Africa is alive with discussion on how to achieve genuine independence and freedom. Many decades on from “flag independence”, little has fundamentally changed for poor and working people. Grinding poverty, corruption and neocolonialism remain.
Figures like Burkina Faso’s military ruler Ibrahim Traoré, along with other leaders in the Sahel who came to power through coups in the 2020s have recently become beacons of hope for millions across the region. Traoré’s anti-imperialist language and sharp rebuffs to French imperialism, which stands in verbal contrast to client states of Western imperialism, has inspired many.
Traoré has naturally drawn historical comparisons with Thomas Sankara, the country’s Pan-Africanist president from 1983 to 1987, whose commitment to anti-imperialist policies and meeting the needs of the poor still resonates today.
But what did Sankara’s rule represent, and what lessons can be drawn from this period in history for those fighting imperialism and capitalism today?
Colonial revolution
The events of 1983-87 flowed from the broader process of the colonial revolution which had swept the continent in previous decades. Numerous anti-colonial liberation wars were being waged. Owing to the weakness of the native national bourgeoisie, combined with the example of the USSR and China as an alternative (despite their bureaucratic deformations) to capitalism and colonialism, a number of revolutionary governments were lifted to power, often carrying out nationalisations and land reforms which challenged imperialist interests. In some countries like Angola, Mozambique, and Namibia, this even led to the temporary formation of nationalised planned economies, albeit under bureaucratic control without workers’ democracy.
In the absence of a powerful independent workers’ movement, these governments were led by radical military officers who were pushed to the left by the weight of events.
Sankara, who began his training at the military academy of Upper Volta while under French occupation, was exposed at this time to radical ideas through the influence of pro-Stalinist intellectuals and junior officers. He and a group of left-wing students began secret discussions on colonialism and African liberation, under the guidance of Adama Touré, a leading pro-Soviet thinker.
Sankara’s rise to power came through his role as a senior military officer, coinciding at the same time with a series of coups across the region which installed bonapartist regimes. Leaders like Ghana’s Jerry Rawlings and Libya’s Gaddafi veered between responding to mass struggles from below – claiming to represent them at certain points – while violently crushing them at others.
Initially taking a ministerial post in a military government in 1981, Sankara resigned in protest against its pro-capitalist and pro-imperialist policies under the pressure of a mass protest and strike wave. In 1983, after returning to government, he was jailed by the authoritarian dictatorship for calling for an end to French imperialist domination. When he was imprisoned, crowds of students, workers, and the poor descended on the capital Ouagadougou calling for his release. When he was finally released and the old regime deposed, Sankara took power and proclaimed a new revolutionary government, which began making sweeping changes to the country.
Neocolonialism
Sankara’s government inherited a society marred by extreme deprivation stemming from decades of French imperialist rule. Far from bringing freedom, independence simply converted classical colonialism into neocolonialism. Direct French rule was converted into indirect rule, with French multinationals continuing to loot the country’s wealth. This was the ninth poorest country in the world, with a life expectancy in the 40s. In rural areas, the illiteracy rate was as high as 98%.
Sankara’s enduring popularity is a testament to the progressive and anti-imperialist reforms carried out over this period. His stature as ‘Africa’s Che Guevara’ is a reflection of his genuine personal commitment to the cause of worldwide anti-imperialist liberation. His regime gave clear support to anti-colonial struggles across the world, from movements in neighbouring African countries to solidarity with the Cuban revolution and the fight against South African apartheid. In one case, Sankara famously confronted French President François Mitterrand in 1986 before a big audience of journalists, humiliating and chastising Mitterrand for his ties to the South African apartheid regime. As a symbol of this anti-imperialist stance, Sankara renamed the country from Upper Volta – a name imposed under imperialism – to Burkina Faso (“land of upright men”).
Instead of paying off imperialist debt, his government prioritised the urgent needs of the people. Emergency campaigns were launched to combat illiteracy, infant mortality, and poverty. Public works programmes were set in motion to build roads, schools and housing. It was one of the first governments in Africa to recognise HIV/AIDS as a growing crisis, and carried out the vaccination of 2.5 million children against preventable diseases. The country’s land and mineral wealth were nationalised and land reform introduced. These measures led to major increases in food production, reductions in hunger which weakened the country’s subordination to French imperialism.
The government also placed major emphasis on combating the encroachment of the Sahel desert through mass land cultivation and tree planting. Sankara recognised desertification for what it was: not a natural phenomenon but a product of imperialism: “This struggle to defend the trees and forests is above all a struggle against imperialism. Because imperialism is the arsonist setting fire to our forests and savannas.”
His regime brought major gains for women in a society where they were effectively treated as property. This involved challenging the patriarchal tribal leaders who French imperialism leaned on for support. The government outlawed feudal practices like forced marriage. It legalised divorce for women and banned female genital mutilation.
The regime’s propaganda aimed to politically awaken women. Campaigns encouraged them to speak out against patriarchal oppression in their communities. Women were actively recruited into the state and the military, and one of the key slogans of the revolutionary government became, “Down with the man who beats his wife.”
The government also tried to rein in some of the worst excesses of the state. Privileges like large salaries, housing benefits and luxury cars enjoyed by officials were significantly reduced. Officers were expected to live in conditions similar to those of ordinary people in the cities, and many were sent to work in the fields on agriculture or irrigation projects.
Sankara is particularly remembered for selling off the old regime’s fleet of luxury Rolls-Royce, Mercedes, and Cadillac cars, replacing them with modest Peugeot 205s – the cheapest option available. He personally drove one of these cars without a chauffeur and was said to own very few personal possessions.
Counterrevolution
But very quickly, Sankara’s government came under direct imperialist pressure and sabotage, culminating in a coup. The U.S. ambassador to Burkina Faso, Leonardo Neher, was quoted as saying, “We are not going to allow another Cuba in Africa.”
On October 15, Sankara was subjected to a surprise assault by key figures from his inner circle, with the charge led by his former deputy, Blaise Compaoré. Sankara was shot and buried in an unmarked grave, which remained hidden for decades afterward.
Compaoré took the reins of power with the full blessing and connivance of French and U.S. imperialism. The gains of the revolution were reversed, and nationalised property was privatised.
How did this happen? Of course, the blame primarily sits with imperialism. Sankara’s murder fits into a long history of coups and the bloody repression of revolutionary movements in the neo-colonial world. But it would be superficial to stop there. It wasn’t historically inevitable that the gains of 1983-87 were to be wiped out.
It has to be pointed out how an entire revolution could be defeated through the death of a single man, which was in fact a sign of its deepest vulnerability, pointing also to the character of the regime.
Sankara undeniably enjoyed massive popular support, but his government was never based on the mass mobilisation, participation and control by the working class and poor. The fact that he seized power through a military coup meant his rule rested on the idea of him as a “saviour” who would bring change, not with the participation of, but on behalf of the masses. What he called the “August Revolution” was not so much a revolution in reality as it was a military coup, carried out from above and lacking deep roots among the organised masses.
The speed with which the progressive gains were wiped out serves as a brutal confirmation of Marx and Engels’ observation that “the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes.”
Sankara, of course, did use the language of Marx, Engels and Lenin. He spoke of the need for the army to “melt into the people,” saying:
“Gone are the days when our national army behaved like a body of foreign mercenaries on conquered soil! That time is gone forever. Armed with political and ideological training, our soldiers, NCOs, and officers involved in the revolutionary process will cease to be potential criminals and become conscious revolutionaries — among the people, like fish in water.
To serve the revolution, the People’s National Army must reject those who despise or abuse the people. An army of the people, serving the people — this is the new army we will build, in place of the neo-colonial army, that instrument of oppression and repression in the hands of the reactionary bourgeoisie.”
As stirring as these words were, the problem was they were never carried out in practice. Despite his genuine dedication and commitment to anti-imperialism, the army he led remained fundamentally unchanged from the colonial era. The primary reason for the triumph of the counterrevolution was due to this – the failure of the revolution to consolidate itself by breaking up the capitalist neocolonial state machine.
Permanent revolution
The events of 1983–87 serve as a reverse confirmation of Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution, which says that in neocolonial countries dominated by imperialism, the weak and dependent national capitalist class lacks both the capacity and the will to resist imperialism. Instead, it accommodates it and fears the working class far more. Trotsky explained that achieving even basic democratic tasks would have to mean the working class going further and breaking with capitalism, including breaking the capitalist state.
This theory was strikingly confirmed in the colonial revolution. In their struggle for national independence, economic development and other pillars of a viable nation-state, many anti-imperialist governments were compelled to take measures that struck at capitalist property relations, in some cases establishing fully nationalised planned economies.
However many of these examples were not based on a conscious programme of socialism. Many of these regimes, run by military leaders and generals, were inclined to go only halfway in carrying out the socialist revolution, in large part because they wanted to maintain their own privileges and perks.
The only real alternative would have been a mass, organised revolutionary movement of the small but immensely powerful working class – the rail workers, bus drivers, dock workers, textiles, construction as well as teaching and public-sector employees.
Completing the socialist revolution across the Sahel and West Africa could only have been carried out with the mass mobilisation of the working class, with the active support of peasants and small traders. Rather than relying on a small band of generals who were liable to turn on the masses, the revolution needed to be based on arming the people, with a workers’ and peasants’ armed militia to guard against counterrevolution.
Bottom-up councils of workers and farmers would have to take on the management of the nationalised companies and resources, as a first step to building a democratically planned socialist economy. This could not have been achieved in the severely underdeveloped Burkina Faso alone, but only through a West African regional revolution and beyond.
History shows that such a socialist programme can only be carried through to the end by building a mass revolutionary socialist party grounded in Marxist ideas. These were not just lofty ideals but real, concrete possibilities which were being posed at the time.
Military rule
Unfortunately, the Sankara regime’s failure to do these things – relying on military rule rather than the democratic organisation of the working class – tragically opened the door for the counterrevolution to advance and triumph.
Discussing these errors is not in any way to cast doubt on Sankara’s sincerity, or his genuine anti-imperialist convictions. They didn’t stem primarily from his personal weaknesses; they were fundamentally about the character of his regime as a military junta.
Rather than modelling itself on the Marxism of Lenin, Trotsky and the Bolsheviks, Sankara’s regime drew its inspiration heavily from Stalinism. He ultimately emulated the bureaucratic regime of the Soviet Union, where the progressive benefits of the planned economy were hampered by the exclusion of the working class from political power.
By following this model, Sankara ruled on behalf of the people, but without the participation of the people. Instead of building a mass revolutionary party with internal democratic discussion, decision-making was confined to a small circle of himself and other generals in the National Council of the Revolution. The masses, though overwhelmingly supportive of the government’s reforms, remained largely passive spectators, excluded from real participation.
True, Sankara did establish “Committees for the Defence of the Revolution” modelled on the Cuban revolution, but these were not genuine organs of workers’ democracy. Rather than bodies for collective decision making, their role was generally limited to that of implementing policies already decided at the top.
This method of ruling from above by personal whim and decree in the manner of a military officer is not something Marxists criticise for its own sake. It had direct and concrete consequences for the fate of the revolution. These lessons were starkly illustrated in 1987, when a strike of teachers was met with repression. Over 1,000 were dismissed from their posts on the spot by the regime.
Reflecting his social position, Sankara looked on independent workers’ action much like a military general would view ‘insubordination’ from their troops, and proceeded to crack down. This alienated a key section of the working class and created an opening for the counterrevolution to take hold. When Blaise Compaoré seized power, he cynically invoked the need to “heal the rift” with the teachers and listed this episode among Sankara’s “crimes” in office.
Conclusion
Sankara’s legacy was ultimately a tragic one. The story of gains and mistakes made in Burkina Faso between 1983 and 1987 is full of lessons for today.
Sankara’s government took a number of revolutionary measures which enraged imperialism and transformed the lives of millions. Yet, in the absence of direct control by working people themselves, Sankara himself was left suspended in midair, allowing the revolutionary process to be decapitated from above.
The experience of these years showed that military regimes, no matter the good intentions of those leading them, cannot be a vehicle for the socialist transformation of society.
Traoré’s military regime today projects itself as the heir to Sankara’s legacy. Yet, despite breaking ties with French imperialism, it has instead opened the door to rival Russian imperialism, with the mercenary Wagner Group seizing control of the country’s gold mines and natural resources. Rather than challenging patriarchal oppression and the reactionary family structures Sankara sought to transform, Traoré has reinforced them with a recent state ban on homosexuality.
The only force capable of ending oppression and neocolonial exploitation in the Sahel and across Africa is the working class, youth, and poor, organised independently in their own struggles and movements. The revolutionary movement of 2014 which drove Compaoré out of office, for example, was not only inspired by Sankara’s legacy but based on methods of mass struggle – popular mobilisations, general strikes and mass civil disobedience. These are the kinds of methods which need to be reclaimed and built on today.
Only a workers’ government, based on democratic control by the masses from below, can realise Sankara’s vision of a world free from neocolonial domination – one built on the expropriation of capitalist wealth and the use of society’s resources for the people and the planet.
