398 THE END OF THE COLD WAR
despite the growing interference of neighbouring Muslim countries.^33
Their alliance was fraying. The Afghan communist administration
stood at the edge of a precipice.
Yet the Soviet leadership stuck to its established line in geopolitics.
On 13 April 1990 the Politburo approved a memo from Shevardnadze,
Yakovlev and Kryuchkov welcoming the recent moderation of Sandi-
nista policy and advising the need to put pressure on Castro to be
more ‘constructive’ about resolving conflicts in Central America.^34 In
June the Soviet leadership told the Americans that it was willing to
drop its support for Cuba. It suggested a deal could be struck on the
basis that Moscow would withdraw its military commission from
Havana if Washington would dismantle its Guantanamo Bay base and
confirm its guarantee never to invade.^35 Bush and Baker were in no
mood to compromise. They demanded nothing less than an end to the
USSR’s influence in the region.
Gorbachëv was disinclined to yield without getting something in
return. Being under attack by Soviet critics of his reforms, he could
not afford to appear to surrender. Better by far to conduct his retreat
in a quiet fashion. Hardly anyone noticed the relinquishment of the
USSR’s hegemonic pretensions in what had been known as the ‘world
communist movement’. When the Italian Communist Party reconsti-
tuted itself as the Democratic Party of the Left, a faction of radical
leftists established the Communist Refoundation Party. The Soviet
Politburo had to decide what, if anything, to do about this. It was ceas-
ing to prioritize the links with communist parties and reaching out to
the world’s conservative, liberal and socialist parties. Nevertheless
the Party International Department opted to keep in touch with the
Communist Refoundation Party.^36
Gorbachëv was too distracted by other matters to unscramble this
component of his foreign policy. Maybe, indeed, he saw advantage in
allowing a degree of uncertainty that made it difficult for his oppo-
nents to say that he was treading on the neck of international com-
munist solidarity. The same thought perhaps supplied the incentive to
issue his usual invitation for leaders of friendly socialist countries
to spend their summer vacations in the USSR. By May 1990 few such
countries existed. Gorbachëv instead invited a clutch of communist
party leaders from Eastern Europe, and a sorry lot they were by that
time. Romania’s Ion Iliescu was the only one among them who held
power – and he no longer called himself a communist. Old favourites
like Fidel Castro, Heng Samrin and Kim Il-sung received their usual