Cuba Shows Its Hand in Venezuela as Maduro Applies Lessons Learned at Havana

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Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro has some of the world’s best tutors on how to cling to power: Communist Cubans. While Venezuelans complain that their disastrous socialist revolution has dragged on for 25 years, few Cubans remember anything but Communism. This year marks 65 years since the Communists took power in Cuba. In a decade, they could overtake the Soviets, who ruled Russia for 74 years.

In 1986, seeking to export one-party rule around the Caribbean and Latin America, Cuban recruiters identified a promising young Caracas bus driver, a rising trade unionist without a high school diploma. Nicolás Maduro proved to be an excellent investment. The 24-year-old Maduro was flown across the Caribbean to Havana, where he joined other Latin American leftists studying the basics of Marxism, American imperialism, and socialist revolution.

Mr. Maduro’s all-expenses-paid year was spent at the Communist Youth League’s Escuela Nacional de Cuadros Julio Antonio Mella. Named after the founder of the Moscow-line Communist Party of Cuba in 1925, the school taught promising Latin American leftists how to seize power — and how to keep it. The curriculum did not feature free speech and multi-party elections.

At this institute a few blocks from Havana’s historic port, the young Venezuelan found a mentor in one guest lecturer, Pedro Miret Prieto. At age 59, this stalwart of the Cuban Revolution was one generation ahead of Mr. Maduro. A trusted friend of Fidel Castro and a member of the Communist Party’s Politburo, Mr. Miret ended up holding high posts in the Cuban government for 50 years.

Mr. Maduro was recruited by the Castro government to serve as a “mole” for Cuba’s main intelligence agency, the Dirección de Inteligencia, according to a book by a former Venezuelan Army commander-in-chief, Carlos Peñaloza. Mr. Maduro’s assignment was to bond with a charismatic, rising officer in Venezuela’s army, Hugo Chávez.

After a failed coup attempt in 1992, Chávez went on to win four presidential elections, starting in 1999. Always nearby was Mr. Maduro, his eventual political successor. After succeeding Chávez as president of Venezuela in 2013, Mr. Maduro maintained close ties with Cuba and with Cuba’s intelligence services.

On Monday, that link was visible when a congratulatory call came from the dean of Latin American political survivors, Raúl Castro. Now 93 years old, Mr. Castro first came to power with his older brother Fidel 65 years ago. Although Raúl Castro stepped down three years ago as first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, he is still considered the ultimate power on the island.

“Army General Raúl Castro Ruz spoke by phone with comrade Nicolás Maduro Moros to congratulate him on the electoral victory achieved in the elections held today in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela,” reads a statement by Cuba’s Foreign Ministry. “The Leader of the Cuban Revolution reaffirmed to Comrade Maduro the solidarity and affection of Cuba.”

Matching words with actions, Cuba reportedly has sent 32 plane loads of aid and advisors to Venezuela in the week since the contested election. Included in the aid are believed to be hundreds of “Avispa Negras” or “Black Wasps.” Formally called Cuba’s Mobile Brigade of Special Troops, these soldiers are descended from special forces units airlifted to Angola in 1975. Over the years, these units have been trained by Soviet Spetsnaz, North Korean, and Communist Chinese instructors. Wearing black balaclavas, the “Black Wasps” carry automatic weapons, generally assault rifles of Soviet design.

With mass demonstrations planned across Venezuela this morning, Mr. Maduro worries about the loyalties of his own police and army. Demonstrators charge that Mr. Maduro is trying to steal the presidential election and give himself a third, six-year term. Exit polls and tallies of 82 percent of the vote indicate that opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia beat Mr. Maduro by a margin of at least two to one.

Last night on state TV, Mr. Maduro blamed Elon Musk and “the international fascist right” for the inability of the government’s National Electoral Council to provide precinct by precinct tallies. He said that, with technical advice from Russia and Cuba, Venezuela’s election officials will get to the bottom of the computer breakdown.

So far the governments of America, Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Panama, Peru, and Uruguay say Mr. Maduro lost the election. Brazil, Colombia and Mexico are pushing for Mr. Maduro to meet with Mr. González. Yesterday, Secretary Blinken called Mr. González and fellow opposition leader Maria Corina Machado and expressed concerns about their physical safety.

Mr. Maduro’s Cuban advisors may be mystified by the Venezuelan dictator holding a multi-party election. Cuba’s last multi-party election was in 1948. Since 1959, it has been a one-party state where opposition candidates are not allowed. Cuba’s constitution calls the Communist Party “the superior driving force of the society and the state.”

Unlike Cuba, Venezuela is not an island. It is surrounded on all sides by functioning multi-party democracies. Many Venezuelans have memories of democratic freedoms enjoyed in the not so distant past.

Yesterday, sons and daughters of Venezuela’s last seven democratically elected presidents signed a letter demanding that last Sunday’s election results be honored. Addressed to “Members of the Armed Forces,” the letter appealed to soldiers to “respect the free and democratic decision of the people.” In the presidential election, the letter said, Mr. González “was clearly elected President of the Republic as shown by the voting acts known throughout the country and the international community.”

The signers covered 40 years of Venezuelan democracy. They stretched from Virginia Betancourt Valverde, daughter of Rómulo Betancourt, who was elected President in 1959, to Andrés Caldera Pietri, son of Rafael Caldera, president from 1994 to 1999.

Betancourt replaced Venezuela’s last dictator, Marcos Pérez Jiménez. In that turnover, cracks appeared in the military, there was a national strike, and then rioting. Fleeing Miraflores Palace, Pérez drove seven miles east to the capital’s downtown airport, La Carlota. There, he boarded a lumbering Douglas C-54 Skymaster and flew 500 miles north to the Dominican Republic. Appropriately, the cargo plane was named La Vaca Sagrada or The Sacred Cow.

None of this history appeals to Mr. Maduro. At age 61, he apparently is determined to follow a core lesson in revolution he learned as a 24-year-old in Havana: never give up power.

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