Thomas Sankara Speaks. Thomas Sankara
protected by a cordon of soldiers, demonstrated their class support for the already moribund regime that had emerged from the reactionary and pro-imperialist coup.
The rest of the population, aside from the reactionary and anti-revolutionary classes and social layers enumerated above, is what comprises the Voltaic people. A people who consider imperialist domination and exploitation to be an abomination and who have continually demonstrated this by concrete, daily struggle against the various neo-colonial regimes. In the present revolution the people consist of:
i.The Voltaic working class, young and few in number, but which, through unremitting struggle against the bosses, has been able to prove that it is a genuinely revolutionary class. In the present revolution, it is a class that has everything to gain and nothing to lose. It has no means of production to lose, it has no piece of property to defend within the framework of the old neo-colonial society. It is convinced, however, that the revolution is its business, because it will emerge from it in a stronger position.
ii.The petty bourgeoisie, which constitutes a vast, very unstable social layer that quite often vacillates between the cause of the popular masses and that of imperialism. In its large majority, it always ends up by taking the side of the popular masses. It includes the most diverse components, including small shopkeepers, petty-bourgeois intellectuals (civil servants, college and high school students, private sector employees, etc.), and artisans.
3.The Voltaic peasantry, which in its big majority consists of small peasants, who are tied to small plots of land because of the gradual disintegration of collective property forms since the introduction of the capitalist mode of production in our country. Market relations have increasingly dissolved communal bonds and replaced them with private property over the means of production. In the new situation thus created by the penetration of capitalism into our countryside, the Voltaic peasant, tied to small-scale production, embodies bourgeois productive relations. Given all these considerations, the Voltaic peasantry is an integral part of the category of the petty bourgeoisie.
Because of the past and its present situation, the peasantry is the social layer that has paid the highest toll for imperialist domination and exploitation. The economic and cultural backwardness that characterises our countryside has long kept the peasantry isolated from the great currents of progress and modernisation, relegating it to the role of reservoir for reactionary political parties. Nevertheless, the peasantry has a stake in the revolution and, in terms of numbers, is its principal force.
4.The lumpen-proletariat. This is the category of declassed individuals who, since they are without jobs, are prone to hire themselves out to reactionary and counter-revolutionary forces to carry out the latter’s dirty work. To the extent that the revolution can provide them something useful to do, they can become its fervent defenders.
THE CHARACTER AND SCOPE OF THE AUGUST REVOLUTION
The revolutions that occur around the world are not at all alike. Each revolution presents original features that distinguish it from the others. Our revolution, the August revolution, is no exception. It takes into account the special features of our country, its level of development, and its subjugation by the world imperialist capitalist system.
Our revolution is a revolution that is unfolding in a backward, agricultural country, where the weight of tradition and ideology emanating from a feudal-type social organisation weighs very heavily on the popular masses. It is a revolution in a country that, because of imperialism’s domination and exploitation of our people, has evolved from a colony into a neo-colony.
It is a revolution occurring in a country still characterised by the lack of an organised working class conscious of its historic mission, and which therefore possesses no tradition of revolutionary struggle. It is a revolution occurring in a small country on the continent, at a time when, on the international level, the revolutionary movement is coming apart day by day, without any visible hope of seeing a homogenous bloc arise capable of giving a stimulus and practical support to nascent revolutionary movements. This set of historical, geographic, and sociological circumstances gives a certain, specific stamp to our revolution.
The August revolution exhibits a dual character: It is a democratic and a popular revolution.
Its primary tasks are to eliminate imperialist domination and exploitation; and to purge the countryside of all the social, economic, and cultural obstacles that keep it in a backward state. Its democratic character flows from this.
It draws its popular character from the full participation of the Voltaic masses in the revolution, and their consistent mobilisation around democratic and revolutionary slogans that concretely express their own interests in opposition to those of the reactionary classes allied with imperialism. The popular character of the August revolution also lies in the fact that, in place of the old state machinery, new machinery is being built, capable of guaranteeing the democratic exercise of power by the people and for the people.
Our present revolution as characterised above, while being an anti-imperialist revolution, is still unfolding within the framework of the limits of the bourgeois economic and social order. By analysing the social classes of Voltaic society, we have put forward the idea that the Voltaic bourgeoisie does not constitute a single, homogenous, reactionary, and anti-revolutionary mass. Indeed, what characterises the bourgeoisie in underdeveloped countries under capitalist relations is its congenital inability to revolutionise society as the bourgeoisie of the European countries did in the 1780s, that is, at the time when it still constituted a rising class.
Such are the characteristics and limitations of the present revolution launched in Upper Volta on 4 August 1983. Having a clear view and precise definition of its content guards us against the dangers of deviation and excesses that could be detrimental to the victorious march of the revolution. All those who have taken up the cause of the August revolution should fix firmly in their minds the guiding principles laid out here. By doing so they can assume their role as conscious revolutionaries. And, as genuine, bold, and tireless propagandists, they can disseminate these principles among the masses.
It is no longer enough to call oneself a revolutionary. We also need to be absolutely clear on the profound meaning of the revolution we fervently defend. This is the best way to defend it from the attacks and distortions that the counter-revolutionaries will not fail to use against it. Knowing how to link revolutionary theory to revolutionary practice will be the decisive criterion from now on in distinguishing consistent revolutionaries from all those who flock to the revolution under motives that are alien to the revolutionary cause.
ON POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY IN THE EXERCISE OF REVOLUTIONARY POWER
As we have said, one of the distinctive traits of the August revolution and which endows it with its popular character, is that it is a movement of the vast majority for the benefit of the vast majority.
It is a revolution made by the Voltaic popular masses themselves, with their own slogans and aspirations. The goal of this revolution consists in having the people assume power. That is the reason why the first act of the revolution, following the 4 August proclamation, was the appeal addressed to the people to create Committees for the Defence of the Revolution [CDRs]. The National Council of the Revolution is convinced that for this revolution to be a genuinely popular revolution, it must proceed to destroy the neo-colonial state machinery and organise new machinery capable of guaranteeing popular sovereignty. The question of knowing how this popular power will be exercised, how this power should be organised, is an essential question for the future of our revolution.
Until today, the history of our country has essentially been dominated by the exploiting and conservative classes, which have exercised their antidemocratic and anti-popular dictatorship through their stranglehold on politics, the economy, ideology, culture, the administration, and the judicial system.
The primary goal of the revolution is to transfer power from the hands of the Voltaic bourgeoisie allied with imperialism to the hands of the alliance of popular classes that constitute the people. This means that from now on the people, who hold power, will have to counter-pose their democratic and popular power to the antidemocratic, anti-popular dictatorship of the reactionary alliance of social classes that favour imperialism.
This democratic and