People, Locations, Episodes

Mon, 11.01.1954

Algeria Gains Independence From France

On this date in 1954, Algeria gained independence from France. This repaired the invasion of the 1884 Berlin Conference, the high point of white European competition for territory in Africa, a process commonly known as the Scramble for Africa.

For over a century, the Algerian people fought a permanent armed, moral, and political struggle against the invader and all its forms of oppression. This began after the aggression of 1830 against the Algerian State and the occupation of the country by the French colonialist forces. In the conflict, the National Liberation Front called for mobilizing all the nation's energies; the struggle for independence had reached its final realization stage.

The war of extermination by French imperialism became more intensive, and more than a million martyrs died for the love of the homeland and liberty.  In March 1962, the people emerged victorious from a struggle that lasted seven and a half years, led by the National Liberation Front. Having recovered its sovereignty after 132 years of colonial domination under a feudal system, Algeria gave itself new national political institutions.

Faithful to the program adopted by the National Council of the Algerian Revolution in Tripoli, the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria moved its activities in the process of building the country in conformity with the principles of socialism and the effective exercise of power by the people, of whom the fellahs, the working masses, and the revolutionary intellectuals constitute the ultramodern.