FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM!
	International Communist Workers Party
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November 5—Last week, hundreds of thousands took to the streets of Ouagadougou (pronounced Wagadugu), the capital of Burkina Faso, a small but strategic West African country of 17 million people. The crowd of Burkinabé workers and youth sometimes swelled to over one million.
Trying in vain to stop the raging masses, the police and military viciously attacked them, killing several people and injuring many. The masses responded by unleashing their fury, storming and setting fire to the Parliament building and government cars.
Their unrelenting fury and determination forced President Blaise Compaoré to resign, abandoning his attempts to extend his 27-year-long rule.  On hearing the news on October 31, the masses jubilantly celebrated their “victory” in the streets.
This moment, however, was short lived. On Nov. 2, hundreds of thousands once more took to the streets, to rage against the military’s announcement that they were taking control of the country.
Many protesters felt betrayed. They thought they were fighting for something different. As one protester put it, “Everyone is disappointed … It’s the same system that they want to preserve and we’re fed up, all the youth are fed up. We don’t just want the president to go but also his whole system.” (Le Monde, Nov. 1, 2014).
Many of the protesters, especially the youth, are being influenced by Thomas Sankara’s anti-imperialist, nationalist, socialist views.

Thomas Sankara’s Legacy Holds No Future For Burkinabé Workers, South African Workers or Workers Anywhere
Thomas Sankara was a military captain who led Burkina Faso from 1983 until 1987 when, at the age of 37, he was murdered in a coup orchestrated by his deputy, the now-resigned president Blaise Compaoré. Apparently his legacy is experiencing a revival in Africa where he is idolized by many, especially the youth, as the “African Che Guevara.”
Le Balai Citoyen (“the citizens’ broom”), an organization that honors Sankara’s memory was part of the movement that ousted Compaoré. It was founded by Samsk Le Jah, a popular radio host and reggae singer sometimes called the “spokesperson for the Burkina youth.”
Also in South Africa, Julius Malema, founder of the Economic Freedom Party (EFP) and his supporters, wear red berets in the spirit of Sankara. They claim that they uphold Sankara’s “ideal that political power can and must be used for the common good.”
Also, in the spirit of Sankara’s nationalism and populism, they support the partial nationalization of South Africa’s mining and farming sectors, and say that the EFP is “the new home for voiceless, indigenous poor South Africans.” But, nationalization has never benefitted any worker. It is the national capitalists’ scheme to force their imperialist masters to give them a bigger share of their loot from exploiting the working class. Our comrades in South Africa have rejected this ideology and are struggling against it among the masses.

Socialism: Fatal Mistake of the Old International Communist Movement
Sankara was influenced by Marx and Lenin’s writings. Because of this and his populist views, many consider him a socialist. However, he never declared himself a communist.
He was anti-Western imperialism, but had cordial relations with Russian and Chinese imperialists. This was his downfall, as this threatened the French and US imperialists’ control of West Africa.
History has proven, however, that socialism is no transition to communism. It is state capitalism with capitalism’s money, markets and wage slavery. The communists at its helm became capitalists. The socialist countries, like China and Russia, eventually blossomed into free-market capitalism and imperialism.
This fatal error by the old communist movement, which has cost the international working class dearly, must not be repeated.

Burkinabé Masses had no “Victory” and Made no “Revolution”
Replacing one capitalist butcher by another capitalist butcher—be it civilian or military—is no victory for the working class. No matter who rules, as long as capitalism-imperialism exists, there will always be racism, sexism, exploitation, poverty, wage slavery and genocidal wars. Victory for our class is advancing the revolutionary communist movement needed to destroy capitalism-imperialism forever.
In today’s world that means reading, writing for and distributing Red Flag. It means joining the International Communist Workers’ Party and recruiting co-workers, soldiers, students, friends and family. It means contributing economically with what little or much we can in order to guarantee that ICWP and Red Flag can expand our work to mobilize the masses for communism.
These small incremental changes are the building blocks of the unstoppable force our class will become to change history in its interests. Our South African comrades are blazing the way. Let’s follow their lead!

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