Abstract
Ever since the intervention of Cuban troops in Angola, the West has tended to see Africa as a vast chessboard on which the Soviet Union can move its own pieces at will, whether Cuban or East German soldiers. Yet although Soviet global designs continue to claim our attention, it must be wondered whether we place too great an interest on Soviet strategic intentions and too little on the interests of its East European allies. Seemingly persuaded of the traditional threat, we often overlook the East European connection, or dismiss it as unimportant, or recognise its importance only to reduce the East Europeans to the status of surrogates of the Soviet Union.1 Too often we forget that the latter have economic interests of their own. Nowhere is this diversity more apparent than in Eastern Europe’s relations with Africa; equally, however, nowhere is the coincidence of interest more real.
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Notes and References
For two notable exceptions see David Albright, ‘The USSR: Its Communist Allies and Southern Africa’, International Affairs Bulletin, 4:3, 1980;
and Melvin Croan, ‘East Germany in Africa’, in David Albright/Jiri Valenta, (eds.), The Communist States in Africa (Bloomington, Indiana: University of Indiana Press, 1982).
See for instance V. Baryshnikov, ‘Raw Material Resources of Africa’, International Affairs, (Moscow) December 1974;
Dmitry Volsky, ‘Southern Verison of NATO’, New Times, 26 September 1976.
See the contributions of Marshall Goldman, Michael Dohan and Lawrence Theriot in The Soviet Economy in a Time of Change US Congress Joint Economic Committee (Washington DC: 1979).
Zycie Gospodarcze, 12 March 1961.
Arpad Orosz, ‘Trade of African Developing Countries up to 1970 and Prognosis to 1980’, Studies on Developing Countries No. 70 (Budapest: Institute for World Economics, 1975) p. 31.
Josef Nowicki, ‘Mineral Economic Relations of Poland and the Developing Countries of Africa’, Studies on the Developing Countries D. Morrison (ed.), No 2, 1972, p. 16.
B. Balkay, ‘The Developing Countries and the Raw Material Supply of the World Aluminium Industry’, Economic Relations with the Socialist Countries Vol I (Budapest: Institute for World Economics, 1978) pp. 106–7.
Vaclav Mondous, ‘The Socialist Countries and Their Relations with the National Liberation Movement of the Colonial Countries’, Pravda (Plzen) 4 July 1964.
Cited Robert Lamberg, Prag und die Dritte Welt (Hanover: Verlag für Literatur und Zeitgeschehen, 1966) p. 27.
Milan Madr, ‘Severoatlanticky Pakt a Afrika’ (NATO and Africa), Rude Pravo, 21 October 1962.
Narody Asii i Afriki, (Moscow) No. 20, 1961.
See Raymond Vernon/Brian Levy, ‘State Owned Enterprises in the World Economy: The Case of Iron Ore’, in Leroy Jones (ed.), Public Enterprise in Less Developed Countries: Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives (Cambridge, Massachussetts: Harvard University Press, 1981).
Zuhayr Mikdashi, The International Politics of National Resources (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1976) p. 121.
For Polish economic works on Africa see Jerzy Prokopczvk, The Third World in Search of a World to Develop (Warsaw: 1973);
Zbigniew Dobosiewicz, Economic Integration of Less Developed Countries (Warsaw: 1971);
Michal Dobroczynski, Africa and International Trade (Warsaw: 1972).
Sandor Ausch, Theory and Practice of CMEA Cooperation (Budapest: Academiai Kiado, 1972) p. 59.
Africa Economic Digest, 6 February 1981.
Istvan Dobozi, ‘Projected Trends of World Raw Material and Energy Markets until 2000’, Studies on Developing Countries, No. 110 (Budapest: Institute for World Economics, 1982) p. 20.
R. Dietz, Price Changes in Soviet Trade with CMEA and the Rest of the World Since 1975 (Joint Economic Committee of US Congress 1979).
See also S. Rosfielde, ‘Comparative Advantage and the Evolving Pattern of Soviet Commodity Specialisation’ in S. Rosfielde (ed.), Economic Welfare and the Economics of Soviet Socialism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).
The Wharton Business School predicts that world market prices will grow by only 4½ per cent between 1983–87. Nevertheless, even this growth rate may lead to a serious deterioration in the terms of trade for Eastern Europe and may demand greater Soviet financial assistance, a recycling of petroroubles earned from the export of oil, perhaps, in the form of low interest rate trade credits. See John Vanous, ‘East European Economic Slowdown’ Problems of Communism, 31:4, July/August 1982, p. 9.
Scienteia, 4 August 1978.
Revista Economica, 42, 12 November 1982, p. 54. Between 1975–80 trade with the West fell from 36 per cent to 30 per cent.
The Lead and Zinc Industries in the Soviet Union (US Central Intelligence Agency, March 1980) p. 10.
CIA figures cited, Africa Contemporary Record 1980–81 (ed.) Colin Legum (London: Rex Collings, 1981) p. C135.
V. V. Strishkov, ‘The Soviet Union’, in Mining Annual Review, (1980) pp. 579–605.
Non-Fuel Minerals Policy Review: Oversight Hearings before the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs Subcommittee on Mines and Mining, US Congress, 96th Congress, 2nd Session 1980 pp. 32–46.
Soviet Economy in Time of Change, op. cit.
Walter Labys, ‘Role of the Soviet Union in the Metals Markets: A Case Study of Copper, Manganese and Chromite’, paper presented at the Conference on the Soviet Union in Commodity markets (Center for International Business Studies, University of Montreal, 8–9 October 1981).
The measure of self-sufficiency in copper and lead deteriorated steadily throughout the life of the Tenth Five Year Plan. See Daniel Papp, ‘Soviet Non-Fuel Mineral Resources: Surplus or Scarcity?’ Resources Policy, 8:3, September 1982 and
The Non-Fuel Minerals Outlook for the USSR through 1990 (Washington DC: Bureau of Mines, 1981).
Pravda, 22 November 1979.
Mining Journal, 2 January 1981.
Vneshniaia torgovlia, (Foreign Trade) Percentages for 1973 and 1974 were 88 per cent and 79 per cent respectively.
Papp, ‘Soviet Non-Fuel Mineral Resources’, op. cit., p. 169.
Alan Smith, ‘Economic Factors Affecting Relations in the 1980s’ in Karen Dawishs/Philip Hanson (eds.), Soviet-East European Dilemmas: Coercion, Competition and Consent (London: Heinemann, 1981) p. 120.
Harriet Matejka, ‘Soviet Coal Exports’ paper presented at Conference on Soviet Union in Commodity Markets, Montreal, 8–9 October 1981 p. 13.
Marie Lavigne, ‘The Problem of the Socialist Multinational Enterprise’, ACES Bulletin 18:1, Summer 1975, pp. 33–62.
See Kaiman Pecsi, The Future of Socialist Integration (New York: Sharpe, 1981);
and Petro Pavlov, ‘Problems of the Development and Improvement of the Mineral-Rich Material Complex of CMEA Countries’, Mezhdunarodni Otnosheniya, 6, 1980, pp. 52–64.
Marie Lavigne, ‘The Soviet Union inside COMECON’, Soviet Studies, 35:2, April 1983, p. 147.
I. Dobozi, ‘Raw Materials and Energy Policy Changes in CMEA Countries’, Kulgazdasag, No 1, 1979, pp. 11–23.
For some standard criticisms by Hungarian economists see Andras Koves, ‘East-West Trade and the Foreign Economic Strategy of CMEA Countries’, Kulgazdasag 5 May 1982, pp. 3–15;
Laszlo Csaba, ‘World Economic Adjustment and Economic Development in Eastern Europe’, Kulgazdasag, 4, 1982, pp. 12–29.
Laszlo Csaba, ‘Some Problems of the International Socialist Monetary System’, Acta Oeconomica, 23:1, 1979, pp. 17–37.
Laszlo Csaba, ‘The Place of the CMEA in the World Economy of the 1980s’, Valosag, July 1982, p. 5.
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Coker, C. (1985). The Warsaw Pact and Africa, 1959–83. In: NATO, The Warsaw Pact and Africa. Rusi Defence Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17884-1_7
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