Contemporary scholarship in critical theory and extensions of the groundwork laid out by Franz Fanon comprehensively remedy Marx’s unsatisfactory treatment of the colonial/neocolonial question. Fanon never called himself a Marxist; confronted as he was by these shortcomings in practice, particularly disgusted by the PCF (French left and the communist party) which did not support Algerian independence. Nevertheless, his theories are undeniably rooted in Marxist principles of social organization. In Guinea-Bissau, Amilcar Cabral implemented Fanon’s teachings, conducting one of the most successful anti-colonial revolutions in history. Revolution in Guinea-Bissau, a country with a 99% illiteracy rate at the outset of the revolutionary effort, may seem like a repudiation of the classical Marxist framework of proletarian revolution. However, one must separate Marx’s thought from the myriad historical misapplications and vulgarizations to which it has been subjected. The unfolding of modern capitalist structures, evermore complex and multifaceted, dialectically requires the parallel development of theoretical solution. This paper endeavors to situate Marx within the rapidly expanding body of theoretical work on the colonial and neocolonial questions and their centrality to international socialist struggle. Rather than treating Fanon and Cabral as thinkers who depart from or supersede Marxist theory, this paper approaches their work as extensions of the dialectical humanism present in Marx. Both Fanon and Cabral build from the Marxist insight that revolutionary theory must emerge from the lived experience of the oppressed and adapt its conceptual framework to new historical and cultural contexts. Marx’s theory is thus to be interpreted as an open-ended framework, capable of accommodating specific material and cultural realities. Rather than repudiating traditional Marxisms, Fanon and Cabral demonstrate their adaptability in the face of increasingly complex issues of sociocultural organization.

Vulgar Marxist interpretations and forceful applications of his Hegelian framework have historically been obstacles to revolutionary efforts in underdeveloped countries. Though Marx’s thought on the colonial question was often vague and peripheral to his primary occupation with capitalism as an economic structure, a more nuanced assessment of his work on colonial theory is necessary here. South Korean theoretician Jie Hyun Lim provides the following summary of Marx and Engels’ stance on the colonial-national question: 

Lacking bourgeois class and economic prerequisites for formation of the modern nation, nationalist movements based on ethnicity can only be mobilized and put to use by reactionary forces. It was in this context that the concept of “historyless peoples” and the negative positions regarding national revolutions in certain colonies and underdeveloped countries was maintained by Marx and Engels.

Evaluated in tandem with Marx’s work on the Irish question, 

Marx came to the realization that English colonialism destroyed the indigenous industry of Ireland, contrary to his earlier belief that it provided Ireland with the material basis for capitalist development. According to Marx, “every time Ireland was about to develop industrially, she was crushed and reconverted into purely agricultural land” (IIQ, 132). On the basis of this recognition, he insisted upon protective tariffs against England. Furthermore, his negative viewpoint on colonialism now became paired with recognition of the necessity of Irish independence.

Marx’s evaluation of the revolutionary potential of colonies seems to be instrumental by nature, owing to their youth in the greater context of global capitalism. Marx’s correspondence with Russian revolutionary Vera Zasulich on the question of socialist revolution in semi-feudal Russia contains an intriguing theoretical dialogue regarding the colonial question. Zasulich wrote to Marx in February of 1881. Russian society was organized into rural agricultural communes; the nation was only in the nascent stages of the transition to capitalism. Herself a Menshevik thinker and student of Marx’s historical materialism, Zasulich was curious about the fate of those caught between history. If true socialist revolution could not occur in the absence of late-stage capitalist development, were all those caught in between destined to suffer? His final response made a key clarification about the culturally specific nature of his argument of historical inevitability, 

The ‘historical inevitability’ of this course is therefore expressly restricted to the countries of Western Europe. 

Marx wrote four drafts as he tried to formulate a response to this question. Within these drafts, he suggests that there may be a clear path for the rural commune to develop with the unique benefit of perspective provided by late-stage capitalist development in the West. 

Also favourable to the maintenance of the Russian commune (on the path of development) is the fact not only that it is contemporary with capitalist production [in the Western countries], but that it has survived the epoch when the social system stood intact. Today, it faces a social system which, both in Western Europe and the United States, is in conflict with science, with the popular masses, and with the very productive forces that it generates [in short, this social system has become the arena of flagrant antagonisms, conflicts and periodic disasters; it makes clear to the blindest observer that it is a transitory system of production, doomed to be eliminated as soc(iety) returns to... ]. In short, the rural commune finds it in a state of crisis that will end only when the social system is eliminated through the return of modern societies to the ‘archaic’ type of communal property… [’the higher plane'] ‘the new system’ to which modern society is tending ‘will be a revival, in a superior form, of an archaic social type.’ We should not, then, be too frightened by the word ‘archaic’.

Present here are two key points. Firstly, the Russian communes, in their contemporaneity with Western capitalism, can benefit from the theory produced by their suffering. Secondly, the ‘archaic social type’ is not something to be discarded, rather recognized for its valuable characteristics and kept in mind in the process of the formulation of modern society. These points may constitute the beginnings of a theoretical strand picked up by Fanon and Cabral later on. 

Lenin, in his works dealing with the national and colonial questions, laid out important frameworks that had profound influence on perceptions of revolutionary struggle across broader economic and cultural contexts, “Under imperialism the division of nations into oppressing and oppressed ones is a fundamental, most important, and inevitable fact.” In light of Marx’s sparse coverage of the colonial question, this work was highly constructive and openly critical of the vulgar Marxist tendency to ignore revolutionary struggles of “backwards peoples” on the grounds of economic immaturity, though failing to challenge the usefulness of the term. Lenin emphasizes the importance of international proletarian solidarity, outlining the role of the Communist International as a support system for revolutionary efforts across the world, 

only on condition that, in all backward countries, the elements of future proletarian parties, parties communist not only in name, shall be grouped together and educated to appreciate their special tasks, viz., to fight the bourgeois-democratic movements within their own nations; the Communist International must enter into a temporary alliance with bourgeois democracy in colonial and backward countries, but must not merge with it and must under all circumstances uphold the independence of the proletarian movement even if in its most rudimentary form;

Lenin was not completely incorrect in his presentation of the Communist International as a support system and theoretically guiding force for revolutionary movements across different cultural contexts. The degree to which an international movement towards socialism could benefit from a decisively led, coordinated international effort deserves to be explored. However, Lenin’s framework encounters a problem: the extraordinary difficulty of constructing an international support system for revolutionary efforts flexible and adaptive enough to account for the diverse complexities of the individual revolutionary character of each nation in question. Unrefined, generalizing ideological structures of conspicuously Eurocentric character run the risk of suppressing or dismissing revolutionary efforts. Hierarchical structures founded on the basis of economic development and the maturity of the Marxist proletariat can serve the same counterproductive purpose. Construction of a comprehensive plan requires an in-depth reevaluation of the cultural and economic preconditions for successful socialist revolution. 

Due credit must be given to Lenin for his key role in progressing thought on the colonial question in the context of the international socialist project. He starts by identifying a fundamental truth of the imperialist-capitalist system, the “division of nations into oppressing and oppressed…[as] a fundamental, most important, and inevitable fact.” He advocates for unity between the working classes of oppressing and oppressed nations, emphasizing that “the proletariat must demand the right of political secession for the colonies and for the nations that “its own” nation oppresses.” In the ninth thesis found in Lenin on the National and Colonial Questions, Lenin indicts the Second International for its inadequate treatment of the colonial question, clearly identifying the colonies as a key battleground for the construction of authentic international socialism, pointing out the ways in which the structure of the Second International fails to properly address the issue. Important to note here are the strong claims made in references one and six; he stresses the particular urgency of the self-determination of nations under imperialism and emphasizes the need to subordinate the general struggle in service of this demand. In reference five, he directly indicts the Social-Democrats of the “Great Powers” for their failure to advocate for the right to secession of the colonies and nations that their own nations oppress. In a certain sense, Lenin’s work serves as the historical bridge between classical Marxisms and anticolonial Marxisms. 

Despite the significant role he played in placing the colonial question more squarely in the forefront of international socialist thought, Lenin’s assessment of the problem and suggested solutions are still marked by notable structural shortcomings. His work remains in stark adherence to the classical Marxist vision of proletarian revolution, albeit adapted to his interpretation of the specific historical circumstances of the world economy at the time with his signature vanguardian tweaks. The preliminary drafts of his theses on the national and colonial questions offer deeper insight into his interpretation of the limitations of revolutionary effort in “backwards” states and nations. Though his theory begins to accurately identify some of the unique characteristics of the colonial situation, it is colored by a constant emphasis on the importance of transposing Soviet communism through the structural introduction of working people’s Soviets and accompanying organizational infrastructure. This emphasis derived from his fundamental distrust of bourgeois-democratic nationalist movements in the colonies, wary of their susceptibility to what he would deem to be a divergence from authentic socialist organization. Thesis 11 ends with this claim: “Under present-day international conditions there is no salvation for dependent and weak nations except in a union of Soviet republics.” Lenin expounds this claim in Thesis 12, arguing that the persistence of “petty-bourgeois prejudices” and “national narrow-mindedness” in these societies—due to their isolation, small-scale agricultural economies, and patriarchal structures—will only fade after imperialism has been overthrown in the advanced capitalist nations. This perspective reveals a residual stagism in Lenin’s theory. Though certainly more attentive than Marx to the colonial question, Lenin ultimately situated revolutionary development in the periphery as dependent on the core. In contrast, Fanon and Cabral contend that the colonial condition itself is what produces the material contradictions and consciousness necessary for revolutionary transformation. Their theories mark a distinct turning point from externally imposed developmental frameworks toward a model of liberation rooted in endogenous cultural and political struggle. Rather than viewing national consciousness as a petty-bourgeois obstacle, they reclaim it as a crucial vehicle for collective mobilization—revolutionary not despite its cultural specificity, but because of it.

At this critical juncture, it becomes necessary to highlight the focal differences between evaluations of colonial revolution for their own sake and as merely instrumental for the success of global socialist revolution. To a certain extent Marx and Lenin saw the colonies as fulcrums for the global revolutionary effort, despite emphasizing the limitations of a largely uneducated, ‘backward’ population–particularly their inability to form class consciousness and achieve ‘real’ revolution. Fanon provides a comprehensive structure for revolutionary movements tailored to specific cultural realities. What accompanies Fanon’s radical framework is an implicit rejection of formulaic applications of Marxist theories of the working class revolution; revolutionary efforts are essentially unique to the cultural contexts in which they are situated. Fanon critically examines colonial and neocolonial tactics of cultural erasure and repression, which he argues necessitate revolutionary solutions that have constant connection with the heart of the oppressed peoples. For Fanon, to understand and support the colonial struggle in a given nation, 

It is not enough to try to get back to the people in that past out of which they have already emerged; rather we must join them in that fluctuating movement which they are just giving a shape to, and which, as soon as it has started, will be the signal for everything to be called in question. Let there be no mistake about it; it is to this zone of occult instability where the people dwell that we must come; and it is there that our souls are crystallized and that our perceptions and our lives are transfused with light.

The heart of the revolutionary effort lies at the center of the peoples’ daily struggle, a material reality not easily understood by the outsider and inadequately treated by blanket application of pre-existing theoretical frameworks. Taking this further, Fanon uses the Algerian independence movement in France as an illustrative example of the grassroots approach for which he advocates. His argument runs in diametric opposition to the idea of a ‘backwards people,’ emphasizing the unique and dynamic quality of national party identity: 

The party should be the direct expression of the masses. The party is not an administration responsible for transmitting government orders; it is the energetic spokesman and the incorruptible defender of the masses. In order to arrive at this conception of the party, we must above all rid ourselves of the very Western, very bourgeois and therefore contemptuous attitude that the masses are incapable of governing themselves. In fact, experience proves that the masses understand perfectly the most complicated problems.

To view these works as a rejection of the utility of Marxist-Leninist approaches to international organization would be a grave error. This is not to negate the importance of developing international solidarity between distinct national groups with shared proletarian socialist characteristics. Where Lenin warns of national narrow-mindedness and the ideological immaturity of colonized peoples, Fanon insists that it is precisely the lived experience of colonization—the embodied, cultural, and psychological violence—that serves as the driving revolutionary force and justification. His revolutionary subject emerges not from industrialized class structures but from the wounded consciousness of the colonized. The mistake highlighted by Fanon’s work on the colonial question is a fundamental underestimation of the capabilities of an ‘underdeveloped people’ to self-govern and achieve class consciousness, as well as the limitations of international doctrines to account for the complex cultural material realities of the revolutionary struggle in individual nations.

Amilcar Cabral, revolutionary leader of the anti-colonial movement in Guinea-Bissau, adopts a similar theoretical approach to the development of revolutionary consciousness. Guinea-Bissau, under the firm hand of Portuguese colonial rule, was faced with the dual problem of the overthrow of colonial overlords and the simultaneous need for the mass education of its people, both revolutionarily and generally. Given a people with a 99% illiteracy rate and only 14 university-trained men at the outset of the revolution, Cabral was faced with the monumental task of revolution through education. Cabral’s central revolutionary ethos revolves around the vigilant “struggle against our own weaknesses.” Essentially, the constant construction of socio-revolutionary consciousness through education and methodical organization is the primary objective of the party in times of revolution and peace. The revolutionary struggle in Guinea-Bissau deserves a paper of its own, but more directly relevant and useful to the current argument is Cabral’s theoretical work, particularly his reevaluation of the idea of class struggle through a colonial lens. He contends that class struggle is the primary motive force of history only within a specific historical period. Both before and after class struggle, one or several factors will be identifiable motive forces of history. Motive forces throughout history have shared one common characteristic: the level of productive forces and pattern of ownership that underlies them. Marxist class struggle should be understood in this way; Cabral contends that classes themselves are the result of specific developmental tendencies that created the productive forces and patterns of ownership that substantiate them. He emphasizes the temporal specificity of this specific historical material reality. 

The mechanism of imperialism creates unique historical conditions for class struggle and revolution. Imperialism as a mechanism injects/imports certain productive forces and patterns of ownership into the colonies while simultaneously suppressing and negating the historical process of the dominated people through various forms of coercion. In pre-colonial society, these comparatively underdeveloped countries contended with their own social issues created by the productive forces that substantiated them. In Europe, centuries of material development led to the organic development of late-stage capital material reality. The dialectical relationship between class struggle and the material conditions that create it is an ongoing process that can be traced back to the beginnings of social development and will necessarily extend throughout the remainder of human history. The dialectical nature of this relationship means that one cannot exist without the other. Imperialism violently and unnaturally injects late-stage capitalist forces of production into undeveloped countries. A plant given inadequate sunlight will grow unnaturally tall in search of it—this unnatural injection of advanced productive forces creates the sudden need for the class structures that facilitate them. 

As covered extensively by both Fanon and Cabral, the developmental vacuum created by this injection creates a sickly petty-bourgeois class that begins to take on the responsibility of exploiting the newly created uneducated working class, taking a fraction of the surplus they create for themselves and surrendering the majority to the imperialist oppressors. Cabral argues that the petty-bourgeoisie is best positioned to lead the revolutionary struggle due to the objective and subjective advantages that allow them to become most quickly aware of the need for freedom from foreign domination. This must occur in constant conflict with the temptation to remain allied with colonial powers to retain their social and economic advantages. In order to retain their positional power, the petty-bourgeois class must remain in constant motion, necessarily tending toward either continued bourgeois development or rejection of such advantages in the name of national liberation. Thus, Cabral concludes that

The revolutionary petty bourgeoisie must be capable of committing suicide as a class in order to be reborn as revolutionary workers, completely identified with the deepest aspirations of the people to which they belong.

Cabral’s concept of class suicide constitutes the final step in extracting class consciousness from imperialism’s injection of late-stage capitalist forces of production. Unlike Lenin, who urges the transplantation of Soviet-style organs of class power, Cabral insists that revolutionary transformation must emerge from within the unique contradictions created by imperialism in each specific context—including the internal contradictions of colonized class structures themselves.

Works of secondary scholarship relating to the writings of Fanon have been numerous and comprehensive. Cabral’s works have been critically evaluated ever since the late stages of the revolutionary effort in Guinea-Bissau, and more recent works have attempted to situate his theories in greater philosophical/critical theory contexts. Additional works have dealt with Fanon and Cabral in conjunction with one another with the ultimate analytical goal of constructing a more comprehensive theory of anti-colonialism and pan-Africanism. However, critical evaluation of these theoretical works in terms of where they can be situated in the broader scope of the main body of Marxian theory remains tangential and largely unsatisfactory. The works of both of these theorists constitute a key piece of the larger puzzle of international socialist revolution. An article from the ROAPE (Review of African Political Economy) evaluates Fanon’s connection to Marxist thought as the following:

Several writers who have recently revisited Fanon, including Leo Zeilig and Peter Hudis, have constructively engaged with these strands of his thinking without ever suggesting that he was a Marxist in disguise. Peter Hudis comments that when Fanon says in Wretched of the Earth, ‘A Marxist analysis should always be slightly stretched when it comes to addressing the colonial issue’, his point is that it is ‘Slightly stretched, but not rejected or abandoned. Fanon never ceases to remind his readers that anti-black racism is deeply rooted in the structure of capitalist class society and cannot be understood apart from it.’[26] This seems to me to be the correct assessment of Fanon’s astonishing legacy.

Fanon’s hesitancy to express a direct connection with traditional Marxist thought is reflective of his identification of a need for a theoretical framework that more closely understands the degree to which the imperialist project has impacted the material realities of the colonized. Similarly, Cabral’s writings on class struggle, the organization of the petit-bourgeois class, and his concept of class suicide demonstrate the need for a fundamental reorientation of the concept of class struggle tailored for the colonial situation. Fanonian post-Marxist critical theory seeks to reframe the definition of neo-colonialism and argues that colonized subjects exist across class structures on a global scale. Late-stage imperialist structures of oppression, in their prolific and complex natures, warrant similarly complex theoretical solutions. The following section engages secondary scholarship that has begun to deal with cross-theoretical comparison of this nature.

In his 2015 book Frantz Fanon: Philosopher of the Barricades, Peter Hudis discusses Fanon’s critical theory in relation to classical Marxism, investigating their overlap and reevaluating both theories as complementary theories of humanism rather than incompatible assessments of revolutionary organization. The primary content of his argument relies on this reframing of Marxist theory as a humanist doctrine that inherently requires revision specific to certain cultural contexts. He retraces the dialectical logical structure of Marx’s theoretical work, arguing that at its core, revolution is the independent movement of the oppressed majority. Fanonian theory is organized by the same logic. Hudis understands Marx’s social revolution to be a product of the self-conscious movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority. As such, he concludes that Marx’s vision is squarely democratic by nature. Fanon’s emancipatory doctrine is similarly rooted in democratic principles, stressing the importance of the self-activity of the popular majority: the proletarian working class in Marx’s cultural-temporal context, and the peasantry in Fanon’s. Both theories share a dialectical orientation toward the material condition as determinant of superstructural oppression. 

Hudis reframes Fanonian and Marxian theories as complementary humanisms, breaking down more detailed similarities between their lenses of analysis. He references Fanon: 

There can be no such thing as rigorously identical cultures. To believe one can create a black culture is to forget oddly enough that “Negroes” are in the process of disappearing, since those who created them are witnessing the demise of their economic and cultural superiority. There will be no such thing as a black culture . . .

Fanon’s analytical lens is not bound by conventional identity structures. The categories of colonizer and colonized and black and white merely exist insofar as they accurately describe oppressive structures, obstacles to the achievement of equitable social organization. He draws another key parallel here between Fanon’s analytical approach and that of Marx. 

Just as for Marx the ultimate aim of the proletarian revolution is not to elevate the proletariat as the ruling class but instead to abolish all classes and hence the proletariat itself, so for Fanon the ultimate aim of the national revolution is not to secure a home for blackness but to abolish the conditions of its very existence.

Hudis demonstrates the structural similarities between Marxism and Fanonism clearly, recharacterizing them as complementary humanisms that use the same dialectical strategy to diagnose problems of social organization in particular cultural contexts. Viewed through this lens, Fanonism should be interpreted as an extension of Marxist dialectical method, adapted for the historical-cultural context of colonial imperialism. 

Reiland Rabaka, in Concepts of Cabralism, takes this interpretive trajectory even further through his analysis of Cabral. Like Fanon, Cabral developed a radical critique of colonialism grounded in Marxist humanism—but Cabral also insisted that effective revolutionary theory must be rooted in a detailed understanding of local histories, cultures, and material conditions. Rabaka emphasizes that Cabral was not simply a follower of Fanon, but a theorist in his own right who identified the structural limitations of universalist or “free-floating” Marxist frameworks when applied to the African context. As Rabaka writes, 

where Cesaire’s Discourse on Colonialism and Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth are iconic contributions to the deep universalist/internationalist dimension that runs through the Africana tradition of critical theory, Cabral’s critical theory contributes to the internationalist dimension while simultaneously emphasizing the importance of historical and cultural specificity within the said tradition.

This insistence on specificity enables Cabral to “radically extend and expand” Marxist interpretations in order to speak directly to the lived experience of anti-imperialist struggle in Africa. As Hudis interprets Fanon’s humanism as a dialectical unfolding of Marxist method, Rabaka positions Cabral as the culmination of a distinctly Africana Marxist critical theory—one that refuses to collapse colonialism and capitalism into interchangeable terms, and instead theorizes the mode of production as shaped by the dual forces of racial domination and imperialist exploitation. He goes on to characterize Cabral’s theory as a global theory of emancipation, arguing that he uses Fanon’s groundwork to build a theory that accurately assesses the extent to which imperialism informs international structures of oppression and hegemonic reproduction.

Rabaka warns against the misreading of Cabral as a theorist strictly dealing with colonial domination, making note of the global applications of his theory: 

Cabral’s critical theory is a global and historical theory in so far as it attempts to provide answers to the most pressing problems of the modern epoch—problems which continue to plague us in the twenty-first century. It seeks to offer an outline of cultural, social, and political development and the ways in which the vicissitudes of colonialism and capitalism historically have and continue currently to structure and influence world culture and civilization, and human thought and behavior. Cabral’s critical theory is, ultimately, aimed at the complete destruction and revolutionary replacement of the imperialist world-system(s) with new forms of government and social organizations that would perpetually promote democratic socialist global coexistence. For Cabral, the anti-colonial national liberation struggles of African people are part and parcel of global struggles against imperialism.

Rabaka contends that Cabralian critical theory is best interpreted as an extension of Marxism, a natural theoretical extension built on the foundations of both Marx and Fanon with global application introducing new facets of critique made visible by Cabral’s lived experience in his distinct historical-cultural environment. 

While Lenin did important work in reorienting the Marxist tradition towards the question of the revolutionary potential of colonized peoples, his framework remains bounded by a universalizing logic of class struggle inextricably derived from European industrial contexts. Fanon reveals the necessity of redefining revolutionary theory in the material, cultural, and psychological specificities of social realities all around the world. Cabral extends this thesis by demonstrating its direct application in the colonial context, simultaneously pushing this framework to inform the logic of any future doctrine of international socialism. In doing so, neither theorist abandons Marxism or betrays its principles. Rather, they actualize its emancipatory aims in contexts that Lenin could only partially envision. A nuanced interpretation of Marx’s theory that breaks it down to its analytical core reveals a dialectical humanism that continues to bear relevance today. Simultaneous analysis of Fanon, Cabral, and Marx reveals a common insistence that revolutionary theory be tied to the historical and material particularities of the systems that it endeavors to improve. Fanon and Cabral do not argue with Marxist theory—they reanimate its most vital observations through careful critique informed by the historical and material conditions that they find themselves in. This reconceptualization has material stakes: as the international socialist project continues to confront neocolonialism, racial capitalism, and uneven development, it must do so with theoretical tools that reflect both universal structures of domination and the inevitable specificity of local realities. Theories of revolution must be born from the lived contradictions of the people they intend to serve. It is in this spirit that Fanon and Cabral offer the most meaningful continuations of Marx’s original project. 

Bibliography

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Lim, Jie-Hyun. “Marx’s Theory of Imperialism and the Irish National Question.” Science & Society 56, no. 2 (1992): 163–78. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40404609.

Marx, Karl. “Zasulich Correspondence February/March 1881.” Marx. Accessed April 23, 2025. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1881/zasulich/draft-1.htm. 

Olende, Ken. “Fanon, Marx and Black Liberation.” Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE.net), 2019.

Rabaka, Reiland. Concepts of Cabralism: Amílcar Cabral and Africana Critical Theory. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2021.

Cover artwork by Dante Fitts.