People of the Revolution and the USSR

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Burkina Faso

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Thomas Sankara

Thomas Sankara
Burkina Faso state institutions Marxism and communism Burkina Faso Burkina Faso 1949–1987 ✕ Assassinated

The 'African Che' who traded the state Mercedes fleet for Renault 5s

“While revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas.” — speech a week before his assassination, 1987

A Marxist pan-Africanist revolutionary of Burkina Faso. Taking power at thirty-three in 1983, he renamed the country 'land of upright people' and drove mass vaccination, literacy and women's-rights campaigns. He rejected IMF structural adjustment and was assassinated in the 1987 coup of his comrade Blaise Compaoré.

Career timeline
  • 1983Takes power at thirty-three; the National Council of the Revolution
  • 1983–1987Vaccination, literacy, reforestation and women's-rights campaigns
  • 1984Renames the country Burkina Faso, 'land of upright people'
  • 1987.07The Addis Ababa speech: Africa must repudiate its debt
  • 1987.10Assassinated in the coup of his comrade Compaoré
  • 1987Delivered Women’s Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle on International Women’s Day