Imperialism and Revolution in Africa

Abstract

The late and sorely lamented African revolutionary leader and theoretician, Amilcar Cabral, in a penetrating essay has illuminated the subject of imperialism in Africa by providing a brilliantly dialectical analysis that enables us to grasp the question in its totality. The essay, which we will summarize and analyze, is notable, among its other merits, for its capacity to delimit and record the real, positive aspects of imperialism, even while stressing its overwhelmingly negative and stultifying effects on the dominated. For it is a mistake to assume that taking account of any positive effects of imperialism of itself makes one an apologist for imperialism. On the contrary, recognition of the progressive or positive elements in imperialism is wholly "compatible…with the full recognition of the negative and dark sides of capitalism, with the full recognition of the profound and all-sided social contributions which are inevitably inherent in capitalism [imperialism], and which reveal the historically transient character of this economic regime."

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