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Abstract
The Leninist argument, that the class struggle of the European proletariat was intertwined with the liberation of the `toiling masses of the East', led to an official ideology of Soviet internationalism in which Africans occupied a special place. Depictions of the evils of racism in the US became a staple of Soviet popular culture and a number of black radicals, among them Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson and Claude McKay, flocked to the Soviet Union in the 1920s-30s, inspired by the belief that a society free of racism had been created. While there was some truth to this view, people of African descent in the Soviet Union nevertheless experienced a condescending paternalism, reflected also in their cinematic portrayal and in popular literature and folklore. With the onset of the cold war, young Africans were encouraged to study in Russia, where they received a mixed reaction and, on account of occasional conflict with the authorities and Soviet cultural norms, became symbols of dissent against official Soviet culture. Later, in the perestroika period, Africa became a scapegoat for popular discontent amidst a worsening climate of racism.
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Krokodil (No. 2, 20 January 1958 ), p. 8. Google Scholar | |
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Krokodil (No. 11, 20 April 1961), p. 5. Google Scholar | |
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Ministry of Foreign Affairs , ` Obraschenie Predsedatelia Soveta Narodnykh Komissarov V. I. Lenina i Narodnogo Komissara po Deelam Natsional'nostei I. V. Stalina ko Vsem Trudiashchimsia Musul'manam Rossii i Vostoka' [`Appeal by V. I. Lenin, the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, and by I. V. Stalin, the People's Commissar of Nationalities, to all Muslim proletarians of Russia and the East'], in Dokumenty Vneshnei Politiki SSSR, vol. I (Moscow, Politizdat, 1959), p. 34. Google Scholar | |
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Boris Kornilov , Moia Africa (Leningrad, Lenizdat , 1935), quoted in Edward Wilson , Russia and Black Africa (New York, Holmes & Meier, 1974), p. 95. In fact, the Soviets claimed to have won over an entire African regiment from the French forces employed to aid the Whites during the Civil War. See Allison Blakely , Russia and the Negro: blacks in Russian history and thought ( Washington, DC, Howard University Press, 1986), p. 82. Google Scholar | |
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| For more on the early Soviet writings on Africa, see Wilson , op. cit, pp. 99-120. Google Scholar | |
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Mikhail Pavlovich , Bor'ba za Aziiu i Afriku [The Struggle for Asia and Africa] ( Moscow, 1923), p. 209. Google Scholar | |
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| See Woodford McClellan , `Black hajj to ``Red Mecca'': Africans and Afro-Americans at KUTV, 1925-1938', in Maxim Matusevich (ed.), Africa in Russia, Russia in Africa: three centuries of encounters (Trenton, NJ, Africa World Press, 2006), pp. 61-83. Google Scholar | |
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Claude McKay , Negroes in America (London , Kennikat Press, 1979), p. 5. Google Scholar | |
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Langston Hughes , I Wonder as I Wander (New York, Hill & Wang, 1993), p. 73. Google Scholar | |
| For the next fifteen years, Homer Smith wrote a popular `Column from Moscow' for the Chicago Defender, often under the pen name of Chatwood Hall. Google Scholar | |
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Homer Smith , Black Man in Red Russia: a memoir (Chicago, Johnson Publishing , 1964), p. vii. Google Scholar | |
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`Tvoi Chudnyi Golos' [`Your wonderful voice'], Letters to Paul Robeson on the Occasion of his 75th Birthday, Manuscript Division, Moorland-Springarn Research Center, Howard University, Washington, DC, quoted in Blakely , op. cit, pp. 154-5. Google Scholar | |
| For an exhaustive analysis of Paul Robeson's ties to the Soviet Union, see Jeffrey C. Stewart (ed.), Paul Robeson: artist and citizen (New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers University Press, 1998). Google Scholar | |
| `To you beloved comrade', in Philip S. Foner (ed.), Paul Robeson Speaks: writings, speeches, interviews, 1918-1974 (New York, Brunner & Mazel, 1978), pp. 347-9. Google Scholar | |
| Black observers of and visitors to the Soviet Union were particularly intrigued (as Paul Robeson was) by the emancipation of the non-white ethnicities in Central Asia. The Uzbeks, the Tadjiks and others evoked powerful feelings of racial solidarity among visiting African Americans. Their lifestyles (cotton farming) and recent history (second- and third-class status in the pre-revolutionary colonial society) mirrored to an extent the black experience in the American South. It was for this reason that the Soviet republic of Uzbekistan became a destination of choice for African Americans journeying in the USSR, attracting not only idle travellers but also those willing to contribute to the agricultural development of Soviet Central Asia. In the late 1920s, a group of black Americans, headed by Tuskegee graduate Oliver Golden, arrived in Tashkent to work on an experimental cotton farm. See Allison Blakely , `African imprints on Russia', in Matusevich (ed.), Africa in Russia, Russia in Africa, op. cit., p. 47. Langston Hughes visited Uzbekistan on his own trip to Central Asia in 1932. Matt Crawford , one of the members of Hughes' group, wrote home to his wife that Central Asia was crucial to `believing in Russia': `There is an exact parallel between the condition that these people were under during the Czarist regime and the position of Negroes in the States now.' Quoted in Arnold Rampersad , The Life of Langston Hughes: volume I, 1902-1941 (Oxford, Oxford University Press , 2002), p. 256. John Sutton , another famous graduate of the Tuskegee Institute and favourite student of Dr George W. Carver, lived and worked in Uzbekistan from 1931-38. Three decades later, he would thus encourage his younger African American friend to visit the Soviet Union: `But, Elton, if you have the opportunity to visit the USSR by all means go! And if you can manage to get to Uzbekistan, go there too. You will find the Uzbeks so like our own people. After all, they, too, are among the colored peoples of the world.' Elton C. Fax , Through Black Eyes: journeys of a black artist to East Africa and Russia ( New York, Dodd, Mead & Co., 1974), p. 134. Google Scholar | |
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Paul Robeson , The Negro People and the Soviet Union (New York, New Century Publishers, 1950), p. 8. Google Scholar | |
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Smith , op. cit, pp. 56-7. Google Scholar | |
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Harry Haywood , Black Bolshevik: autobiography of an Afro-American communist (Chicago, IL, Liberator Press, 1978), pp. 170-1. Google Scholar | |
| A.L. Foster, leader of the Chicago Urban League, toured the USSR in 1936 and found the country and its people to be the eponym of racial equality: `It is the Communists alone, who offer colored people just what they say they are fighting for - political, social, cultural and economic equality.' Quoted in Mark Solomon , The Cry Was Unity: Communists and African Americans, 1917-36 ( Jackson, MS, University Press of Mississippi, 1998), p. 173. Google Scholar | |
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Ilya Ilf and Eugene Petrov , Little Golden America ( New York, Arno Press, 1974), p. 362. Google Scholar | |
| Ibid., p. 361. Google Scholar | |
| Ibid, pp. 362-3. Google Scholar | |
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Circus , dir. Georgii Alexandrov (Mosfilm, 1936 ). Google Scholar | |
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Maksimka , dir. Vladimir Braun (Studio Kiev, 1951 ). Google Scholar | |
| Smith, op. cit., p. 56. Emphasis added. Google Scholar | |
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Andrew Richard Amar , An African in Moscow ( London, Ampersand, 1963), p. 11. Google Scholar | |
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The Tale of How Tsar Peter Married Off his Negro, dir. Alexander Mitta (Mosfilm, 1976). Google Scholar | |
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A.B. Davidson , `History of Soviet African studies', paper delivered at the African Studies Association annual meeting in Nashville, TN (November 2000). Google Scholar | |
| See George Padmore , Pan-Africanism or Communism? ( New York, Roy Publishers, 1956). Google Scholar | |
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Hughes , op. cit, p. 76. Google Scholar | |
| Ibid., p. 80. Google Scholar | |
| Padmore, op. cit. Google Scholar | |
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David Albright (ed.), Africa and International Communism (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1980). See also George W. Breslauer (ed.), Soviet Policy in Africa (Berkeley, CA, Berkeley-Stanford Program in Soviet Studies, 1992). Google Scholar | |
| See, for example, John Akaan , `Nigerian students and the communist countries: Nigeria turns to the eastern world', unpublished paper, NIIA Collection, pp. 4-5. Google Scholar | |
| See N.L. Krylova , Russkie Zneshiny v Afrike: problemy adaptatsii [Russian Women in Africa: the problems of adaptation] ( Moscow, ROSSPEN, 1996). Google Scholar | |
| See, for example, Woodford McClellan , `Africans and black Americans in the Comintern schools, 1925-1934', The International Journal of African Historical Studies (Vol. 26, no. 2, 1993) and McClellan , `Black hajj to ``Red Mecca''', op. cit. Google Scholar | ISI | |
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Smith , op. cit, p. 105. Google Scholar | |
| See, for example, Olabisi Ajala , An African Abroad ( London, Jarolds, 1963); Amar , op. cit; Jan Carew , Moscow is Not My Mecca (London, Secker & Warburg, 1964); Andrea Lee , Russian Journal (New York, Random House, 2006); Nicholas Nyangira , `Africans don't go to Russia to be brainwashed ', New York Times Magazine (16 May 1965), p. 64.; S. Omor Okullo , `A Negro's life in Russia - beatings, insults, segregation', US News and World Report (Vol. XLIX, no. 5, 1963), pp. 59-60. Google Scholar | |
| For an exhaustive analysis of this episode, see Julie Hessler , `Death of an African student in Moscow: race, politics and the Cold War', Cahiers du Monde russe (Vol. 47, nos. 1-2, 2006), pp. 33-64. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
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`Students demand bill of rights', West African Pilot (30 December 1963). Google Scholar | |
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Sunny Odulana , `Our students in Moscow', West African Pilot (2 January 1964). Google Scholar | |
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`Kiev strike settled', Africa Diary (Vol. 15, no. 49, 3-9 December 1975), pp. 7703-4. Google Scholar | |
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`The plight of our students in the USSR', West African Pilot (3 February 1964). Google Scholar | |
| Ibid. Google Scholar | |
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George Feifer , `The red and the black: racism in Moscow', Reporter (2 January 1964), p. 27. Google Scholar | |
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Amar , op. cit, p. 19. Google Scholar | |
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Lee , op. cit, p. 152. Google Scholar | |
| `Savannah and Taiga', in Yevgenii Yevtushenko , Vzmah Ruki [An Outstretched Hand] (Moscow, Molodaya Gvardia , 1962), pp. 58-9. My translation. Google Scholar | |
| Martin Luther King, Jr, with his Christian gospel and Gandhi-inspired tactics of civil disobedience, had to be inconvenient for the Soviets. They far preferred such firebrand radicals as Dr Angela Davis, whose famous 1971-72 trial occasioned a massive propaganda campaign of support by the Soviet Union. See, for example, numerous commentaries and cartoons about the trial in contemporary issues of Krokodil. A typical one depicts a plucky Davis holding her head high in front of a racist judge. The sleeve of the judge's robe is in fact an executioner's axe ready to drop on the courageous black communist. Krokodil (No. 5, February 1972), p. 10. But even Angela Davis inspired more than a sense of solidarity in the hearts of the Soviet intelligentsia. In 1978, a leading Soviet nuclear physicist Sergei Polikanov was expelled from the Communist Party after making a statement to western reporters protesting restrictions on travel abroad. `It was easier to fight for the freedom of Angela Davis than for our own freedom', announced Polikanov. `Soviet physicist who complained of travel curb is ousted by Party', New York Times (28 March 1978). Google Scholar | |
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Henry Kamm , `Portrait of a dissenter', preface to Andrei Amal'rik, Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984? (New York, Harper & Row, 1970), p. XIII. Google Scholar | |
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Amar , op. cit, p. 63. Google Scholar | |
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Ibid, p. 63. Google Scholar | |
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All quotes in this paragraph come from S. Frederick Starr, Red and Hot: the fate of jazz in the Soviet Union, 1917-1991 ( New York, Limelight Editions, 1994 ), p. 91. Google Scholar | |
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Assa , dir. Sergey Soloviev ( Mosfilm, 1988). Google Scholar | |
| See Louis Grachos , Afrika (Los Angeles, CA, University of Southern California Fisher Gallery, 1991). Google Scholar | |
| The lyrics of the song come from a popular children's poem. See Kornei Chukovskii , Doktor Aibolit [Doctor Dolittle] (Moscow, Detskaiia Literatura, 1961). Google Scholar | |
| See Mikhail Gorbachev , Perestroika (New York, Harper & Row, 1988). Google Scholar | |
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L.Z. Zevin and E.L. Simonov , `Pomosh' i Ekonomicheskoe Sotrudnichestvo SSSR s Razvivayushimisia Stranami: Uroki, Problemy i Perspektivy' [Assistance and economic cooperation between the USSR and developing countries: lessons, problems, and perspectives], Narody Azii i Afriki (No. 2, 1990), pp. 5-17. Google Scholar | |
| Composed by V. Shainskii. Author's translation. Google Scholar | |
| See Charles Quist-Adade , In the Shadows of the Kremlin and the White House: Africa's media image from Communism to post-Communism (Lanham, MD, University Press of America , 2001) and his `From paternalism to ethno-centrism: images of Africa in Gorbachev's Russia', Race & Class (Vol. 46, no. 4, 2006), pp. 79-89. Google Scholar | |
| For a typical reaction, see W.O. Alli , `Glasnost and perestroika in the Soviet Union: implications for Africa', in Perestroika and Europe 1992: proceedings of a national seminar (Kano , Nigeria, The Nigerian Economic Society, 1991), pp. 163-4. Google Scholar | |
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`Xenoracism reaches Russia', IRR News (17 March 2004), <http://www.irr.org.uk/2004/march/ak000015.html>. Google Scholar |
