PRELUDE TO THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS

Abstract

Based on previously unexplored documents of the Russian State Archive of Contemporary History (materials of the International Department of the Central Committee of the CPSU), the article examines the events that led up to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. The authors also employ the published memoirs, as well as the documents of the Meeting of the Communist and Workers’ Parties held in Moscow in 1957. The authors pay special attention to analyzing the essence of the ties between the Popular Socialist Party (PSP) and Moscow in the context of Cuban Revolution, the establishment of contacts with Fidel Castro, as well as his “July 26 Movement” (M-26). The documents demonstrate the high intensity of contacts between the PSP and the M-26 Movement, directly with the top Fidelista leadership for a long period of time before the triumph of Castro. The authors pay special attention to the dispatch of Soviet officers of Spanish origin to Cuba as a step taken with the help of the PSP with a purpose to consolidate the revolutionary regime and strengthen the importance of the USSR and the Communist Party in the framework of the Cuban revolutionary process. The analysis of these documents allows us to elucidate the high degree of awareness of the Central Committee of the CPSU about what had happened in Cuba before the rebels entered Havana for significant contacts between the Cuban revolutionary leadership and Moscow were established long before the establishment of bilateral diplomatic Soviet-Cuban relations. Finally, the article demonstrates that the idea of placing Soviet missiles on the “Island of Freedom” was formulated long before the famous statements made by Nikita S. Khrushchev.