This is a story about an African identity crisis that affects both leaders and electorate to this day. It is a story that has its origins in early 20th century Soviet Russia, following the spread of ideas written by German philosopher Karl Marx in his book “Das Kapital.”
The economic and social theory of Communism or Marxism born out of that book was adopted wholesale by the Russians following the Bolshevik revolution. They in turn began spreading this philosophy around the world of the 20th century, at a time when capitalism was indistinguishable from colonialism.
In the midst of this story comes the central African figure, a charismatic Ghanaian leader called Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah. Joining him are notable names like Amilcar Cabral of Guinea Bissau, Agostinho Neto of Angola and Majhemout Diop of Senegal.
The work of African History PhD student Matt Swagler provides a deep and useful insight into how the anti-capitalist struggles of the Soviets and the anti-Colonialist struggles of Africa and much of Asia fell into lockstep in the early to mid 20th century.
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Marxism replaces colonialism
One of the unintended consequences of the disgraceful behaviour of European colonialists in Africa and Asia was that it became impossible to make a distinction between the economic system of capitalism and the racial caste system of colonialism. As Swagler points out, early to mid-20th century anti-colonial African thinkers found Marxism to be the only natural and reasonable opposition to colonialism.
As African intellectuals love to do, our recent ancestors convinced themselves that the fights taking place in Europe between two types of rich White civilisations was also their fight
The Russians cleverly exploited this de-facto alignment by offering thousands of scholarships and exchange visits to Africa’s best and brightest, displaying to them the wonders of centrally planned dictatorships as an alternative to the rapacious, racist, thieving, colonialist capitalism of Western-style democracies.
The strategy worked brilliantly as thousands of newly independent and highly educated Africans took the side of Russia and China in the post-WW2 civilisational conflict that later became known as the Cold War.
A prime example of this is Majhemout Diop, a student from Senegal who in the 1950s studied for three years in Romania – then part of the USSR – where he was exposed to Soviet ideas which he took back home with him, eventually establishing the Parti Africain de l’indépendance (PAI), Senegal’s first revolutionary communist political party.
This party played a huge role in the subsequent history of Senegal by becoming the first party to openly call for independence from France while training new recruits to see the anti-colonial struggle and the Marxist struggle as one and the same thing – which in actual fact they were not.
A similar scenario also played out with Amilcar Cabral and Agostinho Neto, who both picked up Marxist ideas from Soviet-linked groups, later becoming the foremost anti-colonial figures in Lusophone Africa.
Names like Ouezzin Coulibaly, Sékou Touré, Modibo Keita and Gabrielle Lisette also found their way into this narrative, as the Soviets successfully got the world’s most recent independent continent to see freedom from colonialism and Marxism as brothers-in-arms.
Same old story
The Soviets were so successful at doing this that Vladimir Lenin’s book, “Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism,” published in 1917 became one of the most popular books across the continent, finding an enthusiastic audience within Africa’s young intelligentsia. This book portrayed colonialism as the logical outcome of capitalism and pitched Marxism as the solution to international conflict war and slavery.
Something else the Soviets did was to co-opt the Chinese Revolution of 1949 – which was really a war against Japanese aggression – into the same narrative.
As African intellectuals love to do, our recent ancestors convinced themselves that the fights taking place in Europe between two types of rich White civilisations were also their fight. The fight taking place in China was also their fight. The fight taking place along the Korean Peninsula’s 11th parallel was also their fight.
Heck, the Vietnam War was also their fight because Ho Chi Minh—a Communist with origins in 1920s France – had once worked with the likes of Lamine Senghor of Senegal in the Marxist communities of Paris.
And so, unsurprisingly, here we are today.
It is the same old story. You just have to draw it back far enough.
