The 60th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution is a unique date not only in Latin American but also in world history. In the conditions of almost half a century of the most severe blockade by the United States, having lost its military and political allies in the face of the USSR and most of the socialist countries, Cuba was able to both survive and develop. Demonstrating to the whole world the viability of its own unique model of socialism, devoid, in contrast to the Soviet Union, of nomenclature-bureaucratic imbalances and rigid party dictatorship in all spheres of life.
Fulgencio Batista's pro-American regime in Cuba was overthrown on January 1, 1959. Since then, there has been a Cuban socialist state that survived the collapse of the USSR. Cuban socialism, which exists today, turned out to be much more viable than the Soviet one. The new government in Havana and Cuba as a whole was at one time helped not only by Moscow and Beijing, but also by Francoist Spain.
The very Spain that brought General Francisco Franco to power, which is why it was called in the USSR nothing but “fascist”. But also the one that refused Washington military and political support during the CIA landing in the southeast of Cuba, as well as during the Cuban missile crisis. At the same time, in a broader context, it was Madrid that put forward in the 50s - early 70s a large-scale project of the integration community of countries in which they speak Spanish and languages close to it, with the participation of Cuba.
Back in July 1954, Franco, at a meeting with the President of Argentina (in 1946-55 and 1973-74), General Juan Domingo Peron in Madrid, put forward a project to create an integration, in fact, anti-American "Ibero-lingual union of states and nations." With the participation of including Portugal and its colonies, as well as Brazil and the Philippines. It is significant that this project was supported not only by General Peron, but also by Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Salazar, who in the USSR, like Franco, was also considered a "fascist" dictator.
As for Cuba itself, it is worth paying attention to the assessment of the Castro regime, which was made by Michael Norman Manley (1924-1997), Prime Minister of Jamaica in 1972-1980 and 1989-1992. He was the founder of the local model of Swedish socialism (70s - early 90s), and was so active in implementing it that he almost ran into the same isolation as Liberty Island.
So, Manley, along with many other politicians and experts, reasonably believed that the Cuban version of socialism is "much less nomenklatura, more real and minimally bureaucratic, in contrast to the Soviet one." In the opinion of the Jamaican politician, he was also actively fueled by "the long-standing sentiment of the overwhelming majority of Cubans against the neo-colonialism of the United States, which increasingly realized that they would be able to withstand the United States within the framework of a rigid one-party system and with inevitable hardships in favor of strengthening Cuba's defense capabilities."
But after all, Caudillo Franco, who ruled in Spain in 1939-1975, considered the restoration of the great power of Spain to be the most urgent issue. Like all "white" Spain, the dictator, who made himself into generalissimo, considered his homeland a humiliated defeat in the war with the United States in 1898-1899. After it, as you know, the Spanish metropolis immediately lost Cuba from Puerto Rico, as well as the Philippine Islands, Guam, the Palau Islands and the protectorate over the Hawaiian Islands. In this regard, paradoxically, Franco welcomed the revolution in Cuba and the overthrow of the US puppet Fulgencio Batista there. By the way, he congratulated the new Cuban leadership on this already in January 1959, almost getting ahead of the Soviet leadership headed by Nikita Khrushchev.
According to estimates of Spanish financiers, published years after Franco's death, in 1959-1976 Spain provided Cuba with concessional loans and credits in the amount of over 300 million dollars. Most of the funds were transferred through offshore territories and banks of neutral European countries. Of these, Madrid wrote off more than 35% already at that time. Spain has become one of the largest trade partners of Cuba, including the third (after the USSR and China) importer of Cuban raw sugar.
In addition, Spain in the mid-60s - early 70s paid for oil supplies to Cuba from the ex-British Trinidad and Tobago. Although they did not exceed 15% of Cuban oil imports at that time, such supplies are remarkable already because they were not prohibited by Great Britain, whose dominion after independence was Trinidad and Tobago. And all this was done, by the way, contrary to the position of the United States, which more than once threatened to impose sanctions against Madrid.
But the well-known role of Spain and its colonies in the strategic plans of the United States did not allow Washington to "punish" Spain for an extraordinary position on Cuba. By the way, during the Cuban missile crisis, the Spanish and Portuguese media, citing Franco's opinion, noted "the arrogant US policy against Cuba, pushing it into the rocket embrace of Moscow. And, as a result, Castro's nationalist regime is quickly transforming into a pro-Soviet one: other choice ". Well, the generalissimo looked into the water …
In this regard, the almost complete coincidence with the opinion of the caudillo of the statements of Ernesto Che Guevara in July 1960, made in an interview with the American magazine Look: “Fidel is not a communist, and our revolution is exclusively Cuban, or rather Latin American. would qualify Fidel and our movement as people's revolutionary or revolutionary national."
Regarding the interaction of Francoist Spain with Cuba, Commander Fidel is also noteworthy not so long ago the publication of the analyst P. Barerros in "Polemica Cubana" (Rris) of 2013-28-09:
"Franco rejected Cuba's alliance with the Eastern Bloc and the nationalization of Spanish and Spanish émigré property in Cuba. But Franco Spain never broke off diplomatic and trade relations with Castro Cuba." Moreover: "Franco's regime, even in the midst of the Cold War, never supported the blockade of Cuba declared by the United States. In connection with the death of Francisco Franco, Cuba declared three days of national mourning."
Is it worth explaining here that no agreement with the Soviet leadership of Castro was required for this, this, obviously, would not even have occurred to him. The mutual respect of Castro and the Caudillo, from the point of view of P. Barreros, "can be explained by the feelings that the dictator Franco had for any American administration, remembering the US victory in the not so long war with Spain. Although it was Franco who allowed the creation of US military bases in Spain back in In the first half of the 50s, as a result, any act of "historical revenge" adopted anywhere against the Americans was positively perceived by Franco and the Spanish military."
Mutual economic ties of the Island of Liberty with Spain are very figuratively outlined in the same article: "Until the 70s, Cubans could feast on Spanish nougat," Turrones de Gijona, "thanks to their Spanish friends. Thanks to Franco, Cuban girls played with Spanish dolls." …
In full accordance with this nature of Cuban-Spanish relations, Franco refused President Kennedy's request (October 1962) about the use of Spanish territory and its foreign regions (1) in a possible US-NATO war with the USSR.
Franco immediately called on all parties to the conflict for a peaceful settlement of the crisis, and also offered his mediation services in establishing a dialogue between Havana and Washington. The Soviet media, of course, did not report anything about this then. By the way, the caudillo also made a similar proposal, only in the form of joint participation in the negotiation process, to the then President of Venezuela, Romulo Betancourt, and he immediately agreed. But John F. Kennedy understandably rejected Spanish-speaking mediation …
As for the aforementioned project of Ibero-lingual integration, in the 1950s and 1960s, we repeat, it was supported, along with H. D. Peron, presidents or prime ministers of most other Latin American countries. The Spanish Embassy in Cuba in May 1961 announced the interest of the new Cuban authorities in discussing such a project with the Spanish government. But the anti-Castro policy of the United States of the first half of the 60s, when Havana was threatened not only with a blockade, but also with direct intervention, did not leave the Cuban leaders, in the literal sense, time for appropriate negotiations.
It must be admitted that the project of the “Ibero-lingual union” was hardly beneficial to the USSR, in view of the high military-political importance of Cuba - as a potential and soon a de facto ally of Moscow and the Warsaw Pact. Plus, the United States exerted tough pressure on the Latin American countries that support the project. A whole series of military coups, a series of government resignations, provoking economic crises, border military conflicts - all this confirms the direct opposition of the Americans to the implementation of the project.
The cleverly organized CIA military conflict between El Salvador and Honduras in 1969 and the US invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965 were not least associated with the growing popularity of the idea of Ibero-lingual integration in these countries. The American trace is also easily visible as one of the main reasons for the regular escalation of disputes between Guatemala and Mexico over Belize (ex-British Honduras), as well as periodic border conflicts between Colombia and Venezuela, Argentina and Chile, Peru and Ecuador, Bolivia and Chile.
By the mid-60s of the last century, the United States had already moved to direct support of anti-Spanish movements in the foreign territories of Spain. As a result, in 1968 Spain lost Equatorial Guinea and the Ifni enclave on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, and in 1975 - Western Sahara. In parallel, the Spanish language was increasingly being ousted from there. So, by the decision of the pro-American authorities of the Philippines, in 1973, Spanish was deprived of the status of the second state language, and in 1987 it ceased to be compulsory for learning.
Meanwhile, the Association of Hispanic Nations ("Ispanidad") was nevertheless created in 1991 with the participation of Cuba and other Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America along with Spain, although without the Philippines, Western Sahara, Equatorial Guinea and Micronesia. However, this is a structure of an exclusively cultural, linguistic and humanitarian profile, like the similar community of Portuguese-speaking countries established in 2005. It must be remembered that by that time Spain and Portugal (2) had already been involved in NATO and the EU, and as a result, the large-scale integration Ibero-American project, the powers that be, were able to split it in two, and politically simply level it off.
Notes:
1. Western Sahara (until 1975), the western Moroccan enclave of Ifni and Equatorial Guinea (until 1968).
2. Spain was outside NATO and the EU, respectively, until 1982 and 1986; Portugal joined NATO in 1949 and the EU in 1986.
