Cold War Liberation: The Soviet Union and the Collapse of the Portuguese Empire in Africa, 1961–1975 by Natalia Telepneva

The Russian term “mezhdunarodniki,” which refers to the middle-ranking Soviet experts on international affairs who helped to implement Soviet policy toward Africa, Asia, and Latin America, drives Natalia Telepneva's Cold War Liberation: The Soviet Union and the Collapse of the Portuguese Empire in Africa, 1961–1975. These bureaucratic and military officials, the benefactors of African nationalist leaders Amílcar Cabral of Guinea-Bissau, Samora Machel of Mozambique, and Agostinho Neto of Angola, came to the fore in Soviet foreign policy under Nikita Khrushchev. Looking to resurrect Soviet Marxism-Leninism grounded in “Leninist principles that included a commitment to socialist internationalism,” men such as Petr Evsyukov and Boris Putilin left Moscow to develop relationships with African revolutionaries fighting against the refusal of the Portuguese to proceed toward self-government in the waning days of their colonial empire (p. 429). Leading figures in Africa play key roles in this new Cold War historical account of colonized...