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72 CHAPTER 1inside the country in order to grow. In colonial times, the US-RDA had twomain adversaries: colonialism and the PSP. It had defeated both by consolidatingits unity and following rigorous party discipline. 140 In order to keep thisdiscipline, and thus for the party leadership to be in control, the party needednew enemies to fight. These were found in neo-colonialism, both outside thecountry where the ‘retrograde regimes’ of France, Senegal and Ivory Coast hadconspired against the Mali federation, and inside the nation, where merchants,former PSP leaders and other ‘anti-national elements’ conspired to overthrowthe regime. The Keita administration would soon find its most outspoken ‘neocolonial’adversary in the Kel Adagh.EpilogueThe economic policy of the regime proved to be a failure. 141 In its attempts tomodernise state and society the new regime perhaps overstressed politics, asJones remarks, and underestimated the populations’ resistance against ‘gettingthem to grow more cash crops for sale to the Government while offering themlittle but patriotic slogans in return’. 142 In 1967, the Malian Franc was devaluatedand reconnected to the West African CFA, in exchange for new loans fromFrance to rebalance the state budget, and to jump-start the economy. Thedesired effect of the monetary agreements did not occur. The economy collapsedfurther and the state budget remained in deficit. The crisis was aggravatedby the agitations of the Milice Populaire and the Brigades de Vigilance:two armed para-military forces under command of the US-RDA. In July 1967,Modibo Keita had urged these organisations to purge the party and the countryof ‘(...) the smugglers and speculators, the degenerated rank and file at all levelswhose revolutionary flame has withered or died (...)’. They did so with zeal,unleashing a reign of terror. 143 The various crises highlighted the long existinginternal division within the US-RDA between economic moderates, such asJean Marie Koné and Attaher Maïga, and Marxist hardliners, like Madeira Keitaand Mamadou Gologo. 144 Modibo Keita had started his political career as amoderate, but had gradually developed towards the left side of the party. In linewith Scott’s description of High Modernist idealists, Keita strongly believedthat at heart, the root of the country’s problems should not be sought in thesocialist option itself, but in those who were appointed to carry out socialist140 Snyder, F. 1965.141 Sanankoua, B. 1990.142 Jones, W. 1972: 32.143 Modibo Keita’s declaration to the youth, 9 July 1967. In: Ouattara, T. 1979. See alsoMann, G. 2003.144 See Campmas, P. 1978; Jones, W. 1976.