On October 28, 2014, Burkina Faso saw the largest protest in the country’s history. Two days later, protesters stormed the National Assembly. The day after that, Blaise Compaoré, the country’s long-standing dictator, fled the country. Compaoré had been in power since his 1987 coup against the popular leftist leader Thomas Sankara. But his quarter-century rule crumbled under the weight of the masses.
The 2014 Burkinabè uprising was part of a global wave of revolutionary struggles that defined the 2010s, from Tunisia and Egypt at the start of the decade to Sudan and Lebanon at the end. The revolutions that shook the Middle East and North Africa in 2011 were popularly dubbed the “Arab Spring.” Many looked to Burkina Faso’s revolution as the start of an “African Spring.” The revolutionary legacy of Sankara, overthrown and murdered by Compaoré’s 1987 coup, became a renewed source of inspiration nationally and internationally. This included in the US, where he was embraced by the more radical elements in the Black Lives Matter movement that broke out the same year.
The uprising defeated a dictator, and waged a deeper struggle against neoliberalism, imperialism, and capitalism. A decade has passed since the uprising, however, and Burkina Faso is once again under military rule. The current coup leaders in the country have shed French and American imperialism only to bow before Russian and Chinese imperialism. Instead of an “African Spring,” Burkina Faso is now part of a “Coup Belt” of military dictatorships stretching across Africa’s Sahel region.
At the same time, the idea of an “African Spring” has returned to public consciousness, with a new wave of uprisings from Kenya to Nigeria to Mozambique. Regardless of the setbacks Burkina Faso has faced, the uprising itself provides the new generation of revolutionaries with a powerful demonstration of what Russian Revolutionary Leon Trotsky called “the direct interference of the masses in historical events.” Drawing the right lessons, the masses can intrude once more while avoiding the same fate.
The Compaoré regime
Compaoré’s 1987 coup entrenched not only his own rule, but that of imperialism and neoliberalism. Although Compaoré came from the same political tradition as Sankara, his coup signaled a rapid change in political allegiance. He plotted the coup alongside Côte d’Ivoire’s right-wing dictator Félix Houphouët-Boigny, who had a long history of destabilizing revolutionary movements across the continent on behalf of French imperialism.
While Sankara was known for his stand against the neoliberal “structural adjustment programs” imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Compaoré became the IMF’s darling. He slashed the Sankara-era social services, cut public sector wages, and instituted a regressive value-added tax.
Under his rule, most of the state-run firms were sold off to private buyers. Those that couldn’t find buyers were slated for liquidation. Rather than enrich the Burkinabè population, among the poorest in the world, it made wealthy multinationals wealthier.
To compete on the global market, agriculture shifted from production of food to production of cotton for export. Industry became dominated by big multinational mining corporations. Meanwhile, an environmentally destructive black market artisanal mining industry arose which became a key source of employment.
Compaoré’s privatization schemes established a regime of cronyism, propping up his own family and inner circle. He and his brother illegally bought up 135 land parcels. His sister-in-law bought two previously state-owned leather and tanning enterprises. Meanwhile, his cousin embezzled CFA3 billion while serving as minister of territorial administration and security.
Internationally, Compaoré became a loyal stooge for French and US imperialism. He joined the US and apartheid South Africa in backing the UNITA rebels in Angola’s civil war. He supported French-backed rebels in the civil war that broke out in Côte d’Ivoire in 2002. He also got into the blood diamond trade, using arms purchased from Ukraine to back warlords in Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Neoliberal mythology held that market reforms inevitably lead to political freedom. The actual experience of the Compaoré regime showed otherwise. While Burkina Faso was nominally a democracy, Compaoré and his party, the Congrès pour la Démocratie et le Progrès (CDP), were thoroughly enmeshed in the country’s government, military, and economy. The CDP became a corrupt patronage machine people had to work through to advance their careers. In rural areas, the patronage machine propped up patriarchal tribal chiefs who had previously come into conflict with Sankara’s feminist reforms.
When corruption was insufficient, Compaoré resorted to repression. After the 1987 coup, he set up the hated Régiment de la sécurité présidentielle (RSP), an autonomous military body under his personal control. The RSP was known for torture and extrajudicial killings of political dissidents. Even before 2014, the RSP provoked mass protests in 1998 over their role in assassinating the anti-government journalist Norbert Zongo.
Through all this, Compaoré established Burkina Faso as an authoritarian, neoliberal “party state.” Writing in the March-April 2006 issue of Politique Africaine, the French journalist Jacinthe Mazzocchetti lamented the situation in the country: “Where is the alternative? There is none. . . I’m afraid that, at this rate, the system will absorb everyone.” In spite of this, contradictions and class struggle continued to exist in Burkinabè society. When the global neoliberal order was thrown into crisis in the 2010s, those contradictions broke out into the open.
“Burkina will have its Egypt!”
The global financial crisis of 2007–2008 called neoliberalism into question. Within a few years, the questioning transformed into mass resistance. The Tunisian Revolution at the end of 2010 continued into 2011 and initiated the “Arab Spring.” This inspired further movements ranging from the Wisconsin labor struggles in the US to the indignados in Greece and the Spanish state to Occupy Wall Street. All these struggles compelled Time magazine to name “the protester” 2011’s person of the year.
Although Burkina Faso’s revolution didn’t arrive until 2014, the seeds were starting to develop. In February 2008, amidst the global financial crisis, Burkina Faso was faced with food riots. This provoked student protests and a general strike.
While the 2011 uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa were dubbed the “Arab Spring,” their impact extended far beyond the Arab world. Mass protests, taking direct inspiration from the “Arab Spring,” occurred across sub-Saharan Africa, from Djibouti to Malawi to Burkina Faso itself.
Burkina Faso’s 2011 protests began on February 22, when students rose up against the police murder of fellow student Justin Zongo in the city of Koudougou. The demonstrations featured chants of “Burkina will have its Egypt!” and “Tunisia is in Koudougou!” Students burned down police stations and destroyed government symbols. The police responded with tear gas, clubs and live rounds, while the RSP went on a rampage.
The movement spread across the country, and expanded its scope. By April, the trade unions got involved, linking up the students’ demands with economic demands. They were joined by cotton farmers moving into action against the main cotton company Sofitex.
As significant as this movement was, it fell short of a revolutionary situation. By August, the government agreed to concessions. The police responsible for Zongo’s murder were arrested, tried and imprisoned. Compaoré replaced his cabinet but remained in power. The new cabinet agreed to some economic and social concessions.
In spite of this, the protests showed the power of the Burkinabè masses. They showed that Compaoré wasn’t omnipotent, and that the system was not destined to absorb everyone.
“Compaoré doit partir”
If the 2011 protests stopped short of calling for Compaoré’s ouster, this was partly due to Article 37 in the country’s constitution, which established term limits for the presidency. Compaoré began his fourth term in 2010 and, under Article 37, that would be his final term. So, when the protests broke out, there was an expectation that Compaoré’s days were numbered. In the end, his days were numbered, just not the way it seemed at the time.
Coming out of the protests, the Conseil consultatif sur les réformes politiques (CCRP) was established with the ostensible aim of overcoming the crisis through a series of democratic reforms. However, mixed into the CCRP reforms, Compaoré inserted “reforms” designed to prolong his rule. This included setting up an unelected senate and a repeal of Article 37.
In response to this blatant democratic backsliding, the layers who were drawn into action in 2011 got organized. The year 2013 saw the launch of Le balai citoyen (The Citizens’ Broom), which would become the public face of the 2014 uprising. Initiated by the rapper Smockey and reggae singer Sams’K Le Jah, Le balai citoyen embraced the spirit of Thomas Sankara, but brought in newly radicalized layers without prior political affiliation.
On July 28, 2013, following a week of union actions, a new mass demonstration began at the Place de la nation, dubbed “Ouagadougou’s Tahrir Square.” Protesters chanted “Compaoré doit partir” (Compaoré must go), a pun on Compaoré’s CDP. Sensing the mood, leading CDP members defected and called for protests the next day, which grew to 50,000 people.
At the end of 2013, Compaoré announced a referendum on amending Article 37. This was widely understood as a democratic fig leaf for Compaoré to ram through his anti-democratic measures. The protests continued into 2014. This included a two-day general strike in February, and a 100,000-strong, eight-kilometer march in Ouagadougou in August.
Following that high point, the movement quieted down. Compaoré appealed to opposition forces to engage in dialogue. Official negotiations began on October 6. The legal opposition parties and defectors from Compaoré’s ranks went along with this, hoping to pressure him to voluntarily abandon the referendum.
On October 21, however, it was revealed that the CDP had engaged in backroom negotiations with one of the legal opposition parties. Through sweetheart deals, the Alliance pour la démocratie et la fédération–Rassemblement démocratique africain (ADF-RDA) agreed to reverse their opposition to the term limits. This would have given Compaoré the parliamentary support to ram through his legislation without even the democratic fig leaf of the referendum.
That evening, spontaneous demonstrations blocked roads across Ouagadougou. Le balai citoyen called for a week of civil disobedience. This culminated in a massive women’s protest on October 27, and an even more massive national day of protest on October 28, the previously mentioned largest protest in the country’s history. Hundreds of thousands demonstrated, with some estimates reaching a million protesters.
Police responded to the protests with mass arrests, while the RSP fired into the crowds. When protesters stormed the National Assembly on the morning of October 30, the police ran out of tear gas within four hours. Eventually, protesters broke into the National Assembly building and burned down a part of it. Across the country, other protesters stormed the homes of political figures in Compaoré’s inner circle. Later that day Compaoré made a statement withdrawing the referendum, dissolving the government, and declaring a national state of siege to be administered by the army’s chief of staff, General Honoré Traoré.
But the protests continued. On October 31, Compaoré fled Ouagadougou for the city of Pô. Then, assisted by French troops, he fled the country altogether, heading to Côte d’Ivoire. There he was welcomed by the country’s president Alassane Ouattara, a former Deputy Managing Director of the IMF and a staunch loyalist of French and American imperialism. Ouattara granted Compaoré Ivorian citizenship, allowing him to avoid extradition to face charges for his decades of crimes.
A new Burkina Faso?
The October 31 uprising overthrew Compaoré, but a revolution is about more than just one person. Compaoré rested on the whole entrenched system of Burkinabè capitalism, which was in turn integrated with the state, tribal hierarchies, and global imperialism. The popular revolt wanted to do away with the whole system Compaoré represented. But not everybody had the same vision in mind.
During the “Arab Spring,” imperialist politicians who had championed dictators like Ben Ali and Mubarak up to the last minute did a sudden about face once it was clear the revolutions had won. In doing so, these politicians tried to rewrite the history of the revolutions as efforts at achieving Western-style capitalist democracy. The same happened in Burkina Faso. Less than a month after intervening militarily to defend Compaoré from the wrath of the masses, French President François Hollande sang the uprising’s praises: “The example of Burkina Faso should give a pause for thought to those who would like to stay in power by violating the constitutional order, as it is the people who decide what is legitimate and what is not.”
Capitalism’s inability to create Western-style capitalist democracy in the neocolonial world is clarified by Leon Trotsky’s theory of “Permanent Revolution.” While the bourgeoisie was able to play a revolutionary democratic role in the eighteenth century, the entrenchment of capitalism as a global economic system prevents them from continuing to play this role. Where pre-capitalist social relations and imperialist domination remain, the bourgeoisie is too entwined with those relations to overthrow them. Meanwhile, the growth of the working class on a global scale poses a bigger threat to them. This doesn’t mean that a revolutionary struggle for democracy is futile. But it means the working class, even in the neocolonial world, has to take the lead. But this will bring the revolution into direct conflict with capitalism. Instead of limiting itself to bourgeois democratic demands, the revolution has to be “made permanent” by overthrowing capitalism.
These dynamics played out in Burkina Faso in the aftermath of the October insurrection. Bourgeois forces who had broken from Compaoré under pressure from below championed the uprising with the aim of restoring order. In doing so they came into conflict with the masses who made the revolution. Immediately after Compaoré’s departure, General Honoré Traoré tried to establish himself as interim head of state. Following further protests, he backed off, but Lieutenant Colonel Yacouba Isaac Zida, second in command of the RSP, became interim leader instead. After further protest, Zida agreed to share power with Michel Kafando, still an old guard figure, but at least a civilian.
Zida and Kafondo oversaw the creation of a civilian-led Conseil national de la transition (CNT) to carry out a democratic transition. The CNT brought in trade unions and opposition parties, but also included business leaders and figures from the Compaoré regime. Meanwhile Compaoré loyalists who had followed their leader out of the country were allowed to take stolen assets with them. These moves towards accommodation with the old guard provoked popular anger but were promoted by imperialism as well as by Burkina Faso’s “democratic” neighbors in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). In the same speech where François Hollande praised “The example of Burkina Faso,” he urged the transitional authorities to focus on reconciliation and avoid settling scores with the Compaoré regime.
Some figures who previously served in the Compaoré regime tried to establish themselves as leaders of the uprising. Most prominent was Zéphirin Diabré, who broke with Compaoré in 2010 and launched the Union pour le progrès et le changement (UPC) and called many of the anti-Compaoré protests. However, he was solidly pro-market. He had imposed vicious austerity measures as part of Compaoré’s government, and continued to defend them afterwards. But he presented the UPC as a “big tent” open to everyone from neoliberals to communists and Sankaraists. This served to confuse the movement.
What the uprising lacked was a mass, revolutionary working-class party that could take the revolution to its conclusion. This doesn’t mean no working-class organizations existed. In spite of the imperialist underdevelopment of the country, Burkina Faso has a labor tradition going back to colonial times. To their credit, the union leaders were willing to push back against attempts of the more established political parties to downplay economic demands. But instead of challenging the bourgeois parties for leadership the union leaders focused on calling separate labor demonstrations. This meant turning the working class into just one of many interest groups uniting behind the revolution.
On the political front Le balai citoyen was formed in the heat of struggle, free from the baggage of the political establishment, and produced the most heroic participants in the uprising. But a party capable of making a revolution can’t be formed in the heat of struggle. It needs to sink roots in the working class. Party founder Smockey recognized that the revolution “eliminated the tip of the iceberg, but the entire invisible part remains.” But he saw the party’s role as a vague “counter-power.” The result was a heroic party with a confused program, willing to take to the streets when necessary, but also willing to accept the leadership of Zida, Kafondo, and the CNT.
As a result, the post-Compaoré situation became a tug-of-war. The discredited bourgeois forces used the CNT to reinvent themselves as democrats. The masses would push back but lacked the revolutionary organization necessary to definitively take power. Eventually, this would have to break down.
Revolution and counterrevolution
Less than a year after Compaoré’s departure, it broke down. On September 16, 2015, the RSP, headed by General Gilbert Diendéré, burst into a cabinet meeting and detained the transitional government. Diendéré himself was directly involved in Compaoré’s 1987 coup. Disbanding the RSP was a central demand of the movement. Leading up to the coup attempt, the transitional government was on the verge of giving in to this demand. This was too much for them.
Diendéré’s coup attempt served as what Marxists call the “whip of counterrevolution.” After the October insurrection, the masses adopted a “wait and see” attitude to the CNT, but the movement never disappeared entirely. Diendéré’s coup attempt was a shock that reminded the masses what was at stake and pushed them back into action, on a clearer level than before.
Le baloi citoyen, the unions, and even some of the bigger opposition parties, re-mobilized against the coup. Protests in central Ouagadougou faced RSP gunfire. The movement spread more easily outside of the capital, where the RSP had less support. Protesters in Diendéré’s hometown of Yako burned his house down. In Ouagadougou, the movement was able to set up barricades on the poorer outskirts of the city. Eventually protesters were able to surround the RSP base. By September 23, the coup was defeated.
The movement against the coup took the revolution farther than it had gone before. The RSP was dissolved. Trials were carried out over Diendéré’s coup, Norbert Zongo’s 1998 murder, and Sankara’s assassination. A new constitution not only enshrined term limits, but added new democratic rights, allowing freedom for new parties to contest elections, and for citizens to challenge laws.
These gains showed the power of the masses, but there were still limitations. Capitalism remained intact, as did much of Compaoré’s old patronage networks, even without Compaoré himself. When the elections came around that November, it was dominated by recent defectors from the CDP. Diabré’s UPC positioned itself as the party of the movement. The ultimate victor was Roch Marc Christian Kaboré of the Mouvement du peuple pour le progrès (MPP). Kaboré, a wealthy banker, had only broken from Compaoré in 2014. But, in addition to his connections to Compaoré’s patronage networks, Kaboré presented himself as a social democrat, which contrasted Diabré’s staunch neoliberalism.
In the aftermath, the worst of Compaoré’s dictatorship had been struck down by the masses. But the underlying social issues remained unresolved. Over time, this would endanger the gains of the revolution.
Burkina Faso today
In the intervening decade, Burkina Faso faced two more coup attempts. On January 23–24, 2022, Kaboré was ousted in a coup led by Lieutenant Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba. On September 30 of the same year, Damiba was himself ousted in a coup led by Captain Ibrahim Traoré. Unlike Diendéré’s coup attempt in 2015, the masses were unable to beat back these coups. Instead of a whip of counterrevolution propelling the struggle forward, the 2022 coups were just counterrevolution.
In power, Kaboré continued much of Compaoré’s politics, maintaining IMF-mandated austerity measures as well as military ties with French and US imperialism. In his inauguration speech, he portrayed his election as a victory “for an insurgent people,” but also declared, “Incivility, the questioning of the authority of the state, and in general, the disrespect of the law by citizens and legal entities must cease immediately. . . Everywhere, order and discipline must reign.” In 2020, Kaboré was re-elected in a vote marred by irregularities.
When the masses fought back against Diendéré’s coup attempt in 2015, the memory of the 2014 uprising was fresh in everyone’s mind. But the 2022 coups came after years of disappointment and democratic backsliding.
Burkina Faso’s situation further degraded due to international developments. As Libya’s 2011 uprising descended into civil war, arms and mercenaries spread into the Sahel. Through this, jihadist groups like Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and Boko Haram were able to build a base in the region. Beginning in 2015, Al-Qaeda and ISIS began carrying out attacks and kidnappings in Burkina Faso. In response Kaboré resumed collaboration with French and US troops as part of a counter-insurgency campaign. But the attacks grew, becoming almost daily phenomena by 2019.
An even bigger international development was the shift in global capitalism. The 2014 uprising came as the neoliberal era was heading into decline. Today, the neoliberal era has given way to a new era of inter-imperialist conflict between blocs around US and Chinese imperialism. In Burkina Faso and the wider Sahel, French and Russian imperialism have become the main representatives of the US and Chinese blocs respectively.
Damiba’s and Traoré’s coups were preceded and followed by coups in neighboring Mali and Niger respectively. The coup leaders in these three governments leaned on anti-French sentiments and horror at the jihadist attacks to make overtures to Russian imperialism and the Wagner group. Traoré has presented his opposition to French imperialism as anti-imperialism in general, and has draped himself in the imagery of Sankara and Che Guevara. But this is not genuine anti-imperialism. The concrete question of meeting the needs of the working masses, creation of jobs, education, health, good roads, transportation as well as ending insecurity constituted by the Jihadist threats demands the complete overthrow of capitalism and landlordism. And this is a task for the organized mass of the working masses, and not some select individuals or military officers. The democratic right to so organize is under attack, however, as Traoré is cracking down on Sankaraist groups like Le balai citoyen, banning the party, kidnapping their activists, and conscripting them to fight on the frontlines against the jihadists.
French and US imperialism have used these developments to disingenuously re-establish their democratic credentials, hoping people will forget the role they played for the past several decades. Their ability to do that, however, is currently being tested by the new “African Spring” of uprisings breaking out in US-backed countries like Kenya and Nigeria.
The struggles currently spreading across Africa will return to Burkina Faso itself. What’s needed is a mass, revolutionary, working-class party that can organize outside and against the dictates of the Traoré regime. But just as overthrowing Compaoré wasn’t enough, such a party can’t limit itself to overthrowing Traoré. It needs to take on the whole system of Burkinabè capitalism. This means organizing on a program to nationalize the mines, the cotton industry, and commanding heights of the economy under democratic workers’ control. In contrast to the aims of US, French, Russian, and Chinese imperialism, Burkinabè workers should rely on solidarity with the working-class struggles across the Sahel, Africa, and internationally. By doing away with the whole capitalist system we can achieve the full aims of the uprising of 2014.
