Revolutionary Movements in Africa

An Untold Story

Pascal Bianchini, Ndongo Samba Sylla, Leo Zeilig, Pascal Bianchini, Ndongo Samba Sylla, Leo Zeilig

• Publisher: Pluto Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9780745347868
• eBook ISBN: 9780745347882
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: African History
• Index: History

‘A remarkable volume on the vicissitudes of the revolutionary left in post-independence Africa’ Issa Shivji, Professor Emeritus at the University of Dar es Salaam

‘Twenty-first-century radicals should find new inspiration for action in this untold history’ Jean Copans, anthropologist and sociologist 

‘From the Tubu nomads of northern Chad to peasants, workers and students throughout the African continent, we see how these movements used old and new ideas to mobilize emancipatory struggles for change’ Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, Professor of African and Global Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 

While the revolutionary left of the 1960s and 1970s in Europe, the United States and Latin America have been the subject of abundant discussion, similar movements that emerged in Africa have received comparatively little attention. 

Yet Africa’s radical left was extremely active in these years. With pro-Soviet movements, Maoism, Trotskyism, Guevarism, Pan-Africanism and the Black Panthers, the rumble of revolution was felt across the continent. From feminist student rebels in Nigeria to pro-democracy movements in Liberia, the exciting and complex interplay between these many actors changed Africa forever. Can we see echoes of these movements in African politics today? What can we learn from the people who lived through these decades? How can revolutionary struggles on the continent today learn from this rich history? This unique collection will shed new light on Africa’s radical decades for those who are seeking new and important insights into global revolutionary history. 

Pascal Bianchini is a sociologist and independent researcher based in Senegal. Ndongo Samba Sylla is a Senegalese development economist and the co-author of Africa’s Last Colonial Currency. Leo Zeilig is an editor of the Review of African Political Economy and is the author of several books including A Revolutionary for Our Time: The Walter Rodney Story.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• About Codesria
• Introduction: Remembering a Forgotten History
• 1. Political Struggle in Senegal in the 1960s and 1970s: The Artistic and Literary Front
• 2. The Revolutionary Left in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Case of Mali
• 3. The History of the Upper Volta Revolutionary Left: From Ideological Struggles within the Student Movement to the Creation of the PCRV and the ULC
• 4. Student and ‘Post’-Student Activism in Niger, 1970s–80s
• 5. The Labour Movement, Marxism, Northern Leftists, Feminist Socialism and Student Rebels in Nigeria, 1963–78
• 6. The Movement for Justice in Africa and Democratisation in Liberia
• 7. The Frolinat and the Saharan Footprint on an African Revolution: The Case of the Chadian North
• 8. Brazzaville: Crossroads of the Revolutionary Left in Central Africa in the 1960s and 1970s
• 9. May 1972 in Madagascar: A Student Movement Causing the Fall of the ‘Father of Independence’
• 10. Southern Sudanese Radical Projects, c. 1963–83
• 11. Communists of Katwe: Pan-African Marxism and the Uganda People’s Congress, c. 1960–c. 1964
• 12. Challenging ‘African Socialism’ through Marxism-Leninism: The University Students African Revolutionary Front in Tanzania
• 13. Questions from the Dar es Salaam Debates
• 14. The Road to Durban: Workers’ Struggles, Student Movements, and the Resurgence of Resistance Politics in Namibia and South Africa
• 15. Dimitri Tsafendas: An African Revolutionary
• Conclusion: A Tribute to Two ‘Great Witnesses’ Invited to the Dakar Conference in 2019, Moctar Fofana Niang and Eugénie Rokhaya Aw
• Notes on Contributors
• Index