Today, I was reading about the Simba rebellion. Astonishingly, a (formally) Marxist liberation movement, the APL (or "Simbas") is described as prominently making use of magical rituals with the supposed function of rendering fighters impervious to bullets, at the same time, seemingly leaping over all contradictions with Marxist thought, establishing a "People's Republic" in eastern Kongo.
Did magical systems play a role in any other liberation movements in Africa, in particular past 1950 and adhering to Marxist ideology? I'm thinking in particular of the liberation movements in Angola and Mozambique, which occured in geographic proximity, in a similar cultural background, and around the same time.
Are there any publications or other sources that provide insight into how magical beliefs were married to Marxism?
I am not sure about Angola and Mozambique, but I do know that formally-marxist cadres of the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA, armed wing of ZANU) were known to consult Shona spirit mediums. The rationale was that ZANLA needed to secure the allegiance of the peasantry to successfully wage guerrilla warfare against the Rhodesian state. Part of this appeal to peasants was by invoking the history of the First Chimurenga, the uprising against British colonial administration in 1896-7, and positioning themselves as modern-day heirs of the folk heroes of the Chimurenga.
Shona villagers believed in the legitimacy and potency of spirit mediums, and so ZANLA cadres were known to seek out spirit mediums to seek their blessing and to have the mediums call upon the spirits of the martyrs of the First Chimurenga to lend supernatural support to guerrilla fighters in the Second Chimurenga (the war against South Rhodesia from 1965-1980).
David Lan's book Guns and Rain: guerrillas and spirit mediums in Zimbabwe is a good treatment of the topic.