At times, the relationship was contentious, as the Soviet leadership criticized Castro's mismanagement of the Cuban economy and complained about the burden of providing direct aid to Cuba.

After the war, the governments of Ramón Grau and Carlos Prío Socarrás sought to isolate the Cuban Communist Party, and relations with the Soviet Union were abandoned.

Khrushchev advised them to consult Cuban communists, who reported that Castro was a representative of the "haute bourgeoisie" and working for the Central Intelligence Agency.

[4] In February 1960, Khrushchev sent his deputy, Anastas Mikoyan, to Cuba to discover what motivated Castro, who had returned from failed trip to Washington, DC, where he was refused a meeting with US President Dwight Eisenhower.

The defense of Cuba became a matter of prestige for the Soviet Union, and Khrushchev believed that the Americans would block all access to the island by sea or by air.

[citation needed] Khrushchev agreed on a deployment plan in May 1962, primarily in response to Castro's fears over yet another American invasion, and by late July, after signing the Soviet-Cuban Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Defence Treaty, over 60 Soviet ships had been en route to Cuba, some of which were carrying military material.

Khrushchev and Castro planned to secretly establish a Soviet Armed Forces presence on the island before announcing a defense pact once nuclear-armed ballistic missiles were installed and targeted at the United States.

The Castro brothers and Che Guevara became popular figures among the Soviet public, who believed they were reminiscent of the leaders of the Russian Revolution.

[7] Khrushchev sent letters to Kennedy on October 23 and 24 that claimed the deterrent nature of the missiles in Cuba and the peaceful intentions of the Soviet Union.

After the crisis, in June 1963 Castro made a historic visit to the Soviet Union, returning from Cuba to recall the construction projects he had seen, specifically the Siberian hydro power stations.

Castro increased contacts with China, exploited the growing Sino-Soviet split and proclaimed his intention to remain neutral and to maintain fraternal relations with all socialist states.

In 1966, Guevara left for Bolivia in an ill-fated attempt to stir up revolution against René Barrientos' U.S.-sponsored military junta On 23 August 1968, Castro made a public gesture to the Soviet Union that reaffirmed his support.

Two days after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia to repress the Prague Spring, Castro took to the airwaves and publicly denounced the Czechoslovak "rebellion."

[citation needed] With Cuba's proximity to the United States, Castro and his regime became an important Cold War ally for the Soviets.

Brezhnev arrived at José Martí International Airport and was met with a reception with full military honors from the Ceremonial Unit of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces.

On 29 January, the Soviet delegation visited Plaza de la Revolución and laid a wreath at the José Martí Memorial before it held talks with Castro in the Palace of the Revolution.

[14] The next day, he held more talks with Castro, his brother Raul and President Osvaldo Dorticos, and it was decided that the design and construction of high-voltage power lines in the east and the west of Cuba would be carried out.

The Soviet Union faced a varying array of problems when Gorbachev took power after the death of General Secretary Konstantin Chernenko in 1985.

"[22] In his visit to rekindle ties with Cuba in April 1989, Gorbachev attempted to convince Castro to take a more positive attitude towards the Soviet Union.

In what was called a "zero-option approach," the Cuban government in 1990 and 1991 established tariff-free trading agreements to boost imports and exports, gave foreign entities more autonomy and generous tax incentives, and began to diversify the economy by focusing more on the pharmaceutical industry and tourism.

His new foreign policy took on a new orientation that stressed international independence, non-offensive defence, multilateral co-operation, and the use of the political process to solve security issues.

"[27] However, ideological divergences over disarmament, international conflicts in Nicaragua and Angola, and the debt crisis in the developing world quickly created irreconcilable differences between Castro and Gorbachev.

Demonstrative of the cooling of Cold War tensions and "new thinking" was the announcement by Gorbachev on September 11, 1991, that all Soviet troops would be removed from Cuba.

[28] That move symbolized Gorbachev's efforts to eliminate Marxism from Soviet foreign policy, which Castro believed undermined Cuba's struggle against US imperialism.

An editorial in Granma several days after the coup wrote that "in the Soviet Union, politicians favour the process of privatization and the acceleration to the market economy.