USSR-AFRICA RELATIONS IN THE 1970s AND 1980s: AN ANALYTICAL PROPOSAL OF MOTIVATIONS, CONDITIONING ELEMENTS AND IMPACTS

Abstract

The article analyzes the Soviet Union (USSR) relations with African states that were its allies. The period studied covers the 1970s and the 1980s, focusing on reciprocal motivations, conditioning elements and the resulting impacts and legacies of this relationship. This process gained relevance belatedly, over a short period of two decades (1969-89), targeted a few countries, but was intense (often motivated by Cuba) and had a relevant impact on the transformation of Africa. The article seeks to demonstrate that African nations were not “pawns” of the Cold War in their cooperation with Moscow, nor did the USSR have a systemic project of “exporting the revolution” or a geopolitical Grand Design for Africa.