Free to decide their destiny? Indigenous resistance to external forms of socialist modernity in Siad Barre’s Somalia

Abstract

Based on a wealth of original material from Russian and East European archives, in addition to Western primary sources, this paper focuses on the uneasy Soviet–Somali patron–client relationship in the 1970s. It traces the development of Moscow’s stake in Mogadishu since Mohamed Siad Barre’s coup d’état in 1969 and dissects largely futile Soviet attempts at embedding lasting presence in Somalia’s military ranks and security apparatus. As this paper shows, Somalia’s socialist experiment proved a challenging affair on multiple counts, not only for the Soviets but also for the African country’s leaders. Mogadishu’s turn to the left faced serious opposition from within Somalia’s own society, suffered from insufficient commitment and division within the state apparatus, and was confronted by local and international pressures coming from Arab and Western quarters. This cleavage strongly impeded the successful completion of the arduous tasks of socialism-building, resulting in short-lived and largely unsuccessful experiments at little understood social engineering.