Between socialism and non-alignment: The Basutoland Congress Party and the Soviet Bloc

Basotho nationalists’ relations with the Socialist world began in the late 1920s but became relevant only in the late 1950s when the struggle for independence gained momentum. The main protagonist was the Basutoland Congress Party which entertained a close working relationship with the USSR, the PRC and several Eastern European countries from the 1950s to the late 1980s. This relationship was not an easy one, as one of the ideological tenets of Mokhehle’s party was non-alignment and, at least theoretically, anti-communism. Yet, the BCP did not close the doors to the East but instead sent dozens of its members to Socialist countries for education. This paper recounts the history of this relationship through archival sources and through the memoires of BCP members, collected in recent interviews by the author, who were sent to the East from the 1950s to the 1980s.