THEAPARTHEIDERA
to maintain white supremacy for all time to come over our own people and
our own country, by force if necessary.Y"
How real was the "communist menace"? The Soviet Union and its
Eastern European satellites, especially East Germany, did indeed cham-
pion the interests of the third world against Western imperialism. They
supplied arms to resistance movements in colonial Angola, Mozambique,
and Rhodesia. In Rhodesia, however, the Soviets supported the weaker of
the two African movements, whereas its communist rival, China, sup-
ported Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National
Union
(ZANU),
which triumphed in the election held on the eve of the independence of
what had been Rhodesia in 1980.
When the Portuguese left Angola in 1975, the Soviet Union armed and
transported Cuban troops to help the Popular Movement for the Libera-
tion of Angola (MPLA) consolidate its c;ontrolover rival African nationalist
organizations and to resist an invasion launched by the South African army
in collusion with the United States. The Soviet Union and its allies also had
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