An Unbreakable Friendship: Soviet-Cuban Medical Internationalism, 1960s-1970s

• In Event: Late-Soviet International Entanglements in Medicine, Academic Institutes, and Publishing

Abstract

This paper proposes to center in its analysis the affective landscapes of both state agents and targets in one of the Cold War’s greatest soft power success stories: Soviet-Cuban medical exchange and cooperation. I analyse the lived experience of medical internationalism – the traffic of medical cadres, students, materials, and ideas – through Soviet and Cuban evidence, both published and archival. This paper enriches the literature on the global Cold War and on Second-Third World relations by pushing into the realms of medical internationalism and its affective impact.

Author

• Paula Michaels, Monash U (Australia)