Internationalism, Cooperation and Personal Entanglements between Cuba, the German Democratic Republic, and Angola in the Socialist World

Abstract

ABSTRACT On the basis of German and Cuban archival documents, the present article tries to apply the global history notion of ‘entanglement’ to the study of intercontinental personnel circulations within and at the margins of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA). It shows the flows of personnel which were set in motion by the implementation of the CMEA’s task of achieving convergence in the sense of ‘aligning the developmental level’ of its member states. At the same time, it examines the contribution of these personnel flows to the convergence function of the CMEA. Angola is taken as a case study by investigating the Cuban–East German–Angolan entanglement in intercontinental mobility, with a specific focus on the circulating personnel; by examining institutional and everyday practices of dealing with inequality in these encounters; and by evaluating Cuba’s role in the CMEA on the level of personnel encounters, exchanges, and interactions. The present contribution zooms into personal encounters between Cubans, East Germans and Angolans in Angola while assessing how the organisational setting of these encounters mediated inequality.