Smashing Neocolonial Rule in Congo-Brazzaville

A struggle for non-capitalist development, people’s democracy, and scientific socialism in Central Africa (1963–1990)

Matthew Read

18 Decem­ber 2024

English PDF

Table of contents

1. Intro­duc­tion
2. The French colo­ni­sa­tion of the Congo (1880–1958)
3. Inde­pen­dence under a compra­dor regime (1958–1963)
4. The revo­lu­tion begins (1963–1966)
5. A “correc­tion” of the dege­ne­ra­ted revo­lu­tion (1966–1968)
6. The inau­gu­ra­tion of a new stage of the revo­lu­tion (1968–1970)
7. The struggle to define people’s demo­cracy in Congo (1970–1972)
8. Cons­truc­ting a new state appa­ra­tus (1972)
9. The Ngou­abi era and the disco­very of oil (1972–1977)
10. A new econo­mic policy: auto-centré et autody­na­mi­que (1977–1984)
11. Stagna­tion and retreat (1984–1990)
12. Conclu­sion
Biblio­gra­phy

1. Introduction

For almost three deca­des, Congo-Braz­z­aville char­te­red an unpar­al­le­led revo­lu­tio­nary course in Central Africa. After a popu­lar upri­sing brought down a corrupt compra­dor regime in 1963, the Congo­lese natio­nal-demo­cra­tic revo­lu­tion advan­ced over the next deca­des to estab­lish and conso­li­date the first people’s demo­cracy in Africa. The poli­ti­cal force driving this process was forced to evolve too, from a plura­list mass party into a Marxist-Leni­nist vanguard orga­ni­sa­tion of Congo’s working masses. This article traces out the trajec­tory of the Congo­lese revo­lu­tion and exami­nes how socia­list states in Eastern Europe and Asia influen­ced this process. To draw out lessons from this histo­ri­cal expe­ri­ence, the article focu­ses on three main chal­lenges that confron­ted Congo’s revolutionaries.

First is the issue of state power, which Lenin famously descri­bed as “the key ques­tion of every revo­lu­tion”. After the popu­lar upri­sing in 1963, the Congo­lese people inhe­ri­ted a neoco­lo­nial state that had been moul­ded around the inte­rests of foreign capi­tal. How could it be repla­ced with an appa­ra­tus that would serve the needs of the natio­nal-demo­cra­tic revo­lu­tion? In the various consti­tu­ti­ons adopted by Congo in the 1960s and 1970s, we see a gradual shift away from bour­geois consti­tu­tio­na­lism and the reco­gni­tion that the state is not a neutral insti­tu­tion to mediate between clas­ses but an instru­ment that must be utili­sed by certain clas­ses to bring about social change. By the early 1970s, after intense strug­gles with foes from both within and outside the coun­try, Congo­lese revo­lu­tio­na­ries were able to estab­lish a people’s repu­blic and a vanguard party with a scien­ti­fi­cally groun­ded programme. There was a perma­nent tension between the need to further demo­cra­tise the poli­ti­cal process and the neces­si­ties of defen­ding the revo­lu­tion in an extre­mely hostile envi­ron­ment. As shown below, the struggle to cons­truct a people’s demo­cracy in the Afri­can context diffe­red signi­fi­cantly from the expe­ri­en­ces of cons­truc­ting people’s demo­cracy in Eastern Europe.

The second ques­tion revol­ved around the diver­gent stra­te­gies for econo­mic deve­lo­p­ment that were formu­la­ted within the natio­nal-demo­cra­tic move­ment. Congo-Braz­z­aville had been inte­gra­ted into the capi­ta­list inter­na­tio­nal divi­sion of labour as a depen­dent and exploi­ted compo­nent: it was a supplier of raw mate­ri­als (prima­rily timber and oil) and an export market for the capi­ta­list powers of Europe and North America. Foreign compa­nies control­led the vast majo­rity of the Congo­lese economy. How could the revo­lu­tion be advan­ced while the coun­try remained under the domi­nance of foreign capi­tal? This was the central contra­dic­tion that plagued Congo­lese leaders from the very begin­ning. Behind labels such as “pro-Soviet”, “pro-China”, and “pro-impe­ria­list”, were in fact contras­ting concep­ti­ons of how the coun­try could best escape colo­ni­ally impo­sed under­de­ve­lo­p­ment and advance towards indus­tria­li­sa­tion and econo­mic inde­pen­dence. The article iden­ti­fies three phases in revo­lu­tio­na­ries’ stra­tegy: In the 1960s, a softer, natio­nal-refor­mist course was pursued, which was then repla­ced by a more asser­tive natio­na­li­sa­tion stra­tegy in the 1970s after the People’s Repu­blic was foun­ded at the end of 1969. The assas­si­na­tion of Presi­dent Marien Ngou­abi in 1977 brought this phase to an end and, in its final decade, the Congo­lese revo­lu­tion pivo­ted towards a stra­tegy simi­lar to China’s “reform and opening-up” approach.

The third ques­tion – tied to the second – is the issue of Congo’s poli­ti­cal ties with the commu­nist world move­ment and its econo­mic rela­ti­ons with the socia­list states in Eastern Europe and Asia. How did the Congo­lese revo­lu­tio­na­ries relate to the socia­list world system and vice versa? What was the impact of the Sino-Soviet split? And how did the socia­list states seek to assist Congo in brea­king free from neoco­lo­nia­lism? As will be argued below, the trans­fer of tech­no­logy and know­ledge from the socia­list states to Congo repre­sen­ted a quali­ta­tively new type of inter­na­tio­nal rela­ti­ons that was based on soli­da­rity and mutual deve­lo­p­ment rather than explo­ita­tion and depen­dency. None­thel­ess, the commu­nist world move­ment was unable to inte­grate the Congo­lese economy into an inter­na­tio­nal socia­list divi­sion of labour, which would have allo­wed Congo to disen­gage from the capi­ta­list world market. This proved fatal for the Congo­lese revo­lu­tion. The article focu­ses prima­rily on rela­ti­ons with the German Demo­cra­tic Repu­blic (DDR) and its leading party, the Socia­list Unity Party of Germany (SED), since the rele­vant archi­ves were the most acces­si­ble to us.

The rese­arch for this article was based largely on archi­val work in the German Fede­ral Archi­ves, where thou­sands of reports by the SED and the Congo­lese revo­lu­tio­na­ries can be found. Parti­cu­larly insightful were the docto­ral theses of Congo­lese econo­mists and socio­lo­gists who studied at the DDR’s Academy for Social Scien­ces in the 1980s. In addi­tion, Marxist and bour­geois histo­ries of Congo have been refe­ren­ced. All sources can be found in the foot­no­tes along­side any back­ground infor­ma­tion. Further reading sugges­ti­ons can be found in the bibliography.

2. The French colonisation of the Congo (1880–1958)

Loca­ted north of the Congo River, the terri­tory that today makes up the Repu­blic of Congo was reig­ned over by seve­ral semi-feudal king­doms prior to the arri­val of Euro­peans. After the mouth of the Congo was reached by the Portu­guese in 1484, Euro­peans began trading commo­di­ties and manu­fac­tu­red goods for slaves captu­red in the hinter­lands. The struc­tures of the pre-exis­ting king­doms rapidly disin­te­gra­ted as the trans­at­lan­tic slave trade took off in the 16th century.1 Direct Euro­pean colo­ni­sa­tion began in the 19th century, with France estab­li­shing a “protec­to­rate” over the terri­to­ries north of the Congo River in 1880. The Berlin Confe­rence of 1884/85 confirmed France’s hold over what was named “French Congo”. Over­whel­med with the size of this terri­tory, France divi­ded explo­ita­tion rights amongst 40 private compa­nies, which mostly rested on medium-sized merchant capi­tal.2 Due to the rela­tive weak­ness of these compa­nies, little tech­no­logy and mate­rial was brought into Congo and the local popu­la­tion was simply subject to forced labour without the means of produc­tion being deve­lo­ped. As forests covered roughly 60 percent of the Congo­lese terri­tory, timber quickly became the colony’s main export.

France’s colo­ni­sa­tion of Congo was charac­te­ri­sed by a system of direct admi­nis­tra­tion, which – in contrast to Britain’s indi­rect approach of rely­ing on local ruling clas­ses to rule over many of its colo­nies – eradi­ca­ted local struc­tures and repla­ced them with a hier­ar­chy of French admi­nis­tra­tors who wiel­ded full poli­ti­cal control and impo­sed a head tax on all local inha­bi­tants to fund the state appa­ra­tus.3 Canton and village chiefs were strip­ped of their tradi­tio­nal rights and inte­gra­ted into the lowest level of this hier­ar­chy to serve as the auxi­lia­ries to the colo­nisers. The Catho­lic church pene­tra­ted deeply into Congo­lese society and played a key role in uphol­ding colo­nial rule, espe­ci­ally through its control over educa­tion.4

In 1908, France orga­ni­zed its colo­nies into a fede­ra­tion named French Equa­to­rial Africa (FEA). The Congo­lese city of Braz­z­aville was desi­gna­ted as the FEA’s capi­tal and became the main admi­nis­tra­tive and tran­sit hub for the extra­c­tion of natu­ral resour­ces from “French Africa”. Through this unique role as the admi­nis­tra­tive and commer­cial centre of Central Africa, southern Congo deve­lo­ped into a rela­tively urba­nised region with well-educa­ted and influ­en­tial petty-bour­geois clas­ses (i.e., bureau­crats and the civil and mili­tary intel­li­gent­sia).5 Econo­mic acti­vity cent­red around the Congo-Ocean Rail­way, a 500-kilo­me­ter-long track built in the 1920s to connect Braz­z­aville to the port city of Pointe Noire. This line had been cons­truc­ted with forced labour and cost the lives of over 17,000 locals. After its opening in 1934, the opera­tion and acti­vity around this rail­way line gave rise to an embryo­nic working class that largely consis­ted of trans­port and dock workers.

French colo­nies in Africa (1935). The terri­tory of Congo Fran­çais, which opera­ted as the admi­nis­tra­tive and merchant hub of French Equa­to­rial Africa (dark purple), would become the Repu­blic of Congo in 1958.

Euro­pean colo­ni­sa­tion also had a major impact on the process of nation forma­tion in Sub-Saha­ran Africa. Viewed histo­ri­cally, the nation state crystal­li­sed at a speci­fic deve­lo­p­men­tal stage of human society, namely when capi­ta­lism supp­lan­ted feuda­lism.6 During this process, the nation emer­ged as a stable commu­nity of people linked toge­ther by common terri­tory, econo­mic life, language, and culture. In Sub-Saha­ran Africa, capi­ta­list rela­ti­ons had not deve­lo­ped orga­ni­cally, but had been impo­sed onto socie­ties that (due to centu­ries of foreign pillage and explo­ita­tion) had not yet over­come semi- or even pre-feudal rela­ti­ons. In the late 1800s, the Euro­pean powers had divi­ded up the conti­nent amongst them­sel­ves, without conside­ra­tion for histo­ri­cal, econo­mic, and ethnic factors. There were some 77 tribes living in Congo by the end of colo­nial rule, and many were divi­ded by borders to neigh­bou­ring states. After winning inde­pen­dence in the mid-twen­tieth century, Afri­can leaders were thus confron­ted with signi­fi­cant contra­dic­tions in their socie­ties. As Guinean Presi­dent and revo­lu­tio­nary Sekou Touré remarked: “In post-colo­nial Africa, the state prece­des the nation as a rule.”7 Tribal iden­tity was thus far more deve­lo­ped than natio­nal conscious­ness. This fact – along­side the colo­nisers’ deca­des-old divide and rule poli­cies – sowed the seeds for inter-tribal strife and sepa­ra­tist conflicts follo­wing inde­pen­dence. As will be shown below, this reality repre­sen­ted a signi­fi­cant obsta­cle to the conso­li­da­tion of the Congo­lese state apparatus.

3. Independence under a comprador regime (1958–1963)

With the advance of the anti-colo­nial struggle and the weak­e­ning of French impe­ria­lism after the Second World War, Afri­can natio­nal libe­ra­tion move­ments and the French Commu­nist Party successfully wrest­led poli­ti­cal conces­si­ons out of Paris in the 1950s. Embroi­led in a dome­stic poli­ti­cal crisis and reco­g­nis­ing that direct colo­nial rule in Africa was beco­ming unsus­tainable, poli­ti­cal leader­ship in France shifted tactics and began gran­ting auto­nomy to the FEA colo­nies in 1958. In order to mini­mise its losses, Paris sought to promote a section of indi­ge­nous admi­nis­tra­tors, army offi­cers, and diplo­mats who could protect France’s inte­rests after natio­nal inde­pen­dence. While this approach failed in those states where ardent anti-impe­ria­lists led the natio­nal move­ment (e.g., in Mali or Guinea), France was able to gain signi­fi­cant influence over many other natio­na­list parties in Africa. In French Congo, for exam­ple, the Roman Catho­lic priest Abbé Fulbert Youlou led a consti­tu­tio­nal coup d’État to become the first prime minis­ter of the new Repu­blic of Congo in 1958. Youlou’s party, the Union démo­cra­tique de défense des inté­rêts afri­cains (UDDIA) was fervently anti-commu­nist and sought to deve­lop the young repu­blic along capi­ta­list lines.

As the Congo­lese socio­lo­gist Melan­chthon M’Pandzou argued, Youlou’s govern­ment was a clas­sic exam­ple of a compra­dor regime working to preserve the domi­nance of foreign capi­tal.8 Nume­rous agree­ments were signed with the Euro­pean Econo­mic Commu­nity (EEC) and France to ensure the latter’s contin­ued influence over finan­ces, tech­no­logy, and educa­tion. Trea­ties co-signed with Chad and the Central Afri­can Repu­blic protec­ted France’s mili­tary foot­hold in Central Africa. The justice system was ridd­led with judges and lawy­ers educa­ted in France. Youlou agreed to cement colo­nial-era borders rather than strive for pan-Afri­can inte­gra­tion and asser­ted that a capi­ta­list path would bring about the fastest econo­mic deve­lo­p­ment in the coun­try. He cut capi­tal controls and mini­mi­sed taxes on foreign compa­nies opera­ting in Congo. The govern­ment also showed no inte­rest in cons­truc­ting a state-owned sector; invest­ments made up only 3.7% of the state budget. The govern­ment was content on rele­ga­ting Congo to the role of a raw mate­rial supplier and an export market for the Western powers. Mean­while, the admi­nis­tra­tive bureau­cracy balloo­ned: in just three years, the number of person­nel doubled. By 1963, almost half the state budget was cove­ring person­nel costs.

Congo­lese presi­dent Fulbert Youlou holding hands with French Minis­ter of Culture André Malraux to cele­brate offi­cial poli­ti­cal inde­pen­dence on 15 August 1960.

Resis­tance to Youlou’s bloa­ted and corrupt regime grew rapidly in the years after inde­pen­dence. Two grou­pings were crystal­li­sing in the oppo­si­tion. The first group rallied around scien­ti­fic socia­lism and was preva­lent within the trade unions and the youth move­ment. This group advo­ca­ted stra­te­gies of non-capi­ta­list deve­lo­p­ment, which entailed the natio­na­li­sa­tion of key indus­tries, the intro­duc­tion of econo­mic plan­ning, and closer econo­mic ties with the socia­list states to gradu­ally elimi­nate foreign capi­tal from Congo and lay the foun­da­ti­ons for socia­list cons­truc­tion without having to endure a capi­ta­list stage of deve­lo­p­ment. The second group advo­ca­ted for a notion of “Afri­can socia­lism”, which sought to restore the suppo­sedly commu­nal and class­less nature of preco­lo­nial Afri­can society. M’Pandzou descri­bed this tendency as “utopian” as oppo­sed to scien­ti­fic, as it sought to achieve progress through a mental revo­lu­tion rather than a rapid advance of the mate­rial condi­ti­ons in Congo.

4. The revolution begins (1963–1966)

After just three years in power, Youlou had become so repres­sive that he had alien­ated much of his origi­nal support base. When in August 1963 he tried to estab­lish abso­lute perso­nal rule, the unions called for a strike. Youlou imme­dia­tely had the strike leaders arres­ted, and massive protests erupted in Braz­z­aville. Hundreds of workers were killed during an attempt to free the impri­so­ned unio­nists. The French army initi­ally coor­di­na­ted with Youlou to suppress the upri­sing, but by 15th August the anti-govern­ment move­ment was so over­whel­ming that France aban­do­ned the regime.9

This revo­lu­tion – which came to be known as the Trois Glorieu­ses – was prima­rily driven by the unions and youth move­ment, while progres­sive elements in the mili­tary supported it.10 It was not clear who would take over in the imme­diate after­math, as the oppo­si­tion was not united behind a poli­ti­cal plat­form. The unions and youth move­ment were not able to take on the leading role in the new Natio­nal Coun­cil and state power was now control­led by a coali­tion of natio­nal-refor­mist and revo­lu­tio­nary-demo­cra­tic figu­res from the intel­li­gent­sia, mili­tary, and unions. By Decem­ber of that year, a new consti­tu­tion was appro­ved in a popu­lar refe­ren­dum, marking an important step towards the demo­cra­tis­a­tion of Congo­lese society. Bour­geois-demo­cra­tic rights and poli­ti­cal struc­tures had now been estab­lished in the Repu­blic.11 The former teacher and minis­ter of educa­tion, Alphonse Massamba-Débat, was elec­ted presi­dent to replace Youlou.

The unity that had been forged in oppo­si­tion to Youlou soon broke down as the clas­ses within the alli­ance began to vie for hegem­ony. Coun­ter­re­vo­lu­tio­nary forces – stem­ming largely from the clergy, the catho­lic trade union, and the colo­nial sett­lers – tried to rally support under the slogan “The August Revo­lu­tion is better than the previous regime. But the Youlou regime is better than socia­lism.”12 Under the leader­ship of revo­lu­tio­nary intellec­tu­als around Massamba-Débat, the progres­sive forces united to estab­lish a natio­nal-demo­cra­tic mass party called the Mouve­ment natio­nal de la révo­lu­tion (MNR). At its foun­ding congress in July 1964, the MNR adopted scien­ti­fic socia­lism as its ideo­lo­gi­cal foun­da­tion and rejec­ted the capi­ta­list path of deve­lo­p­ment for Congo. A youth wing (the Jeunesse de MNR) was also crea­ted along­side a natio­nal trade union confe­de­ra­tion (CSC) and a revo­lu­tio­nary women’s orga­niza­tion (URFC). While this reshuff­ling pushed out many of the pro-French figu­res from the poli­ti­cal land­scape, the MNR still repre­sen­ted an anti-impe­ria­list natio­nal front in which diffe­rent clas­ses and various ideo­lo­gi­cal curr­ents coexis­ted.13

The next years were charac­te­ri­sed by signi­fi­cant social gains and the cons­truc­tion of a basic state-owned sector. Health centres and schools were built throug­hout the coun­try, and the Repu­blic soon boas­ted the highest school enrol­ment rate in tropi­cal Africa.14 Textile, cement, and timber proces­sing facto­ries were cons­truc­ted in seve­ral cities to promote an import-substi­tu­tion model of deve­lo­p­ment and reduce the neoco­lo­nial depen­den­cies of Congo.15 Massamba-Débat’s govern­ment was slow to natio­na­lise foreign-owned compa­nies since there were prac­ti­cally no native tech­ni­cal experts and a serious lack of tech­no­logy. The colo­nial system and Youlou’s regime had prima­rily educa­ted clerks for admi­nis­tra­tion, not engi­neers and tech­ni­ci­ans. The MNR thus laun­ched mass campaigns to train a gene­ra­tion of tech­ni­cal cadre.

The MNR also turned the country’s foreign policy around and estab­lished close ties with the socia­list bloc. Dozens of Congo­lese admi­nis­tra­tors and students were sent to the socia­list count­ries to receive tech­ni­cal and ideo­lo­gi­cal trai­ning, while hundreds of Soviet and Chinese specia­lists taught in Congo.16 The USA soon suspen­ded diplo­ma­tic rela­ti­ons with Braz­z­aville in 1965, while Cuban troops were invi­ted to help convert Congo’s mili­tary into a “natio­nal people’s army”.17 The MNR addi­tio­nally shel­te­red Lumum­bist rebels from the neigh­bou­ring Demo­cra­tic Repu­blic of Congo, and permit­ted Ango­lan mili­tants from the MPLA to use Congo­lese terri­tory to launch attacks against Portugal’s colo­nial troops.

1968: Congo­lese Presi­dent Massamba-Débat (third from right) meeting Nico­lae Ceaușescu (fifth from left), gene­ral secre­tary of the Roma­nian Commu­nist Party.

While the MNR govern­ment had a clear anti-impe­ria­list charac­ter, it was also restrai­ned by its econo­mic depen­dency on the capi­ta­list West. As the Congo­lese foreign minis­ter Charles-Davin Ganao explai­ned to a DDR dele­ga­tion in August 1966, Braz­z­aville could not risk losing ties to West Germany by taking up offi­cial rela­ti­ons with East Germany, for the former was one of Congo’s most important trading part­ners, import­ing 60 percent of the country’s timber exports.18 The ques­tion of reco­g­nis­ing the DDR was a main point of conten­tion amongst anti-impe­ria­list forces throug­hout the conti­nent at the time. It repre­sen­ted much more than just rela­ti­ons with socia­list East Germany. As Ganao explai­ned, anti-impe­ria­list forces could take a clear posi­tion against the Western-spon­so­red regimes in Saigon and Seoul, but doing the same against Bonn would risk losing buyers from West Germany and the EEC. It would repre­sent a defi­ni­tive step beyond non-alignment, towards the socia­list bloc, which was not yet in an econo­mic posi­tion to replace the West as the main importer of Congo­lese goods. As such, Congo main­tai­ned rela­ti­ons with West Germany “under the compul­sion of neces­sity”, not because they “shared a common ideo­logy”. Ganao soberly summa­ri­sed Congo’s dilemma to the East German dele­ga­tion: “The country’s economy does not belong to the Congo­lese state”.

Timber was the Republic’s main export until it was supp­lan­ted by crude oil in the 1970s.

As the revo­lu­tion advan­ced, the factions united in the MNR incre­asingly came into conflict with one another. In late 1964, an offen­sive was laun­ched against right-wing elements within the govern­ment and party. This initia­tive streng­the­ned the posi­tion of the leftists, the unions, and the JMNR youth wing. These more radi­cal forces were deman­ding swif­ter natio­na­li­sa­tion of key indus­tries and a more reso­lute restruc­tu­ring of the state to combat the bureau­cra­tic bour­geoi­sie. Efforts to curtail the bloa­ted bureau­cracy of the Youlou-era had stal­led because they were quickly percei­ved by many as being tribally moti­va­ted. Cuts were, howe­ver, urgen­tly neces­sary; in 1964, civil servants made up less than one percent of the popu­la­tion but were absor­bing close to 62 percent of natio­nal reve­nues.19 These bureau­crats would often use their high wages to support their exten­ded fami­lies, leading to a contra­dic­tory situa­tion in the cities where unem­ploy­ment was high but there was little beggary.

Massamba-Débat had tried to chart a centrist course between the right and left wings of his party.20 After purging right-wing leaders in 1964/65, he moved against the left in 1966, targe­ting espe­ci­ally Maoist-inspi­red elements in the Party. An attempted coup d’État by left-wing army offi­cers follo­wed in June 1966, but the situa­tion was de-escala­ted after Cuban troops shel­te­red members of Massamba-Débat’s govern­ment, who then nego­tia­ted with the coup leaders. A new MNR char­ter was subse­quently adopted, which reflec­ted the streng­the­ned posi­tion of the revo­lu­tio­nary-demo­cra­tic faction of the Party. Their demands cent­red on the stra­tegy of non-capi­ta­list deve­lo­p­ment and a stron­ger role for the state super­s­truc­ture in this process:

“It is neces­sary – under the leader­ship of the prole­ta­riat and on the basis of the alli­ance of the working class with the peas­an­try, the urban petty bour­geoi­sie, the natio­nal bour­geoi­sie and progres­sive patrio­tic elements – to win a decisive victory over impe­ria­lism, feuda­lism, and the compra­dor and bureau­cra­tic bour­geoi­sie. [We must] preserve natio­nal inde­pen­dence, estab­lish a regime of natio­nal demo­cracy, and move step by step towards socia­lism.“21

This new char­ter also reve­a­led a further deve­lo­p­ment of the MNR’s concep­tion of the state and its rela­tion to the Party. Now descri­bed as the “motor of the revo­lu­tion”, the Party was assi­gned a domi­nant role over the state appa­ra­tus. A “Perma­nent Commis­sion” was set up to control the day-to-day work of the govern­ment. This marked a shift away from bour­geois state theory in favour of revo­lu­tio­nary-demo­cra­tic prin­ci­ples. It was reco­g­nised that the non-capi­ta­list path would not unfold spon­ta­neously; this process would require the deter­mi­ned leader­ship of a party equip­ped with a groun­ded scien­ti­fic analy­sis.22 The revo­lu­tio­na­ries in Congo began to regard the state not as a neutral entity, but as an instru­ment through which the Party would imple­ment its policies.

5. A “correction” of the degenerated revolution (1966–1968)

The nego­tia­ted sett­le­ment between Massamba-Débat and the revo­lu­tio­nary-demo­cra­tic faction of the Party did not last long. Ambroise Noum­aza­laye, the first secre­tary of the MNR and figurehead of the Party’s Soviet-aligned wing, had secu­red the posi­tion of prime minis­ter in May 1966.23 In a meeting with a DDR dele­ga­tion in August 1966, Noum­aza­laye provi­ded an analy­sis of the inten­si­fied inter­na­tio­nal and dome­stic situa­tion confron­ting his coun­try: After a major wave of natio­nal libe­ra­tion in the early 1960s, “impe­ria­lism [had] laun­ched a coun­ter-offen­sive” – this was evident in Viet­nam, Indo­ne­sia, Ghana, and Rhode­sia.24 The Sino-Soviet split had divi­ded many natio­nal libe­ra­tion move­ments, inclu­ding the MNR, and was thus objec­tively play­ing into the hands of the impe­ria­lists. Perhaps most importantly, the Repu­blic of Congo was comple­tely isola­ted from the socia­list bloc and the other anti-impe­ria­list states in Africa. It was surroun­ded by capi­ta­list-orien­ted states that often sought to desta­bi­lise the revo­lu­tio­nary process. The reac­tion­ary govern­ment in the Demo­cra­tic Repu­blic of Congo – which sat in Kinshasa, lite­rally just a stone’s throw away from Braz­z­aville on the other side of the Congo River – was parti­cu­larly aggres­sive towards the MNR.

A hostile envi­ron­ment: Braz­z­aville was confron­ted with both the Portu­guese colo­nial forces in Angola (espe­ci­ally in the neigh­bou­ring enclave Cabinda) and the anti-commu­nist govern­ment in Kinshasa.

Conside­ring this criti­cal situa­tion, Noum­aza­laye and his allies in the polit­buro began advo­ca­ting for the crea­tion of a vanguard party that would be better capa­ble of confron­ting the chal­lenges facing the Congo­lese struggle. As a mass party, the MNR was not disci­pli­ned and unified enough to carry forward the socia­list-orien­ted policies:

“The Repu­blic of Congo, howe­ver, is looking to the future with confi­dence. The mista­kes made in Alge­ria, Mali, Guinea, and Ghana should not be repea­ted in Congo. Sooner or later, the Marxist forces will create a vanguard party ancho­red in the masses. The neces­sity of the exis­tence of such a party has only been properly reco­g­nised in the MNR since Febru­ary [1966].”25

The MNR, as Noum­aza­laye remarked, was “not a firmly united party”.26 It had emer­ged “in the heat of the revo­lu­tio­nary process” and there were “still many illu­si­ons [within the Party] about the nature of impe­ria­lism”. At the same time, triba­lism repre­sen­ted a serious obsta­cle to progress because it objec­tively hinde­red natio­nal conscious­ness and gave rise to tribal-based conflicts around the distri­bu­tion of posi­ti­ons in the state appa­ra­tus. Conside­ring these reali­ties, Noum­aza­laye explai­ned that “Marxist forces are obli­ged not to move too fast, or else they will isolate them­sel­ves from the masses.” None­thel­ess, the revo­lu­tion would have to muster “the inner strength for its own trans­for­ma­tion”, other­wise it would be doomed to the same fate as Nkrumah’s Ghana.27

Women working in SOTEXCO, Congo’s state-owned textile company.

The consen­sus that had been nego­tia­ted in the char­ter of 1966 held throug­hout most of the next year. Yet in Janu­ary 1968, Presi­dent Massamba-Débat initia­ted a new offen­sive against the left and remo­ved Noum­aza­laye and his allies from the govern­ment. They were repla­ced with more conser­va­tive figu­res such as Nico­las Mandjo, Congo’s ambassa­dor to France, who was now appoin­ted foreign minis­ter.28

Criti­cal of these deve­lo­p­ments and the stagna­tion of the revo­lu­tion, the student orga­ni­sa­tion in Braz­z­aville held a congress in July of that same year and passed a reso­lu­tion condem­ning the anti-leftist poli­cies of the govern­ment. Fearing his posi­tion, Massamba-Débat orde­red the arrest of those he belie­ved to be behind the reso­lu­tion –inclu­ding a popu­lar paratroop comman­der named Marien Ngou­abi. He then suspen­ded the 1963 consti­tu­tion and dissol­ved the Natio­nal Assem­bly and the MNR’s polit­buro. This sparked spon­ta­neous mass demons­tra­ti­ons by the student and youth move­ments, not unlike those seen exactly five years earlier in the Trois Glorieu­ses.29 Ngou­abi was freed from jail two days later by his soldiers and a Natio­nal Revo­lu­tio­nary Coun­cil (CNR) was formed with Ngou­abi as its head to replace the disban­ded MNR polit­buro. The CNR freed all poli­ti­cal prisoners and appoin­ted a new provi­sio­nal govern­ment, which included both left-wing and more mode­rate figu­res so as to initi­ally stabi­lise the poli­ti­cal situa­tion. Ngou­abi publicly justi­fied the army’s inter­ven­tion, stating that “the old [state] appa­ra­tus, which came out of the revo­lu­tion in August 1963, had been rende­red inef­fec­tive by triba­lism, and thus had to be smas­hed.”30

The leaders of the CNR, Captain Marien Ngou­abi (middle) and Captain Alfred Raoul (right), with the arres­ted Presi­dent Alphonse Massamba-Débat (left) in August 1968.

This dyna­mic – the stagna­tion and break­down of the mass party during the revo­lu­tio­nary process – was not unique to Congo. Simi­lar deve­lo­p­ments could be seen in Mali, Alge­ria, and Syria. There came a point in the revo­lu­tio­nary process of these states when the plura­list natio­nal front was no longer able to advance the non-capi­ta­list stra­tegy. As M’Pandzou concluded:

“The MNR’s policy was one of the first attempts in Sub-Saha­ran Africa to turn the state into an instru­ment of social progress. The aim was to over­come the neo-colo­nial, anti-demo­cra­tic, pro-French policy of the Youlou regime. The state appa­ra­tus was to be trans­for­med, demo­cra­tised, and streng­the­ned. This attempt stal­led in its infancy, mainly because diffe­ren­ces in the leader­ship of the MNR preven­ted a unified approach by the progres­sive forces.

 

Moreo­ver, there was a lack of expe­ri­ence in deve­lo­ping a reali­stic concept for reor­ga­ni­zing the state appa­ra­tus under these compli­ca­ted condi­ti­ons. This largely explains the utili­sa­tion of bour­geois forms of power on the one hand and ‘left-wing’ unrea­li­stic preten­si­ons on the other. Nevert­hel­ess, [during these years], the first steps were taken which the subse­quent revo­lu­tio­nary-demo­cra­tic forces were able to build on.”31

The Marxist forces in Congo later descri­bed the period from 1963 to 1968 as the “first stage of the natio­nal-demo­cra­tic people’s revo­lu­tion”.32 The task was now to build a new state appa­ra­tus, one that was in the service of the revo­lu­tion. This requi­red the forma­tion of a unified and deter­mi­ned vanguard party, with a scien­ti­fic programme and expe­ri­en­ced cadre to consciously lead the cons­truc­tion of a new society. Under the leader­ship of Ngou­abi, progres­sive army offi­cers now initia­ted the process that revo­lu­tio­nary intellec­tu­als like Noum­aza­laye had been propa­ga­ting since early 1966.

6. The inauguration of a new stage of the revolution (1968–1970)

The first year of the new govern­ment was charac­te­ri­sed by an inter­nal power struggle within the CNR between the left and the mode­ra­tes. The former, led by Captain Ngou­abi, favou­red an acce­le­ra­ted natio­na­li­sa­tion of foreign compa­nies and closer rela­ti­ons with the socia­list states, while the latter, led by Congo’s new presi­dent, Captain Alfred Raoul, argued that the coun­try could not afford to lose ties with the capi­ta­list West and thus could not risk rash natio­na­li­sa­ti­ons. In these dispu­tes, the ques­tion of reco­g­nis­ing the DDR once again played a central role, for it would deter­mine the future direc­tion of the revo­lu­tion. The role of West German capi­tal in the Congo­lese economy had expan­ded during Massamba-Débat’s presi­dency; along­side being the largest buyer of Congo’s timber exports, West German firms had now built seve­ral agri­cul­tu­ral proces­sing plants and the only cement factory in the coun­try, giving them influence over all cons­truc­tion plans.33

The essence of this dispute revol­ved around the class charac­ter of the revo­lu­tion: would petty-bour­geois forces conti­nue to lead a natio­nal front, or was it time to defi­ni­tively advance towards a “people’s state” that was based on workers’ and peasants’ power? By the end of 1969, Ngou­abi and the revo­lu­tio­nary-demo­cra­tic faction had gained the upper hand over the mode­ra­tes by secu­ring the support of the youth move­ment, the trade unions, and signi­fi­cant sections of the mili­tary.34 It was deci­ded in the CNR that a vanguard party of the working people would be crea­ted, and a more deter­mi­ned econo­mic stra­tegy would be pursued. It was argued that inten­si­fied rela­ti­ons with the socia­list world system would help to “loosen the chain that binds us to the capi­ta­list states”.35

A congress was then conve­ned in Braz­z­aville in Decem­ber 1969 to create the new party – the Parti congo­lais du travail (Congo­lese Party of Labour, PCT) – as an avant-garde of the working people, with Marxism-Leni­nism as its ideo­lo­gi­cal foun­da­tion; it became the first gover­ning party in Sub-Saha­ran Africa to do so. The mass orga­ni­sa­ti­ons for the women’s and youth move­ments were also recon­sti­tu­ted. A new state – the Répu­bli­que popu­laire du Congo (People’s Repu­blic of Congo) – was proclai­med along­side a new consti­tu­tion that again marked a signi­fi­cant shift away from bour­geois consti­tu­tio­nal law. The class charac­ter and social subs­tance of the state was now expli­citly iden­ti­fied in the consti­tu­tion, with the “working people” descri­bed as the bearers of the Congo­lese revo­lu­tion. The various forms of property were fixed, and public owner­ship was prio­ri­ti­zed. The PCT was guaran­teed manage­ment and control func­tions over the state appa­ra­tus, with Article 5 stating that “repre­sen­ta­ti­ves of the people in all organs of state power are respon­si­ble to Party organs”.36 The primacy of the Party over the state was thus enshri­ned in the consti­tu­tion. The new People’s Repu­blic would still have to rely on the old admi­nis­tra­tive person­nel trai­ned under the colo­nial and Youlou eras, but the leading role of the PCT ensu­red that these bureau­crats could be control­led and utili­sed for the revolution.

The procla­ma­tion of the People’s Repu­blic of Congo in Decem­ber 1969: Ngou­abi pres­ents the country’s new flag.

7. The struggle to define people’s democracy in Congo (1970–1972)

A revo­lu­tio­nary party is forged through praxis, not by decree. While the dele­ga­tes at the 1969 Congress had adopted a party statute, they could not yet agree on a party programme. There was still dissent between Maoist and Marxist-Leni­nist factions around the appro­priate model for the further deve­lo­p­ment of both the Party and the coun­try.37 The PCT initi­ally consis­ted of just 160 members. Was it to remain an elite cadre party or should it open to the masses? What degree of auto­nomy were the new mass orga­ni­sa­ti­ons to have from the PCT? What role did the natio­nal bour­geoi­sie have to play in Congo’s non-capi­ta­list path of deve­lo­p­ment? And how swiftly could foreign capi­tal be pushed out of the natio­nal economy? These ques­ti­ons would define the next two years, as the PCT strug­g­led to find unity in action.

Despite this poli­ti­cal struggle within the PCT, great effort was placed on drawing the broa­der masses into the discus­sion around the party programme. The PCT orga­nised mass meetings and educa­tio­nal semi­nars across the coun­try to discuss the socio-econo­mic situa­tion and the tasks of the current phase of the revo­lu­tion.38 These deve­lo­p­ments reflec­ted a further deepe­ning of the demo­cra­tis­a­tion of the revolution.

Ngou­abi, who was origi­nally from the poorer Nort­hern region of Congo, travel­led exten­si­vely throug­hout the rural areas to explore the problems facing the agri­cul­tu­ral sector.

The PCT focu­sed prima­rily on cadre trai­ning during this inter­me­diary period. The embas­sies of the socia­list states were asked to assist, with the USSR supp­ly­ing mate­rial such as Lenin’s works, and the embas­sies of Viet­nam, Korea, and Cuba orga­ni­s­ing reading circles.39 The Party set out to create Revo­lu­tio­nary Commit­tees in all work­places and insti­tu­ti­ons to act as “instru­ments of the dicta­tor­ship of natio­nal demo­cracy”. These “RevComms” were tasked with ancho­ring the leading role of the PCT at the local level by mobi­li­sing the masses and intro­du­cing them to the Party.40

In 1970, Ngouabi’s govern­ment began taking more control over dome­stic and foreign trade, while various sections of Congo’s economy were natio­na­li­sed, inclu­ding the Congo-Ocean Rail­way and all roads, bridges, and airports.41 French-owned agri­cul­tu­ral refi­ne­ries and timber compa­nies were also selec­ted for natio­na­li­sa­tion, brin­ging 80,000 hecta­res of forestry land under public owner­ship.42 Neigh­bou­ring Afri­can states often held capi­tal shares in the proces­sing compa­nies marked for natio­na­li­sa­tion, so the PCT tried to tread carefully.43 France reac­ted to the natio­na­li­sa­ti­ons by deman­ding swift repay­ment of the large debt owed to it by Braz­z­aville. In response, the PCT laun­ched another wave of natio­na­li­sa­ti­ons and impo­sed rigo­rous rest­ric­tions on French busi­nesses opera­ting in Congo.44 Braz­z­aville then with­drew from the inter­go­vern­men­tal Orga­ni­sa­tion commune afri­caine et malga­che (OCAM), which had become domi­na­ted by France’s impe­ria­list influence.45 In some instances, the PCT was able to retain the French tech­ni­ci­ans working in these form­erly private compa­nies, but the shortage of specia­lists seriously hinde­red Congo’s state sector.46 Espe­ci­ally when it came to timber, the initia­ti­ves to create a dome­stic proces­sing indus­try stal­led due to a lack of capi­tal resour­ces, skill, and know­ledge of the condi­ti­ons prevai­ling in the highly specia­li­sed world wood markets.47

On foreign policy, the Party also imple­men­ted more daring initia­ti­ves. At the foun­ding congress in Decem­ber 1969, the dele­ga­tes had passed a reso­lu­tion to offi­ci­ally reco­g­nise the DDR, making the PR Congo one of the first Sub-Saha­ran states to do so.48 A trade deal and credit agree­ment with the DDR worth 6 million US dollars follo­wed in March 1970.49 At the same time, the reali­ties of the situa­tion in Central Africa had not chan­ged: Ngouabi’s govern­ment began norma­li­sing rela­ti­ons with neigh­bou­ring Congo-Kinshasa in an attempt to ease tensi­ons in the region and reduce the PR Congo’s isola­tion. It was hoped that – despite ideo­lo­gi­cal diffe­ren­ces – intra-Afri­can trade could help reduce depen­dency on Western markets. This move was, howe­ver, stron­gly condem­ned by Maoist members of the PCT’s central commit­tee who did not want to nego­tiate with Mobutu’s compra­dor regime in Kinshasa, espe­ci­ally after Pierre Mulele – a Congo­lese Maoist and former minis­ter under Patrice Lumumba – had been lured out of his exile in Braz­z­aville and then brut­ally tortu­red to death in Kinshasa in 1968.

8. Constructing a new state apparatus (1972)

By the end of 1972, Ngou­abi and his allies had survi­ved nume­rous attempts to topple the young govern­ment.50 These attacks reached a high point in Febru­ary 1972, when armed Maoists very nearly succee­ded in over­thro­wing Ngou­abi. After defea­ting the revol­ting offi­cers, the PCT and its youth orga­ni­sa­tion were left nume­ri­cally weaker, but the Marxist-Leni­nist faction had conso­li­da­ted its posi­tion in the Party.

Ngou­abi accepts gifts from inter­na­tio­nal dele­ga­tes to the PCT at the Second Extra­or­di­nary Congress in Decem­ber 1972.

This victory brought the inter­nal dispu­tes to a close and a party programme was finally adopted at the Second Extra­or­di­nary Congress in Decem­ber 1972, two years after the PCT’s foun­ding. The programme rejec­ted the ultra-leftist slogan that the PR Congo had alre­ady become a socia­list state simply by adop­ting Marxism-Leni­nism as its ideo­lo­gi­cal foun­da­tion and instead asser­ted that a long path lay ahead before Congo could begin with the cons­truc­tion of socia­lism. The current stage of the revo­lu­tion was now offi­ci­ally descri­bed as the “natio­nal-demo­cra­tic popu­lar revolution”:

“Natio­nal, because this stage aims at over­thro­wing the domi­na­tion of French impe­ria­lism, which controls the natio­nal economy and ther­e­fore also objec­tively controls the poli­ti­cal situa­tion. This stage also aims at estab­li­shing the objec­tive and subjec­tive precon­di­ti­ons for the conso­li­da­tion of the Congo­lese nation, by elimi­na­ting the bases of triba­lism and regionalism.

 

Demo­cra­tic, because it aims to replace the rule of a mino­rity over the vast majo­rity of the people; because it relies on the popu­lar masses (the workers, peasants, and revo­lu­tio­nary intellec­tu­als in parti­cu­lar), and [the revo­lu­tion] is their work under the banner of the PCT.

 

Popu­lar, finally, because it begins to lay the econo­mic, social, and cultu­ral foun­da­ti­ons for the next stage, which is the Socia­list Revo­lu­tion. This is done by encou­ra­ging all the neces­sary objec­tive, psycho­lo­gi­cal, and subjec­tive condi­ti­ons, and by mobi­li­sing the broad disin­he­ri­ted masses under the banner of the prole­ta­riat and its avant-garde, the PCT.”51

The prio­rity during this stage of the revo­lu­tion was solving the ques­tion of state power. As Article 4 of the new party programme stated:

“The contem­po­rary state is a legacy of colo­nia­lism. The machi­nery of neoco­lo­nial rule must be smas­hed and repla­ced by a revo­lu­tio­nary, demo­cra­tic people’s state.”52

This notion of smas­hing and repla­cing the old state had been formu­la­ted by Lenin in State and Revo­lu­tion in 1917. The socia­list states that had been cons­truc­ted in Eastern Europe had not, howe­ver, emer­ged out of a neoco­lo­nial context. In Sub-Saha­ran Africa, this was a quali­ta­tively new task that would require its own approach. When study­ing the ques­tion of the revo­lu­tio­nary state in the post-colo­nial context, the Soviet scho­lars Chir­kin and Yudin noted that the destruc­tion of the old and the forma­tion of a new state appa­ra­tus, “which is a gene­ral law of genui­nely popu­lar revo­lu­ti­ons, follows a speci­fic pattern in each given coun­try depen­ding on the concrete histo­ri­cal condi­ti­ons of revo­lu­tio­nary deve­lo­p­ment.”53 In Russia, for exam­ple, the bour­geois state appa­ra­tus was dismant­led rela­tively quickly after the Octo­ber Revo­lu­tion, and the pre-exis­ting workers’ and soldiers’ coun­cils (the soviets) swiftly “became the bulwark of the new admi­nis­tra­tive machi­nery”. In the People’s Demo­cra­cies of Eastern Europe, on the other hand, “the old forms of parlia­men­tary, local self-govern­ment, and admi­nis­tra­tive insti­tu­ti­ons were in use for quite a long period of time” before they were cardi­nally reor­ga­nised along socia­list prin­ci­ples in a process that took a rela­tively long time.

“These examp­les show that the pace, ways, and methods of remo­ving the old and forming a new machi­nery of state can be quite diffe­rent. They depend on the corre­la­tion of class forces both in the given coun­try and on the inter­na­tio­nal scene, peaceful or non-peaceful deve­lo­p­ment of the revo­lu­tio­nary process, exis­tence of demo­cra­tic tradi­ti­ons and many other factors.”

The condi­ti­ons in Congo posed unique chal­lenges for the PCT. The Congo­lese economy was still domi­na­ted by foreign capi­tal. At the same time, pre-feudal rela­ti­ons contin­ued to shape many aspects of Congo­lese society, parti­cu­larly in the poorer north. Triba­lism was rife and repre­sen­ted an open door through which coun­ter­re­vo­lu­tio­nary forces could incite in-fight­ing. Finally, the PCT had also inhe­ri­ted a bloa­ted state machine with a massive class of colo­ni­ally educa­ted bureau­crats who were eager to main­tain their privileges.

In the early 1970s, DDR docto­ral student Lizzy Derz worked with PCT cadre to conduct a study on the PR Congo’s work­force, which amoun­ted to roughly 510,000 people at the time. 

Against this back­ground, Ngou­abi knew that the cons­truc­tion of a new society would not happen spon­ta­neously – it requi­red an effi­ci­ent state appa­ra­tus guided by a scien­ti­fic analy­sis and stra­tegy. All state and social insti­tu­ti­ons would have to be moul­ded and united around the requi­re­ments of the revo­lu­tion. If parts of the state machi­nery – such as the mili­tary – sepa­ra­ted them­sel­ves from the Party, then the revo­lu­tion would quickly break down, just as it had in Ghana and Mali in the 1960s. Within the frame­work of the consti­tu­tion, the Party had to be commit­ted to the poli­ti­cal (although not admi­nis­tra­tive) guidance of the state appa­ra­tus; it had to orient, review, and instruct the acti­vity of state organs.

To combat triba­lism, Ngouabi’s empha­sised the need for a mate­ria­list analy­sis: under colo­nia­lism, there had an been an objec­tive inequa­lity between ethnic tribes in terms of both socio-econo­mic and cultu­ral deve­lo­p­ment. These roots of triba­lism had to be elimi­na­ted by inten­si­fy­ing deve­lo­p­ment in the poorer nort­hern regi­ons. Natio­nal conscious­ness should be foste­red upon a non-capi­ta­list basis, with the masses rally­ing around the revo­lu­tion. At the same time, party commit­tees would have to be estab­lished in all state bodies and mili­tary units in order to reso­lut­ely combat triba­list tenden­cies and bind these insti­tu­ti­ons to the revo­lu­tio­nary cause.

As a strong advo­cate of science, Marien Ngou­abi advan­ced the idea that scien­ti­fic laws gover­ned not only the natu­ral world, but also the deve­lo­p­ment of human society. Here he attends a chemis­try lesson at the Univer­sity of Braz­z­aville (today the Univer­sité Marien Ngouabi)

Ngou­abi laid out the class charac­ter of the young people’s demo­cracy: “We are fight­ing for the dicta­tor­ship of the prole­ta­riat, and the first step in the prole­ta­riat taking power is the dicta­tor­ship of the majo­rity.”54 The main element of this united front was the working class, in alli­ance with the peasants and the revo­lu­tio­nary intel­li­gent­sia. The middle bour­geoi­sie, small merchants, and artisans were in contra­dic­tion with impe­ria­lism and could thus also play a progres­sive role. This idea was an elabo­ra­tion of Lenin’s theory of the “revo­lu­tio­nary-demo­cra­tic dicta­tor­ship of the workers and peasants”, adapted to the neoco­lo­nial context.55

Accor­din­gly, new local organs of people’s power were set up in urban and rural areas. All working clas­ses would be repre­sen­ted in these assem­blies, and non-PCT members could be elec­ted as well.56 The parlia­ment was recon­sti­tu­ted in 1973, and the number of dele­ga­tes was doubled to ensure adequate rural repre­sen­ta­tion. The new consti­tu­tion that had been draf­ted at the 1972 Congress was put to a public refe­ren­dum in June 1973 and recei­ved appr­oval from 73.5 percent of the elec­to­rate.57 All these measu­res reflec­ted a further revo­lu­tio­niza­tion and demo­cra­tis­a­tion of the poli­ti­cal process.

9. The Ngouabi era and the discovery of oil (1972–1977)

The conso­li­da­tion of the natio­nal-demo­cra­tic revo­lu­tion in 1972 gave rise to a spirit of opti­mism and deter­mi­na­tion in Congo during the mid-1970s.58 Ngouabi’s govern­ment unrol­led new econo­mic measu­res to curtail the influence of foreign capi­tal. This included the natio­na­li­sa­tion of the land, limi­ta­ti­ons on the trans­fer of profits abroad, an increase of public shares in private mining compa­nies, a state mono­poly on the marke­ting of timber, and the cancel­la­tion of old agree­ments with France.59 The PCT also set the objec­tive of repla­cing all experts and tech­ni­ci­ans from France with Congo­lese cadre that had been trai­ned in the socia­list states. In 1974, all trading firms were requi­red to “Congo­lise” their person­nel. Foreign invest­ments and tech­ni­ci­ans would now only be permit­ted in certain sectors, and they had to provide a plan for their pros­pec­tive repla­ce­ment by Congo­lese funds and cadre.60

Ngou­abi (left) meets with leaders of the MPLA in August 1974. The PCT was a key ally of the libe­ra­tion move­ment in neigh­bou­ring Angola and helped the MPLA to set up mili­tary bases along the border.

The foun­ding of the People’s Repu­blic also coin­ci­ded with a fateful econo­mic deve­lo­p­ment in the coun­try. In 1969, after years of specu­la­tion, French and Italian firms had disco­vered massive offshore oil depo­sits along Congo’s coast. Braz­z­aville had gran­ted these compa­nies pros­pec­ting permits, knowing that there was no indi­ge­nous know­ledge or tech­no­logy to do so. In return, these foreign compa­nies were suppo­sed to trans­fer 20 percent of their annual earnings to Congo’s natio­nal budget.61 France’s Elf-Aqui­taine and Italy’s ENI soon made a killing as they sypho­ned off the vast majo­rity of Congo’s oil wealth. The reve­nue gene­ra­ted by the 20-percent shares none­thel­ess turned Congo’s trade balance around and, by 1975, a trade surplus was recor­ded for the first time. This fortune helped bols­ter the opti­mi­stic atmo­sphere in Braz­z­aville and an ambi­tious new natio­nal deve­lo­p­ment plan reflec­ted this. With the aim of gradu­ally taking control over the new lucra­tive oil sector, the PCT deman­ded a grea­ter share of Elf’s and ENI’s profits and estab­lished a natio­nally owned oil company named Hydro­congo. When Ameri­can oil compa­nies showed up to take advan­tage of the new disco­veries, Braz­z­aville stipu­la­ted that half of their reve­nue would even­tually have to be trans­fer­red to Hydrocongo.

The oil refi­nery plant run by the state-owned Hydro­congo in the city of Pointe Noire.

The disco­very of offshore oil was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it provi­ded a much-needed upswing in public reve­nue, with oil soon taking over timber to become Congo’s main export. Between 1970 and 1975, the real gross natio­nal product increased by 8.2 percent, with much of these funds going towards social and infra­struc­ture spen­ding.62 The number of students enrol­led in schools was tripled, with over 350,000 child­ren recei­ving free educa­tion by the late 1970s.63 Yet, at the same time, Congo was lured into a deep depen­dency on oil, which by the mid-1980s made up over 80 percent of the country’s exports.64 If commis­si­ons on foreign-owned timber compa­nies had been an easy, yet non-produc­tive source of reve­nue for Congo, commis­si­ons on oil extra­c­tion were no diffe­rent. Despite great efforts, the state-owned Hydro­congo strug­g­led and ulti­m­ately failed to take control of the refi­ning and marke­ting of the country’s oil output. Compe­ti­tion with the well-finan­ced and expe­ri­en­ced French and Italian subsi­dia­ries was simply too great. More fatally, howe­ver, the Congo­lese economy was now comple­tely vulnerable to the boom-bust cycle of the capi­ta­list world market. While the early 1970s brought in record reve­nue for Braz­z­aville, the global reces­sion in 1974 caused Congo’s real gross natio­nal product growth to contract from 8.2 percent to just 1.6 percent in 1975 and 1976.

Oil thus deepe­ned the People’s Republic’s econo­mic depen­dency on the West. In 1976, over half of Congo­lese exports were still desti­ned for the EEC, while close to 70 percent of imports were coming from Western Europe.65 The neoco­lo­nial reali­ties of Sub-Saha­ran Africa were also reve­a­led by Congo’s meagre trade with its neigh­bours: only 7.5 percent of Congo’s imports came from the neigh­bou­ring states in the Central Afri­can UDEAC customs union. Exports to UDEAC count­ries were comple­tely negli­gi­ble. The socia­list states, for their part, had built strong poli­ti­cal ties with Braz­z­aville, but had failed to replace the capi­ta­list powers as a meaningful trading part­ner. The socia­list bloc accoun­ted for just 4 percent of Congo’s imports, while exports were only slightly higher than 8 percent. This was some­thing Ngou­abi and his allies pole­micised bila­te­rally with socia­list govern­ments and occa­sio­nally even publicly in the mid-1970s.66

One of the many DDR citi­zens helping to train a new gene­ra­tion of Congo­lese profes­sio­nals: Dr. Helga Buch­ecker teaching young medi­cal students in a poly­cli­nic in Brazzaville.

The PCT itself went through a further deve­lo­p­ment during these years too. Since 1970, Ngou­abi had been pushing for the expan­sion of party member­ship to secure a broa­der mass base and anchor the Party in both the rural inte­rior and in the army.67 Yet it was not until Decem­ber 1974, when Ngou­abi was re-elec­ted as chair­man of the PCT, that he was able to convince the majo­rity of the central commit­tee to back his propo­sal. He subse­quently led this initia­tive and member­ship expan­ded 6‑fold, from 227 members to 1,427 by 1975. The polit­buro also grew from 5 to 8 members and the central commit­tee from 40 to 50. These efforts helped to ensure that mass orga­ni­sa­ti­ons and the mili­tary were repre­sen­ted within and tied to the Party.

In an effort to acce­le­rate the slug­gish process of reor­ga­ni­s­ing the state appa­ra­tus, the PCT set up a special commit­tee in 1975 to remove “irre­cup­era­ble cadres” from power. A policy entit­led “power to the people” was initia­ted to make admi­nis­tra­tive posi­ti­ons more acces­si­ble to workers and peasants.68 This “radi­cal­i­sa­tion of the Party” was driven by the youth orga­ni­sa­tion, as students were deman­ding more aggres­sive poli­cies against the “over­pri­vi­le­ged and over­paid” bureau­crats. Bowing to this pres­sure, the govern­ment and the PCT’s central commit­tee and polit­buro were reshuf­fled. Ngou­abi announ­ced that a Third Extra­or­di­nary PCT Congress would be held in 1977 to conti­nue this restruc­tu­ring process and combat the bureau­cracy that was profiting off the new oil reve­nues. Before the congress could be held, howe­ver, Ngou­abi was assas­si­na­ted by members of the presi­den­tial guard who ambus­hed him at his home on 18 March 1977.

It remains unclear who was behind Ngouabi’s assas­si­na­tion. The mili­tary was quick to arrest various promi­nent figu­res, inclu­ding former presi­dent Massamba-Débat, who was swiftly tried and execu­ted for his alle­ged invol­vement. Western obser­vers such as Thomp­son and Adloff have suggested a connec­tion with the plan­ned Third Extra­or­di­nary Congress: disgrunt­led bureau­crats and offi­cers were perhaps fear­ful for their posi­ti­ons. A “strictly confi­den­tial” report in the DDR archi­ves suggests a diffe­rent motive. Hermann Axen (the direc­tor of the inter­na­tio­nal depart­ment of the DDR’s ruling SED) was sent a letter in which promi­nent PCT members who had studied in the DDR clai­med that Ngou­abi was killed after he intern­ally announ­ced plans to “end Congo’s vacil­la­ting foreign policy between the USSR, China, and France” and seek a friend­ship agree­ment with the Soviet Union, just as Angola had done seve­ral months prior.69 It was hoped that a close alignment with the USSR would further deepen econo­mic ties and thus help reduce Congo’s depen­dency on the West. This reso­lu­tion was alle­gedly to be submit­ted to the Third Extra­or­di­nary Congress for appr­oval, so anti-Soviet elements within the PCT struck before it could be put forward. It remained unclear, howe­ver, who these anti-Soviet elements were exactly.

Ngouabi’s fune­ral in Braz­z­aville, 2 April 1977.

Imme­dia­tely after the assas­si­na­tion, an emer­gency mili­tary junta was estab­lished, and the 1973 consti­tu­tion was repea­led. Ngouabi’s closest allies were dispatched abroad to limit their influence on Congo’s poli­ti­cal deve­lo­p­ments. The PCT was de facto suspen­ded. These steps suggest that the assas­si­na­tion was indeed inten­ded to coun­ter Ngouabi’s ideo­lo­gi­cal orien­ta­tion. Regard­less of the moti­va­tion, Ngouabi’s death marked a signi­fi­cant setback in Congo’s revo­lu­tio­nary process. He was not only a skil­led poli­ti­cian and mili­tary comman­der, but an outstan­ding Marxist theo­re­ti­cian who had enri­ched scien­ti­fic socia­lism with his analy­ses of Congo­lese society and the chal­lenges facing Sub-Saha­ran Africa. A selec­tion of his writings and spee­ches were published in the book Vers la cons­truc­tion d’une société socia­liste en Afri­que. It includes his speech at a 1975 confe­rence in Dakar, Sene­gal, where he formu­la­ted a histo­ri­cal mate­ria­list analy­sis of Congo­lese society and advo­ca­ted for scien­ti­fic socia­lism rather than the idea of an “Afri­can socialism”.

10. A new economic policy: auto-centré et autodynamique (1977–1984)

The Comité mili­taire du parti that took over follo­wing Ngouabi’s murder was led by Joachim Yhombi-Opango, a conser­va­tive colo­nel who had previously been demo­ted by Ngou­abi.70 His presi­dency over the People’s Repu­blic lasted just two years and it repre­sen­ted a period of poli­ti­cal stagna­tion. The PCT was even­tually able to remove Yhombi-Opango in Febru­ary 1979 and replace him with Denis Sassou Nguesso, who was widely seen as a capa­ble succes­sor to Ngouabi’s revo­lu­tio­nary legacy.

As his first act, Sassou Nguesso conve­ned the long-awai­ted Third Extra­or­di­nary Congress in 1979 and a new consti­tu­tion was draf­ted, which was then put to the public and appro­ved by 85 percent of the 700,000 strong elec­to­rate. The new consti­tu­tion preser­ved and expan­ded the consti­tu­tion from 1973. The basic means of produc­tion were protec­ted as people’s property, while the private sector was permit­ted under the condi­tion that it remained under state super­vi­sion. The Party and the state were once again concep­tua­li­sed as a unified instru­ment of power: the secre­tary gene­ral of the PCT was simul­ta­neously the presi­dent of the People’s Repu­blic. The elec­to­rate now gained the right of recall over repre­sen­ta­ti­ves in the Natio­nal Assem­bly. Howe­ver, closer alignment with the Soviet Union was not discussed.

The congress adopted a more sober analy­sis of Congo’s econo­mic situa­tion. By the end of the 1970s, the state sector had been expan­ded and now accoun­ted for appro­xi­m­ately 30 percent of indus­trial output. Yet, state-owned enter­pri­ses were strugg­ling to make ends meet. At the same time, despite being an agra­rian coun­try, Congo was heavily depen­dent on impor­ted food­s­tuffs. The colo­ni­ally impo­sed prac­tice of culti­vat­ing mono­cul­tures still shaped many agri­cul­tu­ral enter­pri­ses. The cost of import­ing food­s­tuffs was a signi­fi­cant drain on the state’s accu­mu­la­tion; these funds could instead be spent on import­ing tech­no­logy.71 As such, the PCT adopted three central poli­cies at the 1979 congress: to reor­ga­nise the state enter­pri­ses, to increase agri­cul­tu­ral produc­tion, and – in the current phase – focus on control­ling the private sector rather than elimi­na­ting it. These poli­cies were part of a new stra­tegy entit­led auto-centré et autody­na­mi­que (self-orien­ted and self-dyna­mic), through which the PCT sought to empha­sise dome­stic solu­ti­ons to Congo’s problems, as oppo­sed to rely­ing on foreign assistance:

“The main levers of the Congo­lese economy must lie within the natio­nal borders. An inde­pen­dent Congo­lese economy means control of the comman­ding heights of the economy, mastery over finan­cial and mone­tary problems, inter- and intra-regio­nal inte­gra­tion, appro­pria­tion of tech­no­logy, control over foreign trade … The inde­pen­dent natio­nal economy must … be control­led by the Congo­lese people themselves.”

As had been previously acknow­led­ged by the PCT, the economy of the “tran­si­tio­nary period” was essen­ti­ally a compe­ti­tion between diffe­rent types of property rela­ti­ons.72 Yet now the Party empha­sised that the streng­thening of state-owned enter­pri­ses could not be achie­ved by admi­nis­tra­tively restrai­ning private enter­pri­ses. Instead, the public sector should aim to deve­lop more swiftly rela­tive to the private sector. The state had to focus on support­ing its own enter­pri­ses, while only inter­fe­ring in the private sector to prevent exces­ses (e.g., specu­la­tion). The elimi­na­tion of private owner­ship over the means of produc­tion was a distant objec­tive to be pursued at a later stage of the revo­lu­tion. This also had impli­ca­ti­ons for the PR Congo’s approach to foreign capi­tal, as the Congo­lese econo­mist Jacques Ndokou wrote in 1987:

“Foreign capi­tal plays a contra­dic­tory role. On the one hand – and this is the essen­tial point – it is the decisive factor in econo­mic depen­dence, the extra­c­tive charac­ter of the economy, its dispro­por­tio­na­lity. On the other hand, [foreign capi­tal] cannot simply be ‘elimi­na­ted’. Firstly, the poli­ti­cal balance of power does not allow this. Secondly, [foreign capi­tal] is a ‘chan­nel’ through which modern tech­ni­ques and tech­no­logy enter the coun­try, so that a more highly quali­fied working class can emerge, espe­ci­ally in the compa­nies it controls. As the expe­ri­en­ces of the ‘New Econo­mic Policy’ in Soviet Russia in the early 1920s, but also the very inte­res­t­ing deve­lo­p­ments in China today, show, foreign capi­tal can certainly contri­bute to the deve­lo­p­ment of natio­nal produc­tive forces if its sphere of influence is limi­ted.”73

The 1980s were thus charac­te­ri­sed by a new econo­mic stra­tegy that drew inspi­ra­tion from Lenin’s New Econo­mic Policy. Inte­res­t­ingly, the PCT star­ted to formu­late this stra­tegy in 1978, at the same time as the Commu­nist Party of China began imple­men­ting its “reform and opening-up” policy. Based on the back­ward nature of the Congo­lese economy, the idea was now to “deve­lop the state sector by using the private sector” – i.e., plan­ning econo­mic deve­lo­p­ment through state-owned enter­pri­ses and comple­men­ting this process with the acti­vity of private firms. “The streng­thening of the natio­nal economy in all its sectors is a decisive prere­qui­site for pushing back the current domi­nance of foreign capi­tal,” as Ndokou argued.74

This reori­en­ta­tion of econo­mic stra­tegy was coupled with a re-assess­ment of the class constel­la­tion in the PR Congo. The natio­nal-demo­cra­tic revo­lu­tion had been premi­sed on the idea that the nascent working class would grow in strength during this process and progres­si­vely take over the hegem­ony in the revo­lu­tion to initiate its even­tual tran­si­tion to a socia­list revo­lu­tion. While the working class had expan­ded over the past 15 years, it remained rela­tively weak and under­qua­li­fied in the early 1980s. It was a “working class of the first gene­ra­tion”, consis­ting largely of former peasants who had fled rural areas to find jobs in the city. As such, “ethnic parti­cu­la­rism” was rife and contin­ued to hinder the deve­lo­p­ment of a class conscious­ness.75 The auto-centré et autody­na­mi­que thus aimed to upskill the working class and train them in the use of modern tech­no­logy by employ­ing them in joint ventures with foreign capital.

In the mean­time, the PCT contin­ued to be carried prima­rily by the intel­li­gent­sia, who repre­sen­ted only 5 percent of the total popu­la­tion, but consti­tu­ted 25 percent of the party’s membership.

Data gathe­red from Ndokou and Schmidt.

11. Stagnation and retreat (1984–1990)

Since 1970, the socia­list states had expan­ded their econo­mic rela­ti­ons with the PR Congo. DDR offi­ci­als unders­tood that Congo’s depen­dency on the capi­ta­list world market was perpe­tua­ted by its role as a supplier of raw mate­rial, so they sought to assist the young people’s demo­cracy in indus­tria­li­sing. The DDR had been supp­ly­ing Braz­z­aville with long-term credits with guaran­teed low inte­rest rates since 1970. The stra­tegy rested on faci­li­ta­ting the import of East German machi­nery and equip­ment, speci­fi­cally rela­ting to elec­tri­city gene­ra­tion, commu­ni­ca­tion systems, cons­truc­tion, natu­ral resource proces­sing, and prin­ting.78 The DDR also sent advi­sors to help with the manage­ment of state-owned enter­pri­ses in the textile and cera­mics indus­tries. A further 7.3 million USD was inves­ted into the educa­tion and trai­ning of over 800 Congo­lese students, workers, and cadre in East Germany. By the late 1980s, soli­da­rity goods worth almost 4 million USD had been dispatched to Congo. There was thus a signi­fi­cant trans­fer of know­ledge and tech­no­logy to Congo. Yet despite this progress, the econo­mic rela­ti­ons between the socia­list bloc and Congo never reached the same level as their poli­ti­cal rela­ti­ons. The Soviet Union – which sought to support the crea­tion of lead and zinc indus­tries in the early 1980s – was ulti­m­ately unable to supp­lant the West as Congo’s main trading partner.

Like many other former colo­nies, the PR Congo was being suffo­ca­ted by the debt crisis in the 1980s. By 1985, Brazzaville’s debt had reached 2 billion USD, which equa­ted to 68.7 percent of the gross social product.79. That year, the Congo­lese state had to use 50 percent of its reve­nue just to service its ongo­ing debt repay­ment obli­ga­ti­ons. The debt accu­mu­la­ted from previous years could not be paid off. The DDR showed under­stan­ding by repea­tedly defer­ring payments owed by Braz­z­aville, but this of course had detri­men­tal effects on the East German economy too. The World Bank step­ped in to offer credit to Braz­z­aville, but it stipu­la­ted that the funds could only be inves­ted in the most profi­ta­ble areas of the economy. This further preven­ted the PCT from streng­thening the state sector.80

By the mid-1980s, the revo­lu­tio­nary zeal had faded mark­edly, both within the PCT and the commu­nist world move­ment. With the ascen­sion of Mikhail Gorba­chev to gene­ral secre­tary of the Commu­nist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1985, a doctrine of “new thin­king” domi­na­ted the USSR’s foreign policy. The drive to support “econo­mic­ally weaker” socia­list-orien­ted states like Congo and Afgha­ni­stan was supp­lan­ted by a desire to expand econo­mic rela­ti­ons with larger capi­ta­list states in the Global South like Brazil or Argen­tina. In the PR Congo, Sassou-Nguesso began moving away from the idea of inten­si­fy­ing rela­ti­ons with the socia­list camp. He instead turned to advi­sors from France and the World Bank and, in 1984, even initia­ted a purge against the “pro-Soviet” faction of the PCT that had been pushing for closer rela­ti­ons with the socia­list bloc.81 Trade with the DDR slum­ped there­af­ter, as the Congo­lese govern­ment showed little inte­rest in using the credit gran­ted by East Germany.

Faced with an incre­asingly despon­dent CPSU and PCT, the SED contin­ued its support for the PR Congo but was clearly unsett­led by these deve­lo­p­ments. In 1985, DDR analysts concluded in an inter­nal assessment:

“As a result of inter­nal class strug­gles and the influence of the exter­nal balance of power, compro­mi­ses have been made. For exam­ple, solu­ti­ons to important – and theo­re­ti­cally reco­g­nised – ques­ti­ons such as the dismant­ling of the old state appa­ra­tus, the econo­mic reco­very of the state sector, the rest­ric­tion of the bureau­cra­tic bour­geoi­sie, which has been pending for a long time, have been avoided in prac­tice or are only being tack­led very inconsistently.

 

There is a growing contra­dic­tion between the declared poli­ti­cal goals and certain posi­tive chan­ges in the super­s­truc­ture on the one hand and the growing econo­mic depen­dence on impe­ria­lism and the lack of progres­sive chan­ges in the socio-econo­mic basis and the contin­ued exis­tence of the neo-colo­nia­list state appa­ra­tus on the other hand. If there is no rever­sal of this trend, there is an incre­asing danger to the socia­list orien­ta­tion [of the PR Congo].”82

After the dismant­ling of the socia­list world system at the begin­ning of the 1990s, the PCT was one of many revo­lu­tio­nary-demo­cra­tic parties to retreat poli­ti­cally and concede to Western libe­ra­lism. Congo-Braz­z­aville was also one of seve­ral former socia­list-orien­ted count­ries to descend into civil war after 1990. Except for a brief five-year inter­lude, Sassou-Nguesso and the now social demo­cra­tic PCT have remained in govern­ment in the Repu­blic of Congo.

12. Conclusion

Libe­ral scho­lars were quick to prono­unce capi­ta­lism victo­rious after 1990. They descri­bed the collapse of the anti-impe­ria­list and commu­nist move­ments as the “end of history”. Yet today, more than three deca­des later, the contra­dic­tions of the capi­ta­list world system are neces­s­a­rily giving rise to new anti-impe­ria­list move­ments across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and we can clearly see that history is far from being “over”. One of the most glaring examp­les is the Alli­ance of Sahel States (AES), which has now ejec­ted Western mili­tary forces from their strong­holds in West Africa. The AES govern­ments are now sear­ching for ways to break out of France’s neoco­lo­nial grip. For many commu­nist forces across the conti­nent and beyond, the natio­nal-demo­cra­tic revo­lu­tion remains a central stra­te­gic orien­ta­tion and, as such, the histo­ri­cal expe­ri­en­ces of Congo-Braz­z­aville have gained rene­wed relevance.

Conside­ring the ques­tion of state power posed in the intro­duc­tion, the Congo­lese revo­lu­tion undoub­tedly made an important contri­bu­tion to state theory in the neoco­lo­nial context. What set Congo-Braz­z­aville apart from other revo­lu­tio­nary states in Africa was that it held out for over 25 years, defy­ing all inter­nal and exter­nal coun­ter­re­vo­lu­tio­nary attacks and even weathe­ring chan­ges in leader­ship rela­tively well. The same cannot be said for Ghana, Mali, Guinea, Egypt, Alge­ria, and so on. This, I would argue, is predo­mi­nantly due to the success of the Congo­lese revo­lu­tion in muste­ring “the inner strength for its own trans­for­ma­tion”. The revo­lu­tio­na­ries were able to advance from a natio­nal-demo­cra­tic state with a mass party (1963–1968) to a people’s demo­cracy with a vanguard party of the working people (1969–1990). The latter repre­sen­ted a more “mature, deve­lo­ped form of the revo­lu­tio­nary-demo­cra­tic state power” and was thus more capa­ble of defen­ding and deve­lo­ping the revo­lu­tion after its initial phase.83

In this connec­tion, one of the most chal­len­ging aspects of the struggle in Africa was that vanguard parties like the PCT emer­ged only after the revo­lu­tio­nary process had begun.

“In the begin­ning, state power is conque­red, and only as a next step does one begin to create the party orga­ni­sa­tion and its mass base from above. In this case, the party is not the instru­ment of a parti­cu­lar class to seize power, but an instru­ment to assert the power alre­ady seized and to further utilise it to fulfil an alre­ady prede­ter­mi­ned programme.”84

This process unfolds against the back­ground of an intense class struggle. In the Congo­lese context, it star­ted with the foun­ding of the MNR, one year after the popu­lar revo­lu­tion when the capi­ta­list-orien­ted forces had to be pushed out of govern­ment. Over the next five years, the MNR was able to advance the natio­nal-demo­cra­tic revo­lu­tion and orga­nise a mass base, but it had even­tually run its course. The upri­sing led by Ngou­abi in August 1968 was a neces­sary “correc­tive measure” to combat the bureau­cra­tic bour­geoi­sie and realise what the revo­lu­tio­nary intel­li­gent­sia had been pushing for since early 1966: the crea­tion of a vanguard party with a clear class charac­ter and a scien­ti­fi­cally groun­ded analy­sis. While it is true that non-working-class forces (mainly the civil and mili­tary intel­li­gent­sia) main­tai­ned hegem­ony in Congo’s revo­lu­tio­nary process until the end, they had mana­ged to deepen the demo­cra­tic charac­ter of the revo­lu­tion and progres­si­vely draw the working masses into local organs of power and the consti­tu­tio­nal draf­ting process. What is more, the Party had adopted scien­ti­fic socia­lism: “Since this is the ideo­logy of the working class, the leading role of these forces can argu­ably be unders­tood as a speci­fic, indi­rect form of working-class hegem­ony, or at least as an approach, an element of this hegem­ony, a step towards it,” as the Soviet scho­lar V. Y. Chir­kin concluded.85

As such, the natio­nal-demo­cra­tic revo­lu­tion must be unders­tood as a process, as an evolu­tio­nary dyna­mic that gradu­ally crea­tes both the objec­tive and subjec­tive precon­di­ti­ons for socia­list revo­lu­tion. This was clearly evident in the peri­odic redraf­ting of Congo-Brazzaville’s consti­tu­tion, which progres­si­vely moved away from bour­geois consti­tu­tio­na­lity and incre­asingly adopted prole­ta­rian concep­ti­ons of state power. Simi­lar dyna­mics could be seen in the other people’s repu­blics of Angola, Mozam­bi­que, Ethio­pia, and South Yemen – all of which held out until the collapse of the socia­list world system in 1990. As Ngou­abi had argued so well, in socie­ties where (neo)colonialism had deeply distor­ted basic histo­ri­cal deve­lo­p­ment (e.g., the forma­tion of nati­ons, the over­co­ming of feudal and pre-feudal rela­ti­ons, etc.), it would be utopian to imagine that socia­lism could be estab­lished immediately.

The unre­sol­ved contra­dic­tion for the PCT was the second ques­tion formu­la­ted in the intro­duc­tion: the rela­tion between the natio­nal-demo­cra­tic revo­lu­tion and foreign capi­tal. Contrary to initial expec­ta­ti­ons, it had proved immensely diffi­cult for Congo to escape its subor­di­nate and depen­dent role in the inter­na­tio­nal capi­ta­list divi­sion of labour. The so-called “pro-Soviet” faction of the MNR and PCT had advan­ced an agenda of gradu­ally natio­na­li­sing foreign compa­nies and rest­ric­ting the private sector. Yet, by itself, this stra­tegy had failed to bring about the desi­red results. State-owned enter­pri­ses were cripp­led by a lack of tech­ni­cal cadre and the compe­ti­tion with far stron­ger multi­na­tio­nal compa­nies on the world market. Attempts to create proces­sing indus­tries in both the timber and oil sectors failed.

This stem­med largely from the inca­pa­ci­ties of the socia­list world system, which was the third ques­tion focu­sed on in this article. The trans­fer of tech­no­logy and know­ledge from the USSR, China, DDR, Cuba, and many other socia­list states was immense. Such rela­ti­ons repre­sen­ted a quali­ta­tive break with the neoco­lo­nial prac­ti­ces of the West. The socia­list states did not aim to simply be buyers of Congo’s raw mate­ri­als; they tried to get invol­ved in the produc­tion process and foster the country’s indus­tria­li­sa­tion. This was because the commu­nists unders­tood that no sum of aid or credit could free the former colo­nies from explo­ita­tion. If the distor­ted nature of the natio­nal economy was not radi­cally trans­for­med, and if the domi­na­tion of foreign capi­tal was not broken, then the rela­ti­ons that crea­ted Africa’s depen­dency would only be repro­du­ced. There had to be a quali­ta­tive trans­for­ma­tion of both the inter­nal socio-econo­mic rela­ti­ons and the exter­nal condi­ti­ons on the world stage. This latter point is where the commu­nist world move­ment strug­g­led most. The econo­mic rela­ti­ons with Congo and other revo­lu­tio­nary states in Africa were ulti­m­ately not broad enough to enable them to disen­gage from the capi­ta­list world system. It does not appear as if the socia­list govern­ments had a stra­tegy for inte­gra­ting econo­mies like Congo-Braz­z­aville, Angola, Mozam­bi­que, and Afgha­ni­stan into an inter­na­tio­nal socia­list divi­sion of labour. The much-touted “socia­list econo­mic inte­gra­tion” that was to be advan­ced in Come­con had stal­led by the late 1970s.86 Gorbachev’s ascen­sion within the CPSU in 1985 was the final nail in the coffin. On top of this came the rival­ries of the Sino-Soviet split, which only compli­ca­ted ideo­lo­gi­cal deba­tes in Congo.

Against this back­ground, the PCT pivo­ted the coun­try towards a diffe­rent stra­tegy in the 1980s, which sought to conso­li­date the state-owned sector while simul­ta­neously loosening admi­nis­tra­tive rest­ric­tions on the private sector and making conces­si­ons to foreign capi­tal in the hope of acce­le­ra­ting the tech­ni­cal trai­ning of Congo­lese workers and the trans­fer of tech­no­logy. This approach had inte­res­t­ing paral­lels to China’s “reform and opening-up” stra­tegy, which was deve­lo­ped at the same time. Yet Congo’s depen­dency on the capi­ta­list world market was far grea­ter than China’s in 1978. This could be seen in the debt trap laid by the West, which forced “struc­tu­ral adjus­t­ment” poli­cies upon Braz­z­aville and ther­eby under­mi­ned the PCT’s efforts to defend and streng­then the state sector. In this connec­tion, any reduc­tion in depen­dency on the capi­ta­list West is neces­s­a­rily a progres­sive deve­lo­p­ment for Africa. The advance­ment of so-called “South-South coope­ra­tion” in alli­ances like BRICS+ has signi­fi­cant poten­tial, despite all contra­dic­tions and limitations.

Bibliography

Author coll­ec­tive, Die Arbei­ter­klasse in Asien und Afrika, Formie­rung und Kampf – Proto­koll einer Konfe­renz (The Working Class in Asia and Africa, Forma­tion and Struggle – Lectures from a Confe­rence), Akade­mie Verlag, Berlin, 1974.

 

Author coll­ec­tive, Partei und Staat in den Ländern mit sozia­lis­ti­scher Orien­tie­rung (Party and State in the Count­ries with a Socia­list Orien­ta­tion), Akade­mie Verlag, Berlin, 1974.

 

Author coll­ec­tive, Staats­recht junger Natio­nal­staa­ten (Consti­tu­tio­nal Law in the Young Natio­nal States), Staats­ver­lag der Deut­schen Demo­kra­ti­schen Repu­blik, Berlin, 1988.

 

Koun­kou, L. “Zur Entwick­lung des volks­wirt­schaft­li­chen Repro­duk­ti­ons­pro­zes­ses in der Volks­re­pu­blik Kongo“ (On the Deve­lo­p­ment oft he Natio­nal Econo­mic Repro­duc­tion Process in the People’s Repu­blic of Congo) in Zur Entwick­lung in der Volks­re­pu­blik Kongo, Akade­mie für Gesell­schafts­wis­sen­schaf­ten beim Zentral­ko­mi­tee der SED, Berlin, 1987.

 

Thomp­son, V. and Adloff, R. Histo­ri­cal Diction­ary of the People’s Repu­blic of the Congo, Scare­crow Press, Inc., London, 1984.

 

Ndokou, J. “Voraus­sicht­li­che und erfor­der­li­che soziale Verän­de­run­gen im Hinblick auf die Errich­tung einer sozia­lis­ti­schen Gesell­schaft in der Volks­re­pu­blik Kongo“ (Anti­ci­pa­ted and Neces­sary Social Chan­ges with Regard to the Estab­lish­ment of a Socia­list Society in the People’s Repu­blic of Congo) in Zur Entwick­lung in der Volks­re­pu­blik Kongo, Berlin, 1987.

 

Ngou­abi, M. Vers la cons­truc­tion d’une société socia­liste en Afri­que (Towards the Cons­truc­tion of a Socia­list Society in Africa), Paris, 1975.

 

M’Pandzou, M. “Probleme der Umge­stal­tung des Staats­ap­pa­ra­tes in der Volks­re­pu­blik Kongo“ (Problems of the Reor­ga­ni­sa­tion of the State Appa­ra­tus in the People’s Repu­blic of Congo) in Zur Entwick­lung in der Volks­re­pu­blik Kongo, Akade­mie für Gesell­schafts­wis­sen­schaf­ten beim Zentral­ko­mi­tee der SED, Berlin, 1987.

 

Chir­kin, V. Y. and Yudin, Y. A. A Socia­list-Orien­ted State: Instru­ment of Revo­lu­tio­nary Change, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1978.

 

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Schmidt, U. „Zu den poli­tisch-ideo­lo­gi­schen Grund­po­si­tio­nen der Führungs­kräfte in der VR Kongo“ (On the Basic Poli­ti­cal and Ideo­lo­gi­cal Posi­ti­ons of Leaders in the PR Congo) in Asien, Afrika und Latein­ame­rika, 1988, iss. 16, Akade­mie Verlag, Berlin.

Footnotes

[1] Author coll­ec­tive, Staats­recht junger Natio­nal­staa­ten, Staats­ver­lag der Deut­schen Demo­kra­ti­schen Repu­blik, Berlin, 1988, pg. 259.

[2] L. Koun­kou “Zur Entwick­lung des volks­wirt­schaft­li­chen Repro­duk­ti­ons­pro­zes­ses in der Volks­re­pu­blik Kongo“ in Zur Entwick­lung in der Volks­re­pu­blik Kongo, Akade­mie für Gesell­schafts­wis­sen­schaf­ten beim Zentral­ko­mi­tee der SED, Berlin, 1987, pg. 12.

[3] M. M’Pandzou, “Probleme der Umge­stal­tung des Staats­ap­pa­ra­tes in der Volks­re­pu­blik Kongo“ in Zur Entwick­lung in der Volks­re­pu­blik Kongo, Akade­mie für Gesell­schafts­wis­sen­schaf­ten beim Zentral­ko­mi­tee der SED, Berlin, 1987, pg. 63.

[4] M’Pandzou, pg. 63.

[5] U. Schmidt, „Zu den poli­tisch-ideo­lo­gi­schen Grund­po­si­tio­nen der Führungs­kräfte in der VR Kongo“ in Asien, Afrika und Latein­ame­rika, 1988, iss. 16, Akade­mie Verlag, Berlin, S.878 and German Fede­ral Archi­ves, file DL 2/10588.

[6] V. Y. Chir­kin and Y. A. Yudin, A Socia­list-Orien­ted State: Instru­ment of Revo­lu­tio­nary Change, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1978, pg. 95.

[7] Cited in V. Y. Chir­kin and Y. A. Yudin, pg 96.

[8] M’Pandzou, pg. 65.

[9] After initi­ally being gran­ted asylum in neigh­bou­ring Demo­cra­tic Repu­blic of Congo, Youlou moved to France and then to Franco’s Spain, where the French govern­ment put 500,000 francs at his disposal.

[10] M’Pandzou, pg. 72.

[11] Author coll­ec­tive, 1988, pg. 260.

[12] N.W. Pycht­unov, „Program­ma­ti­sche Doku­mente und Poli­tik der Natio­na­len Revo­lu­tio­nä­ren Bewe­gung und der Kongo­le­si­schen Partei der Arbeit (Kongo/Brazzaville)“ in Partei und Staat in den Ländern mit sozia­lis­ti­scher Orien­tie­rung, Akade­mie Verlag, Berin, 1974, pg. 231.

[13] M’Pandzou, pg. 74.

[14] J. F. Clark, “Congo: Tran­si­tion and the Struggle to Conso­li­date”, in Poli­ti­cal Reform in Fran­co­phone Africa (1997).

[15] Koun­kou, pg. 28.

[16] V. Thomp­son and R. Adloff, Histo­ri­cal Diction­ary of the People’s Repu­blic of the Congo, Scare­crow Press, Inc., London, 1984, pg. 84.

[17] Pycht­unov, pg. 231.

[18] German Fede­ral Archi­ves, file DY 30–98154.

[19] V. Thomp­son and R. Adloff, pg. 100.

[20] M’Pandzou, pg. 78.

[21] Cited in Pycht­unov, pg. 232.

[22] Author coll­ec­tive, 1988, pg. 261.

[23] Noum­aza­laye had been a member of the French Commu­nist Party during his studies in France and was widely seen as a commu­nist. See V. Thomp­son and R. Adloff, pg. 162.

[24] Viet­nam: The US orchestra­ted the “Gulf of Tonkin inci­dent” in 1964 to create a casus belli. Indo­ne­sia: The G30S Move­ment in 1965 was used as a pretext for the massive repres­sion against the Commu­nist Party of Indo­ne­sia. Ghana: The revo­lu­tio­nary govern­ment of Kwame Nkru­mah was topp­led in 1966 by reac­tion­ary forces colla­bo­ra­ting with the West. Rhode­sia: The Zimbab­wean armed struggle for natio­nal inde­pen­dence star­ted in 1964, and the white colo­nial sett­ler regime declared a mino­rity-run repu­blic in 1965.

[25] German Fede­ral Archi­ves, file DY 30–98154.

[26] German Fede­ral Archi­ves, file DY 30–98154.

[27] C. Mähr­del und N.A. Simo­nija, „Beson­der­hei­ten der Heraus­bil­dung von Parteien und ihrer Wech­sel­be­zie­hun­gen zum Staats­ap­pa­rat in Ländern nicht­ka­pi­ta­lis­ti­scher Entwick­lung“ in Partei und Staat in den Ländern mit sozia­lis­ti­scher Orien­tie­rung, Akade­mie Verlag, Berlin, 1974, pg. 31.

[28] German Fede­ral Archi­ves, file DY 30–98154.

[29] V. Thomp­son and R. Adloff, pg. 12.

[30] German Fede­ral Archi­ves, file DY 30–98154.

[31] M’Pandzou, pg. 80–81.

[32] M’Pandzou, pg. 80.

[33] German Fede­ral Archi­ves, file DY 30–98154.

[34] German Fede­ral Archi­ves, file DY 30–98154.

[35] This is how Pierre Nzé, a left-wing member of the CNR descri­bed it to a DDR offi­cial. See German Fede­ral Archi­ves, file DY 30–98154.

[36] V. Y. Chir­kin and Y. A. Yudin, pg. 141.

[37] German Fede­ral Archi­ves, file M 1‑C/920–74.

[38] German Fede­ral Archi­ves, file M 1‑C/920–74.

[39] For ideo­lo­gi­cal trai­ning, the USSR supplied large ship­ments of Lenin works to the PR Congo. The PCT asked the Soviet, Viet­na­mese, Korean, and Cuban embas­sies to orga­nise reading circles. A campaign entit­led “Lenin Week” was also orga­nised in April 1970 to mark Lenin’s 100th birth­day. See German Fede­ral Archi­ves, file DY 30–98154.

[40] Pycht­unov, pg. 240 and German Fede­ral Archi­ves, file DY 30–98154.

[41] Pycht­unov, pg. 246.

[42] German Fede­ral Archi­ves, file M 1‑C/920–74.

[43] German Fede­ral Archi­ves, file DY 30–98154.

[44] V. Thomp­son and R. Adloff, pg. 14.

[45] V. Thomp­son and R. Adloff, pg. 81.

[46] German Fede­ral Archi­ves, file DY 30–98154.

[47] Thomp­son and R. Adloff, pg. 93.

[48] Two members of the PCT’s new central commit­tee had also recei­ved ideo­lo­gi­cal trai­ning in East Germany. See German Fede­ral Archi­ves, file DY 30–98154.

[49] German Fede­ral Archi­ves, file DL2-10588.

[50] In March 1970, merce­na­ries (likely backed by the CIA) attempted to over­throw the PR Congo govern­ment. In Novem­ber 1971, ultra-leftist students orga­nised strikes in Braz­z­aville and Pointe Noire. Maoist-inspi­red elements were there­af­ter purged from the PCT. In reta­lia­tion, the pro-China minis­ters Ange Diawara and Claude-Ernest N’dalla led an armed coup d’État against Ngou­abi in Febru­ary 1972 and came very close to victory. They were even­tually captu­red and executed.

[51] M. Ngou­abi, Vers la cons­truc­tion d’une société socia­liste en Afri­que, Paris, 1975, pg. 52–53.

[52] Article 4 of the PCT’s 1972 programme. Cited in M’Pandzou, pg. 81 and V. Y. Chir­kin and Y. A. Yudin, pg. 124.

[53] V. Y. Chir­kin and Y. A. Yudin, pg. 124.

[54] M. Ngou­abi, pg. 49.

[55] Author coll­ec­tive, 1988, pg. 263.

[56] V. Y. Chir­kin and Y. A. Yudin, pg. 138.

[57] V. Thomp­son and R. Adloff, pg.15.

[58] V. Thomp­son and R. Adloff, pg. 16.

[59] German Fede­ral Archive, file M 1‑C/920–74.

[60] V. Thomp­son and R. Adloff, pg. 16.

[61] V. Thomp­son and R. Adloff, pg. 168.

[62] German Fede­ral Archive, file DL2-10588.

[63] Hori­zont (DDR Foreign Policy Maga­zine), Article Nr. 36/1979.

[64] German Fede­ral Archive, file DL2-10588.

[65] German Fede­ral Archive, file DL2-10588.

[66] German Fede­ral Archive, file M 1‑C/920–74.

[67] German Fede­ral Archive, file M 1‑C/920–74.

[68] V. Thomp­son and R. Adloff, pg. 101.

[69] The report was writ­ten by the direc­tor of the SED’s “Karl Marx” Party School. A Congo­lese alum­nus of the school had retur­ned to the DDR for a holi­day in August 1977 and met with his former profes­sor, whom he confi­ded in. A group of Congo­lese PCT members and alumni of the “Karl Marx” School – inclu­ding promi­nent cadres such as the direc­tor of Congo’s largest state-owned enter­prise – had alle­gedly sent Ngou­abi a letter seve­ral months before his assas­si­na­tion in which they pres­sed the presi­dent to seek a friend­ship agree­ment with the USSR. Ngou­abi is said to have agreed to the propo­sal and announ­ced this intern­ally. See German Fede­ral Archive, file DY 30.98818.

[70] V. Thomp­son and R. Adloff, pg.18.

[71] J. Ndokou, “Voraus­sicht­li­che und erfor­der­li­che soziale Verän­de­run­gen im Hinblick auf die Errich­tung einer sozia­lis­ti­schen Gesell­schaft in der Volks­re­pu­blik Kongo“ in Zur Entwick­lung in der Volks­re­pu­blik Kongo, Berlin, 1987, pg. 45.

[72] Ndokou, pg. 47.

[73] Ndokou, pg. 49.

[74] Ndokou, pg. 43.

[75] Ndokou, pg. 56.

[76] Data gathe­red from Ndokou and Schmidt.

[77] Ndokou, pg. 61.

[78] The DDR’s credits were inten­ded to go towards the cons­truc­tion of plants capa­ble of produ­cing manganese-sili­con, which is used in steel produc­tion. Gabon expor­ted ore by rail to the port in Pointe Noire, so the Congo­lese hoped to process this natu­ral resource them­sel­ves. The volume of the credit increased from 6 million USD in 1970 to 56 million USD by 1988, and inte­rest payments were repea­tedly defer­red at the request of the PCT. See German Fede­ral Archive, files DL 2–10586 and DL 2/10588.

[79] The socia­list states used the concept of gross social product to measure the total mate­rial wealth (both means of produc­tion and consu­mer goods) produ­ced in society over a parti­cu­lar period (usually annu­ally). See L. Koun­kou, pg. 31.

[80] L. Koun­kou, pg. 31.

[81] The leader of this faction was Captain Fran­cois-Xacier Katali, who was demo­ted in 1984 along­side another promi­nent leftist minis­ter, Jean-Pierre Thys­tère Tchi­caya. See V. Thomp­son and R. Adloff, pg. 31.

[82] German Fede­ral Archive, file DL2-10588.

[83] V. Y. Chir­kin, „Die Entwick­lung der Staats­macht in den Ländern sozia­lis­ti­scher Orien­tie­rung“, in Asien, Afrika Latein­ame­rika, 1984, iss. 12, Akade­mie Verlag, Berlin, 1984, pg. 225 – 233.

[84] Cited in C. Mähr­del and N.A. Simo­nija, pg. 56.

[85] V. Y. Chir­kin, 1984, pg. 231.

[86] This thesis needs to be explo­red in more depth. The IFDDR plans to do so within the frame­work of the “Friend­ship!” rese­arch plat­form, which can be found on the website under ifddr.org.