Moscow: Russian Foundation for the Promotion of Education and Science. 312 p. ("The Cold War")

The historiography of the Congolese crisis of 1960-1964, the first hot spot of the Cold War in sub-Saharan Africa, includes hundreds of monographs and thousands of articles. The works of Russian historians make up a small part of it. 1 S. V. Mazov was the first Russian author to recreate the truly international history of the key episode of the Cold War in the "heart of Africa", presenting it as the result of a complex interaction between the United States, the USSR, the UN and Congolese politicians. This became possible thanks to the extensive documentary basis of the book, which was compiled by materials from the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation, the Russian State Archive of Modern History, the State Archive of the Russian Federation, the National Archive of the United Kingdom, and the National Archives of the United States.

VINOKUROV Yuri Nikolaevich-Doctor of Historical Sciences, Leading Researcher at the Institute of Africa of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

1 Vinokurov Yu. N., Orlova A. S., Subbotin V. A. Istoriya Zaire v novoe i sovremennoe vremya [History of Zaire in Modern and modern Times], Moscow, 1982; Martynov V. Zagovor protiv Kongo [Conspiracy against the Congo], Moscow, 1960; Yuryev N. US Expansion in the Congo], Moscow, 1966; Davidson A., Mazov S., Tsypkin G. SSSR i Afrika 1918-1960. Documented history of relationships, Moscow, 2002, pp. 251-304; Mazov S. A Distant Front in the Cold War. The USSR in West Africa and the Congo, 1956-1964. Washington (D.C.), Stanford (Calif.), 2010.

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The book has five chapters and 44 thematic sections.

In the first chapter, "The Cold War Comes to the Congo," the author rightly points out that the newly independent Belgian Congo was destined to become a "hot spot" of the Cold War in sub-Saharan Africa. Huge in area, fabulously rich in minerals, the country has become the scene of competition between the Western and Eastern blocs for influence. After the declaration of independence, the contradictions in Congolese society itself, which had been contained by the Belgian colonial regime, broke out, and chaos reigned in the country for two weeks (pp. 13, 72-73). Using a wealth of factual material, the author analyzed in detail the events of the first months of Congo's independence: the reaction of various sections of the Congolese political elite to Lumumba's speech on June 30 in parliament, the scenario of destabilization of the army and the still unformed state apparatus prepared in advance by the Belgians.

On July 10, 1960, Belgian paratroopers took control of 30 major cities in the country. On July 11, Katanga separated from the Congo. Congo's Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and President Joseph Kasavubu demanded that UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold send UN troops to the Congo "to protect the State territory from external aggression that threatens international peace", otherwise "the Republic of the Congo will be forced to turn to the States of the Bandung Treaty" (p. 41). While offering this, Lumumba still feared that the UN troops might become his government's gravedigger. On July 14, he and Kasawubu sent a telegram to Khrushchev calling for "hourly monitoring of the situation in the Congo and intervention if the Western camp does not stop its aggression against the sovereignty of the Republic of the Congo." However, Khrushchev made it clear to them that he would not resort to unilateral measures, but was ready to support UN action. On June 18, Lumumba repeated his request to the USSR to assist in the transfer of Ghanaian troops to the Congo to participate in UN operations (pp. 45-46). At the end of August 1960. Lumumba launched a military operation against the Katanga separatists, his troops using vehicles, including civilian aircraft supplied by the Soviet Union. This led to an escalation of the crisis.

In the second chapter, "In search of 'Allies', "the author explores internal Congolese events: the conflict between Lumumba and Kasawubu, who was looking for an opportunity to implement the CIA's "plan to remove Lumumba from office", which he finally did, announcing it on the radio on September 5, 1960. On the night of 5 to 6 September, Lumumba appeared twice on the radio, saying that he was taking full power on himself. The parliamentarians were on his side, the army was split. The Africa Section of the Foreign Office considered that "the scales are tipping in Lumumba's direction" (p. 82).

On the night of September 14, at the initiative of the Chief of Staff of the Congolese army, J. Mobutu, he met with CIA resident L. Devlin, who assured that the United States would support the removal of Lumumba from power. Then Mobutu made a coup, dissolved the parliament, Lumumba narrowly escaped arrest, taking refuge in the former residence of the Belgian governor, where he was under the protection of UN troops, but in complete isolation. M. Tshombe and A. Kalonji, who broke off Katanga and Kasai from the Congo, welcomed the overthrow of Lumumba. The UN and the Belgian authorities allocated Mobutu $ 1 million and 500 million Belgian francs, respectively, for the soldiers ' salaries (pp. 83-84). The Soviet embassy was expelled from the Congo. The Soviet leadership demanded the resignation of Hammarskjold as head of the UN.

In the third chapter, "The murder of Lumumba and the creation of the Government of National Unity", for the first time in the Russian scientific literature, the massacre of Lumumba and two of his ministers, M. Mpolo and J. McCarthy, is described in detail. Okito. The prisoners were brutally tortured while being transported from Leopoldville to the Katanga capital of Elizabethville. Bound with ropes and strapped to the chairs of the martyrs, the guards, intoxicated with whiskey, put band-aids over their eyes, ears and mouths, forced them to their knees in the aisle, beat them with cleats and butts. Lumumba was periodically punched in the stomach, a tuft of his beard was pulled out, and his hair was forced to swallow. From the plane that landed on January 17 at the Elizabethville airport, they were thrown bound to the ground with their faces bruised and swollen from beatings, while continuing to beat them with rifle butts, and pushed into a jeep. All this was witnessed by the passengers on the Brussels flight and the unflappable Swedish military contingent (p. 121).

Accompanied by security guards, the prisoners were taken to a Belgian-owned poultry farm 3.5 km from the airport, thrown into a bathroom on a cement floor with their hands tied back, periodically taken to the living room and beaten. When Tshombe and his ministers came to the farm, they not only did not stop the guards, but also did not deny themselves the pleasure

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strike the prisoners several times (p. 127). The Katanga government decided at a festive buffet to eliminate the prisoners that evening, so that Lumumba could not regain the post of Prime Minister and restore the Soviet position in the Congo. The entire power elite on four cars accompanied the jeep with suicide bombers. At the place of execution, there was already a firing squad - 8 soldiers and 9 policemen. They were killed one at a time, Lumumba last: he was propped up against a tree and riddled with bullets. The next day, the police dug up the corpses, dismembered them with a saw and knives, and tried to burn and bury the remains. The white settlers of Elizabethville celebrated this "event" by drinking champagne (pp. 122-123).

The author notes that the news of the massacre of Lumumba shocked the whole world. However, only two African states - Guinea and Mali - supported the Soviet demand to remove Hammarskjold from the post of UN Secretary-General. The leaders of the "third world" have received an object lesson in what a confrontation with the West can mean for them. Most of the non-aligned countries supported the retention of UN troops in the Congo, and Hammarskjold as Secretary-General (p. 129).

Lumumba's supporters settled in eastern Congo, where they established a government in Stanlyville, led by Antoine Giesenga. His troops launched a successful offensive against the provinces of Kasai and Equatoria. They advanced without fighting, the garrisons of government troops went over to their side, the attempts of the anti-Columbists to transform the country into a "confederation of sovereign states" failed, because they were contrary to the intention of the US authorities to preserve a single Congo. The State Department stated that Gizenga should be part of the new federal government (pp. 132-133).

Gizenga bombarded the Kremlin with telegrams demanding urgent military assistance (p. 136). The Minister of his Government, Pierre Mulelet, was invited to Moscow on a" confidential visit " on March 7, 1961, and spent a week negotiating military assistance to the government in Stanlyville. He was given to understand that the USSR would not enter into a confrontation with the West in order to save the Gizenga regime (p. 139). It was then, according to a U.S. Embassy official in the Congo, that "the Congolese people lost their illusions about the Russians, who did not fulfill their promises" (p.140).

In the fourth chapter, "The Battle for Katanga", S. V. Mazov, having thoroughly analyzed the situation that developed in the Congo immediately after the Lumumba massacre, came to the conclusion that, despite the inclusion of several prominent Lumumbists in the new government of the Congo, the USSR began to lose ground in the struggle for influence in this country and "in the end, it actually ended up in beyond the Congolese game " (p. 159). The murder of Lumumba did not change Khrushchev's intention not to take steps to escalate the Congolese crisis. The Soviet leader tried to compensate for his failures in the Congo and preserve his reputation as the most consistent fighter against colonialism and imperialism by stepping up a propaganda campaign against Hammarskjold and the UN operation in the Congo. Here the USSR had a strong trump card-the preservation of" independent " Katanga.

Using materials that are little known to the Russian reader, the author described in detail one of the most dramatic episodes in the history of the Congo, which has not yet regained its feet - the suppression of Katanga separatism. It took several UN-sanctioned military operations to restore the unity of the country. The main support of the separatists were mercenaries, who, according to the head of UN civilian operations in the Congo, S. Linner, were in this country "in order to kill and could not understand the soldiers [from the UN forces] who considered their mission to save people" (p.164).

The author did not fail to touch upon the mysterious death of Dag Hammarskjold. After quoting, of course, only a small fraction of the materials accumulated on this topic, he offered the reader a small but very informative section on the ongoing attempts to solve this mystery (pp. 172-178).

S. V. Mazov describes in detail the process of restoring diplomatic relations between the USSR and the Congo after their rupture in September 1960.The Congolese side delayed signing documents, did not recognize the powers of the Charge d'affaires of the USSR in the Congo, refused to accept him as the Minister of Foreign Affairs and recognition of his diplomatic immunity. The Soviet Foreign Ministry "wavered at some point", but still found ways to get the consent of the Congolese authorities to resume interstate relations. L. Devlin prepared a "warm welcome"for the Russians. When he learned that they were going to put the embassy in a ten-story apartment building and were negotiating to buy it, he sent his agents

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to the owner of the house under the guise of buyers. Having gained access to the interior of the house "for inspection", they drew up a detailed plan of the building, and specialists who arrived from the United States stuffed it with listening devices. The CIA used not only modern technical means. To make life difficult for the embassy staff, a local sorcerer was hired, who danced around the embassy for hours, shouting curses at the building and everyone in it (pp. 179-180).

In the last, fifth chapter of "Simba's Rebellion: A Chance for Revenge?" The author explores the uprising of Lumumba supporters in eastern Congo. In the summer of 1964, they fully controlled 5 and partially 8 of the country's 21 provinces. In September, the rebels captured Stanleyville and proclaimed the creation of the People's Republic of the Congo on the territory of 7 provinces. The authorities of the Congo managed to suppress this uprising only with the military intervention of the West. In April 1965, Che Guevara arrived in northern Katanga under a false name and disguised his appearance, with a small Cuban detachment, in order to personally organize a guerrilla war there and turn the Congo "into another Vietnam". The author quotes excerpts from the Congolese diary of a Cuban revolutionary who called his Congolese epic "the story of the disintegration and defeat of the Congolese Revolution." Che Guevara became convinced that the human material he encountered was completely unsuitable for the formation of revolutionary cadres and the organization of armed struggle. At the end of November, the Cubans left the Congo after staying there for seven months (pp. 279-280).

S. V. Mazov's conclusion that the USSR took a balanced and cautious position in relation to the Simba uprising is convincing. Fears about the weaknesses of the uprising proved to be justified.

The Congolese crisis ended with a victory for the United States and its allies. Mobutu, who seized power in a bloodless coup on November 26, 1965, has been a staunch ally of the West for more than thirty years.

The motives, actions, and goals of the USSR in the Congolese crisis are a debatable topic in Western historiography. Many authors consider the Soviet support of the Lumumba operation against Katanga separatists in August-September 1960 by trucks and transport planes to be " a typical manifestation of adventurism." The risk was not justified, Lumumba was overthrown and killed, the Soviet embassy was expelled from the Congo, and Khrushchev suffered a "personal defeat". By 1962, "after a series of disappointments and defeats in the Congo and elsewhere on the African continent, Khrushchev was ready to abandon his adventurous dreams and pursue a more cautious, realistic policy." 2
Some researchers conclude that the USSR imitated a confrontation with the West in the Congo, "fought with one hand", and was indifferent to the fate of left-wing Congolese nationalists: "The Kremlin lacked the political will, means and resources to create a real threat to Western hegemony in the Congo... It is clear that the Kremlin did not want to support Lumumba unconditionally during the Congolese crisis. He was more interested in winning the propaganda war, and Khrushchev denounced Western intervention to strengthen the Soviet Union's diplomatic position in the Afro-Asian world. The defeat of the Congolese national liberation movement was a crushing blow to all the freedom fighters in Africa, but not to the historically disinterested conservative bureaucrats in the Kremlin who treated Lumumba and African nationalism as trash. " 3
The third trend is the assessment of Soviet policy in the Congo as a situational combination of pragmatic and ideological imperatives. According to Lisa Namikas, author of a seminal and well-documented study of the history of the Congolese crisis, Khrushchev "took a measured, reasonable risk" to "establish Soviet influence in the Congo." The main reason for the Soviet defeat in the Congo was the lack of a "consistent and firm policy", "a loyal and strong person in power or a leader who was at least internally ready to wage a "cold war" in Africa, as it was in Asia and Latin America " 4.

The author of the reviewed work gives his own interpretation of the Soviet policy in the Congo, which he substantiates with numerous facts and documents, including those previously unknown to researchers. The Soviet Line in the Congolese Crisis, according to S. V. Mazov, " Art

2 Kalb M. The Congo Cables: The Cold War in Africa from Eisenhowerto Kennedy. N.Y., 1982. Pp. XIII-XIV.

3 De Witte L. The Assassination of Lumumba. L., N.Y., 2001. Pp. XVI-XVII.

4 Namikas L. Battleground Africa. Cold War in the Congo, 1960-1965. Washington (D.C.), Stanford (Calif), 2013. Pp. 223-224.

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The behavior of the Soviet leadership is a vivid example of the complex interweaving of ideology and pragmatics in its foreign policy. More decisive actions (such as an operation to liberate Lumumba or supplying weapons to the Gizenga government) could have stimulated the development of the revolutionary process in the Congo, but would have guaranteed a dangerous escalation of confrontation with the West in a region where the USSR had neither the necessary resources nor reliable allies. The Congo was lower on the list of Soviet geopolitical priorities than Europe, Asia, and North Africa" (p. 290).

S. V. Mazov was the first Russian author to show the fallacy of the Soviet leadership's line at the UN in connection with the Congolese crisis: "Khrushchev lost the confrontation with the UN leadership. He made a strategic mistake by demanding the resignation of UN Secretary-General Hammarskjöld, abolishing the post of Secretary-General and replacing it with the troika. One of the troika members was supposed to represent Afro-Asian countries, and Khrushchev hoped to win their support for his policy in the Congo. The result was the opposite. The Afro-Asian states reasonably considered that under the leadership of the troika, the organization would not be able to function effectively, and the Soviet proposals were a propaganda maneuver and refused to support them. The Soviet leader's secret initiative to withdraw Afro-Asian contingents from the UN command, which supported pro-Western forces in the Congo, so that they would provide military support to the Lumumba/Gizenga government, was obviously doomed to failure. Not having received guarantees of real military assistance from the USSR, most of the Afro-Asian countries that participated in the UN Congolese operation preferred to withdraw their contingents" (p.290).

The goal set by S. V. Mazov- "to find out the role of the Soviet Union in the Congolese crisis, to investigate its motives, intentions and actions on the basis of archival materials and in the context of the behavior of other players, foreign and Congolese" - seems to have been achieved.

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