By Booker Omole
General Secretary
Communist Party Marxist Kenya
9th May 2026
Presented at the World Anti imperialist Front Theoretical Conference, Nairobi.
The Question of Revolution in Kenya
Kenya stands at a decisive historical juncture. This is not a moment of calm. This is not a moment of neutrality. This is a moment of sharpening contradictions, of deepening crisis, of rising struggle. The question before us is not whether change will come. The question is what kind of change, led by which class, in whose interests.
We must speak plainly. Kenya is not an independent capitalist formation in the full sense. Kenya is a neo colonial and semi feudal society. The formal trappings of independence conceal a deeper reality of domination. Political sovereignty is hollowed out by imperialist control. Economic life is subordinated to foreign capital. The land question remains unresolved. The masses of workers and peasants continue to bear the weight of exploitation.
This is the material foundation from which all correct political analysis must proceed.
The central contradiction in Kenya today is the contradiction between imperialism, in alliance with the comprador bourgeoisie and landlord elements, and the broad masses of the people, especially the working class and the peasantry. Around this central contradiction revolve all other contradictions. To obscure it is to disarm the struggle. To clarify it is to advance the revolution.
Therefore, the stage of the revolution is not a matter of speculation. It is determined by material conditions. It is determined by the structure of the economy, by the class relations, by the historical development of the state. The immediate stage of the Kenyan revolution is the National Democratic Revolution.
This is not a slogan. It is a scientific conclusion.
The National Democratic Revolution seeks to resolve the fundamental tasks left unfinished by the anti colonial struggle. It seeks to break the chains of imperialist domination. It seeks to uproot feudal and semi feudal relations in the countryside. It seeks to establish genuine national sovereignty and lay the foundation for socialist construction.
Without passing through this stage, there can be no advance to socialism. Without resolving these contradictions, there can be no genuine emancipation of the masses.
Comrades, the river that forgets its source will dry up. A revolution that forgets its stage will lose its direction.
It is therefore the historic responsibility of the Communist Party Marxist Kenya to grasp this stage firmly, to educate the masses on its necessity, and to organise the forces capable of carrying it through to victory.
The Class Character of the Kenyan State
The Kenyan state does not stand above classes. It does not mediate neutrally between rich and poor. It is an instrument. It is an instrument of class rule. The question is simple and decisive: which class rules, and in whose interests is power exercised?
We must answer without fear and without compromise. The Kenyan state is a neo colonial state, dominated by a comprador bourgeoisie in alliance with landlord and semi feudal elements, and subordinated to imperialism. This is its essence. This is its character. This is its function.
But the people must not only hear this. They must see it. They must recognise it in the realities they confront every day.
The target enemies of the Kenyan revolution are three, united in a single system of domination.
First, imperialism.
Imperialism reveals itself through debt, policy, and control over the economy. Agreements with international financial institutions impose austerity. Subsidies are removed. taxes increase. public assets are privatised.
Look at fuel pricing. Each increase in fuel prices is not simply a market fluctuation. It reflects a system where external pressures, foreign exchange constraints, and policy frameworks shaped outside the country determine the cost of energy. When fuel rises, transport rises. When transport rises, food rises. The worker pays. The peasant pays.
Look at taxation policies driven by debt obligations. VAT expands. levies multiply. The burden is shifted onto the masses while large capital negotiates exemptions. This is the lived face of imperialist control.
Second, the comprador bourgeoisie.
This class operates as the local agent of imperialism. It dominates import trade, finance, real estate, and state procurement. It accumulates wealth not through production, but through brokerage, speculation, and control of circulation.
In the fuel sector, a handful of firms dominate importation and distribution, profiting from every adjustment. In infrastructure, contracts tied to foreign loans enrich local intermediaries. In urban centres, real estate speculation drives up housing costs while workers are pushed into informal settlements.
This class builds wealth without building the nation. It thrives on dependency. It profits when Kenya imports what it could produce.
Third, landlord and semi feudal elements.
The land question remains unresolved. Large landowners continue to hold vast tracts, while millions struggle on small plots or remain landless. Historical injustices have not been corrected. They have been reorganised.
Examples are visible across the country. Large estates held by politically connected families coexist with land hunger among peasants. Public land is allocated to private developers. Community land is enclosed for speculation. Informal settlements face eviction in the name of development.
In rural areas, peasants are tied into exploitative arrangements, including contract farming and market dependency, where they bear the risks but do not control the outcome.
And binding all these is usury.
Usury has taken modern forms, but its essence remains the same: extraction from need.
Through mobile lending platforms and credit schemes such as Watu Credit and similar digital loan systems, workers and youth are drawn into cycles of high interest debt. A boda boda rider acquires a motorcycle on credit, but repayment terms ensure that much of his labour goes not to his own advancement, but to servicing debt. A worker takes a mobile loan for basic survival, only to find penalties and interest multiplying within days.
Schemes like One Acre Fund, presented as support to farmers, often bind peasants into cycles where inputs are provided on credit, but repayment terms and pricing structures ensure that the peasant remains dependent. The harvest does not liberate. It services debt.
Microfinance institutions, informal lenders, and digital credit systems penetrate every corner of society. Debt becomes permanent. Interest becomes a daily burden. Survival itself becomes a source of profit for capital.
This is not empowerment. This is control.
These forces are interconnected. Imperialism sets the framework. The comprador bourgeoisie profits from it. Landlord elements maintain control over land. Usury ensures that even the smallest economic activity is tied to extraction.
Around them stands the state machinery. The police enforce evictions. The courts legitimise land grabbing. The administrative apparatus implements austerity. When workers protest high fuel prices, repression follows. When peasants resist dispossession, force is deployed.
This is not failure. This is design.
Elections do not alter this structure. They rotate leadership within the same class framework. The language changes. The system remains.
But the revolution has its forces.
The leading class is the proletariat. The worker in transport struggling with fuel costs. The factory worker facing low wages. The informal worker burdened by debt. These are the forces capable of leading transformation.
The principal ally is the peasantry. The farmer tied to input loans. The smallholder facing land pressure. The rural poor struggling against exploitation. These form the broad base of the revolution.
Together, they form the backbone.
Other forces can be united. Students facing unemployment. Youth trapped in debt. Small traders burdened by taxation. Progressive intellectuals. All these can be drawn into the struggle. But leadership must remain with the proletariat through its vanguard Party.
We must make this reality unmistakable.
When a boda boda rider works day and night only to repay a loan, that is usury.
When a farmer harvests but remains in debt, that is semi feudal exploitation.
When fuel prices rise and everything becomes expensive, that is imperialism and comprador rule.
When land is taken and communities are displaced, that is landlord domination.
The one who carries the spear does not lend it to the hunted. The state that serves the oppressor will not liberate the oppressed.
Therefore, the task before the Party is clear. To expose these enemies in their real forms. To organise the masses where they struggle. To unite workers and peasants into a conscious force. And to prepare for the dismantling of this state and its replacement with a new power rooted in the people.
Only then will the masses not only recognise the system. They will rise against it. They will defeat it.
Imperialism in Kenya Today
Imperialism is not an abstraction. It is not a distant force. It is present, active, and decisive in shaping the political and economic life of Kenya. To speak of imperialism is to speak of concrete relations of domination, of control over finance, over production, over security, over ideology.
In Kenya today, imperialism operates through multiple channels, tightly interwoven, mutually reinforcing.
First, through finance capital. The commanding heights of the economy are not in the hands of the Kenyan people. They are controlled by international financial institutions, foreign banks, and multinational corporations. Debt becomes a weapon. Loans come with conditions. Policies are dictated. Austerity is imposed. Public wealth is transferred into private hands. What is presented as development is in fact deepened dependence.
Second, through control of key sectors. Strategic industries, infrastructure, extractive sectors, and major supply chains are dominated by foreign capital. The structure of production is distorted to serve external markets. Raw materials flow outward. Finished goods flow inward. The cycle of dependency is reproduced again and again.
Third, through military and security arrangements. Imperialism does not rely only on economics. It relies on force, or the threat of force. Military cooperation, training programmes, intelligence sharing, and the presence of foreign bases all bind the Kenyan state into a wider imperialist system. Under the pretext of security, sovereignty is compromised. The repressive capacity of the state is strengthened, not for the defence of the people, but for the stability of the existing order.
Fourth, through ideology. Control is not only material. It is also mental. Media, education, and cultural institutions reproduce the values of imperialism. They preach submission as pragmatism. They present dependency as inevitability. They obscure the reality of exploitation. In this way, domination is normalised.
We must be clear. Imperialism adapts. It changes form, but not essence. Where it once ruled through direct colonial administration, it now rules through financial domination, political influence, and local intermediaries. The flag may have changed, but the structure remains.
And yet, within this system, contradictions sharpen. The more imperialism extracts, the more it exposes itself. The more it dominates, the more resistance it generates. Workers see their labour exploited. Peasants see their land commodified. Youth see their future denied.
The task, therefore, is not merely to denounce imperialism, but to organise against it. To expose its mechanisms. To build resistance at every point of penetration. To unite all who can be united against it, under the leadership of the working class.
Without confronting imperialism, there is no sovereignty. Without defeating imperialism, there is no democracy. Without breaking imperialist control, there is no path to socialism.
Then we go to the land, to the soil where the majority live and labour, where the question of revolution becomes concrete, immediate, unavoidable.
The Persistence of Feudal and Semi feudal Relations
The agrarian question remains at the heart of the Kenyan revolution. It is not a secondary matter. It is not a relic of the past. It is a living contradiction that shapes the conditions of millions of peasants and determines the direction of the struggle.
We must state it clearly. The land question in Kenya has not been resolved. Colonial dispossession was not overturned in substance. It was reorganised. It was redistributed within the ranks of a narrow elite. The broad masses of peasants did not receive land. They received promises.
Large estates persist. Land concentration persists. In many regions, access to land remains insecure, unequal, and mediated by power rather than justice. The peasantry is fragmented, burdened by debt, exposed to market fluctuations, and increasingly pushed into precarious forms of survival.
This is what defines semi feudal conditions in the present period. Not the exact replication of old forms, but their transformation under the pressure of capitalism and imperialism. Old relations combine with new forms of exploitation. Rent, usury, and market dependency intertwine. The peasant produces, yet does not control the product. The peasant works, yet remains poor.
At the same time, imperialism penetrates the countryside. Land becomes a commodity for speculation, for export agriculture, for foreign interests. What is called investment often means dispossession. What is called development often means displacement.
The result is a deepening crisis in rural life. Youth are driven from the land. Migration increases. Informal labour expands. The link between town and countryside tightens, not through development, but through shared hardship.
This is why the agrarian question cannot be postponed. It cannot be bypassed. It cannot be resolved within the framework of the existing system.
The National Democratic Revolution must place land at its centre. Land to the tiller is not a slogan. It is a necessity. Without it, the alliance between the working class and the peasantry cannot be consolidated. Without it, the material basis of feudal and semi feudal exploitation remains intact.
The struggle in the countryside must therefore be organised, conscious, and sustained. The peasantry must be mobilised, not as a passive force, but as an active participant in the revolutionary process. Their demands must be raised. Their organisations must be built. Their link with the working class must be strengthened.
To ignore the land question is to weaken the revolution. To resolve it is to strike at one of the central pillars of oppression.
Then we rise from the concrete analysis to the level of strategy. Not vague declarations, but scientific clarity. Not confusion, but direction. The revolution must know itself.
The National Democratic Revolution as the Strategic Stage
The question of stage is the question of direction. Without clarity on the stage of the revolution, all efforts scatter, all sacrifices dissipate, all struggles risk being diverted.
We must be firm. The Kenyan revolution is at the stage of the National Democratic Revolution. This is not a matter of preference. It is not a matter of rhetoric. It is determined by the concrete conditions of our society, by the weight of imperialism, by the persistence of semi feudal relations, by the unfinished tasks of liberation.
What does this mean?
It means that the immediate aim of the revolution is not yet the direct construction of socialism. It means that the first task is to break the chains that bind the nation, to uproot the structures that suffocate the masses, to clear the ground upon which socialism can be built.
The National Democratic Revolution is therefore anti imperialist. It seeks to end foreign domination in all its forms, economic, political, military, and cultural. It asserts national sovereignty not as a slogan, but as a material reality.
It is also anti feudal. It seeks to abolish the remnants and transformations of feudal relations in the countryside. It seeks to resolve the land question decisively, to place land in the hands of those who till it, to liberate the productive forces held back by outdated and oppressive structures.
At the same time, it is democratic. It seeks to expand the participation of the masses in political life, to dismantle the repressive apparatus that defends elite rule, and to establish organs of people’s power rooted in the alliance of workers and peasants.
But we must be precise. This democracy is not the hollow democracy of the bourgeoisie, where the people vote but do not rule. It is a new democracy, led by the proletariat, guided by its vanguard party, and directed toward the eventual transition to socialism.
Here lies the decisive question of leadership.
The National Democratic Revolution can only advance to victory if it is led by the working class. Without proletarian leadership, the revolution will be captured, diluted, or betrayed by sections of the bourgeoisie who fear the mobilisation of the masses more than they oppose imperialism.
Therefore, the role of the Communist Party Marxist Kenya is central. It must provide ideological clarity. It must organise the masses. It must build alliances, but never surrender leadership. It must unite all who can be united, while maintaining independence and initiative.
The tasks of this stage are interconnected.
To win genuine independence.
To resolve the land question.
To develop a self reliant economy.
To build organs of popular power.
To lay the foundation for socialism.
These are not separate tasks. They form a single process, a single struggle, a single movement forward. Comrades, the one who knows the road can guide others through the forest. The Party must know the road. The Party must lead.
Without this stage, there is no advance. Without completing these tasks, there is no socialism. Without clarity, there is no victory.
The Role of the Proletariat and the Vanguard Party
History does not move by itself. It moves through struggle. It moves through classes. It moves through the conscious action of those who understand their position and their task.
In the Kenyan revolution, the leading force must be the proletariat. This is not a matter of sentiment. It is a matter of science. The working class, by its position in production, by its collective organisation, by its lack of ownership in the existing system, is the only class capable of leading the struggle to its full conclusion.
Other classes may resist imperialism. Sections of the petty bourgeoisie may oppose aspects of domination. Even elements of the national bourgeoisie may, at moments, come into contradiction with foreign capital. But none of these classes can carry the struggle through to its end. Their interests are limited. Their vision is restricted. Their commitment is unstable.
The proletariat alone has nothing to lose but its chains. The proletariat alone has the interest and the capacity to uproot exploitation in all its forms.
But the proletariat does not act spontaneously as a revolutionary force. Without organisation, it remains fragmented. Without ideology, it remains vulnerable. Without leadership, it can be misled.
This is why the vanguard party is indispensable.
The Communist Party Marxist Kenya is not an observer. It is not a commentator. It is the organised, conscious detachment of the working class. It carries the theory of revolution into the masses. It unites scattered struggles into a single direction. It transforms discontent into power.
The Party must educate. Again and again, educate. It must organise. Patiently, systematically, organise. It must mobilise. Boldly, decisively, mobilise.
Through trade unions, through peasant organisations, through youth and women’s structures, through every possible channel, the Party must root itself among the masses. Not above them. Not outside them. Among them.
At the same time, the Party must maintain ideological firmness. Opportunism is a danger. Revisionism is a danger. Tailism is a danger. To follow the masses without leading them is to abandon the revolution. To compromise principles for temporary gain is to weaken the struggle.
Leadership means clarity. Leadership means discipline. Leadership means the ability to unite, but also the courage to struggle when necessary.
The alliance between the working class and the peasantry is the backbone of the revolution. But this alliance must be led. It must be guided. It must be organised into a force capable of confronting the state and its imperialist backers.
Therefore, the task of CPMK is not only to participate in struggle, but to lead it. To raise consciousness. To forge unity. To prepare the masses not only to resist, but to take power.
Then we descend from general line to concrete tasks. A revolution that does not translate line into action becomes a slogan. A Party that does not act becomes a spectator.
Anti imperialist and Anti feudal Tasks in the Present Period
The present period demands clarity of action. Not scattered efforts, but coordinated advance. Not hesitation, but initiative rooted in correct analysis. The tasks before the Party arise directly from the conditions we have outlined. They must be taken up with discipline, with urgency, with persistence.
First, the task of building the organised strength of the masses. The revolution will not be made by declarations. It will be made by organised people. The Party must deepen its work among workers, peasants, youth, and women. Trade unions must be strengthened. Peasant associations must be expanded. Youth and women must be brought into active political life. Every struggle, however small, must be linked to the broader revolutionary line.
Second, the task of advancing the worker peasant alliance. This alliance is not automatic. It must be consciously forged. The struggles in the factories and the struggles in the countryside must be united. The demands of workers must reflect the needs of the peasantry. The demands of the peasantry must be taken up by the working class. Only through this unity can the revolution gain its full force.
Third, the task of confronting imperialist penetration at every level. Where imperialism enters, resistance must follow. In the economy, expose exploitative agreements, debt traps, and foreign domination of key sectors. In politics, reveal the influence of foreign interests in policy making. In security, oppose arrangements that compromise sovereignty. The people must see clearly who benefits and who suffers.
Fourth, the task of addressing the land question in practice. The Party must root itself in rural struggles. It must raise demands for land redistribution, for security of tenure, for relief from debt and exploitation. It must assist in organising peasants to defend their rights and to challenge unjust relations.
Fifth, the task of ideological struggle. Imperialism does not rule by force alone. It rules through ideas. The Party must counter the narratives of submission, of inevitability, of defeat. It must raise consciousness. It must teach the masses to see the system as it is. Without ideological clarity, organisation weakens. Without political education, gains are reversed.
Sixth, the task of building unity among all anti imperialist and anti feudal forces. Unity is necessary, but it must be principled. The Party must unite with all who can be united against the main enemy, while maintaining independence and leadership. Unity without clarity leads to confusion. Unity with clarity leads to strength.
Seventh, the task of preparing for higher forms of struggle. Every action, every campaign, every organisation must contribute to raising the capacity of the masses. The struggle develops in stages. What begins as resistance must grow into organised power. What begins as protest must develop into transformation.
These tasks are not separate. They form a single line of march. To neglect one is to weaken the whole. To carry them forward together is to strengthen the revolution.
The Party must act. Act consistently. Act correctly. Act in unity with the masses.
Then we widen the lens. The Kenyan struggle does not stand alone. It is a front within a wider battlefield. To understand our path, we must situate it within the movement of history across the continent and the world.
Kenya within the African and Global Struggle
Kenya is not an isolated formation. It is bound into a continental and global system of imperialist domination. What appears as a national question is, in essence, part of an international contradiction between imperialism and the oppressed peoples of the world.
Across Africa, the same pattern repeats. Formal independence without real sovereignty. Abundant resources alongside mass poverty. Development promised, dependency delivered. From north to south, from west to east, imperialism adapts its methods but preserves its aim: control, extraction, domination.
In this context, Kenya occupies a strategic position. It is a site of economic penetration, a node of military and security coordination, a terrain where imperialist powers seek influence and advantage. This makes the Kenyan struggle both more complex and more significant. What is fought here echoes beyond our borders.
At the same time, resistance is rising. Workers strike. Peasants organise. Youth rebel against unemployment and exclusion. Across the continent, there is a growing rejection of neo colonial arrangements. The old order is increasingly questioned. The legitimacy of comprador regimes is weakening.
This is not accidental. Imperialism is in crisis. Its contradictions are sharpening globally. Competition between imperialist powers intensifies. Conflicts expand across regions. What we see is not isolated wars, but interconnected theatres of a broader struggle for redivision and control.
In this unfolding situation, the question of international alignment becomes decisive.
The Kenyan revolution must align itself firmly with the global anti imperialist front. It must build solidarity with struggles in Africa, in Latin America, in West Asia, in Asia as a whole. The enemy is coordinated. The resistance must be coordinated.
But internationalism does not mean abstraction. It begins from concrete struggle at home. A strong revolutionary movement in Kenya strengthens the continental struggle. A weakened movement weakens it.
Therefore, the task is twofold. To deepen the national struggle. And to link it consciously with the international movement against imperialism.
The victory of one people inspires another. The advance in one country shifts the balance elsewhere. The struggle is interconnected.
Kenya must not stand at the margins. It must stand as part of the advancing front.
Conclusion: The Road Forward
The revolution is not a matter of sentiment. It is a matter of necessity born from material conditions. Kenya stands within a system of imperialist domination and internal class oppression. These are not temporary distortions. They are structural realities. To confront them requires organisation, clarity, and unwavering commitment.
We have identified the stage. The National Democratic Revolution is the immediate path forward. We have identified the enemies. Imperialism, the comprador bourgeoisie, and the remnants of feudal relations. We have identified the leading force. The working class, in alliance with the peasantry, organised and led by its vanguard Party.
But identification is not enough. The decisive question is practice.
The tasks before us are clear. To organise the masses. To strengthen the worker peasant alliance. To confront imperialist penetration in all its forms. To resolve the land question in practice. To advance ideological clarity. To build unity without surrendering leadership. To prepare the masses for higher forms of struggle.
There is no shortcut to liberation. There is no external saviour. There is only organised struggle, guided by correct theory, rooted in the masses, and led with discipline.
History teaches us one unchanging lesson. The oppressed do not gain their freedom by waiting. They gain it by fighting, by organising, by persisting through difficulty and sacrifice until the balance of forces is transformed.
As the people say, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single determined step. But it is the continuation of steps, firm and organised, that reaches the destination.
The Communist Party Marxist Kenya must therefore deepen its work, strengthen its structures, and remain firmly rooted in the masses. Only through this can the revolution advance from possibility to reality.
The road is long. The struggle is hard. But the direction is clear.
Forward to the National Democratic Revolution.
Forward to the liberation of the working class and the peasantry.
Forward to the defeat of imperialism and all forms of exploitation.