Operation Saluting October (Portuguese: Operação Saudemos Outubro, alternatively translated as Operation Salute to October) was an offensive carried out by the People's Armed Forces of Liberation of Angola (FAPLA) against the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and its armed wing, the Armed Forces of the Liberation of Angola (FALA), during the Angolan Civil War. The preliminary phase of the operation commenced in July 1987. The principal FAPLA objective was to advance two hundred kilometres from its bases at Cuito Cuanavale to seize the strategically vital FALA logistics centre at Mavinga. In the meantime, a number of secondary movements towards the smaller FALA-held settlements of Cangamba and Cassamba were initiated to draw FALA troops away from Mavinga. The capture of Mavinga was projected to cause the collapse of FALA's entire southeastern front, and pave the way for a second offensive on UNITA's political and military headquarters at Jamba. "Saluting October" was a reference to the seventieth anniversary of the Russian October Revolution.
Eight FAPLA combined arms brigades, supported by Soviet logistical personnel and advisers, as well as Soviet and Cuban pilots based out of Menongue, participated in the operation. FAPLA's 47, 16, 21, and 59 Brigades spearheaded the offensive, while 8, 13, 25, and 66 Brigades formed the rearguard and defended the increasingly lengthy supply lines needed to support the four leading brigades. Saluting October triggered an immediate military response from South Africa, which launched Operation Moduler to halt the offensive. In late September 1987, the FAPLA advance stalled short of Mavinga at the Lomba River, where the leading brigades encountered strong resistance from a South African expeditionary force deployed to aid FALA. Saluting October ended on October 7, when all participating FAPLA units were ordered to withdraw towards Cuito Cuanavale.
Background Operation Saluting October was planned by Lieutenant General Pyotr Gusev, commander of the Soviet military mission in Angola. It was modeled after Operation Second Congress, a similar unsuccessful offensive towards Mavinga planned by Colonel General Konstantin Kurochkin in 1985. Kurochkin was the former head of the Soviet mission and remained the primary liaison between Gusev and the Soviet Ministry of Defence. He was greatly supportive of Gusev's plans and personally flew to Angola in June 1987 to endorse Saluting October before the Angolan government and the FAPLA general staff. Kurochkin and others in the Soviet Ministry of Defence were also instrumental in persuading Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, to approve extensive funding for Saluting October. Gorbachev was then slashing defence spending, and looking to reduce the enormous open-ended commitment of Soviet military aid to Angola in particular. However, he agreed to approve the funds and materiel to support FAPLA operations for one more year. This decision was apparently made after consultations between the Angolan and Soviet political leadership in March 1987. Thereafter, the Soviet Union transported approximately $1 billion USD worth of military hardware to Angola in a massive airlift carried out with Antonov An-24 cargo aircraft, with as many as twelve per day landing in Luanda just prior to Saluting October. This equipment was then offloaded and picked up by Angolan Ilyushin Il-76s, which in turn flew them directly to FAPLA's staging areas. The deliveries from the Soviet Union included large numbers of tanks and armoured personnel carriers recently withdrawn from its own military campaign in Afghanistan. These were initially rotated out to Tashkent and from there flown directly to Luanda by the AN-24s. American diplomat Chester Crocker described this movement of materiel as "Moscow's largest logistical effort to date in Angola", involving over a thousand Soviet military personnel. The influx of hardware in 1987 was accompanied by a notable increase in the number of advisers, pilots, and security troops attached to the Soviet military mission.
Orchestrating the capture of Mavinga had been the prime objective of the Soviet military mission since the early 1980s. The town itself had been largely destroyed and abandoned during the early years of the civil war, but it was also the site of the largest airfield under FALA's control. The airstrip at Mavinga was one of the few in the country that could accommodate heavy lift aircraft carrying supplies and weapons from UNITA's two major external allies, South Africa and the United States. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) routinely kept FALA resupplied this way, via covert flights out of Kamina in neighbouring Zaire. Mavinga was also the centre of a vast smuggling operation involving illegally mined kimberlite and other resources, which FALA used to help finance its war effort. If Mavinga fell, FALA would lose this vital logistics lifeline, and FAPLA would be able to rapidly airlift more troops and equipment into the region, in close proximity to the UNITA political and military headquarters at Jamba. The FAPLA general staff hoped this in turn would allow them to concentrate more forces around Mavinga for an offensive on Jamba, which would ideally be scheduled the following year, between June and September 1988.
Aside from the capture of Mavinga, secondary objectives of Saluting October included disrupting FALA's insurgency in central Angola, and expanding the coverage provided by FAPLA's strategic air defence network to the extremities of the country's southern and eastern borders. It was hoped that the offensive would give FAPLA forces in the rear an opportunity to regain the initiative while FALA was distracted by the threat to its logistics lifeline.
Crocker observed that "it was the Soviets who pushed this offensive; they had the influence to prevail in allied decision-making since they paid the bills and provided the hardware. More precisely, it was the Soviet military and Communist Party hardliners who wanted the offensive," intent on ensuring a final decisive victory for their FAPLA ally. In public exchanges with their Western counterparts, Soviet officials were supportive of a negotiated end to the Angolan conflict, but privately they urged the Angolan government of the need to secure a unilateral military solution as soon as possible. Kenyan historian Gilbert Khadiagala wrote that both the Soviet and Angolan political leadership were seduced by the idea of a quick, definitive military solution, and by July 1987, had become increasingly unwilling to engage with an American initiative led by Crocker aimed at securing peace talks with UNITA. Indeed, Moroccan political scientist Zaki Laidi pointed out that Soviet hardliners had always been opposed to American diplomatic initiatives in Angola, and their enormous contribution of military aid was partly to dissuade the Angolans from ruling out a battlefield solution in favour of a "regional settlement sponsored by the United States".
According to Victoria Brittain, a journalist for The Guardian, Crocker's "briefings to journalists that summer described Cuba and the Soviet Union as being, like Angola, determined to go for a military solution against UNITA." However, Brittain asserts that the Angolan government rejected the notion of peace talks mediated by the US because Crocker was unwilling to discuss ending American military aid to FALA. The continued assurance of American support also encouraged UNITA to be uncompromising in its demands for peace on its terms.
A CIA white paper commented on "Moscow's determination to see the struggle through without compromise with UNITA," and found that the Soviet government had adopted a "hard line of opposing reconciliation under any circumstances other than UNITA's surrender." The agency assessed that most Angolan political leaders believed "they can avoid talks through a military victory," and prominent FAPLA generals were "seemingly enthralled by the military hardware FAPLA continues to acquire, and....assume that it will eventually prove decisive against UNITA."
The head of operations for the FAPLA general staff, General Roberto Leal Monteiro, stated that the government was not discarding the notion of peace talks altogether, but wished to revisit them later from a position of military strength. According to Monteiro, Saluting October was approved partly because dos Santos believed that a successful offensive on Mavinga would give him considerably more leverage at the negotiating table.
Political scientist Jeffrey Herbst attributed dos Santos's decision to pursue the offensive to the fact that UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi had recently secured a commitment of $15 million in military aid from the US, making it desirable to inflict a major defeat on FALA before it could be further strengthened by American funding and materiel.
In his analysis of the Angolan government's decision to greenlight Saluting October, American journalist Karl Maier claimed that "the idea of wiping out UNITA had been an obsession ever since the [Angolan leadership] took control of Luanda at independence in November 1975, and the mirage of total victory had clouded the leaders' vision" to tactical realities on the ground.
Previous FAPLA offensives towards Mavinga had been unsuccessful, which Soviet advisers blamed on shortages of equipment, improper reconnaissance, and failure to safeguard the rear of the units involved. Consequently, Saluting October was to integrate more heavy armour and artillery with the FAPLA infantry, and the Soviets devoted more resources to training Angolan reconnaissance troops and combat engineers. As a result, three new independent reconnaissance battalions were formed for the purposes of screening the advance. FAPLA was also supplied with more sophisticated bridging equipment.
The outlined offensive relied heavily on the logistical and technical support provided by Soviet advisers attached to FAPLA on the company level. The advisers were expected to accompany their Angolan counterparts during battlefield engagements, although this was contrary to the official stance espoused by the Soviet government. Unofficially, the decision on what extent the advisers should be involved in hostilities was left to the discretion of the FAPLA and Soviet command hierarchy in Angola. Pilots and air crews from the Soviet Air Forces would also provide support for the ground operations. Sovietologist Peter Vanneman wrote that "the evidence of Soviet pilots participating [in Saluting October] is substantial, including eyewitness reports and taped conversations of the pilots." The Soviet Foreign Ministry publicly stated that Soviet helicopter pilots and air crews would be available to support the FAPLA offensive, but denied they would take direct part in hostilities. There were a number of East German military advisers attached to the units involved as well, fulfilling various non-combat roles. Russian historians Gennady Shubin and Andrei Tokarev wrote: