Alexander S. Balezin

The relevance of the topic is due to the fact that in the context of the expansion and strengthening of Russia’s ties with Africa, it is extremely important to analyze the experience of Soviet-African relations, to identify its achievements and miscalculations. The political crisis in Kenya in the second half of the 1960s played an important role in the deterioration of Soviet-Kenyan relations. Тhe essence of the crisis was that in the first half of 1965 the struggle between the right and left wings in the Kenyan government and in the leadership of the ruling KANU party escalated. The leader of the left wing, Oginga Odinga, was ousted from the leadership of the country. He created an opposition party, the Kenya People’s Union, which under his leadership led an active struggle to change the course of the government. In 1969 Oginga was arrested and his party was banned. In parallel in 1967–1968 a fierce factional struggle within the ruling party of Kenya developed and reached its peak by mid-1969, when the leader of the right wing of KANU Tom Mboya was assassinated. The political crisis in Kenya has found its rather detailed reflection on the pages of the newspaper Pravda. At first, the newspaper tried to create a positive image of the opposition among the Soviet reader, to show the progressive nature of its demands, and after the defeat of the opposition, its tone became more neutral in the interests of preserving relations with Kenya. However, not all aspects of the crisis were covered in Pravda.