African Narodnik (2010)

Book Review from the October 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

Africa’s Liberation. The Legacy of Nyerere. Edited by Chambi Chachage and Annar Cassam. Pambazuka Press. 2010.

If Julius Nyerere, President of Tanzania from independence in 1961 till 1985, had been a late 19th century Russian he would have been labelled a “Narodnik”, i.e. someone who thought that a basically agricultural country could move straight to socialism, on the basis of local communal villages, without having to pass through capitalism. The Russian Marxists denied this, but the Narodniks never got a chance to implement their ideas.

Nyerere did, with the Arusha declaration which adopted “Ujamma” (“socialism and self-reliance”) as the official state policy of Tanzania. As predicted by Marxists it failed. In fact one of the contributors to this tribute to Nyerere on the 10th anniversary of his death in 2009, Issa Shivji, once described the result as the development of a “bureaucratic bourgeoisie” in Tanzania. Today the present Tanzanian government openly embraces (is forced to) capitalist development.

This said, Nyerere comes across as sincere and principled, as genuinely wanting a society of social equality, democracy and without exploitation, and unlike nearly all the other historic African independence leaders power did not go to his head. However, the fact that he was sincere and incorruptible shows that the problem in Africa (and elsewhere) is not bad leaders but capitalism. Not even a saint can make capitalism – which African countries are currently obliged to accept – work in the interest of all.

It only remains to add that Tanzania in 1967 could have passed directly to socialism but only with the rest of the world following a world socialist revolution. Given that this did not happen, capitalism developed in Tanzania, as in Russia.

Adam Buick

"Darling Kaunda (1972)

From the March 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have always been a lone voice when we have said that the struggles of subject peoples of Africa for national independence are a fruitless waste of blood and effort. The fact is that at present all peoples are subject peoples; those of England, Russia or Cuba, just as much as those of Kenya, or Zambia who were until recent times under the rule of British imperialism. And now that the hated British have gone, all that has happened is that the mass of the peoples of black Africa have changed white rulers for black ones. But it would be a bold man who would now say that the change from a foreign to a native ruling class has meant any real gain for the ruled.

The rulers of black Africa make a great hooha because the Tory government has come to terms with the Smith regime in Rhodesia before the achievement of that great desideratum — one man, one vote. Now Socialists are the last to decry the necessity of democracy even under capitalism. On the contrary, we realise that when the time comes that the working class understands the meaning of the need for Socialism, then it is by the exercise of the vote in a democracy, that the new society will be won. In the meantime, the sheer hypocrisy of the African rulers is quite mind-boggling. If any racialist doubted the equality of black with white, they must at least be convinced that a black politician can be every bit as obnoxious a liar and a humbug as his white equivalent. The leading opponent of the deal with Smith is Nyerere of Tanzania who sheds his crocodile tears over the lack of votes and other rights of democracy in Rhodesia for the black inhabitants of that unhappy land where most of the population is disfranchised and the leading spirits of would-be opposition parties are kept in detention without trial.

Yet none knows better than he (who compounds his felonies with the impudent claim to be establishing Socialism in his country — but then that specious nonsense is repeated in all the most unlikely places, Egypt, Israel, India et al) that the same lack of democracy exists in his own country. It is true that the blacks have equality of voting rights: But Nyerere has made sure that the vote is worth nothing by banning all opposition so that in practice you have a vote without a choice. Which is just as much a sordid farce in present-day Tanzania as it was in Hitlerite Germany (or as it is, of course, in Russia or China). And in Tanzania, just as much as in Rhodesia, the place for political opponents, for those who dare to suggest there should be freedom to vote for some other party than Nyerere’s is in gaol. Black political prisoners have, in fact, been languishing in gaol in Tanzania just as long as in Rhodesia.

In neighbouring Zambia, the president, “my darling Kaunda”, as a New Statesman haridan, Naomi Mitchison, once called him, has decided that the faint vestiges of democracy that were discernible (under a microscope) in his country were no longer supportable and he was graciously giving his people a new constitution. A one-party democracy. (And don’t imagine that this square circle is always recognised as such even here. The allegedly liberal Guardian, for example, has often sent its creepy-left reporters like Steele and Adeney and Gott to sing the virtues of Nyerere’s Tanzania and has used the phrase “one-party democracy” without a blush). It seems that a former comrade of Kaunda’s called Kapwepe, had the temerity to use the existing constitution to form another opposition party. Constitution be damned, said that lovable democrat Kaunda and preceeded to shove over 100 prominent supporters of the infant new party where he thinks they belong in liberated Africa. In clink. But still he wasn’t satisfied. It’s not enough that he throws members of an opposition party into gaol. He must also make sure that they have no paper right to form an opposition party at all, which is why he wants to change the constitution. The poor devils who wish to have a little of the freedom the African nationalists were always prating about must be wondering why he bothers. They will rot in gaol either way.

Perhaps to rub in the anti-racialist lesson that white political crooks and black ones are birds of a feather, Kaunda is not satisfied with playing the role of an African Hitler, he must emulate Stalin as well. It is always difficult to form an opinion as to which particular piece of murderous villainy of Stalinist Russia was the worst, but one that was extremely gruesome was, at the time of the infamous pact with the Nazi beast, the handing over to the Nazis of German Communist leaders who had taken refuge in Russia — Stalin’s own dear comrades. We don’t know whether these victims appreciated the change of scenery as they were taken from a Communist concentration camp to be butchered in a Nazi one, but the episode was one to make a Borgia cringe. And where does our gallant Christian and “socialist” Kaunda come into this? Well, as is well known, his great enemy is the white-fascist-beast, his neighbour Smith of Rhodesia. So what does he do? He rounds up black “freedom” fighters in his own country. And does he gaol them (without trial, of course)? It seems that wouldn’t suit his book. He actually hands them over to the white-fascist murderers, the self-same villains that cause him to inveigh against our wicked Tories (they are undoubtedly wicked enough, including of course that fat cynic Lord Goodman who used to have the nerve to call himself a socialist. Presumably still does). And of course Smithy gratefully accepts the gift and does what Kaunda expected him to do. Sentence the poor bastards to death.

No doubt you heard the screams of protest from the assembled leftists as they smashed the windows of the Zambian legation to draw attention to this monstrosity. And then you woke up. There hasn't been as much as a resounding tinkle. Exactly the same as in the good old days when Stalin was murdering Russian workers by the million, including his own Bolshevik comrades. Some, one must say, did demur. A quarter of a century later when Khruschev came out with the news that honest people knew perfectly well at the time. The Guardian did report these grisly goings-on. But there have been no screaming leading articles denouncing Kaunda for the way he treats black men. Yet they are so ardently concerned with the freedom of black people that hardly a day is allowed to pass without denunciation of Vorster and Co. (who are indeed grim enough in all conscience).

And what does all this add up to? Surely, that all the energy that millions of people, black and white, put into reforms such as nationalism, not to mention all the heroism and sacrifice in places like the Mau Mau jungles, all this simply leaves the capitalist jungle intact. And it therefore follows that all the jungly things go on and the sufferings of mankind go on with them. Roll on the day when the working class of the world, black, white, brown, yellow, decide that only the cutting down of the capitalist jungle will serve. Because until that day dawns, humanity will have to live with horror.

L. E. Weidberg.

News in Review: South Africa out (1961)

The News in Review column from the May 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

South Africa out

The usual products of Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ conferences have been toothy photographs and solemn, empty communiques. Astonishing, then, was the campaign to expel South Africa.

Astonishing, too, was the fact that the campaign succeeded. Why should the Prime Ministers get so upset about the apartheid policy?

Racial discrimination is quite detestable, but it is only one of many types of suppression. If the Prime Ministers wanted to scotch such things, they were right to get rid of South Africa—but why did they not then also expel Australia, India, Ghana, Ceylon—the United Kingdom itself?

It was not just a matter of the Premiers making a pact with their consciences. The Commonwealth, despite the unctuous propaganda about it, is nothing more than a world-wide trading tie-up, as was appreciated by the City Editors who, in the first few days after South Africa’s withdrawal, anxiously looked into the commercial effects of it all.

The ganging-up against South Africa may have been partly inspired by political motives, but was also a reflection of the South African industrialists’ opposition to Verwoerd's policies.

Let nobody think that it was the result of charitable concern for the African underdog. To mix our metaphors. capitalist nations have other fish to fry.


Washington Whirlwind

Everybody in Washington has been fascinated by the ruthless energy of President Kennedy. No one is safe from the new chiefs eye. “This guy,” said one official, “eats up reports.”

White House correspondents are fond of telling us that Kennedy is busy because he is building a new America There are hopeful murmurings about young aspirations, new frontiers, and so on.

There is nothing new in this. Franklin Roosevelt was hailed in much the same way. Eisenhower was described as the man to bring probity and courage to American government Yet it was under Roosevelt that America suffered the Second World War. And the Eisenhower era left behind a sticky unemployment problem; during the first quarter of this year there were 5½ million people out of work in the United States.

Unemployment is only one of the new President's headaches; others are the situation in Laos and the continuing disarmament wrangle. If the Kennedy administration sorts these out, it will find that American capitalism has turned up a few other problems.

Whatever the personal characteristics of a leader, his actions and his reputation are largely governed by the conditions of capitalism which he tries to control. Perhaps it is as well for U.S. capitalism that the President is so lively.


Kicked Upstairs

Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn has fought a furious fight against his transfer to the House of Lords. Despite his struggles, the government showed that they were determined to have him kicked upstairs.

Some lobby correspondents whispered that Mr. Macmillan personally gave the thumbs-down to Mr. Benn’s efforts to renounce his peerage. The P.M., said the rumour, is at odds with Lord Hailsham, and doesn’t want to set a precedent which might bring him back to the Commons.

Mr. Benn’s predicament is not free of irony. The Labour Party, of course, once stood for the abolition of the House of Lords. And Mr. Benn’s constituency used to elect Sir Stafford Cripps, who was at one time an ardent opponent of royalty, titles and the rest.

By the time Labour achieved power in 1945, they had dropped their old pledge about the Lords. Now, in fact, they do their bit towards helping the Upper House alive by supplying their share of life peerages.

It is Mr. Benn’s bad luck to have been born the son of a peer. His membership of the Labour Party is a different matter. He may not be able to resign his title: but he can always leave the party which has supported the system of pomp and privilege.


Salisbury Too

Some of the five M.P.’s who were disgorged in the Parliamentary Labour Party’s latest spasm wasted no time in getting their feet blistered on this year's Aldermaston do. Mr. Alan Brown, the member for Tottenham who gave up the Labour whip because he thinks that the party is too soft on the unilateralists, was not bothered by such discomforts.

This was another stage in the long Labour wrangle over defence. The Labour leaders, who know that British capitalism must have the most efficient weapons and armed forces possible, object to the “eat-our-cake-and-have-it” attitude of the unilateralists in the party.

While all this was happening, an announcement from the cool dignity of Hatfield House told of Lord Salisbury’s virtual resignation from the Conservative Party. For a long time, Salisbury has been opposed to the government’s colonial policies, the last straw was the easy way in which they have gone along with the African nationalists.

Sadly for him, Salisbury’s resignation caused scarcely a ripple; Mr. Macmillan has ridden much heavier punches in his time. But it is as well to be reminded that the Tories also have their splits, on colonial policy and other issues.

Need we say that there is one cause on which all Tories unite, with all Labourites solidly beside them? Whatever incidental quarrels they may have, they all agree about wanting capitalism to stay.

New Boy Learns

Politicians in different countries make speeches in different languages and different idioms, but there is one theme beloved of them all, one speech that every Prime Minister and Finance Minister carries in his brief case: the speech about the need for the workers to shun idleness and work harder.

Tanganyika has just achieved its independence, and as the politicians there have been telling the workers that this is the most glorious event in their lives, they had visions of celebrating the great occasion with a nice long bout of fun and feasting under the African sun. But their new Prime Minister, Mr. Julius Nyerere, lost no time in warning them that, for the workers, life under capitalism is real and earnest:—

  A day’s rejoicing is enough. We will make nothing of Tanganyika and we will set no example in the world unless it be by renewed efforts of hard work.

A few days later in a broadcast “he exhorted the unemployed not to loaf on the roadsides but to open up the Rufiji basin, a fertile but unpopulated area as large as England.” (Guardian 7/4/61).

People on another planet noticing the universality of this speech may wonder if there is some agency from which all the politicians get their speeches, but the explanation is much simpler; how will the rich be assured of their riches and their abundant leisure unless the workers work hard and long and cultivate habits of diligence and frugality?

Africa's Black Hitlers (1975)

From the December 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

On June 11 The Guardian printed a full-page article by one of their African “specialists” called John Hatch. The sub-heading is illuminating: “Tanzania is the model for a participatory democracy that is based on one political party but avoids dictatorship.”

So we can start with a forthright statement. The Guardian are lying hypocrites. Not only are they hypocrites in that they profess to be upholders of freedom and democracy which they clearly are not. They also are inverted racialists too because, despite all their constant preaching about the poor blacks in South Africa (and the blacks there are vilely treated, right enough), they know full well that they could not possibly defend the dictatorships in Tanzania and the other wretched countries described in the article if the victims were white Englishmen or Germans. What they are saying (whether the idiots know this or not) is that it is perfectly all right if a black dictator stamps his rule on an African country and fills his prisons with his political opponents. Real democracy is not for them. They are only ignorant blacks.

At the top of the page are pictures of smiling democratic dictators: “Nkrumah (his party failed him): Nyerere (no dictator); Kaunda (seeking social equality); Stevens (unity through agriculture).” Well, they have all got good reasons to smile except Nkrumah, (who is dead and was probably the worst of them all). They are sitting on the pile of suffering black humanity, and it must make them smile even more to know that the Hatches and the Guardians of the western press are so obliging in apologizing for their regimes and seeing that there are no Orwells around to demonstrate the Newspeak and Doublethink which can tell intelligent readers of the Guardian (all lively minds, they tell us) that dictatorship is democracy if it is black. And the dictators get their propaganda on the cheap. Just a spot of red-carpet treatment for all the “progressives” of the west will fill the leftist press with everything except the one thing that should infringe their much-vaunted principles: How many political prisoners are rotting in the gaols of black “independent” Africa? How long have they been there? Are they ever going to get out? In all the thousands of words in the Hatch page, not a word about these poor devils.

Hatch starts his article with a flourish by giving a quotation from a speech by Nyerere, the darling of them all. “I am now going to suggest that where there is one party, and that party is identified with the nation as a whole, the foundations of democracy are firmer than they can ever be where you have two or more parties . . .” Hatch gives his seal of approval to this: “This virile commendation of the one-party state was given by Nyerere in 1963.” This expert in virility realizes, of course, that the above is the same as spewed out by Hitler, Musso and Co, and goes on to admit that people might well ponder the resemblance between white fascist swine and the black fascist swine whom these lively minds must now worship. All he is doing is the political equivalent of “find the lady”: he is referring to Hitler & Co. to bemuse the lively minds into thinking that this objection to the African Hitlers had been dealt with. It just isn’t.

Why not allow the Africans a multi-party system, which is what we understand as one of the fundamentals of democracy in normal parlance as distinct from Guardianese? Hatch deals with that one too. He gives a number of reasons, all fraudulent to a degree, and too tedious to demolish in full detail here. Hatch opens on this one: “Tanzania offered unique advantages for the establishment of a healthy, democratic, one-party state”. No explanation how this can be healthy for those who wish to oppose the alleged non-dictatorship of Nyerere. Perhaps Hatch would like to spend a few weeks in one of his hero’s healthy gaols (what’s a few weeks among friends?). And what would happen to the health of any black worker who ventured to suggest that the wealth they produced should not be stolen by the Nyerere thugs on top of the heap? Another reason is that “Nyerere has always been a convinced democrat”. Now isn’t that just ducky? It must be so comforting for the political prisoners — and to the others outside who would like to say boo to a Hatch goose but daren’t because they know that a democratic gaol is waiting for them — to know that Nyerere calls himself a democrat. Marvellous what you can do with words. Another choice example comes immediately afterwards: “Moreover, Nyerere does not refer to the State, but only to the Nation.” So, the non-dictator uses the powers of oppression of the state — and what a state! — but it’s all right, O lively minds! He doesn’t call it a state. He calls it a nation. And that makes everyone feel better, doesn’t it? But the punch line is still to come: Nyerere tells us that his one-party “will be a mass party through which anyone who accepts TANU’s basic principles can participate in the process of government”. This is the sort of trash that presumably satisfies Hatch and The Guardian.

It is worth while mentioning that only a few days ago (i.e. long after the date of the Hatchpiece) the paper ran a leading article in which they actually stated that the regimes of Nyerere, Kaunda and, ye gods, Mobutu, were based on justice. Now the first two have been darlings of the left for years and it is as useless to expect the truth in relation to them as it was to get the truth about Stalin accepted by The Guardian and New Statesman in the ’thirties and ’forties. But the admission of Mobutu to the ranks is something new. I have no private information and the news I get is derived from The Guardian itself. So it would be in that very paper that I read a little story about Mobutu’s justice. A ceremony took place on the lawn of the Presidential palace in Zaire (it may then have still been called the Congo). Certain black politicians were brought before President Mobutu (who elected him President by the way? You must be joking) — trussed like chickens. As part of the act of justice, they were then beaten up before Mobutu’s very eyes. And after they had learned whatever lesson that part of the act was meant to convey, they were then strung up in public. Justice, Act III, I suppose. And our own dear old lady of Gray’s Inn Road, which would probably be voted the greatest newspaper in the world (if you want to get into university and they ask you what you read, tell the Prof. The Guardian and you’re halfway home), is happy with this justice. But, presumably, only for blacks; we couldn’t really have editors strung up at a Buckingham Palace garden party.

It is pertinent to mention an item of news reported in the same old Guardian date-lined Nairobi, June 12. This independent black state of Kenya is run by another darling of the left, who built up a great following of “progressives” like Lord Fenner Brockway (from a base in Manchester, of all places), Jomo Kenyatta. He too runs a one-party state, an empire of graft and corruption which makes Chicago seem like the New Jerusalem. But it seems from the report that within the governing circles there is the occasional silly fellow who objects to some of the things going on. One such MP, who had become rather a nuisance in his criticism, was simply murdered by Kenyatta’s police. Mau Mau, where are you now?

Where does all this point to? The usual way. If the workers of the world, black, white and any other colour, want a world worth living in, it is there for the taking. But they must form their own opinions about the system they live under; and the system they can have when they have thought about it and want it. Meanwhile, they must learn to see the grotesque fraud which is perpetrated at their expense by the ruling classes of all countries and their jackals in the press. Till they can see that, batten down all Hatches.

L. E. Weidberg

Was It Worth It? (1961)

From the November 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

The following letter has been received from a sympathiser and we think it will be of interest to our readers.

On September 4 dockworkers and railwaymen at Takoradi and Kumasi in Ghana went on strike against a deliberate attempt by the government to decrease the workers' share of what they produce. The austerity budget introduced in July provided for measures which would lead to an all-round rise in prices. In addition a compulsory savings scheme was introduced and a wage freeze announced.

The strikers were told that they didn’t really want to strike but that they were being forced to; if anyone wished to return to work the government would gladly provide protection. Very few workers took up this offer and President Nkrumah from a holiday resort on the Black Sea coast of Russia ordered his Ministers at home to get tough with the strikers. All those who refused to return to work were threatened with dismissal and troops were moved into Takoradi. The strike was, of course, unofficial since the leadership of the trade unions supports Nkrumah. The general secretary of the T.U.C. hurried back from the neutral's conference in Belgrade, quickly got to know the facts and did not hesitate to call the strike a “counter-revolution" and to denounce it as illegal.

This is not the first time that Ghanian workers have protested. Last year they were demanding wage increases. The opposition newspaper Ashanti Pioneer supported these demands and in September the legal daily minimum wage for unskilled workers was raised from 5s. 6d. to 6s. 6d. The austerity budget will make the workers worse off than they were before September last. Not surprisingly, then, they have gone on strike. The reasons given for last year's trouble are interesting:

  T.U.C. spokesmen blamed the workers’ dissatisfaction on the remnants of a capitalist, imperialist, colonialist system which still darkened the economic and social horizon. The minority and the Ashanti Pioneer, felt that the workers were dissatisfied because they saw top trade union officials and Government Ministers becoming wealthier while the workers suffered. (Observer, 28/8/60.)

For daring to make such observations on the development of capitalism in Ghana and for supporting the demands for wage increases the Ashanti Pioneer found that in future it would be subject to censorship. The Ghana T.U.C. spokesmen are right in attributing the cause of the trouble to Capitalism. But it is not the remnants but the beginning of Capitalism that is responsible. Ghana is just entering a period of capitalist development despite all the talk about "Ghana's way to Socialism." As Capitalism develops and more workers are needed to operate the new machinery the tribes are broken up: simultaneously classes begin to appear among the urban inhabitants. Already Ghana has a wealthy upper class:

  Ghana's first gambling casino will open shortly—but only for foreigners and certain classes of wealthy Ghanians. A company set up to run the casino announced today that in conformity with casino licensing laws passed last year, Ghanians will not be admitted to membership unless they have a yearly income of more than £1.500 and are not members of the armed forces, judiciary, police force or public service departments. (Guardian, 9/6/60.)

Very few workers in this country, let alone Ghana, get £1,500 a year. As it is, with the legal minimum wage at 6s. 6d. a day these Ghanian capitalists get about ten times as much a year as an ordinary worker.

Little wonder, then, that the workers are beginning to feel that perhaps they have no interests in common with all classes of wealthy Ghanians including the Nkrumah ruling clique. Many must be asking themselves as they survey the part they played in the struggle for independence: “Was it worth it? ” Socialists have said all along that national independence movements merely end in the setting up of capitalist nation states and are therefore not worth supporting. The leaders of nationalist parties once in power are faced with the harsh realities of running and expanding Capitalism in their countries; and Capitalism can never be made to run in the interests of the workers. If we look outside Ghana we see the same sort of thing happening: men like Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore and Julius Nyerere of Tanganyika with more regard for democracy than Nkrumah have been forced to act against the workers in their countries, as the following report from Tanganyika shows:

  Relations between Mr. Nyerere, Tanganyika’s Chief Minister, and the territories’ trade union leaders are sharpening. The strike at the Williamson diamond mine which Mr. Nyere firmly ended after 12 days, brought this division into the public eye. After Tanganyika obtained an elected majority in the legislative council in September, trade unionists expected quick action to improve wage levels. But Mr. Nyerere has to be pushed into rash promises or actions. Working closely with Sir Arthur Vasey, his Finance Minister, he is endeavouring to maintain the climate of quiet confidence for foreign investment. (Daily Telegraph, 29/12/60.)

Dr. Banda, after his sweeping victory in the Nyasaland elections, seems to be planning similar actions to those of Nkrumah. The Sunday Express (17/9/61) reports that Suzgo Msiska, leader of one of the two rival trade union congresses in Nyasaland "has lost a great deal of prestige in the eyes of Banda and his colleagues. No sooner had Malawi emerged victorious at the polls than Msiska brought 800 workers out on strike for more pay. Now Banda urges: ‘Msiska must go.’ ’’

In the Congo politicians like Lumumba were elected to power on promises of wage increases which the workers didn’t get. So they went on strike. At first Lumumba called out troops against them but eventually gave in and granted the wage increases, but not before he had devalued the Congolese franc. So that the workers merely received an increase in money wages.

The plain fact of the matter is that independence merely brings a change of masters for the workers—and their new masters are more often than not their former leaders. Socialists see no reason why they should help such men to power. Even the elementary democratic rights of “one man, one vote ” and freedom of political activity that independence may bring are not secure as in events in Ghana in particular show. To those Ghanian and other workers who ask if the struggle for independence was worth it, Socialists reply that it was. not. We do not, of course, expect colonial workers to suffer colonisation for ever. We are just pointing out that independence is not the solution to their problems. Indeed, in many cases it is just the beginning. Socialism is the only solution to the problems of the workers throughout the world.

Adam Buick

Newport, Mon.

Editorial: Kinnock's Tanzanian illusion (1985)

Editorial from the September 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

You can always test the authenticity of those who claim to be socialists by asking for a definition of socialism. For example, a "socialist" who tells you that the Russian Empire, where independent trade unions are illegal and criticism of the government leads to imprisonment, is an example of socialism in action clearly knows as much about the subject as the Duke of Edinburgh does about living in a slum. Likewise, anyone who says that Labour governments have run socialism are soon answered by a Labour Party chairman who stated that “Never has any previous government done so much in so short a time to make modem capitalism work" (Douglas Houghton, The Times, 25 April 1967).

In July Neil Kinnock visited Africa, ostensibly to show his concern for those dying as a consequence of the world capitalist system which he and his party perpetuate. While there he paid a visit to the so-called socialist nation of Tanzania, presided over by Julius Nyerere. If we are to believe Martin Kettle's Guardian report of Kinnock's trip ("Kinnock counts himself as a Nyerere fan", 26 July 1985), the Labour leader was most impressed by the Tanzanian effort to create "socialism in one country". What. then, can we learn from this "socialism" ?

In 1967 the Arusha Declaration of Socialist Reconstruction initiated Nyerere"s policy of ujamaa. Stripped of its ideological pretensions, this policy is based on the assumption that state regulation of industry and agriculture will lead to prosperity for all the people. In short, it is a policy for state capitalism. At the time of the Arusha Declaration Tanzania’s most profitable export was sisal. 230,000 tonnes of which were sold annually. In 1984 a mere 47,000 tonnes were exported, largely because of the state s economic mismanagement of sisal production. Although there is no natural or technological reason for the decline in sisal production, profits are falling because strict capitalist standards of efficient exploitation have not been adopted by the state-run Tanzanian Sisal Authority (TSA). In response to this Nyerere. who is due to retire as President in November, has ordered the beginning of a process of privatisation of the sisal estates. By returning them to private capitalist ownership and control he and his government hope to increase profits. So, after a recent visit to the sisal-growing Tanga region of his country. Nyerere ordered the TSA to declare that it will sell off twelve of its thirty-nine estates to private investors within the next year. Shortly before this the state- controlled Morogoro Oilseed Processing Company (Moproco) was informed by the government that its most profitable assets were to be sold off to private investors. Nyerere insists that all of this is in line with the ujamaa policy: "ujamaa is here to stay" he stated in a recent speech (reported in Concord - a Nigerian publication - 13 June 1985). But at the same time Nyerere"s party, the Chama Cha Mapinduzi. is advocating the policy of tujisahihishe which is based on the assumption that “socialism" must learn from the economic methods of Western capitalism.

Let us take a look at what it is that has impressed Kinnock about Tanzania. Clearly, it is not a socialist society. Apart from the fact that socialism cannot under any circumstances exist in one country, there is nothing about the Tanzanian economy which distinguishes it from capitalism. Production is for profit; workers receive wages which are less than the value of what they produce; the state exists in order to regulate the profit system; access to goods and services is determined by how much money people possess. Tanzania can be characterised as a state-capitalist country — a nation in which the main productive forces have been nationalised.

Kinnock does not understand the difference between state ownership (capitalism) and common ownership (socialism) and therefore he is "a Nyerere fan". But. in the light of recent economic developments in Tanzania, there is reason to believe that Margaret Thatcher might be joining Kinnock in the fan club. After all. what can be more acceptable to Thatcher's outlook than the transfer of centralised state ownership to private ownership? Is not Nyerere"s policy in relation to Moproco and TSA not a Tanzanian version of Thatcher s policy for British Telecom and Britoil?

If Kinnock is a fan of such policies in Africa may we assume that a future Labour government led by him would do the same in Britain privatise the unprofitable NCB, perhaps? The hard fact for partisans of the conflict between state capitalism and private capitalism is that neither offers any alternative to the problems generated by a society which produces for profit rather than need. Some private-capitalist countries will nationalise industries when it is profitable to do so (that is why nationalisation in Britain was initiated by avowedly capitalist parties) and some state-capitalist countries will privatise, as Tanzania is doing now. None of this has anything to do with socialism, which will only be established when workers get rid of both private and state capitalism. For Neil Kinnock to help spread the illusion that there is socialism in Tanzania is proof either of his political ignorance or his dishonesty; whichever it is, we can be sure how far to trust him when he preaches to workers about socialism.

The Enemy on the Left! - New Statesman (1973)

From the March 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

A regular column dealing with the antics of those who call themselves socialist but in practice do nothing but harm to the cause.

Last month this column dealt with Tribune but that other fraudulent socialist paper, the New Statesman is of course just as guilty of these attempts (often all too successful) to con the working class out of their votes. I well remember in the '64 election, reading out at an SPGB meeting a leading article from that paper which actually went through the various issues and could not avoid showing that there was not a pin to choose even between the promises of Tory and Labour. But you should turn out the Tories because Wilson is such a good chap! You may find it difficult to credit that an "intellectual" paper could be so pathetic. And ironically, the same paper now tells its readers that Wilson pollutes the political atmosphere! It takes an "intellectual" rather a long time to spot a blinding glimpse of the obvious. But I wanted to deal with its attitude to democracy (which is an essential facet of Socialism). They recently ran an article on Kaunda's one-party state in Zambia. Now it is clear to the meanest intelligence that a one-party state us just a euphemism for a dictatorial tyranny. For it means that anyone who wishes to oppose the government (or is even suspected of such ideas) finds himself not in Parliament, not even on the hustings, but in a gaol, or a concentration camp, or cemetery. This is true whether the one-party is white Nazis or black Kaunda-ists.

Just to underline this the Guardian reported some time ago that the "socialist" Kaunda had taken to ending his meetings with a ringing slogan: "One State! One Zambia!" Consciously or otherwise taking a leaf out of Hitler's book, he might as well amend that to "Ein Volk! Ein Reich! Ein Kaunda!" But the point here is that you might think that the NS article was a denunciation of dictatorship. What a hope! The writer was their "Africa expert", the same John Hatch who used to defend in the same NS the régime of that even worse black Hitler, Nkrumah. The article was an apologia from beginning to end. And to hell with those who rot in tyrants' gaols. These inverted racialists scream for "One Man, one vote" in South Africa or Rhodesia. Quite right, too. Why shouldn't blacks have votes> But when Kaunda or Nyerere, these pseudo-socialist darlings of the lefties, effectively decree "All blacks, no votes!" (for what is a vote without a choice?), the lefties organise no demos, break no embassy windows (not that emotional outbursts of that nature are any use, of course). They really are inverted racialists who say that black subjects of leaders like Kaunda whom lefties have spent their lives arse-licking are not fit for votes.

L. E. Weidberg