To understand today’s struggle, we must understand the historical development of society and social change. Throughout the course of history, society has consisted of various groupings whose membership has been largely determined by a set of common characteristics. These groupings have been named castes, tribes, classes, and nations. Modern sociological terminology underscores the existence of classes common to all these groups. Kwame Nkrumah defines class as “the sum total of individuals bound together by certain interests which as a class they try to preserve and protect.” Classes arise out of the conflict as to who owns and controls the means of production emerge. These classes have historically been linked to the five major types of social relations of production in society including communalism, slavery, feudalism, capitalism, and socialism. The conflict between classes have varied from one type of production system to another. It is this struggle that history records as class struggle. It was the overthrow of communalism that brought the exploitation of one human being over the other producing slavery, feudalism, reflecting the emergence of private property and with it fierce, antagonistic struggle between the exploiting class and the exploited class. Racism, fascism, royalty, male chauvinism and other ideologies that provided moral justification for exploitation and oppression, developed alongside the development of exploiting classes, and become influencing factors in the acceptance and perpetuation of exploitation.
Under capitalism in Europe and in its settler-colonies, like the United States of America, the means of production and distribution of wealth are privately owned by a racist minority bourgeois class. As victims of capitalist exploitation, oppression and exploitation moved the African masses to desire action and change to destroy their oppressive conditions. It is class struggle and socialist revolution that can alleviate the exploitative conditions under which billions of people live. Socialist Revolution is the fundamental transformation of society from one of exploitation to a qualitatively different system eradicating exploitation. African people whose oppression today exists as a result of capitalist exploitation must seek socialism as the means of production and distribution of wealth are owned and controlled by the masses of the people. It is only though achieving Pan-Africanism — One Unified Socialist Africa, that changing Africa and the African Diaspora from capitalism where our People are seen solely as a means to an end, to a socialist society where People are seen as an end in themselves, that will we eliminate those forces that continue to oppress humankind. African people, worldwide, we must be clear “the core of the black revolution is in Africa, and until Africa is united under a socialist government, the black man throughout the world lacks a national home.” (Nkrumah, Class Struggle in Africa)
Class Division In African Society
The struggle by African People against their racist oppressors is fundamentally a struggle between the European capitalist class and their African allies, and the oppressed and exploited African masses. The class struggle of the African masses includes national and class struggle, and the revolutionary struggle opposed to the oppression of African women. It is only through the organization of the Masses that our political, economic, and cultural objectives can be realized. Only under the leadership of a mass revolutionary Pan-Africanist party, will the oppressed African masses succeed in overthrowing capitalism, imperialism, and neo-colonialism — the last stage of imperialism in Africa. The role of a revolutionary party is critical. “The ultimate victory of the revolutionary force depends on the ability of the socialist revolutionary party to assess the class position in society and to see which classes and groups are for, and which are against the revolution.” Having made a class analysis of African society, we see two classes that of the People’s class and its enemy the anti-People’s class. In Africa and other less industrialized countries, the People’s class includes the following sectors: peasants, rural and urban laborers, industrial laborers and the unemployed. The ruling class in Africa work for the European imperialists, and have no power of their own. They include industrial farmers who employ labor for international agri-businesses, top government officials and civil servants, managers of foreign enterprises, entrepreneurs, top ranking officers in the armed services, top lawyers, doctors and technocrats, intellectuals, traditional rulers such as clan heads, and emirs, etc.
One sector, of African society, that has traditionally fallen under the category of the anti-People’s class has been African intellectuals and intelligentsia who were so named because of their acquisition of university or college education. Students and college professors are the majority of this sector. We can attest to the historical role played by the intelligentsia in sparking the African masses toward revolutionary social action and change. History has proven and is proving today that African students have been and are the spark of the African Revolution, therefore it is necessary that we analyze their historical role in its development, both their positive and negative characteristics.
Class Conditions and Contradictions Among African Students
For our People to liberate themselves they must build a mass revolutionary organization composed of all Africans, in Africa and the African Diaspora. Out of the need for mass political education the decision to organize college students as the initial cadre stems from the fact that the social and economic conditions of students constitute an environment that is most conducive to organization building. Students’ primary occupation is to study, learn, internalize, and propagate ideas. They have the greatest capacity to learn, internalize, introduce and propagate revolutionary ideas. Students are not as politically and economically bound by the capitalist systems as their parents who are among the peasants, and workers and employed intelectuals. Students are the most literate sector of our People. College students have years of experience learning to read, write and apply math and other skills, and are best capable of analyzing African history. On the university campus, students have access to an almost unlimited source of information necessary for research. College life fosters the discussion of political ideas and mobilizing actions that cannot take place in a work environment. Also, on campuses there are African and other students from throughout Africa and the world who, once leaving school can spread the political ideas at a faster rate than the less mobile working population. Students’ ability to disseminate information quickly is due to their high level of mobility. Finally, once students have left the university and joined the work force, they constitute a more conscious element capable of politically educating and organizing the masses of African workers.
Students do not constitute a class themselves. They, however, do come from all social classes, and their aspirations generally reflect their class origins. It has been noted that students from working class origins are more radical than students of middle-or upper-class backgrounds. That is not to say that students of middle or upper class origin cannot become radical or even revolutionary. It is to say that since universities are geared towards the perpetuation of class divisions, they defend bourgeois ideology and attempt to conform the ideologies of its students to suit the interests of the dominating bourgeois class. Thus, it is difficult if not impossible for the students of upper or middle class backgrounds to find within the university any reason to oppose the capitalist system, of which they are beneficiaries, on ideological grounds. Students of working class backgrounds, while attending university, come face to face with a multitude of ideological contradiction that stem from and are re-enforced by their impoverished or near poverty conditions. They face bourgeois philosophy of freedom as being the lack of economic restraint and democracy as being the right to govern oneself, where they are neither free nor living in a democratic society or community. This is the conflict that forges revolutionary consciousness that seeks to transform the society for the needs of all and not for the elite within the society.
While class origin lays the foundation of the students’ outlook on society, we understand that students in capitalist societies receive bourgeois education from very early ages in life and as a result do not hold class aspirations that are always reflect their class origin. Today we see African students coming from working class backgrounds who, upon reaching university, pursue careers or professions for the purpose of achieving upper or middle class status. Even while in school we can see petty bourgeois aspirations manifesting themselves as students use grant money and money from parents, to buy cars, stereo systems and other commodities for entertainment, rather than books or pay bills.
What is the Intelligentsia?
All knowledge comes from the masses of “People’s” struggle with 1) nature and 2) other human beings collectively and individually to sustain and progress life. The intelligentsia is that section of the people with the broadest understanding of general knowledge available. Generally, they are the sector of people who have experienced the most formal or institutionalized education. This means that the largest number of the intelligentsia are of or have been students in educational institutions. But the intelligentsia is not limited to the students in institutions. It also includes those who study and learn outside of these formal institutions. On the African continent the statesman who has written the most extensively is President Sekou Toure of Guinea, who did not attend a university. But other revolutionary leaders like Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Augustino Neto of Angola, President Samora Machel of Mozambique, and President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe who all led their states to independence, were educated in colleges and universities.
Prior to the late 1950’s and 60’s phase when African people gained bogus state power at home and in the Caribbean and bogus civil rights in the U.S., the growth of the African intelligentsia was limited to the needs of the capitalist system. There were only enough Africans educated to fill those civil service positions which were needed to maintain the colonial administration. In the capitalist countries the intelligentsia is still limited in general to only those people who fulfil the intellectual and ideological needs of the capitalist system. These people are propped up as our leaders while those of our leaders who are against the system are assassinated. As Martin Luther King Jr. came to denounce the Vietnam War and the U.S. aggression against the Vietnamese using African youth to commit genocide, who, at the same time, where victims of racism and had no rights in the U.S. Martin Luther King, Jr. was executed like Malcolm X just a few years before him.
Historically the intelligentsia has led the masses to national independence or as a People inside of a capitalist country to more civil rights. It is never a homogeneous group even though the nationalist intelligentsia usually has bourgeois aspirations. The bourgeois nationalist leadership usually has functional working unity within itself and with the masses during the first phase of the struggle which is the struggle for national independence. After independence is won the nationalist leadership splits into three groups. The first group advocates capitalism and becomes open allies to the international capitalist system. The second group advocates a middle of the road path to socialism when, in fact, no such road exists. The third group is the revolutionary intelligentsia. It openly advocates socialism and the organization and empowerment of the masses.
Examples of those who openly advocate capitalism abound. Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Paul Kagame of Rwanda, William Ruto of Kenya, and Nana Akufo-Addo are examples of pro-capitalist puppet heads of state. There are a number of states that advocate the non-capitalist middle-of-the-road path to development also. For many years Senegal’s former president, Senghor and Tanzania’s former president Nyerere had claimed that they were states practicing African Socialism. Brazil under some administrations claimed also to be a socialist state. Jamaica under Manley professed to be a socialist state also. All these states have always been in the capitalist camp either knowingly, or pushing the state under imperialism’s control or through the lack of the practice of scientific socialism which is the only true socialism.
The third sector of the nationalist intelligentsia is the revolutionary sector. Its class interest is that of the Masses rather than the elite. The revolutionary intelligentsia rejects the capitalist values and brainwashing education it received. Education comes from the Latin word, educaie which means to lead outward, but the education which is received in all institutions in capitalist, colonial, neo and settler colonial countries is designed to develop students to believe in capitalism. It is designed to make the students work against the masses’ interests consciously or unconsciously.
The Revolutionary Versus Reformist Intelligentsia
Reform is the practice of changing the face or outside appearance of a thing without changing its basic makeup or essence. Capitalism uses this tactic constantly in order to save and perpetuate itself. Today a brainwashed African intelligentsia is being cultivated by capitalism to act as a buffer between international imperialism and the African masses to ease tensions in times of political and economic unrest. When the people rebel, the capitalists call out the African petty bourgeois to appear before the People to quell their anger, as symbols of “progress” and to rationalize imperialist agression.
Colleges and universities are an integral part of the instruments of miseducation and propaganda for the capitalist system. They perform support work for the Industrial Police Intelligence Complex (IPIC). For example, during the Vietnam War, Columbus University’s school for industrial affairs sent 80% of its graduates to the CIA and State Department. In 1966, the Department of Defense awarded colleges and universities money for research, development, test, and evaluation work. John Hopkins University received more than 50 million dollars, MIT received more than 47 million, and at least 100 schools received over 300 thousand dollars in research grants from the Defense Department. Today, an international network of U.S. based funding institutions, military academies and civil society organizations, sponsored by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), form a significant number of the training centers to cultivate reactionary intelligentsia abroad that defend capitalism, imperialism, zionism and neo-colonialism.
“It is the task of the third sector of the intelligentsia to enunciate and promulgate African revolutionary socialist objectives and to expose and refute the deluge of capitalist propaganda and bogus concepts and theories poured out by the imperialists, neo-colonialist and indigenous reactionary mass communication media.” It is from this third sector that we seek to recruit the majority of our initial cadre. The work of revolutionary cadre is to raise the consciousness of the Masses so that all historic and current events and theoretical and practical relationships in society are seen and analyzed by them. A politically educated people will be organized and, the Masses organized is the primary objective of the African revolution today.
Most African intellectuals end up becoming a part of the establishment and system or a part of the political opposition seeking reforms and advocating middle-of-the-road policies. Nkrumah points out that students are the least cohesive of the elites. He said that those who come from working class families tend to be “more radical than those from the privileged sectors of society.” Today, because of welfare states such as the U.S. more students with working class backgrounds are paying their own way attending colleges and universities. Many of these students are inculcated with petty bourgeois aspirations and upon receipt of their education, forget who they are and their origin.
Members of the African intelligentsia who ultimately play a critical role in the struggle of our People – who act as a spark and catalyst towards social change – must become conscious of the class struggle of our People and align themselves with them. It is through revolutionary organizations that are in close contact with workers and peasants and working to end capitalism and neo-colonialism and build socialist societies that the intelligentsia will make the greatest contribution to the struggle of our People. The history of the intelligentsia in student movements and revolutionary organizations reveals their revolutionary potential.
It was a student based organization, the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) who initiated and lead student and mass struggles throughout the South in the U.S. SNCC raised the political awareness of the African people in the U.S. and throughout the world. SNCC, a student organization developed voter registration drives, solidified alliances with revolutionary forces throughout the world, organized sit-ins, freedom rides, Freedom Schools, condemned zionism, and the occupation of Palestine. SNCC inspired a wave of militant protest activity among African high school and college students and organized an African political party in Lowndes County, Alabama. SNCC was the first African organization to oppose the draft and the Vietnam War. This launched the anti-draft and peace movement which brought the U.S. to its knees, mobilized millions of European (white) U.S. citizens to leave Vietnam, in support and solidarity with a victory of the revolutionary forces in Vietnam.
Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution of 1959 can be traced back to the wave of student protest that arose in 1952 after Batista seized power and attempted to crush the Cuban student movement. Fidel Castro and the “class of 1953” waged a six-year struggle in every inch of Cuba and from the mountains of Mexico to forge a revolutionary movement, inspired the masses of Cuban people and seized power. The Federation of University Students which was founded at the University of Havana in 1954 produced a generation of leaders in Cuba.
The African Student Union of North America, the West African Student Union based in London, and the Nigerian Youth Movement, all of which were founded in the 1930’s and 40’s produced a generation of African leaders and revolutionaries which included Kwame Nkrumah, George Padmore, Jomo Kenyatta, Amy Ashwood Garvey, and Nnamdi Azikiwe.
The emergence of SNCC, the Sharpeville massacre, the youth wings of the various national liberation movements, organizations and parties spread throughout the African world, the various national student unions which exist wherever African students are enrolled in college combined with the world-wide Black Power and African student movements of the 1960’s produced a generation of young African revolutionaries.
Strategy of the A-APRP (GC): Organize African Students the Spark of the African Revolution
In 1972, the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party emerged above ground in the U.S. This event marked a new phase of struggle for the African masses whose aspirations had taken on new dimensions. After hundreds of years of slave revolts, urban rebellions, demonstrations, and strikes, voting became irrelevant because for every ballot cast, imperialist forces invaded another African state and killed another African struggling to be free. These spontaneous protests, having temporarily halted the machinery of exploitation, opened up new waves of imperialist aggression in both the military and political arenas. Independent African states were emerging as scattered African organizations matured and prepared for more serious struggle. It was from these conditions of heightened imperialist aggression and intensifying struggle that consciously struggling Africans realized the necessity to unite their forces worldwide. Armed with the proper analysis and interpretation of African history, they began laying the theoretical grounds for a mass revolutionary Pan-African struggle to continue towards the total liberation and unification of Africa and all of its people throughout the world.
The struggle waged by the A-APRP (GC), having correctly taken the form of an independent, mass, revolutionary political party, needs a conscious African intelligentsia capable of mastering the scientific theory and everyday practice of Revolution. This politically conscious intelligentsia must articulate Nkrumahism-Toureism, the correct ideology of the African revolution, defend it, and wage ideological struggle against the exploiting classes and the backward petty bourgeois tendencies of our oppressed African people. It is the role of this revolutionary intelligentsia to give African history its proper interpretation and use it to teach the working Masses and spark them into a conscious planned revolutionary struggle against capitalist imperialism and all other forms of oppression.
African university students must fulfill their role as the revolutionary intelligentsia for it is you who are the direct beneficiaries of hundreds of years of struggle our people waged to be free. Good grades did not get you to school. It is the mass struggles of our People got you to school, and you must use your intellectual and technical skills to help liberate them. African students, it is you who are best capable of politically educating, organizing, and leading the people. You are the most literate, energetic, and mobile of the people, and while there are those among you who will continue searching aspiring for petty bourgeois illusions, we know that many of you after graduation will still be jobless, almost all of you will be landless, and not one of you will be able to change the conditions in which our people live and suffer, by working within the confines of the capitalist system. The most unconscious of you may join the ranks of imperialist soldiers, as mercenaries, fighting the world’s people who, like your own families, are struggling to be free from imperialist exploitation and oppression. This tide of unconscious activity is one we must stop. We must organize our student populations to translate the aspirations of the People into Positive Action that will ensure liberation, and consolidate the campus as the base of revolutionary activity where African students from all parts of the world can engage in the revolutionary process and plot the direction of our people’s struggle.
We understand clearly, without revolutionary consciousness there will be no Revolution, and without Revolution there will be no freedom, only the reformist compromise of freedom and the continuation of worsening conditions that have been and will continue to spark the people into spontaneous revolt. Our People demonstrate openly our will to be free, and once organized into a revolutionary force, we will have the power to be free. African students belong to the African Revolution! Imperialist exploitation and oppression has been setting our people on fire for years. Now is the time for African students to spark the Masses, and the fire is going to burn until we destroy all forms of exploitation and oppression.
The A-APRP (GC) Organizing for Revolution
The All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC) (A-APRP (GC))is a permanent, independent, all African, mass, revolutionary, socialist, political party based in Africa, the just homeland of African people all over the world. The A-APRP (GC) understands that “all people of African descent, whether they live in North or South America, the Caribbean or in any other part of the world are African and belong to the African Nation,” (Kwame Nkrumah, Class Struggle in Africa, pg. 87). The A-APRP (GC)is an integral part of the Pan-African and world socialist Revolutions. It is a product of the relentless struggle within the Pan-African movement for ideological clarity, a scientific and precise objective; and revolutionary, mass Pan-African political organization. It represents a quantitative and qualitative development in our long history of struggle against class exploitation, national and gender oppression and all of their various manifestations, including centuries of enslavement, dispersion, balkanization, depersonalization and domination of African people and Africa. Guided by its ideology, NKRUMAHISM-TOUREISM, it is struggling to become a mass party capable of politically educating and organizing the masses of oppressed Africans living, suffering, and struggling in over 113 countries in the world in order to release and channel their revolutionary mass energy and potential towards the attainment of PAN-AFRICANISM — One Unified Socialist Africa, which is a historically determined necessity.