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Paper short abstract:

This paper deals with the involvement of the Polish People’s Republic (PRL) in the Angolan decolonization process. Using a comparative approach, it aims to explore how Warsaw’s engagement in Angola differed from that of other communist actors.

Paper long abstract:

The relations between the countries of the Soviet bloc (Global East) and the decolonized states of the Global South have been a particular subject of analysis by historians focused on the agency of both peripheries in creating transcontinental interconnections of “socialist solidarity”. The wave of decolonization that swept across Lusophone Africa (1974-1977), particularly the complex Angolan transition to independence, was an active phase in the development of these links with the communist world, even with socialist states that were until then reluctant to become entangled in the competitive dynamics of the Cold War in Southern Africa. Recent historiography argues that the involvement of the Polish People’s Republic (PRL-Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa) in Africa was comparatively cautious and small-scale, based on a pragmatic approach guided by economic considerations and relatively independent of the Kremlin (see Gasztold 2018, 2023, Puchalski 2023, Knopek 2023). In this paper, exploring Polish archives systematically, we dialogue with this literature by focusing on the case of the Angolan process of decolonization as a privileged window of observation of the 'hot' Cold War in order to examine Warsaw’s involvement, interactions and motives. Particular emphasis is placed on a comparative approach with other communist actors to explore how Polish engagement in Angola differed from that of other socialist states.