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Mouvement populaire de la revolution (Zaire) miscellaneous records
91063
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Title: Mouvement populaire de la révolution (Zaire) miscellaneous records
Date (inclusive): 1967-1975
Collection Number: 91063
Contributing Institution: Hoover Institution Library and Archives
Language of Material:
French
Physical Description:
7 manuscript boxes, 2 card file boxes
(3.8 Linear Feet)
Abstract: Minutes of meetings, conference proceedings, speeches, reports, and memoranda, relating to political conditions in Zaire and
administration of the government of Zaire. Includes records from the national level of the party, some provincial and local
levels, and the youth affiliate of the party. Includes descriptive notes by Herbert F. Weiss. In part, photocopy.
Creator:
Weiss, Herbert F.
Creator:
Mouvement populaire de la révolution (Zaire)
Physical Location: Hoover Institution Library & Archives
The collection is open for research; materials must be requested in advance via our reservation system. If there are audiovisual
or digital media material in the collection, they must be reformatted before providing access.
For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
Acquired by the Hoover Institution Library & Archives in 1991 with an increment in 2010.
[Identification of item], Mouvement populaire de la révolution (Zaire) miscellaneous records, [Box no., Folder no. or title],
Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
The collection of documents covers the period starting with the early establishment of the Mouvement populaire de la révolution
(MPR) through the time when it was virtually merged with the state bureaucracy. In 1965 General Mobutu led a military coup
that took over the government of Zaire (then the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Mobutu remained in power until 1997, when
he was overthrown in the First Congo War by Laurent-Désiré Kabila, who was supported by the governments of Rwanda, Burundi,
and Uganda.
Perhaps most important to the durability of the Mobutu regime was the establishment of a political party, the MPR, which more
or less successfully enrolled every citizen into its ranks. The party was organized along authoritarian lines as was every
other state institution, and it served the purpose of allowing the rulers to communicate with and to control the ruled.
The MPR's top leadership soon overlapped with the top officials in the government. However, below the top national level,
the two structures were quite distinct and indeed almost immediately fell into sharp competition. Every level of society,
from the large provinces down to small villages, found itself lodged with competing politico-governmental authorities, each
claiming to represent the true and ultimate authority of the leader, Mobutu. The antagonism between the two structures did
not only take place because they were in fact institutionally pitted against each other, but also because of the nature of
their two sets of elites.
The administration had been nationalized and "de-tribalized," so no official could obtain a post in his region of origin.
Indeed, the higher the official the farther he was posted from his home. In the MPR the pattern was the exact opposite. Leaders
were valued because of their ability to mobilize the masses and they could do this best in the regions where they were at
home.
The competition between the two structures created an unusual situation for an authoritarian regime; people were able to play
off one against the other and thus achieve a significant degree of action on grievance claims. At the local level, it was
almost as if a two party system existed. Furthermore, because of their overlapping claims to authority they both reported
essentially the same areas of concern to their higher echelons. MPR documents not only deal with party affairs but comprehensively
describe the local situation.
The Mobutu regime did not perceive this situation as a positive development. It saw the competition as lowering discipline
while viewing discipline as the most desirable condition for the state and its leaders. As a result, a number of changes were
undertaken that sought to synchronize the two structures. First, local administrators were made ex-officio presidents of local
MPR sections. Later, MPR officials were integrated into the public service and finally the elites of both structures were
mixed and de-tribalized.
The result was that grievance claims became much more difficult to make since it was now necessary to make one's complaints
to the officials against whom one was lodging the complaints. Local interests no longer had "sons of the land" through whom
grievances could be expressed; everyone was ruled by "foreigners" i.e. persons from another part of the country who often
did not speak the local language.
Sources:
Herbert Weiss, "The Mouvement populaire de la révolution (MPR) collection description, context and significance," 1991. Hoover Institution collection file
Renton, David, David Seddon, and Leo Zeilig, The Congo, Plunder and Resistance, ZED books, 2007
Herbert Weiss, "The Mouvement populaire de la révolution (MPR) collection description, context and significance," 1991. Hoover Institution collection file
Renton, David, David Seddon, and Leo Zeilig, The Congo, Plunder and Resistance, ZED books, 2007
Scope and Content of Collection
The bulk of the collection, from the single party organization of the Mobutu regime, was collected by Herbert Weiss during
an extended research trip in 1972. The documentation is comprised of internal party minutes, reports, cadre performance evaluations,
and descriptions of local political and economic conditions. The bulk of the documents cover the period from 1968 to 1972,
selected from the secretariats of every type of echelon of the party, i.e. collectivity, zone, sub-region, region, and nation.
Documents are filed alphabetically by name of the geographic subdivisions given by Herbert Weiss.
The documents were collected with permission of the Secretary General and the Director of the Political Bureau of the party.
Great care was taken not to depart with unique copies of any material. Fortunately, the bureaucratic procedures that were
being followed within the party secretariats involved producing several signed and sealed carbon copies of most reports and
correspondence. About eighty percent of the material is of this type.
The remainder are positive photocopy off-prints from photo negatives of interesting documents of which only one copy was found.
Additional published materials were collected at a later time. It is virtually certain that the first copies of this material
will never be available to researchers and have, in large part, already been destroyed.
These documents provide a base for research not only on the history of Zaire, but also more broadly to an understanding of
mass mobilizing authoritarian regimes and the study of grass roots pluralism and democratization.
The records also show the relationship between the MPR and its youth section, the JMPR, an organization that emerged from
earlier political youth organizations that participated in the Congo rebellions in 1963 to 1966. The source of many complaints
from the citizens who found JMPR actions abusive, the conflicts are frequently documented in the records.
Herbert Weiss stamped most of the documents in the collection with an identification number. The typewritten summary cards
in boxes 1-2 correlate to an identification number within the collected documents in boxes 3-8. Not all of the materials in
the collection were numbered, some numbers are missing from the sequence and it is assumed that not all sequential identification
numbers were used.
The material arrived at the archives in a geographic arrangement that has been retained; it does not follow Weiss' numeric
sequence.
Source:
Herbert Weiss, "The Mouvement populaire de la révolution (MPR) collection description, context and significance," 1991. Hoover Institution file
Herbert Weiss, "The Mouvement populaire de la révolution (MPR) collection description, context and significance," 1991. Hoover Institution file
Herbert F. Weiss papers, Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Conseil national de libération (Congo) Commandement des forces armées populaires. Etat major général records, Hoover Institution
Library & Archives
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Congo (Democratic Republic) -- Politics and government -- 1960-1997