The regularly enrolled students at the Institute, however, were not the only ones under its purview. In late 1964 all students enrolled in Ghana's three universities (Ghana University, Legon; Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, and the University College of Cape Coast newly named the University College of Science Education) were required by the government to report for an indoctrination course at the Institute. The announcement in the Accra Evening News said: "Too many of our teachers and students are quite ignorant of the simple underlying principles of Nkrumaism" of Nkrumaism" so the regime decreed that all university students, those entering Ghana's three universities as well as those going overseas to study, should report for indoctrination at the Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute at Winneba.

In addition to the general two-week student indoctrination course, 20 under-graduates from Ghana's three universities were selected by the C.P.P. for an additional 10-week leadership training course. During their time at the Institute, they were to act as "big brothers" to the first year students undergoing indoctrination and later they were to return to their own Universities to serve as the nucleus for C.P.P. branches. In the words of the Ghanaian Times they were to return to "fight and destroy the bulk of reactionary thought."

The Ghana Evening News commenting on the success of the course eulogized: "No longer is the student who associated himself with the party considered a stooge, a hypocrite or to use the former Legon term "one of them."

The students who took the special ten-week course were paid £15 a month while on the course. When they went back to their own universities they were regarded as spies.

Despite the "brain-washed" cadre of C.P.P. activists in their midsts, the students at Ghana's universities did not flock to the C.P.P. standard. Nonetheless, one result of the indoctrination course was the creation of C.P.P. branches in each university. At this time, the "student body" of the Institute began to publish a periodical entitled, 'The Nkrumaist' aimed at other student group in Ghana. 'The Nkrumaist,' as could be expected, was filled with leftist propaganda designed to propagate the ideas of Addison and his Communiststaff at the Institute. Although ostensibly published by students, the contributors appear to have been mainly professors at the Institute.

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The staff of the Institute was not content to wait until students entered the universities to indoctrinate them. In February 1964, Ghana's secondary schools received orders from the Institute to present "at least three lectures on C.P.P. ideology between now and June." .Lecturers, naturally, were to be provided by the Institute. An indication of the Institute's absolute and unchallenged authority in the ideological field is reflected in the fact that this order to the secondary schools did not go through the Ministry of Education but came directly to them from the Institute.

The potential of the Institute as an instrument of control was never fully realised in Ghana largely because it never managed to attract really first-rate students and for that reason had to maintain a very low academic standard. That the Institute recognised the limitations of its student body and was attempting to do something about attracting higher calibre students is evidenced by an advertisement that appeared in the Ghana Evening News announcing two-year scholarships in September 1964 leading to a diploma in political science. The advertisement stated applications would be accepted from officers of the C.P.P., government, trade unions, farmers, councils, co-operatives, the National Council of Ghana Women, Young Pioneers, Workers Brigade, State Corporations, Armed Forces, Police and educational institutions. It added, as an inducement, "officials will keep their salaries and others will be granted "normal bursaries."

This advertisement resulted in 5,000 applications to the Institute. It is clear that in time the Institute would have become a formidable instrument for thought-control and repression within Ghana and for the export of revolutionary ideas throughout Africa.

That this time was not far off for Ghana is shown by Addison's reaction to Nkrumah's announced intention in December 1965 to set up a "People's Militia." This move was greeted with great misgiving in all responsible Ghanaian circles. Addison, on the other hand, was elated and expressed hopes to control it with "Winneba boys."

The tentacles of the Institute even reached into the highest levels of the Government of Ghana. On 19 June, 1965, Nathaniel A. Welbeck, Minister of State for Party Propaganda, disclosed that a two-week seminar of ideological indoctrination for ministers, regional commissioners and party activists was in progress at

the Institute. He added that the course had been ordered by Nkrumah. Literature handed out during the course consisted of selections from the works of Marx and Engels and a brochure entitled, "How to be a Good Communist," by the Chairman of the People's Republic of China, Liu Shao-chi.

During the course, Addison took the Ministers aside one by one to explain that Ghana was to be turned into a "Communist State" and the training course for Ministers was designed to help achieve this objective as soon as possible. That the Communists fully recognised the

potential of the Institute is evidenced not only by the number of foreign Communist professors assigned to work there but also by various other attentions they lavished on it. The large library was stocked almost entirely with books provided by Communist countries including 300 publications of the People's Republic of China, featuring the Collected Works of Mao Tse-tung. Chinese sports equipment was donated to the Institute and the German Democratic Republic provided a complete movie installation on behalf of the SED Central Committee. Needless to say, most of the films shown at the GDR movie installation were of Communist origin.

GHANA YOUNG PIONEERS

The Ghana Young Pioneers (GYP or Ghanyp) was the only officially recognised organised youth group in Ghana during Nkrumah's regime. It was inaugurated in June 1960 with an express mandate "to train the mind, the body and soul of the youth of Ghana," and "to inculcate into the youth Nkrumaism."

The GYP was consciously patterned on the lines of Communist youth organisations, notably the Russians Komsomol Schools which have been used since their founding to train revolutionary youth and political agitators. The Russian State employs such schools to wean children from their inborn loyalty to family and home and render them responsive solely to the demands of the Communist Party. The intent was the same in Ghana.

Staff members readily admitted that GYP indoctrination was designed to replace traditional family, tribal and locality ties with loyalty to Nkrumah. The GYP ideology, integrated into the curriculum of the schools, amounted to daily pledges of fealty to Nkrumah.

The Young Pioneer Pledge places Nkrumah above God and family. Its first stanza states: "I sincerely promise to live by the ideals of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Founder of the State of Ghana and Initiator of African Personality." This pledge adjures the Pioneer to safeguard the State from internal and external aggression, to be in the first rank of men fighting for the total liberation and unity of Africa and to be the guard of the workers, farmers and co-operators. The Pioneer's final affirmation is: "I believe that the Dynamic Convention People's Party (C.P.P.) is always supreme and I promise to be worthy of its ideals."

The GYP purposefully took children under its wing as soon as they were four years old in order to implant the seeds of Nkrumaism while at the same time minimising parental influence during the child's most impressionable period. The programme then was designed in successive stages to bring the child to the point where his only allegiance was to Nkrumah and the C.P.P. The ultimate intent of the movement was to produce generations of children, estranged from normal family ties, who would be willing spies for Nkrumah and the C.P.P. even against their own parents.

The menace of the GYP and its philosophy was not limited to the children of Ghana. The GYP was extremely active in spreading its

philosophy into other sectors within Ghana and among the youth of other African countries. Among GYP special projects listed for 1964

are:

1. cultural entertainment for workers in their factories, workshops, offices and state farms;

2. six weeks' ideological training for 135 officers of the Workers Brigade and Future Farmers-Young Farmers League;

3. training of six Malawi Youth Leaders to help in the establishment of the Militant Malawi Party Youth Section;

4. training of 100 Gambian youth and students.

The children from independent African states who were trained by the GYP (like the GYP children who went to Russian Komsomol Schools) were not trained in normal youth activities such as physical education. They were indoctrinated in Nkrumaism and were returned to their countries imbued with a philosophy that constituted treason against their homelands. Just as the Freedom Fighters" from independent African nations were trained by the Bureau of African Affairs in sabotage and terror, so these young people were trained ideologically by the GYP in order to facilitate Nkrumah's take-over of all Africa. The GYP movement was organised into four age groupings:

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4-7 African Personality

8-16 Young Pioneers

17-20 Kwame Nkrumah Youth 21-25 Young Party League.

The training programme for each group consisted of ideological indoctrination, cultural education (traditional music and folklore), hobbies, physical education and special projects such as mass rallies celebrating various anniversaries significant to Nkrumah. By far the most important part of the programme was ideology. The Pioneer prospectus affirms "Nkrumaism the philolosophy which underlines the socialist reconstruction of Ghana forms the basis upon which the ideological training programme of the movement is structured. The philosophy permeates the total ideological orientation and other training programmes of all the four different age groupings in the movement."

Another philosophy Marxism — also permeated the upper echelons of the movement. A. B. Shardow, National Organiser of the GYP, has been identified as among "the Marxist purists of the C.P.P." whose ultimate objectives include "Building Ghana into a society along

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Communist lines." The official programme of the GYP, issued in November 1961, was closely patterned on a Russian document entitled "Young Leninists' History of Soviet Young Pioneers." It was written by the GYP Research Department. Oblitey Commey, a former member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, headed ideological research in this department.

Marxist influence on the movement was not limited to the political predilections of a few key leaders. The Communist countries were quick to recognise the potential of the new movement for their purposes and almost immediately began to offer training scholarships to Ghana "Youth Leaders." The first group of 13 GYP members left for Russia during December 1960 under the aegis of the Komsomol Schools. The following December, 27 more GYP "Youth Leaders" arrived in Russia for similar training. As early as the Spring of 1961, 22 Young Pioneers were already on scholarship in the German Democratic Republic, 18 in Czechoslovakia, 5 in Hungary and 10 in Yugoslavia.

The first 6-month training course in Russia was described by participants as having consisted of 4 months' training in ideology and 2 months' "practical work." The trainees in the GDR were taught "to fight for the establishment and consolidation of the new state power headed by the working class."

A report dated 11 December 1964, entitled "Ghanaian Students and the Central Komsomol School in Moscow 1963-64" indicated that 25 students were being taught Marxist philosophy and political economy; scientific Communism; Komsomol and pioneer organisations and Russian language. The only course on the whole list actually germane to youth leader studies was one in physical culture.

By mid-1964, 130 members of the GYP movement had completed such training courses at various Communist schools. An additional number was sent later on courses. Most of the courses covered so-called Youth Leadership, although about 30 scholarship holders were reading economics, linguistics and other technical subjects. These courses lasted anywhere from 6 to 18 months.

One of the most unusual study programmes sponsored by the GYP was one for 10 Pioneers to study piloting, paratrooping and technical maintenance at the Central Flying School in Chrudim, Czechoslovakia. This course was

arranged and carried out without any reference to the Ghana Air Force.

On 23 March 1962, Shardow signed an agreement with a three-man Russian Youth Delegation (Alexander Khamshalov, leader; Georgy Schmelov and Karan Brutents, members) that had been visiting Ghana. It provided that:

"1. Ghana would invite 10 Russian scientists and technologists to teach scientific subjects;

2. the Russian Committee of Youth Organisation (CYO) would establish scientific laboratories at Accra, Kumasi, Cape Coast and Tamale for teaching the Youth;

3. the CYO would supply the GYP with equipped automobile vans for mobile education;

4. a Ghana-Soviet Youth Festival would
be established to commemorate Osa-
gyefo's tour of the U.S.S.R.;

5. ten Young Pioneers and one leader
would be invited annually to participate
in the holiday camps in the U.S.S.R.;
6. the CYO would donate cinema pro-
jector and photographic apparatus to
the GYP;

7. the CYO would invite annually three
groups of 20 each from the GYP to
study in the U.S.S.R. nautical, para-
troop and flying schools;

8. at least 25 students should be sent to the U.S.S.R. annually for scientific studies;

9. after the Helsinki Festival, 10 young pioneers would be invited to the U.S.S.R. to participate in seminars and conferences;

10. the present annual award of 27 scholarships to the GYP leaders to train in youth work in the U.S.S.R. for six months would be increased as from next year to 45. And that those who show special aptitude after the course would be given the opportunity to enter educational institutions for higher studies. It was further proposed that 14 out of the present 27 studying youth work in the U.S.S.R. would be given a chance for higher study."

This agreement gives some idea of the extensive interest the Communists took in the Ghana Young Pioneer movement. The long-range

training schemes covered in the agreement, however, were only a facet of a larger programme which included literally hundreds of shorter trips to Communist countries. Between 1961 and 1965 at least 300 Ghanaian youth and youth leaders participated in different summer camp programmes in Communist countries or in relatively brief study seminars where they received heavy doses of Communist ideological indoctrination.

There were also various technical training trips for GYP leaders such as a three-man delegation (P. Peregrino Peters, deputy public relations officer; Tony Nomah, assistant editor, and R. A. Dodoo, manpower officer) that left in November 1964 to tour China and Russia studying publishing institutions in order to set up the Kwame Nkrumah Youth Publishing House, and a one-man delegation sent to China in May 1965 to study the "technique and organisation of mass physical training displays."

Even these shorter tours often resulted in scholarships of longer duration in Communist countries. The three-man group studying publishing was told in Moscow that "a cartoonist should be appointed to prepare revolutionary and colourful drawings for this first youth paper and the Youth Publishing House in Moscow would be happy to take on a Ghanaian cartoonist for at least three months to undergo fundamental training."

Communist youth leaders did not confine their attentions to students who came to their country from Ghana. They also had an active programme of visits to the GYP in Accra and throughout the country, with Russia, East Germany and Czechoslovakia all sending frequent youth delegations to visit Ghana. The G.D.R. also sent a 12-man technical team to "expand the vocational training centres at Kumasi and Accra and naval training in Tema." This team, the advance guard of which arrived in Ghana on 21 January 1965, was to stay a year. The aim of these visits was to maintain the close ties of the GYP with Communist youth organisations and to keep the GYP orientated toward Communist goals. That these aims were not difficult to achieve is revealed in a typical communication issued at the close of the March 1965 visit of a two-man Czech delegation. It concluded: "both sides agreed it was necessary and useful to support all actions aimed at the realisation of their common goals, viz., liberation of all nations and victory for the ideas of socialism."

The pervasive character of the GYP can be seen in its highly developed organisational structure. The National headquarters comprised seven departments:

Manpower-responsible for all personnel and administrative matters in the movement.

Education-general ideological, cultural, leisure-time and creative programmes for both officers and members of the movement through educational institutions, Ghanyp Club Houses and Centres.

Operations-field work and supervision of plans and general activities.

Research-International and African Affairs Department: promotes research work and evaluation of programmes, liaison duties with international youth groups, directs research on African Affairs and maintains liaison with youth groups of all African countries.

Public Relations-publicity, shooting films of GYP activities, publishes movement's periodicals, magazines and newsletters. Responsible for "creating a healthy image of the movement to the general public and interpreting to the movement the public's conception of the movement's image.'

Quartermaster-stocking and distribution of equipment, supervises properties of the movement.

Accounts-responsible for all financial policies and transactions.

Beside the National Headquarters there were by late 1962 nine Regional Headquarters administering more than 160 District offices. Required to run the movement were 51 fulltime senior officers, 464 full-time junior officers and 80 daily-rated employees. In addition, GYP used the services of 84 part-time officers and 10,900 voluntary instructors. The magnitude of the programme is revealed by the fact that it employed in all more than 11,500 adults.

In addition to the nation-wide centres mentioned above, GYP maintained two separate training schools-The Kwame Nkrumah Youth Training School at Teshie where GYP youth leaders were indoctrinated and the Kwame Nkrumah Institute of Pioneering Youth which provided vocational training for school truants, or to use the GYP's own description "absorbs and tries to check peculiar youth from being a threat to the nation."