Russia

See Africa Events (Vol.4, no.2, 1988), p.54.

See N. Yermoshkin , Spiritual Colonialism (Prague, 1984).

See Frank Furedi , 'Superpower rivalries in the Third World: new perspectives in the North-South dialogue', in Kofi B. Hadjor (ed.), Essays in Honour of Olof Palme (London, 1988).

The main news programme was discontinued almost immediately after the August 1991 putsch.

In Russian, the word 'cherny' means black. In the context used here, it also means dark.

Asia and Africa Today (20 April 1984), p.1.

Pravda (29 December 1987 ), p.5.

A few months after the publication in Pravda and Komsomolskaya Pravda, African students in the ex-USSR started to be called zelenya obeziana (green monkey). Catchphrases using the Russian acronym for AIDS - SPID - were coined to taunt Africans. Two of them will be enough to show the extent of the prejudice. SPID is interpreted as: Sotsialnoe Posledstvie Internatsionalnoi Druzhbi (loosely translated, 'the social consequence of international friendship'). The second, Spetisalniy Podarok Inostrannikh Druziei, means a gift from foreign friends. See Charles Quist Adade, 'Africans: target of AIDS phobia', African Concord (3 December 1987), p.14, for a more detailed account.

During the period under review, Communist party delegations, mostly led by district and even village party secretaries and lower-ranking officials, visited six African countries, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Madagascar, Rwanda and Sudan. It is necessary to mention here that, while the African media gave front-page prominence to visits of such delegations, African delegations are never treated in the same vein by the ex-Soviet media. A story about the visit is given any prominence only when the delegation is led by the head of state.

See Osnovi Marksistsko -Leninskoi Filosofii ( Moscow , 1985).

Before perestroika, Soviet television was saturated with the images of poor and homeless blacks queuing for charity food in Washington or London.

Izvestia (16 November 1987).

Boris Asoyan , Literaturnaya Gazeta (7 October 1987), p.14.

Yuri Popov , 'New political thinking and the Third World', in Asia and Africa Today (No.4, 1990), p.36.

The Russian pronunciation of 'negro' is niegr, something that sounds between 'negro' and 'niger'.

See A.A. Gromyko , 'Aktaralnie problemi otnoshenii SSR s stranami Afriki' (Moscow, 1985).

Pravda (12 October 1991), p.5.

A school textbook published in 1968 narrates the story of how a Soviet schoolgirl (a young pioneer) saved a black slave by buying him off for merely five roubles at a slave auction in the US. The story, one in a series of anecdotes depicting the inhuman and unjust capitalist system in America, tended to tell Soviet children to have sympathy for blacks. But the latent paternalism and racism is clear. The Soviet young pioneer was being assigned the role of a liberator of the helpless black man from the hands of 'capitalist sharks'.

The cartoon was used in one of the first films of the perestroika and glasnost period, Malenkaya Vera. The poem has been quoted in several newspapers, including the St Petersburg weekly Chas Pik and Nevskoe Vremya, during the last few years.

Boris Asoyan , 'Afrika uzh tak daleko', Literaturnaya Gazeta (7 November 1987), p.14.

Thanks to glasnost, Soviet publications - including Moscow News (No.49, 1989), p.6; Izvestia (6 February 1990), p.5; Svobodnaya Mysl (No. 18, 1991), pp85-93-have disclosed that much of the 'disinterested' aid was military assistance. Recent research (see New African, July 1992, p.35) revealed that over 89 per cent of the 13.9 billion roubles debt owed by various African countries to the former Soviet Union was in the form of arms deliveries 'to defend socialist gains'.

Leon Zevin, V. Telerman , 'The developing countries in our economic strategies' in Svobodnaya Mysl (No. 18, 1991).

Boris Asoyan , Komsomolskaya Pravda (7 August 1989), p.3.

Yuri Popov , ' New political thinking and the Third World', in Asia and Africa Today (No.4, 1990), p.36.

About 80 per cent of the total number of ex-Soviet missions earmarked for closure by the Russian government as part of cost-saving exercises are in Africa.

A.A. Gromyko , 'Aktualnie problemi otnoshenii SSR s stranami Afriki' ( Moscow, 1985).

Yeltsin made the statement for the first time during a presidential election campaign in the Urals in June 1991. His speech was reported unedited by the Mayak radio station. The print media and television edited out 'Africa'. He repeated the same statement during an interview soon after the August Communist revanchist coup was foiled.

See Literator (St Petersburg, December 1990).

Several participants in the popular Russian TV programme, Tema (Theme), did not shy away from their racist sentiments. One said, in reply to a question, that he would emigrate to South Africa if the future president of Russia were black. According to him, it is easier to fight blacks in South Africa. Russians, he claims, are too soft. Taking a cue from the mainstream media are the fledgling fascist alternative media. The St Petersburg Otechestvo wrote in its February edition: 'American blacks, who earn five dollars per hour wages, could come to our country and pose as millionaires and take liberties with our girls and thereby contaminate the Russian blood.'

Yuri Sigov , 'Budet li nashi v YuAR zhit?', Literaturnaya Gazeta (10 October 1991), p.4.

Pravda (17 February 1992), p.5.

32 Izvestia (9 December 1991).