The Black’s Race Revolution: The Journal “La Race Nègre” and the Circulation of Radical Ideas in French West Africa in 1927 – 1930

Abstract

This paper discusses the impact of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917 on the circulation of anti-French and anti-colonial ideas between France and French West Africa. Its aim is to revisit communism in the African context as one of the significant ideologies of the modern world that challenged colonial empires long before the era of decolonisation. Based on the articles in the journal La Race Nègre, published by African intellectuals in Paris between 1927 and 1932 and distributed in French West Africa, this article seeks to demonstrate the variety of radical and revolutionary ideas influenced by communism and Pan-Africanism that circulated between France and French West Africa and how these ideas were articulated by African intellectuals. Supported by the French Communist Party, La Race Nègre offered a radically different picture of colonial reality than the official discourse of France's "civilising mission" and was among the first press organs of African francophone intellectuals to demand the right to self-determination and independence for French colonial territories in sub-Saharan Africa. What is more, studying this dynamic may deepen our understanding of the roots of the anti-French sentiments and attitudes which are on the rise across present-day West African countries that once formed the colonies of French West Africa.