Paper short abstract:

The paper addresses how Angola's Cold War relations with Cuba & the Soviet Union were seen by officers & soldiers who studied abroad or interacted with advisors from abroad. Based on recent interviews, it analyses sometimes contradictory personal & political interests beneath stories of solidarity.

Paper long abstract:

Cuban and Soviet expertise were central to the security of the Angolan MPLA party-state, and to social and economic development. Complementing a literature that has centred the strategic and ideological priorities of Cuba and the USSR, this paper addresses how relations with socialist allies were seen by officers and soldiers of the MPLA’s armed forces, who studied abroad or interacted with advisors from Angola’s allied states, and the implication of this for the creation of an Angolan national identity.

Angolans who studied in the USSR saw the benefits of a technologically advanced society and recognised a connection between the Soviet resistance to Nazism, and an anti-colonial ideology that the MPLA defended. Those who had been in Cuba were shocked by the harshness of life there, which enhanced their admiration for the Cuban people but prompted doubts about the efficacy of the Cuban social model. Inside Angola, Soviet advisors were seen as culturally alien and bureaucratic, useful as instructors in using technology; by contrast, Angolans saw Cubans as culturally proximate, pragmatic and dedicated. Yet gratitude for solidarity was tempered by suspicion that both Cubans and Soviets had ulterior motives in Angola. Even as the MPLA remained aligned to the Eastern Bloc and its officers believed that they continued to wage an anti-colonial struggle, they recognised that socialism was a necessary gesture to cement foreign support – a belief that was accompanied by a deep suspicion of all politicians alongside a conviction of the moral and practical superiority of the military itself.