Nkrumah’s Elite: Ghanaian students in the Soviet Union in the Cold War

ABSTRACT

From the independence of Ghana in 1957 to the ouster of the socialist President Kwame Nkrumah in 1966 more than 600 Ghanaians studied at universities and professional-technical schools in the Soviet Union. For both Ghana and the USSR these students were expected to become the socialist-minded elite that would build up postcolonial Ghana and reinforce the country’s relations with the socialist camp. This paper retraces the history of this student migration which, by that time, was the biggest one from a postcolonial African country to the Soviet Union. It surveys the premises, visions, and policies of the Soviet–Ghanaian cooperation, and investigates the students’ aspirations, before shedding light on their disappointing experiences and subsequent mobilisations in several cities around the USSR. This disillusionment, however, soon gave place to another one. With the ouster of Nkrumah, students studying in the Eastern Bloc came under attack. Back in Ghana, they were depicted as second-class specialists and often saw their ambitions shattered. Under those circumstances, Nkrumah’s students sought support from the Soviet Union and mobilised to defend their degrees and professional rights. In some respects, the post-1966 disillusionment rekindled their relationship with the Soviet Union.

KEYWORDS:

• Ghana
• students
• Kwame Nkrumah
• Soviet Union
• Cold War

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ See this decree of 24/03/1958 in Apollon Davidson and Sergej Mazov eds., Rossija i Afrika. Dokumenty i materialy XVIII v. – 1960g [Russia and Africa. Archival Documents and Material 18^th century – 1960s], v. 2 (Moscow: IVI RAN, 1999), 158–9.

² Constantin Katsakioris, “The Lumumba University in Moscow: Higher Education for a Soviet-Third World Alliance, 1945–1991,” Journal of Global History 14, no. 2 (2019): 281–300.

³ Marta Edith Holečková, “Konfliktní lekce z internacionalismu: studenti z ‘třetiho světa’ a jejich konfrontace s českým prostředim, 1961–1974 [Conflicting lessons of internationalism: students from the ‘Third World’ and their encounter with the Czechoslovak society, 1961–1974],” Soudobé Dějiny 20, no. 1–2 (2013): 158–76.

⁴ Ghanaians who attended political schools are not part of this paper. For an early and very important case of a Ghanaian student who received political training in the USSR, see Holger Weiss, “The Making of an African Bolshevik: Bankole Awooner Renner in Moscow, 1925–1928,” Ghana Studies 9 (2006): 177–220.

⁵ Nkrumah quoted in Philip McMichael, Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective (Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press, 2004), 32.

⁶ Keri Lambert, “‘It’s All Work and Happiness on the Farms’: Agricultural Development between the Blocs in Nkrumah’s Ghana,” Journal of African History 60, no. 1 (2019): 25–44; Jeffrey S. Ahlman, Living with Nkrumahism: Nation, State and Pan-Africanism in Ghana (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2017), 115–47.

⁷ Gerardo Serra and Frank Gerits, “The Politics of Socialist Education in Ghana: The Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute, 1961–1966,” Journal of African History 60, no. 3 (2019): 407–28; Jean Allman, “Kwame Nkrumah, African Studies and the Politics of Knowledge Production in the Black Star of Africa,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 46, no. 2 (2013): 181–203.

⁸ One of the best accounts is still William Scott Thompson, Ghana’s Foreign Policy, 1957–1966: Diplomacy, Ideology and the New State (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969). See also Christopher Stevens, The Soviet Union and Black Africa (London: Macmillan, 1976), 101–35; and Matteo Grilli, Nkrumaism and African Nationalism: Ghana’s Pan-African Foreign Policy in the Age of Decolonisation (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 219–26. Nana Osei-Opare, “Uneasy Comrades: Postcolonial Statecraft, Race, and Citizenship, Ghana-Soviet Relations, 1957–1966,” Journal of West African History 5, no. 2 (2019): 85–112

⁹ Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 73–109.

¹⁰ N’dri T. Assié-Lumumba, Higher Education in Africa: Crises, Reforms and Transformation (Dakar: CODESRIA, 2006). See also Ludovic Tournès and Giles Scott-Smith, “A World of Exchanges: Conceptualizing the History of International Scholarship Programs (Nineteenth to Twenty-first Centuries),” in Ludovic Tournès and Giles Scott-Smith, eds., Global Exchanges: Scholarships and Transnational Circulations in the Modern World (New York: Berghahn Books, 2017), 1–29.

¹¹ Damian Mac Con Uladh, “Guests of the Socialist Nation? Foreign Students and Workers in the GDR” (PhD diss., University College London, 2005); Julie Hessler, “Death of an African Student in Moscow: Race, Politics, and the Cold War,” Cahiers du Monde russe, 47, no. 1–2 (2006): 33–64; Maxim Matusevich, “Journeys of Hope: African Diaspora and the Soviet Society,” African Diaspora, 1 (2008), 53–85; Klaas van Walraven, The Yearning for Relief: A History of the Sawaba Movement in Niger (Leiden: Brill, 2013); Monique de Saint Martin et al., eds., Étudier à l’Est. Trajectoires d’étudiants africains et arabes en URSS et dans les pays d’Europe de l’Est (Paris: Karthala, 2015); Quinn Slobodian, ed., Comrades of Colour: East Germany in the Cold War World (New York: Berghahn, 2015); Daniel Branch, “Political Traffic: Kenyan Students in Eastern and Central Europe, 1958–69,” Journal of Contemporary History 53, no. 4 (2018), 811–31; Sara Pugach, “Eleven Nigerian Students in Cold War East Germany: Visions of Science, Modernity, and Decolonization,” Journal of Contemporary History (2018), doi:10.1177/0022009418803464; Eric Burton, “Tansanias ‘Afrikanischer Sozialismus’ und die Entwicklungspolitik der beiden deutschen Staaten: Akteure, Beziehungen und Handlungsspielräume, 1961–1990” (PhD diss., University of Vienna, 2018).

¹² Sergey Mazov, “Navedenie mostov i poisk soiuznikov, 1956–1960 [Building bridges and searching for allies, 1956–1960],” in Apollon Davidson, ed., SSSR i Afrika 1918–1960: Dokumentirovannaia Istoriia Vzaimootnoshenii [USSR and Africa 1918–1960: Documentary History of Relations] (Moscow: IVI RAN, 2002), 181.

¹³ See Katsakioris, “Creating a Socialist Intelligentsia,” 279, Table 2. One of the first African students in the USSR, the Togolese Michel Ayih, also refers to his Ghanaian peers. See Michel Ayih, Ein Afrikaner in Moskau (Cologne: Bertelsmann, 1961).

¹⁴ Grilli, Nkrumaism and African Nationalism, 213–21. Osei-Opare, “Uneasy Comrades,” 97–98.

¹⁵ Letter of 22 July 1961. See the documents of the Friendship Association in the State Archive of the Russian Federation (hereafter GARF), f. (fond means collection) 9576, op. (opis’ is inventory) 14, d. (delo is file) 6, l. (list means page) 174.

¹⁶ Two letters of the same person, 6 February 1961 the first and 27 September 1961 the second, in: GARF, 9576, op. 14, d. 3, l. 142 and d. 6, l. 122.

¹⁷ Letter to the Friendship Association by Kwawe Paintsil Ansah, 3 May 1961. See GARF, 9576, op. 14, d. 4, l. 161.

¹⁸ Mazov, “Navedenie mostov,” 184–7.

¹⁹ Report addressed to the vice-president of the Union of Soviet Friendship Societies, E. Ivanov, by the Soviet cultural attaché in Accra, L. Iablotskov, July 1961: GARF, f. 9576, op. 14, d. 2, l. 37. Concerned with the Soviet propaganda, the Ghanaian authorities closed down the House of Soviet Culture in already in 1962. It continued, however, its activity on a smaller scale from the Soviet Embassy.

²⁰ Documents of the Commission are found in: GARF, f. 9606, op. 2, d. 143, ll. 102–103 and d. 266, ll. 129–34. For the USSR, I used data from the documents of the Soviet Ministry of Higher and Specialised Secondary Education: GARF, f. 9606, op. 1, d. 1638, ll. 9–12.

²¹ The percentages are based on aggregate data of January 1963. Unfortunately, the category “medicine and medical specializations” also includes students in faculties of sport, which, however, according to all evidence, represented a very small percentage. See GARF, f. 9606, op. 2, d. 143, l. 106.

²² For the Western countries, see UNESCO, Statistics of Students Abroad, 1962–1968 (Paris: UNESCO, 1971), Table 2.1 13A. For the USSR, see Katsakioris, “Creating a Socialist Intelligentsia,” 279, Table 2.

²³ For these events, see the file d. 28 in the archive of the Committee of Youth Organisations, which contains press release and articles translated in Russian, in the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History (hereafter RGASPI), f. M-3, op. 3, d. 28, ll. 418–43.

²⁴ Copy in Russian language. See GARF, f. 9576, op. 14, d. 26, l. 159.

²⁵ Thompson, Ghana’s Foreign Policy, 265–8.

²⁶ Transcript of the discussion of 28 February 1964, by S.I. Sokhin, Deputy-Director of the Department of Foreign Relations of the Ministry: GARF, f. 9518, op. 1, d. 546, ll. 47–9.

²⁷ Katsakioris, “Creating a Socialist Intelligentsia,” 268.

²⁸ Documents on the creation of this organisation are found in: GARF, R-9576, op. 14, d. 50, ll. 175–81.

²⁹ Central State Archives of Supreme Bodies of Power and Government of Ukraine (hereafter TsDAVO), f. 4621, op. 6, d. 32, l. 28.

³⁰ Hessler, “Death of an African Student,” 56.

³¹ “Ghana’s ambassador received in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 20 December 1963”: see GARF, f. 9606, op. 2, d. 98, ll. 116–18, and other related documents in the same file.

³² On this stipend, which represented an increase of 40% in the scholarship as noted in a report of the Committee of Youth Organisations (KMO), see the KMO documents in RGASPI, f. M-3, op. 3, d. 338, l. 125.

³³ “Secret” transcripts of the discussion held on 31 May 1965 between Elliot and the Soviet Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs, V. Semenov, in Moscow. See GARF, f, 9606, op. 2, d. 171, ll. 190–92.

³⁴ “Secret” report of the Leningrad City Soviet to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 5 April 1965: GARF, f, 9606, op. 2, d. 171, ll. 115–16.

³⁵ Report addressed by the Central Committee of the CP of Ukraine to the Central Committee of the CPSU, 19 May 1965. See Central State Archives of Public Organisations of Ukraine (hereafter TsDAGO), f. 1, op. 24, d. 6005, ll. 85–8.

³⁶ RGASPI f. M-1, op. 39, d. 30, l. 46, V. Vesenskii of the All-Union Council for the Affairs of Foreign Students, “Report on the Mission in Kherson,” 1966.

³⁷ “Top secret” report by the chief of staff of the Black Sea Direction of Fishing Industry, V. Tsukhrii, 11 August 1964. See TsDAGO, f. 1, op. 24, d. 5906, l. 66.

³⁸ Ibid., l. 74.

³⁹ “Secret” report of the School to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 21 October 1964: GARF, f, 9606, op. 2, d. 137, ll. 55–58.

⁴⁰ Report by V. Vesenskii, RGASPI f. M-1, op. 39, d. 30, l. 43.

⁴¹ Ibid., l, 48.

⁴² Letter in English by E. Lah Anyane, 21 February 1963: GARF, f. 9576, op. 14, d. 59, ll. 160–61.

⁴³ Letter in English by S. Addai-Duah, 13 May 1962: GARF, f. 9576, op. 14, d. 44, l. 130.

⁴⁴ Letter in Russian by Joseph Tvumasi, 19 March 1963: GARF, f. 9576, op. 14, d. 81, ll. 43–4.

⁴⁵ Letter in English, name invisible, 28 July 1965: GARF, f. 9576, op. 14, d. 112, l. 282.

⁴⁶ “Report on the foreigners studying at the Stavropol Medical Institute,” 4 March 1967: RGASPI, f. M-1, op. 39, d. 30, l. 70.

⁴⁷ Komsomol report without exact date. See GARF, f. 9606, op. 2, d. 221, l. 55.

⁴⁸ See two Komsomol reports of 1968 in: RGASPI, f. M-3, op. 39, d. 136, ll. 14–22 and 23–31 respectively.

⁴⁹ “Secret,” 14 February 1967, in: GARF, f. 9606, op. 2, d. 270, l. 4.

⁵⁰ This was a measure several African embassies used to gather information and keep their nationals in check.

⁵¹ These developments are exposed in the two 1968 Komsomol reports cited above: see RGASPI, f. M-3, op. 39, d. 136, ll. 14–22 and 23–31.

⁵² “Secret” letter addressed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by the rector of the School of Industrial Fishing of Kherson, 27 October 1966. See GARF, f. 9606, op. 2, d. 214, l. 228.

⁵³ On this incident, see the discussion between the Ghanaian ambassador, B. Poku, and the head of the 2nd African Department at the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I. Kudriukov, 12 July 1967: GARF, f. 9606, op. 1, d. 3095, ll. 10–11.

⁵⁴ “Secret” letter to the Ministry of Education by the Soviet ambassador in Accra, 12 August 1966. See GARF, f. 9606, op. 2, d. 214, l. 196.

⁵⁵ I draw from a Soviet report and a translation of this article: see GARF, f. 9518, op. 1, d. 1112, l. 4.

⁵⁶ Joseph Amamoo, God’s Hand at Work: 7 True Stories from Africa (Bloomington, IN: Xlibris, 2013), 29.

⁵⁷ “Report on the discussion between the delegation of Ghanaian students studying in the Soviet Union and representatives of the Ghanaian government (18 March 1968–24 April 1968),” by the president of the Union of Ghanaian students in the USSR, Opam Adjei: RGASPI, f. M-3, op. 39, d. 136, ll. 6–13.

⁵⁸ It is not clear in the report whether the nine graduates mentioned first returned to Ghana directly or after they pursued specialisation in a third country. See “Information on the graduates of Lvov Medical Institute,” M.V. Danilenko, 2 February 1970. See TsDAVO, f. 4621, op. 13, d. 1378, ll. 106–11.

⁵⁹ Report for the school term 1975–76, written by the Dean for the foreign students, D.E. Gretshanin: see TsDAVO, f. 4621, op. 13, d. 3876, l. 107.

⁶⁰ “Report on the activity of unions of graduates of Soviet schools,” 2 January 1979, Soviet Ministry of Education, see GARF, f. 9606, op. 1, d. 8665, ll. 46–7.

⁶¹ Stevens, The Soviet Union and Black Africa, 98.

⁶² Katsakioris, “Creating a Socialist Intelligentsia,” 279.

⁶³ “Soviet-trained Ghanaians Congratulate Veep, Pledge Support,” The Ghanaian Times, July 8, 2009, https://www.modernghana.com/news/226073/1/soviet-trained-ghanaians-congratulate-veep-pledge-.html, accessed 25 March 2019.

⁶⁴ Branch, “Political Traffic.”

⁶⁵ Thomas Burgess, “A Socialist Diaspora: Ali Sultan Issa, the Soviet Union, and the Zanzibari Revolution,” in Maxim Matusevich, ed., Africa in Russia, Russia in Africa: Three Centuries of Encounters (Trenton: Africa World Press 2007), 263–91; Maxim Matusevich, No Easy Row for a Russian Hoe: Ideology and Pragmatism in Nigerian-Soviet Relations, 1960–1991 (Trenton: Africa World Press, 2003).

⁶⁶ “Soviet-trained Ghanaians,” The Ghanaian Times. See also the 1979 Soviet Ministry of Education “Report on the activity of unions of graduates of Soviet schools”. For a particularly successful trajectory of a Ghanaian doctor in the United States, see Moses O. Biney, From Africa to America: Religion and Adaptation among Ghanaian Immigrants in New York (New York: New York University Press, 2011), 42–4.

⁶⁷ Oxfam, “Scholarships and the Healthcare Human Resources Crisis: A Case-study of Soviet and Russian Scholarships for Medical Students from Ghana,” Oxfam Case-Study, December 2014: 13. Abena Dove Osseo-Asare, Atomic Junction: Nuclear Power in Africa after Independence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung.

Notes on contributors

Constantin Katsakioris

Constantin Katsakioris holds a PhD from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris (2015). He is currently Visiting Professor of African History at the University of Bayreuth and he is completing a monograph entitled, “Soviet Lessons: The Education of Students from Africa and the Middle East in the Soviet Union during the Cold War.” Parts of his research have appeared in the Journal of Global History, the Journal of Contemporary History, the Journal of Modern European History, the Cahiers d’Études africaines, and Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History.