after twenty-three years of neo-colonialism – a paradise for some and hell for the rest.
After twenty-three years of imperialist domination and exploitation, our country remains a backward agricultural country, where the rural sector – employing 90 per cent of the workforce – accounts for only 45 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) and supplies 95 per cent of the country’s total exports.
More simply, it should be noted that in other countries, farmers constituting less than 5 per cent of the population manage not only to feed themselves adequately and satisfy the basic needs of the entire nation, but also to export enormous quantities of their agricultural produce. Here, however, more than 90 per cent of the population, despite strenuous exertions, experiences famine and deprivation and, along with the rest of the population, is compelled to fall back on imported agricultural products, if not on international aid.
The imbalance between exports and imports thus created accentuates the country’s dependence on foreign countries. The resulting trade deficit has grown considerably over the years, and the value of our exports covers only around 25 per cent of imports. To state it more clearly, we buy more from abroad than we sell abroad. And an economy that functions on such a basis increasingly goes bankrupt and is headed for catastrophe.
Private investments from abroad are not only insufficient, but also constitute a huge drain on the country’s economy and thus do not help strengthen its ability to accumulate wealth. An important portion of the wealth created with the help of foreign investments is siphoned off abroad, instead of being reinvested to increase the country’s productive capacity. In the 1973–79 period, it’s estimated that 1.7 billion CFA francs left the country each year as income from direct foreign investments, while new investments came to only an average of 1.3 billion CFA francs a year.14
The insufficient level of productive investments has led the Voltaic state to play a fundamental role in the nation’s economy through its efforts to compensate for the lack of private investment. This is a difficult situation, considering that the state’s budgeted income basically consists of tax revenues, which represent 85 per cent of total revenues and largely come from import duties and taxes.
In addition to making national investments, this income finances government spending, 70 per cent of which goes to pay the salaries of civil servants and to ensure the functioning of administrative services. What, then, can possibly be left over for social and cultural investments?
In the field of education, our country is among the most backward, with 16.4 per cent of children attending school and an illiteracy rate that reaches 92 per cent on average. This means that of every 100 Voltaics, barely 8 know how to read and write in any language.
On the level of health, the rate of illness and mortality is among the highest in the sub region due to the proliferation of communicable diseases and nutritional deficiencies. How can such a catastrophic situation be avoided when we know that our country has only one hospital bed per 1,200 inhabitants and one doctor per 48,000 inhabitants?
These few elements alone suffice to illustrate the legacy left to us by twenty-three years of neo-colonialism, twenty-three years of a policy of total national neglect. No Voltaic who loves and honours his country can remain indifferent to this most desperate situation.
Indeed our people, a courageous, hardworking people, have never been able to tolerate such a situation. Because they have understood that this was not an inevitable situation, but a question of society being organised on an unjust basis for the sole benefit of a minority. They have therefore waged different types of struggles, searching for the ways and means to put an end to the old order of things.
That is why they enthusiastically greeted the National Council of the Revolution and the August revolution. These constitute the crowning achievement of the efforts they expended and the sacrifices they accepted so as to overthrow the old order, establish a new order capable of rehabilitating Voltaic man, and give our country a leading place within the community of free, prosperous, and respected nations.
The parasitic classes that had always profited from colonial and neo-colonial Upper Volta are, and will continue to be, hostile to the transformations undertaken by the revolutionary process begun on 4 August 1983. The reason for this is that they are and remain attached to international imperialism by an umbilical cord. They are and remain fervent defenders of the privileges acquired through their allegiance to imperialism.
Regardless of what is done, regardless of what is said, they will remain true to themselves and will continue to plot and scheme in order to reconquer their “lost kingdom”. Do not expect these nostalgic people to change their mentality and attitude. The only language they respond to and understand is the language of struggle, the revolutionary class struggle against the exploiters and oppressors of the people. For them, our revolution will be the most authoritarian thing that exists. It will be an act by which the people impose their will on them by all the means at their disposal, including arms, if necessary.
Who are these enemies of the people?
They revealed themselves in the eyes of the people during the 17 May events by their viciousness against the revolutionary forces. The people identified these enemies of the people in the heat of revolutionary action. They are:
1.The Voltaic bourgeoisie, which can be broken down, by the functions of its various layers, into the state bourgeoisie, the comprador bourgeoisie, and the middle bourgeoisie.
The state bourgeoisie. This is the layer known by the label political-bureaucratic bourgeoisie. This is a bourgeoisie that has enriched itself in an illicit and criminal manner through its political monopoly. It has used the state apparatus just as an industrial capitalist uses his means of production to accumulate surplus value drawn from the exploitation of workers’ labour power. This layer of the bourgeoisie will never willingly renounce its former privileges and sit by passively observing the revolutionary transformations under way.
The commercial bourgeoisie. This layer, by virtue of its business activity, is tied to imperialism through numerous bonds. For this layer, elimination of imperialist domination means the death of “the goose that lays the golden egg”. That is why it will oppose the present revolution with all its might. Coming from this category, for example, are the corrupt merchants who seek to starve the people by taking food supplies off the market for purposes of speculation and economic sabotage.
The middle bourgeoisie. Although this layer of the Voltaic bourgeoisie has ties to imperialism, it competes with the latter for control of the market. But since it is economically weaker, imperialism supplants it. So it has grievances against imperialism. But it also fears the people, and this fear can lead it to make a bloc with imperialism. Nevertheless, since imperialist domination of our country prevents this layer from playing its real role as a national bourgeoisie, some of its members could, under certain circumstances, be favourable to the revolution, which would objectively place them in the people’s camp. However, we must cultivate revolutionary mistrust between the people and individuals like these who come over to the revolution. Because all kinds of opportunists will rally to the revolution under this guise.
2.The reactionary forces that base their power on the traditional, feudal-type structures of our society. In their majority, these forces were able to put up staunch resistance to French colonial imperialism. But ever since our country attained its national sovereignty, they have joined with the reactionary bourgeoisie in oppressing the Voltaic people. These forces have put the peasant masses in the position of being a reservoir of votes to be delivered to the highest bidder.
In order to safeguard their interests, which they share with imperialism in opposition to those of the people, these reactionary forces most frequently rely on the decaying and declining values of our traditional culture that still endure in rural areas. To the extent that our revolution aims to democratise social relations in the countryside, giving more responsibilities to the peasants, and making more education and knowledge available to them for their own economic and cultural emancipation, these backward forces will oppose it.
These are the enemies of the people in the present revolution, enemies that the people themselves identified during the May events. These are the individuals who made up the bulk of the isolated marchers