ABSTRACT
The Soviet Union's 'discovery' of Africa after the Second World War came late, almost as if it were an accidental by-product of Moscow's primary interest in the Middle East. The policy of the Soviet Union towards Africa in particular, and the Third World generally, fluctuated according to the personalities of the country's three outstanding leaders: Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev. Soviet interest in the affairs of the Middle East itself was initially something of a response to the steady US economic, political and strategic penetration of the region. The Soviet Union had four main goals in Africa, strategic, economic, ideological, and political. Strategically, the Soviet objective was to wrest from the west their old dominance of the world's key 'choke-points' controlling straits and waterways or located in anchorages along vital oceanic routes. Economically, the Soviet objective was to aid and trade with responsive African countries, especially those strategically located.
