As the first communist state to arrive in Africa post-WWII, Czechoslovakia advanced the cause of communism on the continent often in advance of the Soviet Union's own Cold War agenda. Given its own relatively small population and undersized national economy, Czechoslovakia's involvement in Africa was surprisingly massive in scale. The Czechoslovak government gave significant amounts of military aid to newly established national armies of independent African countries and helped them develop their own national airlines. Czechoslovakia sought to develop not only diplomatic and political, but also economic and cultural ties to nearly every African state, which led to the opening of Czech cultural centers and the study of the Czech language throughout Africa.