Thanks for the reply Ismail, you are always knowledgeable on the history of the Hoxhaist movement. I had always assumed that Mengitsu had been defeated by freedom-loving Americans, and I had no idea that he had been defeated by Hoxhaists. The wikipedia article makes it seem like they are still a Marxist-Leninist party today. But wiki has to be taken with a grain of salt, and Im glad you were able to add confirmation and more details. The main international Hoxhaist journal is called Revolutionary Democracy.
My knowledge of African Communism is not as developed as it should be, as shown by my reliance on wikipedia as a major source. But it could be seen as the Continent in which Communism won the Cold War. Ironically in 1989, just as the Eastern Bloc was collapsing, Socialist forces in Africa were winning their final victories against Apartheid South Africa, thus completing the sweep of the continent. Certainly if there is any place in the world that could benefit from a centralized Leninist government it is Africa. When one sees the anarcho-capitalism of Somalia today, it is hard to believe that it was ever home to a Marxist-Leninist state. Somalia is certainly a place that could use a little KGB.
But Africa was a major front of the Cold War, that does not receive as much attention as Europe, Latin America, and Asia.
You had the complex power politics of the Red Sea, where Hoxhaists, Romanians, North Koreans and Communist Somalia all battled the Derg, with US and Chinese support. And the internationalist Cubans served in Ethiopia, despite having no material incentive to do so.
An inspiring part of African Marxist history, was the battle of the Frontline Parties to defeat the Fascist Apartheid regime. Which in the 1970s still had complete dominance over southern Africa, including Rhodesia, Southwest Africa, Portuguese Africa and the puppet Mobutu regime in Congo. And one by one the dominoes fell. Until the liberation struggle was brought to Apartheid's doorstep. Nelson Mandela has never shied away from crediting the aid of liberation struggles, including from such pariahs of the West like Qaddafi, Castro and Mugabe.
1redItalian posted a wonderful history of Cuba's internationalist commitment to Angola, including the Black Stalingrad at Cuito Cuanavale, the largest land battle ever fought in Africa. In which the armies of Apartheid were finally defeated in combat by Black Africans.
viewtopic.php?t=49114China's role in Cold War Africa is mixed with their support for UNITA. But they did perform the useful task of building the Tanzania railroad which broke the isolation of Zambia, which had been surrounded and dependent on Apartheid South Africa, and instead linked Zambia to the Indian Ocean ports of Tanzania. This allowed Zambia to perform a more direct role in the liberation struggles. And they eventually expelled UNITA and switched to supporting the MPLA.
The liberation struggles in Africa only concluded in recent memory. UNITA was only finally defeated in 2002. And the victorious Angolan state, spread the revolution into Congo, where Che's old protege Kabila finally defeated Mobutu, and Republic of Congo, where the former Marxist-Leninist President was restored with Angolan aid.
Africa was a forgotten front in the Cold War, and I would also add the contributions of Thomas Sankara, Lumumba, and Nkrumah.