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From International Socialism, No.12, Spring 1963, p.32.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
From Leopold to Lumumba
George Martelli
Chapman and Hall. 30s.
The author believes ‘the work of the colonial powers ... constitutes on a net reckoning one of the proudest and most unsqualid chapters in the history of western civilisation.’ Blithely the original land grabbing in the Congo is related and we are made aware of Stanley’s well meditated views on the stick, whip and irons. The narrative is extremely clear and well documented, these being the best aspects of the work. Mr Martelli’s defence of Belgian policy in the Congo seems to, be based on the view that in some respects it was slightly superior to other colonial policies. The fact remains that the Congo was (and is) a source of raw materials for Imperialism, that the population was kept largely in ignorance. and that Belgian and other Imperialists have shown by their repeated and bloody interventions that they have no interest in a genuinely independent Congo. The view is also put forward here that the chaos following independence was really a communist plot. The timid intervention of the Soviet Union in the Congo gives no support to the view of a communist plot – but then the author cannot tell the difference between revisionism and real revolutionary Marxism. Naively he admits that the ‘counter revolution which destroyed Lumumba was naturally supported by all Europeans ... including the big companies whose existence was at stake’. Mr Martelli is a very lucid but a totally reactionary writer who has no conception that the Congo is a part of a relentless revolutionary process and that Imperialism is an outmoded social form with nothing to recommend it.
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Last updated on 31.10.2006