ZIMBABWE AND THE WORLD
By ‘perspectives’ we mean an understanding of the most likely economic and political developments ahead, internationally and nationally. Without clear perspectives, the working class cannot he prepared for its historical task of taking power and making an end to dictatorship, poverty, and ignorance.
But the task of working out perspectives is not simple. Government ‘experts’ and the capitalists themselves do not understand the processes at work. They grope in the dark, making big mistakes.
We only have to think of the Zimbabwe government’s ‘expert’, Riddell, who predicted in the Transitional National Plan for 1982-85 that the Zimbabwe economy would grow by 8% per year in this period—a total of over 24%. ln fact, the economy declined by 2,5% in this period!
As a Ziana correspondent, Ruth Weiss, has admitted, there is a “short-term view of everything giving rise alternatively to euphoria and pessimism with bewildering rapidity”, (Guardian, 23 August 1985)
Looking at developments in society without using the method of Marxism, events may seem completely confused and unpredictable.
For the working class, the method of Marxism is essential in developing the necessary understanding of events. Marxism is sometimes called the ‘science of perspectives’. It gathers together the most conscious and disciplined strugglers, and equips them to mobilise the mass of the workers for the task of social transformation.
Even the most thorough perspectives, of course, cannot predict every detail and every turn ahead. But perspectives can give us a grasp of the underlying processes at work in society. This can prepare the workers for sudden changes, and enable them to cope with new situations.
Through working out the perspectives, the conscious activists become able to explain correctly the tasks of the movement at every stage of the struggle. In this process they can win the confidence of the mass of workers, and make clear the shortcoming of every political current in the movement that opposes Marxism.
Only in this way can Marxism be built into a mass force to transform society.
The perspectives for every country today have to start from an understanding of the world situation.
A problem for Zimbabweans coming to an understanding of the perspectives for their country is the limited amount of information available about what is happening in the world. This leads to a widespread feeling of isolation from developments internationally, and difficulties in understanding how Zimbabwe is affected by these developments.
But there can be no escape from the need for a disciplined internationalist approach to the future of Zimbabwe and the struggles of the workers and youth.
The economy of every capitalist country has become integrated into a single world economy. It is now impossible for any country to withdraw from the world market—no country can possibly be self-sufficient.
This integration is most advanced in the developed capitalist countries, but also dominates political life in the former colonial world.
Landlocked
That Zimbabwe is landlocked is frequently remarked on. What is the importance of this? That Zimbabwe needs access to the sea—in order to conduct overseas trade. Exports and imports in fact make up about one quarter of the total annual value of production in Zimbabwe. Almost all spheres of production rely on some imported components, and therefore depend on the foreign currency earnings provided by exports.
Zimbabwe’s exports, presently passing through South Africa’s ports, are bound for American steel mills or EEC factories—and in return Zimbabwe’s imports of machinery, etc come from the same areas. Economically and politically it is locked into capitalist finance and trading relations as a former colony and an exploited subordinate.
Developments in world capitalism affect the Zimbabwean economy and, through that, the character of political developments. The present decline in world commodity prices, for example, cuts the country’s export earnings and, through that, stifles economic growth. The government is involved in decisions about who will suffer the consequences—the capitalists or the working masses.
The present world market was developed very largely during the great upswing of world capitalism after the Second World War. In the advanced countries – though not in the Third World – capitalism during this period seemed to have solved the crisis which had ravaged it during the 1920s and 1930s. Through the power of their organisations, workers were able to win concessions from the capitalists and to secure better wages and higher living standards than they had ever enjoyed before.
The world market is dominated by the giant multinational companies of the advanced capitalist countries, who after 1950 not only expanded production to a higher level than ever before in their rush for profits, but concentrated the ownership of production into fewer and fewer hands.
The world crisis of capitalism
Today—as even the Herald and the Chronicle cannot hide from the workers—the international expansion of capitalism has clearly come to an end. In every country, the system has entered a period of small upturns and bigger downturns. Growth has slowed down to a snail’s pace even in the advanced countries. In the underdeveloped countries, terrible burdens are being placed on the mass of the people.
The causes of the post-War upswing of world capitalism and of its present terminal crisis, are explained more fully in other Marxist material. (See, for example, South Africa’s Impending Socialist Revolution, Chapter 3).
But the fundamental reason lies in capitalism’s inherent contradictions. Private ownership of the means of production, and the rise of the nation-state, played a progressive role historically in developing production far beyond the limits previously attainable. Now private ownership and the nation-state have become obstacles to the development of the productive forces (machinery, labour, etc) and to the development of science and technology.
The key to the development of the productive farces, in the modern world, is new investment. But today, even in the advanced capitalist countries, and even in times of ‘boom’, rather than expansion of productive capacity taking place, only 80% of existing productive capacity is being used.
Capitalist production is based on profit, derived from the value of goods produced by the working-class over and above what they are paid in wages—surplus-value, in short. The motor of production is not social need, but the competitive search for profit by private owners, through producing and selling more cheaply than their rivals. In the modern epoch the form this takes is the clash of the giant monopolies and rival imperialist powers to carve up and recarve the world market among themselves.
On the one hand, capitalism creates a tendency towards the absolute expansion of the capacity to produce commodities; but on the other hand this expansion is checked by the relative limit placed on the buying power of the working class in order to maximise profit.
The ultimate basis of the world market is the purchasing power in the hands of consumers—who, fundamentally, are the working class. But this is, of necessity, less than the total value of production. Capitalism, in other words, has an inherent tendency towards ‘over-production’—not production in excess of the desperate needs of people for more goods and services in order to survive, but in excess of their ability to pay.
Post-war boom
In the post-war boom, through the freeing of trade between nations, the development of new methods of production, opening of new markets, the massive expansion of credit and state deficit-financing, super-exploitation of the Third World, etc, the advanced capitalist countries overcame these inherent limits for a period—but only to create bigger problems and contradictions which are now coming home to roost.
Because the limits are now again asserting themselves, and it is increasingly difficult for the capitalists to produce and sell at a profit, the spiral of expansion has begun to turn into its opposite. In trying to restore profitability, the capitalists close factories, throw workers out of jobs, and attack their living standards. Whatever the capitalists gain from this in preserved or restored profits, the system loses—because all this serves to cut the market and worsen the crisis.
“Austerity” policies by capitalists and their governments thus make matters worse—while attempts to restimulate the economy (which worked during the period of post-War boom) lead to rapidly rising prices of goods rather than sustained new development of the market.
On a capitalist basis, there is no way out of the crisis.
As the crisis bites, cut-throat rivalry among the big capitalist powers intensifies. In place of the former freeing of trade, each capitalist power looks for ways to ‘protect’ its home market against ‘foreign competition’ by putting up obstacles to imports—but this serves to cut the market further. Direct or disguised policies of this kind by the imperialist powers hit particularly at “Third World’ countries.
The capitalist class internationally is putting less and less investment into new production and therefore new jobs. Instead they are using their wealth to buy each other out; or to gamble for a quick profit in non-productive ‘investment’ such as property, stocks and shares, currency speculation, etc.
Third World commodity prices are driven down, at huge cost to their economies, by the monopoly power of capitalists wanting cheaper raw materials to increase their profits.
Everywhere, the capitalist class is becoming increasingly parasitic on society—while tens of millions are unemployed even in advanced capitalist countries, and hundreds of millions in the former colonial world face the threat of starvation.
It is clear that capitalism is ripe for being overthrown and replaced by a higher, more developed form of society, in which production is organised to serve the needs of the producers. We are living in the period of world revolution—of the international transition from capitalism to socialism; from the system of private ownership dominated by the multinational companies to a system of planned production under the democratic ownership and control of the mass of working people.
In the advanced capitalist countries after the Second World War the massive upswing of capitalism led to relative class peace. Today, the attacks of the capitalist class are pushing workers into struggle in defence of their jobs, wages, and rights. The capitalists, even in the ‘democratic’ countries, are resorting to harsher and harsher methods of control.
During the post-war boom in these countries a leadership arose in the workers’ organisations which maintained, along with the capitalists themselves, that the contradictions of capitalism had been ironed out and that it could provide better living standards for working people indefinitely into the future. These leaders made comfortable careers for themselves, living in privilege, and isolated from the mass of workers.
Today this reformist leadership is an increasing obstacle for the working class in solving its problems. Capitalism offers no way out. Elected to form a government, and failing to break with capitalism, these workers’ leaders carry through not reforms, but counter-reforms. In opposition some preach ‘socialism’ — but when they come into government carry out the policies demanded by the capitalists, and abandon their promises to the workers. This is the inevitable consequence of their unwillingness to lead a struggle to break decisively the power of the monopolies and overthrow capitalism.
In every advanced capitalist country the workers’ movement has enormous strength. But to solve the problems facing the masses what is required is a leadership armed with a programme for fighting back against the capitalist class, overturning capitalism, and placing the working class in power. For this, the perspectives and methods of Marxism are essential as a scientific guide to action.
Internationally, the forces of Marxism are still very weak. But in a number of advanced capitalist countries these small forces are already beginning to place their stamp on events—notably the supporters of the Militant newspaper in Britain. On the basis of workers’ experience of the crisis, these forces will grow by leaps and bounds.
The perspectives for the advanced capitalist countries are shaped, on the one hand, by the remorseless unfolding of the crisis and, on the other, by the struggle of the working class to reclaim control of its trade union and political organisations and transform them, on the basis of Marxism, into instruments for taking power.
This would open the way to the socialist reorganisation of production, genuine democracy, and a society of plenty.
The former colonial world
All the contradictions of capitalism are a hundred times more acute in the former colonial countries.
There is a cruel contradiction between the enormous natural resources that are available to improve the lives of the people, and the totally inadequate development of these resources. Plundered by the capitalists, these countries are developed just enough to allow them to make a contribution to capitalist wealth in Europe, Japan, and the United States, by exporting a few types of raw materials.
In the 1950s leaders such as Nkrumah preached the idea that once political power had been achieved, everything would be possible. “Seek first the political kingdom”, he said.
But political independence has not brought about the economic and social development hoped for by the nationalist leaders. Instead, the peasant and worker masses have remained at the mercy of the world market dominated by the imperialist powers.
In fact, they are suffering even greater impoverishment in the present period of capitalist decline, as the prices of their exports are forced down by the imperialist monopolies, and the prices of their imports (mainly manufactured products) are pushed up.
ln Africa, the capitalist system is at its most rotten. Africa is the only continent now facing a drop in food production. Throughout the 1980s it is predicted that, on average, there will be no economic growth at all, despite increasing population.
Millions of people live permanently on the brink of starvation. At the same time the capitalists and state officials line their pockets with aid and state funds, and with the wealth produced by the workers.
The only way to break out of colonial poverty is by developing modern industry. This alone can end the dependence of these countries on a few exports, whose prices are controlled by the capitalist giants.
But the ruling elites in these countries are completely parasitic. Under capitalism, in a world market controlled by imperialism, they cannot carve out new markets for the development of production on a national basis.
Within the limits of capitalism, they cannot carry out any of the basic democratic tasks that are necessary for the development of their countries: providing the peasant masses with land and state assistance; unifying the nation; developing industry; establishing political democracy, etc.
Africa and its peoples were split up by the colonial powers on purely arbitrary lines, leaving a terrible legacy of ‘balkanisation’ (the creation of small conflicting states). Because of the general lack of national development, tribal loyalties remain strong within these states. On a capitalist basis, there is no resolution to these problems.
One-party dictatorships
Finding that reform is impossible within stagnant capitalist economies, leaders of African states defend themselves against the pressure of the masses by suppressing democratic rights. They have instituted one-party dictatorships, many of which in turn have been overthrown by military coups. The civilian or military dictatorships have used the most savage means to keep themselves in power. Yet so clear are the revolutionary demands of the masses that even dictators basing themselves on capitalism sometimes call themselves ‘socialist’!
Often these regimes protest against the capitalist market system, because it is dominated by the imperialists and out of their control. But they are totally incapable of mobilising the mass of the workers and peasants to break the grip of imperialism over their countries.
The capitalist class of all countries has a vested interest in the continued exploitation and oppression of the colonial peoples. The multinational companies as well as the ‘national’ capitalist class in each country are united against the struggles of the masses. They are totally opposed to the struggle of the workers and peasants for genuine democracy, which would spell an end to their power.
This means that the struggle for democracy and social development must break out of national boundaries to succeed fully. It has to be linked to the struggles of working people in other countries, and particularly those of the advanced capitalist countries, which dominate the world economy.
Tasks
This process was first outlined by Trotsky over 80 years ago, in explaining the tasks of the Russian Revolution. We can sum up his main conclusions as follows:
- In underdeveloped countries the capitalist class is incapable of carrying through the democratic tasks, but, against the struggle of the masses, will ally itself with all the reactionary forces.
- To carry out the tasks of national liberation and democracy the working class needs to lead the oppressed masses in a struggle to take state power into its own hands—and, in power, will be forced to tackle also the socialist tasks of overthrowing the capitalist system even while completing the democratic tasks.
- Because capitalism is an international system, the workers’ struggle is of necessity an international struggle, and needs to be based on the united organisation of the workers in different countries.
In 1917, the Russian Revolution was a confirmation of Trotsky’s perspectives. In a backward country, a ‘weak link’ in the capitalist chain, the Russian working class came to power and established a workers’ state with control over the key sectors of the economy.
Following this, workers struggled to take power in the more developed countries in Europe. But, with the defeat of revolution after revolution, the Russian revolution was isolated. In the struggle over scarce economic resources, those who staffed the state machine had a crucial advantage. A state bureaucracy grew, headed by Stalin, carrying out a bloody political counter-revolution in which all elements of workers’ control of society were destroyed.
Stalin, as the representative of the Russian bureaucracy, preached the false idea that socialism could be built in one country. This was the bureaucracy’s way of making clear that they were not interested in world revolution. Instead, more and more, they have done everything possible to make peace with capitalism and to sabotage healthy revolutions.
In spite of this, economic development in the Soviet Union has been far more rapid than under capitalism. State ownership and central planning of production made it possible to develop industry and largely eliminate poverty in contrast with the limited possibility of reform under capitalism.
But the period of rapid growth in the Soviet Union is now at an end. Economic growth there is no longer a question of laying down basic infrastructure and industries, but of developing a complex modern economy.
With the complete absence of workers’ democracy, corruption, mismanagement, abuse and incompetence among the middle and top officials has led to a general seize-up of the productive forces.
In the Soviet Union, the growth of industria1 output during 1981-85 had slowed down to less than half the rate of 1971-75—in spite of lengthening queues for food, housing and many other essential goods.
The degeneration of the Russian Revolution, accompanied at first by the failure, and subsequently by conscious Stalinist derailing, of workers’ revolution in other countries, delayed the world revolution for a whole epoch. The forces of Marxism were defeated by Stalinism, and reduced eventually to tiny handfuls of people.
In the advanced capitalist countries the post-War boom contributed further to the delay of revolution. But in the colonial and former colonial world the masses could not wait either on the re-mergence of Marxist leadership, or for the socialist revolution in the advanced capitalist countries. The terrible burdens imposed by parasitic capitalism and reactionary landlordism weighed them down too heavily.
Huge Struggles
Since the Second World War huge struggles have erupted throughout the colonial world against imperialism, landlordism and capitalism, for national independence and democracy. Capitalism has been over-thrown in a number of countries: in China, Cuba, Vietnam, for example—and in Africa in Ethiopia, Angola, Mozambique.
The advantages of a planned and state-owned economy have allowed many of these countries to develop, when capitalism would have continued to strangle them. Breaking with capitalism only recently, with a greater legacy of backwardness, subjected to huge external pressure, the governments of Ethiopia, Angola and Mozambique, however, find huge difficulties in uplifting the living standards of the masses.
But in none of these was the break with capitalism achieved by a working-class leadership committed to socialism and world revolution. In none has the working class secured control over its economy and state.
Instead power has been concentrated in the hands of state officials and military rulers, whose policies are aimed more and more at protecting their own privileged position. Without workers’ democracy, and with rulers whose horizons are limited by the state machine on which they rest, these are not socialist regimes.
Nevertheless, even if in a distorted way, these revolutions have confirmed Trotsky’s analysis of the colonial world. It has been possible in these countries to move forward in solving the democratic tasks (liberation from imperialism, abolition of landlordism, etc) only by breaking with capitalism. The working class does not directly hold power: nevertheless these are deformed workers’ states. (For a fuller discussion of the processes, see for example, South Africa’s Impending Socialist Revolution, Chapters 2, 4 and 5.)
But today no country can escape from pressures to integrate further with the world market. The development of the forces of production is constrained by the limits of the nation-state, even in the most populous and developed economies, capitalist or Stalinist. The resolution of the contradictions, West and East, lies in the struggle for world socialism, based on workers’ democratic rule.
Bureaucratic elites
The slow-down in growth in the Soviet Union and other more developed Stalinist states is a serious warning to those in the ‘Third world’ who look to the Soviet Union or China for political and economic assistance. The bureaucratic elites which govern these countries do not support the workers overthrowing capitalism and building workers’ democracy anywhere in the world.
Not only would this upset the deals made between them and the big capitalists, but a healthy workers’ state would threaten their own rule. It would show to the working people under Stalinist rule that there is an alternative both to capitalism and to the bureaucratic dictatorship in their countries. Thus a move for the overthrow of the bureaucracy would gain an enormous stimulus.
All of the Stalinist bureaucracies would not only oppose a workers’ revolution in Southern Africa, but even any strong measures by the existing leaders against capitalism.
As Mugabe has explained, after independence the Stalinist states told him: “Do not rush things—take your time”. The conclusion he had drawn from this advice was never to disrupt the economy, and that “nationalisation would lead to that kind of disruption”. (Financial Gazette, 1 February 1985)
In reality, the working class in the Stalinist states are facing the task of taking power from their bureaucratic rulers and building workers’ democracy—the only basis for continuing the transition to socialism. The movement of ten million Polish workers and their families in 1980-81 provided a clear indication of the political revolution that is building up throughout Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union itself.
We are living in the period of world revolution—in the advanced capitalist countries, in the Stalinist countries and in the former colonial countries. The workers’ struggle in Zimbabwe must be understood in this international framework, and led in close solidarity with the working class of other countries, who share the same socialist goals.
If the working class came to power in one of the major African countries—particularly South Africa, Nigeria or Egypt—and actively built up international support, this would open up the socialist revolution on a continental scale. It would open the way to a Pan-African Socialist Federation, linked to the socialist transformation of the world.
Zimbabwe in Southern Africa
The history of capitalism in Southern Africa confirms Trotsky’s analysis of the tasks of the working class in the colonial world (his theory of permanent or uninterrupted revolution). Arising under the shadow of British imperialism, capitalism both in South Africa and Rhodesia came late in the development of capitalism internationally. In a world market dominated by the monopolies, there was no possibility of carving out a secure market for its own regional development.
Capitalist development in South Africa had to be based on a remorseless cheap labour policy of national oppression and migrant labour, sustained by dictatorship viciously hostile to the rights of the majority, seeking to sustain and reinforce tribal division. In Rhodesia’s early development this meant forced labour on the mines, farms, and public works called ‘Chibaro’.
Politically, these dictatorships were based on the support of white landowners and capitalists, as well as the white middle class and privileged workers, who also made up the state machinery.
Just as South African capitalism has been dominated by Western imperialism, so Rhodesian capitalism developed under the shadow of South Africa. Today the gross national product of South Africa is some 80% of the whole of Southern Africa. In every aspect of the economy and communications, South Africa is overwhelmingly dominant.
About 25% of present-day Zimbabwe’s trade is with South Africa.
Historically, Rhodesia’s political development mirrored that of South African white minority rule. In fact Rhodesia avoided being included as a fifth province of South Africa in 1922 only by a few thousand white votes.
After the Second World War, reinforced by white immigration from Britain, Rhodesia’s tiny capitalist class grew in ambition, seeking, in collaboration with British imperialism, to loose the South African grip by seeking a market in the other countries of Central Africa. This was the main reason for the formation of the Central African Federation (1953-63).
But the break-up of the Federation thrust the ruling class in Rhodesia back into greater dependence on South Africa. In Malawi and Zambia, which did not have the same large numbers of white settlers, the nationalist movements pressurised British imperialism into granting them independence. ln Rhodesia, however, far from accommodating black aspirations, the white ruling class followed the South African trend—towards increased racist dictatorship by the local whites. After UDI in 1965, South African domination of the economy intensified.
To end white minority rule in Zimbabwe, and with it to smash the cheap labour system, overcome tribal divisions, end the domination of South African imperialism, and guarantee genuine democracy—what would have been necessary was a struggle of the masses, led by the working class, linked with the struggle of the South African workers, around a socialist programme. But events did not take this course.