Article by @SperryUNIVAC, edited by Ankap-Tyan

Today, we want to talk about an important thing that is usually ignored in political discourse, and we can see this exemplified by the story of Tom Sankara, who attempted to reform Upper Volta – a destitute fragment of post-colonial French Africa – between 1983 and 1987.

Almost all of Africa after World War II was a field of countless proxy conflicts between the West and the USSR. Captain Tom Sankara’s military coup in 1983 was an attempt to exit this confrontation logic and ensure the country’s prosperity. He was inspired by the coup and subsequent reforms of Lieutenant Jeffrey Rawlings in neighboring Ghana. Initially, everything went well, but Sankara’s regime had two key shortcomings that led to the collapse of the reforms and eventually, the regime itself.

Firstly, Sankara was apolitical, he openly mocked ideology and derived from purely pragmatic tasks. Secondly, Sankara turned out to be a vegetarian idealist who neglected pragmatic methods familiar to any dictator.

The reformer radically cut state spending, sold off the luxurious government fleet, dismissed corrupt officials, carried out a nationwide vaccination campaign, launched economic growth – in short, he seemed to be doing everything to win popular favor – and he actually won it.

But he didn’t offer the people an ideology; holy places remain empty. The illegal left parties that had risen up in the previous regime raised their heads, declared the dictator a fascist, and began competing for the right to lead the struggle against Sankara. Orthodox Marxists, Maoists, and even supporters of Enver Hoxha were at odds with each other, but Sankara didn’t play on their contradictions, didn’t favor one over the other – he simply ignored irrelevant ideological questions. His only reaction to provoked unrest by the left was to dismiss the most odious party officials from the civil service.

As the curtain fell on Sankara’s rule, they finally convinced him to create his own communist party, but the government remained coalition. And in the center and at the local level, everyone was preoccupied with questions of personal power. It ended with one of Sankara’s friends, Blaise Compaoré, overthrowing him with the help of French special forces, shooting him, borrowing money from France, embezzling it, canceling his predecessor’s reforms (except for renaming the country from Upper Volta to Burkina Faso), staging mass shootings of communists – and he sat in that manner until 2014 when he was finally overthrown, fled to Côte d’Ivoire where he still lives today, while in Burkina Faso armed property redistribution continues.

The moral now.

Firstly, ideology doesn’t matter. Absolutely any party, whatever its slogans, from Khodjism to liberal democracy, strives for only one thing – absolute power. All ideological disputes between parties boil down to one problem – who will be at the helm? Africa is particularly indicative in this regard, as all processes there always happen faster and more sharply than anywhere else, and therefore are especially noticeable. In Burkina Faso, people fought among themselves not over ideologies, but over those desiring control. Ideology is simply a smokescreen for the lust for power.

Secondly, ideology matters – but it matters to those we intend to rule, because without it there’s a raw, aching void in the masses’ hearts, making them uncomfortable. If you don’t invest something of your own into it – people will follow someone else who will take care of that. Life became better in San Kara, but ideological emptiness prevailed. Conversely, regimes that immediately start preaching ideology (regardless of what it is – from Khodjism to Putinism or Shiism) live and thrive, even if people are eating bark off trees or hanging from autocrats.

The third lesson: If you come to power – try to clean up the mess, achieve real control, don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty, and make sure your road isn’t taken by those who want to overthrow you. Otherwise we’ll get the history of good-natured San Kara, which ended with a shooting.

And the final lesson that can be drawn from this. Libertarians will never seize power because they violate all these rules (and many others). Firstly, they will never gain the sympathy of ordinary people because they stand on the side of conditional bad guys (greedy exploiters-capitalists). Secondly, their ideology boils down to complicated economic theories, too complex for simple folks from the district. Thirdly, they are herbivores by definition, as they rely entirely on the principle of non-violence and immediately reject the idea that political opponents can and should be eliminated in all ways, and that political control is inseparable from military force. In the end, as we see, they’re occupied with completely harmless things – arguing about the nuances of interpreting various economic doctrines, and fruitless discussions about how courts will work during an upheaval, and who will pave roads. They forget that people are divided into two categories: those who have a revolver, and those who dig ditches. At any regime, the latter category will pave roads.