Getting rid of colonial dependence was a tragedy for tens of millions of Africans and an indelible shame for politicians in developed countries

In the autumn of 1975, the Angolan capital was in a state of alarm. The country was preparing to declare its independence from Portugal. But the people of Luanda felt not joy, but fear. Detachments of warring factions were approaching the capital from several sides. The first day of freedom, November 11, was the first day of a civil war that lasted 27 years and claimed the lives of a million Angolans.

The tragedy of Angola is striking in its predictability. By the mid-1970s, there was no doubt that the decolonization of Africa, which unfolded in the late 1950s, was bringing war, poverty, and hunger to the peoples of the Dark Continent. But the flywheel of history continued to spin mercilessly - too many were interested in the collapse of the colonial empires built by the countries of the Old World. The United States and the Soviet Union, which shared the inheritance of Britain, France, Belgium and other European metropolises, and the local intelligentsia and European politicians, who wanted to get rid of the colonial burden as soon as possible, had a hand in plunging the entire continent into darkness, regardless of the price they would pay for freedom of former subjects.

The colonization of Angola followed a typical scenario for many African countries. Until the end of the 19th century, the power of the Portuguese extended only to the coast - for profitable trade it was enough to control several trading posts and ports. In the depths of the mainland, Europeans had nothing to do; rivers of blood flowed there and the Imbangalas, a kind of African Cossacks, rampaged there. The Imbangala swelled their ranks by kidnapping teenagers in raids and training them in murder and robbery. To become a member of the team, a candidate for “Cossacks” had to kill at least one enemy and taste human flesh. Queen Nyinga Mbande, in order to help the Imbangala in the struggle for the Angolan throne, underwent a rite of passage, during which she personally pounded a baby in a mortar.

Angola became a real colony at the beginning of the 20th century. Since the 1930s, the government of António de Oliveira Salazar has strongly encouraged immigration from Portugal to Angola. The white population increased from 40,000 in 1940 to almost half a million in 1974. White farmers grew coffee, agave and sugar cane on plantations. Oil production grew rapidly, becoming the main Angolan export in the 1950s. The Portuguese built three railway lines from the interior of the country to the ocean. Luanda was experiencing a construction boom. Industrial production grew by 17% per year. The partisan movement was virtually suppressed and did not enjoy the support of the population, who preferred a bird in their hands - a stable income on a plantation or in a mine. There was no unified resistance to the colonial authorities: the USSR supported Agostinho Neto’s MPLA, Zaire and China supported Roberto Holden’s FNLA and Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA. Angolan parties were formed not on ideological, but on ethnic principles and waged a ruthless struggle among themselves, continuing the centuries-old tradition of inter-tribal clashes.

In April 1974, the dictatorship was overthrown in Portugal. The new government decided to break with the past, releasing the colonies to freedom. It was not a matter of economic hardship: Portugal's GDP grew by 6% per year, and income from Angolan oil and diamonds more than covered the costs of the war. The stigma of a “colonial power” was too shameful and outdated; there was nothing to do with such baggage in the European Economic Community.

So much the worse for Angola. After the declaration of independence, everything collapsed there. The civil war displaced 4 million people, more than a third of the population, the infrastructure collapsed, and diamond mining passed into the hands of marauding gangs. In terms of the Human Development Index and GDP per capita, Angola has fallen to one of the last places in the world.

By the middle of the 20th century, colonialism was hopelessly discredited. The first to abandon the dream of overseas territories were Germany, Italy and Japan, who lost World War II. But the victorious countries were also so drained of blood by the war that before our eyes they lost the will to retain their overseas possessions. Democratic governments were increasingly reluctant to risk the lives of soldiers in the tropics. The prevailing mood was the desire to quickly close this page of history and leave the colonies to their own fate.

The pace of decolonization was also spurred on by two antagonistic superpowers. For the Soviet Union, the national liberation struggle of African and Asian peoples promised further expansion of the socialist camp. For the United States, European colonialism has been an ideological enemy since the Revolutionary War. The attack by France and Great Britain on Egypt in 1956 ended in failure not so much because of Khrushchev’s threats, but because of Eisenhower’s principled position, which sharply condemned Paris and London.

The few European imperialists (British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was one of them) had nothing to oppose to public opinion, which unanimously condemned the injustice and exploitative nature of colonialism. In addition, the colonies have long ceased to bring super-profits to the metropolises. It is true that the New World turned out to be a real Klondike for the Spanish Habsburgs, and India for British merchants. But for every one such “success story,” there were dozens of failed projects. The exploitation of wealth was hampered by the lack of communications, skilled labor and capital. To maintain millions of square kilometers of sparsely populated and wild territories under their rule, the metropolis often spent more than they received in return.

This was especially evident at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, when young powers, who did not have time to divide the most delicious pieces of the colonial pie, declared their right to participate in the division of the world. In 1903, Germany had to send 14,000 soldiers into the arid West African desert to protect its 10,000 colonists in Namibia from the rebel Herero tribe, and after defeating the rebels, leave a garrison of 2,000 there. Italy spent more than 20 years and thousands of soldiers' lives on the capture of desert Libya, Somalia and Eritrea, where, with all the desire, it was impossible to resettle the landless peasants of Calabria, who preferred the United States or Argentina. Vague arguments such as “national honor” or “geopolitics” came to the fore when making decisions.

In the colonies, Europeans pursued an extremely contradictory line. Forced labor coexisted with attempts at education, the forced expulsion of aborigines from their native lands - with smallpox vaccination and the fight against the slave trade. The British retained their previous tribal power, the French tried to impose centralized control. There was no meaningful course, just as there was no secret conspiracy to villainously exploit the colonies and forcibly keep them in poverty and lawlessness. The attitude of the British colonialists towards Africans differed little from the attitude of English capitalists towards the starving Irish or towards the proletarians of the Industrial Revolution.

And yet, the “European yoke” brought with it undeniable benefits to the conquered peoples. In the first half of the 20th century, many colonies embarked on a path of rapid economic and technological progress. Compared to the pace of development of some African countries, Soviet “industrialization” of the 1930s is pure fun. The Belgian Congo (a complete terra incognita back in 1885, when this colony was founded) had acquired a powerful mining industry by 1960: the country controlled 15% of global uranium production, 10% of copper production, 60% of cobalt, 16% of Germany, 9 % - tin, 60% - diamonds. Ghana ranked 2nd in the world in diamond exports, 3rd in manganese ore mining, and 5th in gold mining. Export-oriented plantation farming arose in Ivory Coast (3rd–4th place in the world in coffee and cocoa exports), Ghana (1st place in the world in cocoa exports), Senegal and Nigeria (largest peanut producers), Kenya, South Rhodesia. Literacy rates rose from zero to 25–50% of the population in one generation. Vaccinations have led to a sharp decline in infant mortality.

Integration into the world economy caused a painful breakdown of the social structure of the colonies, giving rise to acute and growing discontent among the indigenous inhabitants. The discontent was to be led by an ambitious class of “national cadres,” nurtured by Europeans to spur local economic development. A classic example of African “education” is the first president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah. In 1935 he went to study in the United States, where he fell under the influence of the Trinidadian Trotskyist Cyril James and became a convinced Marxist, although not of the orthodox variety. At home, he organized the People's Party, at the head of which he first achieved autonomy, and since 1957, the country's complete independence from the British Empire.

Ghana was the most developed of the British colonies in Africa, not only economically, but also socially. It had more hospitals, schools and orphanages than any other African country. But President Nkrumah hated capitalism, and all his thoughts were only about building an exemplary socialist state. Huge government investments were channeled into the construction of the Akosombo Dam and similar megalomaniac projects. In a matter of years, Nkrumah destroyed Ghana's export sector, entangled it in foreign debts and brought it to the brink of bankruptcy. At the very beginning of his reign, prices for cocoa beans tripled, but all the additional profits were wasted.

Nkrumah did not stand on ceremony with his political opponents. He banned strikes, declared Ghana a one-party state, dismantled independent courts, closed private newspapers, declared himself president for life and jailed opposition figures. He should have been addressed as Osagyefo, i.e. Savior. When he was overthrown by the military in February 1966, Ghana breathed a sigh of relief, but it was no longer possible to regain the lost stability.

Nkrumah was one of many African leaders who did not express the slightest desire to maintain the level of development achieved under the Europeans. Respect for private property, political pluralism, economic competition - all this was an empty phrase for them. The father of the Singapore miracle, Lee Kuan Yew, watched with bitterness as houses in the new states deteriorated and the quality of breakfast in hotels deteriorated: Singapore started from the same low level as most African countries, but managed freedom much better.

The most colorful monsters among African dictators served as humble officers and officials under the Europeans, keeping their cannibalistic instincts to themselves. The departure of civilized power unleashed the darkest passions.

The government of Generalissimo Franco decided in 1968 to grant independence to the tiny Spanish colony of Equatorial Guinea. In the first free elections (which also turned out to be the last), petty official Francisco Macias Nguema won, turning his country into the “Dachau of Africa.” Of the 380,000 inhabitants, about seventy thousand were exterminated. Nguema was declared president for life, and the island of Fernando Po was renamed in his honor. He banned the use of Christian names and dispersed doctors with European education. Catholic priests were required to praise him in their prayers. To prevent the unfortunate population from scattering, Ngema categorically forbade his subjects to have boats, engage in fishing, or generally approach the shore.

The dictator appointed people from his clan to all responsible posts. Relying on them, Ngema could indulge in his favorite pastime for a long time - smoking the local drugs bhang and iboga, and assign himself titles like the Great Master of Education, Science and Culture. Sybaritism destroyed him - Ngema was overthrown by his own nephew. The president for life hid in the jungle for two weeks, was caught and sentenced to death, but the soldiers refused to shoot him, afraid of his witchcraft. Did you have to call in a platoon of Moroccans, who finished off the Unique Miracle?

In bloodthirstiness, Nguema was in no way inferior to the ruler of the Central African Empire, Jean Bedel Bokassa, and the President of Uganda, Idi Amin. Togolese President Knassingbé Eyadema fed his opponents to crocodiles. Guinean leader Sekou Toure chopped off the heads of his enemies at the Camp Boiro concentration camp. He said: “We prefer freedom in poverty to wealth in slavery.” Alas, under him the Guineans saw only impoverished slavery. Zairean Joseph Mobutu, a friend of Mao Zedong and Kim Il Sung, brought the richest country in Africa under the Belgians to extreme poverty, and also renamed a lake after himself, received the rank of field marshal (he served the Belgians with the rank of sergeant), and registered all Zaireans over 18 years of age into his party and amassed a fortune of several billion dollars.

The plans of progressive leaders and supporters of “African socialism” caused Africans even more suffering than the whims of tyrants. The trouble with anti-colonialism was that it was inextricably linked to utopian ideas about the possibilities of social engineering. Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere developed his version of Juche - Ujmaa: he drove the population into model villages, carried out collectivization and turned his country from the region's largest food exporter into the largest importer. Ethiopian leader Mengistu Haile Mariam began his reign with the assassination of 83-year-old Emperor Haile Selassie and the extrajudicial execution of hundreds of members of the old regime. These executions became the prologue to the “Ethiopian Red Terror,” during which half a million people were exterminated, and a famine organized by the “people’s” government killed another two million. The former Ethiopian leader, sentenced to death at home for genocide, is staying with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, the last of Africa's great anti-colonial leaders.

Zimbabwe, then called Southern Rhodesia, gained independence from Britain in 1980. For fifteen years, the white minority tried to maintain the illusion of prosperity, being well aware of the disastrous consequences of decolonization in neighboring countries. But at the end of the 20th century, the experiment with white minority rule was doomed. Both London and the West as a whole turned their backs on the government of Ian Smith, who declared a blockade on it. One hundred and fifty thousand whites were able, however, in the most unfavorable conditions, to maintain good rates of economic growth and even defeat the partisan movement. The tragic irony of history is that in the 1960s–1980s, the standard of living of the black population really grew only in Southern Rhodesia and South Africa, where millions of Africans from other countries were eager to work.

But against the “wind of change” (the expression of British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan), apartheid was powerless. The population of Southern Rhodesia-Zimbabwe was sacrificed to principle. The whites and the reasonable part of the indigenous people desperately tried to save the situation by installing a responsible black politician, Muzorewa, as prime minister. But the Tory government under Margaret Thatcher demanded free elections, which were easily won by the Marxist and terrorist Mugabe. Zimbabwe was the last African country to inevitably slide into chaos. Mugabe finished off the faltering economy with the help of agrarian reform: white farmers, who supported export-oriented agriculture, were expelled from the country, their lands passed into the hands of veteran guerrillas. The country, where colonialists built modern agriculture, excellent transport infrastructure and a powerful mining industry, now has a world record for inflation (160,000%) and imports most of its food consumption. The unemployment rate in Zimbabwe is 85%, three million Zimbabweans fled to South Africa to escape hunger.

The white man is indeed to blame for the suffering of Africans. Europe and the USA and the USSR, which pushed it, are guilty of the deaths from hunger and epidemics, in interethnic and civil wars of tens of millions of Africans. The hasty flight of Europeans from Africa, groveling before the bloodiest dictators of our time, became the basis of the latter’s unlimited power. Sekou Toure broke diplomatic relations with France, and Paris humiliatedly asked for their restoration for 10 years. When the Guinean tyrant “forgave” France, the President of the Republic, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, flew headlong to Guinea to pay his respects. Idi Amin ordered the arrest and execution of his critic, the English teacher Denis Hills. The British Queen and Prime Minister sent pitiful letters of apology and a request for clemency, and the Foreign Secretary personally flew to Uganda and several times asked forgiveness for the words of the British citizen, giving Amin the opportunity to fully revel in the humiliation of the former metropolis.

The civilized world has forbidden itself, in principle, to criticize the policies of new states. The UN endlessly condemned apartheid in South Africa or the white minority rule of Ian Smith, but never Amin or Mobutu. It was worse than a crime. It was a mistake.

To be fair, it is worth noting that even in those cases where former colonies chose a pro-Western course, the results were not brilliant. The achievements of the colonial period turned out to be too fragile. There were few non-socialist exceptions - Ivory Coast under Felix Houphouet-Boigny, Senegal under Leopold Senghor (a poet and member of the French Academy), Kenya under Jomo Kenyatta.

Houphouët-Boigny was an ardent anti-communist, did not recognize Cuba and Maoist China, and refused to enter into diplomatic relations with the USSR for 30 years. Under him, the country's economy continued to maintain a colonial character with an emphasis on cocoa production and the harvesting of valuable timber. But when the Sage of Africa, as Houphouët-Boigny was nicknamed, died at the age of 90, civil war broke out and the country split in half. In Senegal and Kenya, Western values were also supported by patriarchs who lived to be ninety-five and eighty-five, respectively. Kenyatta studied at the Comintern school in Moscow in the 1930s and could have become another Ho Chi Minh, but he chose capitalist enrichment, becoming the largest landowner of independent Kenya. With the departure of the patriarchs, the situation deteriorated catastrophically, clan, social and ethnic contradictions exploded the deceptive stability.

Perhaps the only example of successful post-colonial development was provided by Botswana, located in the Kalahari Desert. Seretse Khama, its first president from a line of leaders, relied on the mining of diamonds, copper and beef cattle breeding. Under him (from 1966 to 1980) and after him, Botswana's economy grew at the fastest rate in the world—an average of 9% per year. The Bechuana country, depicted by Valery Bryusov in the novel “Mountain of Stars” as the wildest corner of the Earth, has reached the level of moderately developed countries with a GDP of $16,450 per capita (higher than in Russia). Throughout the years of independence, Botswana maintained multi-party democracy and fought corruption, another plague of Africa and other underdeveloped countries. Foreign investment was encouraged, property rights were respected, and the state did not spend billions of dollars on ambitious industrial projects. But Botswana did not become heaven on earth. Every third person in the country is infected with AIDS, and average life expectancy has almost halved over the past 20 years.

The idea of liberation from overseas domination is noble and beyond doubt. But blind hostility to everything brought by the Europeans, a utopian belief in social engineering, the guilt complex experienced by the West and the fear of giving an honest assessment of what was happening in the former colonies led to disaster. Hundreds of millions of Africans, previously “cared for” at the very least, were not only abandoned to the mercy of fate, they were handed over to be torn to pieces by cannibals.

The plunge of Africa into the abyss of barbarism under the slogans of progress and prosperity is one of the main disappointments of the second half of the last century. But the lesson was in vain. With the end of the Cold War, things changed for the better on the continent.

Great powers no longer fight each other in Africa, pitting ideologically similar thugs against each other. Between the West and China, two centers of power that have retained an interest in the affairs of the continent (Russia, after the collapse of the USSR, sharply reduced its activity in Africa), there has even been a division of labor.

The West, which has spent tens of billions of dollars on economic aid to Africa, has focused on funding social programs and correcting morals. The refrain at every G8 summit is "Help Africa!" and creditors have written off tens of billions of dollars worth of bad debts to the continent's poorest countries. Sweden, Norway, Luxembourg spend up to 1% of GDP on aid to Africa. The US State Department has set up a special department that is responsible for spending $15 billion allocated to fight AIDS primarily in Africa.

For China, the Black Continent is one of the most important suppliers of raw materials; a third of Chinese oil imports are of African origin. Chinese funds and companies are buying up land in Africa suitable for agriculture. Beijing is not interested in human rights or the degree of corruption of the leadership of this or that African country. The main thing is that this management strictly fulfills its obligations to Chinese importers and investors.

After several lost decades, sub-Saharan Africa is back on track for economic development. In 2000–2007, GDP per capita growth in the region averaged 3% per year. The continent's most populous country (its population is larger than Russia), Nigeria is experiencing an economic boom and is ruled by a democratically elected president. After the abolition of apartheid, South Africa did not follow the path of Southern Rhodesia: the leaders of the black majority did not completely destroy the economy and retained the political institutions of liberal democracy. The obsession of big ideas - Marxism, Maoism, black racism - has passed, and the African elites have no serious alternative to returning to the path of normal capitalist development.

The catastrophe of liberation