In the 1990s Zaire served as the main supporter of UNITA, as South African and American support for the organization dwindled. In 1997 a coup supported in part by the Angolan government overthrew Mobutu, and Zaire was renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Without the aggressive Mobutu régime as a neighborhood, the situation in Angola stabilized and the MPLA was finally able to crack down on internal dissent without being troubled with foreign intervention, ending the civil war a few years later in 2002.
	Like most other Third World conflicts of the twentieth century, the wars in Angola were heavily affected by the Cold War. In addition to the competition between the US and the USSR, several other factors motivated the involvement of international powers: the Sino-Soviet split, Third World solidarity against Western exploitation and imperialism, and in the case of the US, Angola’s large oil reserves.
	The USSR was involved with the MPLA from its foundation in the late-1950s. Starting in 1958, MPLA founding member Mário de Andrade would travel to Moscow on a regular basis for various conferences and meetings. During these visits the MPLA developed a relationship with the Soviets, securing funding and in 1961 the explicit support of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who stated that “the patriots of Angola can be sure that the sympathies of the peoples of the great Soviet Union are fully on their side.” Many MPLA leaders would go on to be educated in Moscow.
	The USSR chose to support the MPLA over rival movements in Angola for a number of reasons. As a left-leaning Marxist movement that explicitly condemned the imperial powers, the MPLA followed the same basic ideological principles as the USSR. The UPA/FNLA was more ambiguous on this issue, receiving support from the US and sometimes practicing anti-communist rhetoric. The MPLA was also not as focused on regional or ethnic issues, as the predominately Bakongo UPA based in northern Angola was. The USSR also practiced the policy of recognizing and supporting only one rebel movement within a conflict, a policy not shared by all of its peers. 
	Early Soviet support of the MPLA included food and clothing as well as weapons and increased progressively during the course of the war from goods valued at $25,000 in 1961 to $220,000 in 1973. Large scale Soviet assistance did not come until 1975 though. In this year another foreign power would join the equation, with Cuba’s shipment of two shiploads of T-55 tanks and 500 military advisories. Though the Cubans and Soviets would work together closely in Angola, early actions were not coordinated as is widely assumed. Cuba was not simply a Soviet proxy but rather had its own agenda for being in Angola. As a Third World country with a colonial past and communist government, Cuba wanted to sustain the global conflict against the West and imperialism through spreading Marxist-Leninist revolution. 