{"id":32712,"date":"2021-10-12T18:00:17","date_gmt":"2021-10-12T18:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jazairhope.org\/?p=32712"},"modified":"2021-10-11T23:20:15","modified_gmt":"2021-10-11T23:20:15","slug":"the-algerian-revolution-changed-the-world-for-the-better-part-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jazairhope.org\/en\/the-algerian-revolution-changed-the-world-for-the-better-part-5\/","title":{"rendered":"The Algerian Revolution Changed the World for the Better – PART 5"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY ROBERT MAISEY<\/a>\u00a0In https:\/\/www.jacobinmag.com\/<\/h4>\n

Tabula Rasa<\/h1>\n

In France, public opinion was war-weary. Undergoing an era of dramatic domestic economic progress, the average Frenchman was increasingly disinterested in the colonial aggrandizement of the ruling class. The diehard\u00a0pied noirs<\/em>\u00a0(the name by which\u00a0colons<\/em>\u00a0were often referred to) had become an embarrassing and destabilizing force in domestic politics, even attempting a coup against President Charles de Gaulle, who was elected with a democratic mandate to bring the war to a close.<\/p>\n

In 1962, despite overwhelming military superiority in the Saharan interior, the French position collapsed. The French were caught between the FLN\u2019s relentless diplomatic assault, which had succeeded in creating continuous urban unrest in both Algeria and in France, and a well-equipped Algerian army under the command of the ruthless Colonel Houari Boum\u00e9di\u00e8ne, massing behind the border fences.<\/p>\n

Newly released from a French prison, Ahmed Ben Bella rapidly established himself as a popular and energetic national leader supported by Boum\u00e9di\u00e8ne and the military establishment. The war had swept away the old French colonial state along with the traditional Algerian way of life, so Ben Bella and the FLN set to work translating their revolution into a new nation state.<\/p>\n

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Ahmed Ben Bella, the first president of Algeria.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Ben Bella fit perfectly into the mold of a Third World revolutionary statesman. Personally charismatic and ideologically nimble, Ben Bella committed Algeria to social revolution at home and an activist policy abroad. As the\u00a0pied noirs<\/em>\u00a0voted with their feet and left the country in droves, their vast agricultural estates, factories, and businesses were occupied by the Arab population. Recognizing that worker control was\u00a0de facto<\/em>\u00a0establishing itself across much of the agricultural and industrial sectors, Ben Bella kept the FLN at the crest of the revolutionary wave by formally recognizing and endorsing these popular takeovers.<\/p>\n

The rapid transition to a fully socialized economy delighted the Soviets, who saw Algeria following in Cuban footsteps on a developmental path that bypassed capitalism altogether. It also caused great excitement among the intellectual left more broadly, who saw Ben Bella\u2019s recognition and encouragement of popular control of industry as a fulfillment of socialism\u2019s more democratic aspirations.<\/p>\n