To what extent did the united states invasion on the bay of pigs in 1961 drive cuba into closer relations with the ussr

In the period after 1959, Castro introduced nationalization of land holdings, slashing of electrical rates as well as cutting down rents. These tensions coupled with Cuba’s warming up to Russia’s communism led to a standoff between the two countries. The U. S. forced an embargo against trade, as well as travelling to Cuba. committed during the Bay of Pigs Invasion increased Cuba’s confidence. Also, the invasion brought USSR closer to Cuba while at the same time making Castro more powerful. Therefore, it is from this account that historians realize that the Bay of Pigs Invasion was a significant contributing factor to the Cuban Missile Crisis and the strong relationship between Cuba and USSR. The source explains this role by quoting people who directly involved in the crisis, making it more credible.

For instance, they quote Presidium-member Dmitri Polyanski as he complained about the crisis and how it damaged their government. According to the author, at such a period, people tend to be loyal to an individual leader, in this case Fidel Castro. They give an account of the period before and after the Bay of Pigs attack as well as the relations between Cuba, the U. S. and the U. S. Limitations to this source include the fact that it does not disclose some of the classified information during that period that has since been disclosed by other sources. Furthermore the validity of the Source 2: One Hell of a Gamble: 1958-1964, The secret History of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Published 1997. This source gives an account of the period between 1958 and 1964 basing on classified Soviet archives from that period.

The aforesaid Cuban Missile crisis is recounted in a detailed manner from the USSR and the US point of view. Another strength is that the book was written in a simple language that is easy to read and understand. The font size is large enough, making it vivid to the eyes of the reader. Therefore, the audience can widely solicit for historical information from the book without boredom. However, the source has a fair share of its limitations. The first limitation is that some of the information recorded here is very controversial. The invasion was mainly meant to protect US interest in Cuba and not Cubans from dictatorial rule under communist ideology (Von Tunzelmann 8). This invasion had a significant impact on the relationship between Cuba and USSR, and as a paradox, it strengthened the ties between Cuba and USSR since the government considered the US to be exploiting Cuba for its benefit.

This paper looks at the extent to which the Bay of Pigs invasion moved Cuba to a close relationship with the USSR. First, Cuba was in need of strong allies like the USSR to stand against US domination in their affairs. The US had taken control over most production in Cuba, and her leaders wanted protection from another powerful nation (Fursenkoand Naftali 68). He never needed the US since they were a competitor of this goal. For instance, Cuba joined an economic treaty among socialist governments in 1972, which was based on non-restrictive trade. The USSR advocated for powerful state leadership, which fitted the objective of Castro thus, Bay of Pigs invasion triggered the growth of the already established Cuba-USSR relations. Incidentally, Cuba had endured a sour relationship with the USA since Castro overthrew the US-supported Batista regime in 1952 (Fursenkoand Naftali 83).

For instance, USA had sought to assassinate or overthrow Castro and planned the invasion to achieve that objective. Khrushchev was worried that with the US having more long-distance missiles compared to the Soviets as well having missiles in Turkey, gave the US an upper hand in the event of a war (Fursenkoand Naftali 76). Therefore, these worries drove the Cuba-USSR relations closer compared to Bay of Pigs invasion. Furthermore, the USSR sought to promote relations with Cuba through their objective of spreading communism ideologies globally. There were several reasons why the USSR wanted to be involved in Cuba. For instance, it is the only communist country in the Western hemisphere which made Cuba a very strategic partner for the USSR. In conclusion, the united states invasion of the Bay of Pigs to a certain extent contributed to Cuba developing a closer relationship with the USSR.

The two countries seemed to agree on the need to protect communism, as Cuba was the only communist country in the western hemisphere. In addition, Cuba felt threatened by the US and was in need of a strong alliance. On the other hand, other sources indicate that the USSR with the protection of Cuba only followed its own interests, which consisted of using Cuba as a starting point to spread communism globally. Moreover, Cuba turned out to be a perfect strategic location for storing its nuclear missiles, thus posing a constant threat to the United States. It also made it easy for me to understand the topic as well as avail a good basis for comparison of data. Effective data comparison about the topic has inspired an understanding of the USSR and the US foreign policies.

A possible disadvantage of using secondary sources in research is the fact that they might be unavailable, inaccurate, insufficient and/or irrelevant. As aforementioned, all my sources are readily available as e-books. One of the limitations I noted in my sources is that some were biased in terms of the data they provided. Covert Operations against Cuba, 1959–1965. Washington, D. C. Potomac Books, 2005. Fursenko, Aleksandr and Naftali, Timothy. Payne, Richard and Nassar, Jamal. politics and Culture in the Developing World. London: Routledge, 2017. Rasenberger, Jim. The Brilliant Disaster: JFK, Castro, and America's Doomed Invasion of Cuba's Bay of Pigs.