"Africa's Czechoslovakia": Internationalism and (trans)national liberation in Angola, 1961-1976

The list was found in a private archive in Lisbon. It recorded the names of a squadron of Angolan nationalist fighters, who throughout the 1960s and 1970s were embroiled in a protracted war of national liberation against the fading Portuguese empire. Little is known about these individuals, such as Commander Miguel Sebastião João or Commissioner João Constetavél, but their noms de guerre – “Che Guevara” and “Lumumba”, respectively – spoke volumes. By deliberately choosing such value-laden pseudonyms, Angolan nationalists invoked the revolutionary heritages of other Third World leaders, and situated their own independence struggle in a global battle against colonialism, racism, and minority rule. Despite British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan’s famous 1960 assertion that the “wind of change” in Africa was a political reality, Portugal fought steadfastly to remain the ‘last empire’. The ensuing battle for Angolan independence was many things: fifteen years of intense anticolonial struggle and the launch of almost three decades of civil war, a threat to white minority rule in southern Africa, and another battle on the long road to ending empire and colonialism. For some, Angolan independence represented the opening salvo in a period of renewed global competition, one that would take advantage of a weakened “west” to renegotiate the positions of power in the international system. The escalation of the crisis in 1975 cast doubts on the resilience of the bipolar cold war world order and indeed on the international system itself, drawing in actors from around the globe including the United States, South Africa, Cuba, and the Soviet Union. For others, Angola demonstrated how national liberation movements, as transnational actors, learned to operate within the international system to gain necessary material and moral support to help achieve their political goals. By studying Angola this dissertation addresses a constellation of neglected topics: the end of the Portuguese empire, the rise of Angolan nationalism, the roles of transnational actors, and the under-theorized relationship between the meaning(s) of liberation, revolutionary movements, and the wider international system.Ph