DELEGATION TO SOUTHERN AFRICA: FOR THE FIRST TIME WITH YOUR OWN EYES*

A quarter of a century ago, in December 1989, the first delegation from our country in several decades visited the Republic of South Africa. The authors, who were the only members of the delegation, wrote this memoir in an effort to convey to the reader the atmosphere of the time when such a trip was possible, and to tell about the circumstances surrounding it.

Now it is difficult, almost impossible, to imagine that South Africa was probably the most inaccessible country for us, the Russians. Since the second half of the 1950s, the Soviet Union has had no diplomatic, public, or scientific ties with it. No one has ever been to South Africa, except for representatives of the intelligence services.

Until the late 1950s, when the country was not a Republic of South Africa, but the Union of South Africa (UAC), a British dominion, relations between our countries remained minimal. From 1942 to the beginning of 1956, there were consular relations: the South African Union, like the USSR, was part of the anti-Hitler coalition. But even then, none of the Soviet citizens, except for a few consular employees, had ever been to South Africa. The South Africans never opened a consulate in the USSR. There were no exchanges of delegations. And in early 1956, the South African government demanded the closure of the Soviet consulate.

Since then, the Soviet Union has had ties not with the official authorities of the state, but with those who fought against them - with the South African Communist Party (SCCP) and the African National Congress (ANC). These parties opposed the racist apartheid regime [1] and were officially banned in the country. Political emigrants associated with them visited the USSR regularly and for a long time. V. N. Tetekin, now a member of the State Duma and formerly an employee of the Soviet Committee for Solidarity of Asian and African Countries, wrote that South Africa "was as inaccessible to us, Soviet citizens, as the far side of the Moon." And the forbidden always beckons.

But in the late 1980s, the situation began to change. Soviet journalists, and others like them, stopped at the airport in Johannesburg when flying from one African country to another - an unthinkable thing before that-and tried to get at least one eye on the forbidden country from the airport windows. South African politicians were interviewed on the phone. On the territory of third countries, Soviet diplomats negotiated with their South African counterparts on the settlement of the Angolan conflict.

*The article was written with the support of the National Research University-Higher School of Economics (NRU-HSE) Science Foundation.-14-01-0077.

1 Racist policies implemented in South Africa/South Africa in 1948-1990 In the Russian (and formerly Soviet) media, the spelling is accepted: apartheid. But the word is not from English, but from Afrikaans - the language of Afrikaners (Boers) - and it sounds as we use it in this article.

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In May 1989, V. N. Tetekin found himself at the Johannesburg airfield on the way between Zambia and Namibia. According to him, his "soul raged with joy and there was an incredible uplift", he felt like a "pioneer". He really became one: after staying at the airfield for almost a day, he secretly went to Soweto, a" black " suburb of Johannesburg, then practically controlled by anti-apartheid fighters and inaccessible to casual whites. Because of this short trip, Tetekin could have been arrested [Tetekin, 2011, p. 9, 23, 250].

The first official delegation from Moscow arrived in South Africa in December 1989. It consisted, as already mentioned, of two authors of this article: Irina Ivanovna Filatova, head of the Department of African Studies at the Institute of Asian and African Studies at Moscow State University, and Apollon Borisovich Davidson, head of the Center for African Studies at the Institute of General History of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The Soviet delegation (two well-known geologists, Dmitry Ivanovich Musketov and Nikolai Mikhailovich Fyodorovsky) had visited South Africa only once before, six decades earlier, at the World Congress of Geological Sciences, which was held in Pretoria in 1929.

* * *

Why did our visit become possible? In 1989, the situation in South Africa was rapidly changing. It was becoming increasingly clear that the politics of apartheid had reached a dead end. A new president, F. W. de Klerk, is clearly committed to change, several ANC leaders have become more active, there are talks about the possible release of Nelson Mandela, and the United Democratic Front (UDF), which brought together organizations that sought change in the country, is developing.

Radical changes were also taking place in the world: the Berlin Wall fell, giving rise to a clear sense of the end of the Cold War. Mikhail Gorbachev proclaimed a policy of peaceful unblocking of conflicts.

Internal changes in South Africa also required extensive communication with the outside world. The country has been isolated for many years because of its racist policies. Interest in the Soviet Union in South Africa was huge. After all, the government had been intimidating the population with the communist threat for decades, and had insisted that the main evil behind the ANC - then known as the terrorist organization - was the USSR.

We were invited by the newly formed Institute for the Democratic Alternative for South Africa (IDASA). It was led by politicians who left the parliament to participate in establishing ties with the ANC. Its director was F. van Zijl Slabbert, and his deputy is A. Borijn. Boreyn came to Moscow in August 1988, visited A. Davidson's home, and they had a friendly conversation. I. Filatova worked as Boreyn's translator at that time. In October 1988, IDASA organized a meeting of ANC representatives with Afrikaner intellectuals and Soviet scientists in the German city of Leverkusen. Filatova was also on it. In the winter of 1988-1989, A. Davidson met Borein in America, and the latter even then talked to him about the possibility of an invitation, but it seemed unrealistic.

Meanwhile, the situation in South Africa was rapidly changing. The prospect of an official trip to this country has taken shape, and in the autumn of 1989, an invitation for us really came. On the Soviet side, the trip was organized by the Asian and African Solidarity Committee. It was out of the question for us to go just as a history scholar. It's not just that there were no diplomatic relations between our countries, but also that the UN boycotted scientific relations with South Africa - both the ANC and the ODF strictly monitored compliance with its conditions.

So one invitation wasn't enough. The consent of the International Department of the CPSU Central Committee was required, although we were both always non-partisan. Times were changing, and the trip was allowed on the condition that it was approved by the ANC. The ANC responded immediately-

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but. But it was also necessary to enlist the approval of South Africa itself, from ODF. A. Davidson wrote a letter to Lusaka, Josiah Jela, one of the leaders of the ANC, to whom he once lectured in Moscow on the history of Africa. Jele, obviously, reported to the ODF, the issue was finally agreed with him, and the final approval of the International Department of the Central Committee was received.

The program of the trip was rich. On the way there and back - Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana. Two weeks in South Africa itself: Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth, the university cities of Grahamstown and Stellenbosch, visiting Soweto and other "black" townships, informal settlements - "chanteetowns", meeting with the most famous public figures, participating in meetings and rallies.

Fantastic! Something unprecedented! How many of our senior colleagues have dreamed of such a trip! None of them-those who have studied South Africa-have ever seen it with their own eyes. Neither Endre Schick, who wrote the first program for the development of African studies in our country in 1929, nor A. Z. Zusmanovich and I. I. Potekhin, who together with E. Schick at the turn of the 1920s and 1930s studied South Africa and taught students who came from there to Moscow, had a chance to visit Southern Africa. Neither V. Ya. Golant, who published his first article in 1940 and then translated the most interesting foreign studies into Russian, nor D. A. Olderogge, the patriarch of Russian African studies, visited it. All of them passed away without seeing the country they had been working on for many years. In 1989, I. P. Yastrebova, who had studied the economy of South Africa since the late 1930s, M. B. Rabinovich, who defended his dissertation on the history of South Africa in 1941, and A. L. Vitukhnovsky, who defended his dissertation "Russia and the Boer War"in 1949, were still alive. But they didn't envy us - on the contrary, they were happy that we were so lucky in something that they could not even dream of.

* * *

We left Moscow on December 3, 1989. And everything flashed as if in a kaleidoscope: endless flights, moving places, meetings, interviews.

December 4th. Lusaka. Meeting at the ANC headquarters with its leadership - Alfred Nzo, the future Foreign Minister in the Mandela government, and other members of the ANC executive Committee; with heads of ANC departments; with Joe Slovo, General Secretary of the South African Communist Party.

5th of December. Meetings with ANC National Executive Committee members Pallo Jordan and Josiah Jele. (Pallo later became Minister of Culture and Education after the ANC came to power.)

On the same day, we met with employees of the Soviet Embassy in Lusaka. Then fly to Zimbabwe. There it was necessary to get a visa to South Africa. In the USSR, of course, it was impossible to get it, since there were no diplomatic relations. There is also no South African ambassador or consul in Zimbabwe, but economic ties existed, although they were not advertised. Zimbabwe had no choice: the country's imports and exports have long been going through the ports of South Africa. There were other connections, so there was an economic representation of South Africa in Harare, which also performed diplomatic functions, as well as issued visas. We went to the sales representative (it was, of course, an Afrikaner), and he issued us visas without any problems.

He must have received instructions from Pretoria, IDASA had taken care of that, but the vigilant representative must have decided to check if they were really historians. He asked: "Do you know that it was my people who were the first in the history of the anti-colonial struggle to rise up against British colonialism?" and Davidson replied:"I have great respect for your people, but the inhabitants of the English colonies in North America rose up against British rule long before the events in Slachter's Neck."

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Our interlocutor was amazed that the name Slachters ' Nek was known in Russia (the place where the first Boer action against the British took place in 1815). It means a lot to the Boers themselves, but it's not very well known outside of South Africa.

That was the end of our meeting. But that same day we saw him again, during a dinner at the respectable Harare Club, where the diplomats represented in Zimbabwe often met. The Soviet embassy arranged for us to stay in a hotel attached to this club.

We were finishing dinner when our new acquaintance came to the next table, where apparently his employees or acquaintances were sitting. When he saw us, he was taken aback. He probably didn't tell anyone that he had met with the Soviets and even gave them visas, and then there is a danger that he will have to explain himself somehow. He got out of this situation with the help of a textbook phrase: nodding slightly in our direction, he said::

"Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"

This is the phrase that Henry Stanley, a nineteenth-century journalist and traveler, used to use to greet another white traveler, David Livingstone. The joke allowed our new acquaintance to get away from both conversations with us and questions from his companions. We never saw him again.

The evening of December 5 and the next day were filled with meetings with the editor-in-chief of the South African publishing house Grassroots and the ambassadors of socialist countries.

Then-a flight to Johannesburg, where journalists were already waiting at the airfield. What a sensation! The first delegation from the USSR! Interview right here, at the airport, under loud announcements: "The plane from Windhoek arrives...", "The flight to London is announced...". Questions pour in about Gorbachev, and about the policy of the USSR in Southern Africa, and about Angola...

Our arrival was announced in the South African newspapers in advance. Even about the Center for African Studies at the Institute of World History and the Department of African Studies at Moscow State University, where we worked. What we do there, what we are interested in, what we pay attention to in South Africa. And not just English newspapers. A week before our arrival, one of the Afrikaner newspapers published a long article entitled "First Russians come to South Africa" with detailed information about both of us, the Solidarity Committee, and the number of Asian and African students studying in Moscow. Naturally, there could not be any photos of us on South African soil yet. They gave me a photo of Filatova with Jenny Borain, Alex Borain's wife, which was left with Jenny from the time of her visit to Moscow [Vrye Weekblad. 01.12.1989].

Our newspaper interviews are often under the same headline: "From Russia with Love "(the title of a once popular James Bond book in the West). In South Africa, it was banned for quite a long time, apparently because of the name. It was now the name used by newspapermen to draw attention to our interviews.

There was an ad in the papers before we arrived:

IDAS Public Rally

Perestroika: what does this mean in the Soviet Union?
How will this affect South Africa?

Soviet scientists

Professor Davidson Apollo,
Professor Irina I. Filatova
from Moscow University will be the speakers.

Venue: Senate Hall, 6
University of the Witwatersrand.

Date: Thursday, December 7.
Time: in the evening, at 7.30.

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There were 300 or 400 people at the rally. We spent more than two hours answering questions from the audience, which was filled with excited excitement and goodwill. After all, our very presence in the country meant that changes were coming, the regime was retreating. Not a single hostile word. An audience close to the ODF gathered. They came to find out, ask questions, and just look for the first time at people from Russia, whom the government for decades presented to them as monsters. They asked about everything, but most of all they were interested in perestroika and changes in the policy of the USSR.

In order not to disrupt the program and take us to the next events, the organizers launched a trick. They didn't close the rally, they continued to say and announce something else, but they told us: get out and run to the car, otherwise they won't let you out of here. We got out and ran. The audience, realizing what was happening, rushed after us. This scene is still in front of our eyes: we run down a long, empty corridor, and behind us are people who want to ask us something else, to clarify. A couple of Russian immigrants caught up with us at the car. They only managed to put their phone in our hand and ask us to call. We called them, then met and talked.

All the meetings in three and a half days in Johannesburg can not be listed: of course, with the IDAS team, with the leadership of the ODF, with the leaders of radical organizations of the black population. With Walter Sisulu and Ahmed Kathrada, leaders of the ANC who have just been released after years of imprisonment. The crowd kept coming to Sisulu's house as if it were a temple. The man was dignified and friendly. He was very interested in the changes in the USSR and, despite being busy, spent a lot of time with us. Then we talked to his wife, Albertina. She was one of the" patrons " of the ODF. In the presence of her husband, she kept in the background, but made an impression on us of a strong, courageous and wise woman.

Meetings with well-known liberal public figures: the regional leadership of the Black Scarves liberal organization, prominent opposition politician from the Democratic Party Helen Suzman, with the leadership of this party, with the director of the Institute of Race Relations John Kane-Berman, with journalist Alistair Sparks, with the famous writer Nadine Gordimer, with prominent religious figures who opposed the idea of the Black Scarves movement. apartheid, especially with Beyers Nodie.

Of course, there were meetings at the university - at the Department of Sociology and at the Center for Political Studies, which was headed by a prominent South African sociologist, Laurence Schlemmer. He invited us to ask our questions. Questions about the future of South Africa were answered only by black teachers and academics. There weren't many of them then - literally one in each team, and they were all young. The heads of everyone present invariably turned to them as soon as they talked about what was expected in the near future. Obviously, White had more doubts and uncertainty.

Historical science in South Africa was then literally torn apart by ideology. There were two historical associations, one more Afrikaner and traditional, the other more youth - oriented, Anglophone and close to the ODF.

The day after our arrival, the University of the Witwatersrand, one of the largest universities in South Africa, hosted the Conference for a Democratic Future, one of the largest conferences in the country's history. 4,462 delegates from 2,138 organizations of various types: socio-political, trade union, regional, and even sports. It was organized by the ODF. And although the organization itself was already banned, its representatives were present on the podium. The delegates were thought to represent 15 million South Africans. The Inkata Party, with which the ODF was engaged in a real war in Natal province, was not represented at the conference. The main ideas of the conference are to protest against the apartheid regime and discuss the possibilities of future democratic development.

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The most important document adopted is the "Declaration". It said that South Africa must find a way out of the" chaotic " state.

"The minority government is in power against the will of the majority; it criminally oppresses our people; the economy is completely destroyed; the suffering of our people is growing every day unemployment, low wages, high housing costs; terrible living conditions...

No minority government is acceptable; apartheid must be completely abolished; a united, democratic, non-racial South Africa must be created; we will continue to resist, defy, and actively eliminate apartheid at all costs."

To implement these ideas, the declaration called for::

"Activate all parts of society - black and white-for united action by all forces fighting against apartheid.

Work to maximize the unity of these forces and continue to demand that the international community step up its actions to isolate the de Klerk Government."

Broad support for these requirements, including abroad, made the conference historic.

An extensive report on the conference, published in the New Nation newspaper, noted the speeches of two foreign participants. "Norwegian Deputy Foreign Minister Knut Vollenbeck read out a statement of support for the conference by his country, and a Soviet scientist, Professor Irina Filatova, expressed support for the conference by the Soviet people" [A New Era dawns, 1989, p. 6-7]. I. Filatova's statements were also highly appreciated in the Sunday Star newspaper [Sunday Star, 10.12.1989, p. 2].

The South African press paid a lot of attention to our participation in this conference and in the meetings at the University of the Witwatersrand: a lot of quotes from speeches, our photos, the word "glasnost"flashed. Here is an excerpt from the Sunday Times: "South Africans received a timely lesson in glasnost at the University of the Witwatersrand this week, when Soviet citizens called for a public rally in this country for the first time since the 1950s and an academic boycott."

It was described how at one of the meetings we were reminded of the mutual accusations that Marxists usually exchanged with adherents of other ideologies, and they wanted to draw us into an argument. But "the professors listened patiently to all this and continued to respond with unflappable frankness," and their responses were met with applause.

The newspaper pointed out, for example, that A. Davidson does not see close parallels in the fate of the USSR and South Africa, but that studying many problems of the Soviet Union "helped us to better understand these problems in their South African context" [Sunday Times, 10.12.1989].

We were driven through Soweto, the largest township for Africans. They showed Mandela's house, where he lived before his arrest. I was struck by the extent to which the situation in Soweto was controlled by the ODF: without an escort, we would not have got anywhere and seen anything. I was surprised by how different the wealth of residents is. Of course, there were no villas with pools and gardens that we saw in the white areas, but still, in addition to the poor shacks, there were also good houses.

December 10-12-Pretoria, the capital. Participation in a public rally in the African township of Soshanguwe. There we were first asked if we were Communists. After the rally, young people danced for a long time to songs that glorified the Communists.

In Soshanguwa, we spent the night in a family home. The house is large: three bedrooms, a living room, a bathroom (where, however, there was no hot water), a garage. We were treated hospitably, and the children were sent to sleep in the garage to make room for us. They asked me how we live in Moscow. We told you honestly: there are fewer rooms, but there are also fewer inhabitants.

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hot water, but no garage. Later we found out that they didn't believe us: after all, in a country of socialism, everything should be immeasurably better.

We visited the Indian village of Leneijia, which, by our standards, is very prosperous, and a settlement for refugees from Mozambique. No matter how bad the situation of Africans in South Africa was, people still came there in search of work and asylum from neighboring countries, where for various reasons it was worse.

We talked with the staff of the Institute of Africa, with teachers of the correspondence University of South Africa. We visited the Department of Eastern Europe of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of South Africa.

In the Kruger House-Museum they saw gifts that were sent from Russia to the Boers during the Anglo-Boer War. A huge bratina-a wine bowl along with large sheets of good wishes to the boers. The sheets are signed by tens of thousands of Russians.

We also looked at the monument to furtrekkers-boers who mastered these places in difficult hikes.

December 12-16-Cape Town. We lived in the most famous Mount Nelson Hotel. The receptionist did not fail to mention that Winston Churchill, his aunt Sarah, who had arrived in Cape Town earlier, Arthur Conan Doyle, Rudyard Kipling, and other famous Englishmen had stayed there.

More press conferences. Meeting with employees of the central office of IDAS. Meeting with the Rector of the University of the Western Cape. Seminar "African Studies in the USSR" at the Center for South African Studies, University of Cape Town. Meeting with the leader of the Black Scarves, an organization of white women with liberal views who supported the nonviolent struggle against apartheid. The Cape Times immediately responded to our visit with a favorable article [Cape Times. 10.12.1989].

On December 13, the English edition of A. Davidson's book "Cecil Rhodes and His Time" (Moscow, 1988) was presented at the Clarke store, the largest bookstore in Cape Town.

On December 14, part of the day was spent at Stellenbosch University, one of the best universities in South Africa, near Cape Town, where a public rally was held. During the evening with Professor Willy Breitenbach, we met Professors Johan Dehenar, Yanni Hahiano, Deon Geldenhuis and others. We met with the writer Lina Spis. Her stories have already been translated into Russian and published in the USSR.

We met Philip Nel, director of the University's Center for Soviet Studies. We were told that he is closely connected with the authorities and works for military intelligence. But he wrote and published objective books and magazines, and the Center under his leadership was active and did a good job.

From Stellenbosch, back to Cape Town. December 15-16-trips to Nyanga, Kaelitsha, Lusaka, Crossroads and other townships and shantitowns. We would not have been able to get here without the paramilitary escort of the youth of the UDF. It was a funny sight: a broken - down truck with guys from 15 to 20 years old in uniform, many with weapons, drove up to the main entrance of the posh Mount Nelson. The truck drove behind or in front of our car, and we walked around townships accompanied by these young people. It was both protection, which is absolutely not superfluous, and control - what we do, where we go, with whom we talk.

In one of the shantytowns for the first time looked inside the shacks. What struck me was not the poverty - it was expected-but the terrible air and the number of flies. The scourge of shantytowns is unsanitary conditions.

December 16-18-Port Elizabeth. Upon arrival at the hotel late in the evening, the receptionist told us: "I must warn you. See that car over there? A car with a strange license plate and strangers. They arrived yesterday and stopped in front of your windows. They don't let you know about themselves in any way. Be careful." And how to be careful? What should I do? So it was a sleepless night. But nothing happened.

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The following evening, a public rally was held in the IDAS premises. It began with the fact that one of the newcomers stood up and said::

- The United Nations and the whole world announced an academic boycott of South Africa. My friends, scientists from America, can't come. How did you get here, why did you come here?

The situation immediately escalated. But Mkhuseli Jack, one of the leaders of the ODF in Port Elizabeth, stood up and said rather sharply that the ODF had canceled the boycott for us. Then everything went as usual, as in other cities: questions, answers, free discussion. (A few years later, we accidentally met the person who asked this question. A music teacher, he was offended at the time that there were difficulties in inviting his friends, American scientists, but he had nothing against us personally.)

December 18-Grahamstown University town, Rhodes University, small but influential it was sometimes called "Oxford of South Africa". A seminar with historians was held there, and conversations were held with the head of the History Department, Rodney Davenport, Peter Weil and other teachers.

On the same day, Port Elizabeth again. Meeting with Govan Mbeki and Raymond Mhlaba. Both are newly released ANC leaders. Mbeki is also a historian, and one of his works was translated to the USSR. He is the father of Thabo Mbeki, who later became President of South Africa. But they, unlike Sisulu, had doubts about the changes in the Soviet policy.

IDAS had planned for us to go from Port Elizabeth to Durban, but instead we returned to Cape Town. The situation was not easy for us. The plan of the visit was to meet with Buthelezi, the leader of the Inkata Zulu party. But the MLF, and later the ANC, fought against Inkata for influence in the Zulu country. To meet Buthelezi was to offend the ODF. And it's impossible to go to Durban and not meet him. Buthelezi was a major political figure in the province of Natal.

We decided to ask the government for permission to meet Nelson Mandela, who was still in prison: if we were allowed to see him, at least the SLF would not be able to blame us for meeting the Inkata leader without seeing the ANC leader. But we were not allowed to meet Mandela, so we had to "skip" Durban.

We spent December 19-21 in Cape Town, and December 21-22 again in Johannesburg. Meetings, conversations, press conferences. I was talking to Nadine Gordimer again. I met with D. Kane-Berman, director of the Institute of Race Relations. (We subsequently joined this organization.)

Good friendly send-off at the airfield. And home.

* * *

Our impressions?

In two weeks, we visited almost all the major cities, all the major universities, saw African suburbs and slum settlements, and spoke almost daily at mass meetings and crowded conferences.

The country was preparing for negotiations. We caught her at the moment of breaking point. We have heard arguments about when the negotiations will take place and what exactly their outcome will be. But everyone agreed that the transition of power to the forces that fought against apartheid was inevitable and close.

We have clearly seen that some areas of the country's life have already been controlled by the ODF. His influence and even control - not to say power-was evident in both townships and universities. The fact of our visits there, and the fact that these visits could have been organized, meetings and conversations during them, is evidence of this. For the duration of our trip, the MLF was banned in the country, and the Government arrested some of its leaders. But people were openly talking about him or his legal successor, the Mass Democratic Movement (MDM).

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On one of the last days of our stay, already in Johannesburg, Jan Philips came to see us. He specially came from Durban after learning that we wouldn't be able to visit him. There was a revolver in the back pocket of his jeans - Ian wasn't even hiding it. He didn't want to see us for idle conversation - he gave Filatova an invitation to visit Natal University next year. The invitation was signed by the rector. Filatova asked for more details. Jan replied that it was "just not serious": he and his colleagues just wanted to make sure that the University management would do what they asked it to do. At the University, Yang was only a senior lecturer, but he was an important figure in the ODF - so the rector obeyed. After the ANC came to power, Phillips became an adviser to Geoff Hadebe, a prominent member of the ANC leadership and a permanent member of the Cabinet from 1994 to this day. Jan himself, however, died early.

Yang, like other MLF activists we met, spoke freely about the fact that the MLF is the ANC and that the official denial of this fact is just a conspiracy. At the rally in Leneijia, we were clearly told :" We recognize the ANC led by Tambo 2 abroad and the MDD inside the country."

Representatives of all the black organizations we met, from the ODF to the Black Consciousness organizations, spoke enthusiastically about socialism. But we didn't get the impression that they all clearly understood what socialism was. In Soshanguwa, young people danced a warlike toitoi dance in front of us, accompanied by singing: "Long live the ANC! Long live the UACP! Long live the CPSU!" But from questions even at universities, we realized that people, in fact, knew very little about these organizations: after all, they were banned several decades earlier, and operated in exile.

A young woman active in the youth wing of the UDF's Transvaal branch told us: "Negotiations are not a power grab. And we want all the power." According to her, the youth of the UDF did not want negotiations and was convinced that the ANC could provide the UDF with enough weapons to win. She believed that if the influx of weapons stopped, the country would become chaotic, as the young people would not accept this decision of the ANC.

In our report on the trip, we wrote that we did not notice any signs of conflict or contradictions between the internal (SLF) and external (ANC) leadership of the anti-apartheid struggle, and that, even according to the most cautious estimates of South African experts, at least 60% of the country's urban population supported the ANC and the SLF. It is now forgotten that many people in Moscow did not believe in the possibility of the ANC coming to power. But events have confirmed that our observations and estimates were correct.

We were not deceived in other things either. In both the Western and Soviet press, we often read that South Africa is like a cauldron of red-hot tar, which is tightly closed with a heavy lid. If it moves a little, it will explode. The anger of the black population, which has accumulated for centuries, will violently spill out on the whites.

We didn't feel this tension. They did not see hatred for themselves or for other whites, either on the streets or in the organizations and institutions they visited. And in general, they did not feel anything pre-thunderstorm. Rather, the expectation of something good, joyful, that is about to happen.

But even in Russia, on the streets of Moscow or St. Petersburg in 1917, it was hardly possible to foresee that very soon the peasants would burn down almost all the landowners ' estates, Civil War would begin, and millions of people would die or leave the country.

Of course, our impressions were shallow and muddled. Still, we can say that our impressions were generally correct.

2 Oliver Tambo - President of the ANC.

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* * *

A turning point in the life of our two countries occurred almost simultaneously. We all know and remember what happened here. And there, near the Cape of Good Hope? It's only been a few weeks since we left - and the biggest events: The ban on the ANC and the Communist Party was lifted; all political prisoners were released; the most famous of them, Nelson Mandela, was released after 27 years in prison. Negotiations on a new constitution have begun.

It was an unsettling time. For many Africans, the desire to settle scores prevailed, to avenge long-standing and recent humiliations and insults. Still, the desire to avoid a bloody inter-racial clash won out. Mandela, after leaving prison, told the judge who sentenced him to life in prison: "Let's build the future of our country together!".

Of course, even now South Africa is not the promised land. But she managed to avoid a civil war.

list of literature

Tsgskin V. N. Afrikanist, Moscow, 2011.
Vrye Weekbiad. 01.12.1989.

A New Era dawns // New Nation. 15.12. 19.12.1989.

Sunday Star. 10.12.1989.

Sunday Times. 10.12.1989.

Cape Times. 10.12.1989.

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