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How Socialism Leads To Disaster
Just Not In The Way You Think...
Comrade Drew
March 19, 2025
Introduction:
We’ve all heard that socialism leads to utter disaster before, but we don’t hear about the times that socialism actually works. When you take in the negative propaganda with a grain of salt and do your own research, you’ll find that socialism has worked and improved the lives of many—of course this isn’t to say that it’s perfect because nothing is, but in the Western world it is painted in a strictly negative light which seldom tells the whole story. That being said, I felt compelled to share three times that socialism worked, and how the overthrow of Thomas Sankara, Jacobo Árbenz, and Salvador Allende led to disaster for their countries and a collapse in quality of life for their people.
Thomas Sankara & Burkina Faso
Early Life
Thomas Sankara was born December 21, 1949 in Yako, Upper Volta—a former French colony, and what is now Burkina Faso. As a child he was very dedicated to his schoolwork. Sankara was particularly good at French and mathematics. His family was Roman Catholic so he attended church quite frequently and was always encouraged by his parents and priest to attend seminary school and enter priesthood. Sankara pursued a different route by enlisting in the military at the age of 17.
He entered the military academy in the capital city of Ouagadougou where he was witness to the first military coup in Upper Volta. At the academy, he was exposed to many ideologies including anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism, and Marxism—he was also educated in socialist and other liberation movements.
After three years at the military academy, at the age of 20, Sankara traveled to Madagascar to receive further military training. While in Madagascar he learned much about agriculture and was witness to popular uprisings of students and workers that succeeded in toppling the presidency of Philbert Tsiranana.
Before returning to Upper Volta in 1972, Sankara attended a parachute academy in France, where he was once again exposed to left-wing ideologies. Upper Volta and Mali were at war over border disputes in 1974, where Sankara distinguished himself and earned much attention from the public—he would denounce the war years later as unjust and useless.
Sankara became the commander of a commando training center in the south of the country in 1976. Later that same year, he became part of a secret organization called the Communist Officers’ Group. The group also included Blaise Compaoré—a close friend who would play a significant role in both the rise and death of Thomas Sankara.
Early Political Career
In 1981, Thomas Sankara became the Minister of Information under the military government of President Saye Zerbo. During his time as the Minister of Information, he was appalled by the excess lifestyle of the other ministers, so he distanced himself from them as much as he could. Other ministers drove luxury cars to and from work, Sankara rode a bicycle, others tried to censor the media while Sankara was always open and honest with them, which led to government scandals. He was definitely disliked by his corrupt colleagues. He resigned from his post in April 1982.
Later in 1982, another coup led to Major Doctor Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo becoming the head of the state. Jean-Baptiste appointed Thomas Sankara as the Prime Minister of Upper Volta. Sankara pushed for progressive reforms which made him unpopular in the eyes of his colleagues once again. The distrust in him from others in the government led to him being dismissed as Prime Minister within four months and later imprisoned.
Sankara, however, had developed a strong base of support within the military and his imprisonment provided reason for his close friend and fellow officer Blaise Compaoré to lead a coup to free Sankara and depose the government of Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo. Thomas Sankara became president on August 4th, 1983.
Sankara’s Progressive Presidency
After meeting with Fidel Castro during his time as Prime Minister and learning about the Cuban Revolution during his military schooling, Sankara saw himself as a revolutionary akin to Che Guevara and Castro. He was a devoted anti-imperialist which the Western powers saw as an immediate red flag. Sankara declared that the immediate objectives of his government would be to eradicate corruption, fight environmental degradation mainly caused by deforestation, empowering women in the fight for total liberation, and rapidly increasing access to quality education and health care for all—this was all in the further goal of fighting imperialism and its dominance throughout Africa. On the one year anniversary of Sankara’s presidency, he officially renamed the country to Burkina Faso, which means “land of upright people” in two of the countries most widespread languages, and personally wrote the new national anthem.
The first policies implemented by Sankara were to improve the living conditions of the people of Burkina Faso—he implemented policies to provide housing, healthcare, and food, all of which greatly reduced poverty.
His government oversaw the vaccination of 2.5 million children against meningitis, yellow fever, and measles within a matter of weeks. Sankara’s government was also the first in Africa to recognize the AIDS epidemic.
He initiated a nationwide literacy campaign which saw the literacy rate improve tremendously from 13% in 1983 to 73% in 1987. He presided over the construction of brick factories in an attempt to eradicate the slums and further decrease poverty.
He set up a vast road and rail network that was connected to all parts of the country making travel significantly easier while rejecting all foreign aid as he wanted to make the country completely self-sufficient.
In his first year alone, over 10 million trees were planted to combat desertification & deforestation. Sankara introduced laws that made it punishable to start brush fires, let cattle roam free, and illegally cut firewood from trees.
From the very beginning he called for the liberation of women as a necessary step in the liberation of all people. He appointed women to high governmental positions, encouraged them to work, began recruiting them into the military, and granted pregnancy leave during their education. He also outlawed female genital mutilation, forced marriages, and polygamy. Sankara gave speeches suggesting that men do the labor that women were expected to do so they could gain a better understanding of the position of women in society.
Sankara sold the entire government fleet of Mercedes and replaced them with the Renault 5 (the cheapest car available in Burkina Faso at the time), and made them the official service car of all government ministers. He reduced the salaries of all public servants, including his own, and forbade them from using chauffeurs and buying first-class airline tickets. He forced civil servants to pay one month of their salary towards the funding of public projects. He lowered his own presidential salary to $450 a month and even refused to use an air conditioner in his office on account that it was a luxury that only a handful of Burkinabé could afford.
He nationalized land and redistributed it to the peasant population. Within three years, wheat production rose from 1700kg per hectare to 3800kg per hectare making Burkina Faso food self-sufficient. In Ouagadougou, Sankara converted the army’s provisioning store into a state-owned supermarket available to everyone making it the first supermarket in the entire country.
Sankara refused to have his portrait hung in public as well as any statues built of him stating that “There are seven million Thomas Sankaras.”
The Tragic Downfall of Thomas Sankara and Burkina Faso
Sankara’s transformational policies and fight for the self-reliance of Burkina Faso made him incredibly popular among the poor. However, his policies antagonized the interests of different groups within the country including the powerful Burkinabé middle-class, the tribal leaders whom he stripped the right from to force labor and tributes from their people, as well as France and its close ally the Ivory Coast. One week before he was murdered he declared: “While revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas.” Thomas Sankara was overthrown and assassinated in a coup d'état led by his old friend, and the one who freed him from house arrest during the coup that propelled him to power, Blaise Compaoré on October 15th, 1987.
He was killed by an armed group along with twelve other officials. Compaoré stated that Sankara jeopardized foreign relations with France and the Ivory Coast. Sankara was dismembered and buried in an unmarked grave. His widow Mariam and two children fled the nation. His body was exhumed in 2015 in which it was discovered that his body was riddled with more than a dozen bullets.
Compaoré assumed power and immediately reversed all of Sankara’s nationalizations, overturned the vast majority of his policies, rejoined the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, and rebuked Sankara’s legacy. Compaoré was dictator of Burkina Faso for 27 years until he was forced to step down due to protests in 2014. During his dictatorship, Burkina Faso saw very limited economic growth as well as a high dependency on foreign aid from the Western powers to keep the poor economy surviving.
Compaoré fled to the Ivory Coast after he was overthrown. A trial was brought against 14 of the alleged individuals involved in the coup d'état. Compaoré refused to return for the court proceedings and stated that he should have immunity due to his long reign as ruler.
The verdict was announced on April 6th, 2022 which named Compaoré and nine others guilty of having been complicit in the murder of Sankara. Hyacinthe Kafando was found guilty of the murder. Compaoré, Kafando, and General Gilbert Diendéré were sentenced to life in prison, while eight other defendants received lesser sentences, and three defendants were acquitted. Compaoré is likely to never serve a day of that sentence though as he is in exile with his family in the Ivory Coast.
Accusations have been brought up against the United States, France, and the Ivory Coast having potential involvement in the assassination, although no substantial evidence has been produced, as the French government continues to refuse to release all the necessary documents involved.
Truly one of the sadder stories involving a revolutionary leader that was doing great things for his people, but was angering individuals with the strength to get rid of him. Burkina Faso is one of the poorest countries in the world today and is still led by military rule who have postponed democratic elections that the people have repeatedly called for. We can only wonder what could have been if Thomas Sankara was able to see his revolutionary vision all the way through.
Jacobo Árbenz and Guatemala
Early Life
Jacobo Árbenz was born September 14th, 1913 in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala and died January 27th, 1971 in Mexico City, Mexico. Árbenz was the son of a Swiss pharmacist who’d immigrated to Guatemala. His family was relatively wealthy and lived comfortably.
At some point during his childhood, his father became addicted to morphine and began to neglect the family business causing them to go bankrupt. Jacobo wanted to be an economist or an engineer but, after his family’s bankruptcy, he couldn’t afford to attend a university. There was scholarships available for military cadets at the Polytechnic School of Guatemala, so Árbenz begrudgingly joined the military.
He applied, passed the entrance exams and became a cadet in 1932. Tragically, his father committed suicide two years after he entered the academy.
Árbenz was a fantastic student at the academy. He was bestowed with the highest rank available to cadets, the first sergeant. Árbenz earned the respect of his peers, as well as all the officers at the school including the ones from the United States. He graduated from the academy in 1935.
One of Árbenz’s first posts after graduation was to lead groups of soldiers tasked with escorting “chain gangs” of prisoners to perform forced labor at a fort in Guatemala City. Árbenz hated this job and later said it traumatized him.
In 1937, Árbenz returned to the academy to fill a vacant teaching position. He taught the usual military matters along with history and physics. He was promoted to captain in 1943—one of the most prestigious positions at the academy, especially for a young officer like Árbenz.
Árbenz met his wife, María Vilanova, in 1938. They were married within months of meeting each other at the behest of María’s parents who did not approve of her marrying an unwealthy army officer. María later wrote that the two were different in many ways, but their desire for great political change drew them closer together.
María was a known communist and is considered to have had great influence over Jacobo. It was through her that Árbenz first became acquainted with Marxism. She had left him a copy of The Communist Manifesto which Árbenz read and was moved by. They began reading and discussing the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin together. By the late 1940s, it is said that Árbenz was in regular contact with a group of Guatemalan communists, although he never publicly stated that he was a communist himself.
Political Career
For context, in 1871 the government led by Justo Rufino Barrios passed laws confiscating the lands of the native Mayan people and forcing them to work on coffee plantations for minimal payment. Many US-based companies, especially the United Fruit Company, received this stolen land, and were exempted from paying taxes.
Jorge Ubico came to power in 1931 by “winning” an election in which he was the sole candidate. He had the support of the wealthy landowners. Ubico ruled the country from 1931-1944, surpassed all his predecessors in the favors he gave to the United Fruit Company, and became one Latin America’s most brutal dictators.
Ubico established a vagrancy law which required all men of working age who did not own land to perform a minimum of 100 days of hard labor each year. He forced the Mayans to work on government projects with no compensation for their work. Ubico froze wages at a very low rate and passed a law granting complete immunity to landowners for any action they took to “defend” their property which allowed landowners to execute workers with no consequences. He gave away 490,000 acres of public land to the United Fruit Company, and allowed the US to establish military bases in Guatemala.
By 1944 Ubico’s popularity was terrible and protests forced him to resign. He appointed a junta led by Federico Ponce Vaides who promised to hold free and fair elections but assumed power by directing the military to hold congress at gunpoint. Árbenz protested Ponce Vaides and was subsequently fired from the academy and forced into exile in El Salvador.
Árbenz organized a group of revolutionary exiles who, along with civilians, students, and opposition forces in the military, fought against Ponce Vaides and forced him out of power. Árbenz was said to have fought with distinction in what is considered the start of the Guatemalan Revolution.
The first democratically elected president of Guatemala was Juan José Arévalo who was elected in December 1944. He was a staunch anti-communist who believed that regulated capitalism would benefit the entire population. Arévalo enacted progressive reforms such as suffrage for all but illiterate women, decentralized power, minimum wage laws, increased educational funding, and labor reforms. However, the majority of Guatemala’s population was impoverished peasants who didn’t benefit from the majority of these reforms.
Árbenz was sworn in as defense minister under the new regime. He objected to the deportation of several workers who were under suspicion of being communists. This strengthened his ties with communists in the country.
By 1949, Árbenz was considered a strong candidate to run in the 1950 election. An attempted coup from within the government that Árbenz put down made him one of the most popular figures throughout the country, and one of the most unliked in Washington D.C.
Árbenz announced that he’d be running under the National Integrity Party (PIN), which was an economically moderate group. He took the advice of his friends and colleagues that it would be to his benefit to appear more moderate. He promised to continue and expand the reform under Arévalo.
Árbenz’s Presidency
Árbenz won more than 60% of the vote and received more than three times as many votes as the runner-up. He won because his land reform campaign was incredibly popular. The election of Jacobo Árbenz angered US State Department officials who preferred the conservative opposition.
It’s been widely debated how much of a leftist Árbenz was with some historians considering him a democratic socialist while others say that he held strong personal communist views. His wife was definitely a communist and she held influence over him and, to an extent, his policy.
Árbenz personally drafted his land reform bill which saw the transfer of uncultivated land from large landowners to their poverty-stricken laborers, so they could start farms of their own. The owners of expropriated land were compensated through government bonds equal to the value that the landowners declared in their 1952 tax returns. By June 1954, around 1.4 million acres of land had been expropriated and redistributed. 500,000 people, about one-sixth of the entire population, received land. Overall, the land reform significantly improved the living standards of thousands of families, the majority of which were indigenous.
The United Fruit Company (UFC) owned 550,000 acres of land and only 15% of it was being cultivated. Árbenz expropriated 200,000 acres of UFC land in 1953. The company was offered double what it had initially paid for the land. UFC lobbied in Washington, through Secretary of State John Dulles, who had close personal ties to the company. It’s estimated that the United Fruit Company spent over $500,000 to influence lawmakers and the general public that Árbenz needed to be overthrown.
The CIA was authorized to overthrow Árbenz in August 1953. They’d chosen Carlos Castillo Armas to lead the coup as he gathered a force of 150 mercenaries and began preparing them to fight. Castillo Armas’ forces invaded on the 18th of June. The U.S. went on a simultaneous campaign of psychological warfare against the army and civilian populations. Árbenz sent a force that he believed to be loyal to him to counter-attack. The force gathered at Zacapa on the 21st of June. Árbenz sent a messenger who brought back a message saying the army would not fight out of fear of a U.S. invasion and that they were asking him to resign.
The Reign of Terror After Democracy Fell
Jacobo Árbenz resigned and left the presidential palace at 8P.M. on the 27th of June, 1954. He left the people with a taped resignation speech in which he said he was resigning to eliminate the “pretext for the invasion,” and that he wished to preserve the gains of the Guatemalan Revolution.
After Castillo came to power, more than nine thousand Árbenz supporters were arrested. The United States immediately began foreign aid to Guatemala. Castillo wasted no time outlawing over five hundred trade unions and returning more than 1.5 million acres of land to the United Fruit Company and the other large landowners. An estimated 1,000 United Fruit workers were executed immediately following the coup. Castillo arrested several thousand people, built concentration camps, detained numerous citizens trying to flee the country, and engaged in campaigns of brutal suppression of any opposition. Of the thousands imprisoned, few ever faced trial, and many were executed, disappeared, tortured, or maimed. Castillo outlawed all labor unions, peasant organizations, and political parties except for his own. Castillo was assassinated in 1957.
For the next 39 years until 1996, Guatemala would be at a constant state of civil war. The U.S. supported the military government against the leftist insurgents who had the popular support. Atrocities were committed by both sides against the civilian population. 93% of the atrocities were committed by the U.S. backed military—this includes a genocide campaign of scorched earth against the indigenous Maya population in the 1980s. Other atrocities include massacres of civilians, rape, aerial bombardments, and forced disappearances. The civil war, caused by the overthrow of democracy by the United States government, killed an estimated 200,000 civilians.
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Salvador Allende and Chile
Early Life
Salvador Allende was born June 26th, 1908 in Valparaíso, Chile. He was born into an upper middle-class progressive family. His main intellectual and political influence as a teenager came from Juan De Marchi, an Italian-born anarchist. Allende was a talented athlete as a youth before going on to study medicine at the age of 18 in 1926.
By 1930, he had become the representative for the students of the School of Medicine at the University of Chile. In 1932, Allende began practicing as a physician and anatomo-pathologist in the morgue of the Van Buren Hospital.
In 1933, Allende co-founded a section of the Socialist Party of Chile in Valparaíso. By 1938, he was serving as the Undersecretary General of the Socialist Party of Chile.
A Life In Politics
In 1938, Allende was in charge of the electoral campaign for the Popular Front, a left-wing coalition featuring the Radicals, Communists, Socialists, and Radical-Socialists. The Popular Front was victorious and Allende became the Minister of Health. During his term, Allende was responsible for many progressive social reforms including safety laws to protect workers in factories, higher pensions for widows, maternity care, and free lunch for schoolchildren.
Allende was a four-time senator in 1945, 1953, 1961, and 1969. He became the president of the Chilean Senate in 1966. As a senator in the 1950s, Allende introduced legislation that established the Chilean national health service, the first universal healthcare program in all the Americas! Allende ran for president three times unsuccessfully in 1952, 1958, and 1964. It is known that the U.S. spent close to $6 million between 1962 and 1964 to finance Allende’s opponents and fund anti-Allende propaganda.
Allende’s Presidency
Allende ran again in 1970 as the leader of the Unidad Popular (Popular Unity) coalition of leftist parties and groups. He narrowly won with 36.6% of the popular vote compared to 35.3 for the runner-up. This meant that Congress would have to choose one of the candidates to become president. As was tradition, Congress chose Allende as he had received the highest percentage of the popular vote.
Allende’s first speech to the Chilean legislature made it very clear that he had every intention of moving away from a capitalist society and into a socialist one. Allende called his platform “The Chilean Path to Socialism.” He expropriated U.S. owned copper companies without compensation, implemented government administration over the healthcare and educational systems, began a free-milk program for students and in shanty towns, continued and expanded the land seizure and redistribution, he provided employment for Chile’s poorest through nationalized enterprises and public projects.
Allende allocated 3,000 scholarships to Mapuche children to integrate the indigenous minority into the school system. His administration resumed payment of pensions and grants, he launched a plan to construct 120,000 residential buildings, granted social security to all part-time workers, withdrew a proposed increase in electricity prices, restored Chile’s diplomatic relationship with Cuba, and granted amnesty to political prisoners.
Allende sent 55,000 volunteers to the south of Chile to teach reading and writing as well as provide medical attention to an underserved sector of the population, he established a central commission to oversee a tripartite payment plan in which equal place was given to employees, employers, and the government, he signed an agreement with the United Center of Workers which granted workers representational rights on the funding board of the Social Planning Ministry.
Allende established a mandatory minimum wage for all workers, reduced rent costs, sponsored programs that provided free food to the neediest citizens, established peasant councils in the countryside, raised the minimum taxable income effectively removing 35% of those who had paid taxes on their earnings the previous year, the exemption from general taxation was raised to twice the amount of the minimum wage, etc. It’s estimated that Chilean buying power increased by upwards of 28% between October 1970 and July 1971.
In August 1973, the opposition party, the Christian Democrats, accused Allende’s government of abusing their power to commit unconstitutional acts and called upon the military to enforce order. That same month, Augusto Pinochet became the Army commander-in-chief.
Allende insisted that his government had broken no order in the constitution and that Congress was promoting a coup and usurping the executive function out from under the government.
Preparations for a coup had already been made a month prior to the accusations against Allende. The high command of the Army had a general agreement to terminate the Unidad Popular “experiment.” They couldn’t agree initially on whether or not there would be a transitional Allende-Army government or if the Army should seize all power immediately—Augusto Pinochet was in favor of seizing all power with no transitional period.
It is known that the U.S. was definitely involved, but the extent of their involvement is still argued. We know for certain that they spent exorbitant amounts of money to make sure Allende lost the election in 1964 and 1970, Nixon stated after Allende became president that he was gonna make the Chilean economy scream, they tried to bribe the Chilean legislature with funds for strikes to convince Allende to resign, they squeezed the Chilean economy for three years which helped create the conditions for the coup, and that they initially had CIA operatives on the ground in Chile in 1970 to spread anti-Allende propaganda and prevent an Allende government from forming.
The Overthrow of Allende and The Brutality of Pinochet
Allende was overthrown by a military coup on September 11th, 1973. The military had bombed radio stations and cut off communications between Allende and loyal military leaders. Allende, along with any loyalists he had, retreated to La Moneda—the presidential palace—where they would prepare their final defense. The coup started at 6A.M., by 9A.M. the military had control over all of Chile except for the city center of Santiago, the capital. Allende refused to surrender and refused to be flown out of the country or try and method of escape. Allende gave his famous farewell speech at 9:10A.M. saying that Chile would see brighter days ahead soon and that the period of darkness wouldn’t last forever. The Chilean Air Force soon arrived at the palace and began providing close air support as well as bombing runs on La Moneda. The defenders did not surrender until 2:30P.M. and Allende would be found in his office with a gunshot wound to the head—it’s been speculated over the years if this was a suicide or not, most evidence points to the wound being self-inflicted with an AK-47 set to automatic fire. Augusto Pinochet officially began his reign at 2:30P.M. on September 11th, 1973—the day that democracy died in Chile.
Pinochet ruled from 1973 to 1990. During that time, his regime has been implicated in several human rights abuses—crimes against humanity, persecution of opponents, political suppression, and state terrorism. According to the Rettig Commission and the Valech Commission, the direct number of human rights violations accounts for close to 30,000 people: 27,255 tortured, 2,279 executed. Over 200,000 people were exiled and an unknown number went through clandestine centers and illegal detention.
Torture methods on Chilean prisoners include electric shocks, waterboarding, beatings, and sexual abuse. The regime disappeared those who adhered to leftist political doctrines. Under Pinochet, Chile developed 17 torture centers. Within a week of seizing power, Pinochet had rounded up 10,000 students, workers, and political activists and jammed them into National Stadium, effectively turning it into a concentration camp. Most of these people were tortured and gunned down, hundreds of bodies would be chucked into mass graves. In 2000, President Ricardo Lagos made an address to the nation revealing that the armed forces had uncovered the fate of 180 people who had gone missing—he revealed that at least 150 of those bodies were thrown into lakes, rivers, and the Pacific Ocean. Hundreds of bodies remain missing to this day.
Conclusion
It’s important to recognize that Western propaganda has fueled much of the outrage against socialism and other leftist ideologies. The truth is not always black and white—in fact, it rarely is. These three regimes don’t get mentioned in the West because it’d be a terrible look to reveal that the lies and slander spread against leftist ideologies hasn’t been exactly fair or true. It’s easy to fall victim of the Western Eyeglass Syndrome—that I just made up—where you get so comfortable with what your government tells you and what you see and hear in the media that you just go along with it without doing yourself a favor and looking into it, at least a bit.
All that being said, I felt like it was necessary during a time when leftists are being witch hunted globally to write about three of the times that socialism definitely made an impact and improved people’s lives while the fall of socialism led to human rights violations and disaster.
Sources:
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