communist countries in africa during cold war
Some students were shocked by conditions in Moscow, which was summed up by one African visitor as having no cars, no cafes, no good clothes or good food. When it was published, this book was considered perhaps the most authoritative analysis on African socialism. period, it was the only government to do so under the same leader The Kremlin developed four major long-term policy goals: At no time was Moscow willing to engage in combat in Africa, although its ally Cuba did so. USSR retreat from Afghanistan and stop funding communist militias in Africa. America did likewise. They had tried to achieve their goals of majority rule through peaceful means and failed. Some were destined for Rhodesia, where the white minority were defending themselves against nationalist partisans, some of whom enjoyed Soviet patronage. By the late 1950s, however, Paris and London, which had by far the two largest colonial empires in Africa, were ready to make concessions to the Africans growing demands for self-determination. ", Gebru Tareke, "The Ethiopia-Somalia war of 1977 revisited. In the early 1960s the KGB cultivated Kwame Nkrumah, charismatic first prime minister then president of independent Ghana, only to discover (by breaking Ghanaian wireless codes) that he and his cronies were squirrelling away Soviet subsidies. It has been reported that between 1963 and 1969 the United States Agency for International Development spent US$3.3m delivering radios and small arms to African police forces and instructing them in strike-breaking, riot control and investigating sedition. Lawrence James is a historian and author of Empires in the Sun: The Struggle for the Mastery of Africa (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2016), This content first appeared in issue 3 of BBC World Histories magazine, Save up to 49% AND your choice of gift card worth 10* when you subscribe BBC History Magazine or BBC History Revealed PLUS! The Cold War was an ongoing political rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies that developed after World War II. You could not be signed in, please check and try again. Soviet Union. But he also accepted Soviet weaponry for his army. In Somalia, Mohammed Siad Barre had seized power in a coup in 1969 and had declared Somalia a socialist republic. The Cuban mission was represented as a noble and selfless act of internationalist solidarity with a sister state whose hard-won liberty was under threat from reactionary and, above all, racist forces, says Christabelle Peters, the author of Cuban Identity and the Angolan Experience and a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Warwick. However, the Kremlin was reluctant to send Soviet troops because of its fear of a major escalation with NATO powers. This book presents an analysis of the scope and quality of a select number of African states that came to espouse Marxism-Leninism or scientific socialism during their heyday. Angola is a country in southwest Africa. Mengistu urgently needed help. [14], In a complex civil war with outside interventions, Soviet military aid went to the Movimento Popular de Libertacao de Angola (MPLA). By 1948 Soviet-sponsored and -directed communists had consolidated their control of the governments of eastern and central Europe and suppressed all noncommunist political activity. "The Soviet Union in the Third World: Purpose in Search of Power.". This award-winning book provides a useful framework for analyzing various forms of socialist ideologies and institutional choice in Africa from the 1960s to the 1980s. By entering your details, you are agreeing to our terms and conditions and privacy policy. To gain a lasting presence on the continent. changed sides to become violently anti-Soviet. (1985). $39.00 + $28.00 shipping. The signing of the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty followed in 1963, which banned aboveground nuclear weapons testing. Elsewhere, this spilled over into anger. [33][34] During the 1980s, a convoluted series of arms sales involving the Stasi, the Danish ship Pia Vesta, and Manuel Noriega of Panama ultimately aimed to transfer Soviet arms and military vehicles to South Africa. Africans were losers in the Cold War. Historically, communism on the continent was strongest in Egypt, Sudan, Algeria, and South Africa, which had significant European settlement, but such ideas remained foreign to the African masses until the principles of Marxism-Leninism became popular among intellectuals around the time of World War I (Drew 2014). (2009) 7#5 pp 1259-1268. Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on 4 The Cold War shaped Africa 's decolonization process and transition to nationhood in . By 1965, Cuba became a fully communist country and developed close ties to the Soviet Union. Available online by subscription. Under American and British pressure, Rhodesia consented to black majority rule in 1979. Soon after dawn on 5 November 1956, British paratroopers drifted down on the El Gamil airfield near Port Said in northern Egypt. Both superpowers had been wooing Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser first the US, which offered then withdrew financial support for the construction of an Aswan dam, then the Soviet Union, which sold Egypt large quantities of arms. There were only four independent states: Liberia, de facto a US protectorate; Egypt, nominally independent but occupied by British troops; Ethiopia, eager to establish a close relationship with the United States; and white-ruled South Africa. Rather than being seen as a form of communism, African socialism was viewed as a pragmatic ideology that blended some aspects of classical socialism, communism, Pan-Africanism, and African traditional values. Foreign interference became a hallmark of the past-World War II era, even its first months. This hostility between the two superpowers was first given its name by George Orwell in an article published in 1945. Liberation movements across southern Africa were sustained by the Soviet Union and Cuba, which sent large contingents of troops to support independence fighters. Therefore, US policy on decolonization often clashed with its rhetoric. Please subscribe or login. The Cold War can be seen as the period, from 1945 to 1991, of intense struggle for ideological supremacy between capitalist forces led by the USA and the forces of communism spearheaded by the USSR. The USSR used its fleet of Antonov An-12 and Antonov An-22 air transports, as well as cargo vessels, to ship a billion dollars in fighter-bombers, tanks, artillery, and ammunition in a very short time. The struggle between superpowers The Cold War reached its peak in 1948-53. The Cold War came to a close gradually. Fidel Castro referred to the ties of blood and history that linked the two nations a large percentage of the enslaved Africans brought to the island to work on coffee and sugar plantations hailed from Angola. [3], After 1953, the continent underwent a rapid process of decolonization, whereby nearly all the colonies became independent nations. ", Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Patrice Lumumba Peoples' Friendship University, Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic, Movimento Popular de Libertacao de Angola (MPLA), "Mubarak set for talks at Kremlin on nuclear and arms trade", William E. Farrell, "Envoy of Moscow Expelled by Egypt". Furthermore, Nkrumah feared close relations with the Soviets would lead to a neo-colonialist relationship. The Congo, Decolonization, and the Cold War, 1960-1965. Nationalist movements more closely aligned with the major Communist regimes, the USSR and China, did not begin to surface until the 1970s, particularly in Lusophone Africa (Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea Bissau) and Ethiopia, where liberation revolutionary movements developed. This changed after 1945. [11], By the 1960s both the Soviets and the Chinese were angling for Algerian attention. The confrontation that followed, known as the Cuban missile crisis, brought the two superpowers to the brink of war before an agreement was reached to withdraw the missiles. Key words: Africa, Cold War, colonialism, USA, USSR, foreign policy, poli tics FEAR OF COMMUNISM The Cold War came down to some basic differences between the world-views of the United States and the Soviet Union. The communist governments of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union collapsed between 1989 and 1991. Nato also armed two colonial powers, France and Portugal, in their struggles against nationalist insurgents in Algeria, Angola and Mozambique. [24], The 1974 coup installed the Derg, a Communist military junta under General Mengistu Haile Mariam. Your current browser may not support copying via this button. to the Soviet National Anthem Third it wanted to undermine Western/NATO influence. Without France, what would you be or do? This was the view of many French people, and of many of the 700,000 European settlers (colons) in Algeria who enjoyed the advantages of French citizenship. Soviet political interference in eastern European nations was a contributing factor to the Cold War and the formation of an Iron Curtain separating Eastern and Western Europe.. During the late 1940s, the United States offered support and inducements to shape the political . [21][22] Relations were reestablished under president Hosni Mubarak in 1984, and Alexander Belonogov became the Ambassador. by the West for making a public stand against Communism, while at the Soon after, Mixinge became one of the tens of thousands of Africans to travel to Cuba for schooling. The Second World War had given enormous impetus to the embryonic nationalist movements in British and French colonies. termed the "Cold War" but is, in reality, a war in which, in Africa, much heat is engendered. Nelson Mandela: a symbol of the struggle against racism. [12] Operating independently from the Kremlin, Fidel Castro turned Algeria into Cuba's first and closest ally in Africa between 1961 and 1965. You could not be signed in, please check and try again. Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba threatened the nationalisation of foreign businesses, and looked to the Soviet Union for assistance. Lumumba was taken captive and subsequently executed in 1961. What is often referred to as Marxism-Leninism rejects participatory democracy in favor of a disciplined, vanguard party in which democracy is practiced only in the central leadership organs of the party. Cynical pragmatism prevailed in Washington and Moscow when selecting African clients. By the mid-1980s, the communist powerhouse was facing an economic crisis, losing a war in Afghanistan and overstretched in Africa. Since most nations in Europe, Latin America, and Asia had already chosen sides, Kennedy and Krushchev both looked to Africa as the next Cold War battleground. Within a week, the country dissolved into anarchy after the army mutinied. Thus, the Soviet Union sent troops to preserve communist rule in East Germany (1953), Hungary (1956), Czechoslovakia (1968), and Afghanistan (1979). At another level the anti-capitalist, socialist outlook at the heart of In 1977 the Soviets attempted to unseat Neto, whom they now distrusted. Somalia appeared to be on the brink of victory after gaining control of 90% of the area. The link was not copied. Anti-Communism informed almost every aspect of the South African government's foreign policy and much of its domestic policy. Communist parties in these colonies were constantly under pressure by either the colonial government or a white-dominated regime. Chiswick Auctions will sell the collection of a former British journalist and presumed diplomat who gained access to some of the world's most secretive countries during the Cold War era.. From the 1950s to the 1980s, John Newell spent time in North Korea, China, East Germany, Russia, Tibet, Zanzibar, Alaska, and Panama for both work and leisure at a time when many of these areas were largely . Indeed the Kremlin at first assumed that the Russian model of socialized development would prove attractive to Africans eager to modernize. From 1960, the Soviet Union became involved in several Marxist, African struggles, providing political support, weapons and military training, including to the People's Movement for the Liberation. The success of International Communism in gaining nine stooge states in Africa by the beginning of 1967 is near spectacular if two factors are borne in mind. In 1988 he salvaged what he could in an agreement with the United States, by which all Soviet and Cuban forces would withdraw from the continent, and South Africa pulled out of Namibia, which was granted independence in 1990. Above all, it is the USA that most profits from the war. A large number of foreign countries at least 36 according to Edward George intervened in a significant way in Angolas civil war, which did not end until 2002. By 1948 the Soviets had installed left-wing governments in the countries of eastern Europe that had been liberated by the Red Army. . . Friedland, William H., and Carl G. Rosberg Jr., eds. The Soviet Navy benefited from its use of Angolan ports to stage exercises. The Kremlin thought Castro's adventurism was dangerous but it was unable to stop him. Africa-Soviet Union relations covers the diplomatic, political, military, and cultural relationships between the Soviet Union and Africa from the 1945 to 1991. Lawrence James explores the efforts of the United States and Soviet Union to secure influence across the post-colonial continent. Second it wanted to gain a voice in African affairs, primarily by supporting local communist parties, and providing economic and military aid to the governments. At the same time, the United States imposed a ban on all trade with Cuba. The CIA wrote off Nkrumah as a vain opportunist and playboy, and in 1966 were believed to have been involved in a coup that toppled him from power. The link was not copied. Fanon was responsible for promoting from a socialist perspective the intersectionality of colonialism and racism, as well as the idea of popular struggles for African national liberation. The decolonization of Sub-Saharan Africa from the late 1950s to the mid-1970s resulted in several proxy Cold War confrontations between the United States and the Soviet Union over the dozens of newly independent, non-aligned nations. The Kremlin supported Gizenga, but did not want to take the international risks involved in delivering material aid to the blockaded Orientale Province. forces in African countries, th e Cold War actors institutionali zed a violent political culture in postcolonial Africa. Khrushchev said it was a three-way contest, the third pole being bourgeois nationalist movements that were inherently anti-imperialist and were demanding decolonization across the globe. Southeast Asia. The Cuban camp was the brightest and cleanest place in the neighbourhood, and they were known as being hardworking, friendly, fair and fun. under Siad Barre. In the event, Reagan did not need to commit his country to support South Africas last stand; events inside the Soviet Union were now dictating the outcome of the Cold War in Africa. But the significance of this in domestic politics was only felt after the Second World War.After 1945, Africa became caught up in the confrontation between America and the Soviet Union, the so-called Cold War. By 1980, then, South Africa ruled by what Castro called a Fascist-Racist regime stood alone against the forces of African nationalism. Fidel Castro referred to the ties of blood and history that linked the two nations a large percentage of the enslaved Africans brought to the island to work on coffee and sugar plantations hailed from Angola. GOVERNMENTS WHICH RECEIVED DIPLOMATIC OR MILITARY SUPPORT FROM THE SOVIET Thus, the superpowers were very much responsible for the emergence of communist orientations in some African nationalist movements. Its activists joined the militant National Liberation Front (FLN). The big players never fought each other head-on, but instead sponsored wars between their clients in Africa (and, indeed, in Asia) so that large swathes of the continent became war zones in which predominately locally recruited soldiers did the fighting. Joseph Stalin had a fleeting interest in claiming the former Italian colony of Tripolitania in modern-day Libya, but the NATO containment policy blocked those efforts. Allied in 1969, but soon "Revisiting the Soviet Moment in Sub-Saharan Africa". This bibliographical essay focuses on the Cold War crises in Africa. MI5 monitored nationalist movements, and trembled whenever it believed these movements might be penetrated by Soviet agents. But Nasser was an ideal ally in Khrushchevs new policy of challenging the west in Africa. It is argued that populist thinkers Nyerere, Cabral, and Fanon shared a common passion for a brand of socialism that was democratic and rooted in precolonial traditions as well as in Marxist-Leninist theory. Corrections? African Socialism. Both powers tended to suborn corruptible local strongmen with military backgrounds and authoritarian instincts. Matusevich, Maxim. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here. Mobutu was similarly supported In the late 1950s, both the United States and the Soviet Union were developing intercontinental ballistic missiles. [4] Soviet leaders, beginning with Nikita Khrushchev, were excited by the enthusiastic young black Africans who first came to Moscow for a major youth festival in 1957. [10], As early as the 1930s, the Algerian Communist Party made up an important faction of the Algerian nationalist movement; however it supported France in the growing unrest, and was forced to dissolve in 1956. This sparked the Cuban missile crisis (1962), a confrontation that brought the two superpowers to the brink of war before an agreement was reached to withdraw the missiles. Crisis is an early test of IMF's crisis management role and leads to first large burst of lending by IMF to the four countries involved. Cold War, the open yet restricted rivalry that developed after World War II between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies. in the footsteps of the Soviet Union. The Soviets hailed Ethiopia for its supposed similar cultural and historical parallels to the USSR. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. The United States, Egypt, Belgium, and France supported Morocco, and Algeria was increasingly identified with the Soviet side of the Cold War. On the other hand, both ideology and realpolitik led the Soviet Union to support those who fought for independence. The one-party states that replaced colonial administrations were handed the apparatus of domestic coercion. Ginor, Isabella, and Gideon Remez. Afterwards he made oblique approaches towards the US. the revolution in 1974. declared a Marxist Leninist state in 1974, under Mathieu Kerekou. But for many leaders, it made more sense to evolve an The Soviet Union began to establish left-wing governments in the countries of eastern Europe, determined to safeguard against a possible renewed threat from Germany. NATO has renewed itself and re-united Keller, Edmond J., and Donald Rothchild, eds. The Cold War was waged on political, economic, and propaganda fronts and had only limited recourse to weapons. One way by which the Soviets could win friends in the continent, as well as spread the Marxist-Leninist gospel among its future leaders, was to offer scholarships for Africans to study at universities in the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries. It also involves a rejection of the free market and the private ownership of property. [23], Soviet foreign policy in Somalia and Ethiopia was based on the Horn of Africa's strategic location for international trade and shipping as well as its military importance. In March 1976 Egypt abrogated the friendship treaty. This period also coincided with the time of the Cold War . (The analysis of the first wave had taken place fifteen years prior to the publication of this book in the early post-independence period.) However, most of its attempts to spread Communism were initially focused on Europe and this did not prevent Lenin and Stalin from trying to force all the former territories of the Russian Empire into the Soviet Union. [25] It proclaimed Marxism-Leninism as its official ideology and became a close ally of Moscow. The Origins of a Misnomer: The Expulsion of Soviet Advisers from Egypt in 1972. in. . There was alarm in Washington, where CIA director Allen Dulles suspected that Lumumba was a Castro or worse, and the CIA moved in, supplied with dollars and a hitman instructed to assassinate Lumumba with poisoned toothpaste. The onset of the Cold War added a sense of urgency. South Africa was also, as US President Ronald Reagan remarked in 1981, essential to the free world in its production of minerals we all must have. According to Marxist theory, in its most advanced form, communism involves state control by the working class. this page. [13], Algeria supported the Polisario Front, a left-wing movement supported by Moscow that battled for 10 years for control of Western Sahara from Morocco. Its founder Vladimir Lenin did argue in his famous book Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism that imperialism was inherently caused by capitalism, and the inaugural session of the Comintern in 1919 included a declaration of solidarity for "the colonial slaves of Africa and Asia." These are some of the communist countries during the Cold War era.. * Angola * * The Cuban troops and the Soviets supported Angola for their war on independence and in return Angola adopted communism. The Cold War was solidified by 194748, when U.S. aid had brought certain Western countries under American influence and the Soviets had established openly communist regimes. There was no great Soviet strategy for taking over Africa, and generally the Soviet Union was under informed about history, political structures and the needs of the countries it supported. New York: Africana, 1986. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2004. this page. The money secured the loyalty of Colonel Joseph-Dsir Mobutu (who later renamed himself Mobutu Sese Seko), a ruthless, ambitious and venal chancer whom the CIA believed to be childish and easily led. After 1945, the pace of change quickened. Malcolm Rifkind writes the Eastern superpower lacks the ideological grounding to cause international tensions akin to the Soviet Union. Joseph Stalin considered Africa to be low priority and discouraged relationships with or studies of the continent. Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces soldiers, however did not engage in combat, and after the overthrow of Castro's friend Ben Bella, Cuba cut back its involvement. War in Vietnam (1945-46) September 13, 1945. UNION. Joseph Stalin considered Africa to be low priority and discouraged relationships with or studies of the continent. Orwell understood it as a nuclear stalemate between super-states: each possessed weapons of mass destruction and was capable of annihilating the other. One Kremlin official, Anatoly Adamishin, spoke for many others when he asked: Why, with all our problems, did we have to get involved [in Africa]? We could not afford it. Angola alone owed the Soviet Union US$5bn, which it could not repay. Ahmed Ben Bella, in power 1963 to 1965, leaned toward China. Drew provides an excellent account of the development of both the Algerian and South African Communist parties over time. Afterwards, US secretary of state John Foster Dulles concluded that it was now imperative for America to fill the vacuum of power which the British filled for a century. [6] And finally, after 1962, it was engaged in a bitter controversy with China for influence and control of local radical movements. Copy this link, or click below to email it to a friend. Cold War priorities dictated events in southern Africa, too. South Africa, along with Egypt, were. Though often absent from retellings of the Cold War, the interventions and alliances conceived in Southern Africa between the 1960s and 1980s, had a profound and sometimes devastating impact. All thanks to the Putin regime's invasion of Ukraine. The West was willing to turn a blind eye to institutionalised racism and minority rule government, if that meant keeping commercial and mining investments safe from nationalisation. [19] During the Nasser years, many young Egyptians studied in Soviet universities and military schools. In 1975, when the Portuguese made a clumsy exit from Angola, the MPLA was already embroiled in a war against two rival movements (the FNLA and UNITA), funded by the CIA, Zaire (now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo), and the South African apartheid regime none of whom were keen to see an African, Marxist party take power in oil-rich Angola. The Cold War had solidified by 194748, when U.S. aid provided under the Marshall Plan to western Europe had brought those countries under American influence and the Soviets had installed openly communist regimes in eastern Europe. As Soviet and American patronage (and arms) spread across the continent, Nyerere warned that a second scramble for Africa by Russia and its satellites was under way. As US president Dwight D Eisenhower explained to Winston Churchill in 1954: We are falsely pictured as the exploiters of people, the Soviets as their champions. It would be foolhardy, he warned, to ignore the fierce and growing spirit of nationalism spreading across Africa and Asia. The unity in the communist bloc was unraveling throughout the 1960s and 70s as a split occurred between China and the Soviet Union. During this trip he famously, The Soviet Union, too, played an important role in the development of African cinema, training. The United States had won on points. Almost 450,000 Cubans served in Angola between 1975 and 1991, according to historian Edward George, not only in the military but also as much-needed doctors, teachers and technicians. Communism is a particular form of socialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Keller, Edmond J., and Donald Rothschild, eds. Maxim Matusevich, "Revisiting the Soviet Moment in Sub-Saharan Africa" History Compass. Now they had to contemplate using violent means.Aside from military aid, the Soviet Union also offered a number of educational scholarships to young people, mainly in the former English and Portuguese territories.But the Soviet Union gave little in the way of aid or trade. South Africa considered the Soviet Union an enemy because it financially and militarily supported communism on the African continent. Fear of Communism haunted the white minority government of South Africa from the 1950's to the collapse of single party rule in Eastern Europe in 1989. Rather, in 1956, they attempted to recover their old influence by their joint invasion of Egypt. It meant a return to the Cold War. For 40 years, the apartheid regime had presented itself as a bastion against communism a stance that had secured it a steady flow of western arms. I was aware of participating in a historic moment for the country. Pretoria severed diplomatic ties with Moscow in 1956, because of its support for the SACP. However, the African nationalist movement was led by the better educated young middle-class that had little exposure to communism or socialism. Diplomatic ties were reestablished with Russia in February 1992, after the Soviet Union was dissolved. By 1975, some 36,000 Cuban reservists with artillery, tanks and missile systems were serving in Angola, while Cuban doctors, teachers and technicians replaced their Portuguese counterparts who had returned home. 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