1978 Ideological Conference Convened by the People’S Democratic Party of Guinea (Pdg) Held in Conakry, Guinea, West Africa: Seminar Title: Africa on the Move

By Julius G. Mcallister

Spirituality is based upon the postulate that mind, a feature peculiar to man, could not therefore be a feature of nature itself. The mind alone explains, masters, and transforms matter. Therefore, the former does not depend on the latter.

Ready For the Revolution

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483682501

Book preview

1978

Ideological Conference

Convened by the

People’s Democratic Party of Guinea

(PDG of 1947)

Held in

Conakry, Guinea, West Africa

Seminar Title: Africa On the Move

Edited by :

Julius G. McAllister

Copyright © 2013 by PDG of 1947

Library of Congress Control Number:      2013914466

ISBN:                  Hardcover                          978-1-4836-8249-5

                            Softcover                             978-1-4836-8248-8

                            eBook                                  978-1-4836-8250-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

English edition first printed in 1978

by Patrice Lumumba Press, Conakry, Republic of Guinea

This edition is a facsimile text, 2012.

Rev. date: 01/21/2014

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Contents

Preface

Introduction

The 1978 Ideological Conference

International Ideological Conference

Inaugural Address

Chapter I

The National Liberation Struggle in Africa: The Role of the Party and the State in Nation Building

Man lives in society and can only live in society. Society is the fundamental conquest creating the process of the qualification of man.

The People’s Power and the Party State

I.   National Liberation Struggle

Foundations of the National Liberation Struggle

II.   National Liberation Struggle as a Methodology of the Anti-Imperialist Struggle

1.   International context of the struggle and internal conditions

2.   Irreversible character of the liquidation of the world colonial system

3.   Interaction of the political and military factors in the liberation struggle

4.   From National Liberation to social liberation: promoting the National Liberation movement to a political party

III.   Role of the Party and State in Nation Building

Nation building must therefore obey the following conditions:

A.   Role of the Political Party

B.   Role of the State

IV.   The Popular Power in Guinea: The Party State

Conclusion

Chapter II

From the People’s Rights to Human Rights

No one as an individual has lived before the collectivity, because everyone is born to the latter and must endeavor to perpetuate it, provided that the community is not under the hegemony of an elite systematically attached to its own interests.

Chapter III

Conditions and Basis for an Independent Economic Development in Africa

An independent economic development is that in which the aim is not to serve as an appendix of or extension to the development of other extra-national entities. In its effective finality, it does not play the role of a unilateral auxiliary. It ceases to be a phenomenon whose evolution is determined by such extra-national entities.

I.   Political and Social Conditions for an Independent Economic Development in Africa

A.   Colonial economic heritage

B.   Reform of the economic and social structures.

C.   The reform of education

D.   Conscience of development

II.   Fundamental Bases for an Independent Economic Development

a.   The People as promoter and object of economic development

b.   Institutional context of development

c.   Development of natural resources

d.   Conquest of science by the people

III.   Strategy for an Independent Economic Development

a.   Non-capitalist way of development

b.   Choice of priorities and formulation of a plan for consistent development

c.   Qualification and modernization of agriculture, the primary basis of economic development

d.   Industrialization, the accelerating power of agriculture and development

e.   Effective control of trade and currency

IV.   Inter-African and International Cooperation

a.   Inter-African cooperation

b.   International cooperation

Conclusion

Chapter IV

Conditions and Means of a Dynamic Cultural Promotion in Africa

The birth of the People’s genius requires in fact that the people be considered the source of all values and all assets; thereby, no value or asset whatsoever is likely to be placed above them.

I.   Conditions

a.   Political independence

b.   The exercise of sovereignty by the People

c.   Political organization

d.   An ideology of progress

II.   Means

a.   The People

b.   Education

1.   The education of adults

2.   The education of the Youth

1.   An education for the disalienation and the rehabilitation of African cultural values.

2.   A Democratic compulsory and free education

3.   A realistic education with a predominantly technical and scientific contents

III. The first stage: School directed toward life

a.   The second phase is school in life

b.   The third stage, school for life

c.   Scientific research

d.   Information

e.   Development of Culture

Conclusion

Chapter V

Requirements for the Consolidation of African Unity in All Spheres of the People’s Life

So long as a country does not possess its own currency, its economy will remain dependent on the country whose monetary symbols it uses.

Culture: Education and Information

International cooperation

Rights of the People—Human Rights Decolonization—Security and Common Defense

Mass Pan-African Organization

Toward a Continental Executive

Chapter VI

Revolution and Religion

Matter without spirit has no conscience of its own existence

To those who say that religion is secreted by fear of life, we replied that non-religion or Atheism is secreted by the fear of the mind, the mind which does not want to know that the perfect and complex universe has been made by a Creator.

Objectives of Revolution and Religion

   First of all, we shall attempt a few definitions and then enumerate some characteristics and features of the two concepts.

Analysis (Theory and Practice)

Applying Marxist thesis to our era

Description of dialectics

Role of Idealism as Conscience

Materialist Philosophy Versus Religious Philosophy

The Believer and the Class Struggle

Science and Religion

Spirit and Body Materialize Human Life

Freedom of Religion: An Exigency of Social Cohesion and Popular Democracy

What is to be done?

Conclusion

Chapter VII

General Laws of Development and Specific Processes

The stand of a political party is strategic before being tactical, which is the contrary in the case of a political movement, the minimal common objective of which is only a sequence of a whole.

Political Movements, Political Parties, and Vanguard Parties

1.   A Political Movement

2.   A Political Party

a.   An Elite political party

b.   A Popular political party

3.   A Popular and Revolutionary Party

4.   A Party State

A Popular vanguard party

Chapter VIII

The Monrovia Summit Conference

We must maintain relationships of cooperation based upon esteem, mutual confidence, and a common determination to lift our continent from the state of underdevelopment, irrespective of ideologies and any other differences that may exist between their realities and our own.

Chapter IX

The Final Documents of the Conference

The Presidium

Declaration of the International Ideological Conference of Conakry on the Rights of the People and Human Rights

Chapter X

Closing Speech by the Secretary-General of the Democratic Party of Guinea, Supreme Leader of the Revolution

Ready for the Revolution!

Addendum by Editor

Excerpts on Ideological Classes by the PDG Printed on the Government Printing press, Conakry, Guinea

Ethics of the Revolution

Attributes and Essence of Power

The People as the Supreme Reference

Of Violence in the Revolution

The Revolution Is Self-Liberation, Self-Contestation

Preface

The 1978 ideological conference papers were first copied in French and translated into English in Guinea and printed at the Government printing house named, Patrice Lumumba Press. How the copies ended up in North America, is a question. There were people living in America who attended the conference but these copies showed up later in time and were distributed to small African nationalist groups studying in North America. I was in a study group which received a copy which I have treasured as the pentacle understanding of human nature, class relations, God and Revolution.

This copy of the conference has been scanned and corrected for typographical errors and misspellings from the original translation. Some words did not translate into grammatical English and have been left to maintain the character of the original work.

Some footnotes have been added to help define and defend statements made in 1978.

Julius G. McAllister, 2012

Introduction

The year 2012 represents for Africa, the escalation of foreign invasion by the military and industrial powers of the surrounding world. Africa is a treasure trove of raw resources that produces few refined products. However, its rate of imports sends its local economies into irretrievable debt.

Guinea was a bulkhead against imperial aggression under the PDG and the wellspring of African intelligence and daring, a custodian of the people, at service to the humble masses of Africans with little food, a low quality of life and little education, living on their own ancestral land, struggling against European military States. Guinea put the People in front of an organization, with the highest number of women in leadership positions of any country in the world at that time as well as more judges per number of people. The PDG saw the People as the supreme reference, so by the People’s decisions, democratically all policy was set and enacted.

To have a country in Africa mint their own currency was the height of insult to the world bankers, the imperialist powers, who could no longer value the resources of Guinea according to an international standard set by them. Value was now set only according to the value the Guinean People set on their gold, diamonds, and bauxite. For Guinea to control their natural resources, they had to control their currency and its internal and external value. It had to stop foreign currency from crossing its borders or the wealth of the nation would be lost. The trading classes went to war with the PDG and its policy, but the hardworking People of Guinea had a weapon against the exploitation of their national wealth, the government of Guinea under the leadership of the PDG. The people had a voice through their local PRL (Pouvoir Revolutionnaire Local—Local Revolutionary Administration).

Due to the quality of organization, the PRLs, the people, had a vehicle to fight against economic and military invasions, such as the Portuguese instigated attack in November 1970, Named Operation Green Sea. The PDG with organized PRL’s, was able to defend themselves and bring the invaders to court. On December 8, 1970, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 290, which condemned Portugal for the invasion of Guinea and called upon Portugal to respect the principles of self-determination and independence with regard to Portuguese Guinea.

It is futile to fight such a war without neighbors and coalitions of power without expanded borders. The righteous call for Pan-Africanism was and is the only solution to foreign aggression and exploitation. Guinea became home to freedom fighters from all over Africa as Algeria and Egypt had been in the past. Guinea 1966, invited Kwame Nkrumah, once president of Ghana, to live in Guinea and continue his work to build Pan Africanism. Nkrumah had been the focal organizer of the All African Peoples’ Conference calling for African Independence as well as the organizer of the OAU meetings held in Addis Ababa, in 1963. It had been Nkrumah who backed the Guinea Government when the people voted, No, to not be part of the French government and the French pulled all resources from the country, even the currency.

Stokely Carmichael, spokesman of Black Power moved from North America in the late 60’s and studied with Nkrumah in Guinea, bringing from Guinea the formation of the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party. This party was called for by Nkrumah as a necessary step in building the unity of All African People worldwide.

Guinea under the PDG was the base for Amilcar Cabral, leader of the PAIGC (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde) which started armed struggle in 1963. Students from all over Africa came to Guinea to learn how to build Pan-African organization.

With National Independence won, the 1978 Ideological Conference was called to discuss how to rebuild society with An African ideology and how does Africa prevent re-colonization by European states.

By Editor

The 1978 Ideological Conference

Guinea, Conakry

Africa on the Move

The 1978 conference was the historical continuance of the, 5th Pan African Congress held in 1945, the All African Peoples’ Conference 1958, and the Organization for African Unity held in 1963 as well as the Bandung conference uniting Asian and African leadership. These meetings were organized to objectively improve the living conditions of the African-Asian people, to do away with inferiority complexes, assimilation by coercion, and dependency in all its forms.

Major topic speeches were made by President of Guinea, Ahmed Sekou Toure, reflecting the views and beliefs of the PDG. These speeches were used to generate the discussions that followed. Today, we do not have access to all the discussions. This work does include the final decisions of the panels.

Following the conferences closing statements, quotes have been added from other PDG works to help reflect the positions held by the PDG on the People, as the supreme reference and class relations. Some comments have been added by the editor to help the flow of concepts.

To be understood when reading these articles or any work produced by the people of the PDG of Guinea, West Africa, of 1954

Point 1:

It is our privilege to have Ahmed Sekou Toure mentioned on some books, although the content of these publications was inspired by the ideas expressed by a political organization, trade union, social collectivity, or person. A scientific thesis, whether of an economic, social, or cultural nature, is not a personal invention. Its origin is always collective. And the dates are necessarily borrowed from history and the observation of society. (Revolution and Religion Chapter 6; para. 76-77)

Point 2:

The African people are right when in their wisdom, they came up with a generic term to designate the element of the human species: the Malinke will say Moo for both the woman and the man; for the Pular, it is Tagadho, the creature of God, man or woman, provided that it concerns the human species; and the Susu says Dalise or Mikhi, creature of God, man or woman. In these languages, the human being is defined by a conceptual term.

When we say man, this concept means a being with intelligence and refers to both man and woman. (Women in Society, Ahmed Sekou Toure)

The English use of Man, comes from the Sanskrit word Manas—Mind the unique capacity for rational thought.

Added By Editor

International Ideological Conference

November 13-16, 1978

Held in Conakry, Guinea, West Africa

Prepared by the Ruling Party, the PDG

Printed by the National Printing Press—Patrice Lumumba

Conakry, Guinea, 1978

Introduction

The convening in Conakry of an international ideological conference seemed to be a wager, and its holding a dream.

November 13, 1978, is henceforth a concrete reality in the great book of history, a concrete event in the golden record of our continent, a shrilling experience full of the immense hopes of our masses and peoples. We too are bearers of these high hopes springing from the nigh level, the exceptional quality, the impressive number, and the harmonious diversity of delegates who have come full of enthusiasm to honor the invitation of the Guinean people and their party, the Democratic Party of Guinea.

The PDG, on behalf of its people, expressed a warm and friendly welcome, as well as a militant and fraternal gratitude, to the many important delegations for their sympathy and esteem.

The honorable and distinguished guests of the PDG have, through their presence at this international conference, demonstrated the high esteem and profound consideration of their respective countries for the Guinean people, their leaders, and their regime. Their presence clearly shows the confidence enjoyed by Guinea on the international arena. It also testifies to the strong will of their people to establish and maintain firm and multiform ties of cooperation with the people of Guinea. Their massive participation is yet another indication that whatever concerns Guinea also concerns Africa and that whatever concerns Africa concerns the whole world.

Through the quality of the present delegations, we have a proof that this international conference leaves no one unconcerned either among our enemies or among our opponents, and least of all, among our friends.

This international conference has made it possible for the participants, at this crucial moment for the future of Africa, to analyze with sufficient responsibility and a scientific mind the important problems conditioning national liberation, economic and sociocultural construction, as well as the steady progressive transformation of African countries in their multiple and complex relationships with the other continents.

This international conference has equally made it possible for us to make the synthesis of our experiences, to enrich ourselves through our differences, and to convince ourselves that the building of new societies in our young states on the still-fuming ruins of colonialism is an imperious necessity, which can only be done by having the people play their role, all their roles, because the people alone are the custodians of legality and legitimacy, the sole living source generating all powers.

This international conference has at the same time made it possible to appreciate substantial differences among various African states, with the understanding that these differences correspond to specific conditions prevailing in each state, conditions which result from general common conditions imposed on us by colonialism.

Those specific conditions will no doubt lead to differences in the methods used to tackle problems in choosing priorities and solutions to be proposed. However, in our opinion, these differences should not lead to substantial divergences. We should never question the permanent objective of imperialism, which simply aims at transforming our differences—however small—into divergences, so as to provoke serious ruptures and deep scissions in our ranks. That is why, throughout the conference, participants were vigilant and had a critical mind.

The Democratic Party of Guinea, for its part, preoccupied by the building of a new society, a society without exploitation, a socialist society where the people are the absolute referential; the PDG which is the collective genius organizing and giving impetus to the general action of our militant people; the PDG which is at the center of all the social, political, economic, and cultural life of Guinea; the PDG which is the motor of our history whose conscious artisan remains the people will impose on no one the conclusions and teachings drawn from its experience of over thirty years of struggle for the national liberation and the socialist building of the Guinean society.

We believe that the exchange of viewpoints and experiences must be done on the basis of fraternal discussions and mutual respect but with all the steadfastness required to defend the ideological line of progress, the interests of the working masses, and the superior objectives of the people, all of which have to be carried out with a scientific mind, requiring complete objectivity.

Indeed, we can successfully develop our young states only on the basis of science, the knowledge of the past, the strict analysis of the present, and an insight into the future.

That is why the PDG has deemed it its duty to organize an international conference on ideology, keeping in mind that the detailed analysis of our respective multiple and diverse experiences will enable us to set up methods which are more efficient still in view of greater progress.

So the holding of this international conference on the eve of the Eleventh National Congress of the PDG clearly shows that the national leadership of our party state, which faithfully interprets the profound and legitimate aspirations of the Guinean people, was to stress the great importance attached to ideology which is a privileged instrument of man’s education.

In so doing, the national leadership meant also to enrich itself with the experience of others, but above all, to give more strength and intensity to the Eleventh National Congress which essentially aims at conferring a higher quality on our revolutionary power, which has mobilized all our militant people for the past six months, and the decisions of which will irreversibly contribute to strengthen our people’s power.

The guarantee of success in the revolutionary struggle in Africa and in the constant improvement of the revolutionary process in Africa is our firm and constant attachment to the interests of the working masses, our critical assessment of our action in favor of the people.

Participation at this international ideological conference was as follows:

I. Guinea

-   Central committee: 23

-   Members of the government: 17

-   Federations: 69 (2 delegates per federation) plus the governor of Conakry

-   National committees of workers, women, and youths: 45

-   General defense staff: 5

-   People’s National Assembly: 5

-   National Islamic Council: 5

-   Guinean envoys: 36

-   University lecturers: 12

Total: 217

This wide Guinean participation underlines the mass character conferred on all our activities. An ideological conference is not the sole concern of a few intellectuals however eminent they may be.

II. Foreign Participation

More than three hundred eminent personalities participated: ministers, members of parliament, ideologists, scholars, writers, journalists, representatives of international institutions, leaders of political parties, trade unions, and youth and women organizations, etc.

We shall, among others, mention the following states and institutions.

1 - Algeria

2 - East Germany

3 - Angola

4 - Benin

5 - Bulgaria

6 - Burundi

7 - Congo

8 - North Korea

9 - Ivory Coast

10 - Cuba

11 - Egypt

12 - Ethiopia

13 - Gabon

14 - Gambia

15 - Ghana

16 - Guyana

17 - Upper Volta

18 - Hungary

19 - Iraq

20 - Liberia

21 - Libya

22 - Madagascar

23 - Mali

24 - Morocco

25 - Mongolia

26 - Mozambique

27 - Niger

28 - Nigeria

29 - Poland

30 - Rwanda

31 - Rumania

32 - Sao Tome and Principe

33 - Seychelles

34 - Sierra Leone

35 - Syria

36 - Somalia

37 - Tanzania

38 - Cameroon

39 - Czechoslovakia

40 - Togo

41 - Tunisia

42 - USSR

43 - Vietnam

44 - Yemen

45 - Yugoslavia

46 - Zaire

47 - Zambia

48 - Senegal

49 - France

50 - USA

51 - Lesotho

52 - Finland

53 - Sweden

54 - West Germany

55 - Mexico

56 - Cape Verde

57 - OATUU

58 - AAPSO

59 - Afro-Asian Lawyers

60 - U.S. Negro Committee

61 - SWAPO

62 - PAC

63 - ANC

64 - ZAPU

65 - PLO

66 - ISTIQLAL Party (Morocco)

67 - PAIGC

68 - Spanish Communist Party

69 - French Communist Party

70 - Italian Communist Party

71 - Portuguese Communist Party

72 - RPR France

73 - Japan Socialist Party

74 - New Liberal Party (Japan)

75 - Japan Guinea Friendship Association

76 - PDS Senegal

77 - UNESCO

78 - UNIDO

79 - World Peace Council

80 - World Federation of Democratic Women

81 - World Federation of Trade Unions

82 - Pan-African Youth Movement

83 - Pan-African Women’s Movement.

III. Presidium of the Conference

The presidium of the International Ideological Conference is made up of the following:

-   Mamadi Keita, Member of the political bureau of the Central Committee of the PDG, Senior Minister of Education and Culture of the Republic of Guinea

-   Senainon Behanzin, Member of the Central Committee, Minister of Information and Ideology of the Republic of Guinea

-   Madeira Keita, Founding member of the PDG, first secretary general of the Democratic Party of Guinea

-   The leader of the delegation of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

-   The leader of the delegation of the Communist Party of Vietnam

-   The leader of the delegation of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya

-   The leader of the Liberian delegation

-   The leader of the Frelimo delegation (Mozambique)

-   The leader of the Nigerian delegation

-   The leader of the delegation of the Democratic Party of the Ivory Coast—RDA

-   The leader of the delegation of the Socialist Party of Senegal

Inaugural Address

Ladies and gentlemen

Members of the delegations of sister parties

Dear comrades,

On behalf of the Revolutionary People of Guinea, the Party State of Guinea, the party of the People’s Democratic Revolution, on behalf of the Central Committee and the government of the Guinean party state, we wish to express our feelings of militant solidarity and sincere gratitude to the valiant peoples and progressive parties represented at this ideological seminar devoted to the central theme: Africa on the Move.

The central theme of our discussions is of utmost importance to the future of the whole continent, African continent, whose geographical configuration resembles a question mark, as if it were to ask the other continents making up our planet, if they are conscious of his presence and whether they are ready to establish a brotherly cooperation with her in the creation, on base is acceptable to all, of a world of liberty, democracy, and progress.

To such a question, the struggling peoples whom you are representing here have already given their positive answer by designating you to take part in this ideological seminar whose sole purpose is to ensure an exchange of ideas and experiences, with the view of defining policies which African peoples must adopt in order to ensure their mastery of their history and the efficiency of their noble, though complex, struggle for a happy future.

Ladies and Gentlemen

Dear Comrades,

The Revolutionary People’s Republic of Guinea, which has a great honor to enjoy your trust and political support, as a country of 250,000 km² in size with a population of 5,500,000 inhabitants. The Guinean nation comprises thirty-three administrative regions, three hundred districts, and 2,500 people’s communes.

At the level of the village, the district, the administrative region, and the nation, the revolutionary power is held by the people themselves on the basis of popular democracy and within the framework of democratic centralism.

The Democratic Party of Guinea, the creator and promoter of this revolutionary power, was founded on May 14, 1947. In May 1957, the political struggle waged by the Guinean people scored a first victory: the ascension of Guinea to semi-autonomy, within the framework, naturally, of the colonial regime.

On October 2, 1958, the people of Guinea acceded to national independence; and since that date, the Democratic Party of Guinea has relentlessly pursued its work of organizing and enhancing the material as well as immaterial realities of the nation.

The Guinean regime is a socialist one, and so it will remain against all the internal and external forces that stand against or will hinder the attainment of the objectives of popular sovereignty, of popular democracy, and of a man’s ever-growing progress for the working masses constituting the social basis of the Guinean revolution.

We are commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the independence of our country this year, so must we draw lessons from our activities during those two decades in order to render more efficient the pursuit of our emancipating struggle being conducted on two fronts: the internal Guinean front and the external front.

Therefore, we must recall the complex political path followed by Guinea.

Like other African countries, Guinea had been subjected to colonial rule. From the year 1898, marked by the arrest of the leader of the resistance, Almamy Samory Toure, colonialism assumed control over our country. The exile of the Almamy in Gabon threw our country into darkness. Subsequently, over a period of sixty years, direct colonization firmly established itself in the country. It was, however, confronted with a fierce opposition from the people who used all available means to preserve their freedom. We have had several other heroes of the resistance, such as the Almamy Bocar Biro Barry, Dinah Salifou, NZebela Togba, Bakary Toure, Kissi Kaba Keita, Alpha Yaya Diallo, and many others, all fallen on the honor front. Such a tradition of systematic struggle against tyranny was transmitted from one generation to another, and that is why the colonial regime was never in a position to strengthen its bases in the mind of the Guinean people, who always confronted it with their fierce will to achieve liberty and independence. Colonialism overlooked the fact that the ideological process of the launching of the resistance to foreign occupation is an automatic one, particularly among people who have enjoyed dignity and glory in history.

Let us refer to the Second World War of 1939 to 1945, which completed their awakening to their status of slavery and to the historic necessity to break up this yoke under which all colonial peoples of the world were held. In Guinea, such an awakening expressed itself in the form of a patriotic movement of resistance to a colonial system characterized, for the most conscious elements, by the emergence of a will to decolonize the country. Such a movement, in Guinea, expressed itself in three main stages.

First stage

From 1945, marking the end of the last world war, to 1955.

The colonialists did not respect their solemn promise to decolonize, a promise through which they succeeded in mustering the massive support of African soldiers against fascism. These African soldiers cherished the hope that the liberation of colonies would ipso facto follow the liberation of Europe occupied by fascism. Confronted with such painful felony, Africa got resolutely organized in order to snatch through its own struggle, the freedom which she had just contributed to restore to the people of Europe.

Africa first imposed the elimination of the system of forced labor, which then prevailed on the continent, and thereafter the elimination of compulsory supplies to which the colonial peoples were always subjected. She snatched a number of political rights, the right to form political parties and trade union organizations, the promulgation of a labor code in favor of wage earners. She imposed and conquered several reforms which though limited in scope contributed nonetheless to a remarkable improvement in the living conditions of the colonial people.

Struggles in Africa marked the birth and development of a national awareness campaign, a real will for social progress, a profound aspiration to equality between white and black, equal pay in living conditions through the removal of all racial discriminations that flecked colonial legislation.

The colonial people then sparked off an emancipation movement in chain against foreign domination:

Vietnam, through its liberation struggle, had already started to command the respect of the oppressors. The Malagasy people sparked off a generalized rebellion against foreign domination. Tunisia and Morocco joined in the same movement of liberation. In Algeria, patriots went underground.

Colonial powers, particularly France, understood the danger which threatened the foundations of colonial exploitation. As a strategic move, they sought to speed up a settled policy of assimilation which aimed at extending gradually to the colonial people the right to live as the white, but still within the colonial yoke, cast in a different light and distorted to this effect. Through such a trick, she did not wish to recognize the sovereignty of the countries which she had arbitrarily occupied. Aware of such a situation, Africa got consistently organized.

In 1946, in an unforgettable outburst, a vast Pan-African movement was created, the African Democratic Rally (RDA), whose president then was the current head of state of the Ivory Coast, Mr. Félix Houphouet-Boigny, whereas we were to become its vice president in 1957-1958. But within this rally, two tendencies emerged: the reformist tendency and the revolutionary tendency. The common denominator, however, remained the defense of the interest of our people.

The Democratic Party of Guinea organized an opposition to colonialism, to feudal customs, and to the many local political groupings with tribalistic leaning, that were the natural allies of capitalistic colonialism.

Our Party, because of its progressive anti-imperialist program, was confronted with many difficulties. All forces of suppression of the imperialist, colonialists, feudalists, and tribalists were directed against the development of our Party, created for democratic and social progress.

In fact, at the time of its birth, our Party counted only on the action of workers who had a higher level of awareness and who expressed a determined will for freedom.

The period from 1945 to 1955 may therefore be considered as that of the awakening, that of the radicalized expression of the will to gain independence, that of the creation of organizations for the struggle. That period was also that of the definition of a policy which was to lead finally to the liquidation of the basic contradiction, that is, the opposition between our people and the imperialist and colonialist forces.

Second stage from 1956 to 1966

This period was characterized, insofar as French colonialism was concerned, by an attempt to retrieve Africa from its renovated and remanded yoke, as in its inability to preserve the outdated relationships which existed between its colonies and itself. French imperialism invented the (Loi Cadre ) the (Deffere Outline law) which extended a number of insufficient liberties to the colonial populations. From then on, these populations were only able to elect democratically their representatives to the territorial assemblies entrusted with the management of local budgets and have a larger representation in the French parliament. We must point out that although the colonial populations outnumbered those of the metropolitan countries, the colonial territories had less than one-fourth of the seats in the French parliament. For the colonial power, such reforms were already considered as generously liberal.

Then staking on the low level of political maturity of our people, imperialism organized a referendum on the choice between immediate independence and the willingness to remain within the French community with the assurance that its draft constitution would be unanimously approved, thereby definitely putting it into our nation’s claim to independence. At least this is what they believed. History would have thus recorded that a foreign power, and more specifically France, at one time had accomplished its international duty by consulting some colonial territories so that they decide freely to remain under its rule and to be assimilated once and for all so that these territories would have freely agreed to become forever its extensions that is mere departments rather than choose to become totally independent. That was indeed a real political plot against Africa. For such a plot to succeed, no stone remained unturned to incite our people to support this draft constitution whose historical and legal implications were dangerous. This famous referendum was organized on September 28, 1958.

This stake was of great importance when Guinea believed that it was no question of renouncing the natural right to the independence of the people, and our first duty was indeed the conquest of this legitimate sovereignty. We proclaimed that we would accept no other formula than that which recognizes and guarantees the dignity and the responsibility of Guinea facing its own future. From this determination, Guinea singled itself out. It was believed at first that it was the expression of the unique bellicose idea of an individual that the people of Guinea through threats and new forms of corruption would ultimately follow another path.

But the resolution taken on behalf of Guinea by the PDG was massively supported by the Guinean people, and the new state of Guinea was born on October 2, 1958¹. Soon thereafter, contradictions no longer ceased to exacerbate. First, the basic contradiction between the new Guinean state, the new Guinean regime in the capitalist states, the world imperialist system. Then secondary contradictions between the new Guinean state and the leaders of colonial territories who voted for the de Gaullist referendum.

So in French-speaking Africa, Guinea was to find itself in a unique situation in relation to the other states. But it couldn’t be isolated from the African masses whose deep aspirations to liberty, to responsibility, and to sovereignty is symbolized in a remarkable matter. Such an aberrant situation in the mind of colonialist powers and through their official stand, Guinea was ostracized. It was no more part of Africa.

This period recorded many attempts at the colonial re-conquest of Guinea. All the provocations, all the forms of sabotage, and a systematic campaign of slander aimed at conditioning and exasperating the outside world so as to reject and isolate the newborn regime of the Republic of Guinea. To succeed, the adverse powers spread the notion that Guinea was under the dictatorship of an individual reigning through terror, genocide or anything that could be bring doubt on a regime and a country. At the same time, the Democratic Party of Guinea, aware of the importance of the responsibility to which it was committed, used all its resources in order to build and consolidate a viable national state. And to this end, the Party proclaimed, at this difficult beginning, national democracy, which was the form of democracy enabling all citizens to participate in the building of the state.

Divergent tendencies were then consciously to live together at this first stage. The main point was not to define precisely at this early stage the future development strategy, but to rally all the social forces in order to resolve the outside contradiction, the principal one, that is, the opposition between the independent nation and all the imperialist antagonistic systems through the consolidation of the sovereignty and the defense