“The USA’s Long 1968” in the Cuban public discourse

The study is devoted to the investigation of the representation of the leftist movements in the second half of the 1960s – early 1970s in the Cuban press and among the political elites. The various ways of covering events which took place in the USA were studied in particular. The research revealed that the example of the United States was used as a method of propaganda directed against the American authorities and to further incite discontent among the demonstrators. The government-controlled periodicals systematically published the articles on the problem of racial discrimination in the United States and the resentment of the population over the “imperialist” war in Vietnam. The leader of the Cuban Revolution, F. Castro, often resorted to the same rhetoric. As a result, a dichotomy was artificially created in the mass consciousness in Cuba, where social problems were brewing and worsening in the heart of capitalism – the United States, while in Cuba those problems were resolved with the victory of the Cuban Revolution and subsequently with the establishment of the socialist system. At the same time, American leftist activists admired the Cuban Revolution and its heroes, but Cubans, remembering the neocolonial policy of the United States in the 1950s, were not ready to change their minds about the Americans who sympathized with them.

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