Thomas Sankara

A people’s anti-imperialist revolution responds to the neocolonial situation

Aug 15, 2023

In my commentary of August 11, I reviewed the work of Cuban scholars on the recent coups in West Africa (“Scholars in Cuba explain: Coups in Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali seek sovereignty for Africa”). In that discussion, reference was made to Thomas Sankara, the central leader of a people’s revolution in Upper Volta in the 1980s, as a leader who anticipated certain dynamics of the current people’s movement in West Africa. In my commentary today, I review the political theory and action of Thomas Sankara, drawing upon two collections of his speeches edited by Pathfinder Press: Thomas Sankara Speaks: The Burkina Faso Revolution, 1983-1987 (published in 1988, 2007); and We Are Heirs of the World’s Revolutions: Speeches from the Burkina Faso revolution, 1983-1987 (published in 2002, 2007).

Following World War II, the United Kingdom, France and other European colonial powers, facing massive anti-colonial peoples’ movements, were coerced to concede independence to nearly all their colonies in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. In accordance with these worldwide tendencies, the French West African colony of Upper Volta became independent on August 5, 1960.

During the first two decades of independence, the people of Upper Volta continued to suffer the poverty and economic underdevelopment that were the legacy of French colonial domination, as a consequence of an alliance among French imperialists, the conservative authorities of traditional African society, and the French educated African bourgeoisie. In such conditions of neocolonialism, popular rebellions emerged in the early 1980s, expressing discontent: with the rule of the country by the lackeys of colonialism; with the high levels of corruption; and with the impoverished and powerless conditions of peasants, who constituted 90% of the population. The popular rebellion culminated in the overthrow of the government on August 4, 1984, by a military junta, which established the ruling National Council of the Revolution, with Captain Thomas Sankara presented as its president. One year later, the name of the country was changed to Burkina Faso, which means “The Land of Upright Men” in West African languages.

Sankara and the National Council of the Revolution ruled the country until October 15, 1987, when the government was overthrown and Sankara was assassinated. During its four years in power, the government implemented a revolutionary program, which included the development of mass organizations, the nationalization of land, the abolition of rent, the construction of dams, and the expansion of services of health and education.

Thomas Sankara was born in December 1949 in the town of Yako in the center of the colony of Upper Volta. As the son of a police assistant employed by the colonial administration, Sankara was better off than most, such that he was part of only a small fraction of youth to complete high school. He entered Kadiogo military school, in Kamboinsé near the capital city of Ouagadougou, one of the few available avenues for higher education. He subsequently was assigned to Madagascar, off the coast of East Africa, for further military training.

In Madagascar, Sankara encountered in 1972 an anti-government movement formed by tens of thousands of students and workers, an experience that resulted in his political radicalization and consciousness. During this time, he participated in Marxist study groups and engaged in discussions with French students who had participated in the May 1968 rebellion in France. Subsequently, in the late 1970s, he went to Paris for paratrooper training, where he was able to find revolutionary literature, including the works of Marx and Lenin.

Sankara’s military career advanced as a result of the short border war with Mali in December 1974 and January 1975, in which his conduct as a military officer was exemplary. For the next several years, Sankara linked up with other junior officers and soldiers who were dissatisfied with the oppressive conditions perpetuated by French imperialism and its Upper Volta allies.

Following a military coup d’état in defense of the people, Sankara was appointed Prime Minister in January 1983, and he used the position to urge the people in Upper Volta and Africa to advance their interests against the propertied exploiters. However, this political teaching placed him in growing conflict with pro-imperialist forces within the government, leading to his arrest, which provoked mass demonstrations calling for his release, which was attained in the form of house arrest. Subsequently, with the coup d’état of August 4, 1983, Sankara at the age of 33 was named president of the newly formed National Council of the Revolution, which governed the country for the next four years.

The manifesto of the revolution was the “Political Orientation Speech,” presented by Sankara on behalf of the National Council of the Revolution and broadcast over Upper Volta radio and television on October 2, 1983. Read today with the benefit of hindsight, the speech can be seen as possessing exceptional insight, expressing with clarity key principles that today are the foundation for the international collective consciousness of the anti-imperialist movement of the world.

The Political Orientation Speech

The Political Orientation Speech describes the situation in Upper Volta in 1983 as neocolonialism, in essence not at all different from colonialism. It maintains that French colonialism was compelled by its defeat at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam in 1954 and by the armed struggle of the National Liberation Front in Algeria “to grant our country its national sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Although this step was viewed by the people of Upper Volta as a democratic reform, from the point of view of imperialism it “was merely a transformation of the forms of its domination and exploitation of our people.” In this new form of domination, imperialism uses Voltaic intermediaries—the backward forces of traditional society and the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia—to “maintain its stranglehold over our country and perpetuate the exploitation of our people.”

As a leader lifted by a revolution in a neocolonial situation, Sankara reformulated classical Marxism and Marxism-Leninism in political practice, in that he convokes the people, the “People of Upper Volta,” and not the “workers” or the “workers and peasants”. And he congratulates the “fighting people of Upper Volta” for having “mobilized as one behind the National Council of the Revolution in order to build a new, free, independent, and prosperous Voltaic society; a new society. . . rid of the age-old domination and exploitation by international imperialism” (italics added). The triumph of the August revolution two months earlier, Sankara declares, “is a victory over international imperialism and its national allies.” Rather than calling workers to a revolution against the capitalist class, Sankara called the people to a revolution for national sovereignty and independence against international imperialism and its allies.

It is important, Sankara notes, for the people to understand, because “by equipping ourselves with a clear view of unfolding events, we strengthen ourselves all the more in our struggle against imperialism and reactionary social forces.” With a clear understanding, we are able “to draw the lessons necessary for accurately assessing the revolutionary tasks that are posed presently and for the near future.”

Accordingly, our revolution, Sankara maintains, takes into account the original and special features of our country that distinguish it from other countries. As a country subjugated by the world imperialist capitalist system, it has a low level of economic development, and the weight of tradition and traditional ideology upon the people is great. The great majority of peasants are tied to small plots of land, as a result of the gradual disintegration of traditional collective property forms due to the colonialist introduction of market relations and private property in the countryside. As a result, the peasantry has been isolated from the currents of progress and modernization, making it a reservoir for reactionary political parties. Nevertheless, it is the sector that has the most to gain from the revolution, and it constitutes its principal force in terms of numbers.

At the same time, the country lacks an organized working class with working-class consciousness and with a tradition of revolutionary struggle. Union leaders often have a distorted view of the revolution, believing that it will put them in charge.

Moreover, the country possesses a significant lumpenproletariat, declassed individuals without jobs. They are prone to hiring themselves out for counterrevolutionary dirty work, but they also can become fervent defenders of the revolution, if they can be provided with something useful to do.

The national bourgeoisie is not single and homogenous, and it is incapable of transforming society in accordance with its interests, as did the bourgeoisie of the European countries in the last decades of the eighteenth century. The diversity of the national bourgeoisie of Upper Volta must be understood, and Sankara names its components. The “commercial bourgeoisie” is tied to imperialism through numerous bonds, and it can be expected to engage in the most corrupt activities in the neocolonial situation. The “middle bourgeoisie” has grievances against imperialism for blocking it from becoming a real national bourgeoisie, but it fears a people’s revolution, and therefore the revolution is compelled to mistrust its members who present themselves as supporters of the revolution.

The “petty bourgeoisie” is the most diverse and at the same time most socially unstable sector. It includes small shopkeepers, petty-bourgeois intellectuals (civil servants, college and high school students, private sector employees), and artisans. It vacillates between the cause of the people and that of imperialism, but the large majority wind up casting their lot with the people. On the other hand, in the transition from colonialism to neocolonialism, Voltaic nationals from the “petty-bourgeois intelligentsia” play a critical role. They set about organizing the systematic plunder of the country, and as the crumbs of the plunder fall to them, they are transformed, little by little, into a genuinely parasitic bourgeoisie. Now driven only by their own selfish interests, they no longer hesitate in employing the most dishonest means. They engage in massive corruption, embezzlement of public funds and properties, and nepotism. However, this vacillating and wavering petty bourgeoisie must be brought into the revolution. As Sankara declared in an interview on March 17, 1985, “so long as the petty bourgeoisie is not massively involved in the revolution, we will have difficulties.”

In an address to the General Assembly of the United Nations on October 4, 1984, Sankara called upon the educated petty bourgeoisie of Africa and the Third World to give up privileges available to it in the neocolonial world order, and to “come back to who they are” and to participate in the creation of a system of thought that serves the disinherited masses. This would enable them to become credible on an international level.

The August revolution, the Political Orientation Speech maintains, seeks the full participation of the masses in the revolution. It consistently mobilizes the people on the basis of democratic and revolutionary slogans that concretely express the interests of the people. It is building new structures that take the place of the old state machinery and that are “capable of guaranteeing the democratic exercise of power by the people and for the people.” Accordingly, the first act of the revolution was to call upon the people to form Committees for the Defense of the Revolution in neighborhoods, villages, workplaces, schools, and army units throughout the country, thus facilitating the active participation of the people in the social programs of the revolutionary government.

The Political Orientation Speech asserts that one of the essential concerns of the National Council of the Revolution is to unite the more than sixty different nationalities or ethnic groups of Upper Volta, each with its own language and customs, in the common revolutionary struggle. The revolutionary policy is to forge the unity of the nationalities into a single nation through the promotion of the economic development of the different regions, the encouragement of economic exchanges among them, and the combatting of prejudices among them, so that “they live on an equal basis and enjoy equal opportunities for success.”

The Political Orientation Speech defines the place of the Voltaic revolution in the world revolutionary process, which it sees as a movement for peace and democracy and against imperialism in all its forms. Its formulation reiterates the basic principles of the Non-Aligned Movement in the 1970s and the principles of the movement today being forged by China and the Third World for the construction of a more just and sustainable pluripolar world order. Such principles include: respect for the independence, territorial integrity, and national sovereignty of all nations; non-interference in the domestic affairs of states; and mutually beneficial trade among nations. Sankara’s speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations affirmed the United Nations as an ideal forum for the presentation of Third World demands. He declared that all countries have the right to independence and the right to development, and that such rights are conquered in struggle by the people and are never the result of the generosity of the powers that be. Speaking at the Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Harare on September 3, 1986, Sankara criticized the turn of the Non-Aligned Movement away from its founding principles and the concepts of the New International Economic Order. He called upon the movement to wake up and to recall Tito, Nehru, Nasser, and Nkrumah (as it indeed would in the first decade of the twenty-first century). He expressed lament that the nations of the Third World were unable to unify to forge a program of collective non-payment of Third World debt, for which the imperialist nations, and not those of the Third World, were responsible. Sankara also took up the theme of the need for unity to challenge the Third World debt in a speech at the Organization of African Unity in Addis Ababa on July 29, 1987.

The role of the revolutionary in Burkina Faso, Sankara persistently maintained, is to fully understand the principles articulated in the “Political Orientation Speech” and to tirelessly explain them to the people in all the places where they are connected to the people, so that revolutionary theory and revolutionary practice will be linked.

Sankara speaks at the UN General Assembly, October 4, 1984

Concrete revolutionary steps

On August 4, 1984, the first anniversary of the triumph of the revolution, the National Council of the Revolution decreed the nationalization of all land and mineral wealth. This ended the feudal-like system in which the peasants paid rent for land on which they worked. The land was now owned by the revolutionary state, and the peasants who worked the land were entrusted to use, manage, and cultivate the land with security and without paying rent.

The nationalization of land and the abolition of tenant rent was understood as merely a first step. The revolutionary government was seeking to understand how to organize peasant production and how to provide technical assistance. The revolution had inherited a problematic situation with respect to agricultural production, in that the soil was increasingly less fertile, and rainfall is unpredictable. The revolution undertook the building of small dams for the retention of water, and it was seeking to develop sales outlets for peasant production. At the same time, it was exploring the possibility for capitalist investment in market-oriented farming and stock raising, if it could be done in a form that was consistent with the sovereignty of the nation.

In addition, the people were mobilized for the construction of classrooms, and the government developed a program for the construction of housing. A reforestation program was initiated, designed to reverse the annual expansion of the Sahara Desert. At the same time, on December 31, 1984, the government announced that no housing rents would have to be paid the following year.

Sankara possessed well developed consciousness with respect to the emancipation of women, which can be seen in his speech delivered to a meeting of several thousand women from across the country on International Women’s Day on March 8, 1987. He believed that patriarchy emerged with the agricultural revolution, which placed women in a condition of double exploitation; and that the construction of gender equality is an integral element of the revolutionary transformation underway in Burkina Faso. He considered the bourgeois approach to the emancipation of women, which demands the right of women to be masculine, to be a primitive feminism. Through the full inclusion of women in the revolutionary struggle, the revolution in Burkina Faso has created the conditions for women to struggle for equality, which they must conquer by and for themselves.

At the time of its fall, the Burkinabè revolution was a very young revolution, with insufficient time to consolidate an alternative direction or to yet show much in the way of concrete results. It was, however, off to a very promising start, especially if we take into account the exceptional understanding of the revolutionary process and the necessary steps provided by Thomas Sankara.

The fall of the Burkinabè Revolution

In speeches on August 4 and October 2, 1987, Sankara made references to disagreements within the National Council of the Revolution. In these speeches, Sankara stressed the need for greater attention to political and organizational work and to ideological and cultural formation, on the basis of full discussion of the principles formulated in the Political Orientation Speech. Education is the key, thorough political education, to expand and deepen the ranks of the militants among the people. He proposed the freeing of eighty-eight detainees who had been detained for common law violations against citizens and property, and who had conducted themselves with good behavior at work construction sites.

According to Michel Prairie, Editor of Thomas Sankara Speaks, there was much opposition within the National Council of the Revolution to Sankara’s proposal to deepen and expand ideological and organization work, as well as to his proposal to liberate common-law prisoners. The opponents within the Council, according to Prairie, were affiliated with communist groups with Maoist origins. The leaders of these groups, Prairie maintains, supported the October 15 coup that overthrew the Burkinabè Revolution, in which Sankara was assassinated.

If Prairie’s interpretations are correct, it would mean that the Burkinabè revolution was brought down by divisions provoked by ultra-leftist radicalism, which has been a long-standing problem in the left, identified by Lenin in his pamphlet on the infantile disorder of left-wing communism.

Certainly, the Burkinabè Revolution under the exceptional leadership of Sankara was on the right road, as we can clearly see today with the benefit of hindsight. The Burkinabè Revolution appeared on the world scene at a historic moment of extreme confusion in the Left, in the aftermath of the destructive anti-popular and aggressive imperialist turn by the global powers. The Burkinabè Revolution emerged to formulate in practice the key principles and concepts of the necessary road: a people’s revolution for national sovereignty and against international imperialism and its national allies; the recruitment through education of the critically important national petty bourgeoisie; the development of alternative political structures of people’s power; the development of the productive capacity of the economy, taking into account the particular conditions of the nation; attention to the concrete social and economic needs of the people; and a foreign policy of cooperation with all nations in the development of an international order that respects the sovereignty of each nation. But the international Left was not prepared to educate their peoples on the basis of this important example.

By now, however, in the third decade of the twenty-first century, the necessary consciousness has emerged, forged by the persistent exceptional leaders of the Third World plus China. As noted above, they have forged the international collective consciousness of the anti-imperialist movement of the world, standing as an empirically evident rejection of the claim that we have entered an era of post-truth, formulated by the infantile radical Western Left, who have not opened their eyes to see that the struggle of the peoples for truth has reached an advanced stage.

Knowledge, ideology, and real socialism in our times

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