It is no longer possible to read an article on Black Africa in the international press without running across a refrain about "Soviet-Cuban expansionism." The imperialist bourgeoisie seems to have found a philosopher's stone for explaining its policies toward Africa, claiming that its aim is to defend the African peoples from "Communist bloc" aggression. After all, isn't Giscard d'Estaing's slogan "Africa for the Africans"? Similarly, the Western coun tries have shouldered the burden of a new mission-to protect the African continent from a deadly and diabolical campaign of destabilization.
After three years of talk about a "new international economic order"
and
"north-south dialogue," the imperialist and neocolonial authorities reached agreement on a few reforms in the system of domination. The European-African solidarity pact was launched with a great deal of publicity as a "grand new idea."
"I hope that some day," Giscard declared in the Ivory Coast, "this complementary relationship between Europe and Africa will suddenly blossom into a pact of solidarity crowning the work of decolonization and opening a new era of solidarity." Ivorian President Félix Houphouët-Boigny rejoiced "as an African and a free man" that France had decided to oppose the "ideological confrontations that set Asians and Africans against each other."
In short, the most aggressive imperialist powers, like France, are now presenting themselves as the best defenders of peace. More nationalist than the African nationalists themselves, they are making thundering declarations about situations in Africa that must be protected from foreign meddling, whether "military or ideological."
To be sure, this fantastic bluff has won little credibility among the African masses, who have been able to ascertain very well, over a period of twenty years, that these beautiful principles are pure
The intervention of Belgian nonsense.
forces in the Congo in 1960 and of French troops in Gabon in 1964, in Senegal in 1968, in Chad in 1970, and in Zaire, Sahara, Chad, and Djibouti in 1977, as well as the proliferation of garrisons and military delegations, all give a good accounting of Western intentions in Africa.
As far as Soviet policy goes, it has never sparkled with clarity. The Soviet leadership's secret diplomacy, maneuvers, and eye-dropper aid to the liberation movements has hardly enhanced its credit among the new post-independence generation of politicians. China could likewise pride itself on being in a vanguard position of solidarity, having issued a few communiqués and granted some material aid. But since independence, the generalized crisis of the neocolonial states, the mounting struggles, and the radicalization of African youth have made the maneuvers of the bureaucratic leaderships in Moscow and Peking more complex.
Cuba in the Angolan Civil War
The Castroist leadership has enjoyed a certain prestige in central Africa since the time of Pierre Mulele's guerrillas in the former Belgian Congo and since the 1963 insurrection in Congo-Brazzaville, during which youth organizations appeared that explicitly claimed the mantle of Che Guevara. Nonetheless, the Cuban influence remained superficial among the nationalist factions.
During the liberation struggle in Angola, the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) appealed to Havana for supplementary military aid and medical assistance; most other aid came from the Soviet Union.
When the civil war erupted and the MPLA was challenged by a coalition of the FNLA, UNITA,' Zaire, and South Africa, the MPLA proved incapable of standing up to the military offensive of its adversaries. The troops of the Angolan People's Liberation Armed Forces—poorly armed, poorly organized, its regiments hastily formed from the Luanda militia-were incapable of fighting in positional warfare.
Contrary to the yarns later spun by the Western press, it was after South African troops had entered Angola that Moscow decided to increase military aid to the MPLA. Heavy armaments were sent in large quantities to help defend Luanda. But that alone could not suffice, given the extent of political disorganization within the MPLA camp. The conflicts among the neighborhood committees, the far-left groups, and the Neto leadership rendered the appeals for unity and discipline ineffective.
It was then that the first Cuban expeditionary corps arrived in Angola. It initially took charge of organizing and training the troops. But very quickly its ranks were enlarged and thousands of Cuban troops branched out into different tasks. Some went to the battle front, where they played a decisive role, and others reorganized the rear areas. The Cuban policy in Angola could give the illusion that the first aspect of its intervention seemed to be the essential one.
In face of the reactionary coalition, the masses of Luanda, Benguela, and Malange, who had mobilized in a particularly radical fashion, were in a weak position. The national leadership in which they placed their confidence had contributed greatly to their lack of preparation.
The Castroist leadership's opportunism at that time consisted of not making the slightest criticism of the MPLA leadership, and even of apologizing for it in such a
(Angolan National Liberation Front) and União Nacional para Independência Total de Angola (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola).
way that the masses became still more firmly attached to the MPLA's coattails. Evidently, it was out of the question for the Cubans to aid in the formation of a genuine communist alternative leadership. At the very most, they maintained complex relations with different factions in the MPLA apparatus, before returning definitively to the dominant faction of Neto and Lucio Lara."
As early as August 1975, when the MPLA leadership began to repress the far left, there was no longer any doubt that the Cuban high command supported this policy.
In late 1975 and the beginning of 1976, when the enemy began to pull back and the task of reconstructing the Angolan economy came to the fore, the Cubans took a decisive part in running enterprises and ministries. There, in the name of efficiency and under the slogan of "produce and resist," they showed no apprehension about becoming the best agents for overseeing the workforce and "national reconstruction." The Castroist leadership no longer concealed its desire to build a strong state, side by side with the MPLA.
The institutionalization of the neighborhood committees confirmed the bourgeois nature of that state. The Angolan economy, despite the nationalization of the Portuguese investments, remains dominated by the oil and diamond sectors controlled by the American and European imperialists and by the South African capitalists. It is therefore a bourgeois state and a neocolonial economy that the Cubans have helped to stabilize.
When a faction of the bureaucracy led by Nito Alves attempted an adventurist coup against the Netoist leadership of the MPLA in May 1977, it was Cuban troops who helped reestablish order.
Today, at least for the moment, Angola has dropped from the headlines. But everything indicates that it will return, placing Cuban policy in a delicate position. Without thousands of Cubans, without the Soviet and East German technicians, the Angolan state amounts to very little. With South African aid, the UNITA retains a strong position in central and southern parts of the country.
The Cuban campaign "against the foreign invasion" achieved a certain success. In face of the invasion, and to counter all the opposition forces, the Angolan leadership, with the aid and inspiration of the Soviets, Cubans, and East Germans, has created a police state worthy of classical Stalinist methods. The prisons, the political police, and the omnipotent state bureaucracy are little by little forging a strong anticommunist sentiment among the masses. This is no small paradox in view of the radical level of consciousness among the urban workers during the civil war of 1975.
From Angola to Ethiopia
The Cuban presence in Angola, as everyone knows, became a hot item in the proimperialist press. The defenders of "Pax Americana" denounced it as a new "Prague coup"! The Cubans were everywhere, the entire continent was tilting toward the Communist camp. Such was the cartoon-strip image painted daily by those who kept silent for so many years about the imperialist plunder of the continent.
A great fear then gripped the imperialists over Zimbabwe, where an armed struggle was developing against the racist regime of Ian Smith. Western diplomats stormed about and threatened to intervene if Cuban troops ever left Angola for the Rhodesian front. It did not matter that Havana had several times denied any intention to do so.
It was, in fact, toward the Horn of Africa, in Ethiopia, that the Castroist leadership turned its attention.
Since the downfall of Emperor Haile Selassie, a series of political crises and social confrontations developed in Ethiopia. The peasants and urban masses mobilized against all that survived of the old regime and initiated, here and there, very radical struggles that threw up their own forms of organization.
The Maoist far-left grew rapidly but split into several organizations, of which the two main ones, Me'ison and the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party, ended up by violently attacking each other. The old feudalists and those layers far to the right of the state apparatus joined the ranks of the EDU.3
The ruling military junta, the Dergue, split into diverse factions and experienced a series of palace coups and settlings of accounts.
The empire of Menelik is going through a process of fragmentation. The oppressed nationalities are revolting against the central power. The Eritrean liberation fronts are advancing little by little toward the regional capital of Asmara.
The arrival of the first Cubans in Ethiopia was announced at the end of 1976. The contingent was quickly strengthened as soon as Somalian troops achieved some rapid victories in the Ogaden and advanced toward the railway between Addis Ababa and Djibouti. An extensive Soviet airlift then furnished the Dergue with heavy weapons, which Soviet and Cuban advisers put into operation before the launching of the victorious counteroffensive of March 1978.
Within a period of a few months, we have seen a spectacular shift of alliances in the region. At the beginning, Somalia served as a Soviet beachhead. Siad Barre, the Somali head of state, was considered a model "progressive" military figure. The "Somalian revolution"
was regularly hailed in the Stalinist press.
In Ethiopia, within the Dergue, the contesting factions proposed very diverse international alliances.
Under constant pressure from the mass movement and confronted with a breakdown of the state apparatus and the economy, the Ethiopian officers were split over what solutions to adopt. But the pettybourgeois nature of this leadership greatly limited its political and economic options. Against those tendencies that considered it necessary to crush the mass movement outright and rely directly on imperialism, the "radical" tendency in the Dergue, led by Mengistu, gradually imposed itself following a bloodbath conducted among the ranks of the junta.
Mengistu's policy consisted of gradually integrating the organizational forms of the mass movement within the state apparatus, transforming their character in the process. In doing so, he achieved legitimacy vis-à-vis the masses at relatively little cost, strengthened his power at the expense of the left, and presented himself as a Bonaparte. He conceded a certain number of demands, spouted populist rhetoric, and proclaimed his adherence to socialism. He finally effected a dramatic reconciliation with Moscow in hopes of obtaining Soviet economic and military aid.
In the end Mengistu hopes to rebuild the state apparatus and also be able to disarm the militias, "normalize" the unions, and rebuild the economy. Only an alliance with the Soviet bureaucracy allows him to do all that. Even more, the borrowed ideology of Stalinism gives the uniformed political adventurers a minimum degree of cohesion in order to construct a bureaucratic state, to establish an economy divided between openings toward foreign capital and nationalizations of some sectors, and to regiment the masses.
There can be no doubt that in order to prevent the Ethiopian revolution from going much further, Mengistu's solution is the best. The mass movement has already receded. Me'ison, which gave the junta "critical support," has had to go into opposition.
The recent victory against the Somalians will probably allow the Soviets and
Cubans to turn toward the task of "peaceful" reconstruction of the state apparatus.
But as compared to the case in Angola, the Cubans find themselves in a more delicate position in Ethiopia. On one hand, the Ethiopian left is far stronger than the Angolan oppositionists were. Even without a change in the relationship of forces, it is at least forseeable that the resistance may grow considerably stiffer. On the other hand, the Cubans can no longer use the argument that what is involved is a national liberation struggle and intervention against a proimperialist bloc like the FNLA-UNITA alliance. It is intervening on the side of a ruling military leadership in conflict with Somalia.
In this sense, the Cuban intervention against the Eritrean people and against the Ethiopian people's committees can be seen quite clearly. Conscious of this, the Castroist leadership proposes a solution to the national question. It advocates a "socialist federation"" of states in the Horn of Africa, where previously it supported the Eritreans and the Somalian regime. This proposal has no chance of being realized. But it once again permits a recognition of the old centralist theories that run counter to the democratic measures demanded by the oppressed populations.
In a way, the Cubans rely on the reactionary regimes in the region to satisfy the demands of the peoples of Eritrea and the right to self-determination of the inhabitants of the Ogaden. The struggle for the satisfaction of these demands being part and parcel of the struggle for a socialist revolution in the region, Havana and Moscow denounce it as a "proimperialist theory" aimed at balkanizing Africa. In doing so, they repeat the arguments of the charter of the Organization of African Unity (OAU).
Castro Raises Revisionism to the Level of Theory
During the Angolan crisis, the Cubans had at first provided some basis for belief in their independence vis-à-vis Soviet policy. When Moscow, in unison with all the African states, displayed some sensitivity to the discussions of the OAU, Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, one of the most prominent Stalinists within the Cuban leadership, clearly explained that whether or not the Cubans would remain in Angola would be determined solely by Cuba's relationship with the MPLA leadership.
But despite these declarations, it quickly became clear that the Cuban intervention could not have taken place without the Soviet arms shipments and economic aid. The division of labor between the Cubans and Soviets (or East Germans) does not conceal a different policy. It developed for the most part as a result of contact with the masses; the Cubans were in some ways more "militant" than the Soviets, whose behavior is traditionally detested by the population.
In March 1977, when Podgorny (at that time still the Soviet head of state) made a visit to southern Africa, Fidel Castro stopped off in several African capitals, including those in Angola, Somalia (l), and Ethiopia. The synchronization of the two trips symbolizes the broad collaboration that has been established between Havana and Moscow in this domain.
Several months later, the conflict in the Ogaden confirmed that the Cuban operation in Angola was not simply a one-shot effort. By their visits to Addis Ababa, the highest Cuban officials sought to underline the importance of their involvement in that part of the world.
In an interview given to the Paris journal Afrique Asie and published in the May 16, 1977, issue, Castro outlined his views on the situation in Africa and on Cuban policy in the region.
The document is extremely important for analyzing Castro's policies.
It confirms both the opportunism and the "astuteness" of the Cuban prime minister in his political characterizations of this or that regime. In carefully chosen formulations, he defends his support to bourgeois regimes by classifying them in essentially idealistie and subjective terms. His aim is both to justify the present situation, and to anticipate the future evolution of some of the states in question:
We will remain in Angola as long as necessary, in agreement with the sovereign government of that sister nation, in order to contribute to the defense of the country and to consolidate its independence against all threats of aggression, no matter what their source..
Africa is the weakest link in the imperialist chain today..• There are excellent perspectives there for going directly from tribalism to socialism, without having to go through certain stages that other regions of the world had to experience. As revolutionaries, we have the duty to support the anti-imperialist, antiracist and antineocolonialist struggle.
Africa is very important today. Imperialist domination isn't as strong there America. Therefore, there are real possibilities for the revolution in Africa....
The struggle in Latin America continues to be a hard one, because the bourgeoisie controls everything: the economy, the universities, the press, all aspects of national life. This phenomenon doesn't exist in Africa, where there isn't any bourgeoisie as such...
The course taken by FRELIMO is a truly revolutionary one. FRELIMO is clearly a very revolutionary, very serious organization that is working hard to build socialism..
At first, I did not foresee going to Ethiopia. But the unexpected events of last February 3 and the eruption of the conflicts between the Ethiopian right and left, with Mengistu Mariam at the head of the revolution, led us to send a delegation to make contact with that country....
I think there are certain similarities between the Ethiopian Revolution and the French and Bolshevik Revolutions... The February 3 events have been decisive. That was when the left and the true leaders of the Revolution took control and the process was directed along revolutionary lines.
I've gotten to know Mengistu very well. He is a serene, intelligent, daring and courageous man, and I think that he has exceptional qualities as a revolutionary leader...
Let me repeat that I think that Mengistu is a true revolutionary and that the revolution now being developed in Ethiopia is a true revolution (emphasis added throughout].®
Castro thus makes an erroneous analysis of the African social formation ("there isn't any bourgeoisie as such"). He fails to make any social characterization of the regimes that he supports and remains silent on the question of petty-bourgeois nationalism and the maintenance of the laws of the market. He characterizes particular leaders as "true" revolutionaries and calls attention to "courses" leading to "true" revolutions.
In relation to Ethiopia, Castro not only repeated the official arguments of the Dergue placing all opposition in the reactionary camp, but added that it was the victory of the "left" wing of the army over the "right" wing that put the country "on the revolutionary path."
Cuba and Peaceful Coexistence
In 1977, when troops of the National Liberation Front of the Congo attacked Shaba, the major international press followed Mobutu's lead in denouncing the presence of Cubans and Soviets. At first glance, this seemed to show a lack of understanding of the difficulties Moscow and Havana encountered in their efforts to rebuild the Angolan economy and state. Destabilization of the Zaïrian regime would have created such chaos in the region that the Soviet-Cuban policy in Angola would have become unfeasible.
But more interesting in this period were the statements of Andrew Young, the American ambassador to the United Nations, who declared outright, "The only thing I'm thinking is, don't get paranoid about a few Communists-even a few thousand Communists."
So things are more political than the anti-Cuban tirades of the proimperialist press would indicate. If the choice was between socialist revolution or a Bonapartist, populist regime supported by the Soviets and Cubans, that's an easy one for any bourgeois leader.
In February 1978, Carlos Rafael Rodrí- guez echoed these statements. He told Le Monde that "Cuba does not aid subversion, but on the contrary participates, as the American ambassador to the United Nations admitted, in an effort of stabilization, or struggle against subversion"!
To be sure, the policy of peaceful coexistence does not signify that either of the two camps considers the relationship of forces between imperialism and the Soviet bureaucracy to be immutable. The world status quo does not mean that the diplomatic map is fixed once and for all.
On the contrary, imperialism and the Stalinist bureaucracy are engaged in a sharp battle for influence and the Soviets are perfectly capable of rushing into a breach that imperialism is incapable of filling. In the last analysis, however, such intervention is in no way aimed at aiding the rise of a socialist revolution, but to the contrary at stabilizing the situation and blocking the unfolding anticapitalist developments. The payoff for this policy is the utilization by the Soviets, for a certain length of time, of economic and diplomatic advantages gained in this way in one country or another.
But overall the Soviets are not the masters of the game. To conduct such a policy, they must tail behind the bourgeois or petty-bourgeois leaderships to whom Soviet aid is temporarily necessary. Once the indigenous leaderships have passed through their rough times, an alliance with imperialism will appear to them as a better and more secure guarantee against the mass movement. The Soviets are thus forced to continually reexamine their whole system of alliances in a continent like Africa.
Such continual shifts are not, as the Western press pretends to think, the result of calculated cynicism and crafty maneuvers on the part of the Soviets. In fact, it follows from their attachment to "peaceful coexistence."
In this sordid game, the Chinese have demonstrated their ability to compete with the Soviets in the field of opportunism. Over the past few years the Soviets have skillfully managed to milk the advantage of happening to be on the progressive side, while the Chinese, as in Angola, ended up in the same camp with the CIA and South African advisers. This does not, however, alter the identical character of their policies.
The Cuban leadership, according to the old theory that "the friends of my friends are my friends," followed this course and stuck to the twists and turns of Soviet policy.
Of course, the political nature of a working-class leadership cannot be defined simply through an examination of its foreign policy. But it is necessary to recognize that the sending of several thousand troops and civilians to Africa is no longer just a matter of foreign policy. Such a human levy must in some way correspond to internal economic or political necessities.
ties.
Consequently, discussion of the Cuban policy in Africa is part of a much larger debate on the present nature of the Castroist leadership and on the degree of bureaucratization of the Cuban state. Cuban policy already includes discussions with American imperialism aimed at lifting the economic blockade.
What we have here is very far from a policy of proletarian internationalism, even if such a policy does not exclude beforehand tactical support to nationalist leaderships against imperialism.
That is why the imperialists oscillate between anti-Cuban hysteria and more realistic assessments. What the West clearly dreads is not an anticapitalist intervention by the Cubans in Angola, Ethiopia, or elsewhere. What they fear, as in the case of Angola, is that a defeat for reaction will encourage the combativity of the African masses. They remember very well that the setbacks suffered by the South Africans preceded the Soweto uprisings.
The defeat of the MPLA in Angola would have led to the physical liquidation of the urban mass movement and upset all of Moscow's diplomatic arrangements in central and southern Africa. It would have been a big victory for imperialism.
On the other hand, the MPLA's victory, with Cuban aid, permitted the Neto leadership to integrate the people's formations and reestablish the authority of the nationalists. The social dynamic was thus checked, while at the same time reinforeing Soviet diplomacy in the region.
In the case of Ethiopia, assistance to a military junta in power is involved.
The Mengistu faction is threatened on all sides, even from within the Dergue itself. The instability is so great that imperialism has hesitated to directly aid Somalia. Working through Saudi Arabia, for example, the Western capitals hold other cards, such as the overthrow of Mengistu and the installation in Addis Ababa of a team more open to American pressure. But the Dergue as a whole, including Mengistu, is not opposed to a compromise with Washington.
The Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) has on several occasions published communiqués denouncing Cuban aid to the Ethiopian troops whom they are fighting. This is a significant fact since the EPLF has traditionally had good relations with Havana.
The reduction in American aid to the Dergue did not result fundamentally from the Cuban presence or from Mengistu's "socialism." It stemmed from Washington's belief that Mengistu was incapable of really opposing the masses.
Carter estimates that the nefarious relations between Addis Ababa and Moscow endanger American diplomatic dominoes in the region.
The meetings between Siad Barre, the Somalians, and imperialist officials prove once again that the number of Soviet experts who worked there previously for the "Somalian revolution" did not change the character of this type of regime or the capitalist nature of its economy.
Cuba intervened in Ethiopia at the same moment that Mengistu moved into action against the autonomy of the Ethiopian masses. To aid Mengistu is, in the final analysis, to back this political aim. It does not advance the class and national liberation struggles in the Horn of Africa by one inch. It allows the Dergue to easily adopt a "progressive" image and reinforces the most adventurist Maoist theories among the youth.
This pushes the Cuban troops toward a dangerous dynamic-to keep the Ethiopian troops from suffering the slightest defeat on any front so as to avoid giving the impression that they themselves have been beaten.
Yesterday, the Cubans confronted Somalian troops. Tomorrow it could be the Eritreans or activists of the Ethiopian left. Such a policy cannot be supported in any way. It must be condemned.
Notes
1. Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola
2. For its part, the Fourth International supported the camp of the MPLA against the imperialist intervention, while continuing to make clear its criticisms of the MPLA's petty-bourgeois leadership and program. It called for the formation of a revolutionary party and expressed its solidarity with the victimized activists of the far left.
3. Ethiopian Democratic Union, an armed rightist group.
4. Emperor Menelik II, who ruled from 1889 to 1913, carried out a series of conquests of the Oromos, Somalis, and other peoples, greatly expanding the area ruled by his Amharic dynasty.—IP/I
5. Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (Mozambique Liberation Front).
6. Major excerpts from the interview in Afrique- Asie also appeared in the May 22, 1977, issue of the English-language weekly edition of Granma, the official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba.-IP/I