In 1961, a series of uprisings exploded in Angola, Portugal’s largest colony in Africa. A struggle for the independence of all the Portuguese colonies in Africa followed, organized by the national liberation movements: the MPLA, FNLA, and UNITA in Angola, FRELIMO in Mozambique, and the PAIGC in Guinea-Bissau. The wars would end in 1974, following a military coup d'état in Lisbon and the dissolution of the Portuguese dictatorship during the Carnation Revolution. This thesis explores fourteen years of anti-colonial campaigns: the people who led the liberation movements in the Portuguese colonies, the cadres these leaders encountered in Moscow, East Berlin, Prague, Sofia, and Warsaw, and the international environment they faced. It begins by looking at contacts forged between Soviet cadres and African nationalist leaders from Portuguese colonies in the late 1950s, before offering detailed analysis of why the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia offered assistance to the MPLA and the PAIGC in 1961, the same year Angola erupted into spasms of racial violence and the Soviet Union and the United States locked horns over the status of West Berlin. The subsequent chapters analyze the evolution of Soviet relations with the liberation movements during the 1960s and 1970s, the role this relationship played in shaping Soviet attitudes and policy in Africa, and the significance of Soviet bloc assistance in anti-colonial campaigns. This thesis also looks at the diplomacy of the liberation movements and their ideological and organizational transformations over fourteen years of guerrilla war. The final chapter evaluates the Soviet role in the decolonization of Portuguese Africa following the fall of the Portuguese dictatorship and investigates why the Soviets decided to intervene on behalf of the MPLA in the pivotal event of this thesis – the beginning of the civil war in Angola in 1975.

À l’ère de la globalisation, il est important de réfléchir sur les réalités qui font que cette globalisation puisse se réaliser. Dans l’étude des faits sociaux, le corps devient un des fondements de socialisation dans des sociétés dites traditionnelles, mais aussi dans des sociétés modernes. Le Mariage Traditionnel Bantu est une des pratiques sociales du corps qui, même aujourd’hui, résiste encore aux modèles imposés de l’intérieur et de l’extérieur de sa culture. Nous nous interrogeons constamment sur les raisons de cette résistance. Pour comprendre, nous avons privilégié l’observation participante de l’ensemble du trajet cérémonial donnant lieu à cette réalité chez les Kongo d’Angola, à travers une incursion dans son histoire et sa culture. Nous avons aussi opté pour des interviews dans un esprit d’ouverture et de découverte. Sans fermer la porte au nouveau monde et en consonance à l’évolution sociale, le Corps résistant du Mariage Traditionnel Kongo se caractérise comme un corps métis. Notre interaction a été menée surtout autour des mots suivants : corps, mariage, résistance, famille, parenté, métissage, société, État, Église, identité. / In the era of globalization, it is important to reflect on the realities that make this globalization possible. In the study of the social facts, the body becomes one of the foundations of socialization in societies referred to as traditional, but also in the modern societies. The traditional wedding of Bantu is one of the social practices of the body that, even today, resists the models imposed inside and outside of this culture. We are asking ourselves constantly about the reasons of this resistance. To understand, we have privileged the participating observation of the all ceremonial path, giving rise to this reality by the Kongo people of Angola, through an incursion in the history and his culture. We have also taken the option of interviews in a spirit of discovering and to have an open mind. Without closing the door to the new world and in consonance to the social evolution, the body resistance of the traditional wedding in Kongo is characterized as a crossbred body. Our interaction has been guided by the following words: body, wedding, resistance, family, society, state, church, identity, relationship and crossbreeding.