Nkrumahism, East Germany, and the South-East Ties of Ghanaian Trade Unionist J.A. Osei during the Cold War 1960s (original) (raw)

The Politics of Socialist Education in Ghana: The Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute, 1961–6

The Journal of African History, 2019

ABSTRACTThis article reconstructs the trajectory of the Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute (KNII) to shed light on the politics of socialist education in 1960s Ghana. On the basis of archival evidence, it explores the changing role of the institute in the making of Nkrumahism as public discourse and documents the evolving relationship between the universalism of Marxism-Leninism and the quest for more local political iconographies centred on Nkrumah's life and work. Secondly, the article analyses the individual motivations and experiences of a sample of foreign lecturers. The article suggests that ideological institutes offer insights into the processes by which official ideologies were created and disseminated, a foil through which to interrogate the usages and appropriation of social sciences education, and a window onto the multiple ways in which local and foreign agents negotiated their identities and political participation in African socialist experiments.

The Missing Link? Western Communists as Mediators Between the East German FDGB, the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), and African Trade Unions in the Late 1950s and Early 1960s

International Labor and Working-Class History, 2023

In the interstices of Cold War rivalries and anti-colonial agitation in late 1950s Africa, African workers came into the focus of African nationalist politicians, Western leftists, colonial regimes and state socialist states alike. They were a small, but influential group, increasingly organized in trade unions and capable of bringing whole economies to a halt. European communists on both sides of the Iron Curtain saw these workers not only as part of an inceptive working class but also debated their role as a potential key force in global anti-capitalist revolutionif they had the right concepts. But how could trade union representatives, particularly those ones from Eastern Europe, actually get in touch with their African counterparts? Based on archival materials of the East German Freier Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund (FDGB), this article discusses East-West-South connections in labor education with a special emphasis on the role of Western trade union officials working for or affiliated to the communist-dominated World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU). Drawing on their international experience, personal networks and linguistic skills, French and British communists established and intensified links between African trade unions and WFTU affiliates like the FDGB in the 1950s and early 1960s. Their influence facilitated and shaped these East-South connections. First, through their networks in West Africa, Western communists enabled the WFTU and the FDGB to internationalize their concepts of trade union education and integrate it into African political structures. Secondly, we examine the African Workers' University in Conakry, an East-West-South joint venture between the West African Union Générale des Travailleurs d'Afrique Noire (UGTAN) and the WFTU, where trade unionists from the entire African continent attended courses between 1960 and 1965 and where European communists broadened their horizons while often holding on to rigid views. Thirdly, the article examines how European trade union functionaries talked about

Review Essay Navigating Socialist Encounters: Moorings and (Dis)Entanglements between Africa and East Germany during the Cold War (Africa in Global History, Volume 2). Edited by Eric Burton, Anne Dietrich, Immanuel R. Harisch, and Marcia C. Schenck

International Journal of African Historican Studies, 2023

This excellent edited volume sheds light on many understudied aspects of the moorings and (dis)entanglements between Africa and East Germany during the Cold War. Topics that are dealt with range from women's accounts to friendship brigades, from socialist international organizations to the fate of individual Mozambicans in the GDR and beyond, and from trade unions to schools. The tome draws on sources that include photographs, many new and relevant archival finds, as well as oral history and newly unearthed manuscripts. The volume's main weakness results from not critiquing liberal paradigms when assessing the record of African Marxist states or the GDR record in terms of influencing people's lives and well-being, and the negative effects of racism and neocolonialism in the second half of the twentieth century in Africa and Eastern Europe.

Road to Ghana: Nkrumah, Southern Africa, and the Eclipse of a Decolonizing Africa

Kronos: Southern African Histories, 2011

in establishing an anti-colonial policy that spoke both to the unique settler situation in the region and the heightening international tensions of the emergent Cold War -a transnational dialogue to which the Nkrumah administration was not always receptive. As such, this article argues that the southern African presence in Accra and the realities of settler rule in the region challenged Nkrumah's and others' faith in the 'Ghanaian' model of decolonization, thus leading to a radicalization of African anti-colonial politics in Ghana during the early and mid-1960s as Nkrumah and his allies faced the prospect of the continent's 'failed' decolonization.

4 Agency and Its Limits: African Unionists as Africa’s “Vanguard” at the FDGB College in Bernau

Navigating Socialist Encounters, 2021

erm of office endeda bruptly.R aaseh ad served as the first director of the Institut fürA usländerstudium (Institute for Foreign Students), the most recent institution added to the East German trade union college, the Hochschule der Deutschen Gewerkschaften "FritzH eckert" in Bernau near Berlin.Onlyone dayearlier,the responsible federal executive of the central trade union federation which rant he college, the Freie Deutsche Gewerkschaftsbund (FDGB), had decided to dismiss four persons: Raasea nd his deputy,a teacher and an interpreter.² The FDGBe xecutive criticized not onlyt he theoretical and didactic shortcomings in the teachingo fs tate-socialist Marxism-Leninism,f or which Raase was held responsible. The decision to dismiss him was also basedo na ni ntervention by 17 African students, whose requestf or at alk led high-ranked members of the Abteilung Internationale Verbindungen (International Relations Department) of the federal executive to travel to Bernau.³ The accusations subsequentlycollected wereserious.Inaddition to the criticism of insufficient "political leadership" of the institute'sd irectorate,⁴ the second major point of critique were racist statements made by Raasea nd other teachers.F or example,  This essayisbased on my MA thesis published in 2018, in which the third Afro-Asian course at the FDGB collegefrom1961to1963isanalyzedinapraxeological and microhistorical investigation. With regardtoAfricans tudents,the analysis focuses not onlyontheir agency, but also on their social background and motivations for studyingi nt he GDR as well as their actions.P assageso ft he work area lso contained in this essay; see Eric Angermann, "'Ihr gehört auch zur Avantgarde':African trade unionists at the FDGB'sacademyFritz Heckert (1961-1963)" (Master's thesis,Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, 2018). Ithank Tenzin Sekhon very much for his support in the translation of my contribution into English and ImmanuelR.Harisch for his helpful remarks.

‘Nkrumah’s Ghana and the armed struggle in Southern Africa (1961-1966)’, South African Historical Journal, vol. 70, 1, 2018, pp. 56-81.

2018

Building on newly available primary sources, this article describes Nkrumah’s role in the armed struggle in Southern Africa, including information about the establishment and running of military training camps in Ghana. Moreover, the article examines why Nkrumah’s influence over the liberation movements engaged in armed resistance diminished after 1963. This was the outcome of several factors operating concurrently. With the intensification of the armed struggle, Ghana’s geographical disadvantage and logistical difficulties in providing weapons to the frontline became evident, especially when compared to Tanzania. However, as the article argues, the crucial reason for its loss of influence in the region was political. Indeed, after 1963 it became increasingly clear that the priorities and strategies of Nkrumah’s Pan-African and liberation policies were not fully endorsed by the key protagonists of the armed struggle, and this ultimately affected their relationship with Ghana. As a result, the country that had led the liberation struggle on the continent between 1957 and 1963, ultimately lost its competition with other African and non-African actors in the region. Still, Nkrumah had an outstanding following among Southern African freedom fighters prior to the coup of February 1966, rooted in the ongoing support for the armed struggle by the Ghanaian government.

Nkrumaism and African Nationalism: Ghana's Pan-African Foreign Policy in the Age of Decolonization (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), xvii + 366 p.

This book examines Ghana’s Pan-African foreign policy during Nkrumah’s rule, investigating how Ghanaians sought to influence the ideologies of African liberation movements through the Bureau of African Affairs, the African Affairs Centre and the Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute. In a world of competing ideologies, when African nationalism was taking shape through trial and error, Nkrumah offered Nkrumaism as a truly African answer to colonialism, neo-colonialism and the rapacity of the Cold War powers. Although virtually no liberation movement followed the precepts of Nkrumaism to the letter, many adapted the principles and organizational methods learnt in Ghana to their own struggles. Drawing upon a significant set of primary sources and on oral testimonies from Ghanaian civil servants, politicians and diplomats as well as African freedom fighters, this book offers new angles for understanding the history of the Cold War, national liberation and nation-building in Africa.

African Liberation and Unity in Nkrumah's Ghana : A Study of the Role of "Pan-African Institutions" in the making of Ghana's foreign Policy, 1957 - 1966

2015

This dissertation contributes to the study of Nkrumah’s Pan-African policy by examining the role played by three Ghanaian institutions specifically created to support African liberation and unity: the Bureau of African Affairs, the African Affairs Centre, and the Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute of Winneba.Between 1957 and 1966, these institutions have worked for supporting African liberation movements both in Ghana and on the battlefields. Moreover, they contributed to spread Pan-Africanism and Nkrumahism in the whole continent.After the recovery of important new sources, the author has been able to adopt Accra’s own perspective on the question and to provide an insight into the daily activities of the three institutions examining the impact of their activity on African liberation movements and on the Ghanaian state.