Soviet Foreign Policy in West Africa and the Congo, 1956-1964

A historical account of Cold War competition in West Africa and the Congo during the late 1950s and early 1960s. The work by Sergey Mazov draws on previously inaccessible Russian and U.S. archival documents and international scholarship. It details the political, economic, and propagandistic rivalry between the U.S. and USSR during a period of decolonization.

Use Cases

• Analyzing Soviet foreign policy strategies based on the described archival evidence from Russian and U.S. sources.
• Studying the impact of superpower rivalry on newly independent states based on the described political and economic competition.
• Examining the repercussions of Soviet experience in West Africa on future policy in the Third World as mentioned in the description.
• Researching the role of ignorance in foreign policy outcomes based on the described Soviet loss in the competition.

Strengths

• Based on previously inaccessible or unknown archival documents from Russian and U.S. sources.
• Focuses on a specific and critical historical period (1956-1964) of decolonization.
• Presents an international sampling of recent scholarly works alongside primary sources.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect temporal and source bias inherent to the specific historical archives used.

Provenance

Source

Sergey Mazov

Collection Method

Archival research and synthesis of scholarly works.

Time Range

1956-1964

Geography

West Africa and the Congo