Keywords: Year of Africa, Russian Abroad, emigrant press

The rapid decolonization of Africa in the late 1950s and early 1960s increased interest in the Black continent around the world. Newspapers and magazines from different countries turned in their articles to stories devoted to African topics. The press of the Russian diaspora, which in the 1960s paid great attention to the development of political processes in African countries, did not escape this. Undoubtedly, the assessments of events in Africa given by expat analysts were largely determined by their general political views and bore a strong imprint of the Cold War era. The political and cultural centers of the Russian post-war diaspora were quite far from Africa, and emigrant publicists often could not see what was happening on this continent firsthand. Nevertheless, the introduction to Russian emigrant African studies is interesting both from a scientific and cognitive point of view.

In 1951, a well - known public figure of the Russian emigration, the social Democrat N. V. Valentinov, wrote to the writer and poetess N. N. Berberova: "I am interested in what is being done in Africa. I have hitherto assumed that Africa, with its untapped natural resources, is a necessary condition for the very possibility of a united Western Europe, in other words, without attracting Africa, Western Europe will not have a strong economic base. To what extent, then, are the normal conditions for attracting a new Africa to Europe now being formed and are they being formed, and by leaving the colonial state, it is becoming a new one?". Raising this problem, N. V. Valentinov asked his correspondent: "Is the emigrant press interested in this question?" And he himself answered with regret: "Not at all. I haven't seen a single article about Tom in it"¹. However, by the early 1960s, the situation had changed. In the Year of Africa, all the leading expat publications closely followed the development of events on the Black Continent.

EMIGRANT PRESS ABOUT THE "COLLAPSE OF THE FRENCH EMPIRE"

Back in the 1950s, before the Year of Africa, Russian emigration could not be indifferent to the situation in Algeria, where during the period of French rule there was a large community of immigrants from Russia. Representatives of the "Russian diaspora" (especially in France) followed with concern the development of the national liberation movement in Algeria and the activities of the National Liberation Front (FLN). In particular, expatriate mass media expressed concerns that Algeria's independence would negatively affect the situation of the Russian diaspora there.

Quite widely in the emigrant press covered the most important event for the country in 1960-the referendum on the fate of Algeria. At the same time, publications devoted to the referendum appeared not only in those publications published in France, but also on the pages of leading emigrant newspapers and magazines published in other countries. These events were closely followed, for example, by the New York Socialist Bulletin, published in 1921 , an organ of Menshevik emigration, whose leading expert in African studies was gradually becoming a well-known historian, formerly a professor at Moscow University, the old Menshevik Yu.P. Denike. Throughout the entire existence of the Algerian problem, he called for its speedy solution, so that the anti-colonial movement in this North African country would not fall under the full control of political groups oriented towards the USSR. The old Social Democrat pointed out that the French government needed to come to an agreement with the FLN, which was, in his opinion, "completely free from communist influence."

he did not seek help from communist countries. " ²

Algeria gained independence in 1962. The monarchical part of the fading "Russian Paris" saw this as a heavy defeat for France. According to monarchist publicists, the collapse of the French empire led to the fact that modern France turned from a powerful colonial power into "a secondary state, compressed within its natural borders on the European mainland and economically largely dependent on its neighbors in Europe and other states." Among the reasons for this, the monarchists saw the excessive, from their point of view, inclination of French politicians to compromise, as well as their pliability in relations with"communist conspirators"³. While the Menshevik Yu. P. Denicke often reproached the French government for its lack of flexibility in the Algerian question, the monarchists, on the contrary, called on the metropolitan politicians to be less compliant in their relations with the FLN.

WHO SHOULD" GET " TROPICAL AFRICA?

Already in the late 1950s, the first results of decolonization in this region began to cause concern among the most conservative representatives of the Russian emigration. In particular, they were increasingly doubtful about the possibility of forming "democratic governance structures" in African countries. An old socialist-Revolutionary, former secretary of the Constituent Assembly M. V. Vishnyak in 1960 drew attention to the fact that after the declaration of independence in many states of the continent, not democratic, but strictly authoritarian regimes were formed. ⁴

Emigrant publicists also addressed the problem of the effectiveness of Western economic assistance to young African states. Thus, Yu. P. Denike rightly noted that the economic programs developed by the West for African countries were aimed at increasing the income of foreign companies, and not at improving the lives of the broad masses of the population.⁵

The anti-communist part of the emigration was also seriously concerned about the fact that a number of young states in Tropical Africa began to focus on the Soviet Union. Attention was drawn, in particular, to the fact that Guinea by 1960 had "joined the orbit of Moscow" and a large group of Soviet economic advisers was already working in it.

It was the situation in Guinea that attracted the special attention of N. V. Valentinov, who was mentioned earlier. While living in France, he watched with dismay the collapse of its colonial empire, while realizing that this process was objective and impossible to prevent. However, the declaration of independence by Guinea prompted him in a letter to the well-known Menshevik R. A. Abramovich to put the following question in a rather harsh form: "Who speaks for Guinea, where 99% of the inhabitants are illiterate? On her behalf, he declared the independence of Guinea... Sekou Toure, who graduated from the Sorbonne and reigns in Guinea as an African king. This Sekou Toure recently made a trip to the following countries

Soviet satellites. Since illiterate, wild Guinea cannot exist without cultural, financial, and technical assistance from outside, and since Sey Sekou Toure refuses to associate with France, it is clear that Moscow will come to Guinea as a patron and teacher."⁶. At the same time, N. V. Valentinov noted that a similar situation was brewing in a number of other former French colonies, in particular, in Dahomey (later Benin).

Trying to explain the reasons for the growing interest in the USSR in Africa, the liberal-democratic emigrant press turned to an overview of the policy of European colonial powers on the continent. So, in one of the articles published in the New York newspaper "New Russian Word", its author indignantly exclaimed: "What did the colonizers of Africa and Asia think about for decades, when they extracted all the benefits for themselves from these two continents and did very little to raise the material and cultural level of the peoples their colonies? An explosion against the colonialists was inevitable!" Such statements could be found not only in the press, but also in the works of prominent emigrant scientists. The well-known sociologist Pitirim Sorokin, for example, emphasized the huge "social distance" between the European powers and Africa, and declared in those years that "de facto slavery"reigned in the African colonies.⁷

It should be noted, however, that such estimates still suffered from some schematization and did not take into account the specifics of the colonial policy of various metropolises.

Expat publicists also drew attention to the fact that there was a struggle for influence on the African continent not only between the West and the East, but also within the blocs. The well-known Menshevik historian B. I. Nikolaevsky, for example, noted that the young African state's choice of a" non-capitalist " path of development did not automatically mean its orientation to the Soviet Union. Some of these countries were closer to Communist China, which created real competition for the USSR in the "third world"⁸. However, as the anti-communist part of the emigration believed, Africa occupied a rather important place in the strategic plans of the Soviet Union. In general, according to R. A. Abramovich, N. S. Khrushchev's line of "world revolution" was being implemented in Africa. At the same time, the emphasis was placed on the growth of the "attractiveness" for the young African states of the Soviet Union as a strong military and economic power, opposing the countries of the West - former metropolies9.

Special attention in the emigrant press in the 1960s was paid to events in the former Belgian Congo. Information about the situation in this country was constantly received through various information channels, and emigrant scientists and publicists tried to understand what was happening in this area of the globe, and give their assessment of what was happening.

The fact of the declaration of independence of the Congo (later Zaire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo) in June 1960 was not ignored by the emigrant press. The international recognition of the first national government led by the radical leader Patrice Lumumba was extremely negatively received by conservative circles of Russian emigration. It was precisely as a mistake of the West that this step was assessed, for example, by the monarchists of "Russian Paris", who characterized the situation as follows:"In a huge country, everything collapsed in a few days." The monarchist press described cases of violence, creating a picture of complete chaos that followed the departure of the Belgians.

In 1961, the world's attention was drawn to the death of Patrice Lumumba "under unclear circumstances". As you know, the Soviet Union demanded the arrest and trial of the" culprit of the crime", the" agent of the colonialists", the president of Katanga province, Moiz Tshombe, who was involved in the murder.

After the removal of P. Lumumba from power, the tone of many emigrant print media changed. If earlier, drawing pictures of the humanitarian catastrophe that had occurred in the Congo, they called on capitalist states to intervene in the affairs of this Central African country, then at the end of 1961, emigrant analysts began to oppose the entry of UN troops into the Congo, fearing that they would "restore order by removing the power of Tshombe, and Khrushchev's henchman would take his place" ¹⁰. However, a careful analysis of the publications shows that the emigrants recognize the fact that the UN intervention in the Congolese events was partly due to the desire of the United Nations to protect the country.-

The West is trying to prevent the expansion of Soviet influence in the country: "The UN is doing everything possible to prevent P. Lumumba from calling Soviet troops to Africa, which is quite realistic." ¹¹

Yu.P. Denike's assessment of the situation in the Congo was somewhat different from that of most emigrant publicists. First of all, he sharply criticized the Belgian colonial policy, which, in his opinion, caused the political instability that persisted in the country after the declaration of independence. Denicke rightly pointed out that the Belgians tried in various ways to prevent the emergence of a local political elite. As a result, after the departure of the Belgians, the entire management system collapsed, which "made it easier for P. Lumumba to come to power"¹².

However, even after that, the historian believed, the Congolese policy of the West was wrong, since it was formed by international diamond mining companies interested in maintaining their positions in certain areas of the country and therefore supported separatist movements. Meanwhile, Denicke noted, local radical politicians and intellectuals were largely characterized by the desire to centralize the country and stop inter-regional discord. As a result, those groups of the population that could have become the mainstay of the "free world" in the Congo were forced to seek support from the Soviet Union.

According to Yu. P. Denike, the right-wing emigrant press incorrectly assessed the role of P. Lumumba, who was not originally a communist in his views, ¹³ but the policy of the West, which supported the separatists and protected the interests of international monopolies, forced the first Congolese Prime Minister to reorient to the Soviet Union.

Focusing on the events in the Congo, expatriate publicists also turned to the analysis of political processes that took place in other countries of Tropical Africa - in Rwanda-Urundi, Cameroon and Nigeria.

Emigrant publicists drew attention to the emergence in the Soviet Union of the concept of the "state of national democracy" as a transitional type of political system that appears in African countries during the formation of the "socialist system". Among the features of political governance in these states is the recognition of democratic freedoms, which, according to the Menshevik publicist L. Piystrak, should have contributed to the seizure of power there by the Communists.¹⁴

The emigrant press pointed out that the cold War in Africa, splitting the continent, destroyed the plans of the "pan - Africanists" - supporters of a united Africa. Thus, while Ghana, Guinea, and Mali sought closer cooperation with the Soviet Union, most other countries in this West African region focused their policies on capitalist states, including former metropolitan areas. The struggle between political blocs for influence on the continent hindered regional integration.

* * *

"The Year of Africa" has become a symbol of major changes in the life of the continent. The significance of these changes is still the subject of intense debate among Africanists around the world. However, we should not forget that the first attempts to understand the processes of decolonization were made "hot on the heels" of events, including by Russian emigrants scattered across countries and continents.

¹ Bibliotheque de Documentation Internationale Contemporaine (BDIC). Departement Archives. F delta res 853. Box 1. Folder 7.

^{Denike Yu. P.} 2 Posle referenduma [2 After the referendum]. New York, 1961, N 1, p. 7.

³ See: Tikhonov I. Razval Frantsii [The Collapse of France]. San Francisco, 14.07.1962.

⁴ See: Vishnyak M. V. Demokratiya v Afrika [Democracy in Africa]. 1960, N 5, p. 92.

⁵ See: Denike Yu. P. Novy etap alzhirskoy dramy [The new stage of the Algerian drama]. 1960, N 12, p. 230.

⁶ BDIC. F delta res 853. Box 1. Folder 5.

⁷ See: Sorokin N. A. Chelovek. Civilization. Moscow, Politizdat Publ., 1992, p. 339.

⁸ See: Nikolaevsky B. I. Na puti k vosstanovaniyu Kominterna [On the path to the reconstruction of the Comintern]. 1960, N 12, p. 232.

⁹ See: Abramovich R. Demonstration of the coming victory? // Sotsialisticheskiy vestnik. 1960, N 8-9, p. 15.

¹⁰ New Russian word. 09.12.1961.

¹¹ Russian Resurrection. Paris, 23.07.1960.

¹² See: Denike Yu. Kongo, Kuba i sotsializm [Congo, Cuba and socialism]. 1960, N 8-9, p. 155.

¹³ See: Denike Yu. The tragedy of mistakes / / Sotsialisticheskiy vestnik, 1961, N 2-3, p. 38.

¹⁴ See: Piystrak L. Sovetskaya politika v Afrika [Soviet Policy in Africa]. Sotsialisticheskiy vestnik, 1962, N 1 - 2, p.20.

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