Introducing the series
‘Socialism always fails’. This is a line many of us hear over and over again, particularly from sources that most of us would define as being credible, such as news outlets, economists, and our peers who claim to have read Marx. In this blog, we are going to attempt to shift the framing of the question to – ‘Does socialism fail by design, or is it undermined by imperialism?’
We are going to present an unbiased, factual, narrative-driven account of the history of 3 lesser-known ‘successful’ socialist states: Burkina Faso, Guatemala, and Chile. We will acknowledge both the achievements and failures of these states and encourage readers to reflect rather than conclude: Was socialism doomed internally or sabotaged externally?
When we mean successful, we mean that the state, according to general consensus, improved the quality of life for most people and did not result in any human rights catastrophe.
Backing all our research are declassified CIA files, released foreign relations volumes, and real data gathered by national and international sources.
So, let’s get stuck in…
Upper Volta
The Republic of Upper Volta was notoriously one of the poorest countries in West Africa. In 1958, it was established as a self-governing state within the French community, before gaining its full independence from France and becoming autonomous in 1960. The first president, Maurice Yaméogo, was showing authoritarian tendencies, banning all other political parties other than his own, the Voltaic Democratic Union-African Democratic Rally (UDV-RDA), despite it being against their new constitution.
Under this regime, Upper Volta lacked critical infrastructure; it had terribly low literacy rates, high unemployment, and poor health care. Under Yaméogo, the people of Upper Volta also experienced severe gender discrimination; women had no votes, and barely any rights. The land was also quite inhospitable, with droughts and environmental crises leading to bad crop yields and a starving population.
Eventually, in 1966, Yaméogo was overthrown in a coup d’état, and after a long series of short-term presidencies, Thomas Sankara came to power through another coup d’état in 1983. One of his decisions was to rename Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, which means ‘Land of Upright Men’, or ‘Land of Incorruptible Men’.
Thomas Sankara and Burkina Faso
Defining himself as an anti-colonial Marxist, Sankara was a true revolutionist. During his tenure, he built schools which raised the literacy rates to historically high records. New health centres were established alongside vaccination programs to reduce sickness, vaccinating millions. The infrastructure of the country improved massively, with water reservoirs and roads. He nationalised all land, and agriculture improved so much that Burkina Faso was declared food self-sufficient
He had extraordinarily forward-thinking views of gender equality for this period in African history. He lowered gender discrimination, with the mission to “give the women of our country a framework and sound tools for waging a successful fight”.
Sankara’s Socialist Policies in Detail
Under Sankara, with his Marxist ideology, land became state property, preventing elites or foreign companies from owning it. This had a range of both positive and negative impacts on Burkina Faso. To start, farmers were allocated plots, leading to a rapid increase in crop yields. In just four years, wheat production reportedly rose from 1700 kg per hectare to 3800 kg. Burkina Faso achieved food self-sufficiency by 1984. State control, however, limited private enterprise and foreign investment. Some urban elites and traditional chiefs opposed losing their landholdings, creating internal political enemies, which would, in a few short years, come back to bite Sankara.
Burkina Faso also fixed grain prices and controlled distribution to protect farmers and ensure affordability. With this, stable access to staple foods for the poor became more abundant, but at the expense of the merchants, who resented the reduced profit margins.
Mass public works programs were installed in Burkina Faso. Using voluntary labour and local materials, schools, water reservoirs, irrigation canals, and roads were built. Challenging the assumption often made in capitalist economies that without financial incentive, there would be little motivation for work. From these efforts directly, the literacy rate rose from 13% in 1983 to 22% in 1987; rural access to clean water improved dramatically; free healthcare centres, nationwide vaccination campaigns for 2.5 million people against meningitis, yellow fever, and measles. These programs did raise certain challenges for Sankara, however. Voluntary labour campaigns were sometimes viewed as coerced, leading to grumbles among citizens, and funding was limited for the building and installation of such infrastructure, leading to the reforms straining the already limited state budget.
Sankara implemented an array of gender equality measures, becoming the first significant African leader to make women’s rights a central policy goal. His policies outlawed female genital mutilation, polygamy, and forced marriage, and promoted women to government and military positions. These policies did, however, lead to cultural pushback from conservative communities and religious leaders, dividing the nation.
One of Sankar’s main political objectives was his anti-corruption drive. Ministers were required to disclose assets, and lavish government perks were cut. This Alienated elites who benefited from patronage under previous regimes, but bought some public trust and allowed extra funds to be redirected to social programs.
Western Interference and Destabilisation Efforts
By the mid-80s, Burkina Faso’s foreign policy stood out in West Africa. It embraced self-reliance, distanced itself from French influence, and forged ties with states outside the West. During the midst of the Cold War, such moves rarely went unnoticed.
Thomas Sankara was killed in 1987 alongside twelve of his colleagues by an armed commando unit. In the aftermath, his former ally Blaise Compaoré assumed the presidency, publicly denying involvement in the assassination. Compaoré would go on to rule Burkina Faso for the next 27 years, until mass protests forced him from power in 2014. He fled to neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire, where he faced trial in absentia for his role in the events. He was sentenced to a life term for his involvement in the killing in 2022.
The circumstances surrounding Sankara’s death have long been the subject of speculation and investigation. While Compaoré maintained that the coup was an internal matter, declassified accounts suggest that foreign powers (particularly France and the United States) were closely monitoring events in Burkina Faso and may have had an interest in his removal.
Declassified CIA reports from the mid-1980s show that US intelligence closely monitored Sankara’s alliances with leaders such as Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and Ghana’s Jerry Rawlings, as well as his visits to Cuba, North Korea, and the Soviet Union. One CIA profile, released in 2022, described him as pursuing “a nonaligned foreign policy” while simultaneously strengthening ties with states viewed by the US as hostile during the Cold War.
Sankara’s vocal rejection of IMF and World Bank loan conditions, coupled with his criticism of French neo-colonial influence in West Africa, placed him in opposition with the West. In speeches, he accused foreign aid of being “a cleverly managed reconquest of Africa,” a stance that made him unpopular with international donors and France’s political establishment.
Diplomatic cables released in recent years reveal that US officials anticipated a possible coup and maintained informants within the Burkinabé military. While these documents do not confirm direct CIA involvement, they show that Washington and Paris were aware of growing tensions in Burkina Faso and may have seen a leadership change as beneficial to their interests.
Following Sankara’s death, Burkina Faso’s foreign policy shifted dramatically. Compaoré restored relations with Côte d’Ivoire and France, accepted structural adjustment programs from the IMF, and reversed many of Sankara’s socialist reforms, moves that aligned more closely with Western economic and political priorities.
The lack of conclusive evidence of direct foreign involvement leaves room for debate. Yet the pattern continues to fuel suspicion that Sankara’s revolution was not only challenged from within but also undermined by forces far beyond Burkina Faso’s borders.
Conclusion
Thomas Sankara’s four years in power left a legacy that remains starkly debated. His socialist reforms of land redistribution, food self-sufficiency, universal vaccination campaigns, advances in literacy, and unprecedented steps toward gender equality brought improvements to one of the poorest nations in the world. Yet they also came with challenges: economic strains, resistance from traditional power structures, and criticism that some programs relied too heavily on state control and voluntary labour that was not always voluntary in practice.
His assassination in 1987 ended a rare experiment in African socialism just as it was beginning to bear fruit. In its place came a more familiar alignment with international financial institutions and Western allies.
The story of Burkina Faso under Sankara raises the central question of this series: did the project falter because of flaws in its design, or because powerful forces worked to ensure it could not succeed? In our next blog, we will turn to Guatemala in the early 1950s, a country where a democratically elected government also attempted sweeping social reforms, only to face the full weight of foreign intervention.
References
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/11/thomas-sankara-trial-burkina-faso
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/SANKARA%2C%20THOMAS%20%28BURKINA%20%5B16027694%5D.pdf
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP94-00798R000200190007-8.pdf?
https://www.faf.ae/home/2025/1/26/conspiracy-behind-thomas-sankara-assasination
Harsch, Ernest. “The Legacies of Thomas Sankara: A Revolutionary Experience in Retrospect.” Review of African Political Economy, vol. 40, no. 137, 2013, pp. 358–74. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42003347. Accessed 10 Aug. 2025.
