Cold War Cuba: Institutional Changes in the Cuban Military (Part I)

The 1960s

It was logical for the military to play a guiding role in the new revolutionary government because, ever since the 1960s, the army was the only government entity that “grew increasingly professionalized, institutionalized, and efficient.” In fact, the army expanded its responsibilities over the decade, absorbing many nonmilitary functions such as the organization of production and cane cutting. By the end of the 1960s it pervaded almost all facets of Cuban society.

The 1970s

By 1970, the Cuban government and its Soviet technical advisors realized that a reorganization of the military was necessary in order to meet demands for increasing functional and technical specialization.

The Soviets had a great deal of input into the reorganization because Cuban arms were outdated and inefficient and the country’s only potential source of supply was from the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc. As Uri Ra’anan notes in his article on Soviet Arms Transfers and the Problem of Political Leverage:

Clearly, one could expect the armies in question to adopt Soviet training and battle doctrine, since it would be self-defeating to use Soviet weapons in a military context other than the one for which they had been specifically designed. In turn, this meant that hardware from non-Soviet sources would become increasingly irrelevant to the needs of any country that had adapted itself to Soviet military standards. Moreover, Soviet and bloc experts would be required to assemble the newly arrived weapons in the recipient countries and to instruct local military personnel and technicians in their use. {Also} . . . officers would have to travel to bloc countries, often for prolonged periods, to be trained at Soviet staff colleges, so that they might be able properly to apply Soviet military doctrine. It seems probable that these exchanges would open up the military establishment . . . to Soviet ideological indoctrination, infiltration, and subversion. Moreover, such links to the USSR could hardly be confined to a single transaction. Once Soviet weapons and training had been accepted, it was assumed that the general staffs in question would naturally wish to go on receiving later models of aircraft, naval vessels, and tanks from the same sources in order to deal with the problem of rapid obsolescence. In that case, each subsequent transaction would expose the recipient to renewed Soviet demands and pressure. [This process certainly applied to Cuba.]

Military Reorganization Under Soviet Tutelage

After military reorganization under Soviet tutelage, and beginning in 1972, the Armed Forces were rearmed with new and more sophisticated weapons, and several hundred Soviet troops arrived to assist with their assimilation.

New missile patrol boats were added to the Navy, MIG 23s were added to the Air Force, and the Army received state-of-the-art antiaircraft equipment and armor. As Cuba expanded its military arsenal, the structure of the Armed Forces became closer to that of the Soviet Union.

The (1975) Angolan War also demonstrated the close military ties between the Soviet Union and Cuba, and the eventual victory in Angola, along with other Cuban large-scale military operations overseas, were evidence of the effectiveness of Cuba’s military reforms. Moreover, the Cubans in Angola were said to receive more advanced arms from the Soviet Union than “even the weapons sent by Moscow directly to Cuba.”

Military or Economic?

So far as manpower was concerned, the army’s flexibility in adapting to changing political and economic circumstances — playing a role in such diverse activities as education and the sugar harvest — had been quite laudable. However, military experts now acknowledged that it would be more advantageous for specific units to perform either military or economic functions even though the armed forces as a whole would continue to perform both.

There was a new focus on the Reserves and their mobilizational capabilities as the backbone of national defense. Meanwhile, the military tasks of civilian agencies were expanded, extending the reach of the military and bringing many more civilians under the partial authority of the Armed Forces Ministry.

In order to implement the new policies, all military organizations created to carry out non-military civilian work were disbanded and reorganized into one organization, the Youth Army of Work, known also as the Army of Working Youth (EJT). This group, specializing in production, accounted for over a fifth of all cane cutters in the 1975, 1976, and 1977 harvests. During lulls in the production cycle the EJT was expected to prepare for combat under the direction of its own officers — military officers with their own training, ranks, and system of promotion.

The Militia, the paramilitary organization formed of armed workers and peasants in 1959 which played a crucial role in the consolidation of the revolution was also disbanded. Its political functions were taken over by the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, and other functions were passed to Civil Defense units which operated in every work center. The Militia’s more militarized successor, the Reserves, also replaced many of the demobilized, less professional units of the old Armed Forces

Photograph by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe