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| Sudanese refugees |
Not running after magnates new,
My pride of blood I have subdued;
I’m but an unknown singer
AFRICOM Watch Bulletin spoke with Professor Gerald Horne. Professor Horne holds the John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston. He is the author of more than 30 books, including most recently The Capital of Slavery:Washington D.C. from 1800-1865, a regular guest on the Horne Report, which airs on Black Power 96 Radio Sundays at 3:30 PM EST, and host of Freedom Now on KPFK Los Angeles, Saturdays at 11 AM PST.
AWB: So our topic du jour is Russia in Africa, trying to understand the contemporary relationship. It is a pleasure to have this conversation with such an erudite historian as yourself because the first question is historical. We opened with Pushkin because many are unaware that “Russia’s Shakespeare” had African origins. Which leads to the question itself: Where would you suggest people start for an understanding of contemporary Russia/Africa relations? Imperial Russia? Soviet Russia? A quarter century ago, with the rise of Putin? With Wagner’s central African interventions in 2018?
GH: Well, thank you for inviting me. I'm going to try to touch on all of the foregoing. Let's start approximately a few hundred years ago, when you had the Napoleon Bonaparte invasion of Russia, Napoleon Bonaparte of course being the leader of France, and that invasion in many ways represents a contradiction in European history that is still working itself out in the 21st century. What I mean is that the Western European nations, as they were getting fat on the plunder of Africa and the devastation of the Americas, were still not necessarily the major power on their own continent. That title in many ways rests with Russia, and so there has been a struggle for centuries to resolve that contradiction, which is working itself out today with regard to the proxy war in Ukraine.
As you probably know, Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated soundly, but that did not necessarily squash the ambitions of the Western European nations with regard to the United States of America. Russia got crosswise with Dixie in particular in the wake of the War of 1812. Recall that the United States tried to seize Canada, [which is] still on the agenda as we speak. Canada was part of the British Empire, and therefore, the Redcoats entered the fray. And you may recall that in August 1814, the Redcoats torched Washington, D.C., enslaved Africans joined in, sending President Madison and his spouse Dolly fleeing into the streets [but the Africans remained] one step ahead of the posse and then escaped on British boats to freedom in Trinidad and Tobago. In any case, in the wake of that conflict, Russia was chosen to mediate because the slave owners in Dixie said that their property was taken. That is to say, the enslaved Africans, reference what I just said about the Africans fleeing to Trinidad and Tobago. My own opinion is that Russia issued a judgment that was quite [un]favorable to the interests of the slave owners, but the slave owners did not agree, and therefore, you saw that Russia and the United States, at least the slave owning states of the United States, got off on the wrong foot.
At the same time, we saw that in the 1850s, you witnessed a successful attempt by Britain and France to resolve that major contradiction of European history. I'm speaking of the Crimean War, whereby Britain and France ganged up on Russia, along with the sick man of Europe, speaking of Ottoman Turkey, and they were able to defeat Russia. But at the same time as so often happens, and we'll see this once again with regard to the Japanese attack on Russia in 1904, it leads to further contradictions that do not necessarily redound to the benefit of the Western European nations. What I mean is after that defeat, that set in motion events that led to the retreat of serfdom or feudalism in Russia a few years later which then helps to engender positive elements that leads Russia to align with the north, the Lincoln government during the US Civil War, at the time when Britain in particular was leaning towards the Confederacy and France, likewise, Russia, by way of contrast, sent major fleets to both the west coast and the east coast of the United States in solidarity with the Lincoln government. But alas, that also led to a contradiction because what happens is that Russia in 1867 decides to sell its claims to Alaska for a mere $6 million, which was really, as a recent Kremlin spokesman said, a betrayal. In any case, Russia executed that deal because it thought it was striking a blow against the British Empire. Recall that there was a British colony in what is now British Columbia on the west coast of Canada, and it was felt that selling Alaska to the United States would enmesh Britain and the United States in contradictions while allowing Russia to retreat across the Pacific.
However, the contradiction that I mentioned a few moments ago between the western European nations and Russia then manifests itself again in the 1890s when Italy invades Ethiopia/Abyssinia. And one of the reasons why Abyssinia was able to prevail, which was a major landmark in Pan-African history, was because it was armed to the teeth by Russia which thought that it could engage in solidarity with its fellow Christians in Addis Ababa, for example, not to mention striking a blow against European colonialism but alas, as foreshadowed a moment or two ago, Britain struck back, the Western European struck back in 1904 when they financed the Japanese attack on Russia, which was also a major turning point because it marked a retreat according to Du Bois, Nehru, Ho Chi Minh, a retreat from the more egregious aspects of white supremacy when Japan was able to defeat this European power, speaking of Russia.
But alas, once again, it sets in motion contradictions that lead to the Russian revolution of 1917, whereby Russia decided that the better part of wisdom was to support African liberation, Caribbean liberation, et cetera, that creates enormous tensions and contradictions with the North Atlantic countries, which leads to Operation Barbarossa, June 22nd 1941, when Berlin, the Nazis invade Russia really pulverizing the country. But that too leads to contradictions because the present Russian leader, Mr. Putin, was not alive then but his family was in the city then known as Leningrad. They suffered grievously during that war and those stories were passed on to Mr. Putin. But in any case, the whole Soviet experience from 1917 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was a turning point in African history, a turning point in Caribbean history. And just as a footnote, I must say that it was not the finest hour for the Black Liberation Movement in the United States of America.
You basically had three tendencies in the Black Liberation Movement. A dominant liberal tendency as represented in the NAACP, which of course decided to throw in its lot with anti-communism, throwing Paul Robeson of the other tendency, speaking of the socialist left-oriented tendency, throwing him overboard, leading to the marginalization of that particular tendency. And then there was a black nationalist tendency that was split. There were some who were leaning towards anti-communism. You saw that during the Angola crisis of 1975, for example. And then there were some who were less enthused with that tendency. In any case, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, you bring us to the current period.
We arrive at the current period with the rise of Mr. Putin about a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He's been in power for about a quarter of a century now and, despite the fact that the current iteration of Russia is not the same as the Soviet Union, to put it mildly, that fundamental contradiction that I referenced whereby the Western European nations were not necessarily a major power on the continent, has led to repeated efforts to weaken Russia, not only for geostrategic reasons, but also for economic reasons since Russia is a storehouse of gold, diamonds, platinum, and other precious metals. Also, Russia is the most populous nation in Europe, 150 million strong compared to number two, Germany, 82 million strong. And that, of course, has led to the rise of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, inaugurated in 1949 on an anti-Soviet basis, as was often said, to keep the Yankees in, the Russians out, or the Soviets out and the Germans down. And that has led to the so-called proxy war in Ukraine, which now has reached a real turning point in the last 48 hours with Mr. Trump deciding to pause weapons shipments to Ukraine, which is really a signal of the weakness of US imperialism at this precise moment because despite the fact that the Pentagon's mission is to be able to fight two and a half wars at the same time, it's clear that with the so-called “Twelve Day War” concluding about eight or nine days ago that US imperialism has been overstretched with regard to sending weapons to Israel. Those weapons are not necessarily going to Ukraine. At the same time, they're preparing to confront the People's Republic of China over Taiwan. So the Yale historian Paul Kennedy talks about and coins the phrase imperial overstretch, which happens to empires at a certain moment, and that's what the United States is experiencing as we speak. So in sum and in substance, there have been objective reasons historically for imperial Russia, Soviet Russia, and post-Soviet Russia to support African liberation and Caribbean liberation.
~ Read the rest of this interview here
