Post-War Political Development
The decisive years in the formation of modern Guinea came after World War II. During that period internal and external events coincided to transform the territory into a national entity. This process, in which Guinea acquired a political personality and a leadership that was to propel it into independence, was a particular expression of the general rise of African nationalism.
Throughout Black Africa the basic nationalist motive was — and is — self-rule and equality with the former colonial powers. In Guinea that motive was to be translated into political attitudes, concepts, and goals that ultimately not only separated it from France but also made it a spokesman for nationalism among the other emerging African states. The clearest and most persuasive voice was that of Sékou Touré. The principles he advocated primarily for Africa and generally for all underdeveloped areas were: unqualified rejection of all vestiges of colonial control; alertness against what he saw as the threat of "neocolonial" domination by developed Western nations employing economic means; "positive neutralism" in the field of international relations, which tended to be more infused with indignation against the West than with doubts about communist countries; and the creation of an economically self-sufficient union of African states.
Power generated in Europe had made Guinea a colony. Not surprisingly, the concepts and organizational techniques that were employed by the young Guineans who led the country to independence were also European. But they were acquired under the influence of the French left-wing labor confederations and political parties that became active in French West Africa after World War II. The early labor unions were modeled on the French confederations with which most of them were affiliated. The strongest proved to be the communist-influenced General Confederation of Labor, and it was as leaders of the union's Guinean branch that Sékou Touré and his closest associates first gained a mass following. With the founding in 1947 of the Democratic Party of Guinea (Parti Démocratique de Guinée—PDG), they had a political instrument that would reach beyond the town-centered membership of the unions into the scattered and generally agricultural population.
In June 1956 passage by the French National Assembly of the so-called loi-cadre (enabling act) for French West Africa and French Equatorial Africa introduced a new dimension into the political situation. This law established universal suffrage, voting in one college. Of greater significance, however, was the law's provision for the devolution of legislative powers to the individual territorial assemblies from the French National Assembly. The existing federal structures (west and equatorial) were to cease to exist other than as consultative groupings. In essence the basic political relationship would be between the French Republic and the individual territory. The balkanization of French Black Africa that would result was opposed by Sékou Touré. It was to become a major factor in the decision of Guinea's leaders to vote against membership in the French Community two years later.
The changes approved implied that the Territorial Assembly would eventually evolve into a sovereign government. Control of the assembly, therefore, became of paramount party importance, and the PDG further extended its efforts to broaden its membership. In the process it reduced substantially the proportion of intellectuals and government officials, and the party became in fact more genuinely indigenous and more fully representative of the rank and file of the population. This contrasted with the association of the DSG and BAG in many minds with parties in Metropolitan France, although in January 1957 the DSG had become a member of the new Africa Socialist Movement (Mouvement Socialiste Africain—MSA), restricted to Africa and founded to improve the strength of the territorial socialist parties. BAG, initially associated with General de Gaulle's Rally of the French People (Rassemblement de Peuple Francaise—RPF), later affiliated itself, and continued its connection, with the Radical Socialists in France.
Highly united and tightly organized, the PDG took an aggressive stand on territorial and colonial reforms in the campaign for the crucial assembly elections, set for March 1957. Its militant cadres were articulate and fired with a spirit of mission. The two other parties were far less assertive and less clear on their goals. PDG candidates received over 75 percent of the vote, gaining fifty-seven of the sixty seats. The socialists won only three seats—although this was apparently in part because some of their candidates ran as independents—bringing to an end the party's role as a major force in Guinean politics. BAG secured no seats. Implementation of the loi cadre in Guinea thus came fully into the hands of Sékou Touré and the PDG.
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