It used to strike me as astonishing how the peoples of the Global South share the same sentiments toward their former colonizer. But in reality, this uniformity of sentiment and thought is merely a product of the material conditions of colonialism which are the same everywhere.

Fanon, in his renowned work, was able to crystallize these sentiments through a rigorous analysis of the anti-colonial war and the political, economic, social, and cultural emancipation of the colonized. “[D]ecolonization,” he writes, “is quite simply the substitution of one “species” of mankind by another. The substitution is unconditional, absolute, total, and seamless.” However, decolonization or total independence are not so simple in reality, as long as the colonizer is never ready to relinquish their colonial “property.” Ultimately, “[t]he well-being and progress of Europe were built with the sweat and corpses of Blacks, Arabs, Indians, and Asians”; and this the European cannot give up without losing an essential part of oneself. Faced with the colonizer’s threats (“If you want independence, take it and go back to the Middle Ages”), the national liberation movement has only one of two possibilities: either the nationalist leaders would acquiesce and submit to the colonizer’s will, or the underdeveloped nation shall endure the poverty that comes with independence. For even if political independence was achieved, it would be meaningless without economic sovereignty, which is the point of contention with the colonizer. Thus, “[t]he apotheosis of independence becomes the curse of independence.” “In the first scenario, the newly independent and underdeveloped nation makes concessions to its former colonial power: it signs economic and monetary agreements that make it economically dependent, accepts small injections of funds from the former colonial power to bolster its budget and adopts capitalism, enshrining the private property of the former colonists, which was previously acquired by force.

In the second scenario, which is no less arduous than the first, the national movement has no choice but to demand sacrifice from the starving people, to “ask them to make a gigantic effort.”

These famished individuals are required to undergo a regime of austerity, these atrophied muscles are required to work out of all proportion. An autarkic regime is established and each state, with the pitiful resources at its disposal, endeavors to address the mounting national hunger and the growing national poverty. We are witness to the mobilization of a people who now have to work themselves to exhaustion while a contemptuous and bloated Europe looks on.

Anti-colonial intellectuals like Fanon observed at the time the great battle between capitalism and socialism, which clearly manifested itself within the formerly colonized country. Fanon correctly judged that the conditions of the capitalist colonizer must absolutely not be accepted:

We know, of course, that the capitalist way of life is incapable of allowing us to achieve our national and universal project. Capitalist exploitation, the cartels and monopolies, are the enemies of the underdeveloped countries. On the other hand, the choice of a socialist regime, of a regime entirely devoted to the people, based on the principle that man is the most precious asset, will allow us to progress faster in greater harmony…

“The national revolution will be socialist,” thus wrote Jean-Paul Sartre in his preface to this book. “if it is stopped in its momentum, if the colonized bourgeoisie takes over power, the new state, despite its official sovereignty, will remain in the hands of the imperialists.” However, anti-colonial socialism cannot be utopian or fantastical the way leftist intellectuals in Europe imagined it. The liberation movement must necessarily adopt a strategy of total and radical immediacy. The role of the revolutionary activist is crucial here. This is not their own war, but the people’s war. And this must be reflected in the organization of the revolution:

In an underdeveloped country, the party must be organized in such a way that it does not merely maintain contact with the masses. The party must be the direct expression of the masses.

If we want to increase the gross national income, reduce the imports of certain useless, even harmful, products, improve agricultural production and fight illiteracy, we have to conduct an information campaign. The people must understand what is at stake. Public business must be the business of the public. We arrive therefore at the need to increase the number of local cells among the rank and file […] The masses must be able to meet, discuss, put forward suggestions and receive instructions.

Here lies the absolute manifestation of the dictatorship of the proletariat in which the revolutionary takes power and gives it to the people.

To politicize the masses is not and cannot be to make a political speech. It means driving home to the masses that everything depends on them, that if we stagnate the fault is theirs, and that if we progress, they too are responsible, that there is no demiurge, no illustrious man taking responsibility for everything, but that the demiurge is the people and the magic lies in their hands and their hands alone.

To go back to my claim in my title, Western leftists and anarchists (not all of course) harshly criticise the “totalitarianism” of AES in the Global South because of their ignorance of the historical and material conditions that shaped the revolution, as showcased above, as well as the mechanisms through which Socialist regimes govern.

Socialism in the postcolonial world has always been under existential threat by the ex-colonial, capitalist forces. The DPRK, for instance, must be situated within the context of the dissection of Korea, the American imperialist war and the continuous threats to its sovereignty; Cuba within the context of the numerous assassination and coup attempts and the perpetual sanctions; China within the context of the imperialist incursions of the West and Japan, the foreign backing of warlords and the continuous fearmongering of Western propaganda, and so forth.

Moreover, the importance of this book for a Western reader has been succinctly expressed by Sartre:

Why bother to read it since it is not meant for us? […] because Fanon analyzes you [Westerners] for his brothers and demolishes for them the mechanism of our alienations. Take advantage of it to discover your true self as an object. Our victims know us by their wounds and shackles: that is what makes their testimony irrefutable. They only need to know what we have done to them for us to realize what we have done to ourselves. Is this necessary? Yes, because Europe is doomed […] Have the courage to read it, primarily because it will make you feel ashamed, and shame, as Marx said, is a revolutionary feeling. You see I, too, cannot lose my subjective illusion. I, too, say to you: “All is lost unless. . . .” I, a European, am stealing my enemy’s book and turning it into a way of healing Europe. Make the most of it.