the plunder of Asian, African and Latin American peoples, upon
non-equivalent exchange, discrimination of female labor, brutal
oppression of Negroes and immigrant workers, and also upon the
intensified exploitation of the working people in those countries.”^58
Believing itself invested with a historic mission, the USSR put forward
popular democracy as an alternative that would liberate humanity
“from social inequality...and the horrors of war.”^59 The attraction
of this communist ideology and its impact on the course of inter-
national relations were considerable. The case of Cuba, a small island
located in the backyard of the United States, offered one of the most
eloquent examples in this respect. At the outset, the revolutionary
movement launched by young lawyer Fidel Castro and his middle-
classcompan ̃eroshad little to do with Marxism. Castro’s alignment
with the USSR came gradually, as his radical nationalism alienated
him from the United States. That trajectory may have made Cuba look
like “a piece on Moscow’s political chessboard,”^60 but it also testified
to the Soviet Union’s willingness to side with the colonized and the
underdogs in their opposition to the great powers and the rich.
The Western left was in fact more anti-American than pro-Soviet.
Overall, it attributed less importance to the East–West division than
did the right, and most progressives identified more readily with the
interests of developing countries than with those of socialist countries.
At the same time, both in Europe and North America, the left favored
a strategy of openness toward the communist camp. The most notable
manifestation of this openness was a more understanding attitude
regarding the Soviet Union’s desire to maintain its own zone of influ-
ence. In the wake of the 1956 Hungarian and 1968 Czechoslovakian
crises, however, the left became ill at ease, and tried to square the
circle by seeking to reconcile a call for moderationvis-a`-visMoscow
with an indictment of Soviet military interventions. This balancing
act was far from successful. The upshot was to embroil the progressive
camp in deep dissensions.
(^58) Communist Party of the Soviet Union,Program of the Communist Party of the
59 Soviet Union, New York, Crosscurrents Press, 1961, p. 34.
Ibid., p. 10.
(^60) W. Raymond Duncan, “Moscow and Cuban Radical Nationalism,” in
W. Raymond Duncan (ed.),Soviet Policy in Developing Countries, Waltham,
Ginn and Company, 1970, p. 112.
126 Left and Right in Global Politics