The U.S.S.R. and Southern Africa Since 1976

Abstract

This extract from an editorial in The Times, which followed the capture of a Soviet warrant officer by invading South African forces in southern Angola in September 1981, sums up well the attitude in many western quarters, including most governments, towards Soviet involvement in the continent, particularly Southern Africa. It was widely assumed that the victory of the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola led by Agostinho Neto, achieved with substantial Soviet and Cuban aid, would lead to the use of Angola as a springboard for communist intervention in Zimbabwe, Namibia, and South Africa. Those who supported this premise believed that Moscow's leaders wished to be in a position to control the sea-lanes off the South African coast, and that