Political leadership of the black\nmajority in Zimbabwe was historically in the hands of a black middle-class leadership,\nclosely tied to the missionaries and liberals. These exhausted every\npossibility for negotiation and compromise before reluctantly concluding that\nthey had to mobilise the masses in order to struggle for a position in\ngovernment. But even the mass struggles that took place from the 1950s onwards\nwere held back by leaders who never gave up hope of reaching a compromise with\nBritish imperialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This led to enormous frustrations\nand tensions in the movement and exposed it to serious defeats. Thus the dreary\nroad of compromise was littered with splits, slanging matches, party violence,\nand a confusion of policies. Instead of bringing freedom quicker, these policies\nof compromise laid the basis for much of the bitterness of political life today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In particular it brought about the\nZANU-ZAPU split in 1963. At least in part this represented a revolt among ZAPU\u2019s\nrank and file against Nkomo’s conservative leadership\u2014but was increasingly\nsteered onto lines of tribal division. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
UDI<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Unable to win mass support by\noffering a clear way forward, the various leaders looked to home areas, and\nthus to tribalism, for continued support during times of factional struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the break-up of the Central\nAfrican Federation, the Rhodesian Front came rapidly to government,\nrepresenting right-wing farmers, small businessmen, and privileged workers, and\nreflecting a partial split in the ruling class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The more liberal wing, basically representing\nfinance capital and manufacturing, believed in maintaining their own rule by a\nprocess of gradual concessions towards the black majority, leading to a form of\n‘power sharing’ between black and white. The Rhodesian Front, on the other\nhand, followed a policy of \u2018digging in\u2019. They calculated that the disunity of the\nnationalist movement in Zimbabwe would enable them to stand up against the independence\nstruggle. In 1965 the Smith regime issued its Unilateral Declaration of\nindependence (UDI) and looked to South Africa for support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The black nationalist leadership\nstill looked to British imperialism to hand over power to them. Their problem\nwas that the reformist Labour Party government in Britain defended the\ninterests of imperialism. This recant meant that the Labour government refused\nto struggle seriously against the Smith regime which defended capitalist interests\nin Rhodesia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the door to negotiations\nslammed in their faces, the nationalist leadership was forced to look for a new\nbargaining lever. With many or their rank and file completely disillusioned\nwith the policies of moderation, the leaders now proclaimed armed struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What they had in mind was a\ncarefully controlled guerilla struggle, under their own leadership, based on\nthe peasantry and the youth. They had no intention of mobilising the working\nclass on the basis of a socialist programme to overthrow the system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The young guerilla fighters,\nbattling against a ruthless enemy, showed the greatest courage and\ndetermination. Yet for over ten years they could not weaken the Smith regime\ninto making significant concessions. The reason for these long years of\nfrustration, and the many lives this cost, lay in the policies of the\nleadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since the leadership rejected the\ntask of mobilising the urban workers and youth for insurrection, it swung to\nand fro between attempts at negotiations and bursts of activity on the guerilla\nfront.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The repeated failures of the\nnegotiations, and the stubbornness of the Smith regime, brought about a radical\nferment among the guerilla youth. This, in turn, brought about a radicalisation\nof the guerilla leadership, many of whom, to win support, began to use the\nrhetoric of socialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The guerilla fighters were strongly\nradicalised by the experience of FRELIMO in Mozambique fighting a long struggle\nagainst the Portuguese, who were firmly backed by British and US imperialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These trends within the guerilla movement,\nboth in ZANU and ZAPU, led to youthful revolts against nationalist leaderships\ncommitted to negotiation and compromise. But counter-action was swift and\ndecisive. Some of the young guerillas were imprisoned, others shot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To the shame of the leadership,\nsome were even forced to walk over the Victoria Falls bridge to certain execution\nby the Smith regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With Nkomo very reluctant to\ncommit his ZIPRA forces to struggle, the guerilla war was fought most strongly\nin the East where ZANU won the backing of FRELIMO. Providing more decisive\nmilitary leadership, ZANU gained massive support from the peasants who suffered\nhuge losses and atrocities at the hands of the regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The end of white rule<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n After the Portuguese revolution\nin 1974-5 and the collapse of Portuguese colonialism in Angola and Mozambique,\nthe imperialist powers became much more concerned about their interests in\nSouthern Africa. They now began to worry that a defeat for Smith in the\nguerilla war would mean the end of capitalism, as in Angola and Mozambique.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The western governments now, for\nthe first time, put firm pressure on Smith to compromise with the nationalist\nleaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This produced a sharp about-turn\nby Smith. In March 1976 he proclaimed that there would be no black majority\nrule for \u201c1000 years\u201d. Within months, he was forced by the imperialists to\npublicly concede to “black majority rule within two years”. By this\nthey meant the installation of the puppet Prime Minister Muzorewa in power.\nBut, no sooner was he in power, than the imperialist powers were faced with the\nfact that the \u2018Muzorewa\u2019 government was unable to bring the war to an end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They feared the growing\nregionalisation of the war would spread the virus of radicalism throughout the\nsub-continent and lead to direct intervention by South Africa to support\nMuzorewa. The continuing exodus of the whites would undermine the social base\nof the Smith regime, and prepare the collapse of the Rhodesian state despite\nthe support of South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If the war took this course it\nwas inevitable that, with appalling bloodshed and sacrifice, the whole\ncapitalist system would crumble, and the guerilla leadership would be driven to\nbring the economy under state ownership once they came to power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Independence<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Lancaster House talks were a\ngamble for imperialism. Their aim was to frustrate the democratic and socialist\naspirations of the masses, by engineering a \u2018settlement\u2019 to end the war on the\nbasis of a bourgeois coalition including ZANU(PF) and ZAPU but based on a bloc\nof Muzorewa and the whites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Imperialism put strong pressures\non the Ieaders of the ‘front-line states’ to threaten to close down the ZANU\nand ZAPU guerilla bases if a settlement was not reached immediately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Major concessions were made by\nthe nationalist leadership on the protection of privilege of the capitalists\nand the whites. The whites were guaranteed 20 seats in parliament. The land\u2014the\nkey question of the liberation struggle\u2014was safeguarded against expropriation.\nCapitalist property generally was protected in the constitution. On the basis\nof these concessions an agreement was finally reached with imperialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The only alternative to this\ndevelopment would have been the mobilisation of the working class. Organised\nand armed, the working-class, supported by the peasant guerilla fighters, would\nhave been able to bring the swift overthrow of the murderous regime, and capitalism\nalong with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But ZANU and ZAPU leaders feared\nto awaken the power of the proletariat more than to compromise themselves with\nthe capitalist class and the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the Lancaster House\nagreement everything possible was done by the imperialists to frustrate\nZANU(PF) and ZAPU campaigning freely. Nevertheless the election result was a resounding\nvictory for ZANU(PF).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Mugabe government made\npromises of reforms to the masses, along with firm guarantees to the capitalists\nthat private property would be respected. It hoped to solve this contradiction\nby reaping a harvest of aid and investment from the imperialist powers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A consumer boom, based on the\nending of the war, the lifting of sanctions, and the workers’ achievements in\nraising wages, followed independence. This upturn made possible several\nimportant reforms in education, wages, and health services. It also meant the\nrapid promotion of an educated black elite to levels of wealth previously\nenjoyed only by the whites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, on the fundamental\nquestion of the liberation struggle of Zimbabwe, the land question, precious\nlittle progress was made. Also, the total number of jobs, far from increasing,\nactually declined, particularly in agriculture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because the working class did not\ncome to power to transform society, may of the basic problems of Zimbabwe soon\nreappeared in an even more serious form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The tribal-national division\nbetween Shona and Ndebele, partially overcome in the struggle against the Smith\nregime, reappeared. Even though Nkomo, while he was in government, said to the\nsurprise of his audience in Matabeleland \u201cthere is no shortage of land for the\npeople” (Herald<\/em> 24 November\n1981), he\u2014and other petty bourgeois politicians of both parties\u2014exploited the\ngrievances of the people for their own ends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead of leading the people in\nthe struggle against capitalism, Nkomo and the ZANU leaders both blamed the\nexistence of the other party for the lack of social and political progress,\nrecklessly whipping up tribal hostility in the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Negotiations between ZANU(PF) and\nZAPU were opened to discuss the\nformation of a single party. But these broke down early in 1982 because of the\njockeying for position of the politicians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only at this point were the arms\ncaches on ZAPU owned farms exposed, and most of the ZAPU leaders removed from\ngovernment. This led to a crisis in the army. Whole battalions broke up and\nmass desertions weakened the army (although its backbone, the officers and NCOs\ntrained by the old regime, remained).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ‘dissidents’ became a serious\nproblem, using the bankrupt methods of armed terrorism to fight back against\nthe political defeats of ZAPU and against the growing isolation of the Ndebele\npeople.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only by understanding the incapacity of capitalism to solve the basic problems of the masses can we understand the bitterness of the national question, and why political ‘solutions’ within a capitalist framework will fail.<\/p>\n\n\n\nContinue to Chapter Three<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"