close links with the ANC. They provided education and military training for
South African refugees, and they were the main suppliers of arms for the
military wing of the ANC that began to infiltrate guerrillas into South Africa
in the late 1970s. Moreover, the ANC included communists in its ranks and
among its leaders.
Yet Southern Africa never had high priority on the Soviet agenda.
Moscow was mainly concerned with preserving its hegemony in Eastern
Europe, defending its border with China, and increasing its influence in
Southeast Asia and the Horn of Africa. It was not practicable for Moscow
to risk a military confrontation with the Western powers in distant South-
ern Africa. The levelof Soviettrade with Southern Africa was insignificant;
so was the level of its aid to the black Southern African states. The ANC,
moreover, was an open organization and its top leaders-Nelson
Mandela
and Oliver Tambo-were
not communists. At minimal cost, the Soviet
Union was deriving advantages from the equivocation of the Western
powers in the face of the rampant racism and discriminatory state cap-
italism of South Africa. Pretoria's rhetoric against communism was a skill-
ful attempt to divert attention from the domestic causes of black resistance