Thomas Sankara Speaks. Thomas Sankara
vexation, these persons devote themselves to undermining the revolution because they did not get what they wanted. This proves that they participated in the revolution without ever understanding its real objectives.
One does not make a revolution simply to take the place of the despots who have been deposed. One does not participate in the revolution for vindictive reasons, driven by the desire for a privileged position: “Get out of the way and make room for me!” This kind of motive is alien to the ideals of the August revolution. Those with this motivation demonstrate their petty-bourgeois careerist flaws, if not their dangerous counter-revolutionary opportunism.
The image of the revolutionary that the CNR seeks to impress on everyone’s consciousness is that of an activist who is one with the masses, who has faith in them, and who respects them. He rids himself of any contemptuous attitude toward them. He does not see himself as a schoolmaster to whom the masses owe obedience and submission. To the contrary, he learns from them, listens to them carefully, and pays attention to their opinions. He drops all authoritarian methods worthy of reactionary bureaucrats.
The revolution is not destructive anarchy. It demands an exemplary conduct and discipline. Acts of vandalism and adventurist actions of all sorts, rather than strengthening the revolution by winning the masses’ support, weaken it and repel countless masses. That is why CDR members must increase their sense of responsibility toward the people and seek to inspire respect and admiration.
Inadequacies such as these most often reflect ignorance on the character and objectives of the revolution. To guard against that, we must immerse ourselves in the study of revolutionary theory. Theoretical study deepens our understanding of phenomena, clarifies our actions, and protects us against a good many assumptions. From now on we must give special importance to this aspect of the question and strive to set examples that inspire others to follow us.
FOR REVOLUTIONISING ALL SECTORS OF VOLTAIC SOCIETY
All the previous political regimes, one after the other, until now have strived to introduce measures to better run neo-colonial society. The changes introduced by these regimes amounted to installing new teams within the continuity of neo-colonial power. None of these regimes wished nor was able to question the socioeconomic foundations of Voltaic society. That is why they all failed.
The August revolution does not aim to establish one more regime in Upper Volta. It represents a break with all previously known regimes. Its ultimate goal is to build a new Voltaic society, within which the Voltaic citizen, driven by revolutionary consciousness, will be the architect of his own happiness, a happiness equal to the efforts he will have made.
To do this, the revolution – whether the conservative and backward forces like it or not – will be a deep and total upheaval that will spare no domain, no sector of economic, social, and cultural activity.
Revolutionising all domains and all sectors of activity is the slogan of the day. Strengthened by the guiding principles laid out here, each citizen should work to revolutionise his sector of activity, wherever he finds himself.
The philosophy of revolutionary transformations is already affecting the following sectors: (1) the national army; (2) policies concerning women; and (3) economic development.
(1) The national army: its place in the democratic and popular revolution
According to the defence doctrine of revolutionary Upper Volta, a conscious people cannot leave their homeland’s defence to one group of men, however competent they may be. Conscious people take charge themselves of their homeland’s defence. To this end, our armed forces constitute simply a detachment that is more specialised than the rest of the population for Upper Volta’s internal and external security requirements. Similarly, even though the health of the Voltaic people is the business of the people and of each individual Voltaic, there exists and will continue to exist a more specialised medical corps that devotes more time to the question of public health.
The revolution imposes three missions on the national armed forces:
1.To be capable of combating all internal and external enemies and to participate in the military training of the rest of the people. This presupposes an increased operational capacity, making each soldier a competent fighter, unlike the old army, which was merely a mass of employees.
2.To participate in national production. Indeed, the new soldier must live and suffer among the people to which he belongs. The days of the free-spending army are over. From now on, besides handling arms, the army will work in the fields and raise cattle, sheep, and poultry. It will build schools and health clinics and ensure their functioning. It will maintain roads and will transport mail, the sick, and agricultural products between regions by air.
3.To train each soldier as a revolutionary militant. Gone are the days when the army was declared to be neutral and apolitical, while in fact serving as the bastion of reaction and the guardian of imperialist interests. Gone are the days when our national army conducted itself like a corps of foreign mercenaries in conquered territory. Those days are gone forever. Armed with political and ideological training, our soldiers, non-commissioned officers, and officers engaged in the revolutionary process will no longer be potential criminals, but will instead become conscious revolutionaries, at home among the people like a fish in water.
As an army at the service of the revolution, the National Popular Army will have no place for any soldier who looks down on, scorns, or brutalises his people. An army of the people at the service of the people – such is the new army we are building in place of the neo-colonial army, which was utilised to rule over the people as a veritable instrument of oppression and repression in the hands of the reactionary bourgeoisie. Such an army, even in terms of its internal organisation and its principles of functioning, will be fundamentally different from the old army. Thus, instead of blind obedience of soldiers toward their officers, of subordinates toward their superiors, a healthy discipline will be developed that, while strict, will be based on its conscious acceptance by the men and the troops.
Contrary to the opinions of reactionary officers fostered by a colonial attitude, the politicisation of the army, its revolutionisation, does not signal the end of discipline. Discipline in a politicised army will have a new content. It will be a revolutionary discipline. That is, a discipline that derives its strength from the fact that the human dignity of the officer and the soldier, of the commissioned and non-commissioned personnel, is worth the same, and that they differ from one another only with regard to their concrete tasks and respective responsibilities. Armed with this understanding of the relations between men, military cadres must respect their men, love them, and treat them as equals.
Here too the Committees for the Defence of the Revolution have a fundamental role to play. CDR militants within the army must be tireless pioneers in building the National Popular Army of the democratic and popular state, whose essential tasks internally will be to defend the rights and interests of the people, maintain revolutionary order, and safeguard the democratic and popular power; its task externally will be to defend our territorial integrity.
(2) The Voltaic woman: her role in the democratic and popular revolution
The weight of age-old traditions in our society has relegated women to the rank of beasts of burden. Women suffer doubly from all the scourges of neo-colonial society. First, they experience the same suffering as men. Second, they are subjected to additional suffering by men.
Our revolution is in the interests of all the oppressed and all those who are exploited in today’s society. It is therefore in the interests of women, since the basis of their domination by men lies in the system through which society’s political and economic life is organised. By changing the social order that oppresses women, the revolution creates the conditions for their genuine emancipation.
The women and men of our society are all victims of imperialist oppression and domination. That is why they wage the same battle. The revolution and women’s liberation go together. We do not talk of women’s emancipation as an act of charity or out of a surge of human compassion. It is a basic necessity for the revolution to triumph. Women hold up the other half of the sky.
Forging a new mentality among Voltaic women that allows them to take responsibility