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p Since 1960 Soviet scientists attended numerous international congresses and symposiums on African problems. Their reports and active participation in the work of 271 these forums stimulated progressive trends in African studies and did much to promote Soviet-African scientific cooperation.

p One of the biggest forums of this kind was the 25th International Congress of Orientalists. It gathered in Moscow in 1960, in the period of the downfall of the colonial system in Africa and the formation of independent African states. The unusual thing about it was that scientists from countries of Tropical Africa were present. It was the first time in the history of such congresses that scientists from Ethiopia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Angola and Dahomey took part in discussing African problems. Osende Afana, an economist from Cameroon, wrote: "The Moscow Congress acquired special significance. It was the first Congress in which Africans participated. Prior to that Congresses of Orientalists were the same as international political conferences: problems concerning Africans were discussed in their absence and frequently without their knowledge.”  [271•5 

p The section of African studies drew more than one hundred scientists from different countries into its work, including a large group of Africanists from the USSR, GDR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and also from leading Western centres of African studies.

p A distinctive feature of the Congress was that it adopted a new approach to problems under discussion. Formerly Orientalists more often than not immersed themselves in academic debates without paying due attention to the problems of development of contemporary Asian and African states. But at the Moscow Congress even purely historical subjects were examined in close connection with contemporary events, with the everyday life and struggle of African peoples.

p The head of the Soviet group in the section of African studies Potekhin tabled a motion to institute an International Congress of Africanists. The Soviet proposal was supported by all the African participants, the representatives from socialist countries, progressive Western Africanists. The Soviet scientific community was motivated by a desire to bring African scientists into leading positions in the field of African studies and turn the Congress of Africanists into 272 a forum of scientific discussion of the basic problems facing the young African states.

p The section of African studies at the 25th International Congress of Orientalists adopted a historic decision to found an International Congress of Africanists, which received wide support from African countries and progressive scientific circles in Europe, America and Asia.

p The Preparatory Committee of the Congress, one of whose members was Potekhin of the USSR, held its first session in September 1961 at the University of Ibadan (Nigeria). At the committee’s sittings he consistently urged to place the future congress at th > service of the African peoples lighting for the complete abolition of colonialism and for progressive development.

p The first session of the International Congress of Africanists was held in Accra (Ghana) in December 1962, with about 600 representatives, including 200 from African countries, attending. It was the first ever meeting of African scientists with Africanists of Europe, America and Asia on African soil. Most of the socialist countries also sent their delegations.

p In the opinion of progressive scientific circles the founding of the International Congress of Africanists was a major victory of the forces advocating full equality of all peoples, and dispelled the myth that the African peoples had no history. At the very first session African scientists made it absolutely clear that they intended to play an active role in guiding scientific African studies, resolutely change their trends and character and place them at the service of their countries. This just stand received energetic backing from scientists from the USSR and other socialist countries. The Soviet delegation resolutely countered the attempts made by the USA, Britain and France to dominate the Congress whose large delegations insisted that resolutions should be adopted by a majority vote in which all those present would take part. The Congress endorsed the Soviet proposal that each delegation, irrespective of its size, should have only one vote. This decision dealt a hard blow at the plans of Western Africanists and strengthened the positions of the African countries at the Congress.

p The Congress adopted the Statutes and elected its guiding bodies. It also elected a Standing Committee of 144 members representing 51 countries. The Committee in turn 273 elected a 13-member Bureau to be a coordinating centre in the period between sessions. Nine seats in the Bureau went to Africans and one each to Soviet, US, British and French representatives.   [273•6 

p The first ever international scientific forum of Africanisls attracted the attention of the world and African public and received numerous congratulatory telegrams. On the eve of thej session Kwame Nkrumah sent a message to the Soviet journal Narody Azii i Ajriki (Peoples of Asia and Africa) in which he wrote: "It is the hope of every African that the First International Congress of Africanists will usher in an era of objective, sympathetic understanding and scholarly approach to the study of African problems and stimulate a correct reappraisal of the African past and present.”

p The Congress in Accra became an arena of acute struggle against the apologists of colonialism and neocolonialism. Scientists from the USSR and other socialist countries and African representatives joined forces against imperialist domination in African studies. The Congress was a triumph of the progressive forces, and it was natural that Western bourgeois scientists made an attempt to revise its decisions while they were still in Accra. But the speeches of African representatives showed that African scholars would not tolerate the attempts of the Western powers to retain their dominating position in world African studies.  [273•7 

p The first session of the International Congress of Africanists was followed by a conference on Tropical Africa at Ibadan in Nigeria in 1964. And once again reactionary Western circles tried to undermine the role of the International Congress of Africanists. But nothing came of their efforts. African scientists with the determined backing of representatives from socialist countries opposed the formation of a new coordinating centre of African studies as distinct from the International Congress of Africanists. The conference showed that progressive African scientists and scientists from socialist countries were determined to use the Congress in the struggle against the colonial and neocolonial conceptions in African studies.

p The scale of African studies considerably increased in 274 many countries in the five years between the first and second sessions of the Congress of Africaiiists. Substantial progress was registered on the continent itself and, what was particularly important, African scientists came to realise that it was necessary to use the achievements of science as a means of stimulating the development of their countries and strengthening their independence. This trend was reflected in the motto of the second session of the Congress of Africanists—"Scientific Research to the Service of Africa”.

p The second session of the Congress took place in Dakar (Senegal) in December 1967. It was attended by about 400 representatives from 30 African and 23 European, American and Asian countries, and there were more scientists from the socialist countries, including Mongolia and Yugoslavia, than at the first session.

p In their reports scientists from the USSR and other socialist countries took up such urgent African problems as industrialisation, agrarian reforms, sources of accumulation for economic development, development of water resources, and establishment of national systems of law.

p The attention which the reports of the Soviet delegation aroused among the African scientific circles, and the ensuing discussions showed that they were in line with African reality and the basic tasks confronting the liberated peoples.

p Not surprisingly, the main conclusion reached by the History Section, which included Soviet scientists, was that it was impossible to create a modern African culture without thorough knowledge of the historical development and cultures of the continent’s peoples. History is a very important means of educating citizens of the newly independent states and fostering their national dignity and patriotism.

p African science is now playing an increasing role on the continent. Many African states already have cadres of young scientists who desire independently to investigate the sociopolitical changes and the socio-economic problems of their countries.

p The first items on the session’s agenda were the economic development of African countries, the choice of paths of social development and the need for a class approach to African reality. The enhanced authority of scientists from socialist countries in many respects determined the proceedings of the session, and the trend and contents of the reports and debates.

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p The session amended the Statutes and gave the Congress a new name—International Congress of African Studies.

p With the entry of the national liberation revolutions into a new stage the question of paths of socio-economic and political development of the newly free countries became of paramount importance in African studies.

Soviet Africanists attended a number of international conferences on these problems, including the economic seminar of African and Asian countries sponsored in Algiers in 1965 by the Permanent Secretariat of the Afro-Asian Peoples’ Solidarity Organisation.

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p The participants in the seminar unanimously advocated the broader and stronger contacts of the developing countries with socialist states as an essential condition for the successful outcome of the continuing struggle against colonialism and imperialism. In its resolutions the seminar emphasised the importance of strengthening economic independence and of social progress towards socialism.

p The Soviet representatives disclosed the fundamental difference between the historical responsibility of the imperialist countries to the peoples of the former colonies and dependencies and the internationalist duty of the peoples of the socialist countries to furnish fraternal assistance to the peoples fighting for their freedom and independence. Special emphasis was placed on the need to put an end to the plunder of the developing countries by the imperialist monopolies and solve the problem of their emancipation from imperialist economic domination. These ideas were widely reflected in the seminar’s recommendations.

p The positive contribution of the economic seminar in Algiers to the elaboration of the programme of struggle for economic independence was highly assessed by the 4th AfroAsian Solidarity Conference in 1965. In its resolution the Conference pointed out that it viewed the seminar as an outstanding event in the common struggle of the peoples of Asia and Africa against imperialism, colonialism "and neocolonialism, and also as new and important type of activity of the Afro-Asian Peoples’ Solidarity Organisation.

p International scientific forums, such as the Conference in Support of the Peoples of Portuguese Colonies (Rome, 1970) and the Conference on the Problems of Southern Africa (Oslo, 1973) which were sponsored by the UN and the OAU, were events of major political importance. In their speeches 276 at these conferences Soviet representatives showed that Portuguese colonialism and racialism in Africa were doomed.

p It should be noted that Soviet scholars always attached great attention to supporting the national liberation movements of the patriots of Angola, Mozambique, and GuineaBissau. Soviet Africanists who made a detailed study of these movements were helped in their work by meetings with Eduardo Mondlane, Amilcar Cabral and other great leaders of the national liberation struggle who made scientific reports at the Institute of Africa the USSR Academy of Sciences.

p Soviet scientists played an important role in compiling the History of Africa which was part of the UNESCO Programme of Study and Popularisation of African Culture that envisaged the combined efforts of scientists from different countries, including African.

p Soviet scientists were actively involved in all the preparatory stages of the work. The draft of the History of Africa was drawn up in an atmosphere of acute ideological struggle between the proponents and opponents of historical materialism. Soviet scientists produced pertinent arguments to prove that the publication had to reflect the general laws of the historical process and that they had to be applied in analysing African history. They also proposed that volumes dealing with the period of colonialism and the development of the national revolutionary movement, which were most important politically, had to be published first.

p One of Africa’s most important problems is the creation of national written languages. Soviet scientists regard that it is their internationalist duty to help the African peoples in this respect. A definite step in this direction was made when scientific colloquiums on the problems of African written languages and on the state of African literatures were organised at the USSR’s Africa Institute in 1962 in which African linguists studying in the USSR actively participated. The exchange of views between Soviet and African participants revealed a unity of views on the development of written national languages. It was specially noted that the creation of literature in native languages was one of the most urgent tasks facing African authors and that it was directly connected with the problem of spiritual decolonisation.

p Soviet scientists also played an important part in the scientific colloquium (1966) and a scientific symposium (1969) 277 that were organised within the framework of major international projects in the field of African culture—the First World Festival of Negro Arts which took place in Dakar in April 1966, and the First Pan-African Cultural Festival in Algiers in 1969.

p An important report was read at the colloquium in Dakar by D. A. Olderogghe who spoke on the problems of art and culture in West Africa.

p Reports that were made by Soviet scholars at the symposium in Algiers fully conformed to the festival’s motto "Culture to the Service of Social Progress in Africa”. Many of their propositions were taken into consideration during the drafting of the symposium’s main document "Pan-African Cultural Manifesto”. The document made the point that culture and art could not stand aloof from the ideological and political struggle and that advanced culture was an important means in the fight against imperialist influence and neocolonialism.

p Founded in 1963 in Nairobi (Kenya), the East African Academy of Sciences sponsored several symposiums which helped African scientists to establish contacts with their counterparts in European, American and Asian count’ies.

p At these forums Soviet representatives presented reports about the Soviet Africanists’ works which aroused considerable interest, including "African Studies in the USSR”, "The Study of the Agrarian Question in African Countries by Soviet Africanists”, and "The Inflow and Outflow of Long-Term Funds to and from the Countries of East Africa”,

p A special role in international scientific forums was played by conferences devoted to the 50th and 60th anniversaries of the Great October Socialist Revolution, Lenin’s centenary and the 50th anniversary of the USSR, all of which were attended by delegations of African scientists and public and political figus.

p Soviet and African representatives spoke about the great role that was played by the ideas of the October Revolution in allying the anti-imperialist forces for the struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism and internal reaction. The conferences were a major contribution to the theoretical elaboration of the problems of the developing countries, including African. They showed that the experience of socialist construction in the USSR was of lasting significance 278 for the solution of cardinal socio-economic and political tasks facing African, Asian and Latin American states.

p Representatives from African and other developing countries displayed great interest in" how the national question had been solved in the USSR, and in the development of the economy and national culture of what had once been Russia’s outlying regions and which at a certain stage had to surmount more or less the same difficulties resulting from their colonial heritage. The delegates also exchanged experience already accumulated by the newly free states and national liberation movements.

The emergence of more and more African states which have rejected capitalist development and are orientated towards socialism broadens Soviet-African scientific and cultural cooperation. The progressive forces in African countries increasingly draw on Soviet experience and search for answers to urgent problems of independent development in MarxistLeninist theory.