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Professor Vladimir Shubin 

These days the Republic of Zimbabwe celebrates the 41st Anniversary of the Independence. The joy of the People is shared by those abroad who supported the anti-colonial struggle.

Many years of co-operation between the USSR and the Zimbabwe Liberation Movement began with a visit to Moscow in January 1961 by the Secretary-General of the National Democratic Party Tarcisius George Silundika, future minister of the first government of the independent Zimbabwe. The visit had some practical results: his request for scholarships in Soviet universities and material support to acquire transport and printing shop for the NDP was granted, the students started coming and the NDP received 8 400 US dollars (remember, it was 1961).

Next year 1962 Joshua Nkomo, then President of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) that succeeded the NDP after it had been banned arrived in Moscow in July and the bilateral co-operation developed further.

Since the racist regime of Ian Smith refused to demands of equality and freedom for the majority, the leadership of the Liberation Movement decided to apply armed methods of struggle. The decision was supported by Moscow: arms and other equipment were supplied, training courses were organized for freedom fighters. 

One was a prominent commander Solomon Mujuru (then known by his nom de guerre Rex Nhongo), who later became the first Chief of the new Zimbabwe Defence Force. The support was not limited to military issues since a lot of humanitarian assistance had been provided as well: transport, clothes, food, etc.

It is well known that the history of the liberation struggle in Zimbabwe included some internal disputes and splits. Having launched co-operation with ZAPU, Moscow maintained it for almost three decades. Nevertheless, the Soviet Union always called for unity of the anticolonial movement. For example, Moscow welcomed amalgamation of ZANU and ZAPU into the Joint Military Command (JMC) in 1972. 

In fact, that step was one of the subjects of discussion in my friendly meeting with Herbert Chitepo, Chairman of ZANU in April 1973 in Oslo at the international conference. Another subject was the event’s official title — International Conference of experts in support of victims of colonialism and apartheid in Southern Africa. 

It demonstrated the restrained attitude of the organisers — the UN officials and the Scandinavian hosts — to the anti-colonial struggle. However, the representatives of the liberation movements, including the Zimbabweans, refused to present themselves just as victims and came forward as fighters. So the Soviet delegates considered themselves as supporters and not just experts.

We were happy to get the news on establishment of the Patriotic Front by the leaders of ZAPU and ZANU in October 1976. The hope was for a stronger unity of the fighters for independence of Zimbabwe. Personally, I was encouraged by a letter that “Comrade T.G.” (Silundika) sent me on September 19, 1977: “On the ZAPU-ZANU front some progress had been made — at least on paper — regarding closer links on a unitary basis — both military and political. The programme and ideology are being worked out this week…”

With the development of the anti-colonial armed struggle in Zimbabwe the volume of Moscow’s assistance multiplied. For over two years in 1977-1979 a team of Soviet military specialists trained thousands of Zimbabweans at a camp near Boma in eastern Angola. 

One of them, warrant-officer Grigory Skakun was killed when the camp was bombed on February 29, 1979 by Rhodesian and South African aircrafts supplied to the racists by the UK.

Both small arms and heavy weaponry were provided by the USSR to the forces of liberation. Some of them, like tanks, were not used on the battlefront. 

However, Professor Ngwabi Bhebe, a prominent Zimbabwean historian, correctly described the liberation army equipped with “modern Soviet weapons” as guillotine over the neck of the racist regime.

The USSR welcomed the political solution reached at the Lancaster House Conference in December 1979 though Moscow had some doubts regarding details of the Agreement, such as allocation of 20 percent of seats for the whites that constituted just around 1/23 of the population, or lack of clarity on the issue of land. Yet we didn’t criticize them publicly.

On the Independence Day of April 18, 1980, the Soviet Union leader Leonid Brezhnev sent a message of congratulations “to the leaders of the Patriotic Front Comrade Robert Mugabe and Comrade Joshua Nkomo”. However, by that time the Front ceased to exist. 

Moreover, though a high-level Soviet delegation attended the Independence Ceremony at Rufaro Stadium, it took ten months for Mugabe’s government to agree to establish diplomatic relations with the USSR. On the contrary, the countries that supported the former colonial rulers one by one had opened their embassies in Harare.

Nevertheless, step by step the bilateral relations developed, especially after the official visit of Robert Mugabe to Moscow in December 1985. The rapprochement between ZANU-PF and PF-ZAPU followed two years later and I was glad to be present at the Unity Congress in Harare in December 1989.

However, the negative developments in the USSR in the beginning of the 1990s that culminated in its “dissolution” and economic disaster that followed, radically diminished the presence and activity of our country in Africa. The development of the bilateral relations with new Russia was further hampered by the economic crisis in Zimbabwe after introduction of the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme in 1991, that was similar to the so called reforms in Russia around that time both in provisions and negative results.

Of all the spheres of co-operation the most productive and useful for the newly independent country was education. Hundreds of Zimbabweans graduated from the Soviet institutions and universities mostly with Master’s degrees and dozens received PhD degrees. 

This kind of partnership has successfully progressed with over 300 Zimbabweans study now in Russia and a big part of them — due to the scholarships funded by the Russian State budget.

Another important sphere is mining where the symbol of mutually beneficial co-operation is the Darwendale Project — the platinum group of metals venture Great Dyke Investments (GDI) — by Russia’s Vi Holding and the Zimbabwean investor. Many other business projects have already started or about to start in various strata of Zimbabwe’s economy.

No less important is the co-operation of Moscow and Harare on the international arena. Russia and Zimbabwe have common or close approaches to the problems of today’s world. 

They respect cultural and civilisational identity of all the peoples and their natural right to determine independently a path of the development. 

An important milestone was achieved by Russia and Zimbabwe in enhancing the bilateral relations when an attempt to organise sanctions against Harare failed in the UN Security Council. On July 11, 2008 Moscow as the Permanent Member together with Beijing applied veto against the resolution that would have prescribed harsh sanctions on Zimbabwe.

As the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov wrote in his article published in The Herald in February this year on the 40th anniversary of establishing the diplomatic relations between Moscow and Harare, “Today we can say with confidence that our relations have stood the test of time. We are ready to continue work to strengthen these relations and bring them to a new stage for the benefit of our citizens, for the sake of enhancing regional and global security and stability, and in the interest of consolidating legal and democratic principles in international affairs”.

Professor Vladimir Shubin is Principal Research Fellow of the Institute of African Studies in Moscow. He was involved in political and practical support of the liberation movements and is awarded the South African Order of Companions of O.R. Tambo (silver) “for the excellent contribution in the struggle against Apartheid and Colonialism in Southern Africa”.