The African Student Movement in the Soviet Union during the 1960s: Pan-Africanism and Communism in the Shadow of Nation-States

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

Notes

¹ Fabienne Guimont, Les étudiants africains en France, 1950-1965 (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1985), 192-95; Sékou Traoré, La Fédération des étudiants d’Afrique noire en France (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1985), 61–5; Françoise Blum, ‘Trajectoires militantes et (re)conversions: à propos de la FEANF Que sont-ils/elles devenu-e-s?’, (Habilitation thesis, EHESS, 2016), 82–3.

² Amady Aly Dieng, Mémoires d’un étudiant africain (Dakar: CODESRIA, 2011), vol. 1, page 109, for Agboton and vol. 2 page 20 for Konaté.

³ António Tomás Medeiros: Entrevistado por Elsa Sertório (Lisbon: Coimbra University, 2015). On the fuga, see Charles Harper and William Nottingham, The Great Escape that Changed Africa’s Future: The Church in action and the secret flight of 60 African students to France (St. Louis, Mo.: Lucas Park Books, 2015).

⁴ Sergey Mazov, ‘Afrikanskie studenty v Moskve v god Afriki (po arkhivnym materialam)’, Vostok, no. 3 (1999), 89–103; Sara Pugach, ‘Eleven Nigerian Students in Cold War East Germany: Visions of Science, Modernity, and Decolonization’, Journal of Contemporary History 54, no. 3 (2019), 551–72; Eric Burton and others, eds., Navigating Socialist Encounters: Moorings and (Dis)Entanglements between Africa and East Germany during the Cold War (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021).

⁵ Monique de Saint Martin, Grazia Scarfò Ghellab and Kamal Mellakh, eds., Étudier à l’Est. Trajectoires d’étudiants africains et arabes en URSS et dans les pays d’Europe de l’Est (Paris: Karthala, 2015); Daniel Branch, ‘Political Traffic: Kenyan Students in Eastern and Central Europe, 1958-69’, Journal of Contemporary History 53, no. 4 (2018), 811–31; Marcia Schenck, ‘Negotiating the German Democratic Republic: Angolan Student Migration during the Cold War’, Africa 89, no. S1 (2019), S144–66; Nana Osei-Opare, ‘Uneasy Comrades: Postcolonial Statecraft, Race, and Citizenship, Ghana-Soviet Relations, 1957–1966’, Journal of West African History 5, no. 2 (2019), 85–112; Eric Burton, ‘Decolonization, the Cold War, and Africans’ routes to Higher Education Overseas, 1957–65’, Journal of Global History 15, no. 1 (2020), 169–91.

⁶ Gabrielle Chomentowski, ‘Filmmakers from Africa and the Middle East at VGIK during the Cold War’, Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema 13, no. 2 (2019), 189–98; Abena D. Osseo-Asare, Atomic Junction: Nuclear Power in Africa after Independence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019).

⁷ Julie Hessler, ‘Death of an African Student in Moscow: Race, Politics, and the Cold War’, Cahiers du Monde russe 47, no. 1-2 (2006), 33–64; Maxim Matusevich, ‘Journeys of Hope: African Diaspora and the Soviet Society’, African Diaspora 1, no. 1-2 (2008), 53–85.

⁸ Thomas Burgess, ‘A Socialist Diaspora: Ali Sultan Issa, the Soviet Union, and the Zanzibari Revolution’, in Africa in Russia, Russia in Africa: Three Centuries of Encounters, ed. Maxim Matusevich (Trenton: Africa World Press, 2007), 263–91; Thomas Burgess, ‘Mao in Zanzibar: Nationalism, Discipline, and the (De)Construction of Afro-Asian Solidarities’, in Making a World after Empire: The Bandung Moment and its Political Afterlives, ed. Christopher J. Lee (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2010), 196–234; Bahru Zewde, The Quest for Socialist Utopia: The Ethiopian Student Movement c. 1960-1974 (Oxford: James Currey, 2014). See also the memoirs of Kiflu Tadesse who studied in Moscow, The Generation, Part I, (Silver Spring, MD: Independent Publishers, 1993).

⁹ On UGEAN in the USSR, see the memoirs of the Mozambican student leader in Moscow, Simeão Massango, Alte Heimat Mosambik: Vergangenes und Zukuftsträume (Leipzig: Engelsdorfer Verlag, 2013), 79–101.

¹⁰ UNESCO, Statistics of Students Abroad 1962-1968 (Paris: UNESCO, 1971) and Table 4 in this article.

¹¹ Sara Pugach, ‘Agents of Dissent: African Student Organizations in the German Democratic Republic’, Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute 89, no. S1, (2019), S90–108.

¹² Klaas van Walraven, The Yearning for Relief: A History of the Sawaba Movement in Niger (Leiden: Brill, 2013).

¹³ On Diop’s studies in Romania, see his Mémoires de luttes. Textes pour servir à l’histoire du Parti Africain de l’Indépendance (Paris: Présence Africaine, 2007), 28–29.

¹⁴ Maxim Matusevich, No Easy Row for a Russian Hoe: Ideology and Pragmatism in Nigerian-Soviet Relations, 1960-1991 (Trenton: Africa World Press, 2003); Adam Mayer, Naija Marxisms: Revolutionary Thought in Nigeria (London: Pluto Press, 2016). For statistics on scholarships, see Russian State Archive of Social and Political History (RGASPI), M-3/5/82/3–5. Henceforth this sequence corresponds to: ‘collection/inventory/folder/page–s’.

¹⁵ Branch, ‘Political Traffic’.

¹⁶ On the Algerian student movement in the Eastern Bloc, see Ahmed Mahi, De l’UGEMA à l’UNEA. Témoignage sur le mouvement étudiant (1959-1965) (Algiers: INAS Éditions, 2014).

¹⁷ The percentages in brackets are for the school term 1964/65.

¹⁸ Statistics of the Soviet Ministry of Education: State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF), R-9606/2/143/105–7.

¹⁹ This note applies to all tables. For the Western countries and Yugoslavia, see UNESCO’s, Statistics of Students Abroad (1962-1968) and Statistics of Students Abroad (1969-1973) (Paris, 1971 and 1976 respectively). For the USSR, see GARF, collection R-9606, inventory 1, folders 521, 869, 1638, 2369, 2381, 2699, 3090, 3533, and 3957. For the rest of the Eastern Bloc, see GARF, collection R-9606, inventory 2, folders 134 and 266 with documents of the Commission for the Coordination of Technical Assistance.

²⁰ Ibid.

²¹ Ibid.

²² Ibid.

²³ Michel Ayih, Ein Afrikaner in Moskau (Cologne: Bertelsmann, 1961), 70–1.

²⁴ Soviet report of 30/10/1961: RGASPI, M-1/46/293/144. See also Dieng, Mémoires, vol. 2, 20.

²⁵ Mazov, ‘Afrikanskie’; Hessler, ‘Death’.

²⁶ Ayih, Ein Afrikaner, 192.

²⁷ Document of the Sudanese student union, January 1965: RGASPI, M-1/46/403/106–11.

²⁸ Céline Pauthier, ‘Indépendance, nation, révolution: les enjeux du “complot des enseignants” de 1961 en Guinée’, in Étudiants africains en mouvements. Contribution à une histoire des années 1968, ed. Françoise Blum, Pierre Guidi and Ophélie Rillon (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2017), 31–56.

²⁹ Transcripts of the meeting and the statement: GARF, R-9606/2/71/24, 33–4 for the asylum.

³⁰ See also the emotional memoirs of a Soviet diplomat, Oleg L. Gorbunov, ‘Dva goda v Gvinee’, Afrika v vospominaniiakh veteranov diplomaticheskoi sluzhby (Moscow: Institut Afriki, 2000), 45–64.

³¹ FASSS document, ‘Fondation de la Fédération des Étudiants Africains en Union Soviétique (FEAUS=FASSS)’: GARF, R-9540/1/128/3–4.

³² On Ndaw and his involvement in FEANF and FASSS, see Amadou B. Sadji, Le rôle de la génération charnière ouest-africaine. Indépendance et développement (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2006), 273–4.

³³ FASSS’s Status and a letter by Tchapéyou, 23/03/1962: GARF, R-9576/14/50/175–81.

³⁴ Somali Students’ Union, RGASPI, M-3/3/37/pages not numbered.

³⁵ Robert Robinson, Black on Red: My 44 Years inside the Soviet Union (Washington: Acropolis Books, 1988), 353–96.

³⁶ UPC Section in the USSR, press communiqué, 09/04/1963: RGASPI, M-3/3/37/pages not numbered.

³⁷ ‘Discours d’ouverture du 1^er Congrès de la FEAUS par Kamine Tchapéyou, président de la Fédération’: RGASPI, M-3/3/29/321–3.

³⁸ Resolutions cited in a Soviet report: RGASPI, M-3/3/32/9–10.

³⁹ Sudanese Students’ Union, January 1965: RGASPI, M-1/46/403/178.

⁴⁰ Komsomol report: RGASPI, M-3/3/32/6–10.

⁴¹ Hessler, ‘Death’.

⁴² FASSS’s statement: RGASPI, M-1/46/403/130–2.

⁴³ On Obieme’s role in the protest and his expulsion: Hessler, ‘Death’, and Komsomol’s reports: RGASPI, M-1/46/337/40–3 and M-1/46/406/5.

⁴⁴ James Brennan, ‘The Secret Lives of Dennis Phombeah: Decolonization, the Cold War, and African Political Intelligence, 1953–1974’, The International History Review 43, no. 1 (2021), 153–69.

⁴⁵ UASE booklet, 3^rd Congress of the Union of African Students in Europe, published by the International Union of Students, Prague: RGASPI, M-3/3/264/133-153. Two more UASE documents, ‘Report of the Permanent Secretariat: IV Congress UASE Berlin’ and ‘Short History of UASE’: RGASPI, M-3/3/274/34–41.

⁴⁶ FASSS’s statement, 01/10/1964: RGASPI, M-3/3/37/pages not numbered.

⁴⁷ Constantin Katsakioris, ‘Students from Portuguese Africa in the Soviet Union, 1960-1974: Anti-colonialism, Education, and the Socialist Alliance’, Journal of Contemporary History 56, no. 1. (2021), 42–65. For the commission’s report, see Mario Soares Foundation: http://casacomum.org/cc/visualizador?pasta=07072.125.024, accessed 10 November 2023.

⁴⁸ For the transcripts, see RGASPI, M-1/46/403/112–6.

⁴⁹ The French-speaking countries included Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Niger, Senegal, and Togo. Apparently, Kenya did not always support a Maoist line.

⁵⁰ Komsomol report: RGASPI, M-3/8/1152/54.

⁵¹ Komsomol report, 22 February 1965: RGASPI, M-1/46/403/65–70.

⁵² FASSS resolution: GARF, R-9606/2/177/96.

⁵³ MGU report, 11 June 1964: RGASPI, M-1/46/354/20–4.

⁵⁴ FASSS resolution: RGASPI, M-3/3/274/127.

⁵⁵ Soviet Ministry of Education to the KGB, 23 April 1966: GARF, R-9606/2/223/45.

⁵⁶ UASE report, ‘Information on the Fourth Congress of the Union of African Students in Europe’: RGASPI, M-3/3/274/21–2.

⁵⁷ Picho’s speech: RGASPI, M-3/3/274/113–5.

⁵⁸ Komsomol report: RGASPI, f. M-1/39/67/27.

⁵⁹ Katsakioris, ‘Students’.

⁶⁰ Komsomol report, RGASPI, M-3/8/1152/54–6.

⁶¹ Transition 36, no. 7 (1968), 47-49.

⁶² Peter Benson, Black Orpheus, Transition, and Modern Cultural Awakening in Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 304.

⁶³ Roland Oliver, In the Realms of God: Pioneering in African History (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press 1997), 383.

⁶⁴ Robinson, Black on Red, 7–8.

⁶⁵ Republic of Kenya. The National Assembly Official Report, 06 February 1970, page 356.

⁶⁶ Sadji, Le rôle, 275–6.

⁶⁷ Solidarity Committee report, 1972: GARF, R-9606/1/5355/67.

⁶⁸ Tchapéyou to Souvarine, 23 Februray 1972: The Houghton Library at Harvard University, Boris Souvarine Papers, bMS FR 375 (653), ‘Kamine, Pierre’.

⁶⁹ La Planification en Afrique. Une étude succincte des grands aspects (Yaoundé: Centre d’édition et de production de l’enseignement et la recherche, 1983).

⁷⁰ Jeune Afrique, no. 739 (March 1975), 10; and ‘“Brauchst a Geld, Sigi?” Wie die Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung in Zaïre bayerische Aussenpolitik betreibt’, Der Spiegel, no. 16 (March 1984), 105–14.

⁷¹ Torben Gülstorff, ‘Trade Follows Hallstein? Deutsche Aktivitäten im zentralafrikanischen Raum des Second Scramble’, (unpublished PhD thesis, Humboldt University, 2012), 306–19.

⁷² David Kom, L’émancipation au Cameroun. Un Upéciste témoigne (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2001), 87.

⁷³ Sékou Traoré, Les intellectuels africains face au marxisme (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1983).

⁷⁴ Sidiki Guire, Les Comités de Défense de la Révolution du Burkina Faso (C.D.R.). Histoire d’une institution de contrôle politique de la société (1983-1987) (Lille: Atelier National de Reproduction des Thèses, 2003), 291–3.

⁷⁵ Paul A. Agbogba, ‘Le procès d’extension de la propriété sociale au Bénin’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Paris-Nanterre, 1986).

⁷⁶ Medeiros: Entrevistado, 30–45.

⁷⁷ Burgess, ‘Socialist Diaspora’, 271; idem, Race, Revolution, and the Struggle for Human Rights in Zanzibar: The Memoirs of Ali Sultan Issa and Seif Sharif Hamad (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2009), 130–1.

⁷⁸ Adebayo Olukoshi and Issa Aremu, ‘Structural Adjustment and Labour Subordination in Nigeria: The Dissolution of the Nigeria Labour Congress Revisited’, Review of African Political Economy 15, no. 43 (1988), 99–111.

⁷⁹ Mayer, Naija Marxisms, 161.

⁸⁰ ‘Former des cadres “rouges et experts”. Mouvement étudiant congolais en URSS et parti unique’, Cahiers d’Études africaines, 226:2 (2017), 313–29.

⁸¹ Secret circulars number 35 and 39, Soviet Ministry of Education, 1975: RGASPI, M-3/8/1152/46–104, page 49 for the quotation. The author hints at Lenin’s 1920 pamphlet, Left-wing Communism. An Infantile Disorder.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Charles University PRIMUS Research Grant.