Soviet policy in West Africa, 1957-64

Between 1957 and 1964 the Soviet Union sought to export to West Africa a model of economic and social development. Moscow’s policy was driven by the conviction that socialism was a superior economic system, and could be replicated in Ghana, Guinea, and Mali. However, Soviet confidence in the project was undermined by the unreliability of local leaders, and then by the Congo crisis. The setback in West Africa taught the Soviet leadership crucial lessons, including the importance of supporting ideologically reliable leaders, and the necessity of building military strength to bolster intervention. Combining Soviet and Ghanaian sources with those more readily available in the UK and the US, this thesis shows the importance of modernisation of the Third World for Moscow’s foreign policy during the Khrushchev era, and contributes to the new sets of literature on the cold war in the third world, and on the Soviet Union’s foreign policy.