Despite the unproportionately low level of Soviet economic assistance, Soviet influence in the Third World is quite considerable at present. Taking this fact as a starting point the following article examines the principles guiding relations between communist and developing countries.

This paper analyses the characteristics of the foreign trade of Cuba with its most important trade partners, from the so-called Special Period which was the result of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The absence of the Soviet bloc presented Cuba the necessity of structural changes in...