The Rassemblement Démocratique Africain, commonly known as the RDA and variously translated as African Democratic Assembly and African Democratic Rally, was a political party in French West Africa and French Equatorial Africa which was important in the decolonization of the French empire. The RDA was composed of different political parties throughout the French colonies in Africa and lasted from 1946 until 1958. At certain points, the RDA was the largest political party in the colonies in Africa and played a key role in the French government headed by the Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance (UDSR). Although the regional party largely dissolved in 1958 with the independence votes for the colonies, many of the national parties retained the RDA in their name and some continue to do so. The political ideology of the party did not endorse outright secession of colonies from France, but it was anti-colonial and pan-Africanist in its political stances.
The RDA was formed at a conference in Bamako, in the colony of French Sudan, in 1946. The aim of the conference was to unite African leaders affiliated with the French Socialist Party with those affiliated with the French Communist Party together to work on reconfiguring the relationship between France and the African colonies. However, the French Socialist leaders in France saw the proposal as undermining their relationships and so forced their African members to withdraw from the conference. The result was that the resulting party was exclusively supported by the Communist Party, a situation which shaped the early positions of the party and its political opportunities. The leader of the party from this first conference until the very end was Félix Houphouët-Boigny of the Ivory Coast. Because of the withdrawal of the socialists from the party, the RDA was initially in a coalition with the French Communist Party in the French National Assembly. However, this coalition alienated many RDA delegates who eventually split with the RDA and formed the rival Indépendants d'Outre-Mer (IOM) party. Continued French hostility to the RDA, a weakening of the Communist Party in France, and the defection of delegates to the IOM, resulted in the RDA ending its coalition with the communists and joining the small Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance (UDSR).
Following a number of years of electoral defeats and French repression of the party, the RDA returned to prominence in regional politics by performing very well in the 1956 and 1957 elections throughout the colonies. The RDA became the largest political party in French Africa and the largest group in the UDSR which allowed Houphouët-Boigny to become a prominent French minister after the 1956 elections. As minister, Houphouët-Boigny crafted the 1958 option to the colonies to vote for immediate independence or to join a community linking the colonies with France but with increased autonomy. The vote, however, divided the RDA over the issues of independence and federalism and the party largely split. Despite the breakup of the party after the 1958 vote, the national parties and the connections established regionally through the party remained important. The RDA parties in Guinea and Mali, which were the dominant parties in those countries during and after independence, joined together with the former British colony of Ghana to form the Union of African States. In contrast, the Ivory Coast, Niger and Dahomey were joined together with the Conseil de l'Entente in the era after independence.
Political context
With the end of World War II, the French colonial empire set about a significant reorganization of the relationship between France and the colonies. Before the establishment of the French Fourth Republic, the only colony in French West Africa or French Equatorial Africa with any elections for political authorities was Senegal. The rest of the colonies had few Africans who were considered citizens of France, no elections, and suppression of most political movements.
With the establishment of the French Union () in 1946 all of the colonies of French Africa (except for the trusteeship of Togo) became overseas departments which would provide to the colonies expanded citizenship, the right to elect members to the French National Assembly, and some limited autonomy for local councils. The 1946 French elections in June largely split the legislature between a coalition of the Popular Republican Movement ( or MRP) the French Communist Party ( or PCF), and the French Section of the Workers' International ( or SFIO). This split meant that each party needed to court African deputies to the National Assembly in order to further their legislative causes. The SFIO was the only party with actual party branches established in the African colonies, while the Communist party had established Groupes d’Etudes Communistes (Communist Study Groups) in many of the capitals of the African colonies in 1943 and the MRP had various networks arranged by the church.
Combined with the need for African deputies by the main French political parties, many African leaders believed that the pathway to improved conditions for the colonies lay largely in working with the French government rather than leading revolutionary movements. The result was a marriage of convenience linking the French political parties with newly elected African deputies. While the SFIO had the most institutionalized linkages to African political leaders prior to 1946, many leaders felt that the assimilation pathway which the SFIO had helped write into the constitution of the Fourth Republic did not provide enough for the African colonies.
More globally, the issue of independence from colonial rule had become a prominent topic throughout Africa and Asia. Many British and UN Trusteeship colonies in Africa had begun the process towards independence in the mid-1940s. Ghana constantly served as an example giving rise to demands by political movements in French West Africa throughout the 1950s. During the same period, violent anti-colonial struggles reached significant levels in many other French colonies: including the Malagasy Uprising in Madagascar and violence in the First Indochina War in Vietnam.
Formation: 1946
Party AcronymsBDSSenegalese Democratic BlocCAAfrican ConventionIOMIndépendants d'Outre-MerMRPPopular Republican MovementPCFFrench Communist PartyPRAAfrican Regroupment PartySFIOFrench Section of the Workers' InternationalUDSRDemocratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance Within the context of a realignment between France and the colonies, one of the elected deputies pushing most significantly for increased autonomy of the colonies was Félix Houphouët-Boigny of the Ivory Coast colony. Houphouët-Boigny had spent a brief period as a delegate in the French National Assembly, where he had aligned most closely with the French Communist Party and had taken an active role in trying to get the recall of André-Jean-Gaston Latrille, the French governor of the Ivory Coast. Following the collapse of the National Assembly elected in July 1946 and wanting to establish a pan-African party in the National Assembly, Houphouët-Boigny convinced Lamine Guèye of Senegal (who was the most prominent socialist in Africa at the time) to work towards establishing a wider political movement with the goal of autonomy for the colonies of Africa. These two leaders then brought together many of the other African delegates in the National Assembly to sign a manifesto calling for all leaders to come to Bamako (today the capital of Mali) for a meeting to establish a regional political party. In addition to Houphouët-Boigny and Guèye, the leaders who signed this manifesto were: Jean-Félix Tchicaya from French Congo, Sourou-Migan Apithy from French Dahomey, Fily Dabo Sissoko from French Sudan, Yacine Diallo from Guinea, and Gabriel d'Arboussier from Senegal. Although he did not sign it at the time of its composition, Léopold Sédar Senghor from Senegal openly endorsed the contents of the letter.
The congress was held from 18 to 21 October 1946. However, the start of the conference was undermined as a result of French Socialist opposition and conflict between some of the members. The Communist party offered full support to the meeting, which only led the other parties to approach the meeting with suspicion. Most importantly the Socialist Minister of colonial affairs, Marius Moutet, viewed the meeting as a threat to his colonial policies and thus instructed his allies not to attend and for colonial authorities to do what they could to hinder the meeting. Moutet convinced some of the signatories of the document to renounce the manifesto and persuaded Guèye, Senghor, and Diallo not to attend. In addition, the colonial authorities confiscated Tchicaya's funds for travel. The result was that the 800 delegates who did arrive included few socialist moderates and instead was dominated by those who sought to align the party with the communists. Reflecting on the way this shaped the party, Houphouët-Boigny recalled in 1952 that "If Lamine and Senghor had been at Bamako, we would have written another page of history."
The conference also got off to a rocky start as a result of the different factions in the French Sudan colony which was hosting the conference. When Houphouët-Boigny, Apithy, and d'Arboussier arrived on the morning of 18 October at the airport in Bamako (in a plane which was formerly the private plane of Hermann Göring and was provided by the communist party) they were greeted by a hostile Sissoko, worried the party would give support to other French Sudanese political leaders and weaken his leadership. Sissoko, as the host of the conference, refused to open up the discussion. Eventually pressure from within his own political party and from the leaders assembled led him to agree to open the meeting at 4:00 PM (although he insisted on calling it "your congress" and not "our congress" throughout his opening speech).
The conference agreed to a few different issues. First, they agreed to form a regional political alliance among many of their different movements. Rather than a regional party which would have a significant regional infrastructure, the members viewed it as an alliance of the different political forces operating in each of the colonies. Thus they created a Committee of Coordination to be tasked with selecting which party in each colony would be the representative of the RDA party and named Houphouët-Boigny as chairman and Sissoko, Apithy, Tchicaya, d'Arboussier, and Mamadou Konate (the key Malian politician who convinced Sissoko to join the meeting) as vice-chairmen. Second, as the parties' main activity would be in the National Assembly, there were active discussions about what coalitions to form with French political parties. The debate largely focused on whether to form a permanent coalition with the Communist party or to align with them while they served RDA interests. The group agreed to compromise language that the party would form coalitions with whichever party was most useful for African issues. Third, although it was briefly mentioned, the conference agreed not to call for complete independence of the colonies, but instead for an end to the unequal colonial relationship with France. Although the party was to be anti-colonial and focus on increased autonomy for the French colonies, they were not advocating secession or withdrawal from France as an immediate goal.
Divisions: 1947–49