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. 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. [3], After 1953, the continent underwent a rapid process of decolonization, whereby nearly all the colonies became independent nations. It also involves a rejection of the free market and the private ownership of property. period, it was the only government to do so under the same leader In 1979 my family lived very close to a camp for Cubans who were constructing some buildings in Luanda, recalls Angolan writer, Adriano Mixinge. Castro growled about betrayal, but acquiesced. James Mulira, "The role of the Soviet Union in the decolonization process of Africa: from Lenin to Brezhnev. Within a week, the country dissolved into anarchy after the army mutinied. This bibliographical essay focuses on the Cold War crises in Africa. For its part the Soviet Union was happy to give military support to the governments of Angola and Mozambique and to the ANC. Listen Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba threatened the nationalisation of foreign businesses, and looked to the Soviet Union for assistance. For example, after the Algerian revolution began in November 1954, the Soviets hesitated for more than two years before sending weapons to the rebels for fear of antagonizing the French government. 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! First it wanted a lasting presence on the continent, including port facilities in the Indian Ocean. His corruption, like that of so many others of his kind, weakened economies and stifled growth. President Kasa-Vubu used his command of the army to launch a coup d'tat, expelling the Soviet advisors and establishing a new government under his own control. Robert A. Scalapino, "Sino-Soviet Competition in Africa", Alessandro Iandolo, "The rise and fall of the Soviet Model of Development in West Africa, 195764. In the liberation struggles, film was a tool not only to document ongoing struggles and spread propaganda, but to inspire a sense of post-colonial, national identity. They were popular and well liked.. Ahmed Ben Bella, in power 1963 to 1965, leaned toward China. This civil war would soon grow to encompass . [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. Between the two world wars, some Africans lived and work in Europe, and this experience produced many of the leaders and intelligentsia who would return to Africa with ideas about how to change their own societies and end colonial rule. It was evident from the very beginning of African independence that individual leaders accepted a form of socialism based on the humanistic aspects of that ideology. That change was, they suggested, to be achieved over 40 or so years; impatient African nationalist politicians accused them of procrastination. Filmmaking both documentary and fiction in support of rebellious causes were emerging across the world, from Palestine to Latin America, and young members of guerrilla movements such as the PAIGCs Flora Gomes and Sana Na Nhada were sent to Cuba to learn the language and techniques of Third Cinema, the values of revolution and social justice of which echoed the early, utopian ideals of African anti-colonial struggles. By 1976, the military sphere was the pivot of Angolan-Soviet relations. Still, after the crisis, the Soviets were determined not to be humiliated by their military inferiority again, and they began a buildup of conventional and strategic forces that the United States was forced to match for the next 25 years. Most incidents came during the Cold War, when the US and the Soviet Union battled for influence across the continent. [28], President John F. Kennedy eagerly sought to establish good relations with newly independent African nations in the wake of Krushchev's 1961 speech that proclaimed the USSR's intention to intervene in anticolonial struggles around the world. Paris sold Algeria French warplanes in 1968, looking to counterbalance the Soviet influence. United States participation in the Southeast Asia War resulted from the policy of "containment," which aimed to prevent communism from expanding beyond its early Cold War borders. United States intervention in Angola was heavily shaped by several factors. The internecine conflicts within Mozambique, Angola and the DRC, which had been stoked by Cold War powers, were now gathering a momentum of their own. Friedland, William H., and Carl G. Rosberg Jr., eds. [16], Facing enormous turmoil in the newly independent Republic of the Congo (Lopoldville), Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, the charismatic leader of the Mouvement National Congolais, reacted by calling for assistance from the Soviet Union. Malcolm Rifkind writes the Eastern superpower lacks the ideological grounding to cause international tensions akin to the Soviet Union. 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. under Siad Barre. Liberation movements across southern Africa were sustained by the Soviet Union and Cuba, which sent large contingents of troops to support independence fighters. forces in African countries, th e Cold War actors institutionali zed a violent political culture in postcolonial Africa. under Mengistu Haile Mariam, following Rather, in 1956, they attempted to recover their old influence by their joint invasion of Egypt. 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. The first is that Communism has made its gains in a comparatively short period of time. Fear of Communism. However President John F. Kennedy and his Peace Corps director Sargent Shriver tried even harder than Khrushchev. In the mid-1950s, two developments signaled the arrival of the Cold War in North Africa: the Algerian War of independence against France began in November 1954; and Egypt adopted an independent foreign policy, challenging British influence in the Middle East, helping the Algerian rebels, and buying weapons from the Soviet bloc. Matusevich, Maxim. [27] Suddenly, the Ethiopians launched a counter offensive with the help of newly arrived Soviet arms and a South Yemeni brigade. Moscow said it proved that a backward society could become revolutionary by adopting a Leninist system. That did not happen, and instead the Soviets emphasized identifying likely allies and giving them financial aid and munitions, as well as credits to purchase from the Soviet bloc. Indeed the Kremlin at first assumed that the Russian model of socialized development would prove attractive to Africans eager to modernize. The big question: Is Africa a prisoner of its past? Mengistu urgently needed help. It exposes the shortcomings of so-called African socialism in practice. ", Piero Gleijeses, "Cuba's first venture in Africa: Algeria, 19611965. The Soviet Union, too, played an important role in the development of African cinema, training some of the continents most celebrated filmmakers in Moscow, including Ousmene Sembene,Souleymane Cisse and Abderrahmane Sissako. UNION. During the 1970s the Cold War entered a phase known as dtente, described as "an improvement in the relationship between two countries that in the past were not friendly and did not trust each . Infuriated by Soviet support for the Ethiopians, Somalia annulled its treaty with the Soviet Union and expelled all Soviet advisors in the country. [20], The relationship went sour within years after the death of Nasser, when the new president Anwar Sadat started re-orienting the country toward the West. The following day, a huge sea and air assault, supporting landings of British tanks and marines, succeeded in taking the port. ", Harry Brind, "Soviet policy in the Horn of Africa. Soon after, Mixinge became one of the tens of thousands of Africans to travel to Cuba for schooling. Communist regimes began to collapse in eastern Europe, and democratic governments rose in East Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, followed by the reunification of West and East Germany under NATO auspices. However, nowhere on the continent was a strict form of communism ever practiced. Fidel Castro sent 300,000 Cuban troops to Africa to support fellow revolutionaries against Western imperialism. Nelson Mandela: a symbol of the struggle against racism. As African movements attracted international solidarity, filmmakers went to support them, both by making films and by training filmmakers. The Soviets hailed Ethiopia for its supposed similar cultural and historical parallels to the USSR. 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. Gorbachevs reforms meanwhile weakened his own communist party and allowed power to shift to the constituent governments of the Soviet bloc. 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. same time he systematically stripped his country of its wealth and resources. Key words: Africa, Cold War, colonialism, USA, USSR, foreign policy, poli tics Many members of the Non-Aligned Movement (which brought together governments and liberation movements from across the Global South) saw both Soviet and Cuban intervention as another form of colonialism, a sentiment echoed in some accounts from Angola at the time. Both powers had called on their African subjects to fight for them, and the response had been impressive: more than one million Africans fought in Europe, north Africa and the far east, and were repeatedly told that they were risking their lives for freedom and democracy. At this point, the United States was in a quandary. He was overthrown by his defense minister Houari Boumdine, who was in charge 1965-1976. Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. became a Marxist Leninist state in 1970, Communist societies believed in redistributing wealth (taking from the rich and giving to the poor) and promoted workers and state-run economies. It became an integral part of the Soviet cultural offensive in nonaligned countries. [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. Afrocommunism. In the late 1950s, both the United States and the Soviet Union were developing intercontinental ballistic missiles. [32], Despite the widely reported Soviet support for the ANC and otherwise liberation movements, the Soviet Union also engaged in some trade with South Africa during the apartheid era, mostly involving arms and some mineral resources. In September 1981, the last relations were severed by the Egyptian government accusing Soviet leadership of trying to undermine Sadat's leadership in retaliation to the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty. Another intense stage of the Cold War was in 195862. Welcome to Foreign Policy 's China Brief. France, too, prevaricated. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here. The United States had won on points. Nato also armed two colonial powers, France and Portugal, in their struggles against nationalist insurgents in Algeria, Angola and Mozambique. In 1991, USSR implode and the 15 republics become independent states, marking therefore the end of the cold war. 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. French Indochina. When it was published, this book was considered perhaps the most authoritative analysis on African socialism. Their main aim was not socialist revolution, but to be free of military aggression from South Africa and see independence with majority rule throughout the continent. Soviet Union. In 1954 the Algerian Front de Libration Nationale (National Liberation Front) began an uprising that triggered an eight-year partisan war of attrition in which more than a million died, most of them Arabs. Newly independent nations such as Angola, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) provided the stages for some of the most bloody proxy battles between East and West, as the United States, apartheid-era South Africa and China tried to prevent the spread of communism in the global south, while Cuba and the Eastern Bloc sought to support it. under Agostinho Neto and Eduardo dos Santos. The article is particularly useful in understanding the history of Communist parties and movements throughout Africa. At the same time, what they liked about Soviet-style socialism was not so much the notion of a proletarian revolution, but rather of the need for the role a disciplined vanguard party. The Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (its Portuguese name abbreviated to MPLA), led by Agostinho Neto who became the newly independent nations first president, was backed by the Soviet Union which, in return, was allowed to establish a naval base at the countrys capital, Luanda. 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. 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. Instead the Kremlin provided Gizenga with financial aid, and urged its allies to run the blockade and assist Gizenga while avoiding a direct conflict with the West on the issue. ", Guy de Carmoy, "France, Algeria, and the Soviet Penetration in the Mediterranean. The Soviet Union, too, hoped to fill that power vacuum, posing as the patron and armourer of colonial liberation movements. The one-party states that replaced colonial administrations were handed the apparatus of domestic coercion. I was aware of participating in a historic moment for the country. Henceforth, the backdrop of decolonization was the Cold War. NATO has renewed itself and re-united Castro had learned from Guatemala, and was able to thwart a coup attempt in 1961. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall!: Reagans Berlin Speech, https://www.britannica.com/event/Cold-War, The National WWII Museum New Orleans - Cold Conflict, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum - The Cold War, Cold War - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11), Cold War - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up), China rips new US House committee on countering Beijing, Russia's sports exile persists 1 year after invading Ukraine, Norway official who spied for the Soviets has died in Moscow, 'It just rang': In crises, US-China hotline goes unanswered, helped overthrow a left-wing government in Guatemala (1954). African countries, th e Cold War actors institutionali zed a violent political in. The colonies became independent nations to travel to Cuba for schooling the army mutinied form... Became an integral part of the Cold War air assault, supporting of. Portugal, in their struggles against nationalist insurgents in Algeria, and able. Colonial powers, France and Portugal, in 1956, they attempted to recover old! Of British tanks and marines, succeeded in taking the port his country of its past the country after Mixinge. 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