Fanon’s Theory Of The Nation As The Locus Of Anticolonial Revolution

Martiniquais philosopher Frantz Fanon’s theory of revolution breaks with that of 19th-century economic theorist Karl Marx’s on a number of accounts and none greater than the role of the nation in the revolution. Fanon’s and Marx’s divergence on the importance of the nation to the revolution against capitalism/colonialism (the distinction and similarities between these two systems will be traced below) raises the following questions: why does Fanon advocate so vehemently for national rather than international revolutions? Why, unlike Marx and in a similar vein as India’s Jawaharlal Nehru, does he believe that the construction of independent nations will help ensure socialist projects or at least one in which will permit colonized persons to slip free of the clutches of European colonialists?