(LATE 1950S-EARLY 1960S)

Many of the challenges facing the People's Republic of Angola today are rooted in the past. These include, in particular, inter-racial and inter-ethnic antagonisms, tribalism (adherence to cultural and everyday, cult and socio-political tribal isolation), separatism, and cultural backwardness of the peasantry. These" birthmarks "of the past are being exploited by imperialist circles that incite ethnic separatism, "black racism", and seek to eliminate the revolutionary gains of the Angolan people. In order to gain a deeper understanding of the events taking place in Angola, it is necessary to look at its recent past. The anti-Portuguese peasant movements of the 1950s and early 1960s remain little - known pages of the anti-colonial struggle of the Angolan people. The largest of these were the Tokoist sectarian movement, the Lower Casanji uprising ("Maria's War"), and the mass uprising in northern Angola in March 1961.

The coming to power of Salazar in Portugal and the establishment of the fascist regime led to a sharp deterioration in the situation of the masses, especially the peasantry, in the Portuguese colonies. The so-called indigenate system was introduced, ostensibly created to protect the interests of indigenous Africans. In fact, this system meant the introduction of a regime of socio-political inequality. The population of the colony was divided into two categories: Indizhenash (natives), or uncivilized (this included all Africans and mulattoes who did not belong to the civilized), and civilized (all whites and assimiladush - assimilated mulattoes and Africans). The transfer of an African to Assimilados required that he be able to read, write, speak Portuguese; profess Christianity; receive an income sufficient to support his family; lead a Portuguese lifestyle"; and not avoid military service. These conditions were practically impossible for the indigenous people, especially the peasants, 99% of whom were illiterate and whose incomes were too low to allow them to live "in Portuguese".

The indigenous population was treated by the authorities as people who did not have the rights of citizenship. They were subjected to racial discrimination, forced labor, and arbitrary taxation. The Portuguese officer recalled: "There were three toilets in the cafe. There were signs on the doors: "For the ladies, "" for the gentlemen," "for the natives.".. After arriving, I heard the first Portuguese word on Angolan soil. It was nothing more or less than the word "dog," which I often heard over the next two years. They were unloading crates. One pot-bellied white man, urging on a black dockworker, shouted: "Hey, you dog, carry carefully!" I will always remember this first color "slide" on the streets of Luanda. " 1 The goal of Portuguese colonial policy was considered by official legislation to be the assimilation of the indigenous population of Angola. The means of achieving this was declared to be forced labor. "If we want to fulfill our colonization mission, we must instill in the black man the idea of working and freeing himself from his laziness and depravity," wrote the Portuguese Minister of Colonies, V. Machado. Although the legislation formally prohibited the use of forced labor in private enterprises-

1 Pereira O. M. Terra vermelha (estorias para a historia da guerra colonial em Angola). Lisboa. 1978, pp. 20, 17.

2 O mundo portugues. Outubro. 1913, p. 551.

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In fact, it was widely used. The owners were served by recruiters who supplied them with workers.

The forced removal of labor was carried out by the colonialists on a large scale. Thus, each year, the colonial authorities recruited 250,000 workers for agricultural, mining and construction work in Angola .3 A number of economic factors also contributed to the widespread use of forced labor. The main one was that there was no shortage of land in these territories. The abundance of fertile soil, which gives good yields even with a low level of agriculture, and low population density did not allow Africans to feel "land hunger". The majority of the population employed in agriculture and only marginally involved in commodity-money relations did not feel the economic need to sell their labor force. The only way to force an African to work on plantations for low wages was by force. As a Portuguese sociologist wrote, " the use of force was the result of the inability to separate the native producer from his means of production."4
Planters ' requests for labor were distributed by the Department of Native Affairs to local chiefs, who were ordered to recruit the necessary number of workers in their area by a certain date. The only way for an African to avoid compulsory contracting was to provide written evidence that he was employed by a European. First of all, persons who did not pay tax were subject to contracting. Even serving a contract in the previous year did not get rid of a new contract. L. W. Henderson, who lived in Angola for more than 20 years, wrote that the word "contract" was a farce when it referred to the relationship between an African worker and his white employer, and the forced recruitment of contracted workers was a lucrative business for the administration: the fee that officials received from the planter for each contracted person often exceeded the salary of the latter for a year and a half of work. "The Angolans were looking at... officials as enemies who could force any native to work in any place, under any conditions, and for any employer. " 5
There is a detailed description of the contracting method: "This form of countertadouch recruitment is carried out by a wide network of recruiters - professional hunters of Africans for owners... First of all, they must obtain the consent of "kontratadu". To do this, they use various methods: they cheat, lie, give wine and get Africans drunk... The African is told that if he "signs a contract", he can be released from working for the state, where they do not pay any salary... In the presence of an administrative person who is playing the role of a "defender" of the interests of an African, the "contratadush" are asked if they voluntarily agree to the "contract", they answer in unison: "Yes!" Then a physical examination is carried out, and since doctors receive 20 escudos for each person deemed fit, all those who do not have obvious physical defects are accepted. Then they are sent to work in trucks... So in Angola, they say that a recruiter is a person who buys whites and sells blacks. " 6
Every step of the contracted person was regulated by legislation that protected exploitation based on non-economic coercion. Since most of the contracted workers were recruited by force and did not feel economically necessary or even interested in such work, Portuguese legislation provided for the use of various police and administrative measures to ensure the dependence of the worker on the owner. The colonialists resorted to sophisticated punishments: shikote (beating with a leather whip), palmatoria (a wooden stick with holes, which is beaten on the palms), electric current passed through the human body. "A young Angolan," we read in the od-

3 The Nation, March 4, 1961, p. 182.

4 Castro A. O sistema colonial portugues em Africa. Lisboa. 1978, p. 192.

5 Henderson L. W. Angola: Five Centuries of Conflict. Ithaca - Lnd. 1979, pp. 122, 123.

6 Castro A. Op. cit., pp. 199 - 200.

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one of the sources, an employee of the European, stole some escudos from him. The patron's punishment was monstrous - he personally cut off the hands of a young Angolan... The general system of punishments remains in force. The African is sent to an administrative post. There the sepoys (African soldiers-A. H. ) carry out corporal punishments prescribed by white officials, who themselves prefer not to do so. Shikote palmatoria's punches are raining down on men, women, and children alike." The authorities never tried to establish the real guilt of the accused. It was enough for a European to complain to the administration, and it punished the African. The brutality of the officials was truly astounding. Thus, in early 1959, the court heard the case of an official who punished an African for not being able to continue his work: he lost four fingers due to an injury .7 Here is a characteristic testimony: "Recently, on a street in Luanda, there was an incident: a sepoy beat an African man who was lying on the ground and refused to go. A passerby asked him why he was treating a man in such a barbaric way, to which he replied: "This stubborn guy doesn't want to go on a contract." 8
Many millions of peasants were in a difficult situation. Among the peasants, small proprietors predominated. Only a small group consisted of average owners. However, the latter gradually declined. In 1961, European planters produced 97,307 tons of coffee, while African producers produced only 20,793 tons. A scourge for the Angolan peasantry was the policy of forced cultivation, when in concession zones, using administrative coercion methods, farmers were forced to grow export crops (cotton, cassava, peanuts). The colonial authorities granted concessions for these areas to companies that bought crops at low prices and made huge profits. In 1960, the export price of a ton of cotton was $ 560, and the purchase price was $ 250. Farmers who were cut off from growing traditional food crops were doomed to starvation and poverty, and had no right to sell or leave the land allocated to them. The power of companies in such zones was unlimited. It was the Malange district, which was turned into a concession zone, that became the scene of mass peasant uprisings in 1960 - 1961 .9
The situation of the Angolan peasantry was further worsened by the increased European immigration in the 1960s, which was encouraged by the metropolitan Government. This provided an outlet for Portugal's surplus unemployed population and increased the white population of the colonies, which formed the mainstay of the colonial authorities in the fight against the growing liberation movement. Immigration to Angola, where the Lisbon Government actively pursued a policy of directed colonization, was particularly encouraged. A bonus was established for every Portuguese who marries an African woman. Any colon, as a migrant was called in Portugal, was entitled to 20 hectares of land and a monthly subsidy of 4 thousand escudos for the first two years. According to the decree of July 26, 1964, the colonies were granted loans, tax exemption, higher wages, guaranteed pensions (for officials), free education for children, etc. 10. The European family structure cost Angola 1 million escudos: for the average African family to earn such money, it would have to work for a thousand years 11 . Despite the incentive measures, Portuguese farmers preferred to emigrate to highly industrial countries. From 1951 to 1960, only a tenth of the 600,000 Portuguese emigrants went to Africa .12
This immigration had a negative impact on the situation of the African peasantry. It meant the alienation of their lands and natural resources, the loss of their natural resources.-

7 Ibid., p. 177.

8 Ibid., pp. 195 - 196

9 Andrade M., Ollivier M. La guerre en Angola. Etude socio-economique. P. 1971, p. 132.

10 Gabriel C. Angola: le tournant africain? P. 1978, p. 37; Humbaraci A., Muchnik N. Portugal's African Wars. Dar es Salam. 1974, p. 161.

11 Pravda o portugskikh koloniyakh v Afrika [The Truth about Portuguese Colonies in Africa], Moscow, 1961, p. 17.

12 Humbaraci A., Muchnik N. Op. cit., p. 102.

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pricing of the peasant masses. The policy of encouraging immigration has exacerbated the land issue in Angola. The colonial authorities, driving Africans off the land, covered up their arbitrariness with references to the public interest, claiming that the land was not occupied or used properly. If an African farmer pointed out his cassava and bean crop, he was answered: "This is not what agriculture should be doing in this enlightened age." Immigration has also had a negative impact on the urban African population. In particular, it narrowed the possibilities of strengthening the positions of the African commercial bourgeoisie and bureaucracy: here "there was a relative blockade of the emergence of a significant native bureaucratic layer. This is the elimination of Negroes from trading activities... it will lead to the absence of a black middle class. " 13
Mass migration of the peasantry of the northern regions of Angola to neighboring countries was also a serious problem. Thus, more than 0.5 million people moved to the Belgian Congo 14 . This was explained by the system of forced labor and concession zones, cruel exploitation, arbitrary rule of the colonial authorities, low purchase prices for coffee, cotton, palm oil and other products (three times lower than world prices). To this should be added customs barriers and the prohibition of imports of goods from the Belgian Congo in order to neutralize Belgian competition, which also caused the depopulation of northern Angola .15
A characteristic feature of the post-war years was the rise of the strike struggle of the African proletariat in Angola. There were major strikes in Luanda and other cities in the country, as well as numerous peasant demonstrations. In the conditions of the brutal terror of the colonial authorities, which excluded the possibility of legal opposition activities, the anti-colonial struggle of the peasantry resulted in a peculiar form of religious sectarianism. It became widespread in Angola in the 1950s, when there were at least 20 secret Messianic movements. The spread of sects that professed syncretic Afro-Christian cults was a form of protest among the peasant masses. This stage in the development of national identity was historically justified in Angola until the nineteenth century; however, in the twentieth century, when there were already African political parties leading the anti-colonial movement, sectarian movements became an anachronism, and after the beginning of the armed struggle in February 1961, their role was even reactionary. According to Yu. S. Oganisyan, they made it more difficult for the leading liberation organizations to bring the peasantry into the arena of a conscious political struggle for liberation .16 There was, however, a positive aspect in the activities of the Messianic sects, when they provided an ideological justification for the need to fight against colonial oppression and prepared the peasant masses for organized actions for national liberation.

The Watchtower sect had considerable influence among the peasants, and the Black Moses sect, whose members believed that "American Negroes would come to liberate the Africans," became widespread among the Ambundu people. In the valley of the Kasanzhi River, the Afro-Christian sect "Kazonzala" operated. Kimbangism was widespread among the Bakongo nations17, and since the 1940s, the Afro-Christian cult of the Kidista sect. All of them "promised or sought to create a new society in which there would be no Europeans.. they instilled in their followers, whose numbers were constantly growing, the idea of liberation through divine providence or the intervention of magical forces, but not through the consciousness and organization of the people for the struggle."18 Among them, the most widespread and influential is Tokoism, named after its founder.

13 Gabriel C. Op. cit., pp. 41, 36.

14 Goncalves A. O Norte de Angola (Notas de um comerciante). Luanda. 1965, p. 64.

15 Ibid., pp. 68 - 69.

16 Oganisyan, Yu. S. National Revolution in Angola (1961-1965), Moscow, 1968, p. 62.

17 See about him: Kara-Murza A. A. Kimbangism. Voprosy istorii, 1980, No. 12.

18 Abranches H. Reflexoes sobre cultura national. Lisboa. 1980, p. 74.

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Simau Toku was born in 1918 in Sadi Kiloango, northern Angola. He came from the Bakongo people. In 1926, he entered the Kibokolo Baptist Mission School. After graduating from high school in 1933, he continued his education at the lyceum in Luanda. In 1937, he managed to get a position as a school teacher at the mission school in Kibokolo, then at the mission school in Bemba . There is little evidence of these years of Toku's life. In 1943, he was engaged to a mission pupil, but faced a dowry problem and went to work in Leopoldville (Congo) to save it. There he participated in organizing mutual aid groups for emigrants and became a choir director for the Angolan Baptist Church 20 .

Toku was then influenced by Kimbangism, especially the idea of the golden Age. In 1949, he found books in Portuguese published by the Watchtower from one of the missionaries. He translated them into the Kikongo language to distribute among the Bakongo. This caused extreme irritation among the Baptist missionaries and the Belgian authorities. Under the influence of theological literature, Toku decided to develop his own teaching and preach it among Angolans. The awakening of Angolan national consciousness was reflected in Tocoism in its religious form: this teaching had a pronounced anti-colonialist orientation. Toku, considering himself primarily an Angolan, wanted to create an Angolan type of church. He declared himself to be the messiah and his 12 fellow choir members to be the 12 apostles. The news quickly spread to Leopoldville. Followers from the Bakongo emigrants reached out to Tok. Its success was also due to the fact that the Angolan Bakongo felt like pariahs: they were shunned not only by representatives of other nationalities, but even by the Congolese Bakongo. Portuguese-speaking Bakongo experienced difficulties in Leopoldville and because of the language barrier. The Tocoist church, created on a specific ethnic basis, gained a corresponding popularity, became a peculiar phenomenon in the sense that it was a reflection of the Angolan origin of this part of Bakongo. 21
On July 25, 1949, the second stage of the history of the Tokoist Church began. On that day, Toku fell into a trance while praying at the mission: "the Holy Spirit appeared to him." The missionaries, frightened by Toku's preaching and the growing popularity of Tokoism, expelled Toku from the mission. After that, the Tokoist sacraments were performed in the Toku house. Missionaries denounced the Tokoists to the Belgian colonial authorities, accusing them of political activity, predicting the advent of a new order under the reign of a new Christ, who would end the current authorities. On November 2, Toku and his followers were arrested 22 . On January 10, 1950, the Tokoists were handed over to the Portuguese authorities. The latter, fearing that the activities of the Tokoists might threaten the colonial regime, did not allow them to return home and exiled them to various areas, and the largest group was imprisoned in the Loji concentration camp. Toku and several of his comrades were placed in a concentration camp near Tiger Bay in the south, where the authorities exiled dangerous political criminals .23 When Toku was released and returned to Bombe, he began preaching again and was exiled to Kakonda in November 1950. There he worked for two years as a tractor driver, and at first the authorities considered his behavior exemplary. But later they learned that he held secret meetings at night, where he preached his teachings. As a result, in 1952 he was transferred to the post of Zhau, and in June 1954 - to Kassinga. Wherever Toku was, he managed to keep up a correspondence with his followers and continue the propaganda that worried the authorities and colonists.

His views were spreading rapidly. In the early 1950s, Tocoism found ground among other Angolan peoples. The Messianic idea and faith in the best bu-

19 Martin Ph. M. Historical Dictionary of Angola. Lnd. 1980, p. 86.

20 The exact date of the creation of the choir from which the Tokoist movement was born is unknown; it is named 1943 (Year Book of Jehovah's Witnesses of 1955, s. 1, p. 249) and 1946 (Cunha S. Aspectos dos movimentos associativos na Africa Negra. Lisboa. 1959, p. 31). The first date seems more likely.

21 Margarido A. The Tokoist Church and Portuguese Colonialism in Angola - Protest and Resistance in Angola and Brazil. Comparative Studies. Los Angeles - Lnd. 1972, pp. 40, 41; Cunha S. Op. cit., p. 35.

22 Margarido A. Op. cit., p. 41.

23 Ibid., pp. 41, 42.

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The following won him numerous supporters, especially among the working population in the districts of Congo, Luanda, Benguela, Malange. Secret communities were created everywhere, whose members began to show defiance to the authorities, refused to work on the plantations. Spooked by the spread of Tokoism, the authorities assigned Toka as a watchman for a remote lighthouse near Porto Alexandre, and in 1963 he was exiled to the Azores. When the armed struggle broke out in Angola, Toku was forced by the authorities to speak on the radio, calling on his followers to peacefully coexist with the Portuguese.

According to the Tokoist doctrine, which was a syncretic religion with elements of Baptism, Kimbangism, and traditional African cults, Africans should wait for the coming of the "black Christ", who will save them from slavery and transform them from servants of white people into their masters. 24 In 1958, the authorities received a message from Toku to his followers: "There is no reason to be afraid of the white man... The new Christ, the black Christ, must come, and Toku is his prophet. God gave Tok the same power that he had given to the white man before. This country is ours, and the white man stole it. Now we are very strong, and besides, our ancestors are helping us... Soon we will be in charge of all of Africa. " 25 Although Tokoism portrayed colonialists as evil, it did not call for fighting, but for passive waiting, and remained an apolitical teaching. The Messianic idea contained in it led the masses away from active forms of struggle and into the realm of myths, delaying the development of the national liberation movement. Tokoism played a positive role only in becoming an intermediate stage in the preparation of the peasant masses for higher forms of struggle.

Declaring himself a prophet, Toku also established the foundations of his church. At its head was the central council, which controlled the congregations in each village where there was a Tokoist community. The congregation had a council of elders and teachers responsible for spreading Tokoism and observing rituals. Tokoism rejected the symbol of Christianity - the cross. The Tokoists prayed with their eyes open, wore their hair cut short with a parting in the middle, dressed in white clothes with a star, and did not recognize jewelry. The followers of this teaching created the ALIAZO religious and political organization in Leopoldville, which was later renamed the PDA (Democratic Party of Angola). In 1962, on the basis of the unification of the UPA (Union of Peoples of Angola - separatist Pro - Western Organization (1958) and the PDA, the FNLA (Front for the National Liberation of Angola-tribalist pro-imperialist organization) was created, which emerged on the ethnic basis of Bakongo.

On June 13, 1960, the MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola - a revolutionary patriotic organization that emerged on December 10, 1956) made a last attempt to achieve the independence of Angola by peaceful means - through negotiations, sending a corresponding appeal to the Portuguese Government. Copies of it were sent to the UN member States. An indirect response to this appeal was given in the Portuguese newspaper Diario da manha in October 1960 in the article " Who are they?"26 . The government flatly rejected the MPLA's proposal, with Salazar saying: "I don't waste any time negotiating with monkeys"27.On 13 September 1960, the MPLA sent an appeal to the United Nations requesting that the issue of the Portuguese colonies be included in the agenda of the Tenth session of the UN General Assembly, and in December of the same year announced its decision to take direct action.

The impetus was the events in Nizhny Kasanzhi, called the "war of Mary". Lower Kasanji was the fiefdom of the Cotonang Company. The price at which this company sold cotton to the world market was 12 times higher than the price it paid to producers. In January 1961, the cotton growers, driven to despair by the inhuman exploitation and brutality of the authorities, rebelled against

24 Oganisyan Yu. S. Uk. soch., p. 62; for more information about tocoism, see Cunha S. Op. cit.

25 Cit. by: Wheeler D. L., Pelissier R. Angola. N.Y. 1971, p. 153.

26 Gabriel C. Op. cit., p. 95.

27 Freitas A. J. Angola. O Longo caminho da liberdade. Lisboa. 1975, p. 137.

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oppressors. The first speakers were members of the religious sect of A. Mariano, who in 1959 emigrated to Leopoldville, where he began working as a chauffeur for a leader from Olo d'Otr Quango 28 . When he returned to Angola, he began to preach the Messianic doctrine: mystical themes were intertwined with political themes. The basis of the teaching was the cult of the goddess Mary, who should free the Africans from White domination. On her behalf, the uprising was called the "war of Mary".

According to eyewitnesses of the events, in October 1960, when preparations for sowing began, a man (apparently Mariano) came from the Congo, who "began to kill all the creatures of white color (bulls, pigs and goats), assuring that as long as the whites are alive, the earth will not give birth." Apparently, one of the elements of Mariano's sermons was stories about Patrice Lumumba. "In Lower Kasanji," writes a contemporary, "a rumor spread that Kalumumba had come to free us and that slavery would end." 29 The content of the sermons was as follows: "Mary, the patron saint of blacks,.. Having long been concerned about the suffering of Angolans, she decided to go to Cassulo Cuenda to tell two Congolese people that she had come to save the people of Angola, liberating them from the white yoke and bringing them a better life. When the Angolans go after her, an unprecedented storm will break out, which will sweep away everything in its path and erect a giant mountain by the sea that will forever separate Angola from Portugal. To avoid being swept away by the storm, everyone should bring a large pitchfork to their home and hook it there. When the storm is over, Mary will appear and raise all the dead-people and cattle. Then Lumumba will come to rule them." In the run-up to this golden age, a ritual must be strictly observed, which is a mixture of hygiene regulations, food bans, egalitarianism and outright racism. In the religion preached by Marian, out of the 15 points of the ritual, at least six contained an anti-colonial orientation and three contained an anti - Catholic one .30
The greatest concern of the authorities was caused by those sermons of Marian that carried a social and racial charge, i.e. they were aimed against the colonial order and white colonizers. These included instructions to the faithful not to work for the whites or associate with them, assurances that when the storm broke, Angola would certainly be separated from Portugal, that white bullets could not kill Angolans if they took precautions: wear loincloths, tie braided grass to their belts, sing hymns in honor of Mary and shout "Meia! Meia!" ("water" is in the Kikongo language)31 . Under the influence of anti-Portugal sermons, farmers in the middle of the sowing season burned seeds, threw tools, tore up passports, refused to go to work, and engaged in chants in honor of Lumumba and Mary. Soon passive resistance gave way to active struggle. On January 28, 1961, the rebels concentrated in the village of Teka dia Kinda and armed themselves with katanash (curved knives) and kanyangulush (muzzle-loading rifles), attacking two administrative posts, company warehouses and the Catholic mission .32 Officials, merchants, and missionaries were disarmed and allowed to leave the area.

News of the Lower Casanji uprising caused panic in Luanda. The companies feared that they would be expelled from Angolan territory and handed over the cotton "to the people who sow it, grow it, collect it and pack it in bags"; they demanded that the authorities mercilessly suppress the movement. Here is how a Portuguese historian describes the events that followed: "The Governor-General is a 'moderate' man. But next to him is a man "experienced", a "specialist" in repression, who received his experience in Goa, General Monteiro Li-Boriu. A "moderate" person with resignation thinks that there are unpleasant things that should be done. The "experienced" person rubs his hands and gives clear orders. Infantry units, PV-2 and T-6 aircraft

28 Neto R. Notase mpressoes do Kwango. A guerra de Maria. - A voz da Revolucao, Kinshasa, 1966, N 2, pp. 9, 24.

29 Novembro, Luanda,Dezembro 1979, N 28, pp. 39, 37.

30 Pelissier R. Resistance et revoltes en Angela. Sille. 1976. T. III, p. 1276.

31 Ibid.

32 Henderson L. W. Op. cit., p. 181.

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with napalm bombs specially delivered from NATO bases in Portugal (Ota and Montijo), they receive clear orders: bomb the strikers in Lower Easanji. " 33
On February 5, Portuguese troops led by T. Grilu arrived in the Kela area. After receiving information that a huge crowd of peasants had gathered in Teka dia Kinda to receive the blessing and sprinkle the "water of Mary", Grilu headed to this point. When approaching the village, the Portuguese saw that the road was decorated with banners glued together from passports. The peasants sang traditional songs. Here is how eyewitnesses recall the events: "Despite the presence of kanyangulush and katanash... the population did not rebel against the colonists. The demonstration was clearly peaceful. The people only wanted their just and humane demands to be met... Enraged and enraged, Telesh Grilu ordered to throw blank grenades. In response, people began to sing traditional songs and hymns even louder. Then even more enraged Telesh Grilu ordered to open fire. A real massacre began... Telesh Grilu ordered one of the survivors, Bravo Kipak, to be burned alive.: "Since you killed them all, I don't want to live and become a slave again."34 In Teka dia Kinda, 310 people were killed and 180 wounded. "It was something terrible," writes one of the eyewitnesses. "We were killed as matadors kill bulls." 35
On February 6, the Portuguese Air Force dropped napalm and incendiary bombs on Angolan villages in the Kela region. As a result, 17 villages were destroyed, 5 thousand people were killed 36 . On February 8, the Portuguese occupied Montalegre. The air force once again dropped deadly cargo, destroying several villages in the Sungine region. On the way to Marimba, the troops subjected civilians to repression, and those involved in the unrest were buried up to their necks in the ground, and then crushed with bulldozers and tractors. The most severe repression took place in the Kambu and Bon-do-i-Bangala districts, where peasant unrest was particularly acute. 37
The total number of victims in the "war of Mary" ranges from 5 thousand to 20 thousand people. In Lower Kasanzhi, the colonialists demonstrated an undisguised genocide against the local population. Several areas have become virtually uninhabited. (After the declaration of independence of Angola, a monument to the victims of the genocide was erected in Teka dia Kinda. The foundation stone of the monument was laid by A. Neto).

The uprising, which had no general leadership, no organization, no plan, no weapons, was drowned in blood. His mastermind Mariano in March 1961, together with a follower, the Kulu-Xingu leader, were captured in Luremu on the denunciation of two traitors, each of whom received a bicycle and 1 thousand escudos from the authorities for this. Those arrested were taken to Mussuko. There, Mariana was tortured and maimed, then thrown into a bag and taken to the Malange prison. When his mother brought him food, she was told that she "didn't have to worry anymore" - that's what they used to say in the event of a prisoner's death. After the massacre of the punitive forces in Lower Kasanji, many of Mariano's followers fled to Zaire (Congo). Angolan refugees settled there in the Kizamba region. About 10 thousand refugees settled in Panzi (Kwango province) 38 .

The MPLA leadership timed its first show of arms against Portuguese colonialism to coincide with the peak of the Lower Casanji uprising. On February 4, 1961, an uprising broke out in Luanda, which marked the beginning of a 13-year armed struggle between patriots and colonialists, in the fire of which an independent Angola was born. Given the presence in Angola of 60 foreign correspondents waiting for the arrival of the rebellious Portuguese liner Santa Maria, 250 MPLA patriots attacked the police premises, the military prison and the PIDE prison, hoping to free political prisoners who were supposed to be released.-

33 Freitas A. J. Op. cit., p. 133.

34 Novembro, Dezembro 1979, N 28, p. 40.

35 Ibid., p. 41.

36 Henderson L. W. Op. cit., pp. 181 - 182; Freitas A. J. Op. cit., p. 133.

37 Pelissier R. Op. cit., p. 1282.

38 Marcum J. A. The Angolan Revolution. Vol. 1. Cambridge - Lnd. 1968, pp. 125, 126.

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The attack was repulsed, and four patriots and seven policemen were killed. 39 The revolt was initially scheduled for January 1, 1961, but due to the arrests of a number of patriots, it had to be postponed for a month . The February events were the signal for a peasant uprising in the northern regions of Angola. It broke out in March in the provinces of North Kwanza, Malange, Lunda and Cabinda.

The reasons for the uprising were explained by the difficult socio-economic conditions in which the population of this area was located. In 1960, the price of coffee fell. African producers have suffered the most from this. In the coffee regions of the north, settlements were planted by Portuguese colonists, who, with the help of local authorities, founded companies here that obliged farmers - bakongo, dembos and others-to sell coffee on terms that resembled robbery rather than trade exchange. When farmers refused to sell coffee at incredibly low prices, their villages were set on fire and the peasants were jailed as rebels .40 These measures forced farmers to sell coffee at bargain prices. They were also recruited for forced labor on the plantations of white farmers. "The expansion of plantations (European landowners. - A. Kh . Henderson writes, " it required additional contracted labor, and this added fuel. The correlation between the number and location of violent attacks and the expansion of European coffee plantations shows the validity of claims that this was the combustible material in which the explosion occurred. Did it catch fire from spontaneous combustion or from a spark that got here?"41 .

The spark that ignited the flames of the uprising was the news of the February events in Luanda. On March 15 and 16, 1961, the rebels attacked 30 Portuguese small settlements, administrative posts and coffee plantations in the San Salvador and Dembos districts. For four months, unrest continued throughout northwestern Angola, from the Atlantic to the Quango River .42 The rebels ' most notable gains were in the northwestern districts of Demboush and Nambuangongo, where the anti-colonial struggle was led by MPLA members. The "Nambuangongo People's Socialist Republic" (NRC) was proclaimed there. Preserved information about it is scanty. However, it is known that during its short-term existence, a number of progressive socio-economic transformations were carried out .43 Since the rebels had difficulty obtaining weapons, the republic began to produce traditional weapons. After stopping the production of pipes, large quantities of kanyangulush were produced in the pipe rolling shops. They messed up the communication system with Leopoldville via couriers. The NRC lasted only four months, but it has a special place in the history of the Angolan people's struggle for independence.

The Patriots ' detachments in Demboush and Nambuangongo were led by MPLA members, including the well-known activist Comandante Zh. Benedito. This organization did not exist outside the borders! The country's internal foundations were strong in both cities and areas affected by armed struggle, particularly in the Nambuangongo and Demboush areas, as well as along the Luanda - Malange railway .44 The Portuguese command in July 1961 threw large military formations against the NRC. Punishers used scorched-earth tactics: they destroyed villages, cut down trees, and dug deep trenches. In Dembush and Nambuangongo, this tactic was supplemented by the systematic destruction of river bridges to cut off the rebels ' supply lines. After heavy fighting, the Portuguese managed to capture Kickaboo on July 20, Mukoyado on July 25, and Kimbumbe on July 26. Taking the 4th of August Hall, they

39 Jornal de Angola, 3.III.1979.

40 De Sousa Cl ngton M. Angola libre? Gallimard. 1975, p. 190.

41 Henderson L. W. Op. cit, p. 179.

42 Ibid., p. 183.

43 Angola: A Symposium. Views of a Revolt. Oxford, 1962, pp. 38-39; Zotov N. M. Formation of the ideological and political program of the MPLA-Labor Party. Author's abstract of the cand. diss. M. 1980.

44 Davezi R. Angoltsy [Angoltsy], Moscow, 1970, pp. 143-144.

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We are 33 km from Nambuangongo. Lisbon attached such importance to operations against the Republic of Nambuangongo that the Minister of War arrived at the scene of hostilities .45 An eyewitness testifies: "All the people united, and the units constantly supported each other. When the Portuguese attacked a certain area, detachments from other areas came to the rescue. When the Nambuangongo area was attacked, he asked for reinforcements from Dembush, and when a difficult situation was created in Dembush, people from Nambuangongo came to the rescue. When they had more weapons than their neighbors, they shared the weapons. This was the case during all the battles of 1961. " 46
On August 13, the press reported that " the reconquest of Nambuangongo is being carried out meter by meter." This is what gave Nambuangongo its reputation as a"tropical Stalingrad". On March 30, Salazar decided to centralize military and civil power in the colony in the hands of the Governor-General, and on April 13, he reorganized the Government, taking up the post of Minister of National Defense. He explained his actions as follows: "The reason is Angola. Acting quickly and energetically is a goal that should prove our ability to make decisions. " 47 The Nyasa steamer arrived in Luanda with the first large contingent of troops from Portugal. On May 13, they moved north. On June 13, since the capture of the Lukunga post, a 4-month period of reconquest by Portuguese troops (their number reached 17 thousand by July 1) of the north-west of Angola began. Gradually, they managed to dislodge the rebels from their posts and trading settlements spread across three provinces in an area twice the size of Portugal .48
The atrocities of the colonialists caused a mass exodus of peasants to Zaire. Tens of thousands of people fled their country, fleeing from napalm bombs and machine guns. According to data from 1971, there were 60,000 Angolan refugees in Zaire. 10% of Kinshasa's population was of Angolan origin49 . After this mass exodus of Angolans from the northern regions, the authorities forcibly brought thousands of Balundo farmers from the central plateau to work on the plantations. These uprisings not only dealt a serious blow to the colonial regime, but also influenced the further course of the national liberation struggle. Having revealed the revolutionary potentials of the Angolan peasantry, they also positively influenced the views of the MPLA leadership on the role of peasants in the revolution.

The first National Conference of the MPLA (December 1962) marked the beginning of the transformation of the MPLA from an organization representing mainly the interests of urban strata into a nationwide anti-colonial front. This is also evidenced by the fact that the decisions of the conference paid special attention to the role of the peasantry, which was described as the "most exploited" and "most numerous social class" in Angola. The Conference raised the question of the need for land reform, believing that the peasants would fight "with more determination" if they felt that they were fighting for their land. The resolution emphasized that the peasantry should be represented both in the leadership of the movement and in organizations leading the struggle within the country. At the same time, the MPLA has rightly maintained a negative attitude towards Messianism. Overcoming the" prejudices, myths, and tribalist sentiments " of the politically distrustful peasantry became "the most urgent task facing the movement." 50
Thus, the anti-colonial peasant movements of the late 50s and early 60s made a significant contribution to shaking the foundations of the colonial regime in Angola, the final collapse of which occurred already in the mid-70s.

45 Pelissier R. Op. cit., pp. 1568 - 1569.

46 Davezi R. Uk. soch., p. 176.

47 Helio A. Esteves Felgas. Gerra em Angola. Lisboa. 1961, p. 79.

48 Henderson L. W. Op. cit., p. 184.

49 De Souza Clington M. Op. cit., p. 190.

50 MPLA, First National Conference of MPLA. December 1962. S. 1. S. a., pp. 19 - 20, 29.

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