Revolution Without Illusion, by Muriam Haleh Davis – 12 February 2026

The Marxist historian Mohammed Harbi spent a lifetime dismantling the myths of Algeria’s national movement and warning that anticolonial victories could harden into bureaucratic rule.

From Africa is a Country

Reflecting on his pathbreaking history of Algeria’s National Liberation Front (FLN), first published in 1980, the Marxist historian and Algerian militant Mohammed Harbi wrote that his main goal had been to “avoid any confusion between the historical specificity of Algerian society and that of global capitalism.”

At the same time, he explained, the book, which was provocatively titled The FLN: Mirage and Reality, aimed to deconstruct the myths associated with the revolutionary force that won independence for Algeria after 132 years of French colonialism. These two goals—adopting a Marxist methodology that took seriously the specific social formation of Algerian society and rejecting a hegemonic reading of Algerian nationalism—were inseparable for Harbi, who passed away in Paris last month on the first day of January.

In his long career, Harbi always insisted that one could not understand Algerian history and its process of decolonization by simply applying forms of class analysis that were based on European experiences. Yet he also rejected essentialist understandings of ideology or culture. Through this double refusal, he offered us an invaluable set of tools with which to understand the past. Harbi’s writings also illustrated a model of internationalism that refused to accept the authoritarian nature of specific nationalist projects, even if these projects were based on anti-imperialist principles.

The making of a revolutionary

In his life and work, Harbi rejected the political orthodoxies and expectations of those around him, whether they were espoused by members of his family or the political party to which he belonged. In his autobiography, Une vie débout, he famously wrote: “As a Marxist in a nationalist movement, I often found myself swimming against the current, amid traps and suspicions of all kinds.”

Coming from an aristocratic family that had (on his mother’s side) experienced a sharp decline in social status due to the French colonization of Algeria, Harbi observed from an early age how religion became a central element of nationalist consciousness. Yet he was critical of both the French and Quranic schools that he attended, defining himself as a cultural hybrid (métis culturel). He defined the former as a place of ideological subjection (assujettissement) and recalled his disgust at having to sing the Vichy anthem “Maréchal nous voilà” during World War II.

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Muriam Haleh Davis is an associate professor of history at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is the author of Markets of Civilization: Islam and Racial Capitalism in Algeria.

Revolution Without Illusion, by Muriam Haleh Davis – 12 February 2026

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