Cuba, Soviet Oil, and the Sanctions that Never Were: An Archival Investigation of Socialist Relations

Abstract

Abstract In the winter of 1968, tensions between Cuba and the Soviet Union boiled over as the Cuban leadership's mouthpiece, Granma, accused the Soviet Union of imposing oil sanctions on the island in order to subjugate it. Those accusations went on to become inscribed into the historiography of Soviet–Cuban relations. This intervention into that historiography is two-fold: on the one hand it uses recently declassified documents from the Soviet archives to show that there were no oil sanctions on Cuba, but rather a continuum of logistical and infrastructural challenges that created delays and tensions in the relations between these two socialist allies. On the other hand, the article contextualises the relationship within the capitalist institutions of exchange that in effect mediated it, finding in these not only part of the reason for the setbacks and tensions, but also a wider framework for better understanding the Soviet–Cuban economic relationship.