Ahmed Mahsas

Ahmed Mahsas (Arabic: أحمد (علي) محساس; 17 November 1923 – 24 February 2013) was an Algerian Fighter in the nationalist movement against French Algeria.

[9][1] He became a militant in Algiers within organizations related to the PPA, such as the Central Youth Committee of Grand Paris (French: Comité central jeune du grand Paris) (CCJGA) and the Youth Committee of Belcourt (French: Comité de la jeunesse de Belcourt) (CJB).

[14][15] Mahsas was arrested in 1950 when OS was dismantled, and was held in a prison in Blida along with other nationalist activists of the Movement for the Triumph of Democratic Liberties (MTLD).

[24][25] Mahsas, like Ben Bella, denounced the results of the Soummam conference, and in December 1956 and early 1957 tried to bring dissident elements from the border regions with Tunisia together.

[34][35] After Algeria became independent in 1962, Mahsas held several positions, including director of the home ownership and rural exploitation fund (French: Caisse d’accession à la propriété et à l’exploitation rurale), and director of the National Office for Agrarian Reform (French: Office national de la réforme agraire).

[40][3][1] The day after Houari Boumédiène organized the 1965 Algerian coup d'état on 19 June against the power of Ben Bella, Mahsas rallied the Revolutionary Council (French: Conseil de la révolution) and was thus maintained in his post of Minister of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform in the new government formed on 10 July.

[2][43] But after a little more than a year of service under tutelage of the Revolutionary Council, a conflict arose between Mahsas and Boumédiène, which prompted the former to submit his resignation to be replaced on 24 September 1966 by the lawyer Ali Yahia Abdennour.

[45] He obtained a degree in sociology, and in 1978 defended his thesis "The revolutionary movement in Algeria from World War I to 1954" (French: Le mouvement révolutionnaire en Algérie de la Première Guerre mondiale à 1954) under the direction of Jacques Berque.

[46][10] He published his thesis the same year at L'Harmattan, where he explained the theory of the Algerian Revolution and its achievements on the historical level, and described the context surrounding creation of the PPA and the OS.

[55][56][57] As a doctor in sociology, Mahsas returned in 1978 to the political struggle a year before Boumédiène's death, and he with Ahmed and Tahar Zbiri, created an opposition structure in Paris called the National Rally for Democracy and Revolution (French: Rassemblement national pour la démocratie et la révolution), which dissolved with the end of the old regime.

[61] He was then appointed by the government of the new president, Chadli Bendjedid, as Advisor to the National Publishing and Distribution Company (French: Société nationale d’édition et de diffusion) (SNED).