ABSTRACT
From mid-1975 until nearly the end of the 1980s, Didier Ratsiraka's Madagascar lived under an officially assumed socialist identity. Once the second republic had synthesized state structure and ideological principles, its foreign and domestic policy options seemed logically entailed. The republic renounced its opportunity to inspire Madagascar's first real partnership between central regime and autonomous localities. Proclaimed as "socialism of the poor," the revolutionary democratic ideal followed three guiding principles: "equitable distribution of wealth and income, fair and equitable acquisition of cultural assets, and power to those who produce." Beginning in the heady promise of revolution, Didier Ratsiraka's second republic was compromised from the outset by the inadequacy of revolutionary tools for the job. Malagasy conservatives were outraged by Ratsiraka's reliance on an expensive army trained by Soviets, East Germans, and North Koreans to defend his personal survival. The unraveling of Madagascar's revolution began to show first in the failure of its prime objective—expeditious development of an autonomous economy.
