• Terrarium [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    3 days ago

    Yeah Castro was forced by the US to be more friendly with the Soviet bloc due to trade (US embargo preceded the revolution being explicitly communist) and military threats and actions (if the US constantly threatens to attack you, the USSR might counterbalance). The revolution did have a substantial communist contingent in the cities and in leadership, so this was a natural consequence.

    One of the first things done by the revolutionary government was to strike a deal for sugar exports, as the country, like many colonized countries, had a massively unbalanced economy that catered to colonist interests - at the time, cash crops, mobbed up casinos and sex trade, and limitations on industry. They originally made this offer to the US, but the US, as always, went as extreme as it could do pressure the newly sovereign government and refused and made threats. They then made basically the same deal with the USSR.