Soviet Military Memoir from Angola

The memoirs of the Soviet military men who provided technical support, physical training, and political education to the combatants of the southern African national liberation movements and armies in Angola during the period 1975-1992 represent a rich and very diverse body of literature touching many themes of both conventional military culture, the histories of the military exchanges of the national liberation movements, and personal reflections on war and internationalism. Written by several different generations of men, who fulfilled what was considered to be their “internationalist duty” in Angola, they differ in their political positioning, narratives, and genres. They could be divided into three major blocks: the recollections of high-ranking military personnel, such as those of Soviet Army General Valentin Varennikov, who describes his experience of working in Angola (albeit over a few short periods during 1986-1988) as a small episode in his long military career, or those of General Pavel Gusev, who headed the Soviet apparatus in Angola from 1987 to 1988.

The second block comprises the recollections of military advisers, specialists and interpreters, written in the autobiographical genre (e.g. Nikolai Kovtun’s Angola In My Heart, or V. Chernetsov’s The Most Memorable Days in My Life or Igor Zhdarkin’s We Did Not See It Even in Afghanistan: Memoirs of a Participant of the Angolan War. Oral History of Forgotten Wars, Memories, 2008). To this group we can relate collections of interviews conducted and published by historians of the Institute for African Studies. These volumes are unique as they also feature interviews with Soviet military advisers who worked with ANC, ZAPU and SWAPO combatants in training camps located in Angola.

It is important to note that all these memoirs were published after the collapse of the Soviet Union under a new socio-political system, when it had become possible to openly discuss matters that had been considered secret in Soviet times and would not then have been publicly disclosed. Still in the post-Soviet era, this kind of literature is not very much in demand and most of the memoirs are printed in with very limited print runs that can hardly be found in mass-market bookstores. The collection of interviews published in Russian by the historians of the Institute for African Studies comprises a rich source of material on the Angolan war and how it was viewed by the veterans themselves.

However, it should be mentioned that some of the earliest public discussions of the oral histories of the “internationalist-fighters” started in the late Soviet era following the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in 1988. A new wave of public interest in the participation of Soviet actors in foreign missions in Africa arose in the very beginning of the 2000s when the veterans themselves began openly sharing opinions about their service in Angola and other African countries on the Internet. Major work is currently being done on the collection, systematisation, and publication of new memoirs by a public organisation representing the interests of Angola veterans – the Russian Union of Angola War Veterans.

The recollections of the veterans are of interest as factual descriptions of the events that surrounded their service in Angola during the period 1975-1992, while also being unique in terms of their value-judgements and self-reflection. Although some texts echo the framework of military censorship and are apt to reproduce the euphemisms employed by the Soviet state, taken together they convey a diverse picture of the world as seen by men in the Soviet armed forces.

A typical memoir would include a detailed description of the first international flight to Luanda, as going abroad was a first-time experience for most of these Soviet citizens.  Hard daily work, described as ordinary military routine, would sometimes be interspersed with heroic stories of participation in FAPLA operations. Military prose would be mixed with a wide range of personal discoveries: a whole new world of African cultures, ideas and modern lifestyles, as well as new foods, uniforms and guns were for the first time consumed and shared in Angola. Luanda is remembered in these accounts as one of the major hubs of formal and informal cultural and military exchanges. In the memoirs it was often described as a modern and attractive city, with a beautiful waterfront and sophisticated architecture, and replete with all manner of entertainments and temptations that the men of the Soviet military were enjoined to stay away from. However, the dirt, the poverty, gunshots, and ruins served to remind the newcomers about the on-going war in the country.

The memoirs also shed light on what stood behind the Soviet ideology of assisting the national liberation movements, and contribute to the understanding of the complex identities of the Soviet “internationalist-fighters”. For example, Nikolai Kovtun describes how he fulfilled his duty as a political adviser in the FAPLA army and organised daily lessons on political information and educational work on how to maintain high morale in the army. As some memoirs describe, professional relationships grew into true friendships when forced participation in military operations, joint military planning as well as the educational process of the national liberation movements’ combatants provided space for joint communication, resulting in the creation of what can be called a hybrid Afro-Soviet military identity. However, this was created at the level of senior military ranks, such as officers and above, rather than on the level of conscript soldiers. Significantly enough, the authors of the memoirs reinforce the racially blind Soviet discourse. It seems that racial issues were not discussed or did not matter in these texts at all.

Some memoirs appear to be less politically motivated and portray the war without any political prisms as an extremely routine and traumatic event. For example, Igor Zhdarkin, serving as a military interpreter in one of the FAPLA brigades (1986-88), tells a story devoid of any official internationalist pathos or revolutionary romanticism.  Instead, he is preoccupied with the daily military routine and the survival of the brigade he is attached to. In his memoirs he uses his diary as evidence of the brutal reality of war, carefully recording South African bombings and all the details of the military operations of his brigade. He sees an Angola torn apart by internal contradictions and its people facing a civil war which they weren’t ready to wage. As with many of the “internationalist-fighters” of his age whose Angolan service took place in the late 1980s, at a time when USSR was itself facing dramatic changes, their internationalist mission came to encompass a complex variety of different and sometimes unexpected meanings.

Daria Zelenova

Bibliography (available only in Russian)

Varennikov, V.I., Unforgettable. 7 Volumes (Moscow: Sovetsky pisatel’, 2001). [Варенников В.И. Неповторимое. Издание в 7 томах. Москва: Советский писатель, 2001]

Forgotten Civil War in Angola. Memoirs of Eyewitnesses, edited by G.V. Shubin, А.V. Kuznetsova-Timonova, I.A. Zhdarkin (Memories, 2015) [Сборник. Забытая гражданская война в Анголе. Воспоминания очевидцев. В 2-ух томах. // Редакторы-составители: Шубин Г.В., Кузнецова-Тимонова А.В., Ждаркин И.А. Memories, 2015]

Memories of Participants and Eyewitnesses of the Angolan War. Oral Histories of Forgotten Wars , edited and compiled by G.V. Shubin and A.A. Tokarev (Memories, 2008) [Воспоминания Участников и Очевидцев Войны в Анголе 1975-2002гг. Устная история забытых войн // Под ред. Г.В. Шубина и А.А. Токарева. Memories, 2008]

Kovtun, N.G., Angola In My Heart. Fieldnotes of a military advisor (Soyuz Veteranov Angoly, 2010) [Ковтун Н.Г.Ангола в Сердце Моем. Путевые заметки-воспоминания военного советника.  Союз Ветеранов Анголы, 2010]

Chernetsov, Ye.P.,  The Most Memorable Days in My Life (Moscow: I.B. Bely, 2013) [Чернецов Е.П. Самые Памятные Дни. Москва: И.Б. Белый, 2013]

Belush, V.F., 30 Years in the Same Line with Time: Recollections and Reflections, edited by G.V. Shubin (Moscow: I.B. Bely, 2014) [Белуш В.Ф. 30 Лет в Одном Строю со Временем. Воспоминания и Размышления / Под ред. Г.В. Шубина. М.: Издатель Белов И.Б., 2014]

Kolomnin, S.A., The Russian Special Services in Africa (Eksmo, 2005) [Коломнин С. А. Русский Спецназ в Африке. Эксмо, 2005]

Memoirs of Participants in the Soviet Military Aid Effort to the People's Republic of Angola (1975-1976), edited by A.A. Tokarev (Moscow, 2019) [Токарев А.А. Воспоминания Участников Оказания Помощи Народной Республике Ангола (1975–1976 годы). Москва, 2019. ISBN 978-5-7777-0767-3]

Bibliography (available in English):

Zhdarkin, I., “We Didn’t See It Even in Afghanistan” Memories of a Participant of the Angolan War. Oral History of Forgotten Wars (Memories, 2008).

Bush War: The Road to Cuito Cuanavale. Soviet Soldiers' Accounts of the Angolan War , edited by G. Shubin and A. Tokarev (Jacana media, 2011).

Cuito Cuanavale: Frontline Accounts by Soviet Soldiers, edited by G. Shubin, I. Zhdarkin, V. Barabulya and A. Kuznetsova-Timonova (Jacana media, 2015).