Panamanian professor, speaking at the International Conference on Latin America in Moscow, who claimed that U.S. financial institutions were using foreign debt as a political instrument for aggression. 74 Finally, Moscow Radio Peace and Progress to Latin America called upon Sousa, Panama's communist party general secretary, to explain to its listeners ~hy the United States was fighting General Noriega. Sousa readily responded that Noriega refused to serve "U.S. imperialistic interests" in Panama. Adopting the patriotic line, Sousa said, "Our party is doing all it can to form a large coalition of patriotic forces, including nationalistic military men, to have a nation united and ready to face the aggressive and conquest-like attitude of the North Americans and to save our country from a return to the days of oppression. Within this framework, our political relations, with General Noriega in particular, are developing to produce a large transforming movement."75 As these examples show, in late November 1988 both Soviet and Panamanian party activists were still barrelling down an old, Image I track, and throwing strong support to General Noriega. At the very time when these party-to-party meetings and ideo-

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logical attacks on the United States were being carried on by Soviet and Panamanian party officials and propagandists, other Soviet officials (specifically, staff members of the foreign office) had mounted a very different campaign toward Panama, seeking new ways to develop Soviet diplomatic and commercial relations. In November 1988 they achieved tentative gains when the Soviet ambassador to the United States, Iurii Dubinin, in a ceremony at the headquarters of the Organization of American States in Washington, formalized Moscow's signing of the 1977 protocol on the neutrality of the Panama Canal. The USSR became the thirty-sixth nation to do so. Said Dubinin, "This step evinces the Soviet state's striving to make its contribution to consolidation of the legal foundation of the present-day international relations as an inalienable element of the broad process of consolidation of peace and security, building up mutual understanding between peoples according to the new political thinking."76 In both Moscow and Panama City the possibility of forging diplomatic ties was being talked about. Earlier, in September 1988, General Noriega had indicated some interest, saying, "As a result of our present development we want Panama to come closer to such people as the Soviets."77 Two weeks later a Moscow Radio commentator claimed that unnamed "ordinary Panamanians" had been speaking out more and more about establishing normal relations with the Soviet Union. 78 In December 1988 a T ASS interview with President Solis Palma in Panama City indicated that the Soviets were making progress toward their diplomatic goal. According to Palma, "The Soviet decision to join the protocol on neutrality of the Panama Canal enormously promoted the [Panamanian] awareness of the need for establishing diplomatic relations between Panama and the Soviet Union and expanding their commercial, economic, scientific, and cultural cooperation."79 And, in fact, shortly after Palma made this comment, an agreement on trade and economic cooperation with the USSR, using convertible currency, was approved by the Panamanian National Assembly. According to Panamanian officials the trade agreement was in effect a first step toward diplomatic recognition since it contained a special clause granting the Soviet trade mission all the immunities and privileges of diplomatic personnel. 80 The Soviet interest in commercial agreements with Panama was motivated only in part by the contribution such accords might

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make toward the establishment of diplomatic relations with the government. In addition the Soviet Union was already using its commercial ties with Panama to provide an entree into other Central American countries where it lacked diplomatic ties. As Augusto Varas observed: "An interesting new way of expanding Soviet commercial influence in Latin American countries has been the establishment of an assembly plant in Panama that permits the indirect delivery of Soviet commodities to those countries that still have no diplomatic or commercial relations with the Soviet Union. This commercial agreement enables the Soviet Union to assemble cars, watches, clock mechanisms, and cameras in the harbor of Colon. In order to assure the delivery of spare parts for cars and trucks, the Soviet Union has created the firm 'International Motors,' which manages a spare parts warehouse."B1 Important commercial agreements were signed by a highly placed delegation of Panamanian ministers in Moscow in November 1989. Arrangements were also made to establish a permanent Panamanian commercial representative in Moscow, and to explore future agreements in the areas of air transport, fishing, investment, and banking. B2 During 1989, largely because of the instability of the Noriega regime and the dramatic events that escalated Noriega's conflict with the United States, the Soviets made little headway toward cementing their political relations with Panama. Throughout much of the year, although the Soviet press continued to treat Noriega as the legitimate leader, ignoring his annulment of the 7 May elections, it did not go overboard in praising anything but his patriotism. Only Radio Peace and Progress, broadcasting in Spanish to Latin America, remained slow to moderate its style. In August its broadcasts were still using the events of the year to embellish half-truths about the U.S. role in Panama with Image I slang, asserting that the "gringos" were determined to topple the nationalist regime of Noriega to replace it with a more pliant one, and that Washington was doing all it could to transform the Panama Canal treaty "into a wet paper."B3 In Moscow the days of uninhibited Image I analysis were obviously numbered, and a new era of measured responses was being rehearsed at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Although the new approach was to be sorely tried on 20 December 1989, when U.S. armed forces intervened in Panama, Moscow's media met the

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test. Their official condemnation was straightforward, but unemotional, as illustrated by the following statement: "No matter what the attitudes toward General Noriega's government are, the unwarranted introduction of foreign troops to the territory of a sovereign state and resulting bloodshed are unacceptable."84 Even individual journalists refrained from going overboard in the manner of old times, although Vitalii Kobysh of Izvestiia could not resist changing the American label for "Operation Just Cause" to "Operation Let's Get Panama."85 The reaction of Vadim Perfil'ev, responding for the foreign office to a question from reporters about the possible impact the U.S. invasion might have on U.S.Soviet relations was particularly revealing of changing times and priorities. He said the time had come "to accustom ourselves to the fact that any event at any point of the globe should not necessarily be perceived from the position of East-West confrontation, characteristic of the cold war. "86 From Moscow's new perspective the change of leaders in Panama was not a setback. As soon as the regime of President Endara was in place, the Soviets announced their continuing interest in establishing diplomatic ties with Panama, and Panama's foreign minister, Julio Linarez, was receptive. He told T ASS in January 1990 that Panama indeed favored establishing diplomatic relations with the USSR, just as it favored retaining formal ties with Cuba and Nicaragua, although contacts with the latter would depend on how these two countries behaved toward his government. He assured Moscow that the trade agreements signed earlier with the Noriega regime would receive due consideration and a fair scrutiny by his government.87 Indicating Moscow's seriousness about pursuing these linkages, the Soviet foreign ministry's Gennadii Gerasimov gave an immediate, positive reply to Linarez's comments in a statement to TASS. His government, he said, was ready to expand its existing contacts and would open talks to that end as soon as U.S. troops had left Panama. In the meantime Moscow was also concerned about maintaining the existing Soviet-Panamanian relations in commercial areas: "Missions of a number of Soviet organizations-the Ministries of Fisheries, of Merchant Marine, of Civil Aviation, as well as bureaus of some Soviet news organizations [TASS and NOVOSTI] function in Panama. A commercial agree-

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ment between the Soviet Union and Panama and a number of other agreements are operating and we hope the Panamanian side will honour them."BB Soviet commercial interests in Panama were the subject of a report in the New Times in February 1990. This upbeat account claimed that for twenty-five years the Soviet Union had been using Panama successfully as an international banking and trading center to sell Soviet-made goods in Latin America. Having personally visited the thriving joint venture "Motores Internacionales" in Panama, the author described it in some detail: "We spoke to Lev Rodin, owner of the Panamanian firm . . . and Soviet representative Nikolai Ushakov, executive director of the firm, in its impressive glass-and-concrete headquarters in downtown Panama City. The firm has been selling Soviet-made Lada cars, KamAZ lorries, and other makes to Latin American countries for quite a long time, and operates branches in twenty-eight countries."B9 Other reports as well indicated that Soviet commercial interests were being pursued with some success. In March, for example, a leader of the Soviet Chamber of Commerce and Industry was one of several Soviet representatives who attended the Expocomer-90 exhibition in Panama City. While there, he signed an agreement with his Panamanian counterpart to promote trade and cooperation through exchanges of commercial information, joint trade projects, fairs, and exhibitions.90 Through 1990 the "neutralist" policy lines of diplomacy and commerce grew stronger in Soviet-Panamanian relations. In midNovember 1990, a Soviet parliamentary delegation visited Panama at the invitation of Panama's Legislative Assembly-a first for such a high-ranking group of government representatives. The leader, Georgii S. Tarazevich, chaired the Supreme Soviet Council of Nationalities' Commission for the policy on Nationalities and Interethnic Relations, and the group included important foreign ministry officials. On the Panamanian side, the Soviet recognition of the Endara regime was greatly valued, and was welcomed as a major advance toward the formal achievement of SovietPanamanian diplomatic ties. A Soviet diplomatic presence, said Olimpo Saez, chairman of the Foreign Relations Commission of Panama's Legislative Assembly, "will strengthen the spirit of peace . . . [in] the canal," and he promised that Panama's legis-

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lators would work hard to speed up "turning diplomatic and trade relations with the Soviet Union into a reality."91 At one point, Legislator Saez sounded a discordant note in his generally favorable prognosis. The effort to establish diplomatic relations would be carried out, he noted, "despite the screams of local and foreign communists." His comment was an interesting reminder of the position taken by the Panamanian communists in the changing political scene. During 1990, although Soviet communists might discard old international dogma and tactics, Panama's communists clearly refused to do so. Like Cuba's party, the People's Party of Panama remained staunch Marxists of the old Soviet stripe. On the first anniversary of the U.S. intervention in Panama, the ppp issued a battle cry couched in ringing Image I terms. Condemning the "American imperialists" for persecuting Panamanian workers, "the victims of a national tragedy," the communique called for Panamanians to rise and expel the "usurping Yankees" and "lead our country down the true paths of nationalliberation."92 As in the past, some local communists were out of step with Soviet diplomatic efforts to make friends in Central America, but this time their rhetoric was unlikely to prevent the acceptance of a Soviet Union now viewed as an "ordinary neighbor" in the region. This point was driven home on 29 March 1991, when the two countries finally harvested the fruits of patient diplomacy. On that date the permanent UN representatives of the USSR and Panama signed a joint declaration establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries, effective immediately, with embassies to be opened in Panama City and MoSCOW. 93 Assessing the importance to the USSR of this event, Pravda's Pavel Bogomolov pointed to the geopolitical significance of the Panama Canal, noting that the canal had provided transit for 600 Soviet ships in 1990, and he appropriately emphasized the key contribution of the new relationship to Gorbachev's foreign policy agenda: "The establishment of Soviet-Panamanian relations is a notable and important stage in the process of the full-scale 'institutionalization' of relations at the official level between the USSR and the Latin American countries."94

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Belize Historically, Belize-a country with a population of 171,735 in mid-1988 and a "negligible" number of communists95-did not figure prominently in Soviet foreign affairs. Even so, during the Brezhnev era in July 1983, W. Richard Jacobs, the Grenadian ambassador to Moscow, identified Belize to his government as a likely target for the expansion of Marxist influence. 96 Jacobs's vision, reflecting the foreign affairs mindset of the Brezhnev years, was short-lived. It lasted only into October 1983, when U.S. troops intervened in Grenada and removed its Marxist regime. The new foreign policy approach of the Gorbachev regime was to have a more lasting impact. In December 1988 Moscow indicated its interest in initiating diplomatic contacts with Belize when a Soviet parliamentary group, which was attending the inauguration of Mexico's President Carlos Salinas, met in Mexico City with the Belize minister of foreign affairs, justice, and economic development, Dean Oliver Barrow, to discuss the future of SovietBelizean relations. The Belize minister responded with praise for the "Soviet position of support for small countries' struggle for autonomy," and a basis was laid for future negotiations. 97 Two and a half years of diplomatic efforts followed, ending successfully on 26 June 1991, in a ceremony at the Soviet Union's Permanent Mission to the United Nations. A joint communique signed by the two countries' ambassadors to the UN, Iulii Vorontsov and Carl Rogers, announced the establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and Belize, with an exchange of ambassadors (on the basis of concurrency), effective from June 25. They would now begin, said Ambassador Rogers, to "study each other's potential for trade, technical cooperation, and other fields. ' '98 The establishment of relations with Belize meant that by June 1991 the USSR had almost completed a major diplomatic objective of Gorbachev's foreign policy in Central America-to exchange ambassadors with all of the Central American countries. Soviet diplomacy had done well, considering that on the threshold of the Gorbachev era Moscow had enjoyed full diplomatic relations with only Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Within the eighteen-month pe-

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riod from January 1990 to June 1991, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, and Belize had been added to that list. Only El Salvador remained a holdout, and in 1992, with the end of the Salvadoran war, Russia appeared likely to receive this belated prize before long. Moscow's extraordinary diplomatic feat had required others quite as formidable-dispelling deep antagonisms spawned by communist messianism and the cold war, and selling Moscow's new image to Central American government leaders. All of this accomplishment was preliminary-a necessary first course in the commercial and political movable feast that the Soviet Union hoped to enjoy someday in the Western hemisphere. Seeking mutually profitable commercial deals in the isthmus was an elusive future project the Soviets had assigned themselves. Another long-term hope was to increase their influence upon regional affairs by expanding their country's presence and continuing their role as a partner of the United States. With the breakup of the USSR, these missions were passed on to Russia and the other former Soviet republics. This remarkably positive legacy provided the successor states with a surprisingly hopeful basis for their future relations, commercial and diplomatic, in the Central American isthmus.

Relations with the Island and Rim Countries of the Caribbean

Soviet diplomatic contacts in the Caribbean Basin-almost nonexistent until the advent of Cuba's revolution-began to grow during the Brezhnev years (1964-1982). At the start of the period, the USSR exchanged ambassadors with only two Caribbean Basin countries, Mexico and Cuba. By the time Brezhnev's regime ended, however, Moscow had added eight diplomatic partners to this list: five countries on the littoral (Nicaragua, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, and Surinam) and three island countries ijamaica, Grenada, and Trinidad and Tobago). In addition, the CPS U systematically cultivated party-to-party ties with pro-Soviet communist parties (in most cases relationships in existence for many years), not only in these countries but also in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Antigua and Barbuda, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Puerto Rico. As old contacts deepened and new contacts multiplied, Soviet power in the early 1980s appeared to be edging irresistibly forward in the Caribbean Basin on a tide of Marxist ideology and Leninist organization. In 1983, the tide abruptly slackened, and both the character and extent of Moscow's relations in the region were subsequently transformed by a number of factors. Gorbachev's curtailment of the role of ideology in Soviet foreign policy was one major factor contributing to the process of change. This chapter briefly summarizes the salient events affecting Soviet-Caribbean relations in the Gorbachev period and describes Soviet relations with the governmellts and parties of the island and littoral states of the Caribbean. Its overall purpose is to describe the nature and dimensions of the Soviet presence in the Caribbean at the end of the Gorbachev-Soviet period. Part one deals with the island states and discusses recent Soviet relations with Grenada, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Gua-

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deloupe, Martinique, Antigua and Barbuda, and Trinidad and Tobago. Part two considers the rim countries.

Grenada In 1979 the triumph of leftist forces in Nicaragua was augmented by another stunning coup, this one on the Caribbean island of Grenada. The coup in St. George's brought to power for almost four years the ideologically Leninist New Jewel Movement (NJM), under its charismatic leader, Maurice Bishop. In 1983, however, as Moscow watched closely, Grenada's Marxist experiment was decisively interrupted by the armed intervention of U.S. and OECS (Organization of Eastern Caribbean States) forces. The intervention proved to be a dramatic turning point in the hitherto steadily rising tide of revolutionary activity in the Caribbean, and the event sent a strong warning to the Kremlin that the expansion of Soviet influence within the Western hemisphere during the Brezhnev era had reached its apogee. Confidential government and party documents related to the short life of Bishop's regime, which were seized by the invasion forces, well demonstrated just how deeply the Soviets were implicated in Grenada's affairs. Grenada had received its independence from Britain on 7 February 1974, and the NJM had been organized the previous year by a merger of two leftist groupsBishop's party, the Joint Endeavor for Welfare, Education, and Liberation (JEWEL) and the Movement for the Assemblies of People. Gathering political strength, the NJM won six of the fifteen parliamentary seats in the 1976 general elections. 1 However, Bishop and his followers quickly grew impatient with the repressive incumbent government. In March 1979, eager to transform the system, they seized power in the first coup d'etat in West Indian history. Thereupon Bishop, as prime minister, and his deputy, Bernard Coard, a much more doctrinaire Leninist, proceeded to implement revolutionary plans for the socialist transformation of Grenadian society. The People's Revolutionary Government (PRG) which they established drew inspiration and, as time passed, increasing guidance and support from Cuba and the Soviet Union. Though the closeness of Grenada's relations with these countries was, at the

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time, studiously masked where possible, it was unmistakably revealed in the documents captured by the intervention forces in October 1983. And indeed, Cuba's involvement in the form of some seven hundred advisors and construction workers at the Point Salines airfield and other building sites could not be hidden. Cuban assistance was a natural consequence of Castro's deepseated commitment to the spread of revolution in the Caribbean and his personal friendship with Bishop, but Cuba's activity was also encouraged by the Soviet Union. By subcontracting much of the overt guidance of Grenadian revolutionary developments to Cuba, Moscow was able to maintain a low profile with respect to activities disturbing to Washington. 2 The Grenada documents indicate that behind the scenes Moscow also quietly developed its own direct access to the Grenadian leadership.3 Party and state relations between the USSR and Grenada grew in tandem. Formal visits to the Soviet Union were made first by Deputy Prime Minister Coard, in the summer of 1980, and by Prime Minister Bishop in July 1982. A secret agreement between the CPsu and NJM, signed during Bishop's visit, stressed the importance of inter-party cooperation, and each side pledged to work in a number of very specific ways to deepen it. A Soviet ambassador was installed in St. George's in November 1981, and successive state and party agreements provided for various kinds of consultation, assistance, and training for Grenadians in Moscow, Havana, East Berlin, and Sofia. 4 Secret military agreements between the USSR and Grenada were signed in Havana in 1980 and 1981, and in Moscow in 1982. The method of cultivating party-to-party linkages that Moscow used in postwar Europe to extend Soviet influence in the Eastern European countries was the obvious prototype for the development of relations between the CPsu and the NJM. A good description of this method appears in Vladimir Kusin's account of how the CPS U' s interlacing network of contacts provided Moscow with control over Czechoslovakia's political life: "The main thrust . . . is . . . through the channels that have been painstakingly built up from the end of the 1940s, namely high-level meetings, regular consultations between party leaders, inter-party connections between central committee secretariats in Moscow and Prague, cooperation between social organizations of all kinds, and the Soviet Embassy."s

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One of the ways this East bloc pattern shaped SovietGrenadian contacts in the early 1980s was revealed in the correspondence of W. Richard Jacobs, the Grenadian ambassador to Moscow. Jacobs displayed considerable flair and imagination in devising his own scheme for applying the Soviet model of alliances to Grenada's relations with likely clients in the Caribbean. He envisioned the possibility that Grenada might become a Soviet surrogate in its own right, capable of advancing the Soviet network of influence in the Caribbean, for which Grenada might count on special recognition from Moscow. Specifically, he calculated that Grenada's regional influence could be enhanced if the NJM would: 1/(1) Establish a system of informing the Soviets of the outcome of the meetings between the New Jewel Movement and the progressive parties in the region; (2) Maintain these party-toparty meetings; (3) Examine the possibility of concluding formal treaties of friendship and cooperation with our neighbours; (4) Explore ways and means of influencing the international behaviour (voting at UN, etc.) of Surinam and Belize ."6 Meanwhile there was evidence that Moscow might very well look with favor on Grenada's proposed international role within a socialist commonwealth in the Caribbean. Indeed, the times seemed ripe for the further expansion of leftist regimes and Soviet influence. In a Moscow meeting on 10 March 1983, Chief of Staff Marshal N. V. Ogarkov told Grenada's chief of staff, Major E. Louison: "Over two decades ago, there was only Cuba in Latin America; today there are Nicaragua and Grenada, and a serious battle is going on in El Salvador." 7 Despite Ogarkov's implied scenario, the dominoes refused to topple neatly. Instead, Grenada fell victim to the radicalization of its own revolution. A bitter factional struggle engineered by Deputy Minister Coard-with, as it turned out, support from Moscow-brought about Bishop's violent removal from power and assassination in October 1983. These events were followed by armed intervention and the overthrow of Bishop's successor. An especially galling aspect of the Grenadian disaster for Moscow and Havana must have been the disclosure in the final events that although they had both supported Grenada's Marxists, they had conspired on opposing sides. 8 In October 1988, five years after Grenada's communist regime had been removed by the U.S.lOECS intervention, Izvestiia exam-

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ined Grenada's political scene by interviewing Tarley Francis, a member of the executive council of the party that had assumed Bishop's mantle, calling itself the Maurice Bishop Patriotic Movement (MBPM). Francis reported that in his view the island had suffered a "monstrous regression." As Francis put it, "The progressive socioeconomic transformations implemented in Grenada by Maurice Bishop's revolutionary government in the years 19791983 have been completely eliminated." Tourism, which was supposed to have revived the nation's economy, had not developed, and he explained this in terms of an old Marxist complaint: the capitalist countries supposed to provide a flood of tourists had been having their own financial troubles. Francis frankly admitted that his party remained weak. In Grenada's December 1984 elections it had mustered only 5 percent of the vote, not enough to win representation in the country's legislature. The party still suffered, Francis told Izvestiia's reporter, because the people of Grenada had not welcomed the coming to power of the ultra-left (Moscow-supported) faction that had murdered Bishop and installed Coard. He also blamed the incumbent, "puppet" government under Herbert Blaize, imposed by the intervention forces, for having restricted his party's activities. 9 He may have had in mind such restraints as the government's refusal of visas to the Cuban and Libyan Marxist-Leninist representatives whom the MBPM had invited to attend their convention in May 1988. At this convention, the MBPM elected a new leader, Dr. Terry Marryshow, grandson of a national hero of Grenada, who promised to invigorate the image of the MBPM. To do this, Marryshow, like Francis, stressed the crucial importance of distancing the MBPM as far as possible from the Bernard Coard faction (consisting of Coard and sixteen former revolutionaries sentenced to death or long jail terms for the murder of Maurice Bishop). He said flatly, "It would be 'political suicide' for the MBPM to be associated with that cause."lO Young Dr. Marryshow, who received his medical training in Cuba and his political experience as a member of Maurice Bishop's security detail, announced his determination to double the membership of the MBPM during his first year of leadership and was clearly setting his party's sights on the 1994 elections and a chance to participate peacefully in the political life of the country. For the Soviet Union the question of renewing state and party

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relations with Grenada likewise depended on disassociating itself from the Bernard Coard cause and the trauma of that history. So, too, it tried to disassociate itself from the model of SovietGrenadian relations during the Bishop regime that had been used so aggressively by Brezhnev's foreign policy apparat to try to advance Soviet influence in the Third World at the expense of world capitalism. Whether, given time, Gorbachev's perestroika might have convincingly refurbished the Soviet image in Grenadian eyes, providing a basis for renewed diplomacy, is a question that must remain unanswered.

Jamaica The Soviet-Jamaican embrace of friendship that occurred in the 1970S marked another bold advance of the communist banner in the Western hemisphere, and did so in a unique manner. Unlike the evolution of Soviet relations elsewhere in the region, according to which party linkages tended to predate diplomatic ones, the establishment of diplomatic relations between Jamaica and the USSR in 1972 preceded, by six years, the founding of the Moscoworiented Workers Party of Jamaica (wPJ). When this communist party came into existence, it did so with the blessing of the leftleaning prime minister of Jamaica, Michael Manley, during his first term of office, which ran from 1972 to 1980. (Manley lost to Edward Seaga in 1980, but was reelected in 1989.) Although the WPJ enjoyed legal status from the start, with its small roster (of no more than one hundred members by 1988), it has never posed a serious challenge to the two major parties in Jamaica-Manley's People's National Party (PNP) or Seaga's Jamaica Labor Party (JLP). In what is essentially a two-party system, the two leading parties have alternated political control every eight or ten years since 1955. Trevor Munroe, both founder and secretary general of the Workers' Party of Jamaica and a hard-line Marxist, has been described by Anthony Maingot as one of the Caribbean's most important Marxist-Leninist theorists and leaders. II Munroe's party maintained close relations with Moscow, but had a temporary falling out with Cuba over events in Grenada during the brief, violent struggle there between the two Marxist factions of Bishop and Coard. Like Moscow, the Jamaican party

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sided with the hard-liner Coard, supporting the bloody overthrow and assassination of Bishop in October 1983. Unlike Moscow, however, in subsequent years Munroe was moved by neither events nor the passage of time to moderate his outdated, fierce orthodoxy. After a trip to Moscow in 1988 by Munroe and members of his Central Committee to observe how perestroika was democratizing the Soviet party, several of these members resigned in protest to Munroe's leadership style, raising serious questions about the relevance of the Jamaican party's orientation to current affairs under his guidance. 12 In all probability Munroe's inflexibility was discounted by Soviet leaders as a trivial, minor irritant, since, from Moscow's perspective, relations with Jamaica depended not on Munroe and his communists, but on Michael Manley, leader of the People's National Party. Chief impetus for the establishment of Jamaica's relations with the USSR came from the foreign policies pursued by Manley, who during his first year as prime minister (1972) also formalized diplomatic ties with Cuba and China. Under Manley's guidance Jamaica aligned itself with international socialism and established diplomatic relations with Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland, and Romania. In various international forums Jamaica supported anti-imperialist positions and called for a "new international economic order." In 1979 Manley visited the Soviet Union and finalized several trade and commercial pacts with Moscow. He also signed trade agreements with Hungary, Yugoslavia, and other East bloc countries. Jamaica's relations with its close neighbor Cuba also flourished during Manley's first tour of duty as prime minister. Manley and Castro exchanged visits and advice; Jamaican officials were sent to Cuba for ideological and paramilitary training; and Jamaica welcomed Cuban advisors (estimated by the U.S. State Department to total some five hundred by 1980).13 The warm relationship Manley developed with Cuba was so visible that Seaga, Manley's opponent in successive races for prime minister, scored campaign points in the 1980 election by labeling Manley a captive of Cuban influence. When Seaga succeeded Manley in 1980, the new prime minister sought to remove the Cuban influence, even to the point of severing Jamaica's diplomatic relations with Havana in October 1981. He did not, however, sever ties with the USSR nor end all commercial relations with other communist countries, and on 13

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February 1989, when Manley was returned to office as prime minister, the Cuban connection was quickly restored. 14 Moscow's interest in Manley extended to his party. In September 1988, when a CPsu delegation headed by the Gomel Belorussian Obkom first secretary, A. S. Kamai, and a senior official in the CPsu Central Committee, V. P. Ulasevich, visited Jamaica, the Jamaican party that hosted the Soviet guests was not the proMoscow communist WPJ of Trevor Munroe, but the party of Michael Manley, and the event celebrated was the fiftieth Conference of Manley's People's National Party of Jamaica. IS Meanwhile, Moscow in 1988 undertook conscious efforts to expand neutral, nonideological discussions with Jamaican trade union and government figures. The Soviet trade union organization invited a delegation from the National Workers' Union of Jamaica to observe Soviet restructuring in the trade unions and factories and to develop further bilateral relations between the two countries' labor organizations. 16 On 29-30 August 1988, Jamaican foreign ministry officials were received in Moscow by USSR deputy foreign minister V. G. Komplektov, V. L. Oleandrov, then chief of the International Organizations Administration of the foreign ministry, and a number of other foreign ministry senior officials to discuss topics for the upcoming meeting of the forty-third UN General Assembly session and bilateral SovietJamaican relations. On the Jamaican side were E. F. Francis, permanent secretary at the Jamaican foreign ministry, L. Barnett, Jamaican permanent representative to the United Nations, and G. G. Duncan, the Jamaican ambassador to the USSR.17 Through 1989 into 1991 government contacts systematically continued. On 23 November 1989, a cultural and scientific exchange agreement was signed in Moscow by Komplektov and Ben Clare, the Jamaican minister of foreign affairs and foreign trade. IS On 15 March 1990, the fifteenth anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the USSR and Jamaica was celebrated by an exchange of telegrams between the foreign ministers of the two countries, E. A. Shevardnadze and D. Coore. 19 This was followed in April 1990 by the visit to Kingston of a Soviet parliamentary delegation led by USSR People's Deputy Boris Miroshin. The Soviet legislators were welcomed by foreign ministry, parliamentary, and other government officials. Jamaica's minister of state dwelled upon the important changes that had occurred in

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the Caribbean and Common Market (Caricom) as a result of Soviet perestroika and global disarmament, and expressed his country's hope that greater Jamaican-Soviet cooperation might mean increased economic aid for Jamaica. Regular future exchanges between the two legislatures were planned. 20 In mid-October a high-ranking, twelve-member Soviet trade mission, headed by v. M. Burmistrov, deputy minister for economic relations, held several days of intensive trade talks, seeking to elaborate on and expand existing exchanges of Jamaican bauxite and pimiento for Lada cars. 21 Finally, in August 1991, the second shoe was dropped in regularizing parliamentary exchanges when seven legislators-the first parliamentary group from Jamaica-were hosted in Moscow by the USSR Supreme Soviet. 22 The appearance of the "Jamaican model" of Soviet relations was serendipitous. Having arisen almost by chance it would seem from a Jamaican leader's socialist policies of the moment, the ensuing diplomatic and trade contacts happily resulted in linkages that survived the change of regimes in Jamaica, first to Seagadubbed by some a "Caribbean Reagan" for his conservative capitalism-and back again to the socialist, Manley. On the Soviet side it had to be clear that the emphasis in Soviet-Jamaican relations upon parliamentary, cultural, commercial, and diplomatic exchanges, along with the downplaying of ideology, had built enduring ties in the Caribbean that could outlast changes of the guard among individual party leaders and the shifting fortunes of political parties. In contrast to the methods that contributed to the Grenadian fiasco, this Jamaican model was a genuine success story for Moscow's new foreign policy, and one that, until the unexpected passing of the Soviet system, appeared destined to be replicated throughout the Caribbean region.

Dominican Republic Soviet relations with the Dominican Republic in the Gorbachev period, though much less extensive than those with Jamaica, were a pale imitation of the Jamaican model. Tenuous relations existed at both government and party levels, with state-to-state contacts receiving Moscow's preeminent attention. Diplomatic relations were first established between the Domin-

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ican Republic and the USSR in 1939 and suspended twenty years later by Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. Thereafter, until March 1991, contacts between the two countries were carried on by their respective foreign ministry or other governmental officials in lieu of ambassadors. An example of this practice was the visit to Santo Domingo, in August 1988, just before the forty-third UN General Assembly session, by la. A. Burliai, deputy chief of the First Latin American Department of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The announced objective of Burliai's visit was to confer with Dominican Republic officials, including Foreign Minister Joaquin Ricardo Garcia, about issues on the General Assembly's agenda. 23 Another example was Minister Garcia's meeting in Mexico City with the Soviet deputy chairman of the USSR Supreme Soviet, P. Khabibullaev. Pravda in its account of this meeting indicated Soviet agreement with Garcia on regional affairs, quoting with evident approval Garcia's statement that "the Dominican Republic supports the efforts of the countries belonging to the Contadora Group and the support group and favors a solution of the problems of Central America brought about by the states of the region themselves without outside interference."24 Parliamentary exchanges were also getting under way. In the spring of 1990, when People's Deputy Boris Miroshin led a group of his colleagues to Jamaica, the delegation also arranged stopovers in the Dominican Republic, Barbados, and the Bahamas to explore possibilities of establishing direct links between their respective parliaments. 25 With respect to party relations between the cpsu and the Dominican Communist party (Partido Comunista Dominicano, PCD), these were correct but sparse, as might have been expected given the weakness of the Dominican party. Founded in 1944, the PCD, despite enjoying legal status and the guidance of an ambitious and enterprising general secretary, Narciso Isa Conde, was weakened by the excessive splintering of leftist forces in the Dominican Republic. Under Conde's leadership the Dominican communist party in 1988 altered its previous position of rigid antagonism toward the Catholic Church, a policy change of some interest in view of the election of the liberation theologian Father Aristide as president in neighboring Haiti. According to Conde, "Liberation theology has caught on among the Christian masses, in the

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church's grass roots and intermediate levels." As a result, he observed, "We even have Christians in the party," and he added, "We consider the revolutionary Christians to be as revolutionary as we are. . . . We must change the Party to change the country."26 By 1990, however, this change had still not swelled the party's ranks beyond an estimated 750 members, nor given it representation in Congress. 27 In March 1989, Moscow sent greetings to the Dominican party on the occasion of its fourth congress, urged it to pursue world peace, and congratulated Conde on his reelection as general secretary of the party.28 But in Conde's eyes, Cuban ties may have offered his party greater direct support and political relevance than could the Soviet connection. Traveling to Havana in December 1990, he appeared on local television to denounce his country's political leadership for the deepening unemployment and illiteracy in the Dominican Republic. In view of Moscow's new foreign policy priorities and desire to normalize its image in the region, party relations were bound to be superseded by Soviet efforts to advance state-to-state relations with the Dominican Republic. On 18 March 1991 these efforts were rewarded when President Balaguer announced the establishment of full diplomatic relations with the USSR, with an exchange of nonresident ambassadors. The Dominican Republic was to be represented by the Dominican ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany; and the USSR, by the Soviet ambassador to Venezuela. 29 In May 1991, the resident Soviet ambassador in Caracas, Vladimir M. Goncharenko, was assigned to the joint posting of ambassador to the Dominican Republic. The new Soviet diplomacy had chalked up another small, but concrete and visible advance in the Caribbean. 30

Haiti Soviet ties with Haiti over the years were limited exclusively to communist party relations. In the Haitian context this fact effectively precluded the cultivation by Moscow of ordinary, diplomatic ties. During the Gorbachev period, however, the Image III approach of Gorbachev policies, by encouraging the transforma-

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tion of U.S.-Soviet relations from confrontation to collusion in the settlement of regional problems, helped to advance the democratic evolution of the Haitian political system. In Haiti before the dechoukaj, or "uprooting," of the Duvalier regime in February 1986, membership in the Haitian communist party was a capital offense. The Unified Party of Haitian Communists (Parti Unifie des Communistes Hartiens, PUCH), with roots going back to 1934, was legalized only in 1986. In January 1989, when the party held a four-day observance of its founding, it invited kindred spirits from nearby Cuba, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Martinique, and Guadeloupe to celebrate. Its membership, under the leadership of General Secretary Rene Theodore, was estimated in 1990 to total 350.31 Though small, the PUCH received high-level attention from the CPsu. In February 1988, Theodore met in Moscow with the Soviet party's International Department chief, Anatolii Dobrynin, and Deputy Chief Karen Brutents. While discussing party matters, each side also briefed the other on the remarkable recent changes in both countries-in Haiti the new conditions made possible by Duvalier's removal; in the USSR the innovative results of perestroika-with the Soviet side putting special emphasis upon the international importance of improved U.S.-USSR relations. 32 By 1989 it had become apparent that the political outlook of the Haitian communist party had undergone a transformation. According to Brian Weinstein, until late 1988 the party's approach to Haiti's problems was "based on a few doctrinal principles," having at their core "a strident and consistent anti-Americanism." Weinstein noted that as late as 1988, Theodore had traveled to Cuba, Hungary, the USSR, Bulgaria, and Germany, speaking in Image I terms about Haiti's history of oppression from colonialism, neocolonialism, and foreign occupation, blaming mainly the United States. But, said Weinstein, after the September 1988 coup by General Avril, the PUCH suddenly seemed to make its peace with the government and modified its position in other ways.33 In 1989, the marked change in the party's directions was evident in its efforts to play down revolution, in Theodore's support for national reconciliation, and in the party's participation in the National Forum in preparation for the forthcoming elections. The

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resignation in 1989 of four long-time, hard-line party members confirmed the party's new course. Meanwhile, in the spring of 1990, Pravda put pressure on the United States on Haiti's behalf, scolding Washington for not being more helpful in seeking political solutions to Haiti's crisis situation. The existence of the "Haitian volcano," said Pravda, is not only the "consequence of the prolonged internal crisis, which has paralyzed Haiti, but also of a serious flaw in Washington's Latin American policy," which refuses "to seriously help in the capital reconstruction and renewal of the crumbling edifice of statehood" in Haiti, and which, in the language of the new political thought, "relies on the violence of military dictators and not on the building of political solutions."34 On 16 December 1990, Reverend Jean-Bertrand Aristide, candidate of the "National Front for Change and Democracy," was elected president by an overwhelming majority. Early returns gave the liberation theologist the required 50 percent of the votes needed to defeat his nearest opponent, former World Bank economist Marc L. Bazin. Symptomatic of the changing times was the electoral setting itself, which escaped the violence that had cancelled the previous attempt at a presidential election in 1987, when thirty-four voters had been massacred. The 1990 election was peaceful and some 70 percent of the electorate voted, under the watchful eyes of a UN observation team, GAS observers, and a thirty-three-member delegation led by former president Jimmy Carter. The inclusion in Carter's team of the U.S. State Department's Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs, Bernard W. Aronson, was a significant indication of U.S. support for the proceedings. In addition, responding to the early returns, Aronson went so far as to pledge full U.S. support to the new president, and to promise economic assistance from Washington to Aristide's regime. The U.S. and Soviet cooperation in this context was a striking contrast with the past. In the absence of East/West confrontation, the first steps had been taken toward finding political solutions for problems underlying Haiti's violence-ridden society. By December 1991, the USSR had ceased to exist without having established an official relationship with Haiti, and violence had once again returned to Haiti with the ouster of Aristide by a

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military coup. In January 1992, Russia's foreign ministry issued the following interesting statement: Inspiring perspectives have appeared of late in the process of settling the crisis in Haiti. The formula of the political settlement proposed by A. R. Ocampo, a special representative of the Organization of American States, which calls for well-known politician Rene Theodore to be prime minister, seems to be very promising. If the Haitian National Assembly finally appoints Theodore as prime minister, part of his mandate will be to create conditions for the lawfully elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to return home. This might open real possibilities for moving ahead the negotiations on Haitian settlement. 35

Undoubtedly one "inspiring perspective" glimpsed by the Russian ministry in this process was the very real opportunity it might open for moving ahead negotiations between Haiti's government and the Russian Federation.

Guadeloupe and Martinique Like Soviet-Haitian relations, Soviet contacts with Guadeloupe and Martinique were limited to the cpsu's relations with the communist parties in these islands. Both Guadeloupe and Martinique are overseas departments of France, and their parties originated as branches of the French communist party. Their continuing attachment to their parent party is revealed in their strong interest in contemporary issues affecting France, such as European integration and political change in the USSR and Eastern Europe. The Guadeloupe and Martinique parties are legal, and unlike the Haitian party, have long been active in local government. The Guadeloupe party (Parti Communiste Guadeloupeen, PCG), with an estimated membership of three thousand, accounted for almost 1 percent of the total population of 341,430 in 1989. The communist party of Martinique (PCM) claimed a membership of a thousand (total population, 331,511), which proved large enough to win several local elections. 36 In March 1988, when the PCG held its ninth congress, the Soviet party sent a delegation of party officials headed by the chief of the cc Department for Light Industry and Consumer Goods,

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L. F. Bobykin, to honor the event. 37 Returning the visit in the spring of 1989, a delegation of Guadaloupe party members, led by their secretary general, C. Celeste, traveled to the USSR at the invitation of the CPsu. Prominent on their Moscow agenda were meetings with officials of the CPsu Central Committee's International Department and the Ideology Department. 38 The same year, the Guadeloupe party showed its dedication to world communism by sending a delegation to the Thirteenth World Festival of Youth and Students in North Korea. 39 International communism lives on, but in view of the collapse of the CPsu and its role at home, the significance of its future contacts with the comrades in Guadeloupe and Martinique is questionable. For the same reason one must assume that in all cases where former Soviet international relations were based solely on party contacts, such relations face an uncertain future.

Antigua and Barbuda, Trinidad and Tobago These two Caribbean island states illustrate in their recent contacts with Moscow two of the chief diplomatic methods used by the Gorbachev regime to try to advance Soviet influence in this region. In the case of Antigua and Barbuda Moscow initiated a formal exchange of ambassadors; with Trinidad and Tobago, where a nonresident USSR ambassador was already posted, parliamentary exchanges were used to try to strengthen and diversify relations. On 5 January 1990, Soviet diplomacy scored a visible success in the islands of the Caribbean when diplomatic relations at the ambassadoriallevel were established between Antigua and Barbuda and the USSR. In formalities that took place in New York between the UN representatives of the two countries, an agreement was signed stipulating that ambassadors would be exchanged by assigning a second command to an ambassador already holding a post in a neighboring country. Enlarging the duties of an existing nearby ambassador meant keeping the costs of the new post at a minimum for both sides and thus greatly facilitated the multiplication of such diplomatic exchanges. The UN ambassador of Antigua and Barbuda, Lionel Alexander Herst, expressed to reporters his hope that the arrangement would help the two countries "to

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establish mutual cultural and tourist exchanges and also broaden marine ties between them."4o Moscow launched its first effort to encourage parliamentary exchanges with Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and Jamaica in April 1988, when Aleksandr Mokanu, then vice-president of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, left Moscow with a parliamentary group bound for the region. Explaining his mission, Mokanu said, "We are going to meet with representatives of the governments, parliaments, and public of these countries and exchange opinions on pressing international problems, as dialogue is the only alternative to overcoming the mistrust, tension, and threat of nuclear catastrophe existing in the world. We shall tell our hosts about . . . the Soviet Union's efforts to create a nuclear-free and nonviolent world through political solutions to burning international and regional problems."41 Apart from these moves in line with the new Gorbachev policy orientations, there were reminders in the Soviet press that great power concerns also continued to motivate diplomatic initiatives. A military-political analysis in Krasnaia zvezda, triggered by the announced U.S. plans to deploy an aircraft carrier off the Colombian coast to intercept drug traffickers, revealed lingering Image I reasons for the Soviet interest in continuing to maintain outposts and channels of information in the Caribbean. A long-term U.S. objective, reasoned the Soviet analyst, was obviously to turn the Caribbean into a military bridgehead, using U. S. military bases or establishments on Antigua, the Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, the Bermudas, and Puerto Rico to keep all of the Caribbean under its close purview. 42

The Nations on the Rim All of the states on the Caribbean littoral received close attention from the Gorbachev foreign ministry. Th'l following section briefly outlines Soviet relations with Mexic0, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, and Surinam. These countries confronted the USSR with a melange of political systems, from capitalist-oriented (Mexico, Colombia, and Venezuela) to leftist (Guyana), to a de facto military dictatorship (Surinam). But Moscow met the challenge of these differences by using the same basic approach in its

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efforts to broaden and deepen its relations with their governments and parties. The chief components of the Soviet approach were diplomacy, parliamentary exchanges, trade and cultural agreements, and party relations. Although Moscow's stated intention was to avoid the revolutionary ideology of the past, antiimperialist and anti-U.S. rhetoric occasionally persisted in Latin American settings where receptive audiences abounded.

Mexico Mexico, the largest country on the Caribbean littoral, was the first country in the Western hemisphere to recognize the USSR after its revolution. The Soviets maintained a large embassy in Mexico City and a consulate in Vera Cruz. One explanation for the size of their embassy (second only to that of the United States) lay in Mexico's central location in the Western hemisphere and its long, penetrable border with the United States; over the years a large proportion of the embassy staff engaged in intelligence operations. 43 In the 1980s the Kremlin was attracted to Mexico by the growing importance of Mexico's role in the capitalist world. 44 The relations the Soviet Union developed with Mexico in recent years well illustrate the working out of Moscow's new diplomatic formula for seeking to deal with a large capitalist state as an "ordinary neighbor." Contacts ran a familiar gamut of possibilities. They included regular consultations by foreign ministry and other government officials, reciprocal visits by parliamentarians, CPsu exchanges with political parties of every stripe, commercial and trade agreements (largely falling short of the aspirations expressed by both sides), and cultural exchanges. Soviet-Mexican state-to-state relations were well established, and the two countries' foreign affairs ministries regularly held consultations on international affairs. Illustrating these activities is the following series of contacts in 1988. On 31 March through 1 April 1988 Mexico's deputy foreign minister, Victor Flores Olea, met in Moscow with V. G. Komplektov and V. F. Petrovskii. 45 In mid-June B. V. Lomeiko, Soviet special envoy, briefed the Mexican foreign minister, Bernardo Sepulveda, in Mexico on the results of a recent U.S.-USSR summit meeting-an example, said

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the foreign minister, of "the friendly nature of relations between Mexico and the USSR."46 And in September 1988, USSR special envoy O. A. Grinevskii and Ambassador Sergeev met with the Mexican foreign minister and other officials in Mexico City to discuss issues on the agenda of the forty-third session of the UN General Assembly. 47 Along with these meetings between foreign ministry officials, there were exchanges of parliamentary delegations. In October 1989 a Soviet legislative group headed by Deputy Chairman of the USSR Supreme Soviet M. I. Snegur spent a week in Mexico City at the invitation of the Mexican National Congress. On this occasion, according to Izvestiia, the "Soviet and Mexican legislators welcomed the signing in June 1989 of the Long-Term Program for Trade and Economic and Scientific-Technical Cooperation between the USSR and Mexico and voiced the hope that this document would serve as an important boost for eliminating the imbalances between the high level of political relations and the untapped potential of trade and economic ties."48 In their turn, Mexican legislators visited Moscow in March 1991. The delegation of members from the Mexican National Congress was headed by Senator A. Martinez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Commission. It met with various USSR Supreme Soviet officials, including I. D. Laptev, chairman of the Supreme Soviet's Council of the Union, and Vice-President G. I. Ianaev. 49 With respect to party contacts, a distinguishing feature of the party-to-party relations between the USSR and Mexico was that Moscow was not solely interested in maintaining linkages with Mexico's communists. The CPsu in fact showed increasing interest in cultivating ties with the ruling Institutional Revolutionary party (PRI) of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, who was inaugurated on 1 December 1988. Thus, although in May 1988 the Mexican politicians hosted in Moscow were communists belonging to the Mexican Socialist party (PMS), the contacts of the cpsu in 1989 and 1990 focused instead on developing relations with the PRI. In April 1989, a CPsu delegation, headed by the deputy chief of the cc International Department, A. Iu. Urnov, spent a week and a half in Mexico visiting around the country with party officials of the ruling PRI, including the president of the PRI National Executive Committee, L. Colosio. Said Colosio, the simple aim of this visit was to "develop friendly Soviet-Mexican relations and

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ties between the CPsu and the PRI."50 A year later, in April 1990, party members from the Mexican PRJ spent ten days in Moscow as guests of the CPsu CC, discussing perestroika and the preparations for the USSR twenty-eighth CPsu congress. The Mexicans reaffirmed their interest in deepening ties between the PRI and CPSU .51 In September, when Mexico's ruling party held its fourteenth national assembly, the CPSu's congratulatory note emphasized the Soviet party's openness to collaboration with all organizations and movements that adhere to the position of democracy, humanism, and progress."52 While political ties between the two countries prospered, commercial ties, in the seventeen years from 1970 to 1987, had not managed to achieve a stable and steady growth, despite the hopes of earlier presidents Echeverria and Portillo, who respectively signed the first trade agreements and brought Mexico into Comecon as an observer. 53 Scientific cooperation and cultural exchanges were more successful than commercial ties. In May 1988, an agreement was signed between the USSR State Agro-Industrial Committee and the Mexican Ministry of Agriculture and Hydraulic Resources for an exchange of scientific and technical information over a period of five years to improve agriculture in the two countries. 54 And a month later when Soviet Ambassador Rostislav Sergeev was interviewed in Mexico City concerning a possible visit by Gorbachev to Mexico in the near future, he diagnosed the state of Soviet-Mexican relations, as follows: "We are pleased with the state of political and cultural relations. Proof of this is the recent exposition of contemporary Soviet paintings in the Modern Arts Museum, the tour by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra through Mexico, last year's exposition by Mexican painter Chavez Vega in my country, and the visit to be made by Amalia Hernandez's Folkloric Ballet. Cultural relations have been intensive since the Mexican and Soviet revolutions."55 But Sergeev also made reference to the most difficult problem that remained a sticking point in the Soviet relationship with a capitalist country like Mexico, saying "We must further develop our economic relations." And he added, "We understand that it is necessary to intensify our relations with the private sector. Symmetry is necessary in the development of economic relations." Three years later, although the Soviets had committed themselves to economic reforms which Gorbachev, in a gracious greetII

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ing to President Salinas, called "Salinasstroika," the two countries were still far from enjoying the economic symmetry necessary for effective cooperation in this sphere. In mid-1991, as President Salinas was preparing to visit the USSR, he echoed Sergeev's criticism of the two countries' economic contacts. Pointing to the "weakness of economic ties" between Mexico and the USSR, he declared his hope that a political dialogue with Gorbachev and other Soviet leaders would bring concrete results. "Our countries, though," he confessed, "have a long way to go in this area."S6 Salinas's visit of a day and a half (3-5 July 1991) verified his cautious expectations, for although bilateral economic relations were touted as a paramount concern of the talks, and although bilateral agreements in a number of areas were signed-for space research, coping with natural disasters, and fighting drug smuggling-and a joint declaration expressed their symmetry of views on world affairs, progress toward greater economic cooperation remained more of a goal than an actuality. Pravda said simply, in a wrap-up of the visit, "economic ties are clearly lagging behind political and cultural ties." s7 They remained a visible target of future diplomacy, however. The Salinas trip opened talks intended to frame a general bilateral treaty on economic, trade, cultural, scientific, and technological relations to be signed sometime in the future, and their joint declaration pledged further efforts to raise bilateral economic relations "to a level appropriate to the two countries' economic potential and to their effective participation in the new processes of world development." s8

Colombia With Colombia, a medium-sized capitalist country, the Soviet Union during the Gorbachev period actively pursued governmental, party-to-party, and trade relations. Typical of the governmental contacts were the following visits and exchanges: On 20 January 1988, USSR Deputy Foreign Minister Viktor Komplektov met in Bogota with Colombia's President Virgilio Barco Vargas, to "promote a political dialogue" and "undertake to develop Soviet-Colombian relations in various fields." 59 In October 1988, contacts between legislators took place

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when Vadim Zagladin, in his capacity as secretary of the foreign affairs commission of one chamber of the USSR Supreme Soviet and newly appointed advisor to Gorbachev's presidency, received parliamentary deputies from Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, and Uruguay in Moscow to discuss Soviet restructuring and its international significance. 6o And on 4 July 1990, the foreign ministers of the USSR and Colombia exchanged congratulatory telegrams marking the fifty-fifth anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between their countries. 61 As for party-to-party relations, these were being maintained by the CPsu with three of Colombia's political parties: the communist party and Colombia's two major parties-the Liberal party and the Social Conservative party. In 1989 the Communist Party of Colombia (Partido Comunista de Colombia, pcc) claimed a regular membership of 18,000 members, and a youth membership of 2,000. Although the communists had participated in Colombian elections since 1972, they were not influential at the national level. They did, however, control Colombia's largest trade union organization and gave policy guidance to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), one of the several armed guerrilla forces challenging the incumbent regime. In December 1988, on the occasion of the party's fifteenth congress, the pcc hosted a Soviet delegation in Bogota for two weeks. The leader of the group, G. N. Kiselev, second secretary of the Kirghiz republic party, addressed the congress and wished the Colombian party success in its "struggle for the basic interests of the Colombian working people against domination by imperialism and transnational companies."62 Representatives of the Cuban and Vietnamese parties and EI Salvador's FMLN also spoke, and the congress voiced its fraternal support for the "just struggle of the peoples of Nicaragua, EI Salvador, Chile, and other countries." When Gilberto Vieira spoke to the congress, after his reelection as secretary general, he voiced sentiments which more clearly echoed Soviet new political thought. He said, "the pcc's most important aim is to extricate Colombia peacefully from crisis by means of a political settlement of the internal conflict and the creation of a pluralist government which will struggle for peace and democracy." He also emphasized the intention of the party to extend its contacts with organizations and movements "operating

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under different conditions" and "with those countries from which we used to distance ourselves because of ideological differences."63 In February 1990, a Soviet party delegation headed by Iu. I. Litvinstev, first secretary of the Tula Obkom, was back in Bogota at the invitation of the pcc for the announced purpose of strengthening ties between the Soviet and Colombian communist parties. It was noteworthy that the visitors also took care to meet with leaders of the ruling Liberal party and members of the Social Conservative party (the main opposition party).64 On 17 July 1990, the Soviet Central Committee congratulated the Communist Party of Colombia on its sixtieth anniversary.65 Commercial ties with Colombia were also of interest to the Kremlin. Moscow radio to Latin America on 26 December 1988 announced that the Colombian government was buying 500 Soviet cars, to be used as taxis, in return for purchases by the USSR of Colombian bananas and coffee. 66 In April 1989 trade talks were held in Bogota between the USSR deputy minister for foreign economic relations, V. S. Korolev, and the Colombian minister of economic development, Carlos Arturo Marulanda, marking the fifth meeting of the Soviet-Colombian commission on trade, economic, scientific, and technical cooperation. While both sides expressed a desire to expand bilateral links in all these spheres, they admitted that trade turnover between the Soviet Union and Colombia had failed to achieve the goals set by their 1984 protocol. Nevertheless, 1988 turnover had increased over 1987, and the hope was expressed by the Soviet delegate that the new powers that went into effect on 1 April 1990 for Soviet state enterprises and ministries to conduct business independently in the international market would have a beneficial impact on the growth of trade. The sixth meeting of the commission was scheduled for 1990 . 67 For the most part, into the 1990S Soviet diplomatic, commercial, and even party relations with Colombia avoided ideological argument. Yet, traces of Image I oratory continued to flavor Soviet news coverage of events in Colombia, sending mixed foreign policy signals from Moscow. Thus in February 1990, when President Bush met in Cartagena with his counterparts from Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru, Pravda used the event to attack the United States' Latin American policy. Pavel Bogomolov found similarities

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between U.S. actions in the drug war and the incursion of u.s. forces into Panama, asking rhetorically: "Indeed, did the recent aggression against this sovereign state [Panama], one of whose main motives was actually 'to punish the drug business bosses,' not demonstrate all the flaws of Washington's 'strongarm approach' toward Latin America? And are there any guarantees that the Pentagon will not start 'copying' its Panamanian experience in other countries on the continent on the pretext of pursuing the 'cocaine barons'?"68

Venezuela In dealing with capitalist Venezuela, Moscow placed greater emphasis upon developing diplomatic, cultural, and economic relations than upon strengthening party links. One reason for this was the weakness of the pro-Soviet communist party in Venezuela, the Partido Comunista de Venezuela (pcv). In 1971, a faction from the pcv split off to form a democratic-socialist organization, the Movement to Socialism (MAS), which subsequently became a much more active player in Venezuelan national politics than the PCV. 69 In 1990, for example, in a federal legislative body of 201 representatives, the pcv could claim only one deputy, while the MAS boasted eighteen. In the senate, three of the forty-eight senators belonged to the MAS; none, to the pcv. Thus, a pcv member was lucky to be included among the Venezuelan parliamentarians who visited the USSR in mid-February 1988 to talk with Supreme Soviet deputies. The cultivation of contacts between the Soviet and Venezuelan communist parties was illustrated in May 1988 when the Soviet party hosted several pcv leaders for two weeks to meet with the cpsu cc international, propaganda, and organizational and party work departments. 7o State-to-state relations were much more actively pursued by both sides. In March 1990, an exchange of telegrams between the foreign ministers of the two countries marked the forty-fifth anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Venezuela and the USSR.71 In August 1990, two days of talks took place in Caracas between the USSR foreign ministry's Ian Burliai and Venezuela's deputy minister of foreign affairs, A. R. Taylor. Their discussion focused in particular on the forthcoming forty-

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fifth session of the UN General Assembly, regional peace, and bilateral relations. 72 Over the years from 1988 to 1990, a series of parliamentary exchanges served to advance state, economic, and cultural relations. The series was begun in February 1988, by the visit to Moscow of a group of Venezuelan legislators led by a representative of the ruling Democratic Action party. Their talks explored possibilities for accords on sea and air links, on fishing, and on hydroelectric power equipment for Venezuelan power stations. Draft agreements were subsequently negotiated on sport and cultural links. 73 The following year, a Soviet parliamentary delegation, headed by the secretary of the USSR Supreme Soviet Presidium, Tengis Menteshashvili, attended the inauguration of Venezuela's new president, Carlos Andres Perez, in Caracas. 74 Another visit by Soviet parliamentarians took place a year later. Led by Nursultan Nazarbaev, deputy chair of the USSR Supreme Soviet (and chairman of the Kazakhstan Supreme Soviet), the Soviet MPS met with President Perez and their Venezuelan counterparts, once again emphasizing the "positive significance of stepping up interparliamentary exchanges between the USSR and Venezuela."75 Later that year (in October 1990), two Venezuelan legislators, Senator Ilarion Cardoso and Jose Rodriguez Iturbe, chairman of the International Affairs Commission of Venezuela's National Chamber of Deputies, were invited to Moscow by the Soviet Committee for Solidarity with the Latin American Peoples, to meet with USSR and RSFSR (Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic) legislators. 76 And in April 1991, the first vice-president of Venezuela's senate, F. Montilla, leading a group of deputies to Moscow, announced at a news conference that "the traditionally friendly Soviet-Venezuelan relations are now especially upgraded."77 Meanwhile, in a Venezuelan effort to stimulate commercial links, a seminar was held in Caracas in April 1988, before the demise of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA), to discuss the development of trade and economic cooperation between member states of the Latin American Economic System (LAES) and CMEA. Henry Gil, LAES deputy permanent secretary, in words which ring hollow in hindsight, talked about the "huge potentialities for the development of all-round business relations"

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among all participants and the new opportunities offered by per-

estroika. 78 Cultural ties between Venezuela and the USSR were illustrated by a cooperative radio broadcasting agreement first signed on 18 December 1975, which was renewed in December 1988 by a followup accord signed in Caracas by the Soviet ambassador to Venezuela, Vladimir Goncharenko, and the Venezuelan foreign minister, German Nava Carrillo. The 1988 accord provided for reciprocal visits by professionals and specialists in radio production and the exchange of programs on history, culture, folklore, ecology, and science. 79 Carrillo used the occasion to observe that Soviet-Venezuelan relations in the economic, commercial, and political fields were continuing to grow. The truth was that Soviet-Venezuelan relations were still suffering, for reasons outlined bluntly by Venezuela's Senator Cardoso. The senator, who was also secretary general of the Christian Democratic Organization of America and chairman of Venezuela's Christian Socialist party, was back :in Moscow in June 1991 for an international seminar to discuss the implications of the democratization processes in the USSR and Latin America for the future of world civilization. Cardoso, explaining why he believed Soviet-Latin American cooperation would have a more promising outlook in the future, said: "People in Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, and Peru have always regarded the Soviet Union with suspicion. Moscow was considered the enemy of world democracy and the supplier of arms to antigovernmental groupings. That, in my view, is the reason for our poor political and economic ties in the past. Our relations will now change for the better." 80 If Cardoso was right, the end of the USSR should improve the prospects for Russian and Commonwealth diplomacy by further enhancing Moscow's new image in Latin American eyes.

Guyana Moscow's relations with Mexico, Colombia, and Venezuela illustrate the Kremlin's formula for dealing with capitalist states. In sharp contrast, Soviet relations with the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, Venezuela's eastern neighbor on the Caribbean rim, re-

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fleet the legacy of earlier times when the Soviet Union gave priority to supporting "progressive" regimes. Under the leadership of Forbes Burnham, Guyana's leftist president from 1964 to 1985, Guyana established ties with the East bloc countries. Hugh Desmond Hoyte, who succeeded Burnham both as president of Guyana and head of the socialist People's National Congress (PNC), continued these relationships. In addition, Hoyte developed warm relations with Cuba and the People's Republic of China. As evidence of these policies, the PNC'S biennial congress in August 1989 welcomed participants from North Korea, Romania, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, India, Barbados, Cuba, Jamaica, East Germany, the USSR, Yugoslavia, and the People's Republic of China. Giving due consideration to this leftist orientation of the ruling party and its solid hold on power, the Soviet Union devoted substantial attention to cultivating both the ruling party and the proSoviet People's Progressive Party of Guyana (ppp). Thus the Soviet party's Central Committee sent an impressive delegation to the PNC'S congress in August 1989, headed by deputy chief of the Ideology Department, V. V. Riabov and a senior official, D. D. Muravev, from the International Department. The Soviet officials met with President Hoyte to discuss strengthening relations between their two countries; at the same time they did not neglect touching base with the secretary general of the PPP, Cheddi Jagan. Moscow's solicitude toward the PPP throughout the previous year was in fact substantial. The CPsu cabled birthday greetings to Jagan on his jubilee, seventieth birthday in March, sent Gorbachev's congratulations to Jagan on his reelection as general secretary in August, flew a Central Committee delegation to the ppp's twenty-third congress in Georgetown, and invited Jagan to Moscow in September to give his personal report on the Guyanese congress to Anatolii Dobrynin. The PPP, although the second largest party in Guyana, failed in recent years to capture many legislative seats, very possibly, as the PPP claimed, due to election fraud. 81 To ensure fair treatment in the 1991 presidential elections, the party joined with others asking for help from Jimmy Carter, the UN, the OAS, and other international groups to provide observer teams like those that monitored the 1990 elections in Nicaragua and Haiti. 82 Efforts throughout 1991 to produce a valid voters' list postponed elec-

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tions until sometime in 1992. Jagan himself, meanwhile, remained his party's choice for the presidency. Several cultural ties between Guyana and the USSR were renewed in 1988 and 1989. At the end of December 1988 Soviet officials signed an accord in Georgetown to provide for cultural and scientific exchanges with Guyana for 1989--a followup to an agreement on cultural and scientific cooperation signed in Moscow earlier. Plans were made for visits of scientists and an exchange of scientific publications. In addition, the Soviets offered stipends to support the education of Guyanese university students in the USSR. Guyana's head of the department for international economic cooperation said the signing of this pact heralded the opening of "a new, important stage in the development of mutually advantageous and fruitful relations" between the two countries. 83

Surinam The Republic of Surinam completes the list of countries on the Caribbean littoral with Soviet embassies. In recent years both state-to-state and party relations of the USSR with Surinam were friendly but not extensive. The local communist party, which was founded in 1980 and legalized in 1985, had too small a membership to qualify for elections, and the political system into 1991, though boasting a democratic facade, appeared to be firmly under the control of the military, manipulated by Commander Desire (Desi) Bouterse. In 1988, the impact of the new Gorbachev policy on SovietSurinamese relations was demonstrated by the establishment of parliamentary and cultural exchanges. In January 1988, a USSR parliamentary delegation, headed by Tengiz N. Menteshashvili attended the inauguration of the president, Ramsewak Shankar. 84 And in February an agreement was signed in Paramaribo between the USSR and Surinam for cultural and scientific cooperation during 1989-199°. This initiative marked the first time that exchanges of art exhibitions and performing artists were to take place between the two countries. 85 On 25 November 1990, an exchange of telegrams between Shevardnadze and Surinam's foreign minister, E. Sedoc, marked the fifteenth anniversary of the establish-

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ment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and Surinam and looked hopefully to the future. 86

A Summing Up During the Gorbachev years, Soviet policies in the Caribbean sought to abandon military and ideological support to revolutionary Marxist movements and to develop politically neutral methods of cooperating with regimes of all political types, capitalist, socialist, right or left. This chapter has tried to indicate how the Gorbachev approach was implemented from 1988 through 1991. A question that has not been directly addressed is the extent to which communists in the Caribbean region accepted the Soviet call for an end to ideology. Some, it is apparent, tried to adjust and accommodate and to work with Moscow under new conditions. Others refused to give up old dreams. Among the latter, new ways of keeping the revolutionary struggle alive were developed, and Image I postures were reaffirmed, even while parts of Moscow's Image III theory were assimilated. This point was illustrated in Mexico City on 26-30 November 1990, when the communist and worker parties of Latin America and the Caribbean spent five days drawing up a declaration expressing their shared view of international affairs. The "Declaration of Mexico" was signed by sixteen Latin American parties, including communists from Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, and Venezuela. As the declaration made clear, they still believed in Marxism-Leninism, which, they said, "demonstrates its relevance and complete validity." They still believed in revolutionary Russia, and predicted that changes in Eastern Europe and the USSR would "enrich the development of revolutionary theory." They were as united as ever in their opposition to world capitalism and in their determination to "fight for the socialist future" of their countries, based on the "anti-imperialist struggle for complete economic and political independence." Their chief enemy remained U.S. imperialism, with its "blatant forms of military invasion, as in the case of Grenada and Panama, the massive presence of American troops in Honduras, and the growing blockade of Cuba." They also saw U.S. imperialism "expressed in

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Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru, where imperialism using the pretext of fighting drug trafficking seeks to solidify its direct military presence."B7

For these Western hemisphere Marxists, despite strong counter messages from Moscow and the eventual loss of Moscow as their lodestar, the basic political issue inherent in the former East/ West confrontation was much too valuable for them to discard. Without the cold war, the struggle became North versus South, a conflict between "haves" and "have-nots," between imperialism and all the oppressed peoples of the Third World. Picturing the United States as unalterable antagonist remained an effective rallying cry of these groups throughout the Caribbean Basin.

Prospects for the Future

In retrospect, 1990 must be dubbed a watershed year in Central American and Caribbean regional politics-the year it became clear that the international playing field in Central America and the Caribbean had been radically transformed. Demonstrating this is the fact that knowledgeable observers could be found just two years earlier using the terms "dream" or "improbable" to assess the likelihood of events that in 1990 actually took place. In 1988 one of these observers, a Central American ambassador to the United States, explained to this author that the great value of the Esquipulas accord was that it provided guidance toward a desirable, but as it seemed then, somewhat utopian, goal. He called the agreement "a dream, like the American Constitution." The same year, Henry Kissinger, in an analysis of the U.S. foreign policymaking process, discussed a range of policy options toward Central America available to the Reagan administration in the mid-1980s and included the following alternatives: "To overthrow the Sandinista regime or, at a minimum (and improbably), to change its character so that the Sandinistas become one party in a pluralistic process in which the contras also participate."l By 25 February 1990, defying the implied odds, Oscar Arias's dream had come true to a remarkable extent, and Kissinger's "improbable minimum" had in essence been realized. Perhaps one reason why such changes were hard to foresee was that during the Reagan years Washington's policies toward Central America provided no hint of what was to come. One pillar of U.S. policy in Central America was the U.S. assessment of the Soviet threat to U.S. interests in the region. The Reagan administration considered the Soviet presence and strategic interests in Central America and the Caribbean to be serious threats to the United States and placed a high priority on devising policy responses adequate to what it termed "this challenge to democracy."2 Reagan came into office warning that the Caribbean was

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"rapidly becoming a Communist lake in what should be an American pond."3 Several long-term objectives attributed to the Soviet Union worried Washington. The possible disruption by Soviet and Cuban forces of vulnerable U.S. sea lanes was a major concern. In 1986 the sea lanes of the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico carried 45 percent of U.S. imports and exports, 60 percent of NATO resupplies (important with respect to possible hostilities in Western Europe-a major worry at the time), and 55 percent of u.S. crude oil imports. Sixty-five percent of the traffic through the Panama canal consisted of cargo to and from the United States. 4 Another U.S. national security concern was the excessive militarization of Cuba and Nicaragua, with encouragement from the Brezhnev regime, and the military advantages these client states offered the USSR in terms of providing access to naval ports, air fields, and electronic surveillance sites in close proximity to the United States. In the pre-Gorbachev period, Soviet advice, support, inspiration, and example promoted the spread of revolutionary, totalitarian regimes throughout Central America and the Caribbean, magnified unrest and instability, and fueled regional violence. According to official U.S. sources the Soviet Union was at this time outspending the United States in the Caribbean Basin region by five to one. 5 Evidence of Moscow's purposeful guidance, found in the documents that U.S. forces captured during the 1983 invasion of Grenada, strikingly confirmed the nature and extent of Soviet military and political involvement in the forward march of revolution in the Caribbean. Such evidence appeared to validate the prediction of CIA Director William J. Casey in 1985 that the Third World would likely be "the principal U.S.-Soviet battleground for many years to come."6 In Central America and the Caribbean Basin this implied that Soviet policy would continue to be shaped by zero-sum, Image I objectives aimed at undercutting U.S. power in the region. By mid-1991, however, as the evidence in this book shows, the cold war had largely ended in the Caribbean Basin. Soviet goals and strategies and the nature of the Kremlin's involvement in the region had changed dramatically, even as U.S.-Soviet relations had changed. Moscow's primary goal in Central America was to secure a large, qualitatively different presence in isthmus affairs.

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This was part of Gorbachev's new macro-strategy designed to enhance the USSR's global presence and ability to influence regional events around the world. In Central America and the Caribbean this new strategy involved Moscow and Washington in a cooperative, mutual-sum game promising satisfactory gains for both countries. The nature of the presence the USSR sought to establish was one that avoided ideological entanglements. In place of the earlier emphasis on developing party ties to advance Marxist-Leninist ideology and revolutionary doctrine and practice, Moscow pursued diplomatic and commercial relationships, abandoning the old ideology as irrelevant, outdated, and a hindrance to normal relations with countries in the noncommunist world. The new name tag on Moscow's lapel was "Ordinary Neighbor." Another feature of the revamped Soviet presence was that of negotiator. As shown in these pages, Moscow undertook to demilitarize the armed conflicts in Central America by cutting off the flow of arms to Nicaragua and by pressuring the latter to halt further arms transfers to third parties. Soviet actions in Central America had a visible impact on resolving military conflict (in Nicaragua), facilitating peaceful negotiations between warring factions (in Nicaragua and El Salvador), and bringing about the policing of agreements by multinational agencies including the United Nations. Starting in April 1986, the Soviets renewed their financial support of the peacekeeping machinery of the UN, and then lobbied hard for the use of UN and other multinational units to form border patrols and provide oversight for fair elections. 7 Such efforts were critical in ensuring the credibility of the precedent-setting presidential elections in Nicaragua and Haiti, and contributed to the future institutionalizing of democratic processes elsewhere in the Central American and Caribbean region. Changes in Soviet relations with its client states made a difference. The new rules of alliance sought to replace ties based on Moscow's coercion or domination by subsidy, with partnerships founded upon shared interests and mutual profit. Transformed Soviet-client relations helped to bring about the conditions that allowed Nicaraguans to vote their Marxist government out of power, created new opportunities for greater cooperation among the isthmus countries, helped to bring the stalled civil war in El Salvador to a conclusion, and while asserting Cuba's right to se-

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lect its own brand of socialism, came close to squeezing off the lifeline that artificially sustained Cuba's unviable economy. In 1991, in the days immediately following the August coup attempt in Moscow, much about the international situation remained in transition. The permanence of the U.S.-Soviet partnership was still "iffy." It was unclear whether or not Washington might back off at some point and revert to its own version of an Image I perception of the USSR-never far from the surface among some congressmen and their constituents-which meant viewing the Soviet Union as the Unalterable Antagonist. As Gorbachev himself had warned President Bush publicly in the course of Soviet efforts to negotiate a cease-fire in the Persian Gulf conflict, the superpower ties remained fragile. But events in Moscow had settled some matters definitively. First, with respect to the permanence of glasnost: The fateful events of August 1991-when the coup leaders attempted to place limits upon glasnost itself by snapping that Pandora's box shuthad proved convincingly that some truths already set free could not be silenced or easily forgotten. Thus the exposure of the Soviet command system's economic failures had long since irreparably damaged the reputation of that system as a model for Third World countries, regardless of the brave communist rhetoric still to be found in documents like "The Mexican Declaration."B Second, though the military power of the USSR remained formidable, the Brezhnevian expansionist dynamic was in remission and was not about to resurge, given the weakened condition of the Soviet civilian economy upon which the defense establishment rested. It was not likely, for example, that Moscow's Ministry of Defense would soon condone the military adventures of a client state in the U.S. backyard that could embarrass U.S.-Soviet relations. Finally, and perhaps most important, the triumph of anticommunist forces in the August coup had completed the destruction of the Soviet communist party's monopoly of political power. And with this defeat, gone too was the power source for the ideology and organization that for so many years had provided appeal, momentum, and material resources to the Soviet drive for influence and friends among Marxist and national liberation movements around the world. Echoes of past Soviet international ambitions were the result of continuities that persisted only out of old habit. The rationale, power, and impetus that had nurtured

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dreams of a communist world order were gone. In sum, the military and ideological spearheads of former Soviet expansionism had been shattered. The events of December 1991 put an end to the Soviet Union itself and divested the CPsu of its properties and legal status. With the birth of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the chief international legacy of the former Soviet Union and the CPsu passed into the hands of a Russian Federation led by an excommunist president. It would be years before all the fateful implications of this transfer of powers would become apparent, before it could be known whether and in what form the domestic economy and polity of Russia and the other Commonwealth states would survive, and what international roles lay ahead for them. Yet Russia's preeminent position as the chief beneficiary of Gorbachev's refashioned policies toward Central America and the Caribbean was clear enough. Russia, taking the leadership role in the Commonwealth or acting alone, still had a key role to playas U.S. partner. These points have a direct bearing upon Washington's future policies toward Central America and the Caribbean, which must be based upon an accurate estimate of what may remain of the former Soviet threat to U.S. interests in the region. This threat was substantially reduced, first of all, by the conversion of the superpower antagonists to superpower partners. Second, although U.S. sea-lanes in the Caribbean remained vulnerable military targets which could require diversion of U.S. naval forces from the main theater of operations in future hostilities, the chances of a conflict requiring the resupply of N A TO forces in Europe had become remote. As for the Panama Canal, it has long since been more important commercially (to other countries, including Russia, as well as to the U.S.) than militarily, for it is so patently vulnerable to military or terrorist attack that U.S. military plans do not depend on it. Some concerns linger. Collusion between the two partners does not rule out competition, which will continue to characterize U.S.-Russian relations. It is important, however, that political leaders on the United States side should avoid kneejerk responses to the further "internationalization" of Central America and the Caribbean implied by the policies the Commonwealth countries may pursue in the future. On 6 April 1989, the White House

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spokesman Marlin Fitzwater told reporters, "We reject the idea of equivalence between legitimate U.S. interests and the Soviet presence in Central America."9 This view reflected the fact that in the very recent past the Soviet presence in the Western hemisphere was subversive, bent upon political destabilization, and doggedly opportunistic in its anti-U.S. policies. Indeed, as David Albright has noted, whenever Soviet assessments of the severity of U.S.Latin American problems escalated, Latin America always moved higher on Moscow's ladder of geopolitical concerns. IO Now, however, the time has come to recognize that the East/ West conflict in the Western hemisphere is over. It is time to consider how the changes in Gorbachev's policies-seeking to expand his country's relations even with the nonsocialist "partners God gave it," to compete on equal terms in a capitalistdominated world of commerce, to become a major player in diplomacy, and to win general acceptance by all of the nations in the region-have created new roles for the Commonwealth countries in this part of the world. Time to tally up and acknowledge the value of Soviet and post-Soviet cooperative efforts in Central America and the Caribbean region to bring an end to military violence, a beginning to economic recovery, and a strengthening of democratic processes and social justice. Time to admit that Russia and the other Commonwealth states might have legitimate interests in "our" part of the world. Of course, what complicates this calculus for U.s. policymakers is the absolutely uncertain outcome of the processes of change taking place within the present Commonwealth of Independent States. When conservative leaders assumed power briefly in August 1991, the world glimpsed for three days the chilling prospect of a return to cold war imagery and practice. There is no way to know if future reversals of perestroika within the vast region that was the USSR can bring about a return to a cold war mentality in East and West. Considering, however, the immense strides recently taken toward the constructive solution of some of the regional problems in the Caribbean Basin-strides that were so clearly facilitated by the world's two chief rivals having walked a little way in step with each other-one would hope that such a mutually profitable partnership will continue.

Notes

1.

Baseline for Change: The Brezhnev Legacy

1. Jerry F. Hough, The Struggle for the Third World: Soviet Debates and American Options (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution,

1986). 2. Roger E. Kanet, "Soviet Attitudes toward Developing Nations since Stalin," in Roger E. Kanet, ed., The Soviet Union and the Developing Nations (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974), pp. 2~ 32 . 3. For a more detailed periodization of Soviet Third World policy see Francis Fukuyama, "Patterns of Soviet Third World Policy," Problems of Communism, September-October 1987, pp. 1-13. 4. Roger E. Kanet, "The Soviet Union and the Colonial Question, 1917-1953," in Kanet, The Soviet Union, p. 16; Rajan Menon, Soviet Power and the Third World (New Haven: Vale University Press, 1986), PP·2-4· 5. Daniel S. Papp, Soviet Policies toward the Developing World during the 1980s (Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.: Air University Press, 1986), p. 194; see also the section on "Diplomacy," in Carol R. Saivetz and Sylvia Woodby, Soviet-Third World Relations (Boulder: Westview, 1985), pp. 158-65· 6. A list of governments with which the USSR enjoyed diplomatic relations on 1 January 1991, prepared by the Embassy' of the USSR in Washington, D.C., contained the following twenty-one Latin American states: Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela, Guyana, Guatemala, Honduras, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Surinam, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, Chile, Ecuador, and Jamaica. 7. Robert S. Leiken, Soviet Strategy in Latin America (New York: Praeger, 1982), p. 48. 8. W. Raymond Duncan, The Soviet Union and Cuba: Interests and Influence (New York: Praeger, 1985), p. 51. 9. Ibid. 10. Leon Goure and Morris Rothenberg, Soviet Penetration of Latin America (Coral Gables: University of Miami Press, 1975), p. 31; Timo-

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Notes

thy Ashby, The Bear in the Back Yard (Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath, 1987), pp. 48-55· 11. W. Raymond Duncan, "Cuban-Soviet Relations: Directions of Influence," in Edward A. Kolodziej and Roger E. Kanet, The Limits of Soviet Power in the Developing World (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), pp. 67-70, 75. 12. Juan M. del Aguila, liThe Soviet Union in South America: Accent on Argentina, Brazil, and Peru," in Kolodziej and Kanet, Limits of Soviet Power, pp. 121-47. 13. Daniel R. Kempton, Soviet Strategy toward Southern Africa: The National Liberation Movement Connection (New York: Praeger, 1989), pp. 25-28. Kempton gives as examples of states in the first category: India, Syria, Libya, Nigeria, Brazil, and Argentina; and as examples of the second category of states: Angola, Guinea-Bissau, El Salvador, Mozambique, and Nicaragua. 14. According to Daniel Papp, "the second departure in Soviet policies toward the developing world initiated by the new leadership [Brezhnev] was to increase the USSR's own military presence in the developing world. The USSR established a permanent naval presence in the Mediterranean Sea in 1967 and began periodic deployments of naval units to the Indian Ocean in 1968 and the Caribbean in 1969. . . . The USSR's expanded military presence in the developing world was made possible by the buildup in Soviet airlift and sealift capabilities that began after the Cuban missile crisis and by the conversion of the Soviet navy into a legitimate blue-water naval force, an effort that also began following the Cuban missile crisis." Soviet Policies, p. 15; see also pp. 20-21. 15. Rajan Menon comments, "The third phase of Soviet policy toward the Third World began in 1970. Its most striking feature has been the increasing salience of military pqwer in Soviet conduct in the developing areas. . . . The export of arms has risen dramatically. From 1970 to 1980 Soviet arms transfers amounted to more than $30 billion. (Recall that during the second phase [1954-1969], over a longer period, they had amounted to only $4 billion.) The USSR also began to involve itself more directly in regional wars, sometimes resorting to military intervention." Soviet Power and the Third World, pp. 6-7. See also W. Raymond Duncan and Carolyn McGiffert Ekedahl, Moscow and the Third World under Gorbachev (Boulder: Westview Press, 1990), p. 44: "The use of Soviet policy instruments shifted during the Brezhnev era. . . . Economic aid declined and military assistance assumed greater importance as the Soviets recognized the broad range of benefits to be gained thereby"; and see Robert W. Clawson, "Changes toward Western Europe under Gorbachev," in

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George Hudson, Soviet National Security Policy under Perestroika (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990), p. 198; and, in the same book, Roger Kanet, "Changing Policy in Relations with the Third World," p. 147: "Soviet Third World initiatives under Brezhnev were certainly substantial, including military and political intervention, massive arms sales and military assistance, as well as the recruitment and expensive support of new revolutionary movements and client states. The Third World during Brezhnev's regime was the ·only area where Soviet influence could be dramatically expanded without substantial risk to Soviet national security." 16. Elizabeth Kridl Valkenier, The Soviet Union and the Third World: An Economic Bind (New York: Praeger, 1983). 17. Karen Brutents, National Liberation Revolutions Today, vol. 1 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977), p. 16. 18. IIya Prizel, Latin America through Soviet Eyes: The Evolution of Soviet Perceptions during the Brezhnev Era, 1964-1982 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 181-82. 19. Kommunist, November 198o, no. 16, p. 41; S. Mikoian, Latinskaia Amerika (hereafter referred to as LA), 1980, no. 3, p. 102. 20. Leiken, Soviet Strategy, pp. 34-35. 21. See Mark Falcoff, "Bishop's Cuba, Castro's Grenada: Notes toward an Inner History," and"Appendix A, Document 10," in Jiri Valenta and Herbert J. Ellison, eds., Grenada and Soviet/Cuban Policy (Boulder: Westview Press, 1986), pp. 67-76, and 323-30. 22. Falcoff, "Bishop's Cuba," p. 72. 23. Kanet, The Soviet Union, p. 16. 24. Evgenii Primakov, "XXVII sezd KPSS i issledovanie problem mirovoi economiki i mezhdunarodnykh otnoshenii" (The 27th CPsu Congress and Research Problems of the World Economy and International Relations), Mirovaia ekonomika i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia (World Economy and International Relations; hereafter referred to as MEMO), 1986, no. 5, p. 13; see also, Andrei I. Kolosovskii, "Regional'nye konflikty i global'naia bezopasnost'" (Regional Conflicts and Global Security), MEMO, 1988, no. 6, pp. 32-41. Primakov became director of the newly organized USSR Central Intelligence Agency in November 1991; Kolokovskii was appointed Russia's first envoy to the United States the same month. 25. The so-called Contadora peace effort by Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, and Panama to resolve conflicts in Central America originated in a meeting of foreign ministers of these countries on the Panamanian island of Contadora on S--g January 1983. The Guatemala (or Esquipulas) accord was an agreement proposed by President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica and signed by the presidents of Costa Rica, El

202

Notes

Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua at Esquipulas, Guatemala in August 1987. 26. Editor's column, "Tsentral'naia Amerika: na puti k miru, demokratii i razvitiiu" (Central America: On the Path to Peace, Democracy, and Development), LA, 1987, no. 10, p. 7. 27. E. Primakov, "Novaia filosofiia vneshnei politiki" (A New Philosophy of Foreign Policy), Pravda, 10 July 1987, p. 4. 28. Wallace Spaulding was commenting on "Moscow's increasingly open control of front activities . . . evident in the frequent use of the Soviet capital as a meeting site." "Communist Fronts in 1987," Problems of Communism, January-February 1988, p. 84. 29. La Republica (Panama City), October 16, 1981, cited in Jiri and Virginia Valenta, Soviet Strategies and Policies in the Caribbean Basin (Coral Gables: Institute for Soviet and East European Studies, 1986), p. 35. Nicaragua provided similar services through its embassy in Honduras, which distributed T ASS and other pro-Soviet materials to local leftist groups and the press. U.S. Dept. of State, Soviet Influence Activities: A Report on Active Measures and Propaganda, 1986-87 (Washington, D.C., August 1987), p. 2. The agreement to establish SovietPanamanian relations at the ambassadorial level was signed by the permanent representatives of the USSR and Panama to the UN; Moscow Radio to Latin America, 1 April 1991, trans. in Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Daily Report: Soviet Union (Washington, D.C.hereafter, FBIS-SOV), 3 May 1991, pp. 74-75. 30. This analysis draws upon categories developed by Dina Rome Spechler to identify distinctive positions among the Soviet political elite in 1973 with respect to Soviet-Middle East policy. "Soviet Policy in the Middle East," World Politics 38, no. 3 (April 1986): 435-61. 31. Ibid., p. 450. 32. Marshall D. Shulman, "Four Decades of Irrationality: U.S.Soviet Relations," Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, November 1987, p. 24. 33. Quoted in Franklyn Griffiths, "'New Thinking' in the Kremlin," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, April 1987, p. 22. 34. Elizabeth Valkenier, "Revolutionary Change in the Third World: Recent Soviet Assessments," World Politics 38, no. 3 (April 1986): 41 5; V. Efremov, "Terrorizm v global'noi strategii SShA" (Terrorism in U.S. Global Strategy), Kommunist vooruzhennykh sil (Communist of the Armed Forces); hereafter referred to as Kommunist VS), January 1987, no. 1, pp. 82-86; "Tsifry i fakty: Neokolonializm bez maski" (Facts and Figures: Neocolonialism Unmasked), Kommunist VS, March 1987, no. 5, pp. 85-86; E. Troitskii, "Podryvnye 'retsepty' neokolonializma" (The Subversive "Recipes" of Neocolonialism),

Notes

203

Kommunist VS, March 1987, no. 5, pp. 81-84; Gen.-Maj. I. Statsenko (Board Member, Society of Soviet-Cuban Friendship), "Vtorzhenie ne sostoialos': Karibskii krizis-istoriia i sovremennost'" (The Invasion Didn't Happen: Caribbean Crisis-History and Present), Kommunist VS, October 1987, no. 29, pp. 82-85. 35. Iu. B. Kashlev, "Informatsionnyi imperializm" (Informational Imperialism), LA, 1985, no. 3, pp. 14-27. This article, typical of the time, appeared the same month that Gorbachev assumed the leadership of the USSR. Iurii Borisovich Kashlev, who was then chief of the Information Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, lost this key propaganda post when the Information Department was upgraded to the MFA Information Administration in mid-1986, but was reassigned as chief of the ministry's new Humanitarian and Cultural Ties Administration. 36. Ibid., p. 19. 37. Georgie Anne Geyer, Guerrilla Prince (Boston: Little, Brown, 1991), p. 381. Geyer adds that delegates arriving at the Havana airport were greeted by children singing, "The Debt of Latin America and the Third World Must Be Canceled." 38. V. N. Lunin, "Vneshnii dolg cherez prizmu kontinental'nogo dialoga" (Foreign Debt through the Prism of a Continental Dialogue), LA, 1986, no. 1, pp. 32-44. Lunin, who was Latinskaia Amerika's "man in Havana," was describing a conference held in Havana (30 JulY-3 August 1985) on "The Foreign Debt of Latin America and the Caribbean Basin in the Context of the International Economic Crisis: The New International Economic Order and Its Urgent Need." 39. A. A. Sosnovskii, "Profsoiuzy protiv vneshnei zadolzhennosti" (Trade Unions against Foreign Debt), LA, 1987, no. 9, p. 136. 40. Moscow Radio, 20 December 1990; FBIS-SOV, 20 December 1990, pp. 11-12. 41. Suzanne Crow, "Shevardnadze's Vindication," Report on the USSR, 3, no. 36 (6 September 1991): 31. 42. R. Avakov, "Novoe myshlenie i problema izucheniia razvivaiushchikhsia stran" (New Thinking and the Problem of Studying Developing Countries), MEMO, 1987, no. II, p. 61. 43· Ibid., p. 59· 44. P. G. Litavrin, "Obostrenie situatsii v Tsentral'noi Amerika" (Exacerbation of the Situation in Central America), SShA: Ekonomika, politika, ideologiia (USA: Economics, Politics, Ideology; hereafter referred to as SShA), 1985, no. 6, pp. 54-59. 45. I. M. Bulychev, "Kontras: voina obrechennykh" (Contras: War of the Doomed), LA, 1987, no. 10, pp. 34-44.

204

Notes

46. O. D. Ushnurtseva, "Proval politiki ekonomicheskoi izoliatsii Nikaragua" (Failure of the Policy of the Economic Isolation of Nicaragua), LA, 1987, no. 7, p. 56. 47. G. A. Trofimenko, "Novye real'nosti i novoe myshlenie" (New Realities and New Thought), SShA, 1987, no. 2, pp. 3, 4; italics added. 48. Primakov, "Novaia filosofiia," p. 4; however, Primakovadds that the export of counterrevolution is equally unacceptable. 49. N. Shmelev, "'Tretii mir' i mezhdunarodnye ekonomicheskie otnosheniia" (The Third World and International Economic Relations), MEMO, 1987, no. 9, p. 18. 50. Ibid. 51. Interview by A. Cherepanov, "Paradoksy i tupiki dolga" (Paradoxes and Impasses of Debt), Izvestiia, 27 May 1987, p. 5. 52. M. S. Gorbachev, "Politicheskii doklad Tsentral'nogo komiteta KPSS XXVII sezdu Kommunisticheskoi partii Sovetskogo Soiuza" (Political Report of the cpsu Central Committee to the Twenty-seventh Congress of the cpsu), Kommunist, 1986, no. 4, pp. 54-55; Charles Glickham, "RL Supplement 2/86," Radio Liberty Research Bulletin, 6 September 1986, p. 4. 53. Fukuyama, "Patterns of Soviet Third World Policy," p. 4. 54. R. M. Avakov, "Novoe myshlenie . . . ," MEMO, 1987, no. 11, p. 62. 55. Georgii Khosroevich Shakhnazarov, "Vostok-Zapad: K voprosu 0 deideologizatsii mezhdugosudarstvennykh otnoshenii" (EastWest: On the Question of Deideologizing International Relations), Kommunist, 1989, no. 3, p. 78. 56. Cynthia Roberts and Elizabeth Wishnick, "Ideology Is Dead! Long Live Ideology?" Problems of Communism, November-December 1989, p. 58. 57. R. M. Avakov and others, eds., Razvivaiushchiesia strany: zakonomernosti, tendentsii, perspektivy (Developing Countries: Regularities, Tendencies, Prospects; Moscow: Mys!', 1974), p. 41, in Hough, The Struggle, p. 87. 58. Avakov, "Novoe myshlenie . . . ," pp. 54-55. 59. Thus, Avakov scolded officials for failing to implement the advice of economic experts in a timely fashion; ibid., p. 60. 60. Paul Quinn-Judge, "Soviet Shift in World Policy," Christian Science Monitor, 16 July 1987, p. 10; see also, Prizel, Latin America through Soviet Eyes, pp. ix-x. 61. David Remnick, "Lean to the Left, Lean to the Right," Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 3-9 June 1991, p. 16. 62. Other examples include: Leonid I. Abalkin, doctor of eco-

Notes

205

nomic science and former director of the Economics Institute in Moscow, appointed deputy chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers in 1989; Georgii Shakhnazarov, chairman of the Soviet Association of Political Science since 1974, a Gorbachev aide since March 1988, and many outstanding scholars elected to the Congress of People's Deputies, such as Gavril Popov (former editor of Voprosy ekonomiki, now mayor of Moscow), Oleg Bogomolov, director of the Economics of the World Socialist System Institute, and eleven deputies representing the USSR Academy of Sciences. 63. Komsomol'skaia pravda, 19 June 1988, p. 3; and see Vernon V. Aspaturian, "The Role of the International Department in Soviet Foreign Policy Process," The International Department of the CC CPSU under Dobrynin, Department of State Publication 9726 (Washington, D.C.: Foreign Service Institute, September 1989), pp. 14-16. 64. A. Kortunov and A. Iziumov, "What to Understand by State Interests in Foreign Policy," Literaturnaia gazeta, 11 July 1990, no. 28, p. 14; FBIS-SOV, 18 July 1990, pp. 11-15. 65. Harry Gelman has perceptively discussed this topic in The Brezhnev Politburo and the Decline of Detente (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984): see especially ch. 4, "The Evolution of Soviet Behavior in the 1970S." 66. This event was analyzed by Dina Rome Spechler in her perceptive study of Soviet foreign policy behavior toward the successive crises in the Middle East during the 1970S and early 1980s, "The Politics of Intervention: The Soviet Union and the Crisis in Lebanon," Studies in Comparative Communism 20, no. 2 (Summer 1987): 115-43. 67. Ibid. 68. Concerning Gromyko's position, Francis Fukuyama, Scott Bruckner, and Sally Stoecker note: "There is evidence to suggest that under the tenure of Andrei Gromyko as foreign minister the ministry he controlled was much more preoccupied with arms control and other issues of the central East-West relationship, and at times came into conflict with the ID [International Department] over the relative priority to be accorded initiatives in the Third World." Soviet Political Perspectives on Power Projection: Rand Note N-2430-A (Santa Monica: Rand Corp., March 1987). 69. The International Department itself was not united in its views, for it appears that the leader of the ID, Boris Ponomarev, did not share Zagladin's enthusiasm for supporting the PLO. Although Ponomarev had long demonstrated his commitment to the advancement of Soviet influence in the Third World, he did not consider the PLO to be genuinely socialist. Spechler, "The Politics of Intervention," p. 140.

206

Notes

70. Seweryn Bialer, ed., The Domestic Context of Soviet Foreign Policy (Boulder: Westview, 1981); Bruce D. Porter, The USSR in Third World Conflicts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), ch. 3; and Daniel S. Papp, Soviet Policies . . . , ch. 6. 71. Marshall. Goldman, USSR in Crisis: The Failure of an Economic System (New York: W. W. Norton, 1983). 72. Bialer, The Domestic Context, p. 416; Jan S. Adams, Incremental

Activism in Soviet Third World Policy: The Role of the International Department of the cpsu Central Committee," Slavic Review 48, no. 4 (Winter 1989): 614-3°. 73. Seweryn Bialer, The Soviet Paradox: External Expansion, Internal Decline (New York: Knopf, 1986), p. 270.

2.

The Early Impact of New Political Thought, 1985-1989

1. Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World (New York: Harper and Row, 1987), pp. 173-74; emphasis added. 2. E. Primakov, "XXVII sezd KPSS i issledovanie problem mirovoi ekonomiki i mezhdunarodnykh otnoshenii" (Twenty-seventh Congress of the CPsu and the Investigation of Problems of the World Economy and International Relations), MEMO, 1986, no. 5, p. 12. 3. Editor's Column, "Tsentral'naia Amerika: Na puti k mim, demokratii, i razvitiiu" (Central America: On the Path toward Peace, Democracy, and Development), LA, 1987, no. 10, p. 5. 4. Sotsialisticheskaia industriia (Socialist Industry), 11 June 1987,

P·3· 5. Izvestiia, 25 July 1987, quoted by Linda Feldmann, "Soviets Smile, but Fake Stories Continue," Christian Science Monitor, 6 September 1988, pp. 1, 6. Feldmann examines a number of disinformation topics appearing in the Soviet and world press in 1987-1988. 6. Roger E. Kanet, "Soviet Propaganda and the Process of National Liberation," in Roger E. Kanet, ed., The Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and the Third World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 84-11 4. 7. Vadim Listov, "Out of the Frying Pan into the Fire?" Pravda, p. 5; trans. in FBIS-SOV, 19 March 1987, p. Kl. 8. Moscow Radio Peace and Progress, 8 April 1988; FBIS-SOV, 11 April 1988, p. 57. 9· FBIS-SOV, 15 June 1988, p. 38. 10. Paul Lewis, "U.S. Boycotting a U.N. Parley on Development," New York Times, 22 August 1987, pp. 1, 5.

Notes

207

11. A. P. Kireev, "Razoruzhenie dlia razvitiia" (Disarmament for Development), LA, 1987, no. 9, p. 137. 12. A. A. Sosnovskii, "Profsoiuzy protiv vneshnei zadolzhennosti" (Trade Unions against Foreign Debt), LA, 1987, no. 9, p. 136. 13. See O. D. Ushnurtseva, "Proval politiki ekonomicheskoi izoliatsii Nikaragua" (Failure of the Policy of the Economic Isolation of Nicaragua), LA, 1987, no. 7, pp. 52-58. Both Nicaragua and Panama were in arrears to the World Bank, for $250 million and $500 million respectively. Nicaragua's debt was four years old in 1988; Panama's debt was more recent. 14. For a fuller account of the ID's Third World activities, see Jan S. Adams, "Incremental Activism in Soviet Third World Policy: The Role of the International Department of the cpsu Central Committee," Slavic Review 48, no. 4 (Winter 1989): 614-3°. 15· TASS, 8 September 1987; FBIS-SOV, 9 September 1987, p. 32. 16. TASS, 10 June 1988; FBIS-SOV, 13 June 1988, p. 52. 17. Carol Fogarty and Kevin Tritle note: "On the economic side, there is a real prospect that the protracted deterioration in the economies of Marxist client states will accelerate, making the aid program unacceptably expensive. This trend is already in motion: The 1984 agreement to supply oil on credit to Nicaragua, for example, will add up to $100 million in annual disbursements that will never be repaid. . . . This continuing high level of support to Marxist states seems to result from policies in place before Gorbachev assumed leadership, rather than policy decisions by th~e new government." "Moscow's Economic Aid Programs in Less-Developed Countries: A Perspective on the 1980s," in Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States, Gorbachev's Economic Plans, Study Papers, vol. 2 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1987), pp. 53637· 18. Fogarty and Tritle, "Moscow's Economic Aid Programs," pp. 540-41; see also Roger E. Kanet's "Commentary," in the same work, p. 542; U.S. Department of State, Soviet Influence Activities: A Report on Active Measures and Propaganda, 1986-87 (Washington, D.C.: August 1987), p. 66. Ruben Berrios notes that Cuba had also signed one long-term economic cooperation treaty that stretched from 1986 to 2000; "Soviet-Latin American Economic Relations," Kennan Institute Occasional Paper 227 (Washington, D.C.: Wilson Center, 1988), P·19· 19. Fogarty and Tritle, "Moscow's Economic Aid Programs," p. 539; and they add: "In the 1980s, the USSR has provided about $800 million a year in hard currency support to Cuba and Vietnam by

208

Notes

allowing Havana to resell some of the oil provided, purchasing some Cuban sugar for hard currency, and financing some imports from third countries." The methodology used by C I A experts to derive these figures was explained by Elizabeth Shriver and Kevin Tritle in 1989 as follows: Our estimate of Soviet economic assistance to Cuba attempts to measure the net transfer of economic resources from the USSR to Havana. The transfer includes direct economic aid on a net basis and the indirect effect of price subsidies on Soviet exports and imports: Net economic aid is defined as the sum of any reported trade deficit with the USSR and Soviet outright grants. A portion of the trade deficit is viewed as "economic development assistance"--consisting mostly of machinery and equipment for projects such as the construction of the Juragua nuclear power plant. The remainder of the trade deficit is assumed to be financed by long-term trade credits. Price subsidies are defined as the difference between world market prices and Soviet-Cuban transaction prices for items traded-most notably Soviet oil and Cuban sugar and nickel. Until the mid-1980s, Moscow charged Communist LDCS [Less Developed Countries] the CEMA [Council for Mutual Economic Assistance] oil price, which was based on the average of world oil prices for the preceding five years. This pricing scheme, which was instituted in the early 1970s, provided the Communist LDCS with low-cost oil during the period when world oil prices were rising. But, when world prices began weakening in the early 1980s, the oil price subsidy began to shrink, so that by 1985 the subsidy had disappeared altogether. As for imports from Cuba, the Soviets have been paying six to eight times the world price for Cuban sugar in recent years, and, until last year, paid a premium for Cuban nickel.

"Soviet-Cuban Relations under Gorbachev: Redefining the Relationship," Paper presented to the 21st Annual Convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Chicago, Ill., November 2-5, 1989, p. 14. The accuracy of any statistics describing Soviet economic phenomena has long been debated by Western economists and remains uncertain; see, for example, "1987 Panel on the Soviet Economic Outlook: Perceptions on a Confusing Set of Statistics," Soviet Economy 3, no. 1 (January-March 1987): 3-39. CIA estimates have been used throughout this study with the major purpose of indicating trends in the growth or decline of Soviet assistance programs. 20. U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers 1989 (hereafter referred to as WMEAT;

Notes

209

Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1990 ), pp. 85, 101. These figures do not include arms to Cuban forces in Angola, which peaked in 1984 at $1,5°0 million; followed by $775 million in 1985; $1,200 million in 1986; see also, Stephanie G. Neuman, "Arms, Aid and the Superpowers," Foreign Affairs 66, no. 5 (Summer 1988): 1,048. 21. U.S. Department of State and U.S. Department of Defense, The Sandinista Military Build-Up: An Update (Department of State Publication 9432, October 1987), pp. 5, 16-17. 22. WMEAT, p. 101; Congressional Quarterly Almanac, 1986, pp. 221, 394. 23. Gary Thatcher, "Sandinista Plan for Soviet Arms Jolts Contra Aid," Christian Science Monitor, 15 December 1987, p. 1. 24. James LeMoyne, "Nicaragua to Keep Big Military Force, Its Leader Declares," New York Times, 16 December 1987, pp. 1, 5. 25. V. P. Sudarev, "Regional'nye konflikty: problemy razblokirovaniia" (Regional Conflicts: Problems of Resolution), LA, 1989, no. 1, pp. 9, 13· 26. Pravda, 12 February 1989, p. 6; FBIS-SOV, 13 February 1989, P·43· 27. According to Mark Uhlig, "Since the Soviet Union announced a suspension of direct arms shipments to the Sandinista Government beginning last January, Cuba has by default become the largest source of arms supplies to the Nicaraguan Government. An unknown number of Cuban advisors, believed by diplomats to be in the hundreds, also remain active in the Sandinista army and security police. But the importance of such assistance has waned as the war against American-supported contra rebels has diminished." "Cuba Loses Allure for Nicaraguans," New York Times, 18 January 1990, pp. 1, 9. Concerning the Cuban potential for military support, Georges Fauriol noted that "Moscow continued to supply Havana with sophisticated weapons (most recently sustaining an upgrade of air capabilities to MiG-29 from MiG-23 jet fighter aircraft." Foreign Affairs 69, no. 1 (1990): 131. 28. Carlotta Gall, "The Burden of Empire," Radio Liberty Research 5 12187, 16 December 1987, p. 3. 29. TASS, 5 April 1989; FBIS-SQV, 5 April 1989, p. 50; emphasis added. 30. See, for example, Radio Moscow to Latin America, urging Nicaragua to negotiate, FBIS-SOV, 23 August 1988, pp. 30-32; the approval expressed by Krasnaia zvezda (5 February 1989, p. 1) of Castro's professed willingness to settle the Central American crisis in cooperation with the United States and all Latin American countries

210

Notes

(FBIS-SOV, 9 February 1989, pp. 41-42); and the USSR foreign ministry statement praising the "sincere aspiration of the Nicaraguan government to seek mutually acceptable solutions" to its conflict, said to have been demonstrated at the meeting of the five Central American countries held in EI Salvador (T ASS, 21 February 1989; FBIS-SOV, 22 February 1989, pp. 38--39). 31 . Pravda, 25 March 1989, p. 4; FBIS-SOV, 27 March 1989, pp. 312 3 . 32. Thus Pravda applauded the active support given by the Sandinistas to "the initiative of the Central American countries to create, under UN aegis, an international mechanism to verify the implementation of the commitment on security contained in the Guatemala agreement," 25 March 1989, p. 4; FBIS-SOV, 27 March 1989, p. 32. 33. "A New Philosophy of Foreign Policy," Pravda, 10 July 1987, p. 4; Current Digest of the Soviet Press 39, no. 28 (1987): 4. 34. Kanet notes, "Although the Soviets devote substantial efforts in their propaganda activities to extolling the virtues of socialism, the Soviet state, and Soviet support for the goals of national liberation, they give almost equal space and time to denigrating the United States and its allies and attributing virtually all the world's ills to the evils of imperialism." "Soviet Propaganda . . . ," p. 97. 35· 30 December 1989; FBIS-SOV, 2 January 1990, p. 35. 36. 8 January 1990; FBIS-SOV, 9 January 1990, pp. 15-17. 37· 10 January 1990, p. 5; FBIS-SOV, 11 January 1990, pp. 59-60. 38. Gorbachev, Perestroika, pp. 173, 176. 39. Primakov, "The 27th Congress . . . ," p. 13. 40. Vestnik Ministerstva inostrannykh del SSSR (Herald of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs; hereafter Vestnik), 15 August 1988, P·34·

41 . Kommunist, February 1989, no. 3, pp. 72, 75. 42. Ibid., p. 68. 43. U.S. Dept. of State, Soviet Influence Activities, p. 67. 44. Pravda, 6 January 1988, p. 1. 45. U.S. Dept. of State, Soviet Influence Activities, p. 67; Pravda, 9 May 1987, p. 4; 27 May 1987, p.l. 46. On the International Department's activity, see Adams, "Incremental Activism . . . ," pp. 614-3°. 47. All heads of missions abroad were summoned to Gorbachev's extraordinary meeting of May 1986 in the foreign ministry to be informed of his new policy priorities and the new negotiating tactics they required; by that time, although Gorbachev had been in power for only fourteen months, a third of the ambassadors had already been replaced. Gorbachev's new diplomatic staff had, as Alexander

Notes

211

Rahr put it, a "wider knowledge of the outside world." "Winds of Change Hit Foreign Ministry," Radio Liberty Research Bulletin 274/86, 16 July 1986, p. 6. 48. FBIS-SOV, 3 August 1987, p. 13; FBIS-SOV, 27 January 1988, P·49· 49· FBIS-SQV, 7 August 1989, p. 40 . 50. Izvestiia, 4 November 1989, p. 6, and 6 November 1989, p. 4; FBIS-SOV, 9 November 1989, pp. 34-36. 51. Cultural exchanges in Guatemala were set back after a bomb exploded in front of the offices of the Soviet press agency T ASS, resulting in the closing of this office and cancellation of a planned concert by a Soviet symphony; the Cuban press agency also closed its office after its correspondent received death threats. New York Times, 6 July 1988, p. 2. 52. E. S. Dabagian, "Integratsionnye protsessy-velenie vremeni" (Integration Processes-the Call of the Times), LA, 1988, no. 12, pp. 12-15. 53. A. Dobrynin, FBIS-SQV, 2 June 1988, p. 8. 54. U.S. Dept. of State, Soviet Influence Activities, p. 5. 55. FBIS-SQV, 2 June 1988, pp. 9-10; italics added. 56. Pravda, 20 September 1988, p. 4; FBIS-SQV, 21 September 1988, p. 49; Moscow Radio Peace and Progress in Spanish, 23 November 1988; FBIS-SOV, 28 November 1988, pp. 40-41. 57. P. F. Litavrin, "SShA i politicheskie sdvigi v Latinskoi Amerike" (The U.S.A. and Political Shifts in Latin America), SShA, April 1987, pp. 57, 58. 58. Aleksandr Golts, "'Neoglobalism' Has No Future," Krasnaia zvezda, 12 March 1989, p. 3; FBIS-SQV, 16 March 1989, p. 11. 59. V. N. Lunin, "Vneshnii dolg cherez prizmi kontinental'nogo dialoga" (Foreign Debt through the Prism of a Continental Dialogue), LA, 1986, no. 1, pp. 33-39. 60. Sosnovskii, "Profsoiuzy . . . ," p. 136. 61. A. P. Karavaev, "Vo chto obkhoditsia ekonomicheskaia zavisimost'" (What Economic Dependence Costs), LA, 1989, no. I, PP·37-42 . 62. Leonid Levchenko on Radio Moscow in Portuguese to Brazil, 13 February 1990, FBIS-SQV, 16 February 1990, p. 32; and see Levchenko's follow-up report trans. in FBIS-SQV, 20 February 1990, P·3 6 . 63. FBIS-SQV, 17 March 1989, p. 30. 64. Gorbachev, Perestroika, pp. 177, 187. 65. Primakov, "The Twenty-seventh-Congress . ," p. 13· 66. Primakov, "A New Philosophy . . . ," p. 2.

212

Notes

67. Karen Brutents, Interview in L'Unita, 16 February 1989, p. 2; FBIS-SOV, 28 February 1989, p. 5. 68. "Mikhail Gorbachev's Speech to the Cuban National Assembly," News and Views from the USSR (Washington, D.C.: Soviet Embassy, Information Department, 6 April 1989), pp. 10, 13. 69· TASS, 5 April 1989; FBIS-SOV, 5 April 1989, p. 47· 70. Rabotnicheskoe delo (Laborer's Cause), 30 March 1989, p. 4; FBIS-SOV, 3 April 1989, p. 31. 71. Sovetskaia kul'tura (Soviet Culture), 26 December 1989, p. 7; FBIS-SOV, 9 January 1990, pp. 5~57· 72. Aleksei Pavlov, Moscow Radio Peace and Progress, 5 January 1990; FBIS-SOV, 8 January 1990, p. 39·

3.

Reshaping the Establishment

1. Shevardnadze's only international experience before becoming minister of foreign affairs was membership in the Presidium of the Soviet Committee for Solidarity with Asian and African Countries (1958-?) and trips to Tunisia (1960), Austria and Bulgaria (1974), Hungary (1975, 1981), Portugal (1979, 1983), Brazil (1980), Czechoslovakia (1981), India (1982), and Algeria (1984). Alexander G. Rahr, A Biographic Directory of 100 Leading Officials, 3rd ed. (Munich: Radio Liberty Research, RFE/RL, March 1986), pp. 187-88. 2. Central Intelligence Agency, Directory of Soviet Officials: National Organizations (Springfield, Va. National Technical Information Service, May 1987), pp. 75-86. 3. Vestnik, no. 14, 31 July 1990, p. 60. 4. Francis Fukuyama, Scott Bruckner, and Sally Stoecker, Soviet Political Perspectives on Power Projection: Rand Note N-2430-A (Santa Monica: Rand Corp., March 1987), p. 6. 5. Iakovlev became a candidate member of the Politburo in January 1987, and a full member in June 1987. 6. Robert W. Kitrinos, "International Department of the cpsu," Problems of Communism, September-October 1984, p. 47. 7. Alexander Rahr, "Winds of Change Hit Foreign Ministry," Radio Liberty Research, RL 274186, 16 July 1986. 8. As Mark Kramer points out, Dobrynin's influence was apparent in several other ministry appointments at the highest level, which entailed the promotion of former Dobrynin aides from Washington embassy days; these include First Deputy Minister Iulii Vorontsev, and Deputy Ministers Aleksandr Bessmertnykh, Vadim Loginov, and

Notes

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Igor Rogachev. "The Role of the CPsu International Department in Soviet Foreign Relations and National Security Policy," Soviet Studies, 42, no. 3 (July 1990): 435· 9. Zagladin's new duties focused primarily upon Western Europe, though he frequently spoke to journalists about disarmament issues and carried official messages to Nicaragua in 1987. 10. FBIS-SOV, 2 February 1988, p. 1; 4 February 1988, p. 35; 11 February 1988, pp. 2-3. 11. This point is discussed more fully in Jan S. Adams, "Institutional Change and Soviet National Security Policy," in George E. Hudson, ed., Soviet National Security Policy under Perestroika (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990). According to Condaleezza Rice, the International Department, by creating its arms control sector, took the first steps toward becoming a national civilian center for the study of national security issues in the USSR; see "The Party, the Military, and Decision Authority in the Soviet Union," World Politics 40, no. 1 (October 1987): 79. 12. Peter Clement, "Shevardnadze's Foreign Ministry: The Institutionalization of New Thinking," paper prepared for the 21st Annual Convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Chicago, Illinois, 2-4 November 1989, p. 14. 13. Gelman adds: "As the Soviet Union entered the period of detente with the West in the early 1970s, the scope of the department's work again visibly broadened to include dealings with Western political and economic leaders who hitherto had been the special province of the Foreign Ministry or the Politburo. Thereafter deputy chief Vadim Zagladin paid multiple visits to the United States and Western Europe, conversing with senior government and business leaders, providing numerous interviews in the Western media, and polemicizing on behalf of Soviet trade goals or arms control positions. These activities went on separately from and in parallel to the department's accelerated [anti-Western] efforts [in the Third World]." Harry Gelman, The Brezhnev Politburo and the Decline of Detente (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984), pp. 60-61. 14. For an elaboration of this point, see Jan S. Adams, "Incremental Activism in Soviet Third World Policy," Slavic Review 48, no. 4 (Winter 1989): 630. 15. Jerry F. Hough, The Struggle for the Third World: Soviet Debates and American Options (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1986), p. 160. 16. This phrase from the party program (translated in FBIS-SOV, Supplement, 28 October 1985, p. 25) is quoted by Fukuyama,

214

Notes

Brucker, and Stoeker, Soviet Political Perspectives, p. 35, who suggest that this part of the program was written by Brutents. 17. Ibid., p. 36. 18. Hough, The Struggle, p. 277. 19. The two retired were the Third World veterans Peter Manchkha (African Affairs) and Ul'ianovskii; Deputy Chief Anatolii S. Cherniaev (North American and United Kingdom affairs) was advanced to the post of Gorbachev's aide. They were replaced by Urnov, former sector head for Zimbabwe and Southern Africa, and Zuev, who headed the Latin European sector covering French, Italian, and Portuguese affairs. 20. The new sector chiefs were Evgenii N. Khorendiasov (Black Africa, Congo, Mali, Senegal), Viktor S. Rykin (West Europe, Scandinavia), and Genrikh P. Smimov (Italy). See Elizabeth Teague, "The Foreign Departments," Radio Liberty Research Bulletin Supplement, 27 October 1980, pp. 31, 36, 37; Directory of Soviet Officials, pp. 15-17. 21. FBIS-SOV, January-February 1988, nos. 3, B--9, 11, 15, 17, 18, 19, 23, 25-28, 35, and 38 . 22. Moscow World Service in English, 29 September 1988; FBISSOV, 30 September 1988, p. 33. 23. Argumenty i fakty (Arguments and Facts), 8-14 October 1988, no. 41, pp. 1-2; FBIS-SOV, 7 October 1988, pp. 28-30. 24. Elizabeth Teague, "Soviet Theoreticians Debate 'The Human Factor,'" Report on the USSR I, no. 34 (6 August 1989): 10-11. 25. Vestnik, no. IS, August 1988; FBIS-SOV, Annex, 22 September 88 19 . 26. Ibid., p. 9. 27. Ibid., p. 13· 28. E. Shevardnadze, "The Foreign Policy and Diplomatic Activity of the USSR," International Affairs, January 1990. 29. Heading the department was Vsevolod L. Oleandrov, who as former chief of the ministry's International Organizations' Administration had been handling UN and arms control matters. 30. Shevardnadze, "The Foreign Policy and Diplomatic Activity . . . ," p. 110. 31. Rabochaia tribuna (The Worker's Tribune), 27 July 1990, p. 1; FBIS-SOV, 3 August 1990, pp. 36-37· 32. Moscow Television Services, 12 October 1990; FBIS-SQV, 16 October 1990, p. 38. 33. See Gelman, The Brezhnev Politburo, pp. 49-70; Jiri Valenta and William Potter, eds., Soviet Decisionmaking for National Security (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1984); Leonard Schapiro, "The Interna-

Notes

215

tional Department of the CPsu: Key to Soviet Policy," International Journal, Winter 1976-1977, pp. 41-55; Teague, "The Foreign Departments"; Seweryn Bialer, The Soviet Paradox (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986), ch. 15. 34. Henry Brandon, The Washington Star, 15 July 1979, quoted in Teague, "The Foreign Departments." 35. Sovetskaia Rossiia (Soviet Russia), 12 May 1990; FBIS-SOV, 16 May 1990, pp. 2-4. 36. Pravda, 10 October 1990, p. 2; FBIS-SOV, 11 October 1990, p. 37· 37. 17-18 .

TASS,

10 November 1991; FBIS-SOV, 12 November 1991, pp.

38. Pravda, 9 June 1989, p. 2; FBIS-SDV, Supplement, 9 June 1989, p. 28. Shmelev, in saying the USSR paid for Cuban sugar with hard currency and overlooking the barter arrangements of sugar for oil, may have been referring to reports that Comecon countries "pay in convertible currency for any sugar bought outside their multilateral agreements with Havana." Nicola Miller, Soviet Relations with Latin America, 1959-1987 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p.l02. 39. "Secret Line in the Budget. A Specialisfs Thoughts on One Sphere of Our Foreign Relations," Izvestiia, 10 January 1990, p. 5; FBIS-SOV, 16 January 1990, pp. 18--20. 40. Elena Arefeva, "Breaking Free of the Power of Stereotypes. What Kinds of Partners We Need in the 'Third World,'" Izvestiia, 13 April 1990, p. 5· 41 . Vestnik, 15 June 1990, p. 27· 42 . Sovetskaia Rossiia, 4 October 1990, p. 1; FBIS-SDV, 5 October 1990, p. 29· 43. Bill Keller, "Shevardnadze Promises to Consult Parliament on . Gulf Involvement," New York Times, 16 October 1990.

44. "Shevardnadze Speech to July Conference Noted," Vestnik, 12 August 1988, no. 15, pp. 27-46; FBIS-SDV, 22 September 1988, p. 13. 45. See the opposing positions in 1991 on Soviet policy toward Eastern Europe expressed in official statements by the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Communist Party's International Department. Suzanne Crow, "International Department and Foreign Ministry Disagree on Eastern Europe," Report on the USSR 3, no. 25 (21 June· 1991): 4-8. Crow notes that while the "ID is in a weak position to push through the course of action it advocates," its views "are in harmony with those of conservatives and hard-liners in the Soviet Union," and that the ID has "taken upon itself the function of defending the Soviet armed forces. "

216

Notes

46. FBIS-SOV, 22 September 1988, p. 20. 47. Moscow Radio, 17 June 1990; FBIS-SOV, 18 June 1990, p. 16. 48. Moscow Radio, 8 February 1991; FBIS-SOV, 11 February 1991, p. 27. At the first meeting of the Foreign Policy Association, on 20 February 1991, Shevardnadze described the watchdog role of the new organization, saying, "We shall not keep quiet where we see a deviation from the new political thinking." Izvestiia, 22 February 1991, p. 2; FBIS-SOV, 28 February 1991, pp. 28-29. 49. Pravda, 23 May 1990, p. 7; FBIS-SOV, 6 June 1990, p. 3; Richard F. Staar, Foreign Policies of the Soviet Union (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1991), p. 93; FBIS-SOV, 3 June 1991, p. 33; E. Kaliadina, "All the Peace for Hard-Currency Rubles," Komsomol'skaia pravda, 29 May 1990, p. 5; FBIS-SOV, 7 June 1990, pp. 9-13. 50. A. Kamorin, "Cuba: 'Special Period' Rehearsal," Izvestiia, 29 March 1990, p. 5; FBIS-SOV, 4 April 1990, p. 22. 51. National Security Council members who were also coup leaders were: Gennadii Ianaev, USSR vice-president; V. S. Pavlov, USSR prime minister; V. A. Kriuchkov, chairman of the USSR KGB; D. T. Iazov, USSR minister of defense; B. K. Pugo, USSR minister of internal affairs. Another National Security Council member, Aleksandr Bessmertnykh, denied any complicity in the coup. 52. UPI, 5 November 1991. 53. Vitalii Churkin, Moscow All-Union Radio Mayak Network, 8 November 1991; FBIS-SOV, 8 November 1991, pp. 20-21. 54. Interfax, 29 August 1991; FBIS-SOV, 30 August 1991 , pp. 4143· 55. Suzanne Crow, "Reforming the Foreign Ministry," Report on the USSR 3, no. 40 (4 October 1991): 9; Jan S. Adams, "New Structures at the USSR Foreign Ministry," Report on the USSR 3, no. 40 (4 October 1991): 10-13.

56. Izvestiia, 6 November 1991, p. 1. 57. Interfax, 18 November 1991; Jan S. Adams, "One Foreign Policy or Twelve?" Report on the USSR 3, no. 48 (29 November 1991): 1619· 58. "Vneshnepoliticheskaia i diplomaticheskaia deiatel'nost' SSSR" (Foreign Policy and Diplomatic Activity of the USSR), Mezhdunarodnaia zhizn' (International Affairs), no. 12, 1989, p. 110; Interfax, 18 November 1991. 59· TASS, 4 June 1990 ; FBIS-SOV, 7 June 1990, p. 8. 60. At forty, Kozyrev may qualify as one of the youthful "urchins" surrounding Yeltsin who have come under fire from VicePresident Rutskoi, critical of the impact of the radical reforms of men

Notes

217

younger than himself; Moscow Russian Television Network, 3 December 199 1; FBIS-SOV, 4 December 1991, p. 48. 61. Lt. Col. R. Mustafin, IJWe Are Arriving at a New System of Values," Krasnaia zvezda, 21 December 1991, p. 1; FBIS-SOV, 24 December 1991, pp. 50-51. 62. Moscow Radio, 23 December 1991; FBIS-SOV, 24 December 1991, pp. 22-23· 63. Moscow Russian Television Network, 22 December 1991; FBIS-SOV, 23 December 1991, pp. 43-44.

4.

Ripple Effects of Perestroika on Relations with Cuba

1. Moscow Radio, 16 April 1989; FBIS-SOV, 19 April 1989, p. 20. Both Castro and Gorbachev referred to this conjecture in their public speeches, trying to dispel it. Gorbachev said, "What sort of speculation preceded my visit here? Apparently, Comrade Castro and I were not to meet as the old friends that we in fact are, but as practically enemies. This is all fiction." TASS, 5 April 1989; FBIS-SOV, 5 Ap rll1989, p. 52. And Castro commented: "All kinds of theories and speculation have been current among many politicians and certain journalists regarding Comrade Gorbachev's visit to Cuba. I do not know the origins of these rumors about a crisis in relations between the USSR and Cuba, and about Comrade Gorbachev and myself falling out. . . . We do not have any disagreements." Ibid., p. 41 . 3. W. Raymond Duncan, "Cuban-Soviet Relations: Directions of Influence," in Edward A. Kolodziej and Roger E. Kanet, eds., The Limits of Soviet Power in the Developing World (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), pp. 69-70, 75; Central Intelligence Agency, Handbook of Economic Statistics, 1991 (Washington, D.C.: September 1991), pp. 160-61. 4. U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers, 1987 (hereafter, WMEAT, 1987; Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988), p. 55. 5. Georgie Anne Geyer, Guerrilla Prince (Boston: Little, Brown, 1991), pp. 3-4· 6. U.S. Department of State and U.S. Department of Defense, The Soviet-Cuban Connection in Central America and the Caribbean (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, March 1985), pp. 8-10; Bruce D. Porter, The USSR in Third World Conflicts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 54-56, chs. 8 and 9; Carol R. Saivetz and 2.

218

Notes

Sylvia Woodby, Soviet-Third World Relations (Boulder: Westview Press, 1985), pp. 157-58; W. Raymond Duncan, The Soviet Union and Cuba (New York: Praeger, 1985), pp. 138-48; and Timothy Ashby, The Bear in the Backyard: Moscow's Caribbean Strategy (Lexington: D.C. Heath, 1987), p. 78. Despite the salience of Soviet military aid to sustaining Cuban expeditions abroad, Cuba was more than a simple Soviet proxy; as Edward Gonzalez has warned in his useful analysis of the intricate Cuban-Soviet relations that underlay Cuba's military campaigns in Africa in the 1970s, the Cuban-Soviet connection was extremely complex and mutually rewarding. "Cuba, the Soviet Union, and Africa," in David E. Albright, Communism in Africa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980), pp. 145-67. 7. Lindsey Gruson details u.S. charges that "Cuban and Sovietbloc countries had been upgrading the arsenal of the Salvadoran rebels" and supplying them with Cuban-made ammunition "manufactured in 1988." New York Times, 16 March 1989. Salvadoran sources claimed that Soviet-made SAM-14 missiles, which "came to Central America in 1988," were provided to the Salvadoran guerrillas between 1988 and 1990 by the Sandinistas, and noted that firing these missiles required the special kind of "costly" training offered in Cuba. £1 Diario de Hoy, 28 November 1990; trans. in Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Daily Report: Latin America (Washington, D.C.hereafter, FBIS-LA1), 29 November 1990. 8. Newsweek, 17 April 1989, p. 32. 9. Another example was Cuba's strong backing of the antirepayment campaign of front organizations seeking to influence Latin American debtors to Western financial institutions to default on their debts. U.S. Dept. of State, Soviet Influence Activities, Publication 9627 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of State, August 1987), p. 2. 10. December 1986 Conference of the wpc to discuss Korean unification (ibid.); Meeting of Coordinating Bureau of the Nonaligned Movement, 28-31 May 1988, TASS, 31 May 1988; FBIS-SDV, 2 June 1988, p. 9· 11. Grenada's ambassador to the USSR recorded his hope in 1983 that Grenada might, by becoming "the sponsor of revolutionary activities and progressive developments" among the English-speaking ministates of the Caribbean, emulate Cuba's relations "to the revolutionary left in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Central America." Mark Falcoff, "Bishop's Cuba, Castro's Grenada: Notes toward an Inner History," in Grenada and Soviet/Cuban Policy, ed. by Jiri Valenta and Herbert J. Ellison (Boulder: Westview Press, 1986), P·72 .

Notes

219

12. A. Kalinin, "USSR-Cuba: The Cooperation Is Being Strengthened," Argumenty i fakty, 1-7 April 1989, no. 13, pp. 4-5; FBIS-SQV, 14 Ap ri11 989, p. 39· 13. Reports of these visits are found in FBIS-SQV in 1988 on the following dates: Dobrynin and Medvedev, 29 February (p. 54); Urnov, 9 June (p. 45); Kriuchkov, 24 March (p. 38); Vlasov, 18 May (p. 35); Kamentsev, 25 January (p. 43) and 18 May (p. 34); Komplektov, 25 January (pp. 44-45); Adamishin, 1 April (pp. 35-36); Aristov, 14 January (p. 41); Akhromeev, 13 July (p. 53); Kasatonov, 4 November (p. 29)· 14. Reports of these visits are found in FBIS-SQV; for a list of visits into May 1988, see 26 January (p. 50), two Cuban delegations headed by vice-presidents of Cuba's Council of Ministers met in Moscow to establish new CEMA committees; 1 March (pp. 35-36), Cuban military delegation met with Akhromeev; 22 March (p. 57), Cuban Politburo member Pedro Miret Prieto was received by V. L. Tolstykh; and 11 May (p. 35), Cuban Politburo member Risquet met with Dobrynin. 15. Kalinin, "USSR-Cuba," p. 38. 16. A. D. Bekarevich, "Horizons of Cooperation," LA, 1988, no. 12, p. 10. 17. Carmelo Mesa-Lago and Fernando Gil, "Soviet Economic Relations with Cuba," The USSR and Latin America: A Developing Relationship, edited by Eusebio Mujal-Le6n (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989), p. 225; Kalinin, "USSR-Cuba." 18. Kalinin, "USSR-Cuba"; J. D. Gannon, "Rubles Don't Much Sweeten Cuba's Economic Woes," Christian Science Monitor, 4 April 1989, p. 3; and "The Cuban Economy," Background Brief (Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London, October 1988), p. 5. 19. Clyde Farnsworth, "Deep Cut Is Reported in Soviet-Cuba Trade," New York Times, 16 January 1989, p. 21. 20. Gannon, "Rubles Don't Much Sweeten." 21. Vera Tolz, "The USSR This Week," Report on the USSR 1, no. 15 (14 Ap ri11 989): 40-41 . 22. Havana Television, 31 March 1988; FBIS-SQV, 1 April 1988, P·3 6. 23. TASS, 20 January 1989; FBIS-SQV, 24 January 1989, p. 47· 24. "Mikhail Gorbachev's Speech to the Cuban National Assembly," News and Views from the USSR (Washington, D.C.: Soviet Embassy, Information Department, 6 April 1989), pp. 10, 13. 25· TASS, Moscow, 4 April 1989; FBIS-SQV, 5 April 1989, p. 39· 26. Pravda, 25 December 1988, p. 1; FBIS-SQV, 29 December 1988, P·30 . 27. Pravda, 20 April 1988, p. 4; FBIS-SQV, 26 April 1988, p. 41.

220

Notes

28. TASS, 10 April 1988; FBIS-SOV, 18 April 1988, p. 60. 29. E. S. Dabagian, "Integratsionnye protsessy-velenie vremeni" (Integrative Processes Are the Call of the Times), LA, 1988, no. 12, p. 13. 30. Ibid., pp. 13-14. 31. Linda Feldmann, "Diplomatic Charm Offensive: Why Castro Is Freeing Prisoners," Christian Science Monitor, 12 January 1989, p. 7. 32. Howard Wiarda sees Castro's successful diplomatic initiatives in Latin America in the 1980s as evidence of Cuba's debilities and relative weakness, pointing out that, "unlike the 1960s, very few Latin American nations feel threatened by the example of Cuba's Revolution or by Cuba's sponsorship of guerrilla movements within their borders." "Crises of the Castro Regime," Problems of Communism, January-April 1991, pp. 92-93. 33. TASS, 31 May 1988; FBIS-SOV, 2 June 1988, pp. 9-10. 34. TASS, 10 June 1988; FBIS-SOV, 13 June 1988, pp. 50-51; TASS, 12 June 1988; FBIS-SOV, 14 June 1988, pp. 20-21. 35. TASS, 22 January 1989; FBIS-SOV, 25 January 1989, p. 11. 36 . FBIS-SOV, 3 April 1989, pp. 34-35· 37. Leningradskaia pravda, 4 November 1988, p. 1; FBIS-SOV, 15 November 1988, p. 27; emphasis added. 38. Vera Tolz, liThe USSR This Week," Report on the USSR I, no. 15 (14 April 1989): 41 . 39· FBIS-SOV, 28 October 1988, pp. 33-34. 40. Moscow Radio to North America, 30 March 1989; FBIS-SOV, 3 April 1989, p. 31 . 41 . FBIS-SOV, 17 Apri11 989, p. 79. 42. Interview in New York for AL-HAWADITH (London), 30 December 1988, pp. 26-27; FBIS-SDV, 4 January 1989, pp. 48-49. 43. V. Rodionov, "Radical Changes Necessary: On the Opening of the CEMA Session in Sofia," Izvestiia, 10 January 1990, p. 1; FBISSOY, 10 January 1990, pp. 15-16. 44. Ibid.; see also Jorge F. Perez-Lopez, "Swimming against the Tide: Implications for Cuba of Soviet and Eastern European Reforms in Foreign Economic Relations," Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 33, no. 2 (summer 1991): 81-139. 45· Pravda, 11 January 1990, p. 6; FBIS-SQV, 11 January 1990, pp. 10-11. 46. Izvestiia, 11 January 1990, p. 5; FBIS-SQV, 12 January 1990, P·42 . 47. liThe Republic's Prestige (for Cuba's National HolidayLiberation Day)," Sel'skaia zhizn' (Rural Life), 1 January 1990, p. 3; FBIS-SOV, 12 January 1990, pp. 42-43; see also, Paul Goble, "ls Mos-

Notes

221

cow About to Cut Castro Loose?" Report on the USSR 2, no. 2 (12 January 1990): 4-5; and Douglas W. Payne, "Fidel Castro versus Perestroika," Report on the USSR 2, no. 2 (12 January 1990): 6-10. 48. "Secret Line in the Budget. A Specialist's Thoughts on One Sphere of Our Foreign Relations," Izvestiia, 10 January 1990, p. 5; FBIS-SOV, 16 January 1990, pp. 1S-19. 49· Pravda, 30 January 1990, p. 4; FBIS-SOV, 30 January 1990, pp. 27-28; A. Novikov, "Fidel Castro Declares: Not One Step to Side," Komsomol'skaia pravda, 31 January 1990, p. 3; FBIS-SOV, 2 February 1990, p. 45· 50. Izvestiia, 23 January 1990, p. 1; FBIS-SOV, 26 January 1990, P·27· 51. Pravda, 24 January 1990, p. 7; FBIS-SOV, 25 January 1990, pp. 32-33. 52. A. Novikov, "CEMA Not United? Why Cuba Has Turned to Canada for Food Aid," Komsomol'skaia pravda, 27 January 1990, p. 3; FBIS-SOV, 2 February 1990, pp. 45-46. 53. Moscow Radio in Spanish to Latin America, 25 January 1990; FBIS-SOV, 2 February 1990, p. 47. 54. Radio Peace and Progress in Spanish, 28 January 1990; FBISSOV, 2 February 1990, pp. 47-48. 55. Moscow Radio in Spanish to Cuba, 27 January 1990; FBISSOV, 2 February 1990, p. 49. 56. Pravda, 26 January 1990; p. 4; FBIS-SOV, 30 January 1990, p. 27; Izvestiia, 2 February 1990, p. 4; FBIS-SOV, 6 February 1990, p. 43; Pravda, 8 February 1990, p. 7; FBIS-SOV, 12 February 1990, p. 58. 57. TASS, 27 February 1990; FBIS-SOV, 28 February 1990, p. 3· 58. Typical are Vladimir Korotkov's comments on Radio Moscow, 1 March 1990; FBIS-SOV, 19 March 1990, p. 42. 59. Alexei Novikov, "/People Who Are Ready To Die.' That Is How Fidel Castro Speaks of His Compatriots. What Lies Behind These Words?" Komsomol'skaia pravda, 2 March 1990, p. 3; FBIS-SOV, 5 March 1990, pp. 4S-5 0 . 60. Pravda, 9 March 1990, p. 7; FBIS-SOV, 9 March 1990, p. 31. 61. A. Kamorin, "Cuba's Special Course," Izvestiia, 11 March 1990, p. 5; FBIS-SOV, 15 March 1990, pp. 40-4 1. 62. Ibid. 63. Krasnaia zvezda, 18 April 1990, p. 3; FBIS-SOV, 18 April 1990, P·35· 64. "Vremia" newscast, 18 April 1990; FBIS-SOV, 19 April 1990, P·3 2 . 65. TASS, 19 Apri11990; FBIS-SOV, 19 April 1990, pp. 32-33. 66. TASS, 18 April 1990; FBIS-SQV, 19 April 1990, p. 32.

222

Notes

67. Pravda, 20 April 1990, p. 6; FBIS-SOV, 23 April 1990, p. 45; Krasnaia zvezda, 8 May 1990, p. 5; FBIS-SOV, 10 May 1990, p. 21. 68. "An Oil Drum Plus a Strong-Box Stuffed with Dollars; More about Soviet Trade with Cuba," Moscow News, 20-27 May 1990, no. 19, p. 12; FBIS-SOV, 6 June 1990, p. 53· 69. "In the Shadows of Ideology: USSR's Relations with Cuba Discussed by a Cuban Diplomat and Soviet Political Scientist," Moskovskie novosti (Moscow News), 2 September 1990, p. 12; FBIS-SOV, 10 September 1990, pp. 47-48. 70. Ibid. 71. Suzanne Crow, "Moscow Looks Hard at Its Foreign Aid Program," Report on the USSR 2, no. 32 (10 August 1990): 8--