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“You Are Not Alone”: Angela Davis and the Soviet Dreams of Freedom

Part of: Special Issue: Everyday Internationalism: Socialist-South Connections and Mass Culture during the Cold War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2024

Maxim Matusevich Open the ORCID record for Maxim Matusevich [Opens in a new window]
Maxim Matusevich*
Affiliation:
Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ, United States
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E-mail: maxim.matusevich@shu.edu
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Abstract

In the early 1970s, the plight of a charismatic Black American communist and philosophy professor Angela Davis, put on trial in the United States for her alleged involvement in a courtroom shootout in California, galvanized international public opinion. A massive publicity campaign in support of Angela Davis resonated across the globe and drew in millions of volunteers and sympathizers. The nations of the communist bloc, led by the Soviet Union, were particularly active in rallying their citizens in defense of a jailed American radical. In 1970–1972, Davis became a household name throughout the Soviet Union (but also in East Germany, Cuba, Poland, and other socialist nations). The “Free Angela Davis” campaign was unprecedented in scope and left a lasting mark on the collective memory of the citizens of the Soviet Union and its socialist satellites. Such was the impact of this propaganda juggernaut that decades later the image of Angela Davis remained current as a pop-cultural phenomenon across the former Soviet spaces and a symbol of unrealized and often conflicting aspirations towards freedom.

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Research Article
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 69 , Special Issue S32: Everyday Internationalism: Socialist-South Connections and Mass Culture during the Cold War , April 2024 , pp. 63 - 90
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis

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References

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10 “Svobodu Andzhele Davis!”, Pravda, 24 July 1971.

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12 Yuri Brilliantov, “Pis'mo Andzhele Devis”, 15 May 1972, Davis, Angela: Solidarity letters /Russia/, Box 138, Folder 31, Tamiment Library: The Communist Party of the United States of America Records TAM.132.

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14 See idem, My Long Journey Home, 1st edn (Chicago, IL, 2002); idem, “Black Americans’ Uzbek Experiment”, Moscow News, 20 September 1987; Joy Gleason Carew, Blacks, Reds, and Russians: Sojourners in Search of the Soviet Promise (New Brunswick, NJ, 2008).

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16 Chinghiz Aitmatov, “Svobodu Andzhele Davis!”, Izvestia, 31 December 1970.

17 Valentina Nikolayeva-Tereshkova, “Letter of Support”, 1970, Angela Davis Legal Defense Collection, Box 4, Folder 14, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

18 The Soviet Union expended considerable effort promoting gender solidarity, which, just like anti-racism, served to burnish its ideological credentials, especially in the Global South. See, for example, Yulia Gradskova, The Women's International Democratic Federation, the Global South and the Cold War: Defending the Rights of Women of the “Whole World”? (London, 2020).

19 Frank Prial, “More Russians Send Plea to Nixon on Angela Davis”, New York Times, 7 January 1971.

20 “Soviet People's Plea for Angela”, n.d., Angela Davis Legal Defense Collection, Box 4, Folder 15, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

21 “Soviet Scientists Back Miss Davis”, New York Times, 26 December 1970; “Ot Imeni Sovetskikh Uchenykh”, Pravda, 26 December 1970.

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23 T. Kolesnichenko, “Za Tvoi Zavtrashnii Den’, Andzhela!”, Pravda, 26 January 1971; “Oni Boyatsya Andzhely”, Komsomol'skaya Pravda, 19 January 1971.

24 Aitmatov, “Svobodu Andzhele Davis!”.

25 Martine Monod, “Oni Boyatsya Tebya, Andzhela!”, Komsomol'skaya Pravda, 20 December 1970.

26 “V Sovetskii Komitet Solidarnosti s Amerikanskoi Patriotkoi Andzheloi Davis. Amerikanskomu Posol'stvu v SSSR, g. Moskva”, 1970, Box 263, Folder 3, Tamiment Library: The Communist Party of the United States of America Records, New York University.

27 Phillip Bonosky, “Yeye Imya – Sovest’”, Komsomol'skaya Pravda, 7 March 1971.

28 Yana Skorobogatov, “Our Friend Angela: Soviet Schoolchildren, a Letter-Writing Campaign, and the Legend of Angela Davis”, The Drift, 2 (21 October 2020). Available at: https://www.thedriftmag.com/our-friend-angela/; last accessed 8 January 2024.

29 “Svobodu Andzhele Davis!”, Izvestia, 19 December 1970; “Ostanovit’ Raspravu! Trebuyut Milliony”.

30 V. Kabanov, “Million Roz dlya Andzhely!”, Komsomol'skaya Pravda, 22 January 1971.

31 A. Khodzhaev, “A Vy Pomnite Andzhelu Davis?”, Novosti Uzbekistana, 26 January 2016. Available at: https://nuz.uz/kolumnisty/10427-a-vy-pomnite-andzhelu-devis.html; last accessed 8 January 2024.

32 Boris Orekhov, “Rozy dlya Andzhely”, Pravda, 1 March 1971.

33 Iraida Ulyanova, “Sud”, Sovetskaya Moldavia, 12 January 1971.

34 Aleksei Alekseev, “Marksistka-Antirasistka”, Kommersant, 26 January 2019. Available at: https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3861929; last accessed 8 January 2024.

35 Robert Rozhdestvensky, “S Dnyem Rozhdenia, Andzhela!”, 1971, 300/80/8, Box 10, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (hereafter RFE/RL) Research Institute, Open Society Archives (hereafter HU OSA).

36 Hendrick Smith, “In Siberia, From Bratsk to Novosibirsk, US Rock Groups Are Big, Nixon Isn't”, New York Times, 30 March 1972.

37 “Programma Televidenia i Radio”, Pravda, 16 March 1971.

38 M. Anokhina, “Laureaty Izvestny”, Pravda, 21 January 1972; “Torzhestvo Tantsa”, Pravda, 30 January 1972.

39 “Vystavki, Gastroli”, Pravda, 10 November 1972.

40 Mikhail Ilyaev, Uroki Iskusnogo Rezchika (Moscow, 2011), p. 53.

41 See Yurchak, Everything Was Forever.

42 Angela Davis, “Afro Images: Politics, Fashion, and Nostalgia”, Critical Inquiry, 21:1 (1994), pp. 37–45; Susannah Walker, “Black Is Profitable: The Commodification of the Afro, 1960–1975”, Enterprise & Society, 1:3 (2000), pp. 536–564.

43 Davis, “Afro Images: Politics, Fashion, and Nostalgia”, pp. 37–38.

44 Elena M., personal interview in Ashkelon, Israel, 4 January 2023.

45 See, for example, “Davis Andzhela”, Russian State Archive of Photo and Film Documentation. Available at: http://photo.rgakfd.ru/person/416404; last accessed 25 March 2023; 1972. Leningrad. Andzhela Davis, Nash Krai, 43 (1972). Available at: https://youtu.be/3vgsObGYz38; last accessed 8 January 2024.

46 Julie Davis, “Humour and Protest: Jokes under Communism”, International Review of Social History, SI52: 15 (2007), pp. 291–305.

47 See, for example, “1001 Izbrannii Sovetskii Politicheskii Anekdot”. Available at: http://www.lib.ru/ANEKDOTY/anec1001.txt; last accessed 25 April 2023; Dima Verner, “Anekdoty iz Rossii”. Available at: https://www.anekdot.ru/an/an0811/s081125;100.html; last accessed 6 April 2023.

48 Leonid Plyushch and Tatyana Plyushch, History's Carnival: A Dissident's Autobiography (London, 1979).

49 “Psychiatric Abuse of Political Prisoners in the Soviet Union: Testimony by Leonid Plyushch. Hearing before the Subcommittee on International Organizations of the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, Ninety-Fourth Congress, Second Session, March 30, 1976” (Washington, DC, 1976).

50 Vladimir Vysotsky, “Zhertva Televidenia”, 1972. Available at: http://www.bards.ru/archives/part.php?id=15667; last accessed 8 January 2024.

51 Earl Caldwell, “Angela Davis Acquitted on All Charges”, New York Times, 5 June 1972.

52 “Angela Davis Thank-You Tour”, New York Times, 7 June 1972; “Black Militant Angela Davis Appearance at Madison Square Garden” (United Press International (UPI), 29 June 1972), Frank Mt. Pleasant Library of Special Collections and Archives, Chapman University. Available at: https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/upi_african_american/256/; last accessed 8 January 2024

53 B. Strelnikov, “Andzhela Davis na Svobode”, Pravda, 6 June 1972; Theodore Shabad, “Russians Hail Davis Acquittal as a ‘Victory for the Progressive American’”, New York Times, 6 June 1972.

54 “Angela Davis Warmly Welcomed in Moscow”, New York Times, 29 August 1972; Nikolayeva-Tereshkova, “Letter of Support”.

55 “Angela Davis Warmly Welcomed in Moscow”; Angela Davis, “Autobiography /Draft/”, n.d., Box 132, Folder 5, Tamiment Library: The Communist Party of the United States of America Records.

56 “Miss Davis Arrives Here after a Tour of 6 Red Countries”, New York Times, 13 October 1972.

57 V. Grigorovich, “Dobro Pozhalovat’, Andzhela!”, Pravda, 29 August 1972.

58 V. Pershin, “Moskva Vstrechayet Andzhelu”, Izvestia, 30 August 1972.

59 “Cosmonaut Welcomes Miss Davis”, The Times, 29 August 1972.

60 “Andzhela Davis na Sovetskoi Zemle”, Novoe Vremya, 8 September 1972.

61 “Andzhela Davis v Verkhovnom Sovete SSSR”, Izvestia, 31 August 1972; “Druzheskaya Vstrecha”, Pravda, 9 September 1972.

62 I. Khuzemi, “Do Svidaniya, Andzhela!”, Komsomol'skaya Pravda, 10 September 1972.

63 “Andzhela Davis. Pochetnii Professor MGU”, Pravda, 8 September 1972; N. Gladkov, “Andzhela Davis: Sovetskaya Nauka Sluzhit Narodu”, Pravda, 3 September 1972; Khuzemi, “Do Svidaniya, Andzhela!”.

64 See Langston Hughes, A Negro Looks at Soviet Central Asia (Moscow, 1934); David Chioni Moore, “Colored Dispatches from the Uzbek Border: Langston Hughes; Relevance, 1933–2002”, Callaloo, 25:4 (2002), pp. 1114–1135.

65 “Andzhela Davis. Pochetnii Grazhdanin Samarkanda”, Pravda, 5 September 1972; “Miss Davis Hails Soviet's Policies”, New York Times, 10 September 1972.

66 Visit Andzhely Davis v SSSR, Kinokhronika (Moscow, Tashkent, 1972). Available at: https://www.net-film.ru/film-58635/; last accessed 8 January 2024.

67 Khuzemi, “Do Svidaniya, Andzhela!”

68 “Andzhela Davis na Sovetskoi Zemle”; Khuzemi, “Do Svidaniya, Andzhela!”

69 See Yurchak, Everything Was Forever; Mark Lipovetsky, “The Indiscreet Charm of the Russian Cynic”, openDemocracy, 24 October 2013. Available at: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/indiscreet-charm-of-russian-cynic/; last accessed 8 January 2024.

70 Andrei D. Sakharov, Sakharov Speaks, ed. Harrison Salisbury (New York, 1974).

71 Richard Cohen, “Proud Men”, in idem (ed.), Let My People Go! Today's Documentary Story of Soviet Jewry's Struggle to be Free (New York, 1971), pp. 75–117; “Moscow on Trial: What to Do with Imprisoned Jews?”, Jews in Eastern Europe: A Periodical Survey of Events, 4:6 (1971), pp. 3–83.

72 See, for example, “Soviet Jewry Committee Calls for Release of Angela Davis, Ruth Alexandrovich”, JTA Daily News Bulletin, 38:92 (12 May 1971), p. 3.

73 “Moscow on Trial: What to Do with Imprisoned Jews?”, pp. 74–75.

74 Bernard Gwertzman, “Soviet Court Acts on Appeal Today”, New York Times, 30 December 1970.

75 “Soviet Scientists Back Miss Davis”, New York Times, 26 December 1970; Prial, “More Russians Send Plea to Nixon on Angela Davis”; “Ot Imeni Sovetskikh Uchenykh”, Pravda, 26 December 1970.

76 Andrei Sakharov, “An Open Letter to President Nixon on Behalf of Angela Davis”, 28 December 1970, Box 10, RFE/RL Research Institute, HU OSA; A.D. Sakharov, “Open Appeal to President Richard Nixon and to Chairman of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet N.V. Podgorny (28 December 1970)”, Exodus: A Supplement to The Journal of Soviet Jewish Affairs (Documents Section), 4 (June 1971), pp. 42–43; “Let Soviet Citizens Emigrate”, in Harrison Salisbury (ed.), Sakharov Speaks (New York, 1974), pp. 160–163.

77 I.R. Shafarevich, A.S. Vol'pin, and A.N. Tverdokhlebov, “Obrashenie v Mezhdunarodnuyu Ligu Prav Cheloveka”, 16 January 1972, 300/80/8 Box 10, RFE/RL Research Institute, HU OSA.

78 “Moscow on Trial: What to Do with Imprisoned Jews?”, pp. 97–101.

79 “Soviet Jewry Committee Calls for Release of Angela Davis, Ruth Alexandrovich”.

80 “US Law Professor Says He Was Denied Right to Attend Trial of Riga Four”, JTA Daily News Bulletin, 38:107 (4 June 1971), p. 3; “Professor Was Denied Right to Attend Trial of Riga Four”, The Detroit Jewish News, 11 June 1971; Barbara Campbell, “12 Negro Professors to Help Defend Angela Davis”, New York Times, 26 January 1971.

81 See Martin Luther King, Jr. Addressing Twelve American Jewish Communities by Telephone Hookup from Atlanta, Georgia, December 1, 1966, Records of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, 1966, Box 369, Folder M10 (I–181 and I–181A), American Jewish Historical Society.

82 Angela Davis's more recent argument connecting the struggle for African American equality with the fight for Palestinian liberation is laid out in Angela Davis, Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement, ed. Frank Barat (Chicago, IL, 2016).

83 B. Strelnikov, “Sudilishe v San Jose”, Pravda, 4 April 1972; Strelnikov, “Andzhela Davis na Svobode”; Shabad, “Russians Hail Davis Acquittal as a ‘Victory for the Progressive American’”.

84 “Soviet Civil-Rights Leaders Demand Bail for Dissident”, New York Times, 9 July 1972; Hendrick Smith, “Sakharovs Offer Bail for Jailed Activists”, New York Times, 12 February 1973.

85 Viktoria Smirnova, “An Open Letter to Angela Davis”, 5 January 1972, 300/80/8 Box 10, RFE/RL Research Institute, HU OSA.

86 See Juliane Fürst, “Liberating Madness: Punishing Insanity. Soviet Hippies and the Politics of Craziness”, Journal of Contemporary History, 53:4 (2018), pp. 832–860.

87 Smirnova, “An Open Letter to Angela Davis”.

88 “Pis'mo Andzhele Davis ot Margarity Tissen”, undated, mid-1974, 300/80/8 Box 10, RFE/RL Research Institute, HU OSA.

89 “Pis'mo Andzhele Davis ot Margarity Tissen”.

90 See Davis, “Autobiography /Draft/”. According to Davis, one of the main purposes of her tour of the socialist nations in 1972 was to turn their attention to the plight of “other political prisoners”.

91 “Czech Dissidents Ask Angela Davis for Aid in Trial”, International Herald Tribune, 18 July 1972; Adam Roberts and Richard N. Gardner, “Notes of the Month”, The World Today, 28:9 (1972), pp. 371–376.

92 Jiri Pelikan, “A Letter”, The New York Review of Books, 31 August 1972; Jiri Pelikan, “An Open Letter to Angela Davis”, New Politics, Fall 1972, pp. 72–76.

93 Pelikan, “A Letter”.

94 Roberts and Gardner, “Notes of the Month”; “Pravda Synopsis: Pelikan, Angela Davis”, 14 August 1972, 300/80/8 Box 10, RFE/RL Research Institute, HU OSA.

95 “Czech Exiles’ Plea Rejected by Miss Davis”, The Times, 29 July 1972.

96 Davis, “Autobiography /Draft/”.

97 “Angela Cites Red Backing of Blacks”, Chicago Daily Defender, 30 August 1972; Khuzemi, “Do Svidaniya, Andzhela!”; Gladkov, “Andzhela Davis. Sovetskaya Nauka Sluzhit Narodu”.

98 Years later, prominent Soviet dissidents continued to lament Davis's rejection of their cause as well as the cause of the persecuted Czechs. See, for example, Plyushch and Plyushch, History's Carnival: A Dissident's Autobiography, p. 378.

99 Dorothy Miller, “Angela Davis in the GDR”, Radio Free Europe Research: Communist Area, 18 September 1972, 300/80/8 Box 10, RFE/RL Research Institute, HU OSA.

100 “Angela Davis: A Puzzle for E. Europe”, Washington Post, 11 October 1972.

101 “Miss Davis Hails Soviet's Policies”; Miller, “Angela Davis in the GDR”.

102 “Soviet Physicist Who Complained of Travel Curb Is Ousted by Party”, New York Times, 28 May 1978.

103 “Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: New York, July 9”, AFL–CIO Free Trade Union News, 30:7–8 (1975), pp. 21–22.

104 “Bortsu za Mir”, Pravda, 21 July 1979.

105 Angela Davis, “Pravitel'stvo SShA Yavlyaetsya Narushitelem Prav Cheloveka”, Yunost’, 17 January 1979.

106 Mark Lipovetsky, “Dvadtsat’ Let Sputstia Fil'm Balabanova Sluzhit Opravdaniem Voiny v Ukraine”, Russia.Post, 11 July 2022.

107 There existed a tradition of Soviet women participating in the “soft power” outreach by the Soviet state, directed at foreign audiences. Such efforts were usually rigidly structured and closely supervised. See, for example, Gradskova, The Women's International Democratic Federation; Varga-Harris, Christine, “Soviet Women and Internationalism in Socialist Travel Itineraries in the 1950s and 1960s”, Diplomatic History, 46:3 (2022), pp. 486–504CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

108 There is a bitter historical irony in the divergence of the two struggles. To the extent that Soviet and American “renegades” remained aware of each other (I would argue that Soviet dissidents tended to be more attuned to the vagaries of the fight for racial and social justice in the United States, simply because the United States loomed so inordinately large in their dreams of freedom), their respective quests proceeded on parallel tracks or even at cross-purposes. See Roman, Meredith L., “Soviet ‘Renegades’, Black Panthers, and Angela Davis: The Politics of Dissent in the Soviet Press, 1968–73,” Cold War History 18: 4 (2018), pp. 503–519Google Scholar.

109 This line of conservative critique of Angela Davis, including by former Soviets, persists to this day. See, for example, Jonathan Tobin, “Opposing Honors for Angela Davis Isn't Racist”, National Review, 11 January 2019. Available at: https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/opposing-honors-for-angela-davis-isnt-racist/; last accessed 8 January 2024; Cathy Young, “Angela Davis Is Not a Human Rights Hero”, Forward, 9 January 2019. Available at: https://forward.com/opinion/417302/angela-davis-human-rights-activist/; last accessed 8 January 2024.