Soviet-funded and Chinese- funded armed groups in Africa (from the 1960s). Trends in Soviet Support for African Liberation

The Soviet Union was one of the most important sources of aid for African nationalist guerrilla movements involved in “liberation struggles” against Africa’s white regimes. Since Western governments have refused significant support to these movements, the Soviets—by extending material aid—have maneuvered them into a position which appears to condone the white regimes of Africa and which thus opens them to attack from Third World countries. African guerrilla movements appear high on the list of candidates for substantially increased Soviet support. The purpose of this article is to examine general Soviet policy toward the various African liberation groups that have emerged during the last decade. Two main ideas will be discussed: the historical basis for Soviet support of “national liberation,” in general; and examples of Soviet involvement with specific African movements. Contemporary African movements will be identified with regard to Soviet support. The bulk of the study will involve the Soviet decision to back these contemporary movements, the relative importance of this Soviet aid, Moscow’s policy toward individual groups, and finally Sino-Soviet competition for the allegiance of the various groups.

Historical development

Communist support for national liberation movements is older than the Soviet state. Marx and Engels sympathized with most of the revolutionary and national emancipation movements of their day. Soviet responsibility to foreign liberation struggles was recognized early in the history of the state, but Africa tended to be viewed in terms of European colonialism or not at all. Black Africa did not become a serious concern of Soviet foreign policy until the late 1950s. For the first forty years of Soviet history—a period often marked by sweeping revolutionary expectations—Africa stood on the outermost edge of Soviet consciousness.¹ Early party conventions paid lip service to the cause of the nonwhite world but primarily as a consequence of anti-colonialism.

A pronounced change from the previous Soviet policy of African noninvolvement occurred in the late 1950s and early 1960s as the tide of nationalism swept most textbook colonialism out of Africa. The de-colonization process appeared to Russian observers as damaging to the West and therefore beneficial to World Communism—if it could be properly exploited. Both the Soviets and the Chinese stressed that wars of national liberation were in fact aspects of the world revolution against imperialism.²

Khrushchev more than any other figure shifted emphasis to the Third World and to Africa—what he called the underdeveloped third of mankind. He saw the retreat of colonialism as a decisive opportunity to weaken the West in the era of cold war tension and nuclear stalemate. It was in the Khrushchev period that the concept of wars of national liberation was popularized. It is not difficult to see a relationship between this phenomenon and changing Soviet policy toward involvement with African nationalist movements.