THE OTHER SUPER POWER The USSR and Latin America: 1917-1987
Edelman, Marc
NORTH AMERICANS MAY BE TAKEN BY surprise when Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev visits Latin America later this year. Conditioned by years of Cold War rhetoric and of late by the Reagan...
...By the early 1980s, Argentina was-after India--the Soviets' second largest source of imports among non-socialist developing countries...
...Latin America as a whole went unmentioned...
...Soviet relations with other progressive governments in the region are found to be a mixture of business-like pragmatism coupled with support for positive social change...
...Few are aware of the complexity and scope of Soviet policy in the Western Hemisphere, or that the USSR has significant ties with governments across the political spectrum...
...Further, the piece takes an in-depth look at the extensive ties with Brazil and Peru...
...One of a handful of U.S...
...Gorbachev's report to last year's Communist Party Congress outlined the Soviet Union's strategic priorities...
...third, Europe, Asia and the Pacific...
...second, the "bleeding wound" of Afghanistan...
...In the period following the revolution the leadership grappled with a tension that Edelman argues colors Soviet foreign policy to this day: promoting Soviet state interests versus nurturing social revolution...
...Article one traces the development of Soviet diplomacy from the 1917 Bolshevik victory, when distant Latin America was unknown and of little interest...
...Particularly since the superpower detente of the 1970s, the USSR has stepped up efforts to cultivate commercial and diplomatic relations with Latin America...
...by no means is it always the most important...
...Gorbachev's visit will mark the first time a Soviet leader has set foot on the Latin American mainland...
...Central America was clearly secondary in this geopolitical scheme...
...Article two examines the evolution of Soviet relations with revolutionary Cuba, a relationship thatcontrary to popular belief-has not been consistently chummy...
...HIS ISSUE OF REPORT ON THE AMERICAS, by NACLA Research Director Marc Edelman, is based on extensive research in Soviet libraries, including the collections of the Lenin Library (the Soviet equivalent of the U.S...
...First in importance, he declared, were the country's land and sea borders...
...Conditioned by years of Cold War rhetoric and of late by the Reagan obsession with Cuba and Nicaragua, many view the Soviet Union (USSR) only as a revolutionary force making inroads in the Americas, especially in tiny Central American and Caribbean states...
...and finally a series of world "hot spots" where there was "danger of war...
...Nevertheless, there is now a rich and comprehensive Soviet bibliography on diverse aspects of Latin America and the Caribbean, including the USSR's relations with the region...
...Library of Congress), the USSR Academy of Sciences and its Institute of Latin America, as well as interviews with Soviet specialists on Latin America and Latin diplomats in Moscow...
...While different sectors of the Soviet foreign policy apparatus undoubtedly have varying goals and priorities for the region, the formulation of policy is usually hidden from public view and can only be inferred on the basis of actual behavior, statements in the press and the writings of specialists...
...Article three illustrates how this pragmatism has led to some strange bedfellows, such as the Soviet embrace of the brutal Argentine dictatorship...
...But the USSR's own economic difficulties-slowing growth in recent decades, chronic food production shortfalls, noncompetitive manufactured goods-have meant that imports far surpass what it is able to place on Latin American markets...
...Wishing to reduce regional dependence on the United States, the Soviet Union has offered Latin America a variety of innovative trade and aid packages...
...Edelman spent three months in Moscow and Tashkent under the bilateral U.S./USSR academic exchange agreement...
...Latin Americanists who read Russian, Edelman's work is based on a wide range of material previously unexamined by Western writers...
...Support for revolutionary regimes and movements is but one of a series of Soviet objectives...
...As such, his journey is a fitting symbol of just how far the other superpower has come from the time when few in tsarist Russia knew where Latin America lay...
...Edelman says that history has been re-written by the self-interested, including Fidel Castro...
...These included the Middle East, Central America and South Africa...
Vol. 21 • January 1987 • No. 1
