"Geschichte Afrikas von den Anfangen bis zur Gegenwart". Berlin. Akademie-Verlag. 1976. Teil 1. Thea Buttner. Afrika von den Anfangen bis zur territorialen Aufsteilung durch die imperialistischen Kolonialmachte. 360 S. Teil 2. Heinrich Loth. Afrika unter imperialistischer Kolonialherr-schaft und die Formierung der antikolonialen Krafte 1884 - 1945. 297 S.

"The history of Africa from ancient times to the present day". Part 1. Thea Buettner. Africa from the earliest times to the territorial division of the colonial imperialist Powers. Part 2. Heinrich Lot. Africa under imperialist colonial rule. Formation of anti-colonial forces in 1884-1945

The liberation of African countries from colonial dependence became an important stimulus for the development of world African studies. In the changed conditions, new approaches to the history of the peoples of the continent have also emerged. Many bourgeois scholars try to find in the history of Africa the "ground" for applying their neo-colonialist theories, but there are also those who develop problems of African history, essentially trying to show the importance of the contribution of the peoples of Africa to world history. There is a growing number of young African historians who have a better knowledge of local languages and customs, and are more likely to attract new sources, although they sometimes overestimate the level of development of their peoples to a certain extent. Interpretation of the history of Africa is now a field of intense ideological struggle.

Marxist historians play a special role in reconstructing the history of African peoples. Two volumes of the History of Africa from Ancient Times to the Present Day, published in the GDR, are new evidence of the success of Marxist African studies. In the GDR, this branch of knowledge has been developing since the mid-1950s. Starting with a demonstration of the activities of German imperialism in Africa , 1GDR scientists also worked on other issues that go beyond the colonial period and the history of the former German possessions in Africa .2
"The History of Africa" is intended as a four-volume edition. The first two volumes cover a huge period - from ancient times to 1884 (volume 1) and 1884-1945. (volume 2). The next two volumes should cover, respectively, the periods from the end of World War II to the collapse of the colonial system of imperialism and from the beginning of the 60s to the present day. The published volumes make extensive use of the achievements of Soviet Africanists. The author of the first volume is Professor Dr. Thea Buettner, Head of the Department of the Middle East and Africa at the Karl Marx University of Leipzig, where she teaches a course on pre-colonial African history. The second volume is written by Dr. Heinrich Loth, a professor at the Magdeburg Pedagogical Institute, a specialist in the history of the penetration of German imperialism into Africa.

Both volumes are devoted to two different periods of African history, both in length and content, and share a common approach to the problems of the continent's history. In the preface to his volume, G. Lot writes that this work cannot replace a lot of specific studies and does not claim to be complete (vol. 2, p. 1). Indeed, the abundance of literature on the history of Africa makes such a task impossible. The authors went

1 K. Biittner. Die Anfange der deutschen Kolonialpolitik in Ostafrika. B. 1959; H. Loth. Die Christliche Mission in Sudwestairika. Б. 1963, u. a.

2 H. Loth. Kongo, heisses Herz Afrikas. B. 1965; W. Rusch. Klassen und Staat in Buganda vor der Kolonialzeit. B. 1975, u. a.

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in a different, more fruitful way. They do not so much describe the events of African history as they seek to identify its patterns and trends. On the pages of their work, the problems of the genesis of the state, slavery, slavery and the slave trade in Africa, the differences in the colonial policy of European powers at different stages of the development of capitalism and the corresponding different stages of anti-colonial movements of African peoples are considered.

A broad problem-based approach to African history allowed the authors to examine the history of the African continent in the context of the world - historical process, compare the levels of development of African and other peoples, and identify common and special features in the history of Africa. The work tells about the relations of its peoples with the outside world in different periods, starting from antiquity (Napata-Meroe), in the Middle Ages (trans-Saharan trade, etc.) and beyond. The authors draw broad analogies between African and other States. Thus, T. Buettner compares economic and socio-political relations in ancient Aksum and ancient Eastern states (vol. 1, p. 52), forms of ownership in medieval states of Tropical Africa and the Middle East (vol.1, p. 119), while pointing out the peculiarities of African states. The authors describe the reactions in Africa to the events in Europe (in particular, in G. Lot a special chapter is devoted to the influence of the Great October Revolution on the national liberation movement in Africa), as well as the reaction in Europe to the African events, in particular the anti - colonial struggle of the workers of Europe (vol. 2, pp. 108-113). Lot pays great attention to the participation of African peoples in the First and Second World Wars.

The paper examines the ideological trends that played a major role in the struggle of the black population of the world against racial oppression, to the development of which Africa also contributed, such as the ideology of "black emancipation" by E. W. Blyden (vol. 1) and pan-Africanism (vol. 2). One can only regret that the pages of "History of Africa" did not contain the following information: there is another important ideological trend that has had a great influence on this struggle and the cultural development of the "Negro world" - Negritude 3 .

An interesting illustration of the broad historical approach to African problems is the summary chronological table of events in world history and the history of Africa, which was started in the first volume and continued in the second volume (this is almost the first time such an attempt is being made in such a work).

The tasks and peculiarities of the development of Marxist African studies define a characteristic feature of the work - a sharply critical attitude to the anti-scientific theories and propositions of bourgeois Africanists. T. Buettner emphasizes that "an objective presentation of the historical and cultural development of the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa and their colonial oppression should help to expose the main imperialist theories" (vol. 1, p. 1). Revealing the complexities of the processes involved in the development of The author of volume 1 debunks the Hamitic and other similar theories that reduce the idea of progress in Africa to the conquest of "less developed" farmers by supposedly more developed pastoral peoples (vol. I, pp. 121-122). The book rejects the position that has existed for many years in the world of African studies about the stagnation of local societies, and emphasizes, in particular, that the absence of a plow and wheel in most parts of the continent cannot be evidence of this, but is connected with the peculiarities of natural conditions (vol.1, p. 118).

The problem-based approach does not exclude a detailed account of the most important events in the history of the continent. As in most other general works on African history, the reviewed work presents the material on a regional basis, in accordance with the cultural and historical regions that have developed in Africa. The authors focus on the history of sub-Saharan Africa, while information on the history of the peoples of North Africa is provided only to show the existing connections and interrelationships. In this way, the Africanists of the GDR avoided burdening their work with information from Egyptology and Arabic studies.

If there is a common approach, tasks and principles of presentation of the material, there are also differences in the content of the two volumes, which are due to the difference between the periods under consideration. The first volume, written by T. Buettner, covers a much longer period of the history of the peoples of the continent than the second. It was supposed to accommodate a wider range of problems. Long vre-

3 See B. S. Erasov for more information about negritude. Tropical Africa: ideology and Problems of Culture, Moscow, 1972.

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many bourgeois authors promoted the thesis that" the black continent is a continent without history", that the history of Africa begins there with the appearance of the white man. Marxists began to fight this anti-scientific thesis in the 1920s. In the mid-1950s, with the growth of the national liberation movement in Africa, it was also noted in numerous works by Western authors, and later by African historians.

T. Bgottner sums up modern research on the pre-colonial history of Africa. The presentation of the history of the peoples of the continent is really started from its origins. The latest archaeological discoveries on the territory of Africa, the author points out, allow us to consider the continent as the cradle of humanity. The volume provides a brief outline of the ancient history of African peoples-a description of Stone Age cultures and the development of metallurgy, which was an important factor in the crisis of tribal society. The pages of the book also reflect the history of the oldest states of Tropical Africa - Napata-Meroe and Aksum. The volume focuses on the medieval state formations of Tropical and Southern Africa. T. Buettner briefly showed the features of the development of all the most important state formations of that period, and she managed to identify the most important and characteristic features in the history and social structure of each of them.

A special section is devoted to the general socio-economic characteristics of the pre-colonial States of sub-Saharan Africa. In connection with the peculiarities of land ownership forms in most of these states, African material was widely used in the last discussion about the Asian mode of production . 4 T. Buettner, a consistent proponent of the theory of socio-economic formations, emphasizes that for all its features, "the pre-colonial states of Africa had an early feudal basis" (vol.1, p. 118). It shows the varying degree of maturity of class relations in individual state formations, and notes the primary importance of ownership of livestock and pastures as the main means of production in some of them.

The author notes the peculiarities of the medieval states of Tropical and Southern Africa, referring to the most important of them the preservation of the role of the community, the incomplete process of class formation, the patriarchal nature of the power of the ruling class, the lack of organized forms of class struggle (vol. 1, pp. 134-135). These sections of the book contribute to the issues of the genesis of States in Africa, which are widely discussed in modern African studies .5 Focusing on pre-colonial State formations, the author emphasizes the diversity of forms and levels of development achieved by African peoples. Unfortunately, the book contains little information about the peoples who did not create statehood.

Speaking about the complexity and ambiguity of the processes that took place in pre-colonial Africa, the author notes that the penetration of the Portuguese there and the development of the "live goods" trade contributed not only to the physical destruction of Africans and the economic collapse of some local states, but also to the emergence of others (Luba, Lunda, Dahomey), which were based on profits from the slave trade and with a bone.

Reconstruction of the pre-colonial history of Africa has long been hampered by the lack or scarcity of written sources. In recent years, it has been possible to attract new types of sources - oral historical tradition and archaeological data .6 An important contribution of T. Buettner is a review (both for the continent as a whole and for each region) of sources with special attention to the last two types.

The volume, written by T. Buettner, gives the reader a clear idea of the development of African peoples in the pre-colonial era, their contribution to the treasury of world culture and leads to an understanding of the colonial history of the continent. As a result, the colonial period in the development of Africa is not seen as the beginning of the history of its peoples, but only as one of its stages, at which a specific type of social development was formed .7 His nel-

4 See V. N. Nikiforov. Vostok i mirovaya istoriya [East and World History], Moscow, 1975.

5 See O. S. Tomanovskaya. Study of the problem of the genesis of the state on the African material. "Basic problems of African studies", Moscow, 1973.

6 See "Source Studies of African History", Moscow, 1977.

7 For the problem statement, see: D. A. Olderogge. Colonial Society-stage

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It should be considered only in the light of the impact of colonial administration on local societies, because it was an interdependent process in which Africans were not only an object, but also a subject.

For a correct understanding of the colonial period of African history, it is necessary to focus not on the policies of the colonial Powers, but on the reaction of the African peoples to them. This is exactly what Mr. Lot is trying to do in the second volume of the History of Africa. The book he wrote is primarily a history of the anti-colonial struggle of Africans. The author notes that at the stage of colonial conquests at the end of the XIX century, in some cases, disparate local societies, exhausted by the slave trade, located at different levels of social development, could only provide spontaneous and spontaneous resistance to Europeans (vol. 2, p. 12). But the anti-colonial uprisings in Africa in 1904-1908 were already outgrowing tribal boundaries and were the forerunner of a new stage of the national liberation movement.

This stage of the anti-colonial struggle, the author emphasizes, was a direct reflection of the Great October on the African continent. "After the October Revolution, the crisis of the colonial system became an expression of the general crisis of capitalism, and since the October Revolution, the national liberation movement has become an integral part of the world revolutionary process," writes G. Lot (p.136). The most important propagator of the ideas of Marxism-Leninism, October and the Comintern in Africa was the Communist Party of South Africa, which emerged in 1920 under the direct influence of these ideas. October echoed across the continent "from the Zambezi to Senegal" in a wave of powerful anti-colonial protests (pp. 140-142), and political organizations such as the National Congress of British West Africa (1920), the Young Kikuyu Association in Kenya (1921), and others emerged. New social forces emerged in colonial society - the working class, the national bourgeoisie, and the intelligentsia-which formed a new social base for the anti-colonial struggle. Lot shows how its forms and demands were changing everywhere on the continent, how new political organizations were emerging, and brings the reader to an understanding of the powerful upsurge in Africa that finally led to the collapse of the system of colonialism here.

The colonialists tried not only to use the social forces that had developed in Africa at the time of their arrival, but also to use the various forms of social relations that existed there for their own purposes. The volume provides convincing evidence that at the first stage of colonization, formally speaking under the guise of "fighters against slavery and the slave trade", the colonialists widely used various forms of slavery and supported the internal slave trade in some parts of Africa (vol.2, pp. 42-43).

The problems of colonial society are not limited to the relations of Africans with Europeans. Different strata of traditional society, having differently perceived the establishment of foreign domination, began to conflict with each other. With the emergence of new social forces on the continent, the ideological division of Africans became even more significant. The author emphasizes that in the 1920s and 1930s the liberation struggle was already waged on two fronts-against European imperialism and internal reaction (vol. 2, p. 169). Naturally, the volume shows special attention to German possessions in Africa. G. Lot has long been engaged in this topic, developing it on the basis of archival materials of the German Imperial Colonial Office, stored in the Central State Archive of the GDR (Potsdam)8 . In this regard, the section on the influence of the ideology of fascism on colonial policy in South Africa, in the Portuguese, Spanish, and Belgian possessions is interesting. In general, the work, while not covering equally the entire complex of problems of African colonial history, provides a clear picture of the evolution of the anti-colonial struggle on the continent.

Both volumes of the "History of Africa" are equipped with an extensive scientific apparatus: carefully compiled indexes, maps, and illustrations. Unfortunately, the bibliographies given by both authors are far from complete. It seems correct to divide the material by period, with the possible exception of the date separating both volumes.

in the ethnic development of Tropical Africa. "Problems of the population and economy of African countries", L. 1973.

8 See also: G. L. O. T. Archival sources in the GDR on the history of Sub-Saharan Africa. "Peoples of Asia and Africa", 1974, N 5.

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The authors chose the Berlin Conference on the Congo in 1884 as the initial moment of the colonial division of Africa, although most researchers consider the beginning of the colonial division of this continent to be the 70s of the last century. On page 1 of volume 2, it is stated that 27 African States gained independence in 1960; in fact, the number is 17.

Two volumes of "History of Africa" introduce the reader to the main patterns and trends in the development of the peoples of the continent up to the end of the Second World War. They show what is common and special in the history of the continent's peoples, contributing to an understanding of Africa today, in which modern features are intricately intertwined with archaic ones. The work of GDR scientists is practically the first experience in Marxist African studies of a systematic and generalized presentation of the history of sub-Saharan Africa from ancient times to the present day.

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