Patrice Emery Lumumba was born on 2 July 1925, at Onalua village near the Katako-Kombe Town in the Sankuru district of north-eastern Kasai, Congo (modern day the Democratic Republic of Congo). . Lumumba’s tribe was the Batetela (Tetela) which is a dynamic branch of the Mongo-Nkutshu family of central Congo. He grew up in a mud-brick house. The Congo was a colony of Belgium and, as such, he attended both Protestant and Catholic schools run by white Belgian missionaries. Lumumba was intelligent and used to ask too many problematic questions
Lumumba was ambitious and aimed for social mobility, predominantly to form part of the “evolue”, the upper strata of the middle class; the highest-level indigenous Congolese could attain in the Belgian colony. His first employment was at the Postal Office as a postal clerk in Stanleyville City in 1954. However, Lumumba was accused of embezzlement and was jailed in 1955. Due to an extensive interview with King Baudouin, when he visited the Congo in 1955, Lumumba’s sentence was reduced in 1956. Lumumba, after working for almost three years,was appointed as the sales director for a brewery company in Léopoldville (currently known as Kinshasa) in 1957. This is how Lumumba left Stanleyville (currently known as Kisangani) for the Congo's capital city, Kinshasa.
While Lumumba was working in Stanleyville, he joined the Belgian Liberal Political Party. When he relocated to Léopoldville to work at the brewery, he helped to find the Movement National Congolais (MNC) political party. Lumumba's good personality and public speaking skills won him many admirers, making him a focal point within the party. While in prison in 1955, Lumumba reconsidered his status as an evolue and made a major shift towards Pan-Africanism and Congolese nationalism. The notion of nationalism enabled different ethnic groups that made up the Congolese society to come together and fight against colonial economic exploitation, political repression and cultural oppression.
The Belgian led government, in 1959, announced that Congolese local elections should take place within five years to full Congolese independence. At the Luluabourg Congress meeting in April 1959, various political groups and some members of MNC that favoured a unitary form of government for the Congo chose Lumumba to lead them. Within the MNC, however, there were other leaders that considered Lumumba’s views as radical and not good for the nation. It is argued that the result of this difference of opinion, was a split in the MNC party in July 1959 with a majority of the members following Albert Kalonji. Even though Lumumba had left Stanleyville , he was briefly detained on charges of encouraging the outbreak of riots in Stanleyville in November 1959. He was released from detention in time to attend the Round Table Conference in Brussels which paved the way for Congo’s general elections. Lumumba was an effective speaker in each of the Congo's major vehicular languages as well as in French when compared to other Congolese leaders and this helped his campaigning.
After the May 1960 general elections, Congo achieved independence on 30 June 1960 with Lumumba as the leader of the largest single party. He was selected to become the Congo's first prime minister and his political rival, Joseph Kasavubu, became president of the Congo.
As the prime minister, Lumumba faced sudden emergencies.The Congolese elite feared Lumumba’s notion of nationalism and participatory democracy and thus they started revolting against him. The revolt of the army and the secession of the provinces of Katanga and Southern Kasai were further emergencies. Lumumba sent Congolese troops to Southern Kasai province in attempt to restore the situation but the poorly trained soldiers killed thousands of Congolese civilians. The United Nations, through Secretary General Hammerskjöld, blamed Lumumba for the massacre of civilians. Lumumba disliked Belgium and the UN for not helping to restore order and unity in Congo. The Congolese elite conspired with foreign states, specifically the CIA and US administration, to get rid of Lumumba. When Lumumba asked for military help from the Soviet Union against the secessionist provinces of Southern Kasai and Katanga, President Kasavubu dismissed him from office on 5th September 1960. This was the beginning of the end of the political life of Patrice Lumumba. The Congolese National Assembly disagreed with the decision of the president and ordered Lumumba back in power as prime minister. This did not happen since a faction of the Congolese army, under Colonel Mobutu, took over the government instead and put Lumumba under the house arrest under the protection of Ghanaian troops of the UN force. Lumumba managed to get out of the house arrest in Kinshasa and attempted to leave for Stanleyville, but he was arrested by an army patrol and held prisoner in a military camp at Thysville.
From the military camp, Lumumba was transferred to Elisabethville, Katanga on January 18, 1961 despite the presence of United Nations troops, he was picked up by a small group led by Katanga's interior minister, Godefroid Munongo. Lumumba was taken to a nearby house where he was assassinated.
Lumumba's assassination made him a symbol of struggle for champions of African nations' attempts to bond and set themselves free from the influence of the European Colonizers.
Patrice Émery Lumumba - South Africa history online
Why Patrice Lumumba Was a Threat
How the West Destroyed Congo’s Hopes for Independence
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Heyo,
I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask (first comment in this negathread, I think, I'm mostly a newshead), but I've been getting into more debates about economic systems recently and I often get hit with the argument that "Czechia, Slovakia, Poland are all much better off than during socialism and even if income inequality rose in that time, general wealth levels rose by so much that practically everyone is better off".
Would anyone have pointers to some books/articles, explaining the processes and events surrounding the fall of communism, with a particular focus on these western parts of the USSR? I've read Blackshirts and Reds(referring to the Market Paradise chapters here),, unfortunately that book isn't sourced well and it expects you to already be aligned with its way of thinking. The people I end up arguing with usually hold very opposing opinions.
I'm not a book nerd but Hakim on youtube has many videos on the fall of the European communist states along with book recommendations.
Also, I'm partially confused by the question since you mention Warsaw Pact countries and then want a focus on the western USSR. Regardless one of the most visible things in statistics is that on basically any graph of population you can see once capitalist infection starts those countries immediately had a population decline because people left the economic chaos of shock therapy, people stopped having kids, and others just fucking died. Ukraine is the worst in that regard where it turns on a dime from strong population growth to strong decline.
Thanks for the hakim recommendation, I am not that big into video essays, but I see he even has dedicated "reading list" videos. Cool!
To the second part, you're right, I mixed up my words. What I meant was the countries of the Warsaw Pact, it's just that it's so often portrayed as a group of USSR vassal states. Regarding the statistics, I can see a definite trend within the USSR states and most Warsaw pact countries (thank you for pointing this out), but specifically Czechoslovakia seems to have stabilized in the 80s already and the market reforms seem to have had a smaller effect. Any idea why that is?
Basically the closer the country was to Germany the better it did for different reasons. Czechoslovakia had a better privatization scheme and stronger industry that they would want integrated with German capital so it wasn't looted and destroyed by international capital. Poland was given support and subsidies to be a strong NATO bulwark on Russia's border. The Baltic states had spent centuries polishing german horse cocks so there were many people in exile after WW2 who worshipped Germany/the west and were fanatically loyal and pro NATO when they came to power and were rewarded for that loyalty. The other soviet republics had to be punished, especially the Russians. Yugoslavia was destroyed by the wars and NATO so there was nothing to really care about.