Comments by "Sar Jim" (@sarjim4381) on "Soviet People and Racism in the USSR #ussr, #soviet" video.
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As has been mentioned by Joanne, Khrushchev established the Patrice Lumumba University in 1960. Its stated intention was to offer higher education to Africans who were unable to obtain it at home. The Soviets made a big deal about how they were practicing racial equality at a time when many blacks were not being admitted to de facto white universities in the US. In reality, the Soviets built the the school in an isolated section of Moscow specifically to isolated them, and black students were not permitted to go to the city centers unaccompanied. Students complained of being segregated from most Russians, and that Russians treated them like a colonial power.
The university was admitting students from sub-Saharan Africa that didn't even have a secondary education all the way through students from places like Libya and Tunisia that had educations comparable with most European schools. This not only caused a very high dropout rate, but the more highly educated students, who were generally light skinned, demanded that the black students be segregated to a different section of the university so their lack of education wouldn't hold them back.
Although the University started out mostly offering education in engineering and construction, all the students were required to take courses in communist theory and third world liberation. As the school became more political, more and more of the students went back to their countries to become political agitators and revolutionaries. Almost all African countries were dictatorships at the time, and even avowedly Marxist countries like Ghana stopped allowing students to study at Patrice Lumumba. The university started admitting more students form Central and South America to keep up enrollment, but the political education caused the same issues when they returned home, and more racial clashes broke out.
There were actually demonstrations by African students in the late 60's and early 70's demanding things like a bus line that would allow them to get to the city centers, the end of prohibition of interracial dating, and more education in science and medicine with less political indoctrination. Over time, the university "social agencies", the ones that really ran the place, gave into these demands after the western press started reporting on the demonstrations. This was the start of African students being able to mingle with the Russian population and the incipient antiblack racism you talked about started to emerge. It was easy to be for racial equality until your daughter started dating an African or Africans demanded the same public accommodations as Russians. There were near riots in Moscow and other cities when Africans were allowed in the same bars as Russians and alcohol fueled fights broke out. Soviet police were rumored to use street beatings as a non-judicial punishment for Africans they felt "got out of line". Some African students left because they felt their treatment was no better than what they would have gotten in the US and the quality of the education was worse. Soviet leadership was aghast at the lack of gratitude when these student returned home ad started criticizing the USSR.
The end for Patrice Lumumba U came along with demise of the USSR. The university was renamed The Russian Peoples’ Friendship University, or RUDN. It still exists, but mainly serves students from Russia's minority regions, other former Soviet republics, and a smattering of foreign students. Educational standards have declined dramatically, and, even within Russia and the former CIS republics, an RUDN degree isn't accepted in many places. There have been moves in recent years to increase standards, but that would mean not admitting many of their preferred students, so the battle between education and ideology continues.
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