Educators for export: Soviet teachers in Africa and Asia during the Cold War

Abstract

From the early 1960s through the late 1980s, the Soviet government sent thousands of its citizens to Africa and Asia to work as teachers in secondary schools and higher education institutions on assignments lasting one to three years. These teachers served as the Soviet Union’s foot soldiers in the field of education, an important theater of the Cold War. Using reports from the Soviet Ministry of Education and post-Soviet memoirs, the article examines these educators’ experiences in classrooms, in teachers’ lounges, and at home. It is structured around two central questions: what did these educators teach, and what, in turn, did they learn? The article argues that the experiences of many Soviet teachers in Africa and Asia appear to have reinforced their identification with the Soviet project.