Earlham Hall 0.12 and on ZOOM - Zoom Registration

The Soviet cultivation of relations with the Global South in the years after 1953 are now well known, as are the various means by which the Soviet Union sought to gain friends and influence people in the countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The influence of the Global South on Soviet society has, however—with the notable exception of Afghanistan—remained obscure.

Drawing on research conducted in the UK, Russia, Ukraine, and Ghana, this talk will examine the interaction between African students and Soviet state and society in the 1960s, arguing that histories that have long been envisioned as distinctly Soviet stories—including of the New Soviet Person and the Soviet dissident movement—were tied up in this deep and often fraught encounter between the ‘Second’ and ‘Third’ worlds.

Thom Loyd is Lecturer in Modern Russian History at Cardiff University and, from August 2023, will be Assistant Professor of Modern European History at Augusta University. His current book project examines the movement of thousands of Africans to Soviet universities in the 1960s and 1970s and their influence on Soviet state and society.