Arrested Development: The Soviet Union in Ghana, Guinea, and Mali, 1955–1968

310 Pages·2022·5.247 MB·English

by  Alessandro Iandolo

ARRESTED
DEVELOPMENT

ARRESTED
DEVELOPMENT
The Soviet Union in Ghana, Guinea,
and Mali, 1955–1968
Alessandro Iandolo
CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS ITHACA AND LONDON
Copyright © 2022 by Cornell University
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts
thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing
from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press,
Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at
cornellpress . cornell . edu.
First published 2022 by Cornell University Press
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Iandolo, Alessandro, 1983– author.
Title: Arrested development : the Soviet Union in Ghana, Guinea, and Mali,
1955–1968 / Alessandro Iandolo.
Description: Ithaca [New York] : Cornell University Press, 2022. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022003832 | ISBN 9781501764431 (hardcover) |
ISBN 9781501764448 (pdf) | ISBN 9781501764455 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Economic assistance, Soviet—Ghana. | Economic assistance,
Soviet—Guinea. | Economic assistance, Soviet—Mali. | Economic
development—Ghana. | Economic development—Guinea. | Economic
development—Mali. | Soviet Union—Relations—Ghana. | Ghana—Relations—
Soviet Union. | Soviet Union—Relations—Guinea. | Guinea—Relations—
Soviet Union. | Soviet Union—Relations—Mali. | Mali—Relations—
Soviet Union. | Ghana—Economic conditions—1957–1979. | Guinea—Economic
conditions—1958–1984. | Mali—Economic conditions—1959–
Classification: LCC HC1060 .I26 2022 | DDC 338.9667—dc23/eng/20220304
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022003832
Cover photograph: Ahmed Sékou Touré, first president of the Republic of Guinea
(right), and Nikita Khrushchev, first secretary of the Soviet Communist Party’s
Central Committee and chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, shake
hands during Touré’s official visit to the USSR, September 7, 1960. Photo by
David Sholomovich. Source: Sputnik Images.
Contents
Acknowl edgments vii
List of Abbreviations xiii
Note on Transliteration xv
Introduction 1
1. A Farewell to Arms: De- Stalinization, the Soviet
Economy, and the Global Cold War 20
2. Brave New World: The Soviet Union and the Making
of the Third World 39
3. First Contact 62
4. The Heart of the M atter 92
5. Things Fall Apart 146
6. The End of the Affair 197
Conclusion 220
Notes 231
Bibliography 273
Index 277

Acknowle dgments
This was the most difficult section to write. Most academic colleagues and friends
love acknowl edgments. They find them funny, witty, sometimes moving, often
cringy. Acknowl edgments frighten me. How can one be sure to thank all with-
out missing anyone, their absence forever recorded on paper? Th ere are dozens,
perhaps hundreds, of p eople who helped with this book. They all deserve a thank
you and more. This is a task I could never hope to complete, and this is why I
de cided to take a minimalist approach, focusing on the most obvious institu-
tional, intellectual, and emotional debts I owe to p eople and places.
Many institutions have made this book pos si ble. I am thankful to Cornell
University Press for publishing it. Roger Haydon believed in the proj ect from
the beginning. His engagement with the core ideas in the manuscript I initially
sent him made it a much better book. Jim Lance took over the proj ect at a later
stage but worked with me with the same passion and dedication. Artemy Ka-
linovsky and Elidor Mëhilli, fellow Cornell authors, guided me in the pro cess
from day one. Both have been a huge source of intellectual inspiration, and both
have helped me shape the book. I am also profoundly grateful to the two anon-
ymous reviewers that read the manuscript for Cornell. They have given me cru-
cial suggestions that I implemented in the final version. They have also saved me
from a couple of embarrassing factual mistakes.
The idea for this book was born at the University of Oxford more than a de-
cade ago and was assisted by a scholarship from the Economic and Social Re-
search Council (ESRC). Generous financial support from the ESRC allowed me
to conduct research in Rus sia and Ghana between 2009 and 2011. Anne Deigh-
ton and Alex Pravda at Oxford supervised a proj ect that was highly unusual at
the time when the historical study of development was far from an established
field of research in the United Kingdom. It is thanks to their dedication, patience,
and knowledge that my research idea came to fruition and eventually could be
revised into a book. Many more p eople contributed to shaping my ideas in Ox-
ford. I am especially grateful to Agnese Abrusci, Stephanie Brockerhoff, Char-
lotte Bruckermann, Stefano Caria, Emanuele Ferragina, Natasha Graham,
Monika Hajdasz, Agostino Inguscio, Samuele Mazzolini, Michalis Moutselos,
Dario Nappo, Salvatore Morelli, Andrea Polo, Ana Ranitovič, Alberto Rigolio,
Fabian Teichmueller, Rebecca Thomas, Piero Tortola, Peter Zeniewski, and Pegah
Zohouri.
vii
viii Acknowle dgments
Later on, a fellowship from the British Acad emy allowed me to spend three
wonderful years as a postdoc at the London School of Economics (LSE). The Brit-
ish Acad emy also generously funded research trips to Rus sia, Mali, France, and
the United States. The LSE’s Department of International History has long been
a second home for me and many more UK- based historians interested in the Cold
War. Arne Westad has been the best mentor I could hope for. A constant source
of inspiration and intellectual stimulation, Arne created a real community of
scholars at the LSE. He had started helping me when I was still writing my dis-
sertation and continues to this day. I owe him so much. I met Matthew Jones on
my very first day at the LSE. He has never stopped supporting me and my work
since. As mentor, head of the department, and colleague, Matthew has helped
me e very step of the way. I feel so lucky to know him. At the LSE, I had the privi-
lege of regularly attending and presenting twice at the con temporary history
seminar series. It is an incredible resource for all scholars of international his-
tory in the UK and beyond. I also owe special thanks to many colleagues and
friends in the LSE community, in par tic u lar: Roham Alvandi, Andrea Chiam-
pan, Aurélie Dianara Andry, Vesselin Dimitrov, Matthew Hinds, Piers Ludlow,
Tommaso Milani, Pete Millwood, Elizabeth Shlala, Natalia Telepneva, Simon
Toner, Vladimir Unkovski- Korica, Laurent Warlouzet, and Vladislav Zubok.
I often feel that I learned more in less than a year at Columbia University than
in all my previous years of higher education combined. I am grateful to the Ful-
bright Commission for granting me a fellowship, and to Mark Mazower and
Małgorzata Mazurek for supporting me. I hope to be back soon.
Years a fter earning my PhD there, I returned to Oxford as a lecturer. It was a
great home institution for a few years,and many colleagues engaged with my
work and helped me advance my ideas. Paul Betts has encouraged me from the
beginning. His comments on an early draft of the manuscript gave me the con-
fidence and resolve to complete the proj ect. I feel privileged to work with him.
Many o thers in Oxford have been a g reat source of inspiration and constructive
criticism, among them Kathrin Bachtleitner, Bill Booth, Puneet Dhaliwal, Enid
Guene, Louise Fawcett, Friederike Haberstroh, Sudhir Hazareesingh, Hussam
Hussein, Kasia Jeżowska, Eddie Keene, Miles Larmer, Juan Masullo, Neil Mc-
Farlane, Carlotta Minnella, Giuseppe Paparella, Marina Pérez de Arcos, Edu-
ardo Posada Carbó, Andrea Ruggeri, Nelson Ruiz, and Ricardo Soares de
Oliveira. I am also grateful to Paul Chaisty and Dan Healey for inviting me to
pre sent in the Rus sian and Eurasian Studies seminar series.
Since September 2021, I have been based at the Davis Center for Rus sian and
Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. It is a wonderful place to work for some-
one interested in the Soviet Union. I am grateful to Donna Cardarelli and Alex-
andra Vacroux for their help and support.
Acknowle dgments ix
One of the best aspects of writing this book has been traveling to many diff er-
ent places for research. Moscow is the place I have visited more often for this book,
and one I never tire of visiting. Some colleagues I met t here have provided tremen-
dous help with the book. I first got to know David Engerman while we w ere both
working in the same Moscow archive— one with particularly puzzling opening
hours. David has been an incredible source of inspiration, help, and suggestions
since then. It is difficult to express how indebted I am to his work, insight, and
good humor. I have been fortunate to be able to follow the path David has forged
in studying the Soviet approach to development. Likewise, I met Chris Miller
while we w ere both based at the New Economic School in Moscow. Chris has been
a fantastic friend since, and his feedback on a draft of the manuscript has made it
into a much better book. In Moscow, I am also grateful to Alan Crawford, Liya
Eijvertinya, JJ Gurga, Kristy Ironside, Hilary Lynd, Michelle Maydanchik, Colleen
Moore, Aliide Naylor, Anna Nogina, Giovanni Savino, Samantha Sherry, Olga
Skorokhodova, Olga Suchkova, Jonathan Waterlow, Shlomo Weber, Yuval Weber,
and Andy Willimott. Many archivists and librarians in Moscow have greatly facili-
tated my research. I would not have been able to write this book without the help of
Irina Tarakanova at the Archive of the Rus sian Acad emy of Sciences (ARAN),
Sergei Pavlov at the Foreign Ministry Archive (AVP RF), Nadezhda Kostrikova at
the Rus sian State Archive of the Economy (RGAE), and Liudmila Stepanich at the
Rus sian State Archive of Con temporary History (RGANI).
In Accra, I am grateful to Kojo Bright Botwe for his help while working at
the national archives (PRAAD). I am also indebted to Erin Braatz, Martí Roig
Guardiola, and Martin Williams for their com pany and ideas while in Ghana.
In Bamako, I owe special thanks to Fofana Sidibé at the Centre Nationale de la
Recherche Scientifique et Technologique, Macki Samake at the Université des
Lettres et des Sciences Humaines, and Ablaye Traoré at the Archives Nationales
du Mali. I am also grateful to Bouréma Konate, Ylenia Rosso, and Rebecca Wall
for the wonderful hospitality and com pany while I was in Mali. In Paris, I am
thankful to Jean- Pierre Bat and Nicole Even for their help with the collections
at the Archives Nationales in Pierrefitte- sur- Seine, and to all the reading room
staff at the Archives du Ministère des Affaires Étrangeres in La Courneve. I am
also grateful for the hospitality and ideas Mario Del Pero, Michele Di Donato,
Veronik Durin- Hornyik, Massimiliano Gaggero, and Ophélie Rillon offered
while I was in France.
Over the years, I have benefited from presenting my research and listening
to so many g reat papers at many conferences and workshops. As a historian of
the Soviet Union and the world— a field that counts many prac ti tion ers but sadly
lacks official recognition— I have often felt I missed an obvious professional
association to belong to and annual conference to go to. The Association for
x Acknowle dgments
Slavic, East Eu ro pean and Eurasian Studies and the Society for Historians of
American Foreign Relations have both provided an intellectual home and an
occasion to engage with the work of hundreds of brilliant historians. Both as-
sociations have become remarkably open to scholars whose research crosses ap-
proaches and geo graph i cal bound aries. Feedback and comments on vari ous
papers related to the content of this book have helped me im mensely. I cannot
wait to attend both conferences again.
I am also grateful to the organizers of a few workshops that allowed me to
pre sent my research work and receive g reat feedback on early and l ater drafts of
sections of this book. In par tic u lar, fellow participants at the International
Gradu ate Student Conference on the Cold War, or ga nized jointly by the LSE,
George Washington University and the University of California at Santa Bar-
bara; and the Eu ro pean Summer School on Cold War History, or ga nized jointly
by the LSE and the University of Padua in Italy, gave me so many ideas and sug-
gestions that helped me in completing this book. I am especially grateful to Frank
Gerits, Elisabeth Leake, Emilie Menz, and Alanna O’Malley.
In October 2017, Elizabeth Banks and Robyn d’Avignon invited me to pre sent
at a terrific workshop on contacts between the Soviet Union and diff er ent parts
of Africa at New York University. I learned so much from every one that day, and
for the first time I realized fully how much interest in Soviet- African relations
has increased since I started my proj ect. Nana Osei- Opare, whom I first met at
the NYU workshop, read a draft of this book and helped me sharpen my argu-
ment and tighten my take on historiography. I owe him a lot.
The Laureate Program on International History at the University of Sydney
offered me the perfect fellowship to focus on writing. I am grateful to Glenda
Sluga for giving me this opportunity and for her constant engagement with my
work since. While in Sydney, I also greatly appreciated conversations and dis-
cussions with Dave Brophy, Sophie Loy- Wilson, and Dirk Moses.
The biggest debt of all I owe to Philippa Hetherington. She has engaged with
every section and every aspect of this book, from the general argument to mi-
nutiae about orthography and pagination. More impor tant, she is the one who
has shown me what it means to think and write like a historian. I have learned
critical thinking from her. It is a debt I will never be able to pay back, but I can
at the very least acknowledge it h ere.
For the time it took me to write this book, I know I have been a bad f amily
member, friend, partner, and son. Over the past thirteen years, I have missed
countless anniversaries, birthdays, cele brations, gatherings, holidays, and espe-
cially weddings, usually because I “ really needed” to spend some more time in
Bamako, Moscow, Paris, or someplace e lse. I hope the a ctual appearance of this