evidence: Lenin’s Two Pronged Approach to the National Question Lenin’s stance on the national question has often been described as ‘two-pronged.’ The seeming ambiguity of his position arguably derives from his unique dialectical orientation that we have been working out up to this point. Lenin writes: [...] As we noted above, Lenin’s ‘two-pronged’ approach to the question nationalism presages the more updated perspective of the 3rd International vis-à-vis the still ongoing question of colonialism and colonial imperialism. The case of Burkina Faso and its revolution led by Thomas Sankara are exemplary in this regard and quite clearly confirms the viability of Lenin’s position in the debate on national self-determination and, moreover, highlights the viability of a neo-Leninist revival in the consideration of contemporary questions of colonialism and imperialism. In less than a year, Sankara’s regime successfully began to liberate Burkina Faso (formerly Upper Volta)—a transitional zone of passage between more populated and commercially important epicenters of French West Africa with little to no cultural or ethnic homogeneity—from the yoke of neo-colonial domination and a particularly repressive comprador bourgeoisie.