Conference to Build the ASI - On the Congo

Presented by Luwezi Kinshasa

I think the situation in the Congo has been ripe for revolution for some time. Some of you may remember that in Congo-Kinshasa independence was won through the mobilization of the people. As you know, it was led by Patrice Lumumba.

Congo was to be the first country to learn that the United States is the leader of the entire capitalist white world. Because Congo was colonized by Belgium, but it was the United States that destroyed the Congolese leadership and the African Revolution that was taking place there.

Before Lumumba was attacked by the United States, there was a congress of Pan-Africanists in the Congo in August 1960. Lumumba was hoping that Pan-Africanists in 1960 would come together and defend the anti-imperialist government and destroy the neo-colonialists in the Congo. This did not happen. Actually, all the Pan-Africanists in the ‘60s – except Kwame Nkrumah – told Lumumba they couldn’t help. They couldn’t intervene. All the puppets of imperialism were attacking Lumumba.

So, it was from that conference that the African puppets in the Congo got the courage to strike at Lumumba because for the first time they saw that Lumumba could be isolated from the African support or leadership. There were no Pan-Africanist forces.

So, they did not support Lumumba. They did not support the African revolution, because to support the African revolution would have meant for all the Pan-Africanists at that time to give their troops to Lumumba and to strike at the neo-colonialists in the Congo and drive the Belgian army out of the Congo. This didn’t happen.

That helped me to understand Pan-Africanism in the real world. If it did not solve my problems in 1960, I can’t see how it can solve my problems today. That showed the significance of Pan-Africanism in the concrete conditions, in the real world in the Congo.

Also the first time in 1960, Africans in the Congo needed a revolutionary party because the class struggle in the Congo was vicious. It was really vicious. There was no compromise. All the neo-colonialists lined up on one side, and anyone who wanted a revolution lined up on the other side.

Lumumba who led the struggle was surprised that all his friends, all the leadership of his organization —the deputy chairman, the leaders of the region, the security leaders — except two or three people, all of them lined up with imperialism. Lumumba couldn’t believe it because they had been together just the day before. Remember, the independence was won on June 30, 1960.

By July 4, 1960, his party was split. Lumumba wanted to take the struggle, the power, to the people. He said independence is for the people. It’s not for the African petty bourgeoisie. The African petty bourgeoisie made it clear that independence meant the African petty bourgeoisie would be in power. That was the conflict.

They struck at Lumumba. They murdered Lumumba, and there was a revolution that spread throughout the Congo that lasted three years. You had an armed struggle throughout the Congo.

The U.S. intervened in that process, not only by assassinating Lumumba and killing the leaders of Lumumba’s organization and corrupting all it’s leadership who couldn’t join Lumumba, but also financing the Cubans who were kicked out of Cuba and came to Congo. The Belgium army sent 25,000 troops to Congo. The South African army was sent to Congo. All the white mercenaries that were known around the world from Britain, Belgium and France went to Congo.

But we couldn’t see Pan-Africanists anywhere in the Congo. We couldn’t see them anywhere. Just give any name of a Pan-Africanist. We couldn’t see anybody coming to Congo in the name of Pan-Africanism when one of the greatest Pan-Africanist leaders, Patrice Lumumba, was attacked. We didn’t see anybody, and that’s the lesson we have learned in the Congo.

We know one thing. Revolution is the problem of the people. You have to solve the question of the leadership of the masses. The African working class and peasantry must build their own leaders, and that takes us to the question of education.

The colonial system can’t educate you to destroy the capitalist system. They can’t. They can only educate you to maintain the system. That’s the purpose of education.

To be an intellectual in the African world today simply means one thing: you must be a revolutionary. If you are an intellectual you have to be a revolutionary. If not, you are just a colonialist, a Negro puppet, nothing else. That’s what’s happening right now.

An intellectual must solve the problems of the people. When Lumumba rose up he had never been in a university. We had four graduates in universities in 1959, and the Belgians were bragging about, "You’ll never be free! You don’t know how to educate the people!"

Lumumba rose up. Now we have more than 100,000 graduating in the Congo and the Congo is a mess. There is no resistance in the Congo. Where are the intellectuals who graduated? Where are they? They are preachers living off the people. They are in France. There are more African doctors from Congo in France than in Congo itself because they hang on to the material life as opposed to giving up their material interests, going to Congo, joining the people, and making the revolution.

So that’s what this process is all about. We believe we can win honest intellectuals to revolution. We think it’s possible, but most importantly we have to win the African workers. There are plenty of them in Africa. It doesn’t matter if they are unemployed or temporarily out of work. We can win them.

They are the same people who gave birth to so-called intellectuals, so they can learn anything else. If it takes three, four, five years to become a graduate in a university, then we can be on the ground 10 years doing the work and we understand that in 10 years all our people will understand the foundations of economics and how to make a revolution. They will become intellectuals for themselves.

So, forward to the building of the African Socialist International. I hope, Brothers and Sisters, that the honest ones who are here today will make the move so we can start to build our revolutionary capacity that all our masses are crying for around the world.