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Sartre’s ‘Preface’ to Wretched of the Earth (1961) begins with a discussion of how the colonizers from Europe carried out their civilising mission and what the (by)products of this were. He sums up how the ‘civilised’ native, who had learnt to echo his master’s voice finally led to the independent individual who disregarded the European civilization and would not mind taking up arms, when necessary, against his erstwhile oppressor.

On the lines of Fanon, Sartre ridicules the biased Western idea of humanism which had denied a human status to more than half of the world’s inhabitants. He uncovers the western hypocrisy as he shows how the West, in a bid to exploit, murdered and meted out inhuman treatment to the natives, dehumanised them and reduced them to the level of “superior monkeys”; how the colonizers made a calculated attempt to wipe out the native culture, traditions, languages, and substitute them with that of his own. Thus attempts were made to create a root-less native who belonged to nowhere in particular.

This turns the native into a creature–neither man nor animal. Under these circumstances where he is beaten, undernourished, ill and terrified, where he exhibits laziness, slyness and a propensity to steal, he can understand only the language of violence. However, the colonizer, whose basic aim is exploitation, cannot murder the native outright as this would be against his purpose. Soon this machinery, however, goes out of control and the oppressed takes up violence as the only way to face the oppressor. This takes place in two stages. Initially the traumatized native, unable to contain his terror, anger and frustrations takes up arms against his fellow brothers, in the absence of the real enemy. Some take recourse to religion, spiritualism and rites. This, as Sartre states, is merely the result of the seeds of violence sown by the oppressor. This phase is soon over, after which the oppressed identifies his common enemy and turns against him (the European) en masse. Their only duty then becomes driving out colonialism by every means at their disposal. Soon, as Sartre says, “his rage boils over, he rediscovers his lost innocence and he comes to know himself in that he himself creates his self”. Thus a ‘man’ is born from the wreckage of the humbled, terrorised, effeminate native who can hold both the plough as well as the gun­—the new man who is ready to sacrifice himself in war for the cause of his nation.

Sartre discusses the different ways in which the colonizer strengthens his hold over the oppressed. In certain places, the mother-country maintains some paid feudal lords who rule according to her wishes. At other places she divides and rules and either creates a native bourgeoisie or gives rise to different factions. Or else she plays the double game of settlement and exploitation simultaneously. Thus Europe encourages divisions and stratification of the colonised country. This is what compels Fanon to state that to fight the colonizer, the colonized must at first fight against itself. The internal fight should be directed at uniting the different classes and groups, as Sartre points out: “In the heat of the battle, all internal barriers break down”.

Sartre, through Fanon, speaks of the necessity for the peasant classes to hold power. The peasants unlike the petty bourgeoisie or the urban proletariat, suffers the most. “The peasantry, when it rises, quickly stands out as the revolutionary class”. This class knows the taste of naked oppression and in order not to die of hunger it never makes any compromise with their demands— a complete demolition of all existing structures is what they demand. Sartre feels that “In order to triumph, the national revolution must be socialist… if the native bourgeoisie comes to power, the new state, in spite of its formal sovereignty, remains in the hands of imperialists”. Thus a new union of the Third World is formed under the command of the peasant classes.

Sartre however warns the reader of the dangers of the cult of leaders and personalities, the over influence of western culture and “moving back into the twilight of past culture”. The true culture for him is the culture of the Revolution which constantly creates and remakes a nation and prevents stagnation and accumulation of wealth, knowledge and power in the hands of bourgeoisie imperialists.