When the Soviets opened an embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in 1962, more direct links between the Soviets and the ANC were cemented. The embassy, formally through the Soviet Afro-Asian Solidarity Committee, invited Oliver Tambo in December 1962 to visit the USSR for a period of rest. Tambo went to the country in March 1963, accompanied by Moses Kotane.
Tambo presented an overview of events in South Africa, and met with the CPSU. On 5 April 1963 Tambo and Kotane had talks with Ponomarev, which was the beginning of a long relationship between the men. Tambo set out radical plans for the overthrow of the apartheid regime, using armed and political struggle. He also talked of the urgent need to train ANC cadres in the USSR.
Military Training Begins
Tambo’s request for military training was approved by the Soviet government, and in Summer of 1963, two groups of 20 cadres arrived in Moscow to begin studies at the Northern Training Centre. The recruits underwent training in guerrilla warfare, military strategy and tactics, topography, drilling and the use of firearms.
A year later Chris Hani arrived and spent a year in Moscow. He would later become the MK Chief of Staff and the General-Secretary of the SACP.
One group was headed by
Barney Desai, president of the
SA Coloured People’s Congress. Desai soon withdrew from the programme, and merged his group into the PAC.
Tambo visited the USSR again in October, and because the number of recruits had increased significantly, training was moved to a larger facility in the city of Odessa in the Ukraine. The first group arrived in November 1963, and they were joined by a larger group that included
Joe Modise (known as Thabo More) and
Moses Mabhida, who was recalled from the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) headquarters in Prague. Between 1963 and 1965, 328 cadres were trained at Odessa.
Leaders of the ANC and SACP also underwent aspects of military training, including Oliver Tambo,
Moses Kotane, Duma Nokwe,
Joe Slovo and
Ambrose Makiwane. Tambo led another delegation to the USSR in August 1965, accompanied by Joe Modise.
The ANC and SACP briefed the Soviets whenever major policy decisions were made, and after the
Morogoro Conference in 1969, Tambo, Modise and Nokwe met with their Soviet counterparts and delivered reports.