The more you love the People, the more you work for the People; the more you work for the People, the more you want to know the People; the more you study and know the People, the more you love the People; the more you love the People, the harder you work for the People…
Kwame Ture
Born in Trinidad and Tobago on 29 June 1941, Kwame Ture is more alive now and lives on eternally!
Developing upon the mass organizing culture (reform theory) already acquired while in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), where he had already ‘returned to the source.’ Kwame Ture was destined to integrate into the living conditions of African people in Guinea-Conakry, (where he resided and organized for almost 30 years; 1969 – 1998), at the high level of the party-state leadership and later at the grass roots of the Democratic Party of Guinea – Democratic African Revolution (PDG-RDA), simultaneously, onto other areas in Africa where he made working visits. At the ‘source’, he developed our scientifically correct ideology (revolutionary theory) faithfully interpreted from the living conditions of African People. It behooves Humanity to learn from this.
Kwame Ture: Pan-Africanism, Revolution and Culture
His independent thought and action on Pan-Africanism, revolution and culture were not invented by him, but were passed on from others, such as Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, Ahmed Sékou Touré, Amilcar Cabral, and others whom he had physical contact with; and from systematically studying revolutionary theories in Cadre Circle, (work and study groups). He remained faithful in passing onto others that which was passed onto to him.
REVOLUTIONARY PAN-AFRICANISM FOR THE PEOPLE
Comrade Kwame Ture often reminded us that he was not a ‘speaker’, but rather an organizer. His interpretation of revolutionary Pan-Africanism for the people is not only unity, but as well the total liberation of Africa with scientific socialism controlled by a mass revolutionary party. It will only be achieved by working among the people. First, the political milieu must be developed. From the ground swell, mass recruitment will provide the mass character of the party. As the sine-qua-non pre-condition, the masses of African people must become self-conscious revolutionaries organized into this permanent mass revolutionary party, where the bases of the party serve as the centralized entities for self-conscious conceptions and decisions, with implementation and consolidation carried out via the democratic centralists structures up to the central level where they are then imposed on the state apparatus from the top to the bottom – until the point when the state becomes absorbed by the people – ‘people’s state’ at the level of the bases themselves (replacing the role previously carried out by central structures). Obviously, this pre-supposes that the people’s revolutionary party controls state power. The manner (strategies and tactics) of obtaining state power depends on the time and the space, but the vehicle is the people (masses) organized; the best vehicle being the people’s Pan-Africanist revolutionary mass party, to conduct the people’s struggle by the people.
PAN-AFRICANIST PEOPLE’S REVOLUTIONARY MASS PARTY
Kwame Ture became an expert on political parties and formations. Very few political figures of the 20th Century studied and acquired as much contact and had on-going relations with political parties as Comrade Kwame. You name the party and Comrade Kwame had intimate contact with them, studied them in detail, and knew their strengths and contradictions. He worked with them with passion; the more revolutionary the party, the more intense the relationship.
This is precisely what many activists lack. They spend more time criticizing political parties than they do actually studying and contributing to these people’s organizations. Now, it is easier to find a sister or brother sitting on the sidelines, criticizing, saying that they supported (emphasis on past tense supported), this or that anti-colonial movement in the 1960’s or 1970’s, but not now ‘because the party became corrupt.’ The result is that both become isolated – the organization and the ‘activist’ (or ex-activist). This only aids the enemy. Comrade Kwame’s position was to work in these parties to establish the All-African Committee for Political Co-ordination (A-ACPC) which will assist the formation of the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP).
Kwame Ture didn’t just rhetorically say ‘Ready for the Revolution’ – he walked his talk. He made Revolution! He contributed to building political parties that are still vibrant today and will inevitably become stronger in the future.
When Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah gave Kwame Ture the manuscript of the Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare, he absorbed it and made the strategy contained in the section entitled, The Need for Co-ordinated Revolutionary Action (page 56 – 57), his eternal life’s main mission:
Politico-Military Organisation – The following measures should be taken: 1. The formation of the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party to co-ordinate policies and to direct action. 2. The creation of an All-African People’s Revolutionary Army (A-APRA) to unify our liberation forces and to carry the armed struggle through to final victory.
Excerpt from the Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare by Kwame Nkrumah
A-APRP and the All-African Committee for Political Co-ordination (AACPC) – The formation of a political party linking all liberated territories and struggling parties under a common ideology will smooth the way for eventual continental unity, and will at the same time greatly assist the prosecution of the All-African people’s war. To assist the process of its formation, an All-African Committee for Political Co-ordination (A-ACPC) should be established to act as a liaison between all parties which recognise the urgent necessity of conducting an organised and unified struggle against colonialism and neo-colonialism. This Committee would be created at the level of the central committees of the ruling parties and struggling parties, and would constitute their integrated political consciousness.
Excerpt from the Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare by Kwame Nkrumah
KWAME TURE WORKED TIRELESSLY TO CONSTRUCT THE A-APRP
Kwame Ture worked tirelessly to create the milieu and construct the A-APRP, but was not its founder. The A-APRP was co-founded by Kwame Nkrumah and Amilcar Cabral. Kwame Ture developed into one of its co-pilots.
His energy to bring the most revolutionary African Parties together to form an All-African Committee for Political Coordination (A-ACPC) to assist in the formation of a mass African People’s Revolutionary Party continues from his grave.
IDEOLOGY
The mass All-African People’s Revolutionary Party must be led by a guiding light; an ideology. Its program must be the fundamental transformation of the modes of production, liberated from all forms of exploitation and expressing our people’s culture – the fruit of our history, whose seeds are our ideology – illuminating our path towards infinite development and ever increasing levels of production.
REVOLUTIONARY AFRICAN PERSONALITY
Kwame Ture is an incarnate of revolutionary African People’s culture. He projected the ‘Revolutionary African Personality’ based upon the clusters of principles underlying traditional African societies; humanism, egalitarianism and collectivism. He became decolonized, living African culture like a fish in water, faithfully interpreting the sacred aspirations of the almighty people; the supreme reference.
A detailed study of Kwame Ture’s everyday life reveal that he successfully committed ‘class suicide’ refusing to go down the path of the petite bourgeoisie, but instead became reborn as a revolutionary worker. Many examples can be given of Kwame’s simplicity. He lived simple and worked hard for our People. He drove a simple car, rented a simple house, ate simple food and moved among the People of Guinea-Conakry, Africa and the African World as a humble servant. He detested luxury and greed. His self-written eulogy: ‘If we the children of Africa cannot end our People’s suffering, at least we can fully share it.’
He had a special relationship with the masses of people. His smile always beamed when walking down the streets of Conakry, or elsewhere among the people in the interior ‘the bush.’
CONCLUSION
Kwame Ture returned to the source; a source of energy arming our ideology and inspiring us as we intensify our relations with parties in Africa and the socialist world, working to completely liberate all the productive forces in the African world and humanity; a criteria for our own class struggle and a self- conscious measuring stick.
Tribute to Kwame Ture in three lines:
- Work for the People every day, as a humble servant developing the Mass Revolutionary Pan-Africanist Party;
- Study collectively with a passion and contribute towards the development of Philosophical Consciencism (ideology for decolonization);
- Give the EXAMPLE of the Revolutionary African Personality (RAP) in PRACTICE.
In one line – always be prepared and READY FOR REVOLUTION!