Socialisms in Development

Marung; Steffi

doi:10.20446/JEP-2414-3197-33-3-21

‘Leninian moment’? Soviet Africanists and the Interpretation of the October Revolution, 1950s–1970s

Autor*innen: Marung, Steffi

https://doi.org/10.20446/JEP-2414-3197-33-3-21

Volume XXXIII • Issue 3 • 2017

Seiten 21-48

Keywords: socialism, Cold War, African Studies, Soviet Union, globalization, October Revolution

Abstract

The October Revolution was pivotal in the globalisation of socialism as a claim-making device. Soviet Africanists interpreting the revolution and its legacy vis-à-vis African dynamics were part of this process. The more the revolution became an event of the distant past, the more it was mobilised as a short hand for post-colonial development and the repositioning of societies in a new global order. This article sheds light on the transfers and circulations of these ideas during the 1950s to the 1970s, and how these impacted on the understandings of socialist development in the Soviet Union. The experiences of Soviet scholars with and in ‘Africa’ played a crucial role for the co-production of such concepts: academic as well as personal frustrations became a driver for change of Soviet Africanists’ theorisations on development and socialism in Africa.

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