The Resurrection of Former Communist Leaders
Noted civil rights activist and feminist scholar Dr. Angela Davis gave a lecture at Washington University in St. Louis on Jan. 24. She spoke about how American society continually allows sexual predators positions of power through not giving women the respect that they deserved as human beings. Her speech visibly moved the audience, which erupted into cheers at the conclusion of the event. Throughout half a century of activism, Dr. Davis provided her incredible insights through marvelous oratory. Nevertheless, in 1984 and in 1988, it would have seemed strange to many Americans to see Dr. Davis give a speech that provoked such passionate support. The reason for such scenarios is that in both of the aforementioned years Dr. Davis ran as the vice presidential nominee for the Communist Party.
[pullquote]Dr. Davis is by no means the only leader to stage a political comeback after being a loyal Communist leader.[/pullquote]
Dr. Davis is by no means the only leader to stage a political comeback after being a loyal Communist leader. President Denis Sassou-Nguesso of the Republic of the Congo has held that post since 1997, but he attempted to convince the Congolese public that he was close with president-elect and businessman Donald Trump in 2016 in a photoshopped image. Despite Sassou-Nguesso’s current pro-capitalist stance, he first achieved power in his country when it was called the People’s Republic of the Congo as a communist leader from 1979 to 1992. Another African nation, Benin, received its name from a former communist leader. Mathieu Kerekou was a military officer who overthrew Dahomey’s (now Benin’s) triumviral government of Justin AhomadegbeTometin, Hubert Maga, and Sourou-Migan Apithy. Kerekou transformed the nation into a communist state while renaming it for a powerful empire that had existed in Nigeria in the pre-colonial period. He ruled as a communist dictator from 1972 to 1991, but he changed his tone in 1990. In that year, he begged for the forgiveness of the Beninois people in a public confession of the excesses and crimes of his authoritarian regime given to Archbishop Isidore de Souza of Cotonou. He left office after being defeated by Nicephore Soglo in the 1991 presidential election. However, Kerekou regained power in 1996 through the next presidential election on a platform of encouraging Christianity throughout the country until his retirement in 2006. Another publically devoted Christian leader to regain power after being a committed Marxist-Leninist was President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua. He ran a leftist (albeit non-Communist) government (1979-1990) that found itself drawn to the Soviet bloc at the height of the Cold War during the 1980s. Unlike Sassou-Nguesso and Kerekou, Ortega allowed two democratic elections during the aforementioned tenure. He lost in the presidential election of 1990, but returned to power in 2006 as a social conservative and political leftist, and he remains in control of the Nicaraguan presidency.
Of the three former Marxist-Leninist heads of state to become a head of state democratically in a multiparty state, all drastically changed their images to obtain election to the highest offices of their respective countries. Some leaders did not even have to leave power. Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan, Saparmurat Niyazov of Turkemenistan, Jose Eduardo dos Santos of Angola, and Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique maintained control over their countries even when they finally allowed their countries to establish multiparty democracies and when the leaders themselves renounced their former commitment to communism. Dr. Davis left the Communist Party in 1991 and never once discussed her affiliation with the party throughout her lecture at Graham Chapel. For many of the people at Graham Chapel, they might have had no knowledge of Dr. Davis’s former association with and leadership within the Communist Party.
[pullquote]Dr. Davis forgot that political power and intersectionality are simply tools to build a better society, and not eschatological visions that satisfy anybody in the long run.[/pullquote]
Dr. Davis’s abandonment of the party has not stopped her from criticizing capitalist economics as exploitative to marginalized ethnic and gender communities. At Graham Chapel, she stated that a revolution might be necessary to rid American society of oppressive habits and institutions. However, she famously ignored some of the most marginalized of voices when she refused to join Czechoslovak dissident Jiri Pelikan’s cries for justice against the communist government of Czechoslovakia in 1972. She agreed to be photographed next to Erich Honecker of East Germany, Fidel Castro of Cuba, and Todor Zhivkov of Bulgaria. None of those leaders ever allowed free and multiparty elections in their countries. Dr. Davis’s commitment to a communist worldview superseded individual rights that are normally guaranteed in a multiparty democracy, as conservatives such as William F. Buckley, Jr. ignored the authoritarian rule of Augusto Pinochet because it suited their pro-capitalist and traditionalist ends in the international arena. The ideology of communism gave her a specific goal toward which she could aspire: the classless society. When her dream collapsed with the fall of the Soviet government and many of its satellites, she embraced intersectional feminism. Other former leaders sought political power to fill in the void communism filled. Dr. Davis forgot that political power and intersectionality are simply tools to build a better society, and not eschatological visions that satisfy anybody in the long run.
Luke Voyles ’18 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences and is a staff writer for WUPR. He can be reached at lrvoyles@wustl.edu.