Communist Organization of Angola

Template:Template other The Communist Organization of Angola (Template:Langx; OCA) was an Angolan Maoist political party. Formed by former members of the suppressed Amílcar Cabral Committees, the OCA opposed the government of Agostinho Neto and the MPLA. It was fiercely critical of the Cuban intervention in Angola, called for the expulsion of the Cuban Army from the country and for a protracted people's war to resolve the ongoing Angolan Civil War. The organization was suppressed by interior minister Nito Alves in 1977.

Amílcar Cabral Committees

Following the independence of Angola in 1975, the Amílcar Cabral Committees (Template:Langx; CAC) emerged into an environment of lively political debate, alongside several action committees, trade union committees, women's committees and youth committees.Template:Sfn The CAC, which had a Maoist and anti-imperialist tendency, held a strong influence in the popular committees of Luanda's slums.Template:Sfn After the outbreak of the Angolan Civil War, the CAC fought to expel the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) from Luanda.Template:Sfn Although political debate was initially seen by the ruling People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) as a sign of the newly-independent state's strength, by 1976, it began to crack down on freedom of speech with the aim of establishing a one-party state.Template:Sfn

In March 1976, President Agostinho Neto began nationalising property and bringing the economy of Angola under state ownership. This move was resisted by African nationalists and the far-left, including the CAC and Henda Committees.Template:Sfn The CAC were the first organization to face political repression, under accusations of factionalism.Template:Sfn Interior minister Nito Alves, who had previously sympathised with the far-left Maoists of the CAC and Henda Committees, directed the suppression of them.Template:Sfnm Alves first attempted to integrate the committees into his own structures, then forcibly dissolved those that refused and arrested their members.Template:Sfnm

Communist Organization of Angola

To escape the repression, in April 1976, the CAC reorganized itself into the Communist Organization of Angola (Template:Langx; OCA).Template:Sfnm The OCA was a small far-left Maoist group, which had developed as an outgrowth of the Portuguese Maoist movement in Angola.Template:Sfnm Many of its members were former members of both the Amílcar Cabral and Henda Committees.Template:Sfnm It was composed largely of white and mixed-race people, as well as some black African members.Template:Sfn

The OCA took a sectarian position against the rule of the MPLA and strongly criticised the Cuban intervention in Angola,Template:Sfnm which the OCA depicted as a form of "social imperialism".Template:Sfn The OCA supported Enver Hoxha's People's Socialist Republic of Albania,Template:Sfnm and complained that their events commemorating the Albanian state had been suppressed by the MPLA.Template:Sfn

The OCA denounced the MPLA as a "fascist" party and accused "revisionist" elements in the MPLA, allegedly under the control of the Russian and Portuguese Communist Parties, of fomenting bourgeois capitalism under the guise of a workers' party. The OCA believed the Cuban intervention in Angola constituted a capitulation by the MPLA, accusing it of opening the country up to foreign military occupation rather than carrying out what it saw as a necessary protracted people's war.Template:Sfn The OCA believed that the Angolan Civil War had become a proxy war between superpowers, which were fighting to divide and conquer Angola.Template:Sfn The OCA thus called for the expulsion of the Cuban Army from Angola.Template:Sfn

Suppression

In late 1976, the MPLA government moved to suppress the OCA and arrest its members.Template:Sfnm Nito Alves, who the OCA had denounced as a "social fascist", oversaw the organization's suppression.Template:Sfn British journalist Paul Fauvet justified the suppression of the OCA, citing the fact that it was attacking the MPLA and its allies while Angola was facing invasions by Zaire and South Africa.Template:Sfn According to Claude Gabriel, the MPLA had suppressed the OCA because it felt threatened by its influence in the slums of Luanda.Template:Sfn With the OCA and other political opposition repressed, the MPLA then began consolidating its control over the state, which it justified due to the conditions of the civil war.Template:Sfn

Using his ties with the popular power groups, Alves began building his own power and later attempted a coup against Neto's government.Template:Sfn Alves claimed that the MPLA had become dominated by right-wing elements and social democrats, who he alleged were allied with the Maoists of the OCA.Template:Sfn

Members of the OCA were released after three years in prison in 1980.Template:Sfn Former members of the OCA went on to establish the Front for Democracy (Template:Langx; FpD).Template:Sfn The FpD later collaborated with the FNLA in a united front against the MPLA, and formed ties with the Portuguese Socialist Party and Left Bloc.Template:Sfn

See also

• List of anti-revisionist groups

Further reading

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