Clashing visions of non-alignment: the origins of the Cuban-Yugoslav conflict

ABSTRACT

This article offers a contribution to the history of the conflict between Cuba and Yugoslavia over the definition of non-alignment, by going back to the first years of their bilateral relationship and to the early stages of what would eventually become the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Its analysis focusses on the period from the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in early 1959 to the aftermath of the Belgrade Conference of 1961. By relying on a broad collection of Yugoslav archival sources, the article examines the evolution of Cuba-Yugoslavia relations through the lens of Belgrade’s perceptions, shedding light on some of the factors that contributed to their split at a time when both the Cuban Revolution and the NAM were still much in the making. The article’s main claim is that Belgrade’s tensions with Havana were not only the result of the latter’s alignment with Moscow, but also the product of a broad number of disagreements stemming from their essentially different visions of domestic, regional, and global affairs, as well as from their increasingly incompatible needs in the context of the Global Cold War.

KEYWORDS:

• Yugoslavia
• Cuba
• Non-Aligned Movement
• Global Cold War
• Global and International History

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Bohemia 53:38, 17 September 1961, 92.

² Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

³ Alvin Rubinstein, Yugoslavia and the Nonaligned World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970); Johanna Bockman, ‘Socialist Globalization against Capitalist Neocolonialism: The Economic Ideas behind the New International Economic Order’, Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development 6:1 (2015), 109–28; Milorad Lazic, ‘Comrades in Arms: Yugoslav Military Aid to Liberation Movements of Angola and Mozambique, 1961–1976’, in Lena Dallywater, Chris Saunders and Helder Adegar Fonseca, eds., Southern African Liberation Movements and the Global Cold War ‘East’ (Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2019), 151–80; Radina Vučetić, ‘We Shall Win: Yugoslav Film Cooperation with FRELIMO’, Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais 118 (2019), 131–50; Dragan Bogetić, Nesvrstanost Kroz Istoriju: Od Ideje Do Pokreta (Belgrade: Zavod za udžbenike, 2019); Tvrtko Jakovina, Treća Strana Hladnog Rata (Zagreb: Fraktura, 2011); Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2002); Germán Alburquerque, ‘Cuba en el Movimiento de Países No Alineados: el camino al liderazgo: causas y motivaciones. 1961-1983’, Caravelle 109 (2017), 179–93; Radoslav Yordanov, ‘Towards a Pax Cubana: Revolution, Socialism and Development in Havana’s Cold War Foreign Policy’, Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional 65:1 (2022).

⁴ Agustin Cosovschi, ‘Searching for Allies in America’s Backyard: Yugoslav Endeavors in Latin America in the Early Cold War’, The International History Review 43:2 (2021), 281–96; Natalija Dimic, ‘Achievements and Limitations of Yugoslavia’s Policy in Angola during 1960s and 1970s’, Afriche et Orienti 3 (December 2018), 9–30.

⁵ Jovan Čavoški, ‘Kom se privoleti bloku: jugoslovensko-kubansko rivalstvo u Pokretu nesvrstanih i globalni Hladni rat krajem 1970-ih’, Tokovi istorije, 31:2 (2023), 301-331; Jakovina, Treća Strana Hladnog Rata; Bogetić, Nesvrstanost Kroz Istoriju; Yordanov, ‘Towards a Pax Cubana’; John A. Graham, ‘The Non-Aligned Movement After the Havana Summit’, Journal of International Affairs 34:1 (1980), 153–60; Milorad Lazic, Unmaking Détente: Yugoslavia, the United States, and the Global Cold War, 1968–1980 (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2022).

⁶ Anna Calori, ‘Cigar socialism: an entangled history of Yugoslav-Cuban relations’, Cold War History, DOI: 10.1080/14682745.2023.2217759 (2023).

⁷ For a study on Yugoslav diplomacy and the many agents involved in its making, see: Ranko Petković, Subjektivna istorija Jugoslovenske diplomatije, 1943-1991 (Belgrade: Službeni list SRJ, 1995).

⁸ Eric Gettig, ‘Cuba, the United States, and the Uses of the Third World Project, 1959-1967’, in Thomas C. Field, Vanni Pettinà and Stella Krepp, eds., Latin America and the Global Cold War (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2020); Michelle Getchell, ‘Cuba, the USSR, and the Non-Aligned Movement: Negotiating Non-Alignment’, in Field, Pettinà and Krepp, Latin America and the Global Cold War, 148–73; Yordanov, ‘Towards a Pax Cubana’.

⁹ Sara Bernard and Agustin Cosovschi, ‘Cooperation, Migration and Development: Yugoslavia and the Southern Cone in the Postwar Period’, in Maria Damilakou and Yannis G. S. Papadopoulos, eds., Migration and Development in Southern Europe and South America (Abingdon: Routledge, 2022).

¹⁰ Joaquín Fernández, ‘Nacionalismo y Marxismo En El Partido Socialista Popular (1948-1957)’, Izquierdas 34 (2017), 26–49; Agustín Cosovschi, ‘A Voice for the Yugoslavs in Latin America: Oscar Waiss and the Yugoslav-Chilean Connection in the Early Cold War’, in Jeremy Adelman and Gyan Prakash, eds., Inventing the Third World: In Search of Freedom in the Postwar Global South, 1947-1979 (London: Bloomsbury, 2022); Cosovschi, ‘Searching for Allies in America’s Backyard’.

¹¹ ‘Kratak pregled saradnje Socijalistickog saveza radnog naroda Jugoslavije sa socijalistickim pokretima’, 1958, Archive of Yugoslavia (AJ), Fund 142, fascicle 42, 151.

¹² Nada Pantelić and Dušan Joncić, Belgrade-Havana. Seventy Years of Established Diplomatic Relations (Belgrade: Archive of Yugoslavia, 2013).

¹³ Vjeran Pavlaković, Yugoslav Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War (Belgrade: Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Southeast Europe, 2016); Gaston Laroche and Boris Matline, On les nommait des étrangers. Les immigrés dans la Résistance (Paris: Éditeurs français réunis, 1965), 364-367; Bojan Simić, Jugoslavija i Argentina, 1946-1955 (Belgrade: Institute for Contemporary History, 2021).

¹⁴ Pantelić and Joncić, Belgrade-Havana, 32; Rubinstein, Yugoslavia and the Nonaligned World, 95.

¹⁵ ‘Stenografske beleške’, 3 October 1959, Commission for International Relations of the CK SKJ and the SO, SSRNJ, AJ, Fund 142, fascicule 37.

¹⁶ Guevara was instrumental in articulating a narrative that granted the countryside the main role in the success of the Cuban Revolution, underestimating, in turn, the importance of the urban movement. For a reassessment of the urban underground during the revolutionary struggle, see: Julia E. Sweig, Inside the Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro and the Urban Underground (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004).

¹⁷ Milica Pejčinović has thoroughly reconstructed Guevara’s visit on the basis of Yugoslav archival sources. See: Milica Pejčinović, ‘Че Гевара у Југославији 1959. Прилог Познавању Успостављања Југословенскокубанских Односа’, Vojnoistorijski Glasnik 2 (2017), 235–56.

¹⁸ ‘Otvaranje Ambasade FNRJ u Havani’, 12 October 1959, p. 1, AJ 836, KPR I-5-b/61-1.

¹⁹ ‘Izveštaj sa posete Kube državnog sekretara za inostrane poslove Koče Popovića i ambasadora Dobrivoja Vidića u vremenu od 19. do 22. oktobra 1959’, and ‘Zabeleškla o razgovorima na večeri u Havani 21. oktobra 1959 godine’, AJ, Fund 836, KPR I-5-b/61-1.

²⁰ Ernesto Guevara, ‘Yugoslavia’, in Ernesto Guevara, Che periodista (Havana: Unión de Periodistas de Cuba, 1988), 65-73. The text was originally published in Verde olivo on 26 November 1959.

²¹ ‘Zabeleška o boravku kubanske delegacije u Jugoslaviji’, 14.X. 1959, AJ, Fund 507, fascicule IX, 67 / 3.

²² ‘Stenografske beleške razgovora sa delegacjiom vlade i sindikata Kube’, 14.X. 1959, AJ, Fund 507, fascicule IX, 67 / 3.

²³ ‘Izveštaj o boravku u zemljama Latinske Amerike’, 19-21, AJ, Fund 318, fascicule 241-343.

²⁴ Ibid.

²⁵ Ibid, 16-18.

²⁶ ‘Dragi druže Pero … ’, 5.XII.1959, AJ, Fund 507, fascicule IX, 67 / 2.

²⁷ Ljubodrag Dimić, Jugoslavija i Hladni Rat (Belgrade: Arhipelag, 2014), 240-245.

²⁸ ‘Zabeleška druga Pretsednika sa kubanskim ministrom inostranih poslova Raulom Roa Garsijem, 18. januara 1960 u Užičkoj ul. 15’, 2, AJ 507, IX, 67 / 5.

²⁹ Gettig, ‘Cuba, the United States, and the Uses of the Third World Project, 1959-1967’, 244.

³⁰ ‘Zabeleška druga Pretsednika sa kubanskim ministrom inostranih poslova Raulom Roa Garsijem, 18. januara 1960 u Užičkoj ul. 15’, 4-5, AJ 507, IX, 67 / 5.

³¹ Jovan Čavoški, Non-Aligned Movement Summits: A History (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022).

³² Gettig, ‘Cuba, the United States, and the Uses of the Third World Project, 1959-1967’.

³³ ‘Zabilješka o razgovoru ambasadora Graheka sa Guevarom, 21. marta 1960’, 21 March 1960, AJ, Fund 507, IX, 67 / 3.

³⁴ ‘O kubanskoj revoluciji’, 21 April 1960, AJ 507, IX, 67 / 8.

³⁵ Untitled, AJ 507, IX, 67 / 7.

³⁶ ‘Informacija o boravku kubanske delegacije 15. i 16. Aprila’, AJ, Fund 507, IX, 67 / 7; ‘Informacija o boravku kubanske delegacije 18. Aprila’, AJ, Fund 507, IX, 67 / 7; ‘Informacija o boravku kubanske delegacije za 19. Aprila’, 17 April 1960, AJ, Fund 507, IX, 67 / 7.

³⁷ Letter from Manuel Suzarte, AJ 507, IX, 67 / 7.

³⁸ Untitled, AJ 507, IX, 67 / 7.

³⁹ ‘Zabiiješka o razgovoru sa članovima delegacije Pokreta 26. jula koja je prisustvovala na Kongresu SSNRJ, 21. juna 1960 g.’, AJ, Fund 507, IX, 67 / 7.

⁴⁰ Gettig, ‘Cuba, the United States, and the Uses of the Third World Project, 1959-1967’, 252.

⁴¹ Agustin Cosovschi, ‘From Santiago to Mexico: The Yugoslav Mission in Latin America During the Cold War and the Limits of Non-Alignment’, in Paul Stubbs, ed., Socialist Yugoslavia and the Non-Aligned Movement: Social, Cultural, Political and Economic Imaginaries (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022); Cosovschi, ‘Searching for Allies in America’s Backyard’.

⁴² ‘Izveštaj’, undated, AJ 507, IX, 67 / 4.

⁴³ Lars Schoultz, That Infernal Little Cuban Republic: The United States and the Cuban Revolution (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 111.

⁴⁴ ‘Zabilješka o razgovoru sa Fidel Castrom na večeri kod Ministra Roa’, 26 April 1960, AJ, Fund 836, KPR I-5-b/61-1.

⁴⁵ Rafael Pedemonte, La guerra por las ideas en América latina. Presencia soviética en Cuba y Chile, una historia comparada (1959-1973) (Santiago: UAH Editores, 2020), 65-66.

⁴⁶ ‘Zabeleška o razgovoru sa ministrom inostranih poslova Kube, R. Roa-om, 25 novembra 1960’, 27 November 1960, AJ, Fund 836, KPR I-5-b/61-1.

⁴⁷ ‘Izveštaj o propagandnoj i kulturnoj aktivnosti Ambasade u Havani za 1960 godinu’, 21 March 1961, AJ, Fund 559, AJ. 559. 1. 1-3.

⁴⁸ ‘Zabeleška o Kubi. Isključivo za ličnu informaciju’, undated, AJ, Fund 836, KPR I-5-b/61-1.

⁴⁹ Gettig, ‘Cuba, the United States, and the Uses of the Third World Project, 1959-1967’, 252.

⁵⁰ Čavoški, Non-Aligned Movement Summits, 53.

⁵¹ ‘Stav Kube prema Jugoslaviji I vanblokovskoj politici, prema direktoru lista “Revolucion”’, 11 May 1961, AJ, Fund 507, IX, 67 / 36.

⁵² Čavoški, Non-Aligned Movement Summits, 56; Vanni Pettinà, ‘Global Horizons: Mexico, the Third World, and the Non-Aligned Movement at the Time of the 1961 Belgrade Conference’, The International History Review 38:4 (2016), 741–64; James G. Hershberg, ‘“High-Spirited Confusion”: Brazil, the 1961 Belgrade Non-Aligned Conference, and the Limits of an “Independent” Foreign Policy during the High Cold War’, Cold War History 7:3 (2007), 373–88.

⁵³ Cosovschi, ‘Searching for Allies in America’s Backyard’.

⁵⁴ Michelle Getchell, ‘Cuba, the USSR, and the Non-Aligned Movement: Negotiating Non-Alignment’, 148–73; Yordanov, ‘Towards a Pax Cubana’.

55 On Yugoslavia’s liminal and contradictory position as a leader of the global South, see Paul Stubbs, ‘Socialist Yugoslavia and the Non-Aligned Movement: Contradictions and Contestations’, in Paul Stubbs, ed., Socialist Yugoslavia and the Non-Aligned Movement: Social, Cultural, Political and Economic Imaginaries (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022, 3-33.