Ghana: Defence Committees and the Class Struggle

The coup of 31 December 1981 which brought J.J. Rawlings to power for the second time, was initially hailed as representing a victory for progressive forces. The subsequent outcome has seen one of the most dramatic ‘U-turns’ of any government in post-independent African history. This paper raises questions of both revolutionary theory and practice. Principally, it dwells on the peoples’ and workers’ defence committees, now committees for defence of the ‘revolution’, to show that if these committees were supposed to resolve the fundamental question of state power in favour of the workers and peasants and as a result to lay the basis for social transformation, the reverse has in fact happened.