Aryan Rajagopal | Originally Published: 18 October 2026
The slow grind of decolonization and the toppling of apartheid regimes across Africa and Asia led to the formation of unique bonds between oppressed peoples. Many such bonds were formed for strategic geopolitical purposes, while others developed through a shared struggle against imperial oppression, regardless of ideological affiliation. In this essay, I argue that expressions of camaraderie in Alex La Guma’s A Soviet Journey reflected broader Soviet aims to foster global solidarity among anti-colonial movements in the Global South. Discussions between La Guma and those he met during his travels illustrate how domestic expressions of Soviet internationalism intersected with anti-colonial movements across Asia and Africa, portraying the USSR as a natural partner in these struggles.
La Guma began his journeys in Moscow, before travelling deep into Central Asia, passing through the Uzbek and Turkmen Union republics before landing in Kazakhstan. Throughout his travels, he met the local populations in villages and on farms, engaging in discourse as if they were fellow countrymen while taking in the daily lives of those around him. La Guma (2017) was a committed socialist with ties to the African National Congress (ANC) and South African Communist Party (SACP); he was exiled from South Africa in 1966 after being arrested for anti-government activism (3). Many anti-colonial revolutionaries believed the Soviets could be a useful ally against imperial and apartheid oppression, a superpower that could supply their movements and apply international pressure, regardless of ideological differences. This justified his deployment to the USSR as a representative of the ANC and SACP, where he gained first-hand accounts of life under communism (3). What La Guma experienced contradicted every account of the “Red Menace” those in London would have dictated while in exile; during his travels, he found a state where minority and majority groups shared meals without worry for social status or ethnic superiority. Upon learning of his South African origins, the locals La Guma feasts with in the Tajik Soviet Republic express solidarity with his people in the fight against apartheid. Describing their lives under the Soviet Union, an Uzbek man shares how “various peoples live together in equality, and all work and enjoy life together,” regardless of their abilities or needs (103). This remained the case whether a citizen was of the majority Russian population or among the hundreds of minority ethnicities across the USSR, starkly contrasting the lives of his fellow countrymen in South Africa, where apartheid oppression had divided society on racial grounds.
La Guma subscribed to the Leninist belief that the global socialist revolution would encompass “a struggle of all dependent countries against international imperialism,” recognizing anti-colonial nationalist movements as the next phase of international proletarian liberation (64). Conversations between La Guma and Soviet citizens in Central Asia echoed these ambitions, and Soviet alignment was not uncommon among national independence movements, even if not on an ideological level. India’s first president, Jawaharlal Nehru, had expressed admiration for the Soviet economic models alongside his allies in the Indian National Congress. He shared many of La Guma’s internationalist beliefs, positing that the now-independent India must become a beacon of global solidarity for anti-imperial movements across Asia and the Global South (Westad 2017, 132). Nehru’s socialist alignments were not the sole influence behind his internationalist beliefs; rather, he saw rapid Soviet economic development and its continued support for national independence movements as a more trustworthy partner than the capitalist West (132). In many ways, Indian economic development and the lives of its citizens reflected the encounters of La Guma in the USSR: a large multiethnic state by geography and population under a left-wing ideological system sought to support decolonization efforts in the Global South. Partnerships between India and the Soviet Union, agreed upon by Nehru and Nikita Khrushchev, successor to Stalin after 1953, formalized this partnership and bolstered India as a bulwark to Western ideological expansion in South Asia (132). A productive relationship with India was far more than a foreign policy objective for the USSR; it reflected the livelihood of Soviet citizens who shared company with La Guma irrespective of their ethnoracial or national differences, united under a common struggle against oppressive imperial rule.
Soviet support for national liberation movements was equally strong in Africa, where decolonization efforts had been bloody and sluggish against European imperialism and white-minority regimes. The most significant Soviet success story was its brief support for Patrice Lumumba and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which achieved independence in 1960 under incredibly challenging geopolitical circumstances (238-239). The sudden overthrow and execution of Lumumba by a Western-backed military dictatorship drew a significant conclusion despite the grim outcome: the Soviets were more than willing to support national independence movements in the Global South against imperial tyranny, particularly those with left-wing ideological alignment. The ANC was one such movement, aligned domestically with the SACP and active with the USSR through training and resources. For La Guma (2017), the “national liberation movement” described by Lenin had emerged after the Second World War, constituting the first time that the proletarian class believed they could overthrow their colonial masters (64). Engaging with decolonial movements that endorsed national liberty rather than ideological struggle challenged communist internationalism, forcing the Soviets to balance tolerating national identities domestically in Central Asia while emphasizing global solidarity. For minority groups within the USSR, these dynamics echoed the possibilities of global proletarian struggle. The triumph of oppressed peoples against autocratic Tsarist rule had been mirrored by anti-colonial revolutions in the Global South, such as the ANC’s movement to end apartheid, making them natural Soviet allies. Returning to La Guma’s time in the Tajik SSR, this shared attitude among Soviet citizens is made clear; he expressed how several toasts were made with those he ate with, “to peace, Afro-Asian solidarity, proletarian internationalism” (99).
International proletarian solidarity remained a critical element of Soviet foreign policy for the bulk of the Cold War, leading to the development of several national liberation movements along ideological lines. Some anticolonial movements, such as India under Nehru, maintained close relations with the USSR without adopting communism, either in admiration of Soviet economic successes or from a shared commitment to opposing European imperialism and racial injustice. Others, such as the comrades of La Guma in the SACP, sought cooperation with a socialist superpower they believed could aid in South African liberation against the apartheid regime. While Cold War ambitions to spread communism and secure domestic loyalty through the toleration of national identities should be considered, Soviet commitments to supporting national liberation movements in Asia and Africa directly contributed to the fall of European imperial and white-minority regimes. Interactions between La Guma and newfound comrades in the USSR, individuals he had never met before those moments, shared a brotherhood founded on solidarity against imperial rule, racial division and all other forms of oppression. Cheers to that.
References
1. La Guma, Alex. A Soviet Journey. Edited by Christopher J. Lee. Lexington Books, 2017.
2. Westad, Odd Arne. The Cold War: A World History. Basic Books, 2017.
