People of the Revolution and the USSR

Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) Communism 1922–1979 ○ Pancreatic cancer; hepatitis (liver cancer also)

Physician-poet who led Angola's liberation struggle and became its first president

"Our land, our mother / we shall return." Lines from the poem "Havemos de voltar" in the 1974 collection Sacred Hope (Sagrada Esperança).

Physician and poet who led Angola's independence struggle. He was president of the MPLA at its founding in December 1956 and, after imprisonment and exile, was elected its effective chairman at the December 1962 conference, leading the independence war until 1974. He became the first president of the People's Republic of Angola on 11 November 1975, building a one-party socialist state in close alignment with the USSR and Cuba while crushing a 1977 coup attempt and carrying out mass purges.

Angola state institutions Communism 1929–2016 ○ Died in Luanda in

Ideologue of Angolan liberation, MPLA founding member

In the 27 May 1977 Fractionism conflict, the Nitista faction's Thirteen Theses in my Defence accused Lara of being a 'social democrat' and leading the MPLA's alleged turn right. Responsibility for the ensuing mass purge is attributed to Lara and Iko Carreira under Neto's authority.

Full name Lúcio Rodrigo Leite Barreto de Lara, known by the war name Tchiweka; an Angolan revolutionary and physicist-mathematician, and a founding member and leader of the MPLA. He joined the Angolan Communist Party in 1955 and signed the MPLA's founding manifesto of December 1956, becoming its main ideologue and the figure credited with its Marxist-Leninist orientation. He was secretary of organisation and cadres from 1962 and secretary-general in 1964-65, promulgated the constitution and swore in Agostinho Neto as first president in November 1975, served as acting president of Angola from 10 to 20 September 1979 after Neto's death, and left public life in 2003 for health reasons. Historians and witnesses attribute responsibility for the mass purge that followed the 27 May 1977 Fractionism conflict to Lara and Iko Carreira under Neto's authority.

Angola state institutions Communism 1942–2022

Angola after Neto

Took over as president after Neto's death in 1979 and remained in office until 2017. He led the first round of the 1992 multiparty election, but no runoff was held, and the civil war ended after Savimbi's death in 2002.

He succeeded Neto as Angolan president in 1979. Educated in the USSR, he had served as planning minister. He led the MPLA state amid civil war and oil dependence and favored a pragmatic approach recognizing a role for private enterprise.

Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) Communism 1951–1977 ✕ Killed in custody, (date disputed)

Angolan doctor and revolutionary killed in the 1977 Nitista purge

After the events of 27 May 1977 she fled with her partner, was captured three weeks later, convicted at a secret trial and died in custody; sources give differing dates for the killing.

Born in Angola, she was a doctor and revolutionary. She joined the Portuguese Communist Party and led its Communist Students' League (UEC) alongside Zita Seabra, and at the time of the 1974 Carnation Revolution she was in Moscow attending a Komsomol congress as the UEC's delegate. Returning to Angola in 1975, she joined the pro-Soviet orthodox wing around Nito Alves and José Van-Dúnem. Arrested after the events of 27 May 1977, she was convicted at a secret trial and died in custody; sources give conflicting dates for her death.

Angola state institutions Communism 1934/1929–2010 ○ Died of illness

MPLA diplomat and Angola's second foreign minister, a leading figure of the party's left wing

Angolan chemical engineer, diplomat and politician. While studying in Lisbon he signed the 'Manifesto de 1956', the MPLA's founding document, was monitored by PIDE from 1961, and left Portugal in 1962 to handle the MPLA's diplomacy from Conakry. He served as representative in Egypt and Algeria, representative-general for Congo-Brazzaville and head of the MPLA's information department, then as foreign minister from 1976 to 1984. A leading figure of the party's left wing, he argued in a 1998 interview that top party and state posts should be filled by Marxist-Leninist vanguard criteria rather than ethno-regional demographic weight. He died in Luanda on 26 June 2010 aged 76.