During the Cold War, Tanzania’s government played Soviet and Chinese advisors against each other to extract aid and development projects from both sides. This project fills a gap in Cold War history by shifting focus from superpower rivalry to African agency. Most studies treat African nations as passive pawns; this one shows how Tanzanian leaders actively navigated between Moscow and Beijing, using each power’s offers to advance their own goals. The research also reveals a neglected detail: the Soviet Union promoted its Central Asian republics as success stories for Africa, while China emphasised shared anti-colonial experience. The project is fundamental historical research with no immediate practical application. But understanding how smaller nations leveraged great-power competition has clear relevance today, as many countries again find themselves courted by rival global powers. The findings could inform how diplomats and development agencies think about aid negotiations and sovereignty. Deeper knowledge of this period also helps explain the lasting political and economic ties between post-Soviet Central Asia, China, and Africa—relationships that continue to shape global trade and diplomacy.
View original technical description
This project breaks new ground in exploring a hitherto understudied aspect of Cold War History - the competition between the Soviet and Chinese models of socialism in Africa. We use Tanzania as a case study to examine the connection between global and local factors and to analyse tangible interactions "on the ground", highlighting the agency of African actors and their ability to navigate between the two socialist powers and use them to their own ends. Finally, we draw attention to the fact that in forging ties with Africa, the Soviet Union showcased its Central Asian republics as models for a successful socialist modernisation. We will contrast this with the PRC's focus on its Han-majority areas in highlighting the commonalities of the Chinese and African experiences, such as the trauma of imperialism/colonialism, anti-imperialist resistance and developmental models. The project relies on the collection and evaluation of a wide range of unpublished and published documents from archives and libraries in China, Germany, Tanzania, the UK, the United States and, importantly, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, two former Soviet republics in Central Asia whose archives and libraries hold relevant materials pertaining to the Soviet era. In addition, members of the project team will conduct interviews in China, Kazakhstan, Tanzania and Uzbekistan. Examining a broad mix of sources will help to overcome difficulties of access or information gathering associated with one specific type of source, strengthening the robustness of our approach. Owing to the complexities of the topic, as well as the varied language expertise it requires, the organisation of the project is based on the principle of division of labour. The research team will consist of a UK sub-team focusing on the Chinese side and a German sub-team focusing on the Soviet side. This both necessitates and strengthens the ties between a UK and a German research institution and between the UK and German research more generally. The inclusion of a Tanzanian early career scholar, who will be formally integrated into the German sub-team but will also make his expertise available to the UK sub-team, not only complements the existing expertise of the UK and German sides and critically adds a local, African and non-Eurocentric perspective. It will also help to extend the research collaboration between a UK and German institution towards partners in the Global South. The overall aim of the project is to make a significant contribution to the existing knowledge about the global Cold War and African decolonisation, furthering the understanding of processes that continued to impact the world today. To achieve this, the applicants have taken steps to disseminate their findings from as early as possible. A workshop and an international conference will make the project visible to the scholarly community but will also be accessible to potential stakeholders outside academia. One online primary source edition (accessible to the general public), one conference volume and one monograph will synthesise the outcomes of the project. Specific findings will be published in the form of 8 journal articles and 2 PhD theses (which, in accordance with German regulations, will also be published).
Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.
Is something wrong? Let us know