Beyond / Comment

The 1962 Missile Crisis Was a Turning Point for the Cuban Revolution

The missile crisis led Cuba’s leaders to distrust their Soviet ally—an attitude that ultimately helped their revolutionary system to outlast the USSR’s.

by Antoni Kapcia via Jacobin on October 17, 2022

...on Cuban soil. They believed that the weapons would supply the protection and deterrence Cuba needed against the realistic prospect of a direct US invasion, after the CIA’s attempt to overthrow Castro with a proxy force of Cuban exiles ended in embarrassment at the Bay of Pigs in April 1961.

The Cuban leadership’s demands then began to change over the thirteen days of the crisis, especially as it became increasingly clear to Castro that his Soviet allies were ignoring him in the negotiations, although they occasionally kept him minimally informed as talks progressed.

Historians have frequently quoted the Cuban leader’s private words to the Soviet ambassador Alexander Alexeyev on October 26, 1962, in which he spoke about the readiness of Cubans to sacrifice themselves for the cause of global socialism and the destruction of US imperialism.

However, it now appears that these remarks were not so much the reckless declaration that commentators have generally assumed them to be, as much as a tactic to force the Soviet leadership to take Cuba seriously in the final stretch. Indeed, the subsequent Soviet shooting down of a U2 spy plane in Cuban airspace seems to have been intended as proof to Castro of Moscow’s commitment to Cuba.

Challenging the Embargo

By then, the Cuban stance had shifted to focus on their key demands for any ultimate agreement, which Castro deliberately made public on October 28. He wanted an end to US subversion, including the support for the armed actions of right-wing Cuban exiles, as well as a halt to naval and air incursions by US planes and ships. Castro also pressed for the return to Cuba of the Guantánamo base and the lifting of economic sanctions that had been in place since 1960.

The last item on this list was probably the most important and urgent. Revealingly, we can see its significance reflected in Castro’s use of the term bloqueo to describe the US trade embargo, which equated it in scale and importance with the new US naval blockade of Cuba — officially defined by Washington as a “quarantine” to avoid problems in international law.

That was immediately reflected in the changing tone and language of Cuba’s main daily newspapers of the time: Revolución (organ of the 26 July Movement, which had led the revolution of 1959) and Noticias de Hoy (which represented the viewpoint of the communist, pro-Soviet People’s Socialist Party, or PSP).

Revolución had already reported events with a discourse of struggle, putting the emphasis on militant determination and independence. It immediately picked up on the term bloqueo as the manifestation of US imperialism. Noticias, on the other hand, initially remained loyal to Moscow, faithfully reporting Soviet support for, and defense of, Cuba.