Urbandale posted:

part of me thinks it would be p cute to have a swarm of EU/US citizens moving to west ukraine to act as a novorossiyan urban auxiliary

Crow posted:

COINTELBRO posted:

NoFreeWill posted:

the biological basis for race is the human mind, which likes to invent categories to oppress others, and skin color, the thing latched onto to create the categories.

Crow is being dishonest and blinded by explosive anger as usual. I think you mean (& I agree) that it's dangerous to argue for Slavs being non-white because of historical blood grievances in Europe, it's tantamount to Israeli/European Jews whining they "aren't really white." Sure, but not really, and Zionism is steeped in white supremacy as are most right-wing Slav nationalisms. You could ask the Eastern European gypsies (who truly know what being non-white is like.)

Cheers.

oh I didn't realize Russia is now a settler colony and it makes sense to equivocate it with Israel

Is this not the case for large sections of Russian territory

xipe posted:

Urbandale posted:

part of me thinks it would be p cute to have a swarm of EU/US citizens moving to west ukraine to act as a novorossiyan urban auxiliary

im keep referencing militant possibilities because i think we too often declare them unreasonable before truly considering them, so staffing a pro-novorossiyan urban auxiliary in west ukraine to me means something more like transportation disruption and partisan actions. that said, as stego said in another thread, a red trades delegation to build farms and infrastructure is also a distinct possibility and something that should definitely happen.

Panopticon posted:

notciaNOTjew posted:

Crow posted:

oh I didn't realize Russia is now a settler colony and it makes sense to equivocate it with Israel

Is this not the case for large sections of Russian territory

this is really cool

good point, Russian empire -> Soviet empire -> Russian neo-soviet empire. Makes u think

Crow posted:

good point, Russian empire -> Soviet empire -> Russian neo-soviet empire. Makes u think

im not sure what your point is

oh I didn't realize Russia is now a settler colony and it makes sense to equivocate it with Israel

you can ask your local Chechens for more info

Crow posted:

VoxNihili posted:

oh I didn't realize Russia is now a settler colony and it makes sense to equivocate it with Israel

you can ask your local Chechens for more info

Why dont we ask you for more info on the Chechens, since you seem to know so much about them

Chechnya is one of many satellite nations brought to heel first by colonial Tsarist Russia then later reconquered by the succeeding colonial power known as the USSR. Many of its citizens still consider themselves to be an occupied people.

Would you like to know more?

HenryKrinkle posted:

"if they were consistent anti-imperialists, shouldn't the Bolsheviks have forfeited Russia's colonial possessions after gaining power?" is a debate i remember from ye olde LF.

Just like all ye olde LF debates, it would've helped if anyone read anything

If we demand freedom of secession for the Mongolians, Persians, Egyptians and *all* other oppressed and unequal nations without exception, we do so not because *we favour secession*, but *only* because we stand for *free, voluntary* association and merging as distinct from forcible association. That is the *only* reason!

-Lenin, A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism

Discussing the right to Ukrainian independence in December 1917, Stalin noted that such a right existed, but it could not be exercised by the counter-revolutionary elements of the nation: 'We are in favour of self-determination of *peoples*.' The Third Congress of Soviets in January 1918 was the occasion for him to formulate his new interpretation of self-determination authoritatively. According to the Pravda report, he said:

Only the Soviet power has openly proclaimed the right of all nations on self-determination including complete separation from Russia.... [T]he principle of self-determination has been used by the bourgeois-chauvinist circles of Ukraine to further their own imperialist class aims. All that points to the need to interpret the principle of self-determination as a right to self-determination not of the bourgeoisie but of the toiling masses of a given nation.

Only the 'toilers', i.e. the soviets, might legitimately articulate the wishes of the nation. However, Stalin's shrewd formula of a right of *peoples* to self-determination never made it to bolshevik doctrine. At the Eighth Party Congress in 1919, Bukharin proposed that in the new party program the slogan of the right of nations to self-determination be dropped. 'Basing myself on the declaration made by comr. Stalin at the 3rd congress of Soviets, I proposed in the commission the formula: self-determination of the toiling classes of each nationality.' But Lenin rejected Bukharin's proposal, although not on principled grounds. He recognised that 'self-determination of the toilers' existed in Soviet Russia, but as it did not elsewhere it could not be included in a party program that contained only generally applicable slogans.

In the end, the right to secession was qualified in a simpler way. In February 1920, Lenin argued that, in the light of the common struggle against imperialism, the secession of Ukraine and other republics from Russia was 'criminal.'

Lenin had not left behind a simple formula to capture nationality policy. In May 1925, the new leader provided it in a speech to students of the Communist University of Toilers of the East about the policy of cultural autonomy for the non-Russian republics:

``But what is national culture? How can we combine it with proletarian culture? Didn't Lenin say...that the slogan of national culture is a reactionary slogan of the bourgeoisie...? ...proletarian culture, socialist by its content, assumes different forms and ways of expression among different peoples..., dependent on the difference of language, way of life etc. Proletarian in content, national in form--such is the universal [obshchechelovecheskaia] culture to which socialism strives. Proletarian culture does not abolish national culture, but provides it with its content.``

Stalin added that he hardly believed in Kautsky's "theory of a unified all-encompassing language." The Soviet state hoped to awaken the many "forgotten peoples and nationalities" to a new life. Some might disappear through assimilation, but most would strengthen their independent existence under socialism.

In 1927, Stalin acknowledged that the fusion of nations remained the ultimate goal of Soviet policy. But this could only be accomplished after the victory of socialism in all countries. Prior to that, the national differences between the peoples of the USSR would stay.

The first important event in Soviet foreign policy was the war with Germany, in which the new state was engaged when it was established. Lenin did not believe that Russia could survive the war. He desperately wanted peace. In contrast to the leftists, he believed that, provided peace was achieved, Soviet Russia could survive for some time in the absence of a world revolution. He concluded that, after the creation of the Russian Soviet Republic, "for us *as well as from the international socialist point of view* the preservation of this republic is the most important thing [vyshe vsego]." These momentous words served as a foundation for Soviet foreign policy. The main world revolutionary task was to guarantee the survival of Soviet Russia. Further revolutionary expansion was desirable--in the long run even crucial--but the existing revolutionary bulwark should not be gambled away.

Despite the resistance of the Left Opposition, the Peace of Brest-Litovsk was signed in March 1918. In the heated debates preceding the peace agreement, Stalin supported Lenin. He agreed that the Russian soldiers could not survive the German assault. Likening Trotskii's stand to one taken "in literature," he noted that one should not put the existence of Soviet Russia at stake in the name of a revolutionary movement in the West that did not yet exist. Furthermore, the preservation of a state carrying out socialist reforms could be expected to inspire the Western workers. He only hesitated when the Germans demanded the abandoning of Ukraine. But he let himself be convinced by Lenin that the loss should be accepted.

The loss of Ukraine remained a problem for Stalin. When the Germans overthrew the Ukrainian government, he hesitatingly supported Central Committee member Sokol'nikov, who, against Lenin, proposed to resume preparations for war against Germany. By early 1920, the Civil War seemed to have been won by the Red side. But in the spring the Polish army attacked Russia. This was the occasion for plans of offensive revolutionary war to be revived. Lenin believed the time ripe for a war against imperialism to spread the Soviet system. Not all communist leaders were so confident. From May to July Stalin argued that the feeling of national unity in the Polish army was too strong. It would be difficult to fight it on Polish soil. Mocking comrades who were only content with a "red Soviet Warsaw," he insisted that before marching to Warsaw the White danger to Ukraine should first be liquidated.

In the end, Stalin supported Lenin in the decision to cross the "ethnic border" of Poland. Nevertheless, we observe an interesting pattern in the former's positions. Stalin seems to have been more concerned than Lenin to preserve Ukraine, which had always been closely integrated with Russia; but less inclined to make offensive attempts into Poland, where he believed the Red Army would face strong national resistance. We recognise the same line of thinking in Stalin's general views on the international state community. Like all bolsheviks, he believed that new proletarian states should join Soviet Russia, which might gradually expand into a world soviet republic. But he and Lenin did not see completely eye to eye on the matter. In 1920, the latter wrote that new Soviet states, like Hungary, should enter into federal relations with Soviet Russia. In a comment, Stalin found this acceptable for nations that had once been part of old Russia, but:

``We cannot say the same of those nationalities which were no part of old Russia, which existed as independent formations.... For instance the future Soviet Germany, Poland, Hungary, Finland. These peoples, who have their own statehood, their own army, their finances, will, after having become Soviet, hardly agree to enter immediately into a federative link with Soviet Russia...for these nationalities the most acceptable form of approach would be a confederation (a union of independent states).``

Stalin believed in the national principle as the basis of state formation. It could not be avoided that, for the time being, nations with a strong tradition of independence preserved a separate state existence. One could only diverge from this model in cases where nations had lived together long and closely in one integrated state, such as the Russians and Ukrainians. In that case every effort should be made to preserve the multinational structure.

-Erik van Ree, The Political Thought of Joseph Stalin











-Albert Szymanski, Human Rights in the Soviet Union

Polls reveal that up to 70 percent of the Tajikistan population longs for the Soviet Union era.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2010/0527/Tajikistan-pines-for-old-Soviet-Union-strength

Unsung Heroes: The Soviet Military and the Liberation of Southern Africa

Author: Vladimir Shubin Deputy Director of the Institute for African Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, and Professor of History and Politics at the Russian State University of Humanities. Before joining the academia he served in the Soviet Armed Forces from 1962 to 1969, and from the late 1960s was involved in political and practical support of the liberation movements in Southern Africa, in particular as Secretary of the Soviet Afro-Asian Solidarity Committee and head of the Africa Section in the CPSU International Department

Published in: Cold War History, Volume 7, Issue 2 May 2007

Abstract

The history of military co-operation between the USSR and the liberation movements in Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa has still to be written. The same applies to co-operation with Moscow in the post-independence period. So far the attempts to do so have been unsuccessful, not only due to the lack of accessible documents, but also due to an uncritical attitude to the available materials. This paper attempts to present a 'factual version of history'. It addresses in particular the issues of training the African combatants in the USSR, and the activities of the Soviet teams attached to the ANC, SWAPO and ZAPU as well as to the armed forces of the independent African countries. While most of the Russian archives are still 'sealed off', the author has used oral history sources and memoirs as an invaluable means of painting a picture of the Soviet involvement from the early 1960s to 1991.

Introduction

In recent years serious efforts have been made to write a history of the liberation struggle in Southern Africa, in particular by the South Africa Democracy Education Trust (SADET) and the Archives of Anti-Colonial Resistance and Liberation Struggle (AACRLS) in Namibia. However, one issue often remains distorted or is missing, namely the involvement of the Soviet military in support of the liberation movements and independent African countries in Southern Africa.

The history of Soviet relations with the African liberation movements, especially in the military field, remains rather obscure. So far, attempts to write such a history have been unsuccessful, partly due to the shortage of accessible documents. In fact, for many years all information on Soviet assistance to freedom fighters, even of a purely humanitarian nature, was 'hidden' from the public in the USSR and abroad. It was only in 1970, almost ten years after the co-operation had commenced that, in an interview given for Pravda, the head of the Soviet delegation to the international conference in solidarity with the peoples of the Portuguese colonies, Professor Vassily Solodovnikov, clearly stated for the first time that Moscow was supplying the liberation movements with 'arms, means of transport and communications, clothes and other goods needed for successful struggle' and that 'military and civilian specialists [were] being trained in the USSR'.1 However, another reason for the absence of an accurate account is a careless attitude to material that is available. True, most of the Russian archives are still 'sealed off', but 'bits and pieces' are nevertheless accessible to researchers. Besides, in the circumstances, oral history sources and memoirs are crucial for painting a true picture of Soviet involvement in the region from the early 1960s to 1991.

The question of military co-operation between the USSR and the South African liberation movement was raised for the first time when two prominent leaders of the Congress movement and South African Communist Party (SACP), Moses Kotane and Yusuf Dadoo, visited Moscow in late 1961. Informing their Soviet interlocutors about the situation in South Africa, they expressed the opinion that

``[U]nder the conditions of the reign of terror by the fascist government which has at its disposal a huge military and police machinery, the peaceful ways of reaching the tasks of liberation and revolutionary movements at present are excluded. The [South AfricanCommunist] Party has decided to proceed from the necessity of the preparation for the armed forms of struggle.``

Their position was supported by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) International Secretary Boris Ponomarev and upheld by the Central Committee Secretariat.2 Referring to their particular request for training of military instructors, Kotane and Dadoo were informed that Moscow 'would be able to render the SACP possible assistance using for this, in particular the facilities in some friendly African countries, for example in Guinea and Ghana'.3 However, it proved problematic to arrange such training. The issue of the presence of Soviet military personnel in the African National Congress (ANC) camps was discussed more than once by South African and Western academics. Thus, Philip Nel claims that 'training personnel' from the USSR 'reached the newly established ANC camps in Tanzania and Zambia' in 1964.4 The source given for this rather 'sensitive' information looks credible - a book by Kurt Campbell, then a Harvard University fellow (and later the US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence!) published by Macmillan.5 But Campbell also refers to a secondary source, a book by the US academic Kenneth Grundy.

Is this a merry-go-round of citation of sources? No, rather a cul-de-sac, because Campbell's reference to Grundy's book is irrelevant. Grundy writes about Chinese and Cuban involvement in training guerrillas in some African countries and then merely adds one sentence: 'Russian instructors were also present in early 1960s'.6 He specifies neither the year, nor the venue, nor the name of organization that they were involved with; in fact, he does not mention the ANC at all! The truth is that the Soviet instructors in the ANC camps appeared only 15 years later, in 1979. Moreover, this was not in Tanzania or Zambia, but in Angola. They were sent there at the request of the ANC, forwarded by Oliver Tambo in October 1978 during the annual visit of the ANC delegation to Moscow. The person who became widely known in the ANC as 'Comrade Ivan' - Vyacheslav Shiryaev - headed the first group which came to Angola in 1979. He was succeeded by 'Comrade George' (late German Pimenov), 'Comrade Michael' (Mikhail Konovalenko), and 'Comrade Victor' (Victor Belush).

The number of Soviet specialists with the ANC gradually increased and, all in all, more than 200 Soviet specialists and interpreters were stationed with the Umkhonto new Sizwe(MK) in Angola in the period 1979-91.7 Soon the group included specialists on 'military-combat work' ( i.e. the building of the armed underground), tactics, engineering, hand-to-hand fighting, communications and communications equipment repair, as well as medical doctors, interpreters, etc. The Soviet specialists with the ANC in Angola carried out what used to be called 'international duty' in the unhealthy climate and the persistent threat from the Pretoria-led National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) bands, in the remote camps, which often had to be moved. Initially these advisers stayed in Angola alone and their families were only allowed to join them later. There can be no doubt that the direct involvement of Soviet officers in training MK personnel both in guerrilla and conventional warfare helped to raise the level of combat readiness of ANC armed units and, in particular, of the organizers of the armed underground.

As to military training of the ANC personnel in the USSR, it started much earlier. Here again the issue is often distorted. Terry Bell in his Unfinished Business. South Africa, Apartheid and Truth, written with Dumisa Ntebeza, claims that 'there were also reportedly agreements in place between the US and [the] USSR. These restricted any military aid provided to the ANC to conventional training involving artillery and tanks - not much use in the conditions of the time'.8 The reality is contrary to these claims. Instead of being conventional military training, the courses for MK fighters and commanders from the very beginning included studies in guerrilla warfare. The need for highly specific guerrilla training was evident and realized from the very beginning. In June 1963 two MK groups, totalling about 40 personnel, were sent to the Soviet Union. Among them was a young university graduate, Martin Thembesile (Chris) Hani, who spent a year in 1963-64 'in the environs of Moscow', studying in a highly specialized establishment known among the liberation movements as the 'Northern Training Centre'. For many years it was headed by 'General Fyodor', the late Major-General Fyodor Fedorenko, an ex-World War II guerrilla commander in the Crimea, who, incidentally, himself went with Liberation Front of Mozambique (FRELIMO) fighters into Mozambique in 1974. Many years later, in 1991, Hani said in an interview:

'How can the working class forget the Soviet Union? I went to Moscow when I was 21 for military training. I was accepted there and treated wonderfully.'9

Hani returned to the USSR for further studies in the early 1970s and that course helped him greatly during his clandestine stay in South Africa and his activities in Lesotho. He recalled later:

``We had undergone a course in the Soviet Union on the principles of forming an underground movement. That was our training: the formation of the underground movement, then the building of guerrilla detachments. The Soviets put a lot of emphasis on the building of these underground structures, comprising at the beginning very few people.10``

Archibald Sibeko shares this opinion and is highly appreciative of the specialized training he and his friends underwent:

``We were taught military strategy and tactics, topography, drilling, use of firearms and guerrilla warfare. We also covered politics, with heavy emphasis on skills needed [for] construction and use of explosives, vehicle maintenance, feeding a mobile army and first aid in the field: everything necessary for survival under guerrilla conditions.11``

As for large-scale training special courses for ANC guerrilla commanders and various military specialists, they were organized in late 1963 at Odessa, on the shores of the Black Sea. Facilities were available at the local military college; moreover, this city was famous for its resistance to the German and Romanian invasion in 1941, and in 1941-44 the catacombs there were used as hideouts by guerrillas. The first MK group there was headed by Joe Modise, the future South African Minister of Defence. The Soviet political leadership closely observed the training of the first ANC cadres in Odessa. A special group, led by Petr Manchkha, head of the African Section of the CPSU International Department, was sent from Moscow in June 1964, and its members were impressed.12 However, while Manchkha's group expressed satisfaction with the progress of the training, singling out the strict discipline and high morale of the ANC cadres, they did note the limitations of the college as far as the guerrilla training was concerned.

The need for a specific training establishment suitable for large contingents of trainees became acute. It was created in Perevalnoye in the Crimea, near the city of Simferopol. There, good use was made of the World War II experience of the Crimean guerrillas, who had operated in mountains, forest and bush - in other words, in terrain not very different from Southern Africa. The centre in Perevalnoe was also used as a site for 'practice' by the freedom fighters who studied in Moscow. Mosima (Tokyo) Sexwale, a former MK fighter, political prisoner, post-April 1994 premier of Gauteng province and now a prominent South African businessman who underwent training in 1975-76, recalls how 'Colonel [he was promoted later] Fyodor' showed them war-time trenches and hide-outs when he came to see the ANC group there.13

In spite of their intelligence services, the South African government and its friends in the West knew surprisingly little about the Crimean training facility. Harry Pitman of the Progressive Party claimed in a speech in parliament that he knew 'precisely' where the ANC members were trained. He mentioned two places in the USSR: 'Jijinski in Northern Russia' and 'Privali in Ukraine'.14 One can only guess what he meant by 'Jijinski'; there is 'Dzerzhinsk', a town close to Moscow, but no Umkhonto member has ever been trained there. Later Pitman's spelling was 'improved' by Africa Confidential, which wrote: 'The Soviet camps include Provolye in the Ukraine and Centre 26, near Moscow.'15 Pretoria's police fared no better: Major General F.M.A. Steenkamp, in his press briefing for accredited foreign correspondents in 1984, spoke of 'Prvolnye military camp' and, again, 'Centre 26',16 which, by the way, never existed. And all this happened while the road sign 'Perevalnoye' ('pereval' means 'pass' in Russian) was prominently displayed on the mountainous road from Simferopol to Yalta!

The training of the MK personnel in the USSR continued for almost three decades, and became increasingly sophisticated. Let us hear again 'from the horse's mouth', this time from General Siphiwe Nyanda, the first African chief of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF). He came to the USSR in 1985, immediately after the Kabwe Conference of the ANC with the group of the MK commanders, which included Charles Nqakula who is now Minister of Safety and Security (and the SACP chairperson) and Nosiviwe Maphisa-Nqakula, Minister of Home Affairs and the ANC Women's League president:

``In the USSR, we were staying in an apartment on Gorki Street, Moscow, where the lectures were conducted. For the practical exercises, we went to a place outside Moscow We studied MCW (Military and Combat Work) as part of an abridged Brigade Commanders' course.

(1) The course covered the following subjects, among others,Communications (2) Underground work- Surveillance- Secret writing- Secret meetings- Photography (3) Military work- Ambush- Attack- Artillery effectiveness- Small arms All were useful.17``

One telling detail: of the first group of ANC commanders incorporated into the new SANDF in 1994 at the level of general, everyone underwent military training in the USSR except one commander who was trained by the Soviets in Angola.

The Soviet military co-operation with the ANC continued in various forms until the radical political changes took place in Moscow in August 1991 followed by the 'dissolution' of the USSR in December of that year. The Russian press has calculated that between 1963 and 1991, 1,501 ANC activists were trained in Soviet military institutions.18 However, this figure is not all-inclusive and the total number was well above 2,000. The most striking example of co-operation and mutual trust was Soviet involvement in Operation Vula, aimed at the creation of the armed underground network inside South Africa which began in 1987-88 and extended into the post February-1990 period.19 Let us hear once more from General Nyanda:

``The Moscow visit of 1988 was the final leg of my preparation to infiltrate the RSA. It afforded me the opportunity to brush up on my disguises and gain more confidence in these From an operational point of view, the Moscow leg was probably the most important for my cover story. Without exception, those who were not privy to the information believed I was in the Soviet Union for [military] studies. The enemy therefore never expected me to be right on his doorstep!20``

Moscow's military co-operation with the South West African People's Organisation (SWAPO) and its military wing - the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN) developed in a similar way. Most of the top commanders of the PLAN studied in the USSR, including Charles Namoloh (his nom de guerre was 'Ho Chi Minh'), the recently appointed Namibian Minister of Defence. Many hundreds of PLAN fighters were trained in the USSR (including three sons of Sam Nujoma) - in the 'Northern' centre, in Perevalnoe as well as in Solnechnogorsk, at the famous Vystrel Higher Officer Courses near Moscow.

Apart from military training in the USSR, from 1977 a group of the Soviet military specialists stayed with PLAN in Lubango, in the south of Angola. Its most popular chief (in 1979-83) was 'Colonel Nikolay' (Nikolay Kurushkin, later Major-General and head of the 'Northern Centre'). The mission of the Soviet specialists and advisors was primarily training of the PLAN personnel. However, it appears that their duties in the field sometimes went far beyond this. I recall how in March 1991, on the first anniversary of Namibian independence, we went to the north of the country, adjacent to the Angolan border, together with 'Colonel Nikolay' and General Namoloh, then the Army Chief of Staff. When we reached Oshakati, Namoloh said to Nikolay: 'You see, it is such a nice place. And you always told me: "Attack Oshakati, attack Oshakati".'

In the final stage of the liberation struggle in Zimbabwe, a similar group, headed by the late Colonel Lev Kononov, was stationed in Zambia. In addition, hundreds of fighters of the ZAPU wing of the Patriotic Front underwent training with the Soviet specialists in Angola in the late 1970s. They were in the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) camp when it was bombed by the Rhodesian Air Force in 1979 and one of them, Warrant Officer Grigory Skakun, died after being hit by a cluster bomb containing ball bearings.21 Military training of Zimbabweans took place in various areas of the USSR as well. I watched how they braved a snow-covered field in Perevalnoe when I accompanied Joshua Nkomo, the ZAPU leader and co-president of the Zimbabwe Patriotic Front, on a visit there. 'If Ian Smith were to see it', somebody joked, 'he would immediately surrender.'

In all three cases, for MK, PLAN and the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA), it was Angola which served as a reliable rear base. However, before the country could play such a role, it faced almost a decade and a half of hard anti-colonial struggle. The late Petr Evsyukov (known to his African friends as 'Camarada Pedro') who had been responsible for contacts with the liberation movements of the Portuguese colonies in the CPSU International Department, recalls in his memoirs that after the first representatives of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) - Mario de Andrade and Viriato da Cruz - came to Moscow 'in the second half of 1961', 'an important decision to begin multi-sided assistance to the organisation was taken'.22 Then, some months later, Agostinho Neto managed to escape from Portugal and also 'immediately came to Moscow. The negotiations with him ended quite successfully'.23

The assistance was very versatile. 'Camarada Pedro' recalls a fascinating incident. In urgent cases the leadership of the liberation movements who knew his nom de guerre, 'Pedro Dias', and the number of his post office box could send him a letter by ordinary international mail. So, once a letter arrived from Agostinho Neto, who complained about the shortage of cartridges for Soviet-made TT pistols and asked for them to be sent urgently. 'To confirm his request and to avoid a mistake he enclosed a cartridge in an envelope. This was probably the only case in the history of the postal service.'24

With the beginning of the armed struggle in Mozambique the liberation movement FRELIMO also began to receive military supplies from the USSR and to send its personnel for training there. In fact, my first trip to sub-Saharan Africa was in January 1967 to Dar es Salaam. Our mission was to bring Mozambicans for training in Perevalnoe and many years later I heard from the Mozambican military attaché that among them was Joachim Chissano, a future president.

The assistance to MPLA, FRELIMO and other liberation movements was co-ordinated by the CPSU Central Committee (CC) through its International Department while several government bodies were involved. An important step was a trip by a group of Soviet officials to several independent African countries in early 1967. Evsyukov writes: 'an urgent necessity arose to evaluate the state and prospects of this [anti-colonial] war, to try to study the situation on the spot, if not inside these countries [Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau] at least from the territory of the neighbouring states' to help the CPSU CC 'to determine the line on our co-operation and policy in the region'.25 The group members were Manchkha, Evsyukov, Gennady Fomin, Head of one of the African Departments of the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), and Vadim Kirpichenko, his counterpart in the KGB, the future first deputy head of the PGU - Soviet political intelligence. The trip resulted in 'the Politbureau's decision on our further policy towards African countries, in particular, on our all-round support to the militant nationalists in the Portuguese colonies'.26 The group was primarily political and did not include a representative of the Soviet Ministry of Defence. Nevertheless, with the intensification of the armed struggle in the Portuguese colonies and the beginning of fighting in Namibia and Zimbabwe from the mid-late 1960s, the military had increasingly to play a larger role in Moscow's co-operation with the liberation movements. For many years these activities were co-ordinated by Major-General Ivan Plakhin, a World War II veteran, who personally visited the liberated areas of Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau in the early 1970s and Angola in the first days of February 1976, during the South African intervention in the country.

However, by the time of the April 1974 Portuguese revolution which opened the prospects for Angola's rapid transition to independence, Moscow's relations with Neto's MPLA were at their lowest ebb. They were drastically affected by Neto's unity agreement in December 1972 with its arch-rival - the CIA-sponsored Holden Roberto, leader of the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) - and by the split within the MPLA that followed this step. It was broad support for the MPLA and personally for Neto, demonstrated after the April 1974 Portuguese revolution inside Angola that made the situation clearer. In December 1974 Moscow received the MPLA military delegation headed by Henrique (Iko) Carreira, the future Angolan Minister of Defence, who spoke about the MPLA's 'weakness from the military point of view' and emphasized the need for Soviet assistance.27 Several 'fact-finding' missions and later solidarity visits by the Soviets to Angola also helped, such as a trip ostensibly 'to study the local educational system' by Naval Captain Alexey Dubenko (future Rear-Admiral and the first Soviet military attaché in Angola) in early 1975.

Moscow supported the Alvor agreements of January 1975 between the MPLA, FNLA and UNITA. However, against the background of growing assistance to the MPLA's rivals from the West, South Africa, Zaire and, for a certain period, from China, supplies to the MPLA were resumed. In particular, a core of the brigade, manned by MPLA activists, underwent a crash course of training in Solnechnogork and Perevalnoe.28 The most crucial moment in Soviet-Angolan relations was the eve of Angolan independence. Georgy Kornienko, later the First Deputy Foreign Minister, writes in his memoirs: 'In the Angolan episode of the "Cold War", like in the majority of its episodes , Washington said "A", but in this case as well, Moscow did not refrain for a long time from saying "B".'29 Kornienko believes that with the worsening of Soviet-American relations related to Angola, in particular advance in the talks on strategic arms stopped; correspondingly, Brezhnev's visit to the USA was postponed and then cancelled.30 However, I share the opinion of Ambassador Vladillen Vasev, the former Soviet Deputy Head of Mission (DHM) in Washington and then head of the Southern African Department at the Soviet MFA, who believed that if not Angola, the US would have found another excuse for 'cooling off' relations with Moscow.31

According to Kornienko, on the eve of Angolan independence when 'the civil war, provoked by the USA actions, began to flare up', the Soviet MFA together with the Ministry of Defence and the KGB prepared a proposal, approved 'by and large' by the CPSU Politburo,32 to provide the MPLA with all kinds of political support and 'certain material support' but not to get involved in the civil war in Angola 'in the military sphere'. However, only a few days later the CPSU International Department headed by Ponomarev, having secured initially the signatures of Marshal Grechko (the Defence Minister) and KGB Chairman Andropov, managed also to get Gromyko's support for the satisfaction of the MPLA's's requests to (still limited) arms supplies.33

The idea that Moscow instigated Cuba to send its troops to Angola, which for many years proved so popular among Western leaders and the mass media, has been shown to be a fallacy. For example, Kornienko and his 'boss' Andrei Gromyko, as well as Grechko and Andropov, only found out about the Cuban combat troops airlifted to Angola through a message from the Soviet Ambassador to Guinea informing Moscow of the impending landing of the Cuban planes in Conakry.34 However, the Cubans had previously informed Moscow about the first stage of their involvement. I recall that Manchkha told Nujoma in Moscow of the forthcoming arrival of 500 Cuban instructors in Angola.35 As to the actual presence of the Soviet military in Angola, Dubenko, who returned to Luanda in October, was joined by Boris Putilin on independence day. Putilin was then the first secretary of the Soviet Embassy in Brazzaville (now a veteran of Military Intelligence and a retired colonel), and accompanied Ambassador Afanasenko as a member of the official Soviet delegation. The first group of Soviet military instructors, headed by Captain Evgeny Lyashchenko, left Moscow on 31 October on a regular Aeroflot flight and arrived in Brazzaville the following day. This group had a purely defensive mission - to train Angolans in the use of 'Strela' ('Arrow') portable anti-aircraft missile launchers. A week later the group was transferred to Point-Noir and on 16 November joined a larger group of instructors headed by Colonel Vassily Trofimenko, which landed there on the way to Angola. So, five days after the proclamation of Angola's independence, over 40 Soviet military specialists arrived in Luanda.36

The Soviet involvement in Angola produced many 'unsung heroes'. The name of the Deputy Commander of Air Transport Wing from the town of Ivanovo, who risked his life and the lives of his crew to airlift two Katyusha rocket launchers from Brazzaville to Point-Noir, where the runway was unfit for the heavy Antonov transport aircraft, has yet to be revealed. These same rocket launchers were further moved by a Cuban ship to Luanda and played a critical role in rebuffing the attack of Mobutu/FNLA troops against Luanda at the time. According to General Roberto Monteiro 'Ngongo' (the former Angolan Ambassador in Moscow and now Minister of the Interior), all in all, over 6,000 Soviets came to Angola 'to teach in military schools and academies and to train our regular units' and over 1,000 Soviet military visited it for 'shorter periods of time', while 6,965 Angolans underwent military training in the Soviet Union.37 Figs. provided by the Moscow Institute of Military History are even higher: 'up to 1 January 1991 10,985 Soviet military advisors and specialists visited Angola, including 107 generals and admirals, 7,211 officers, 1,083 warrant-officers and midshipmen, 2,116 sergeants, petty officers and privates and 468 civilian employees of the Soviet Army and Navy'; 6,985 Angolans were trained in Soviet/Russian 'military educational institutions' up to 1 January 1995.38

The role of the Soviet military in Angola (most of whom served with the Angolan armed forces, but some with the ANC, SWAPO, and ZAPU) is grossly distorted by many Western and South African authors, either because of their ignorance or, perhaps, because there has been too much reliance on faulty intelligence sources. Thus, a British academic (and a former editor of African Confidential) Stephen Ellis and his co-author, a renegade from the ANC and SACP who used the pen-name 'Sechaba' ('People'), claimed in their book Comrades against Apartheid that in September 1987 the Angolan government offensive against the SADF-backed UNITA was 'supervised in part by a Soviet General Konstantin Shaganovitch'.39 Indeed, there had been an earlier Soviet Chief Military Adviser in Angola whose family name was similar - Shakhnovich - although his first name was Vassily and not Konstantin. The General left Angola for the USSR in 1980 and died in Moscow not long afterwards. One of Shakhnovich's successors was Lieutenant-General (from 1983, Colonel-General) Konstantin Kurochkin, First Deputy Commander of the Soviet Paratroopers. So it seems that Ellis and 'Sechaba' managed to merge someone dead with someone living. Kurochkin himself left Luanda in 1985 though, according to him, he subsequently paid several short visits to Luanda.40 Fred Bridgland, a well-known British journalist, went even further: he took 'General Shaganovitch's offensive' as the title for a whole section of his book describing military actions in Angola. Moreover, the non-existent 'Konstantin Shaganovitch', according to Bridgland, was 'a known chemical warfare expert', and this is used to substantiate the claim that the Angolan brigade which faced the SADF had 'chemical weapons in its armoury'.41 On the contrary, it was South African troops that used chemical weapons in Angola. At the same time Bridgland (and his friends) grossly miscalculated the number of the Soviet military in Angola: 'Intelligence agencies estimated that Shaganovitch had about 950 fellow Soviets in command and training posts in Angola',42 while the commanding officer, General Kurochkin said that the strength of 'the Soviet advisory apparatus' was 'about 2 thousand persons'.43

The Soviets suffered casualties in Southern Africa, especially in Angola. According to General 'Ngongo', 15 Soviet military (including aircraft crew members) had been killed in Angola in the period up to 1991.44 Russian military historians state that by the same date 51 persons were killed or died and 10 were wounded.45 The 'battle of Cuito-Cuanavale' in 1987-88 was particularly gruelling. Two Soviet officers - Colonel Gorb and Lieutenant Snitko - sacrificed their lives while assisting Angolan government forces to rebuff Pretoria's troops. The defeat of South Africa and UNITA at Cuito-Cuanavale and the advance of Cuban, Angolan and SWAPO forces towards the Namibian border was possible to a large extent due to supplies of modern Soviet equipment. An extensive Air Defence system based on the Soviet-made anti-aircraft missiles was created in Southern Angola and MIG-23 and SU-22 aircraft proved to be superior to South African weaponry. These developments created favourable conditions for the completion of talks on the settlement in South-Western Africa which opened the way for the independence of Namibia in 1989 and, in the long run, for the abolition of apartheid in South Africa itself in 1994. In the words of former USSR Deputy Foreign Minister Anatoly Adamishin, who took part in these talks:

``If we hadn't come to the assistance of the MPLA, seven thousand miles from our borders, who would have benefited from it? Little doubt, it would have been the RSA What would further developments in the region have been, if the racist RSA had grabbed Angola in addition to Namibia? How many more years would her domination by force over the region have continued? How many more years would apartheid have survived?46``

A final note. Moscow's support to the movements and independent countries in Southern Africa in military matters was especially important because it was often provided at the time when or in the areas and where other countries were unable or unwilling to help. Moreover, I am convinced that the Soviet Union's contribution was not limited to training and material assistance, but resulted also in the encouragement of non-racialism in Southern Africa, and a special contribution in this respect was made by the Soviet instructors in Africa and the staff of the Soviet military training centres.

http://sonsofmalcolm.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/soviet-role-in-african-liberation.html

In fact Russia still is viewed positively among Africans due to the Soviet Union's steadfast and crucial contribution to the anticolonial and national liberation struggles:

post-Soviet Russia has partially inherited the image of the USSR, up to now associated for many Africans first and foremost with the support of their struggle against colonialism, neocolonialism, apartheid, and economic backwardness.

https://www.academia.edu/1907644/The_Image_of_Russia_in_Africa_The_Soviet_Legacys_Role

Edited by Crow (June 30, 2015 03:10:39)