Soviet Intelligence and African National Liberation

Guest: Natalia Telepneva is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Warwick specializing the history of Soviet foreign policy with a particular interest in Warsaw Pact interactions with African elites. She’s finishing a book tentatively titled “Cold War Liberation: The Soviet Union and the End of the Portuguese Empire in Africa, 1961-1976.” Her most recent articles are ‘Saving Ghana’s Revolution: The Demise of Kwame Nkrumah and The Evolution of Soviet Policy in Africa, 1966-1970’, Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 20, No. 4, Fall 2018 and “Mediators of Liberation: Eastern Bloc Officials, Mozambican Diplomacy and the Origins of Soviet Support for FRELIMO 1958-1965,” Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 43, Issue 1, 2017. Partial transcript. Music: Public Enemy, “Fight the Power,” Fear of a Black Planet, 1989.