In the 1970s and 1980s, Cuba and the German Democratic Republic (GDR), two nations belonging to the socialist camp during the Cold War, implemented active cultural policies in the same Sub-Saharan African countries, particularly Ethiopia, Angola and Mozambique. This parallel investment in Africa by two very different socialist powers highlights the tensions that stirred within the far from homogeneous "Eastern Bloc"—the struggle between solidarity and rivalry, and between anti-imperialism and persistent colonial dynamics. Whereas an innovative article by Bertolt Unfried and Claudia Martinez, published in 2017, initialized a comparison of the political solidarity of the GDR and Cuban internationalism in Africa in terms of civil assistance, this triangular dynamic has not yet been studied in the framework of cultural and artistic policy. And yet, this dynamic took many forms in the 1970s and 1980s, such as the sharing of exhibitions, artists' visits, education programs, etc. In this article, I propose to offer an overview of this triangular cultural diplomacy while showing how the GDR and Cuba implemented their own cultural and political agenda in Africa, despite their common allegiance to the Soviet Union.

Cultural Policy and Cuba's African Engagement

In January 1959, the Cuban Revolution led to the fall of the dictator Fulgencio Batista, who was supported by the United States. Culture was a central concern of the revolutionaries', who were driven by a will to emancipate from the colonial and neocolonial influences that shaped the history of the island, a former Spanish colony fallen into the United States' orbit. In the years following the revolution, numerous institutions were created to promote the cultural development of revolutionary Cuba: The Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC) and the Casa de las Américas in 1959; The National Council of Culture and the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) in 1961; The National Schools of Art in 1962, etc. At the head of the country, Fidel Castro equally wished to showcase the Afro-Cuban heritage of the island to reinforce their national identity and their position at the heart of the Third-World movement.

In the context of the Cold War, Cuba's engagement in Africa carried a strategic geopolitical dimension: in 1975 during the Carlota operation, the revolutionary government sent thousands of soldiers to Angola to support an independent party of communist affiliation (MPLA) against another faction (Unita) supported by South Africa and the United States. However, Fidel Castro tried to mitigate the military scope of this operation and presented it as a manifestation of Cuban solidarity towards the African people while placing it in line with Cuban history: in a famous speech that launched the program, he insisted that "the blood of Africa flows with abandon in our veins [...] and for the Africans, we are ready to fight for ourselves"¹—indeed, a large part of the Cuban population descends from African slaves deported to the island during the colonial era.

Cuba did not simply send soldiers to Africa: for the Cuban government, the cultural exchanges made up an integral part of its revolutionary philosophy. Cuba also sent doctors, social workers, teachers, and artists, while thousands of young Africans came to Cuba to study on the Isle of Pines, re-baptized "Isle of Youth" (Isla de la Juventud) in 1978. Starting in the second half of the 1970s, Cuba was particularly active in Ethiopia, Angola and Mozambique. These three countries had very different histories and cultural traditions: Ethiopia was one of the rare African countries never to have known colonization, whereas Angola and Mozambique lived under Portuguese rule for nearly four centuries, and in 1975 were among the most recent African countries to gain independence. They had in common, however, the establishment of Marxist regimes aligned with the Soviet Union starting in the middle of the 1970s. Their insertion in the global socialist space also favored interactions with different countries belonging to the "Eastern Bloc." Nevertheless, this ensemble remained heterogeneous, and African politics became a gauge of certain internal tensions. While the USSR occupied a dominant position, other socialist states maintained specific ambitions, leading to a more nuanced idea of a coherent "Eastern Bloc." The Cuban initiatives were then developed parallel to those of the GDR, another nation anxious to wield its influence in the region.

The Cultural Diplomacy of the GDR in Africa

The German Democratic Republic (GDR) similarly had a particular interest in Africa. In the 1950s and 1960s, GDR's international politics were conditioned by the "Hallstein Doctrine" implemented by the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) in 1959. The latter declared itself the sole representative of Germany and threatened to break its diplomatic relationship with all countries who officially recognized the GDR. To try and circumvent the Hallstein Doctrine in Africa, the GDR launched "goodwill missions" and other semi-official representations there, deploying aid for development or offering grants to African students. In 1964, Zanzibar was the first African country to establish diplomatic relations with East Germany after a local socialist revolution. This attempt was quickly cut short: in fact, the FRG threatened to cut humanitarian aid to all countries who had contracts with the GDR, which had a powerful dissuasive effect on the African countries.

Until 1969, Cuba was also the only country of the "Global South" to wholly recognize the GDR. Cultural politics then took on a crucial importance for East Germany, permitting them to exist on the international stage and to establish ties with countries in the process of decolonization outside the socialist camp. In the 1970s, marked by signs of East-West peace, the relationship between the FRG and the GDR normalized. In 1972, this evolution was ratified by the signing of a "fundamental treaty" where the two states mutually recognized the other's existence. In 1973, the two German states finally entered the UN. Having resolved the issue of diplomatic recognition, which had formed the basis of its politics in Africa during the 1960s, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) re-centered its political and cultural focus. At the end of the 1970s, the GDR concentrated on the potential development of more advanced commercial relationships with the socialist African countries aligned with the Soviet Union, whereas Cuba looked to Ethiopia, Angola, and Mozambique. The main objective of these exchanges was the implementation of economic cooperation agreements, but the cultural aspects constituted an important dimension of the GDR's investments in these countries and took various forms: the exchange of exhibitions, the organization of "Friendship Weeks," etc.

However, the GDR and Cuba's simultaneous investment in Africa led to its share of tension, which reveal the existence of hierarchies between unequal countries within the socialist camp behind a narrative touting solidarity between "brother countries" and proletarian internationalism.

Tension and Interdependence within a Far from Homogeneous "Eastern Bloc"

While the GDR was a highly industrialized European country, Cuba was not only an agricultural nation with an economy mainly geared toward exportation but also a former colony. The socialist camp found itself experiencing North/South relationships which could supplant the Bloc mindset during the Cold War. Until the end of the 1970s, the island was considered by European socialist countries a "developing nation" rather than a full-fledged partner, and Cuba's integration within the socialist camp was far from harmonious. It was only in April of 1961 that Fidel Castro recognized the socialist character of the Cuban revolution for purely opportunistic reasons: the Bay of Pigs episode threatened him with invasion by the United States, and Cuba needed the economic support of the Soviet Union. However, the relationship between Cuba and the USSR was tense in the 1960s, the latter considering with suspicion the Cuban revolutionary approach that it judged as nonconforming to the Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy. Researchers like Antonia Bihlmayer highlight that the European socialist countries, like the GDR, considered the island an "under-developed colony, ideologically speaking"² and felt invested in a true "civilizing mission" that sought to put the island on the path to true socialism in terms of economics, politics, and culture. However, a turning point occurred in the 1970s, often categorized as the "Sovietization" of the Cuban regime. Pushed by economic and political reasons, Castro reaffirmed his alignment with the Soviet Union, confirmed by the entry of Cuba in the COMECON in 1972.

However, while Cuba may have acted officially on Moscow's order in Africa, the Cuban regime continued to pursue its own objectives there. As researchers from the 1990s have highlighted, the strategic interest of the Kremlin in the deployment of Cuban troops in Africa, which permitted the expansion of the socialist zone of influence in the world within the context of the Cold War, allowed the Cuban regime to maintain a sense of autonomy in its African politics. The benefits were mutual: Cuba was admittedly economically dependent on the Soviet superpower, but it was not a one-way relationship. In the East, as well as in the West, the Cuban revolution effectively wielded a certain power of fascination. Jennifer R. Hosek explores the places occupied by Cuba in the imagination of the two German states, emphasizing that left-leaning thinkers on both sides of the wall—disappointed by what they saw as the dictatorial nature of socialism of Eastern Europe—were able to see an alternative form of nonaligned socialist governance actually led by the people in Cuba. As for the USSR, it sought to benefit from the Cuban revolution's symbolic prestige while steering it toward the Marxist-Leninist path and imposing its own leadership. It also hoped to exploit the island as an intermediary at the heart of the Non-Aligned Movement and to take advantage of its influential position in the eyes of the "Third World." Furthermore, Cuba's sending of troops in Africa represented a strategic interest for the USSR.

This interdependence, however, brought its share of tension, particularly evident in the cultural domain where the Cuban regime felt more autonomous than in military or economic matters concerning Soviet desiderata. As Cuban historian Piero Gleijeses highlights in his works, although Fidel Castro reaffirmed his recognition of the USSR's seat at the head of the communist world in the 1970s, Cuba often engaged in its own cultural diplomacy in Africa of their own accord and without consulting the Soviet superpower beforehand, which was far from being well-received by the latter.

The position of the GDR within the socialist camp seems at first glance less contentious: located in the direct orbit of the USSR behind the "Iron Curtain," the GDR was generally described in the 1980s simply as a proxy—or a "substitute"—for Moscow in Africa, where it would do little more than apply the Soviet Union's directives. Yet starting in the 1990s, researchers like Gareth Winrow have added nuance to this image, emphasizing that the GDR was able to equally pursue its own goals on the continent. The GDR's "affiliation strategy," which highlighted its unwavering loyalty to the USSR, allowed it to conserve a certain autonomy and thus pursue its own interests on African soil, all while acting officially in the name of the "Soviet Big Brother"—following in the footsteps of Cuba.

In the 1970s, while Cuba, the GDR and the Soviet Union were all officially present in Africa in the name of anti-imperialism and proletarian internationalism, their objectives differed markedly. The USSR wished to compete with the American superpower all while maintaining its leadership within the communist camp; Cuba, despite its declared allegiance with Moscow, sought to maintain a level of independence while healing its relationship with the "Third World," while the GDR strove to increase its international stature but also to compete with the FRG in Africa. While the GDR, like Cuba, could scarcely act without the consent of the USSR to intervene economically or militarily in Africa, cultural diplomacy could potentially allow more room to maneuver.

As for the leaders of the African socialist countries—caught in these games of influence within the communist camp—they could only regret how little consideration was given to them: in 1984, the president of Mozambique, Samora Machel, complained that "the socialist community would classify the socialist countries into three categories" (according to their location in Eastern Europe, in Latin America, or in Southeast Asia), but that "the African socialist states would not be included in this categorization."³ Faced with this situation, they tried to increase the deployment of aid originating from the communist camp by leveraging not only the East-West competition, but also the rivalry between socialist countries.

Circulating Artists and Exhibitions between Cuba, the GDR, and Africa

The transatlantic cultural circulation between Cuba, the GDR, and the African socialist countries took on different forms and became integrated in what could be described by researchers like Matthias Middel as "red globalization." At the end of the 1970s, during its military investment in Angola, the Cuban regime sent "cultural brigades" to Angola, made up of artists like Nelson Domínguez Cedeño (born in 1947) or Eduardo Roca Salasar, known as "Choco" (born in 1949), the latter being of Afro-Cuban descent. The Ministry of Cuban Culture (MINCUL), created in 1976, charged these brigades with helping the implementation of cultural institutions based on Cuba's model in Angola. Circulation took place in two ways: as Ros Gray has shown in her works, four young students from Guinea-Bissau—another former Portuguese colony—were selected in 1967 to be trained at the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC), where they would stay until 1972. In Mozambique, Gray discusses "contentious forms of socialist affiliations" in film production, as international collaborations were implemented by the Soviet Union but also by socialist countries that insisted on the "nonalignment" of their political culture, like Cuba and Yugoslavia. The productions of these countries sometimes achieved more success than those of the USSR. Pedro Pimenta, Director of Production of the Instituto Nacional de Cinema (INC) of Mozambique, also reported in an interview that "everyone wanted to work with the Cubans,"⁴ the spirited style of editing developed by the Cuban film director Santiago Álvarez garnering a particular success among aspiring local filmmakers.

The works of Cuban artists were also shown in Africa: painters Manuel Mendive and Gilberta de la Nuez participated in the second Festival Mundial del Arte y la Cultura Negra y Africana in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1977; Cuban artist José A. Figueroa's work was shown in 1983 in Lubango, Angola; and the itinerant exhibition "Africa dentro de Cuba. Tres artistas cubanos" showcased the works of three Cuban artists (Wifredo Lam, José Bedia and Rodríguez Brey) in August of 1987 parallel to the 2^{nd^} Biennial of contemporary Bantu art at the National Museum of Fine Arts of Kinshasa, Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo), before traveling to Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and in Zambia. The works of African artists were also shown in Cuba, thanks to the creation of specially dedicated institutions like the [Wifredo Lam Center for Contemporary Art, created in 1983 in Havana, and named after the celebrated Cuban artist of Chinese and Afro-Cuban descent who had died the year prior. This center aimed to feature the works of contemporary artists from Africa, South America and Asia, and to this day still organizes a Biennale whose first edition took place in 1984. In 1986, la Casa de Africa was also founded, dedicated to the African influence on Cuban history and culture.

The cultural manifestations attesting to a cooperation between the GDR and the African socialist countries also took various forms: from 1977, a "Week of GDR-Mozambique Friendship and Solidarity" was organized annually by the GDR in Mozambique; in 1978, an exhibition of drawings (Grafik) by the GDR, accompanied by a photography exhibition entitled "Anti-imperialist Solidarity in GDR Photography" was shown in Ethiopia; the same year, the Junge-Kunst aus Äthiopien (Young Art of Ethiopia) exhibition in East Berlin presented the works of three young artists who graduated from the School of Fine Arts in Addis Abeba.

In 1981, the permanent exhibition Afrika. Völker und Kulturen (Africa. People and Cultures) was unveiled in the Leipzig Museum of Ethnography. In 1983, the Mozambican artist Mankeu Valente Mahumane (born in 1934) became the first African to be named a corresponding member of the Arts Academy of the GDR.

These circulations of artists and exhibitions between Cuba, the GDR and the African socialist countries were not isolated---they referenced and echoed each other. The GRASSI Ethnology Museum of Leipzig preserves in its collections, to this day, prints by Mozambican artists that were exhibited in the GDR in the 1980s, with records specifying that certain works have already been shown in collective exhibitions in Cuba. In August of 1986, the retrospective dedicated to the works of the Mozambican artist Valente Ngwenya Malangatana (1936-2011), after having been unveiled in Maputo, saw its first European milestone in Leipzig in the GDR. Later that same year, the Malangatana work was presented during the 2^{nd^} Havana Biennale, organized by the Wifredo Lam Center in Cuba.

A more Considerate Approach to the Exhibition of Contemporary African Art in Cuba?

The contexts of the exhibition of the Malangatana work in Cuba and in the GDR differed, however, bearing witness to distinct perspectives on the work of the artist: while the Mozambican artist was awarded an "exhibition of honor" in the context of the 2^{nd^} Havana Biennale in 1986, his retrospective was presented in the GDR in the Leipzig Museum of Ethnography. According to one of the collaborators of the museum at the time, this choice of location offended the artist. He felt his art had nothing to do with ethnology, and would have preferred to see his works exhibited in a contemporary art gallery in the capital, East Berlin.⁵

Starting in the 1970s, then, the GDR did try to expand its international exhibition policy and give a more important place to artists of African descent. Determined to differentiate itself from its neighbors to the west and to present itself as the "better of the two German states" in the eyes of the world, it implemented an ostensibly anti-colonial and anti-imperialist cultural policy. However, the GDR did not break from certain clichés shared by European countries regarding African art: the tendency to reduce it to simple ethnology and to create generic exhibitions of unclear thematics and mix epochs and countries, where the artists are insufficiently individualized.

And so, in 1979, during the World Cultures Festival Horizonte '79 organized by the GDR, an exhibition entitled "Modern Art of Africa" was shown in West Berlin. The exhibition catalog was simply titled "Art of Africa" (Kunst aus Afrika) and randomly mixed together epochs and countries—the chapter dedicated to Ethiopia was as such heavily anchored in the past and built solely on anonymous works. In 1980, an exhibition bearing the same title was unveiled in East Berlin and showcased works originating from Ethiopia, Angola and Mozambique, as well as some Malagasy pieces. Paintings, arts and crafts, everyday objects and clothes presented as traditional were exhibited haphazardly within the same space. These common features were witness to a certain community of representation between the two German states, attesting to the fact that a European point of view on African art could supplant the borders between the blocs, the North/South division taking precedence over polarizing mindsets.

While the policy on the exhibition of African art in Cuba appeared to be more considerate of this point thanks to the existence of the Wifredo Lam Center—an institution specifically dedicated to the development of works produced by contemporary, non-European artists—it is still important not to idealize the African cultural politics of the island by presenting it solely under the lens of a South-South egalitarian cooperation.

Unbalanced power dynamics also existed between Cuba and the socialist African countries, and not all the experiences of young Africans educated in Cuba were positive. These Cuban-educated Africans often suffered from the separation from their families, and were hardly integrated into the local population—the majority of foreign students being educated on the Isle of Youth in the boarding school under the jurisdiction of the ESBEC (Escuelas Secundarias Basicas en el Campo), where they were expected to engage in agricultural work in addition to enrolling in classes. It's worth noting, also, that Cuba\'s cultural investment in Africa was marked by a strong propaganda dimension, and that African art was not always positively received on the island. Additionally, according to the Cuban art historian Ernesto Menéndez Conde, present in Havana at the time, the bestowal of a prize to an Angolan artist during the 2^{nd^} Havana Biennale in 1986 purportedly elicited very critical responses within the Cuban artist community.⁶ Cuban artists felt that this choice had been motivated by political reasons rather than by artistic quality.

Observing African Cultural Politics within the Socialist Camp

This parallel GDR and Cuban investment in Africa brought about a surveillance of Cuban activities in Africa by the GDR: documents produced by its Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MfAA) attest to the fact the GDR kept up to date with cultural initiatives of the "brother country" in Africa. While the reports were sometimes purely factual, limited to reviewing the relationships that Cuba entertained with different African nations and making an inventory of the cultural productions that took place, tensions were sometimes made apparent through the diplomatic doublespeak. In 1977, a diplomatic cable dedicated to the situation in Ethiopia emphasized "the general feeling [according to which] the Cuban experience unfolded in a catastrophic way."⁷ The GDR could also appear critical of the results of the Cuban cultural politics in Africa, emphasizing in a report from 1987 that "Cuba's [cultural relationships] with the African countries are not at the political relationship level and do not do the rich African roots of Cuban culture justice."⁸

The GDR's interest in Cuba's relationships with Africa could also be motivated by a certain defiance of the "Eastern Bloc" towards the Cuban regime that persisted despite Cuba's rapprochement with the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, it can also be assumed that the GDR's interest in the Cuba—Africa relationship was a matter of the GDR's determination to draw inspiration from the Cuban initiatives in Africa. Despite mistrust and criticism, exchanges of knowledge and transfers of models indeed took place between the GDR and Cuba, attesting to the variety and complexity of the relationships within the socialist camp. Even though the GDR was a more powerful country, economically, than Cuba, it explicitly drew inspiration from Cuban expertise for launching educational projects in various African nations, as shown by the example of the Schule der Freundschaft (School of Friendship), opened in 1981 in Strassfurt (GDR).

Strassfurt's School of Friendship: Transferring a Cuban Model into a European Socialist Country

The School of Friendship came into existence with the mission of educating young Mozambicans in the GDR. It was originally a request from the Mozambican government, considering that thousands of Mozambican students had already been successfully educated on the Isle of Youth in Cuba for many years. In 1981, a delegation of the Ministry of Adult Education in the GDR traveled to Cuba in order to "gather the Cuban experiences regarding educational matters of the Mozambican elementary schoolers and studying the operation of the complex boarding school on the Isle of Youth."⁹ A highly industrialized European country like the GDR was willing to draw inspiration from what Cuba, a nation long-considered a "developing country" according to the socialist classification, had put in place for the education of African students. This was a striking development—while the GDR had tried to transfer its own economic and cultural models to Cuba by sending experts there in the 1960s, following a neo-colonial dynamic, the island established itself as a significant socialist power in the 1980s. Cuba\'s experience in the schooling of foreign students could now serve as an example for European socialist countries. As Dayana Murguia Méndez has shown in her works, close to 13,000 foreign students where schooled in Cuba in 1979, three quarters of them within the ESBEC, which opened in 1971 on the Isle of Pines (now Isle of Youth). While the ESBEC system was initially created by the Cuban regime to facilitate the low-cost integration of children from modest rural families within the Cuban school system, these boarding schools rapidly specialized in hosting foreign students, and, more specifically, from the second half of the 1970s, young Mozambicans, Angolans and Ethiopians sent by the boat load to the island. The case of the School of Friendship not only attests to the transfer of a model from the South to the North during the Cold War, but also to the fact that Eastern-bloc-aligned African countries were able to better negotiate their interests by leveraging this emulation between powers within the same socialist camp.

Conclusion

The study of the transatlantic "cultural triangle" between the GDR, Cuba and African socialist countries demonstrates that the power dynamics within the socialist camp were far from being fixed: despite the initially precarious position of Cuba within the socialist camp, where the island was considered with distrust and perceived as a "developing country" more than as a true socialist power, the massive cultural investment by the Cuban regime in Africa was able to serve as a model for European socialist countries starting at the end of the 1970s. Transfers of models thus occurred bi-directionally, in spite of ambiguous and at times tense relationships which oscillated between cooperation and emulation. The study of these cultural circulations—implemented through student mobility, artists' invitations, and exchanges of exhibitions, among other things—makes the process of "red globalization" more concrete, and presents a more nuanced image of the socialist camp during the Cold War. Far from being a monolithic bloc, it was subject to complex dynamics linked to decolonization and to the national aspirations of the various countries from which it was formed.