p In the first few years following the establishment of Soviet power in Russia, the imperialist countries did their utmost to block the avenues through which people outside Russia might have learned the truth about the young workerand-peasant state. It was at that time that Lenin spoke of the need to develop international scientific and cultural ties, organise book exchanges, participate in international exhibitions and trade fairs, and establish contacts with foreign scientific institutions.  [231•1 

p In the late 1920s, the colonial barrier separating the USSR from Africa was bridged for the first time, though this was no easy matter. The outstanding Russian and Soviet scientist Nikolai Vavilov, botanist, biologist and geneticist, went to Africa in 1926 and travelled for two months on a scientific tour of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. His trip was extremely useful both for science and for the establishment of the first scientific contacts with the continent. In his letters from Africa, he wrote that his trip to the Mediterranean countries was interesting,’ useful and productive, that local agronomists and colleagues were most cordial, that the archaeological excavations in the Sahara were striking and had to be seen by philosopher-agronomists. "Step by step,” he wrote, "I am learning the philosophy of being, i.e., origin. It stems from the Orient.”

p In 1927, Vavilov headed a delegation of Soviet botanists t,o Ethiopia. The scientist received an "open paper" from the Ethiopian Government, calling him a "guest of 232 Ethiopia" and instructing local authorities to assist him. This contributed to the success of the expedition and assured its members goodwill and hospitality in many localities they visited.

p Vavilov thoroughly studied Ethiopia’s flora and agriculture and enriched world science with new knowledge of the origin and history of major crops. He considered Ethiopia the birthplace of hard wheat and collected 6,000 samples of various crops, which added handsomely to the world collection at the Leningrad All-Union Institute of Plants.  [232•2 

p Academician Vavilov was one of the first Soviet scientists to establish useful contacts with African academic circles in the 1920s-30s and to contribute to raising the prestige of Soviet science in Africa. Thousands of business, scientific and personal links tied him to various scientific centres, prominent botanists, biologists and agriculturists, and also public figures in many countries, including in Africa. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, he received rare varieties of sorgo from Senegal, Mali, and Guinea for his experimental and research work. It is not surprising, therefore, that the West African variety of sorgo (chiefly from Guinea) is now widespread in the USSR.

p The development of African studies in the USSR necessitated the establishment and extension of international scientific contacts with the centres of African studies in the West. In pursuance of this goal, D. A. Olderogghe, a Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, went to Western Europe. He studied African languages in Germany and the Netherlands. During his stay at Western African studies centres, the Soviet scholar established the first scientific contacts with both Western Africanists and with African scholars working there.

p In 1924, an African Chair was set up at the Leningrad Institute of Oriental Studies, where living African languages began to be studied, Swahili in particular. At the same time, a library of African linguistics was set up; it now boasts a rich collection of books. The USSR Academy of Sciences’ 233 Marr Institute of Language and Thought also began studies of African languages and peoples.

p The first contacts established between Soviet scholars and African experts in the political, economic and social sciences date back to the late 1920s. The Sixth Congress of the Communist International held in Moscow in 1928 had a special role to play in this. Its participants included S. Bunting, one of the founders and leaders of the South-African Communist Party; Edward Roux, Doctor of Biology, also one of the leaders of the South-African Communist Party in the 1920 s30s; and A. Aberderrame from Algeria.

p Addressing the Congress, Bunting said: "We, in South Africa, are at present a vulnerable link in the Communist chain. If we are properly strengthened and developed, and if we are treated as we think we ought to be, we hope to become strong and thus to take advantage of the fact that countries like ours are also vulnerable spots in the imperialist chain.”  [233•3 

p Bunting urged the Communist International, as well as all political and government leaders and scientists to thoroughly study the situation in all the parts of the African continent differing in level of development, state of the economy, and “method” (Eastern or Western) of capitalist government.

p The other delegate of the South-African Communist Party, Roux, dealt with the problem of training African national personnel. He said, among other things, that there was no intelligentsia in Africa "to lead the revolt of the Africans".  [233•4  He stressed the need to teach people how to read and write and to give an education to the indigenous population. The Algerian representative, Aberderrame, spoke of the need to raise the political level of the local people.

p The Soviet Government granted the request of some African countries and enrolled their students in the Communist University of the Working People of the East in the autumn of 1928.

p The first Soviet Africanists, such as I. I. Potekhin, worked at the University. Their stable contacts with people from various African countries, exchanges of views and discussions gave them a first-hand knowledge that they could 234 not gain from Western sources. This made it possible to lay the foundation of Soviet African studies as an independent branch of knowledge. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Soviet scholars began theoretical studies relating to African history, ethnography, culture, and socio-economic problems.

p In 1933, the first scientific paper written jointly by Soviet and African scholars was published in Moscow. The Soviet Africanists I. I. Potekhin and A. Z. Zusmanovich, together with Tom Jackson, an African,  [234•5  wrote a paper entitled Forced Labour and the Trade-Union Movement in Negro Africa, which analysed the political and economic situation on the continent and specified the tasks facing the national liberation movements in the African colonies and semi-colonies. Basing themselves on Lenin’s doctrine, l,he authors asserted, as early as the first half of the 1930s. that an anti-imperialist revolution in Africa and support for it from the countries of the dictatorship of the proletariat would create the conditions for the African countries to choose a non-capitalist development course. A major contribution to science and the establishment of scientific contacts with Arab scholars, including from North Africa, was made by Academician I. Yu. Krachkovsky, an outstanding Russian and Soviet orientalist. In the orientalist circles in West and East, his studies have earned him fame as the most eminent expert on the history of new Arab literature.

p Since World War II, the political, economic and cultural ties between the Soviet Union and the African countries have grown stronger. In 1945, a permanent Soviet exhibition was opened in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. Two years later, a hospital of the Soviet Red Cross and Red Crescent Society equipped with the latest technology was opened there at the request of the Ethiopian Government. The hospital named after Dejazmatch Balsha, an Ethiopian national hero, was staffed by Soviet doctors and nurses.

p During the first postwar decade, the colonial powers, fearing that the ideas of Marxism-Leninism might spread to Africa, virtually deprived Soviet scholars of any chance of visiting the continent, getting first-hand information about its historical and cultural past, or studying the 235 national liberation movement on the spot (at that time, right of access to African territory was accorded exclusively by London, Paris or Brussels). Yet they did not succeed in completely isolating Africa from the Soviet Union.

p Once the anti-colonial struggle was in full swing, the countries of triumphant socialism rendered important moral, political and material support to the parties and organisations of the national liberation movement, unmasked colonialism scientifically, and informed the public about the successes scored by the anti-colonial forces. Mention should be made here of a fundamental book entitled Narody Afriki (The Peoples of Africa), Moscow, 1954, written by a group of authors headed by Olderogghe and Potekhin. This was the first historical and ethnographic study of the peoples of Africa written from a Marxist-Leninist position. It was widely acclaimed in many countries and exerted a marked influence on the development of social sciences in the newly emerged African states and dealt a serious blow to anti-scientific colonialist and racialist concepts.

p In the 1950s Africa was visited by various Soviet delegations of scholars from institutions working under the USSR Academy of Sciences. The participation of Soviet scientists in the 19t,h Internationa] Geological Congress, held in 1952 in Algeria, was of some practical importance. A sizable contribution to the development of science was made by the visit by the USSR Academy of Sciences’ delegation headed by Academician A. L. Kursanov to agronomical and biological research centres in Guinea, the French Sudan, Senegal, and Mauritania. After the 8th International Botanical Congress in Paris (1954), the Soviet participants spent some two months in Tropical Africa. As a result, contacts were established with African and French research personnel working in that region.

p In 1956, an agreement was reached with the Archaeological Administration and the National Library of Egypt to exchange delegations of scholars and librarians. The same year, a delegation of Soviet historians, ethnographers and archaeologists (including B. B. Piotrovsky, I. I. Potekhin, and A. P. Okladnikov) came to Egypt to establish contacts with local scientists and get acquainted with scientific institutions and ancient monuments. Talks were also held on a possible participation by Soviet experts in studies to save the ancient relics situated in the Aswan High Dam 236 flood zone. This trip was instrumental in developing scientific ties between the Soviet Union and Egypt. Over a relatively short period, the country was visited by Soviet physicists, power specialists, chemists, Arabists, astronomers, economists, and experts in organising and planning research and development, who rendered Egyptian research centres considerable assistance in both planning and developing individual research fields.

p In 1957, Potekhin visited Tropical Africa (Ghana). During his stay, he worked in the national archives and libraries on the development of the national liberation movement in Ghana, read several lectures at Legon University College, and in Accra, Kumasi and Cane Coast. He travelled over the country and made some field studies. The material he collected and the results of his field studies were used for his major work on the history of Ghana,  [236•6  which has become very popular both in the Soviet Union and abroad.

p In 1958-59, visits by Soviet scientists to Africa covered a markedly greater area. A delegation from the USSR Academy of Sciences went to Ghana to the 7th International Conference on West-African Studies. In 1958, the Republic of Sudan was visited by the Soviet Africanist S. R. Smirnov, author of a fundamental study on the history of the Sudan.  [236•7 

p In 1958, Soviet Africanists visited Ethiopia to study the culture and everyday life of the indigenous peoples and write a paper on the grammar of the Amharic language. The data they collected made it possible to introduce some corrections to the ethnical map of contemporary Ethiopia. The Soviet scholars established scientific contacts with their Ethiopian counterparts, and with the Ethnological Society, which later evolved into the Institute of Ethiopian Studies under Addis Ababa University.

p In 1958, Soviet scholars were invited to Accra to the First Conference of the Peoples of Africa, which was a major political and scientific event on the continent. Its purpose was to unite all the anti-imperialist forces of Africa for the struggle against colonialism.

p The trips made by Soviet historians, ethnographers and 237 economists to Egypt, Ghana, Liberia, Guinea, Sudan, and Ethiopia in the 1950s enabled them to visit local archives and libraries and study material pertaining to the development of the national liberation movement, to assist their African colleagues in planning and organising various research studies and establish scientific contacts.

After the majority of African countries had gained their independence in the early 1960s, Soviet-African scientific and cultural cooperation was raised to a higher level. Agreements on economic, cultural, scientific and technological cooperation were signed between the USSR and many African countries. Seeking to provide more effective assistance to the progressive forces, Soviet science began a large-scale and comprehensive analysis of the political and socio- economic processes taking place in the newly independent African states; it began to extend its research and establish effective ties with African research centres and cultural institutions. In October 1959, the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences passed a resolution on setting up an Institute of African studies within the framework of the Academy institutions. The appearance in the USSR of a leading comprehensive research institute dealing with African problems was widely acclaimed in Africa itself. The African public wished Soviet scholars every success in their endeavour to recreate the true history of Africa and study the pressing problems that confront it today, and expressed their readiness to cooperate.