communist countries in africa during cold war

Meanwhile, Japan and certain Western countries were becoming more economically independent. Suddenly there were new . (The analysis of the first wave had taken place fifteen years prior to the publication of this book in the early post-independence period.) L. Roberts Sheldon, "Morocco says it's 'at war' with Soviet Union", "The Chinese and Soviets had a bigger role in supporting apartheid than we previously knew", "Danish Ship Caught Carrying Soviet-Made Weapons", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=AfricaSoviet_Union_relations&oldid=1136226322. Although the communist ideas and arguments of such European theorists as Marx and Engels have been around since just before the turn of the 20th century, they have never been widespread in Africa. By 1980, then, South Africa ruled by what Castro called a Fascist-Racist regime stood alone against the forces of African nationalism. Fidel Castro sent 300,000 Cuban troops to Africa to support fellow revolutionaries against Western imperialism. The unity in the communist bloc was unraveling throughout the 1960s and 70s as a split occurred between China and the Soviet Union. The Origins of a Misnomer: The Expulsion of Soviet Advisers from Egypt in 1972. in. Cynical pragmatism prevailed in Washington and Moscow when selecting African clients. "The Soviet Union in the Third World: Purpose in Search of Power.". By 1969 President Julius Nyerere, a self-declared African socialist, had accepted equipment worth over US$640,000 from the US for his police force, all of whom were members of the ruling Tanganyika African National Union Party. [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. At the same time, the United States imposed a ban on all trade with Cuba. At times, however, realpolitik acted as a brake. for the very few. A closer reading of the objects on display, however, reveals a nuanced and conflicted history, the impact of which is still palpable today. 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. 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. During 1956-1986, as part of the long South African Border War (1966-1990), the Soviets supplied and trained combat units from Namibia (SWAPO) and Angola (MPLA) at the ANC military training camps in Tanzania. In the late 1970s, Cold War confrontations really flared in southern Africa, but also picked up steam in the Americas. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Spread of Communism Birth of the USA American Constitution American Independence War Causes of the American Revolution Democratic Republican Party General Thomas Gage biography Intolerable Acts Loyalists Powers of the President Quebec Act Seven Years' War Stamp Act Tea Party Cold War Battle of Dien Bien Phu Brezhnev Doctrine Brezhnev Era 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. The Cold War came down to some basic differences between the world-views of the United States and the Soviet Union. Soviets and Americans were not the only outside actors on the stage of decolonization. The United States treated Angola and Mozambique as strategic assets, arming the 200,000 Portuguese conscripts who fought a long-running war against local nationalist insurgents with an imported arsenal including napalm and defoliants. It did not matter to the superpowers whether or not these dictators had any ideological commitment to communism or capitalist democracy, though many paid lip service to one of these ideologies when convenient. Joseph Stalin considered Africa to be low priority and discouraged relationships with or studies of the continent. Keller, Edmond J., and Donald Rothschild, eds. The Congo, Decolonization, and the Cold War, 1960-1965. (2009) 7#5 pp 1259-1268. By 1948 the Soviets had installed left-wing governments in the countries of eastern Europe that had been liberated by the Red Army. But the moment in which these practices flourished in Africa, was short lived. US and Soviet intelligence agencies played kingmakers, financing and overseeing coups to install biddable rulers. 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. 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 ). 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. Mobutu was similarly supported However, at least up to this moment in history, nowhere in Africa have there been political and economic systems based solely on communist principles, nor has there ever been a strictly working-class revolution. [16], The South African government evoked the term rooi gevaar to refer the political and military threat posed by the Soviet Union's support for the guerrilla wings of anti-apartheid movements such as SWAPO and the ANC. Most incidents came during the Cold War, when the US and the Soviet Union battled for influence across the continent. South Africa, along with Egypt, were the first two countries on the continent to give rise to Communist parties - both in the 1920's. In truth, though, it marked a turning point the end of direct actions by western powers in Africa, replaced by conflicts that spread across the continent as the west and the Soviet Union tussled for influence in newly or soon-to-be independent African nations: a proxy Cold War described as a second scramble for Africa. [9] The passive reliance on the Soviet model of development failed because of the unreliability of local leaders, and by the Congo Crisis the Kremlin learned that it was essential to find and promote ideologically reliable leaders, who needed Soviet help to build enough military strength to control their country. African elites who were exposed to socialist ideas either in the workplace or through the writings of theorists such as Karl Marx and V.I. Lenin and were attracted by the notions of social equality, mutual respect, and the sharing of labor. [2] In the Comintern, the chief spokesmen for Africa were whites from the Communist Party of South Africa. The terms communism and socialism have come in some places to be used interchangeably. During this trip he famously criticised Kodak film stock for being inherently racist. LGBTI Minorities and Queer Politics in Eastern and Souther Maasai and Maa-Speaking Peoples of East Africa, The, Modern African Literature in European Languages, Northeastern African States, c. 1000 BCE-1800 CE, Political Science and the Study of Africa, Postcolonial Sub-Saharan African Politics, Religion and Politics in Contemporary Africa, Social and Cultural Anthropology and the Study of Africa, States of the Zimbabwe Plateau and Zambezi Valley, Swahili City-States of the East African Coast. LGBTI Minorities and Queer Politics in Eastern and Souther Maasai and Maa-Speaking Peoples of East Africa, The, Modern African Literature in European Languages, Northeastern African States, c. 1000 BCE-1800 CE, Political Science and the Study of Africa, Postcolonial Sub-Saharan African Politics, Religion and Politics in Contemporary Africa, Social and Cultural Anthropology and the Study of Africa, States of the Zimbabwe Plateau and Zambezi Valley, Swahili City-States of the East African Coast. But Fidel Castro knew that the US, reeling from its messy withdrawal from Vietnam, would not be drawn openly into another foreign war. 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. Washington followed suit. 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. Third it wanted to undermine Western/NATO influence. NATO has renewed itself and re-united 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. [29], In the 15-year Western Sahara War, the Soviet Union supported the Polisario Front and sent arms via Algeria. 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. Lumumba was taken captive and subsequently executed in 1961. 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. Socialism in Sub-Sahara Africa: A New Assessment. It was waged mainly on political, economic, and propaganda fronts and lasted until 1991. Communist ideas have been prevalent in Africa since at least the early 20th century. Others were appalled by everyday racism: one was asked by Russians whether Africans lived in houses. The term was first used by the English writer George Orwell in an article published in 1945 to refer to what he predicted would be a nuclear stalemate between two or three monstrous super-states, each possessed of a weapon by which millions of people can be wiped out in a few seconds. It was first used in the United States by the American financier and presidential adviser Bernard Baruch in a speech at the State House in Columbia, South Carolina, in 1947. The favorite technique therefore was to identify the Soviet Union with the rising tide of nationalism to demonstrate that they in Moscow were engaged in a common struggle against Western imperialism. Britain, France, Belgium and Portugal were valuable Nato allies but, if they persisted in resisting African nationalist movements or delaying independence, they were offering the Soviet Union a propaganda bonus. 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! 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. We were given two uniforms, one for classes and one for working in the fields, Mixinge recalls. Britain was anxious that power in Africa was handed to dependable politicians. From the 1960s, cinema was one of the most important aspects of the alliances between Cuba, the USSR and African liberation movements. This was prudent: at this stage there was no knowing who would win the Cold War. 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. It is argued that these states can be divided into orthodox and heterodox categories depending on how closely their governments aligned with the thinking of the Russian Communist Party. The Cold War had solidified by 1947-48, 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. ", Philip E. Muehlenbeck, "Kennedy and Toure: A success in personal diplomacy. ", 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". In 1986 Mikhail Gorbachev rejected the idea of a revolutionary takeover of the South African government, and advocated a negotiated settlement. "The Soviet Union and Angola.". to the Soviet National Anthem Both of these regional conflicts continued into the 1980s. Such leaders had come to power at the head of disciplined parties, practised the arts of messianic leadership, and fostered popular optimism. South Africa considered the Soviet Union an enemy because it financially and militarily supported communism on the African continent. Afro-Marxist Regimes: Ideology and Public Policy. For its part the Soviet Union was happy to give military support to the governments of Angola and Mozambique and to the ANC. Your current browser may not support copying via this button. Coming as it did on the heels of the end of the First Indochinese War, the Algerian conflict further emboldened national liberation forces throughout the colonial and semi-colonial world, a region of increasing importance to policymakers in Washington and . AfricaSoviet Union relations covers the diplomatic, political, military, and cultural relationships between the Soviet Union and Africa from the 1945 to 1991. [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. It is easy to romanticise the historic friendships that the USSR, Cuba and Yugoslavia offered African liberation movements and governments, as Calvert 22s Red Africa season seems to, especially with so much information about the era still locked in archives. period, it was the only government to do so under the same leader South Africa, along with Egypt, were. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2004. Rosberg, Carl, and Thomas Callaghy, eds. The United States threw its weight behind the rival party, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), in co-operation with South Africa. 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. However, these alliances were made primarily because they offered material support to the movement or dominant party in a regime, rather than being based on a clear and consistent acceptance of the guiding ideology of either the Western or Communist partner. The struggle between superpowers The Cold War reached its peak in 1948-53. This civil war would soon grow to encompass . At this point, the United States was in a quandary. Berkeley, CA: Institute of International Studies, 1979. The trouble is, you never know whats going to happen yesterday., 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. driving the others to use guerilla tactics to resist communist rule. 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. Soviet and Warsaw Pact aircraft, arms and advisors were flown in to prop up his government. 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