A Treatise on Zimbabwe’s National Liberation Struggle: Some Theoretical

Problems

Dzinashe ‘Dzino’ Machingura (Cabo Del Gado, Mozambique: April-May 1978)

1) Introduction

The Zimbabwean national liberation struggle has been beset by monolithic problems
ever since the advent of African nationalism which assumed a definite form in the
mid 1950’s. These problems have hitherto arrested the full development of the
liberation struggle. Little or insignificant development has been made in terms of
concrete realisation of the basic goals of African nationalism; political power has not
been transferred to the nationalists nor have any significant compromises been
made to increase their representation and participation in organs of power and the
decision making process. The only political achievement worthy of mention that
could be directly attributed to the efforts of the African nationalists was the
entrenchment in the 1961 Constitution and the subsequent Constitution of Rhodesia
of a provision for the election of a handful of Africans (15) into Parliament. This
concession by the British Government left the political status quo intact without any
meaningful change for the Africans.

The Zimbabwe African nationalist movement has, since its inception, been
characterized by intense political inertia punctuated by a series of setbacks manifest
in the frustrated hopes of the nationalists and periodic dislocation of action
programmes. The gains that have so far materialized have been incommensurate
with the costly human and material sacrifices. The movement has also been rocked
by factional recriminations that have only served to misdirect and dissipate efforts.
Consequent on these setbacks, the nationalist movement has shown great pliability
to manipulation by imperialists, falling victim to one imperialist manoeuvre after
another, with costly and unpalatable consequences for the development of the
nationalist struggle.

It is important to grasp the characteristics of Zimbabwe’s nationalist struggle – past

and present, and its general effect on the development of the national liberation
struggle. An understanding of the fundamental weaknesses underlying the
nationalist movement and of the problems currently bedeviling Zimbabwe’s
liberation struggle can be gained from a historical analysis and outline of the
development of the national liberation struggle ever since the settler occupation in
1890.This has to be discussed against the background of a brief analysis of the
social character of Zimbabwe; the principal determinant of the nature of the struggle
to be waged to achieve victory. It is only by gaining a broad conception of the
problems of the nationalist struggle in their proper historical perspective, that a
realization of the direction in which the subjective efforts of the national liberation
struggle have to be channeled to achieve victory can be made. Indeed the awareness
creates an objective platform from which a critical, sober and scientific analysis of
the current course of the liberation struggle can be made.

The Social Character of Zimbabwean Society

Any meaningful analysis of the Zimbabwe national liberation struggle and of the
character of the nationalist movement has to be done within the context of an
analysis of the social character of colonial Zimbabwe. Such an analysis provides an
objective basis for scientific and purposive summing up of experiences that will
promote the development of the national liberation struggle along the correct
revolutionary path. Failure to grasp the social character of present day Zimbabwe
would inevitably result in the liberation movement groping in the dark and in the
dissipation of precious effort in a fruitless exercise. The social analysis of Zimbabwe
will present an objective basis for the formulation of the correct strategy and tactics
that will guide the struggle to final victory. The prosecution of the struggle without an
objective analytical base will be more of a trial and error process that will inevitably
lead the nationalist movement to staggering from blunder to blunder in search of an
elusive victory. Prospects of victory will continue to be gloomy with the goal of
liberation moving farther and farther away.

Zimbabwe was invaded and reduced to a colony in 1890 by an occupation force

organized by the arch monopolist Cecil John Rhodes. Colonial occupation was
consummated on 12th September, 1890 by the hoisting of the union jack on
Salisbury kopje of what was to become known as Fort Salisbury. Zimbabwe thus
formally became a British colony but with control of the territory falling into the
hands of Cecil John Rhodes. That fateful day marked the beginning of the political
domination, economic subservience, cultural enslavement, social degradation and
military subjection of the peace loving people of Zimbabwe by British colonialism a
phenomenon that has pervaded Zimbabwean society up to this day. These colonial
features underline Zimbabwe’s social character. It is however noteworthy that, unlike
other British colonies in Africa, Zimbabwe was a mandated colony with the British
Government maintaining only formal and nominal control over its Rhodesian colony.
Zimbabwe was mandated to the British South Africa Company (BSAC) through a
royal charter of 1899 on the basis of a fraudulently extracted Rudd Concession of
1888.

However by 1923 the British South Africa Company had begun to experience some
administrative problems and suffered serious economic setbacks. These problems
were against the background of contradictions that had developed between
monopoly capital represented by the BSAC and the emergent domestic bourgeoisie
amongst the white settler community. These developments led to the transfer of
Rhodesia’s colonial mandate from the BSAC to the white settler minority through the
Responsible Government Act of 1923. This followed a referendum in the same year
in favour of responsible government as opposed to being appended to the Union of
South Africa. Rhodesia remained with the legal status of a responsible government
until 1965 when Ian Smith’s Rhodesia Front government declared unilateral
independence on 11th November of that year. Britain’s control over her Rhodesian
colony has always been indirect. At no time did the British government exercise
direct control over Rhodesia or intervene in Rhodesia’s internal affairs despite the
presence of an entrenched clause within both the 1923 and 1961 Rhodesia
constitutions providing for the British government’s intervention in the event of the
violation of the “interests of the African people of Rhodesia”.

To all intents and purposes, Britain has ruled Zimbabwe through political surrogates
first the BSAC from 1890 to 1923 and the white settler minority after 1923. Britain
thus virtually bestowed her surrogates with all the powers and authority to rule over
Zimbabwe whilst retaining only formal and nominal control. This has practically
made the white settler minority the defacto rulers of Zimbabwe. It is therefore the
white settler minority who are perpetrating the colonization of Zimbabwe. This has
given rise to endogenous colonialism commonly referred to by the African
nationalists as “settlerism”. Technically of course we talk in terms of British
colonialism but the problem is essentially that of endogenous colonialism – the
settler factor. It is the white settler minority that indeed is the colonizing agent but of
course on behalf of and with the blessing of the British government.

Ever since 1923, and more so after 1965 the successive Rhodesian regimes have
continued to cater for British and other imperialist interests in much the same way
an independent white minority regime would have done. As far as the African people
of Zimbabwe are concerned, it is immaterial whether the minority regime oppressing
them is independent or not as it does not change their political or social status; it
does not mitigate their domination and oppression in any material way. In practical
terms therefore, in contradistinction to technical legalities, it is the white racist
settler regime that constitutes the principal enemy of the people of Zimbabwe.
Indeed it is the racist white minority regime that is the object of removal in
Zimbabwe’s national liberation struggle as it constitutes the impediment to the
attainment of the legitimate aspirations of the people of Zimbabwe.

The central aim of the British occupation force of 1890 was to subjugate Zimbabwe
and deprive its inhabitants of their political power. This was progressively realized
through innumerable acts of provocation and aggression between 1890 and 1902
and paved the way for the establishment and subsequent consolidation of colonial
power under the British South Africa Company. The consummation of this evil
colonialism saw the people of Zimbabwe become the political subjects of foreigners
in the land of their birth. Ever since that time, the African people of Zimbabwe have
been excluded from the political process in their country of birth. Decision making in
all political matters became not only the prerogative, but an exclusive preserve of the
white settler minority. The Africans had no representation whatsoever in the state’s
decision making organs from 1890 till 1961 when a provision for a token number of
Africans in the Southern Rhodesia Parliament was entrenched in the 1961
Constitution. This token concession was made to dampen the effects of the wave of
the African nationalism that was sweeping across the African continent and was
now poised to threaten white minority in Rhodesia. It is noteworthy that this
concession represented no qualitative change in the political status of the Africans.
The African people of Zimbabwe continued to suffer political domination by a
handful of white settlers who at no time exceeded 3% of the population. The white
minority maintained effective control of all the instruments of state power which
they used effectively to suppress the African people and to perpetrate their narrow
reactionary interests.

The white minority has always had and still has the vote thanks to the qualified
franchise with which they elect their representatives to parliament. The settler
minority has always had and still has a parliament that they dominate and through
which they enact, with a semblance of democracy, whatever legislation is deemed
necessary to promote their racial and economic interests, to control and restrict the
activities and movement of Africans and to check and suppress any opposition and
resistance to their rule.  They have always had and still have firmly under their control
the reactionary repressive and coercive apparatus with which to impose their
draconian laws against the will of the Africans; they have always had and still have at
their disposal an exclusively white judiciary thoroughly schooled in the philosophies
of capitalism and racism with which to confer a stamp of legality and justice on the
imprisonment, restriction, detention and execution of their opponents.

Finally, the white settler minority has always commanded and still commands a
formidable array of penal institutions including the gallows with which to incarcerate,
neutralize, dehumanize and permanently silence or eliminate African political
activists and freedom fighters in a desperate endeavour to perpetuate and entrench
their reactionary white minority rule.

It is this elaborate maze of political repression in the service of white minority

interests that has literally thwarted and suffocated the political aspirations of the
broad masses of the African people of Zimbabwe. It is no wonder therefore, that
Zimbabwean society continues to be characterized by the domination of the
overwhelming majority of the people of Zimbabwe by a handful of reactionary
minority of racist settlers. So long as the vital instruments of political power remain
vested in the hands of the reactionary white minority settlers, it is difficult to imagine
how the broad masses of the people of Zimbabwe can meaningfully become active
participants in the Zimbabwean political process. They will continue to be victims of
political domination by the racist settler minority and the political dispensation in
Zimbabwe will continue to be reflective of white minority interests that are
completely incompatible with the legitimate aspirations of the overwhelming
majority of the people of Zimbabwe.
The economic subservience of the people of Zimbabwe

Among other strategic considerations, the desire to colonise Zimbabwe was

primarily motivated by the craving to exploit the rich mineral wealth of Zimbabwe. It
was Rhodes’s dream of another Rand in the heartland of Rhodesia which drove him
to illegitimately extort the Rudd Concession from King Lobengula in 1888. The Rudd
Concession purportedly granted him exclusive mineral rights over Zimbabwe. By the
end of the succeeding year, Rhodes had secured a mandate from the British
Government through a royal charter to dispatch an occupation force. Each member
of the invading force was promised fifteen gold claims and a vast tract of land
ranging between 3 – 5000 acres.

The desire of the British South Africa Company to exploit the mineral riches of
Zimbabwe and the enticement of white settlers through promises of gold claims and
land holdings created the economic dimension of the colonization of Zimbabwe
which underlies the social character of Zimbabwe up to this day. The revenues and
royalties from the mining industry and agricultural produce, whose history lies
embedded in the original motives of the colonial occupation of Zimbabwe, today
constitute the principal foreign exchange earners for Rhodesia. It is not an
exaggeration that the question of land in Zimbabwe and landed wealth is the hotbed
of political contradictions between the African people and the white minority settlers.

Zimbabwe’s economic destiny is wholly controlled by the white minority settlers with
the lion’s share falling in the ambit of international finance capital, the original
colonizers and the rest under the white domestic bourgeoisie that germinated from
the white settler occupation force. The authors of international finance capital
literally control the lifeline of Rhodesia’s economy ranging from mineral and
agricultural production to manufacturing industries, distribution centers, exchange
and control of commodity circulation, transport and communication with the
domestic bourgeoisie only playing an accessory and supplementary role in the
economy. The companies that operate both the primary and secondary industries
are basically monopolies that have pillaged and plundered Zimbabwe’s economic
wealth since 1890.
The exploitation of Zimbabwe’s wealth by the monopolies takes very crude forms
and continues with intensity with each succeeding year. Rhodesia, being essentially
an economic enclave of imperialism has most of her mineral and agricultural
produce exported raw or half-processed to the imperialist countries in order to
service, sustain and complement their secondary industries. This naturally deprives
the country of the high revenue that could be earned by exporting finished goods and
fully processed products. Furthermore, the country is forced to import not only some
of the goods she could produce locally through the promotion of local secondary
industries, but also finished goods from the country’s raw and semi-processed
products exported to the imperialist countries.

The international monopolies are, on account of their economic might, in the

strategic position to determine, promote or retard the growth of both the primary and
secondary industries based on the primacy of their narrow economic interests that
service their parent industries in their home countries. The monopolies are also in an
excellent position to regulate the growth of the country’s economy at a pace which
enables them to eliminate competition from domestic industries. The commanding
position of international capital furthermore enables them to reap super profits from
Rhodesia and make the country economically subservient to international finance
capital. Each year, astronomic sums of money are criminally drained to their
sanctuaries in Europe and America, making the country most unjustifiably an
unwilling victim of imperialist plunder and exploitation.

The domestic bourgeoisie only dominate the scene in those sectors that are less
profitable to the international monopolies and hence only required to service and
complement international monopolist enterprises. This is especially applicable to the
agricultural and farming industries with the exception of estate and plantation
farming and extensive ranching that are in the hands of the multinationals.
Consequently, the greater proportion of the white domestic bourgeoisie is landed
and it is no surprise that the white agrarian bourgeoisie forms the backbone of white
nationalism.

The African majority are the principal victims of exploitation by both international
finance and domestic capitalists who are plundering and pillaging their national
wealth. The exploitation is further exacerbated through institutionalised racism in the
national economy that discriminates against Africans and restricts the circulation of
capital in the hands of the non-African international and domestic bourgeoisie.
Furthermore, no material or social benefits accrue to the benefit of the African
masses from the royalties and revenue collected by the state from the business
operations of international monopoly and domestic enterprises. Instead, the African
masses are further impoverished and bled white through a complex system of
innumerable forms of direct and indirect taxation. This is against the background of
the dispossession of their land, their only source of livelihood, subsistence and
dignity. Aside of the Crown land under state control, 50% of the remainder has been
misappropriated specifically for 6000 white farmers, leaving the seven million
Africans crowded in the other infertile and barren half.

The land designated for white farmers was specifically selected in order to
guarantee high yields and productivity for them. Moreover, the white farms are
adequately serviced by an efficient and elaborate network of communication
services that facilitates easy access to the urban markets. Legislation was passed to
protect the agricultural interests of the white farmers and eliminate competition from
African farmers especially with regard to the sale of their produce (Maize control Act
of 1935).

It is quite clear that the overwhelming majority of African masses are victims of
double economic domination primarily by international finance capital and
secondarily by the white domestic bourgeoisie. Both of them pillage and plunder
national wealth of the African people and cruelly exploit their labour power. The
economic interests of the African people are subordinate to those of imperialism
and the white settlers. The miserable economic plight of the African people should
be viewed against the background of the contradiction between imperialism and the
colonial and dependent countries. Ever since the settler occupation of Zimbabwe,
the economic relations in colonial Rhodesia have been characterized by economic
injustices in favour of imperialism and the white settlers with a strong bias against
the overwhelming majority of the labouring masses of the African people. As a
consequence of this economic disparity, the broad masses of the African people
tenaciously struggle on the lifeline between survival and extinction all year round.

Cultural enslavement                        
Long before the physical occupation of Zimbabwe in 1890, inroads had already been
made by the cultural agencies of western countries into Zimbabwe in the form of
missionary and exploration forays. Their primary task, as it later turned out was to
lay the preparatory groundwork to facilitate the subsequent colonisation of
Zimbabwe. They accomplished their mission through the denigration of Zimbabwe’s
African religion and the depersonalization of the indigenous African people. This was
achieved gradually by overwhelming the Africans with technical superiority and
western way of life. The “higher” cultural order that was preached by the Christian
missionaries overawed the Africans and made them feel inferior and helpless.

The school curricula provided by the missionaries was subtly calculated to cow
African masses into submission and into discarding their own socio- cultural order
encompassing their own religion, cultural traditions, social values and habits that
constituted their very personality. It is noteworthy that, whatever positive spin-offs of
western cultural influence accrued to the Africans, it was more of something
incidental than design on the part of the colonisers as in the final analysis it served
to promote western cultural norms at the expense of indigenous ones. The educated
Africans therefore served merely as agents of cultural transformation and the
entrenchment of the new socio-cultural order.

The episode of settler occupation of Zimbabwe began soon after the missionaries
had taken root among a significant section of the African population. It is little
wonder that men of cloth like Reverend Helm played a prominent role in extorting the
Rudd Concession from King Lobengula that provided the legal pretext for the
dismemberment of Zimbabwe. This is not very surprising since men of the church
had gained the confidence of the African people and acted as interpreters in all
dealings between the settler scouts and African leaders. It could be safely concluded
therefore that, the honourable men of the cloth, who came with the bible in one hand,
were an interested party in the colonization of Africa and served as the
reconnaissance personnel and the harbingers who heralded the beginning of Africa’s
colonization. As elsewhere in Africa, the church in Zimbabwe was notorious for
facilitating and conferring sanctity on colonialism. They painted the images of the
colonizers favourably depicting them as the liberators of the African people from the
forces of evil and backwardness.
The advent of colonialism saw the establishment of a host of educational and
cultural institutions by the state and the church. These institutions have a dual
function, first to train a large literate army of cheap labour to serve the international
and domestic capitalist enterprises. Secondly, they designed to educate the African
masses into submission. As already pointed out earlier on, whatever benefits
accrued to the African people were purely incidental and came about involuntarily as
a concomitant price for the realization of the grand scheme of colonialism. The
cultural offensive launched by the colonial authorities had therefore a dual function;
first serving as an essential and integral component of the capitalist economic cycle
and secondly to facilitate the perpetuation and consolidation of colonial rule.

All colonial education has hitherto been aimed at proving to the African people that
they have no history of their own to boast of; all they have is a dark past and a
precariously uncertain future. Had it not been for the colonialists who rescued them
from cultural obscurity, they would have continued to be victims of the vicissitudes
of the evil forces of nature that doomed them to inevitable extinction. Conversely, the
history and cultural background of the colonialists is extolled and the colonisers
themselves favourably painted as condescending saviors. Innumerable and
persistent campaigns have been launched to bring about the cultural assimilation of
the African people into the ambit of western civilisation. They strive to do this
through constantly discrediting, discouraging and pooh-poohing the cultural
traditions, practices and all social values and habits of the African people,
irrespective of whether or not they have a progressive social content. This is
tantamount to training their cultural guns at the very foundation of African being and
personality.

The sole criterion for all cultural and social values is given as Western standards
regardless of the numerous flaws and social ills prevalent in western society
manifest in moral decadence. There is incontestable evidence that the moral
decadence and the concomitant social ills of capitalism highlight a politically
reactionary society founded on economic injustice. This is a society replete with
retrograde and decadent social and moral values devoid of all progressive social
content, which the African masses are taught to espouse and emulate. All liberal and
philanthropic talk about the well-being of the people, “human rights”, “benevolent
societies”, etc is nothing more than spurious talk calculated to dupe the African
masses into cultural submission. If one casts a quick glance at the Rhodesian
society, social disparity and polarisation between urban and rural areas becomes
evident at once; the cities with their advanced and better social amenities and the
countryside with its social stagnation. The imbalance evident in the concentration of
schools, hospitals etc. for Africans in the urban areas and the scarcity of
corresponding institutions in the countryside where the majority of the Africans, live
reflects the desire by the capitalists, completely regardless of humanitarian
consideration, to adequately service their economic enterprises so as to reap higher
profits in contradistinction to uplifting the masses of the African people.

Basically the desire to apprentice the Africans to western civilization is calculated to

lead to depersonalisation of the Africans and to gradual loss of cultural identity
which makes them amenable to foreign domination. It is the cultural enslavement of
the Africans that forms the foundation stone for the political and economic edifice of
settler domination in Rhodesia.

Social degradation of the African people

Racism permeates the political and socio-economic fabric of Rhodesian society. It

has been used as an instrument for the social degradation of the African people
relegating them to a position of inferiority in the land of their birth. Furthermore, it
has served as an economic lever mollifying the contradiction between both
international and domestic bourgeoisie on the one hand and the white workers on
the other. The exploitation of the white workers is mitigated and partially set off by
the compensation given to them in the form of higher salaries reaped from the super
exploitation of masses of the black labouring people who get miserable and meager
wages as remuneration for their indefatigable services to the entrepreneurs. The
white workers constitute a kind of labour aristocracy. The economic advantages that
accrue to them, thanks to racism, push them together with the white intellectuals
and the petty bourgeoisie onto the pole of the ruling classes thereby pitting them
against the overwhelming majority of the masses of the black people. The white
workers appear to have no alternative but to lend political support to the Rhodesian
national bourgeoisie that constitute the ruling class in return for the security of the
affluent standard of living they enjoy.
The social degradation of masses of the African people finds concrete expression in
the devaluation of their human worth that is manifest in their subordinate role in
political, economic and cultural spheres. The Africans have been reduced to mere
objects of social ridicule. The phony concepts of white supremacy and black
inferiority have subjected the entire black population of Rhodesia to untold social
indignities since advent of settler occupation. The Africans have become unwilling
victims of white supremacy in a number of ways.

First, besides the segregation of all educational institutions save the University of
Rhodesia, the racist white settler minority have devised an inferior, cumbersome and
backward system of education especially designed to retard the blacks mentally and
to cultivate servility of the African school child. A department of African education is
dedicated to this exclusive purpose despite having a single ministry of education
which could easily cater for the same standard of education for both blacks and
whites. This discrimination against Africans and their low quality of education at
primary and secondary levels gives their white counterparts an unfair advantage at
institutions of higher learning where blacks and whites share the same educational
system and standards. It therefore requires considerably greater effort on the part of
the black student to catch up and march in step with their fellow white students, this
not arising from inherent mental inferiority but from a deliberately downgraded
educational background.

Besides the general inferiority of African education, the number of educational

institutions and corresponding facilities, teacher training and technical colleges set
aside for the Africans is severely limited catering only for an insignificant proportion
of the African population in stark contrast to the universal and compulsory education
for whites up to secondary level. The number of secondary schools for whites more
than trebles that for Africans despite the fact that whites constitute less than 3% of
the population.

This disparity and inequality applies to other social fields as well. For instance, the
size, quality and location of African residential areas in the urban areas is hardly
comparable to those for whites. The so-called African townships comprise nothing
more than dinghy little hovels and overcrowded hostels that are the polar opposites
of the affluent white suburbs. African housing averages two rooms for marriage
quarters and five occupants per single male hostel room. These living quarters are
inadequately furnished lacking basic modern amenities and facilities such as
adequate lighting, cooking, heating, laundry, toilet facilities and telephone services
which abound lavishly in the white suburbs. Moreover, the African townships that are
in essence more of slums are poorly located with respect to sanitation being
situated adjacent to industrial area where industrial and noise pollution overburdens
them.

The condition of social amenities and recreational facilities for the African people
are just pathetic, being reflective of the racial segregation of sporting and
recreational facilities with those for whites getting the lion’s share from the national
cake. Health facilities are similarly segregated as are cemeteries with only a handful
of state hospitals confined to the urban centers. Holiday facilities and resorts, hotels,
motels and restaurants are likewise segregated along racial lines with the Africans,
the indigenous people of the land, occupying the place of underdogs.

It is this humiliating and dehumanizing social degradation of the blacks, a permanent

feature of life in present day Rhodesia that constitutes the phenomenal expression
of the political, economic and cultural domination and oppression of the African
people in Rhodesia.

Military subjection of the African people

The subjugation of Zimbabwe by British colonialism in 1890 was imposed by force

of arms and duly resisted by the heroic people of Zimbabwe. It is therefore clear that
from the very inception of Zimbabwe’s colonisation, there was an imperative need
for setting up and maintaining a coercive state apparatus without which colonial rule
would have been vulnerable to overthrow by the embittered African people. Ever
since that time, successive Rhodesian minority regimes have paid great attention to
the creation of a formidable military machine as the basic guarantee of invincibility in
the face of resistance against their rule from the African people. Consequently, for
the past 88 years, the African people have been and are still living under military
control and subjection. The Rhodesian army has been ostensibly projected as a
security force poised to ward off external aggression.  In reality it was created as a
strategic force braced against African resistance to racist white minority rule. Its
sole purpose has and still is the perpetration of racist white minority rule through the
brutal suppression of the broad masses of the black people. It is inconceivable,
given the geo-political situation prevailing in southern Africa prior to 1960, to imagine
that the threat of external aggression prompted successive racist white minority
Rhodesian governments into building and expanding the Rhodesian army. The real
material threat to white minority rule came from black opposition to their
domination.

Before the emergence of African nationalism, the Rhodesian terrorist army, though
on permanent military alert against possible civil disobedience by African masses,
remained largely in the background with the notorious Rhodesian terrorist police
force in the forefront of repressing Africans. However with the escalation of racial
conflict engendered by African demands for majority rule and self-determination, the
Rhodesian terrorist army began to play an increasingly prominent role in the
suppression of black revolt. The onus of enforcing law and order today now rests
largely with the Rhodesian terrorist army with the police also being groomed for
military action through its transformation into a paramilitary force close behind its
heels.

In the face of increasing repression by the Rhodesian terrorist army, Rhodesia has to
all intents and purposes been literally transformed into a military dictatorship, from
being a national detention camp for Africans during the peak of African nationalism
to a national concentration camp during the current peak of the national liberation
war. Rhodesia has developed from the permanent state of emergency of the days of
African nationalism to martial law at the peak of the liberation struggle characterized
by courts martial and rigid enforcement of strict day and night curfews with the
indiscriminate butcher of black civilians being the order of the day.

It is noteworthy that in all its repressive operations, the Rhodesian terrorist army
operates above and independently of the Rhodesian draconian laws that in
themselves leave little room for peace for the African people. The Rhodesian
terrorist army demonstrably has no need for a cloak of legality and justice in its
repressive operations. With all their democratic rights whittled away and being under
constant molestation and harassment and with the threat of torture and murder by
the so-called security forces being a daily reality, Rhodesia has, in so far as the
African people are concerned, to all intents and purposes been transformed to a hell
on earth for black people.

Such is the social character of Zimbabwe: political domination, economic

subservience, cultural enslavement, social degradation and military subjugation of
the African people by the racist white minority settlers. This has been the daily order
of life in Rhodesia since the advent of colonialism in 1890. It is these inhuman
circumstances that have awakened national consciousness of the African people
and heightened their political awareness. This national and political consciousness
has now been transformed into a formidable material force with which to overthrow
national oppression and restore the democratic rights of the people of Zimbabwe
and pave the way for the creation of a new Zimbabwe free from oppression and
exploitation of man by man and founded on economic justice and social security for
all.

2) A brief historical outline of the development of the national liberation struggle in

Zimbabwe

The development of the national liberation struggle in Zimbabwe stretches from the
wars of resistance of the 1890’s to the current national liberation war in the late
1970s. For convenience of analysis the whole period may be broken into four major
phases as follows:

1890 to 1902  –  armed resistance against the colonial invaders

1902 to 1945 –  period of relative lull in the struggle against colonialism and the
phase of consolidation of colonial rule in Zimbabwe

1945 to 1970  –  reformist nationalism stretching from passive reformism of  1945

to 1956 through active reformism of 1957 – 65 to militant reformism of 1966  –
1970

1970 onwards – militant nationalism characterized by the armed national liberation

struggle and forging closer links with the progressive international community.
The tracing of the historical development of the Zimbabwe national liberation
struggle which follows is largely a political evaluation rather than a historical
analysis of the development of the national liberation struggle. This is largely on
account of the absence of relevant authoritative reference material at the time of
writing. Rather than being descriptive and explanatory the account only serves to
outline the development of the national liberation struggle with special reference to
the circumstances surrounding the emergence of African nationalism in Zimbabwe
which is the subject of this treatise. The brief revisiting of the political developments
prior to the emergence of African nationalism is especially important as it facilitates
a full appreciation of the essence of African nationalism in Zimbabwe and
concomitantly, the sources of its weaknesses. The brief historical outline of the
development of the national liberation struggle has been starved of factual detail and
consequently cannot serve as a standard historical account of the national liberation
struggle. However, there is a strong contention that it lies within the broad
framework of the historical development of the national liberation struggle and
therefore, the evaluation of the political development may be safely taken as valid.

National Resistance: 1890 – 1902

Cecil John Rhodes secured a British Royal Charter on the basis of the Rudd
Concession of 1888 that was illegitimately extorted from King Lobengula which
granted him nominal possession of the present day Rhodesia. The Charter enabled
him to set up his British South Africa company which invaded Zimbabwe in 1890.
The Rudd Concession had ostensibly granted Rhodes only mineral rights over
Lobengula’s political domain as distinct from territorial rights over the whole of
Zimbabwe. However the nature of the invasion force organized by Rhodes
euphemistically dubbed the “pioneer column” transcended the limits and provisions
of the Rudd Concession. It was not surprising therefore, that as soon as the pioneer
column set foot in Zimbabwe clashes began with the local inhabitants especially the
Shonas as the invasion force had deliberately skirted Matebeleland to avoid a
premature clash with the dreaded King Lobengula’s Amajaha. Every one of the
invasion force, the so-called pioneer column was promised fifteen gold claims and
vast land holdings of between 3 – 5000 acres. This naturally set the invasion force
on a collision course with the local inhabitants from the very beginning. Rhodes’s
grandiose promises to the settlers could certainly not materialize without
provocation of the local inhabitants and clashes with them.

As soon as the settlers got to their respective destinations, they began setting up an
administrative apparatus at once and carved out vast tracts of land for themselves
through forcible eviction of the Africans. They went on to reserve land for
prospecting minerals and press-ganged Africans into unpaid labour contracts. They
systematically subverted and undermined traditional authority and institutions with
the ultimate aim of controlling the black population.

The situation was further aggravated by the institutionalisation of various measures

designed to induce the employment of Africans by the settlers. All these
provocations coupled with innumerable acts of aggression were completely
incompatible with the wishes and aspirations of the local inhabitants who quickly
reached the end of their forbearance and braced themselves for an all-out struggle
against the occupying force. This was for the Africans a just struggle as the
provocative activities of the settler forces had undermined the traditional social
order, trampled underfoot their sovereign rights and whittled away their basic
freedoms and made them slaves in the land of their birth.

It is therefore not surprising to see that the settler occupation of Zimbabwe

provoking the bitter resistance of the people of Zimbabwe that took armed form,
beginning as isolated incidents in 1890 and gathering momentum and growing in
proportions that culminated in the well-chronicled Wars of Resistance of 1893 and
1896. The heroic resistance against heavily armed settler forces demonstrated the
ruthless determination of the African people of Zimbabwe to ward off settler
occupation, regain their freedom, recover land that had been robbed and reassert
their right to self-determination and national sovereignty.

The Wars of Resistance by the people of Zimbabwe are, in the light of the
overwhelming odds against them eloquent examples of supreme courage and heroic
and sublime sacrifice. The settlers had a well organised conventional force that was
armed to the teeth with modern and superior weapons that included cannons and
heavy machine guns pitted against poorly organised indigenous forces equipped
with only spears, bows and arrows.
Overwhelmed by superior technology and well organised settler forces, with a sense
of purpose and everything to lose, the people of Zimbabwe stood little chance of
defeating the settler aggressors. However, their sublime heroism and relentless
determination to resist settler occupation wrote glorious pages of valour and
ingenuity in the annals of Zimbabwe’s history. Their supreme sacrifices are a shining
example to all Zimbabweans and continue to inspire all Zimbabwean freedom
fighters of today’s national liberation war.

Despite all the heroic determination to drive off the settler invaders, the people of
Zimbabwe were defeated but however they only regarded the defeat as temporary,
with the resistance continuing in other forms. They could not reconcile themselves
to the defeat as final and sealing the fate of Zimbabweans forever and accordingly
pledged that future generations would eventually re-conquer the fatherland and once
again become masters of their own destiny.

The main reasons for the defeat of the African people lay on the one hand, in the
superiority of the technology and organisation and military art of the of the settler
forces and in disunity, poor organisation, absence of central direction and command
of the resistance and the inferiority of armaments and fighting methods of the local
inhabitants on the other. It took up to about 1902 for the settler forces to eliminate
the last pockets of resistance and fully assert their authority over the local
inhabitants. After the crumbling of their resistance, the people of Zimbabwe were left
with no option but to submit to the colonial authority. It is however important to note
that total submission in the form of harmonious cooperation with the settler
authorities was long drawn and gradual, varying according to areas. It is
incontrovertible that even after the military defeat of the African people; generalised
hostility against colonial authority continued to be widespread and sometimes took
the form on non-cooperation with the administrative steps by the settler authority
such as the collection of taxes etc.

Relative Lull in Resistance: 1902 – 1945

The period stretching from 1902 – 45 represents both a relative lull in resistance by
the Africans to racist white minority domination, and the entrenchment and
consolidation of settler minority rule. After the defeat in the wars of resistance of the
1890’s, the African people realised that it would be sheer adventurism to continue
with their armed resistance against settler minority rule. Given the superiority of the
settler minority forces, perpetration of armed resistance would have only served to
exact a heavy toll of lives of the African people without achieving the desired result
of driving away the settlers. Consequently, in line with the dictation of the objective
conditions, the resistance against minority settler rule subsided and as it were, went
underground. It was during this period that capitalism firmly took root in Zimbabwe
and initiated the differentiation of the traditional social order. Urban areas sprang up
where settler communities were concentrated, mining establishments developed,
modern agriculture was introduced, manufacturing and other industries started in
the urban centers, schools and other educational institutions were set-up and an
administrative infrastructure took a definite form.

The Africans no longer had only to contend with forced evictions from prime
agricultural land and dispossessions and de-stocking of their livestock in the rural
areas, but with the brutal exploitation of their labour and dehumanising working
conditions as well. This was superimposed on forced labour on railway and road
infrastructure and taxation to induce rural to urban migration to provide cheap labour
for the mines and factories.  Furthermore, and with far reaching implications for the
future, the hitherto unstructured African society gave birth to a working class and the
petit bourgeoisie in addition to the peasant subsistence farmers residing in the now
re-designated African reserves and the so-called tribal trust lands.

The organisation and subsequent consolidation of the administrative and economic

infrastructure had a profound effect on the social organisation of the traditional
order. Its consequence was the stratification of traditional society to meet the
demands of the emergent capitalist relations of production that was superimposed
on the existing traditional order. This marked the beginning of the proletarianisation
of the peasantry that proceeded simultaneously with the emergence of the petty
bourgeoisie from the rich peasants together with petty traders and intellectuals in
the urban areas.

The emergence of these social groups, strata and classes was concomitant with the
development of capitalist relations of production and destined to become a threat to
the monopoly of political power and the economic interests of the racist settler
minority. The agrarian bourgeoisie who controlled political power in Rhodesia were
fully aware of the threat posed by the emergence of the new social groups amongst
the Africans and took practical steps to safeguard their rule and economic interests
through the introduction of draconian laws such as the Land Apportionment Act, the
Industrial Conciliation Act, the Preservation of Constitutional Government Act and
the Pass Laws etc. However, most importantly, the settler minority regimes barred
the broad masses of the African people from participating in the political process
through a racially qualified franchise.

These developments engendered a struggle on two fronts i.e. the urban front for the
emerging working class, the struggle for better wages and the rural front for the
peasant farmers in defense of their land rights and livestock. As had happened
elsewhere throughout the world, the struggle by the working class soon gave rise to
organised resistance in the form of strikes in the mid1940s. The promulgation of the
Land and Animal Husbandry Act of 1950 saw the peasant farmers rise up in sporadic
acts of defiance and non-cooperation characterised by isolated attacks on dip tanks.
The Land and Animal Husbandry Act limited the size for individual peasant land
holdings and the number of cattle they could own. Urban dwellers were particularly
affected as they were deprived of the right to own land contrary to traditional African
custom  It also had a provision for small holder farmers.

We have already seen that the introduction of capitalism in Zimbabwe destabilized

the traditional social order, and accelerated the differentiation of African society
resulting in the emergence of new social groupings among the African people that
corresponded with the new capitalist relations of production. Gradually, the new
social groups became partially alienated from the traditional society and accepted
the new social order albeit reluctantly. They became acclimatized to capitalist
relations of production and through labour, familiarized themselves with the
Europeans whom they had hitherto feared, revered and considered to be endowed
with supernatural powers.

This familiarization cracked the myth of white supremacy as the Africans discovered
that the Europeans were just ordinary human beings like themselves without any
special endowments deriving from their race. The Africans thus began to view the
white settlers in a different light. This eventually awakened the African workers,
intellectuals and petty bourgeoisie to the consciousness of social injustices brought
about by the racist white minority rule. They became averse to social degradation
and racial discrimination perpetrated by the Europeans. This awareness generated
popular discontent among the African elite and organisations championing the
cause of the African elite and workers were formed as early as 1911.

The formation of these organisations varied according to phases in the development

of capitalism and the relative development of the urban areas. The Africans
demanded social equality, better working and living conditions, better salaries and
wages and above all involvement in the decision making process. What is
noteworthy about the nature of this movement is that it was largely confined to the
struggle for economic and social rights and better working conditions. It lacked a
popular character and championed only the cause of the African elite and workers.
The movement lacked a national character and operated within the context of the
capitalist society unlike the wars of  resistance that preceded it that were waged on
a national plane and within the framework of traditional society.

The struggles deriving from this new wave of consciousness was not based on the
mobilization of the broad masses of the people and had only a peripheral political
character. It is therefore not surprising that little was achieved in terms of material
gains or the amelioration of social conditions during this phase. However, its great
positive achievement was the cracking of the myth of white supremacy that laid a
firm basis for the subsequent emergence of African nationalism. This whole period
was therefore essentially a period of gestation for the emergence of African
nationalism.

Passive African Nationalism: 1945 – 1970

The fundamental political contradiction between the racist white minority rule and
the broad masses of the African people that had been forced onto the background
with the defeat of the wars of resistance resurged with a definite political character
with the emergence of African nationalism following the end of the Second World
War. As was the case with the rest of Africa, the end of the world war in itself played
a prominent role in resuscitating the struggle against colonialism in those countries
like Zimbabwe where it had subsided. This is not surprising since the major
European colonial powers emerged weakened after the war, with the United States of
America and the Soviet Union surfacing as the two major world powers. The
emergence of African nationalism in Zimbabwe also benefited immensely from the
more radical sister movements in neighbouring countries like South Africa, Malawi
and Zambia were African nationalism had taken root much earlier.

The rise of African nationalism, which stretched between 1945-56 was associated
with sharpening economic struggles, increasing demands by Africans to participate
in decision making processes, the struggle against the formation of the Central
African Federation (1953-63) and against repressive and racist legislation such as
the Land Apportionment Act and the Land Husbandry Act, and the struggle for social
equality. It was during this period that amorphous political organisations such as
urban residents associations, the African Youth League and the British Voice
Association that championed the rights of the African people were formed.

African labour unions also mushroomed and became active in agitating for the
improvement of working and living conditions and wages for the African workers.
The incipient struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie took the form of
workers strikes in urban centres. This was a new form of struggle for Zimbabwean
workers and the semi-proletariat. Industrial strikes assumed greater proportions and
with time embraced larger numbers of workers. Workers strikes played a very
important role in the emergence and shaping of African nationalism. They became
an essential component of the African nationalist movement, especially in the era of
reformism.

In spite of its lofty aims and objectives, African nationalism in its initial stages failed
to make considerable strides as its efforts were not channeled through a well-
organised political movement. The African nationalist movement was still essentially
reformist in character that focused on appealing to the conscience of the white
racist settlers. Another peculiar feature of the movement was that it was led by the
petty bourgeoisie and intellectuals resident in the urban areas. It is therefore not
surprising that the movement was confined to the urban areas without taking root
among the masses of the peasantry, the bulk of the African population. Though
workers in some urban centres were mobilized to participate in the nationalist
movement this was never on a national scale and no links were established with the
peasantry.

This brief phase however ushered the struggle of the African people against racist
minority rule onto a higher plane of African nationalism which culminated in the
formation of the African National Congress in 1957. For the first time the struggle
against racist minority rule became identified with a mass movement. The African
National Congress became the first nationally organized detachment to spearhead
African nationalism in Zimbabwe long after sister organisations had established
themselves in South Africa, Malawi and Zambia.

Active Reformist Nationalism: 1957-70                 

The period stretching from 1957 – 70 may be termed the era of reformist
nationalism. The reformist nature of this general period arises out of the general
essence and orientation of the nationalist movement during this period as manifest
in central objectives and the political methods and tactics employed to secure the
realization of the political objectives of the nationalist movement. In concrete and
practical terms, the nationalist movement in Zimbabwe during this period never
transcended the limits of bourgeoisie narrow nationalism. It was nothing more than
the equivalent of white nationalism that reached its zenith during roughly the same
period. Active reformist nationalism, like its predecessor, passive nationalism was
under the leadership of the petty bourgeoisie resident in the urban centres. Reformist
nationalism, was closely linked to the development of the labour movement within
big towns like Salisbury and Bulawayo.

The African National Congress (ANC) was formed at the end of 1957 under the
leadership of Joshua Nkomo and was closely linked to its sister movements in
Malawi and Zambia under Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda and Harry Nkumbula
respectively within the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. As has been pointed
out earlier, at this point in time, these fraternal organisations were definitely more
militant and took the lead in the development of African nationalism in Central
Africa.
Unlike the preceding political organisations that had a largely amorphous and para-
political character, the African National Congress had a distinct, definite and national
political character with a concrete organisational form. It advanced definite and clear
political slogans that became the rallying point for the African masses. Its cardinal
political demands were the enfranchisement of the African people, their active
participation in the political process and the dissolution of the Central African
Federation, the struggle for the proscription of racial discrimination and better
working conditions and wages for the African workers. The struggle against
destocking of domestic animals and re-allocation of land also featured prominently
amongst the ideals of the ANC.

It was the struggle for these lofty ideals that formed the basis of nationalist
consciousness during the era of reformist politics. The African nationalists at this
stage acknowledged the superiority of western standards and values to which they
themselves aspired. This greatly influenced their political approach and
notwithstanding their grievances against the racist white settler community, the ANC
hoped to fulfill their political objectives on the basis of harmonious cooperation
between Africans and the Europeans. This was basic nationalist policy for which the
ANC campaigned vigorously. Herein lies the reformist essence of the early
nationalist movement which continued to cast a dark shadow on the revolutionary
commitment of the African Nationalists.

The ANC achieved quite a measure of success in its agitational work, especially in
the urban centres where a number of workers’ strikes for better working conditions
and better wages were associated with the political activities of the ANC. It also
managed to make inroads into the rural areas where it began to mobilize the
peasantry especially with regard to destocking of cattle, dipping fees and grievances
on land. The successes achieved by the ANC in arousing political consciousness
though limited, greatly alarmed the settler authorities who proscribed it in 1959 and
rounded up its main leaders before it could consolidate itself nationally and extend
its political tentacles into the countryside where the bulk of the black population
lived. The political activities of the ANC between1957-59 revealed both
organisational inexperience and political immaturity of the nationalist leadership that
would haunt the nationalist movement for a long time to come.
The nationwide propagation of the gospel of African nationalism was left to the
National Democratic Party (NDP) which was formed in 1960 as the successor to the
ANC again under the leadership of Joshua Nkomo. Unlike the ANC, the National
Democratic Party had a broad based mass character that also encompassed the
peasants. Influenced by the wave of independence sweeping across the African
continent to the north, the National Democratic Party, for the first time in the history
of African nationalism in Zimbabwe advanced clear and categorical demands for
national independence and majority rule under the all-conquering slogans of “one
man one vote” “no independence before majority rule” and “mwana wevhu”. These
slogans had a tremendous effect on the development and re-awakening of national
consciousness of the African masses who responded with massive enthusiasm. The
NDP imparted the political dimension of national independence to the earlier
struggles against racial discrimination, for the dissolution of the Central African
Federation, for social equality and better working conditions and wages for the
Africans. National independence remains to this day the clarion call for the
nationalist movement.

The National Democratic Party made great strides in arousing the political
consciousness of the African masses that was manifest in the increasing number of
industrial strikes and demonstrations that assumed a definite political character and
numerous acts of civil disobedience that were widespread in the rural areas. There
were for example industrial strikes in Salisbury and Bulawayo in June, July and
October of 1960. Molotov cocktails popularly known as petrol bombs were used for
the first time in demonstrations in June, July, October and November of 1960. In the
rural areas the African peasants refused to cooperate with agents of settler
authority, the notorious “Native Commissioners”. They resisted displacement from
their farmlands, refused to cooperate with tax collectors, destroyed agricultural
produce in neighbouring white farms; smashed cattle dip tanks and engaged in
various other non-conformist activities. It was on account of nationalist pressure and
civil disobedience in the rural areas that the derogatory title of “native
commissioner” was subsequently changed to the less offensive district
commissioner.

All these activities occurred within the framework of peaceful political struggles
which the NDP had vowed to follow. At this stage, it was the declared intention of the
African nationalists to follow the parliamentary route to majority rule or
independence. All the urban political strife and civil turmoil that was rampant in the
rural areas were calculated to bring pressure to bear on both the minority settler
regime and the British Government who were both expected to yield to the demands
for majority rule. The political violence of 1960s should therefore be viewed as a
component of composite tactics of pressure and leverage to influence the minority
settler regime and the British.  Both were not very responsive, with only a token
concession made in the 1961 Constitution to provide for fifteen African members of
parliament in a legislative assembly of fifty, with the rest being white.

However, the nationwide political activities of the NDP and the mounting national
consciousness of the African masses alarmed the racist settler authorities, who
proceeded to ban the party on 9th December, 1961. It was the activities of the NDP
that gave birth to the notorious Law and Order Maintenance Act of 1960 that has
become instrumental in the repression of political activity in Rhodesia to this day. It
allowed for the arrest, detention and restriction of political activists without trial.

Much to the chagrin of the minority settler authorities, a new political organisation
the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) again under the leadership of Joshua
Nkomo was formed a few days later on the ashes of the NDP. The formation of
ZAPU did not bring anything new with regard to the basic orientation of the
nationalist movement. More or less the same tactics were adopted to intensify
pressure for the negotiation of a constitutional settlement on the basis of majority
rule. There was however an introduction of sabotage as a new weapon in the
struggle that saw isolated incidents occurring in the urban centres. It was out of the
desire to acquire the requisite skills in sabotage warfare that the nationalist
movement began to recruit African youths for training outside the country as early as
1962.

It is important to note that the introduction of sabotage activities onto the political
scene did not represent a shift to the strategy of confrontation with the settler
authorities but only served to accentuate the pressure in search of a constitutional
settlement. In addition to the element of sabotage, there was an increase in the
number of industrial strikes, protest marches, political demonstrations and more civil
disobedience in both the urban and rural areas. ZAPU achieved extensive nationwide
mobilization of the African masses. It became a household name throughout
Zimbabwe and far exceeded the achievements of its predecessors, the ANC and the
NDP. Echoes of “one man one vote” reverberated from every corner of the country
and support for the nationalist movement mounted considerably. The African people
demonstrated that they were prepared to go to any length in support of the struggle
for majority rule.

The heightened political consciousness of the African masses and the increasing
militancy of the nationalist movement as evidenced by the sabotage activities sent
the racist settler authorities into panic mode and proceeded to proscribe ZAPU in
September, 1962, after less than one year of the organisation’s existence. The
nationalist organisation, which was by now already a mass movement went
underground after the ban but most unfortunately by mid-1963, a serious rift had
developed within the ranks of the nationalist movement that most regrettably led to
the formation of a rival organisation in August 1963, the Zimbabwe African National
Union (ZANU) under the leadership of Rev Ndabaningi Sithole.

There is no evidence to suggest that the split was a consequence of any major
differences in political strategy other than personality differences and minor
difference in emphasis in tactics within the general framework of pressure and
leverage strategy against the racist settler minority rule. Any claim to the contrary,
suggestive of deep seated ideological contradictions or any fundamental difference
in strategy are completely without foundation and not borne by subsequent
developments. Up to this moment in the national liberation struggle, the two
organisations have an identical ideological outlook and the development of their
strategic concepts has closely followed the same pattern corresponding in both time
and content. The formation of ZANU was answered with the formation of the
People’s Caretaker Council (PCC) which was in essence the continuation of ZAPU
under the new circumstances of political rivalry within the nationalist movement.
This presented ZAPU with a legal platform (following its proscription in September
1962) with which to challenge ZANU.

The emergence of the two organisations, ZANU and PCC, did not herald any new or
radical political developments on the political scene other than mutual hostilities and
bloody vendettas that characterized relations between the two rival organisations
and threatened to paralyse the nationalist movement and engulfed it in bitter political
recriminations. Rather than concentrating on the pursuit of the central goal of
attaining national independence, political energy and attention of the African masses
were now diverted to partisan political squabbles. This naturally played into the
hands of the racist settler authorities who watched with glee and folded arms as the
two sides slugged each other in the African townships. This was indeed a sad
episode for the nationalist movement.

Notwithstanding the political confusion and rivalry, isolated incidents of sabotage

activities and the recruitment of youth for training in sabotage warfare outside the
country continued unabated. Capitalising on the disorder and internecine violence
within the nationalist movement, the racist Smith regime of the right wing Rhodesia
Front that came to power in 1962, outlawed both organisations in mid-1964. It is
ironic that the degeneration of the nationalist movement coincided with the
hardening intransigence of the racist Smith regime whose party had come to power
on the ticket of also demanding immediate independence for Rhodesia from Britain
within the context of white nationalism.

Ian Smith went on to declare Rhodesia unilaterally independent from Britain in

November, 1965 which complicated the situation for the African nationalists. The
silencing of both ZANU and PCC and the subsequent unilateral declaration of
independence by Smith in 1965 marked the end of the first phase of active
reformism by the African nationalists. Judging by the achievements of other
nationalist movements elsewhere in Africa, the Zimbabwean nationalist movement
had been a remarkable failure which called for a review of strategy in political
struggle given the peculiarity of the Rhodesian situation. The racist settler authorities
had employed the strategy of not permitting nationalist organisations to take root
among the people by outlawing them whenever they posed a serious threat. The
measures that were taken by the Smith regime to outlaw and suppress the
nationalist movement eventually forced it underground and to resort to clandestine
activities and intensify sabotage activities with the hope of reversing the
unfavourable political situation in their favour.

The African nationalists continued to pursue their constitutional struggle regardless

of the deteriorating political situation in Rhodesia and the intransigence of the Smith
regime. The declaration of unilateral independence by Ian Smith constituted a major
blow and impediment to their hopes of an amicable constitutional settlement and
their hopes of an early political victory began to recede. UDI partially awoke the
African nationalists to the realities of settler intransigence and they began
contemplating an armed struggle as a form of struggle that could tilt the balance in
their favour. However, lacking confidence in the prospects of victory for an armed
liberation struggle at this point in time, the nationalists only viewed the armed
struggle as a lever for influencing political developments to a point when
constitutional negotiations with the British Government could be resumed.

They particularly hoped to secure British intervention in Rhodesia by fomenting

internal disorder through widespread sabotage activities and isolated military action.
It is noteworthy that the African nationalists still had complete faith and confidence
in the impartiality of the British Government to honestly broker a constitutional
settlement in Rhodesia in their favour. They had faith that the British Government
could easily reverse Smith’s UDI. The misguided and erroneous views of the African
nationalists were not helped by their gullibility to the British assurance that they
would only intervene in Rhodesia if there was a break down in law and order. On their
part, the British Government continued to raise the hopes of the African nationalists
through vaguely worded proposals on unimpeded progress to majority rule and the
so-called ”six principles”.

The exiled nationalists stepped up their recruitment campaigns and organized the
training of large numbers of black youths in military art in anticipation of British
intervention. Quite a number of African youths received military training in friendly
African countries such as Ghana, Tanzania and Algeria and in socialist countries as
well. By the beginning of 1966, preparations for launching military operations were
already advanced. The whole period from April 1966 to 1970 was characterized by
sporadic military operations by both nationalist organisations in an atmosphere of
rivalry confined to the northern half of the country.  The wave of these military
operations conducted during this period took the form of sabotage of railway and
power lines and on other economic targets and guerrilla attacks on outlying and
isolated military and police posts. On some occasions preemptive attacks were
made by the Rhodesian forces on guerilla bands before they got to their targets
inflicting heavy losses on them.
At this stage in the national liberation struggle, the guerillas had inadequate military
training and were poorly equipped and lacked combat discipline with combat
security leaving a lot to be desired. The strength of the guerilla bands varied from
sections to platoons in the case of ZANLA combatants and companies in the case of
ZIPRA as the ZAPU fighters generally operated in larger combat units than ZANLA.
Another characteristic feature of these military operations was the absence of
political work among the local population in the rural communities.  Little pains were
taken to mobilize and organize the masses of rural peasants with the result that they
became vulnerable to attacks by the better trained and equipped Rhodesian army. All
the military operations carried out during this period were not based on any strategic
military plan and were essentially sporadic and uncoordinated. Their sole objective
was to sow seeds of terror in Rhodesia with the hope of provoking British
intervention.

Any claim or attempts by African nationalists to elevate the military skirmishes of

1966-70 to strategic military endeavour to destroy enemy forces with the objective of
toppling the racist Rhodesian regime would be misleading, unjustified and
completely without foundation and devoid of any factual basis. Such claims would
be an unscrupulous attempt to disguise and mask the political naivety of the
nationalists that drove these adventurist operations at a high cost of lives. It is
however in place to pay tribute to the early freedom fighters for their courage and
determination and commitment to the cause of liberation. They fought gallantly
against the Rhodesian forces in the face of overwhelming odds.

The military skirmishes in northern Zimbabwe did not achieve the intended objective
of provoking British intervention in Rhodesia. Though Britain had imposed economic
sanctions on Rhodesia it did not do much to reverse the unilateral declaration of
independence, UDI. It was only after the British premier, Harold Wilson had amply
demonstrated in practice his bias in favour of the Smith regime by sidelining the
African nationalists in both the HMS Tiger Talks of 1966 and the HMS Fearless Talks
of 1968 to resolve the constitutional impasse caused by UDI.  The nationalists began
to realize that avenues for their involvement in constitutional negotiations had been
effectively blocked.
The hopes for peaceful struggle that had up to now been entertained by the
nationalists were smashed by the open treachery of the British who went on to
suggest the HMS Fearless proposals to resolve the Rhodesian impasse without even
consulting the African nationalists as before. This put the last nail in the coffin of
nationalist reformist politics in Zimbabwe that had continued to linger on despite the
worsening political situation in Rhodesia as evidenced by the suppression of
nationalist activities and Ian Smith’s UDI. The nationalists lost confidence in the
British Government and began to contemplate seriously, armed struggle as a viable
alternative to the hitherto pursued constitutional avenue to independence.

The armed struggle of 1966-70 was designed to play only a supplementary role to
the constitutional struggle being waged by nationalist organisations that lacked a
background in military affairs. Consequently the armed struggle could not have been
expected to achieve much in the circumstances. Notwithstanding, the role played by
guerilla fighters, the unwilling victims of political opportunism and military
adventurism of the nationalist leadership were exemplary and heroic in facing the
vigorous challenge by the Rhodesian counter-insurgency and in their readiness to
accept the supreme sacrifice.

Up to this day, the remarkable role played by forerunners of the modern freedom
fighters provides an unfathomable source of inspiration to all the liberation fighters
engaged in the current phase of the armed struggle. The experience acquired by the
guerilla fighters during this period was invaluable in as much as it laid a firm base for
subsequent better planned and organised military operations. These took the form of
classical guerrilla warfare following a critical strategic re-appraisal of the methods
and forms of struggle. It is little wonder that the guerilla fighters themselves in both
nationalist organisations were instrumental in the shift in strategy to adopt armed
struggle as the principal from of struggle to achieve self-determination for the people
of Zimbabwe.

The era of reformist nationalism which had stretched from 1957 – 70 constituted a
major defeat for the nationalist movement. Majority rule was nowhere in sight after
all those years of struggle and elsewhere in Africa most national movements had
attained their goal of national independence. There were a number of reasons and a
variety of factors that contributed to the failure of the nationalist movement at this
stage. Principal among these was the incorrect and subjective appraisal of both the
domestic and international situation in relation to their struggle for self-
determination.

The nationalists viewed the problem of Zimbabwe’s independence as similar to that

of Britain’s other colonies where the settler factor was either insignificant or
practically non-existent. This led the nationalists to expend most of their efforts in
lobbying the international community to exert moral pressure on the British
Government so that she could affect the transfer of power from the racist settler
minority to the nationalists. The African nationalists erroneously believed that
political change in Rhodesia could only be effected by the British Government. Little
did they appreciate the role of the settler factor in the whole political equation which
counter-poised white nationalism against African nationalism. Nor did they perceive
Britain’s thinly veiled machinations to promote and support white nationalism for
what it really was: recognition that the white settlers constituted the only reliable
custodian of her vested colonial and imperialist interests in Rhodesia.

The political strategy and tactics of reformist nationalism failed basically because it
was based on the false premise that all that was required was to bring pressure to
bear on the British Government to convene a constitutional conference and
discharge her colonial obligations to the satisfaction of the nationalists as she had
done elsewhere. Such a subjective approach no doubt emanated from failure to fully
appreciate the essence of colonialism and imperialism which were in Rhodesia
compounded by the settler factor. The British Government and the racist minority
regime on their part capitalised on the political immaturity and inexperience of the
nationalist leadership and continued to give false hopes that lured them further into
reformism.

The political and organisational inexperience of the nationalist leadership was

particularly manifest in their failure to put forward a sound political programme that
embraced the struggle for national independence; in their inability to formulate a
correct political line to guide the broad masses of the people in their just struggle for
national self-determination and in their inability to constantly sum up political
experiences so as to create an objective basis for future progress. All their tactical
and strategic planning appeared to arise more from enthusiasm rather than from a
sound analysis of the objective conditions. The incompetence of the nationalist
leadership was also reflected in their failure to give political and organisational
direction to their followers. It is therefore little wonder that the nationalists fell prey
to the political deception of the more seasoned British politicians. The weaknesses
of the nationalist movement were further compounded by political disunity arising
from power struggles, the corrupt practices of leading officials of the nationalist
movement and the occasional degeneration into tribal feuding.

The weaknesses of the nationalist movement should be viewed within the

framework of the bourgeois context of African nationalism which played a decisive
role in fettering the development of the national liberation struggle. Notwithstanding
these weaknesses, reformist nationalism in Zimbabwe made a positive contribution,
on balance, to the development of the national liberation struggle in particular with
regard to resuscitating national consciousness and keeping the flame of liberation
burning in the hearts and minds of the African masses. The nationalists’ inclination
towards violence in the latter 1960’s sowed the seeds for the revolutionary
consciousness of the African masses that became easily receptive to and firmly
supported the arduous and protracted armed struggle that unfolded in the 1970’s. It
may therefore be safely concluded that the era of reformist nationalism was a
necessary stage in the development of the national liberation struggle and served as
a gestation period for the sustained guerilla campaign that is currently raging in
Rhodesia.

Militant Nationalism: 1970 –

It was earlier on pointed out that the disenchantment of the nationalists with the
British Government engendered a re-examination of the methods of struggle and the
general strategy hitherto employed in the struggle for independence. The bankruptcy
of securing British intervention in Rhodesia was laid bare by the negative responses
of the British Government to the military activities of the nationalist guerillas. This
left the armed struggle as the only principal form of struggle for the nationalists and
the only viable alternative of continuing the struggle for liberation in the
circumstances. The shift to armed struggle represented a leap from reformism
which had sought to bring about political change through constitutional means to
armed confrontation with the racist Smith regime as the basic strategy in the
national liberation struggle. The reformism of 1957-70 was thus transformed into
militant nationalism that began around 1970.  This leap marked a positive
development of African nationalism though regrettably, the movement continued to
be plagued by most of its earlier weaknesses.

The new strategy of the nationalist movement came to fruition with the launching of
guerilla operations in North Eastern Zimbabwe in 1972 by the ZANLA, the military
wing of ZANU. This was closely followed by ZIPRA operations in North Western
Zimbabwe. The military operations by the ZAPU guerillas in the north western
operations did not immediately develop into a full scale war as did the north eastern
front operated by ZANU guerillas. The ZANLA guerillas operating on this front
employed the strategy of guerilla warfare based on the people’s war which entailed
extensive mobilization and organisation of the masses in the operational areas.  In
no time they had secured a foothold inside Zimbabwe and firmly rooted themselves
among the masses of rural peasants in the area. Within two years the war waged on
the basis of mobilization and organisation of the masses had developed to deal
shattering blows on the morale of the Rhodesian forces. It disrupted the Rhodesian
economy and way of life and threatened the stability of the Smith regime.

The Smith regime responded by tightening the security laws, instituting call ups for
military service, imposing collective fines for collaboration with the freedom fighters
and herding the masses into concentration camps to stop them from supporting the
nationalist guerillas. All these measures proved ineffective to contain or stop the
war. The ZANLA forces in the North Eastern area numbered about four hundred
guerrillas at the end of 1974 with about one thousand two hundred trained guerillas
poised to join the from the rear. This situation was aggravated by the decolonisation
of Mozambique following a military coup in Portugal in April 1974. This development
changed the strategic balance of forces in southern Africa tilting it against the racist
minority regimes in southern Africa.

The strides made in the guerilla war in Rhodesia and the decolonisation of
Mozambique left the racist minority regimes in southern Africa extremely vulnerable
and threw them into a state of panic. In response to this unfavourable development,
the imperialists conceived a major détente exercise for Southern Africa with the aim
of stemming the tide of revolution in Zimbabwe. Following the developments in
Portugal, that set in motion the decolonisation of its African colonies, it was resolved
to stop the radicalisation of the Zimbabwe liberation movement by bringing to an
end the liberation war. The key players in the détente exercise were the South African
premier John Vorster and the Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda. John Vorster was
to prevail over Ian Smith, the Rhodesian rebel leader to release the nationalist
leaders on condition that they would bring the guerilla war to an end. Kenneth
Kaunda on the other hand was to persuade his fellow African leaders to put pressure
on the liberation movement to bring the war to an end in return for the release of
their nationalist leaders. With the end of the guerilla war, a new political dispensation
would then be negotiated to resolve the Rhodesian political impasse with the
involvement of both the African nationalists and the leaders of the African frontline
states comprising Tanzania, Zambia, Botswana, Angola and Mozambique.

As it turned out, both Vorster and Kaunda delivered on their undertakings with Ian
Smith releasing all the detained nationalists in December 1974. Kaunda on his part
ensured that all the Zimbabwean nationalist leaders renounced the armed struggle
and agreed to pursue the path of negotiations under the umbrella of the United
African National Council headed by Bishop Abel Muzorewa. An agreement to this
effect was signed by all the Zimbabwean nationalist leaders under the Lusaka Unity
Accord of 9 December 1974. This is how the nationalist leaders like Ndabaningi
Sithole the leader of ZANU, Joshua Nkomo of ZAPU, Robert Mugabe and others
secured their freedom from Smith’s prisons.

The détente exercise had serious consequences for the liberation struggle with the
external leadership of ZANU and the ZANLA fighters based in Zambia bearing the
brunt of its effects. Admittedly, the incarcerated nationalist leadership was now free
but at what cost. The détente exercise succeeded in destabilizing the Zimbabwean
liberation movement and practically brought the liberation war to an end, to the
satisfaction of Ian Smith and John Vorster and their imperialist masters. Not a single
shot was fired at the Rhodesian forces by the nationalist guerillas for close to a year,
thanks to the détente exercise. Détente came to an end a year later following the
initiative by ZANLA and ZIPRA combatants on their own to form the Zimbabwe
People’s Army (ZIPA) on 25th November, 1975 as a united front of the two armies to
resuscitate the armed liberation struggle.
The formation of ZIPA consigned the détente exercise to the dustbin of history. The
liberation struggle made great strides, within a few months of the formation of ZIPA
sent shock waves within imperialist circles. By June 1976, evidence of the
successes scored by ZIPA was manifest in the desperate manoeuvres of the
embattled Smith regime to thwart the advance of the liberation war. Guerilla
operations covered more than half the country with the Smith regime resorting to
massive call ups for the war, prolongation of the period of national service,
instituting convoy system for transportation, introducing the curfew system and
mobile martial courts to deal with guerilla supporters. The Rhodesian forces
changed their counter-insurgency strategy from that of clear and hold, to a general
offensive. All these desperate attempts to stop the revolutionary advance of the
people’s war under ZIPA failed dismally.

By September 1976, the people’s war waged under the leadership of ZIPA based on
extensive and thoroughgoing mobilization and organisation of the masses had
aroused the national consciousness of the people of Zimbabwe to unprecedented
levels and dealt crippling blows to the Rhodesian army and to his sanctions battered
economy. The entire eastern half of the country was now practically a war zone and
a semi-liberated zone with more than five thousand ZIPA forces operating there.
Another twenty thousand forces under arms were waiting to join them from the rear.
By October 1976 the Soviet Union had also pledged to meet ZIPA military
requirements including the training of up to 5000 fighters. The Tanzanian
government had at this time also offered Frelimo’s former training camp
Nachingwea for the training of ZIPA forces in conventional warfare. ZIPA’s plans to
set up liberated zones that it could defend from enemy attacks were at an advanced
stage and scheduled to come into effect in early 1977. To this end, ZIPA had
embarked on leadership training of a core of military cadres at its Whampoa
Academy in Chimoio, Mozambique.

The stability of the Smith regime was severely threatened and security of the
economic interests of imperialists could no longer be guaranteed. Under pressure
from the revolutionary advance of the people’s war waged by ZIPA, the imperialists
were forced once more to resort to counter-revolutionary dual tactics in a desperate
bid to safeguard their vested economic interests in Rhodesia. The Americans and
the British concocted the Kissinger proposals to end the war in Rhodesia and save
the Smith regime from collapse. For the first time in history, Ian Smith
unconditionally accepted the principle of majority rule in his life time which he had
previously scorned declaring that there would be no majority rule in a thousand
years. However, the imperialist machinations and dirty intrigues were exposed and
foiled by the liberation movement at the Geneva Conference of October, 1976. The
imperialist manoeuvres, as before were aimed at thwarting the legitimate aspirations
of the people of Zimbabwe by sabotaging the development of the liberation struggle
and hijacking the revolutionary gains of the people’s struggle. Their central aim was
the installation of a reactionary neo-colonial puppet regime to take care of their
vested interests in Rhodesia.

The imperialist schemes were frustrated by the advanced stage the liberation
struggle had attained under the leadership of ZIPA. Both the Zimbabwe people and
the international community had been fully mobilized and exposed to the reactionary
essence of the imperialist maneuvers. It was through ZIPA’s efforts that the Patriotic
Front was formed in October 1976 between ZANU and ZAPU to confront the
Kissinger proposals in Geneva. ZIPA was actually advocating for an even broader
united front that would encompass all the Zimbabwean nationalist organisations but
unfortunately both the leadership of ZANU and ZAPU and some of the Frontline
states leaders were opposed to this at the summit of Frontline Heads of State held
at the end of September 1976. ZIPA’s strategy was to unite all the nationalists so as
to prevent the imperialists and the Smith regime from exploiting the divisions among
Zimbabwean nationalists to their own advantage. These fears were eventually borne
out with the subsequent developments that culminated in the internal settlement
agreement of March 1978 between the Smith regime and some of the nationalist
leaders like Muzorewa of the UANC, Chikerema of FROLIZI and  Ndabaningi Sithole
of ZANU Ndonga, the former leader of ZANU.

However, most regrettably, at this critical juncture, ZIPA’s revolutionary thrust was
emasculated through the arrest of its core leadership in Mozambique. It was
certainly not a coincidence that these development occurred at this critical juncture
of the liberation struggle as had happened earlier in Zambia during détente in 1974.
It was now the turn of the young ZIPA commanders who had earlier foiled the
détente machinations to make way for the nationalist leaders released by Ian Smith
two years earlier.
The dismemberment of ZIPA fully revived the age old nationalist rivalry between
ZANU and ZAPU. This transported the national liberation struggle to the pre-ZIPA
days characterized by confusion within the ranks of the nationalist movement. Faced
with the failure of the Kissinger proposals that were thwarted in Geneva in December
1976, yet more sinister plans were contrived in 1977. After ZIPA’s demise, content
that its threat was no longer an obstacle to their diabolical manoeuvres, the
imperialists came up with the half-hearted Anglo-American Proposals whilst Ian
Smith was simultaneously hammering out an Internal Settlement agreement with
some of the nationalists leaders. These twin diabolical manoeuvres are now casting
a dark shadow over the development of the national liberation struggle at this critical
stage. Plans for the installation of a neo-colonial puppet regime within the
framework of the internal settlement agreement have now reached an advanced
stage.

It is precisely at this critical juncture – when the development of the national

liberation struggle is seriously threatened by the imminent successes of the
imperialist manoeuvres to halt the revolutionary tide of the liberation struggle and
deprive the people of Zimbabwe of their legitimate aspirations through the
installation of a neo-colonial puppet regime – that we should carry out an exhaustive
analysis of the Zimbabwean nationalist struggle with the aim of thwarting imperialist
manoeuvres. It is now more than ever before incumbent upon all revolutionary forces
to steer the national liberation struggle into its correct revolutionary orbit that will
ensure final victory.

3) Character of the Zimbabwe nationalist struggle

The development of the Zimbabwe’s national liberation struggle from 1890 was
traced in the preceding section against the background of a general analysis of
Rhodesia’s social character. Special attention was given to the rise and development
of African nationalism from passive reformism after the Second World War through
active reformism to the current militant reformism.  This was done to facilitate the
comprehension of problems confronting the nationalist movement, since most of its
weaknesses are deep rooted with a long history, having been inherited from the
earlier stages of the nationalist struggle. Without such a background, the
weaknesses of the nationalist movement can neither be appreciated in the proper
historical context nor can African nationalism be viewed in its totality as a
phenomenon embracing various stages of the struggle. Such an approach gives
continuity to the development of African nationalism and enables the consideration
and evaluation of the current phase of nationalism in relation to the preceding
developmental phases. It also makes it possible to make a correct and objective
appraisal of the weaknesses of the nationalist movement which cannot be
considered in isolation from the earlier weaknesses of the movement.

The transition of the national liberation struggle from reformism to militant

nationalism is evident in that the struggle is no longer being waged within the
framework of a constitutional process, but has now assumed the form of armed
struggle. As nationalism forms the general context of the liberation struggle, it is of
paramount importance to examine its nature and impact on the struggle. Whatever
problems beset the national liberation struggle cannot be divorced from the general
context of African nationalism.

Militant nationalism in Zimbabwe today takes the outward form of advanced

nationalism or as it were revolutionary nationalism, but on closer examination, it
reveals itself as conservative, narrow and bourgeoisie in essence. The outward
revolutionary projection of African nationalism is based on the external nationalist
propaganda couched in progressive and revolutionary ideas that conform to an anti-
imperialist stance that seeks to identify with the world struggle against imperialism.
This is based on the nationalist posturing of waging a genuine national liberation
struggle to overthrow national oppression and restore the democratic rights of the
people of Zimbabwe. The African nationalists further maintain that the liberation
struggle in Zimbabwe is under the influence of proletarian ideology and has the basic
interests of the workers at heart. They also avow that the basic contradiction in
Zimbabwe can only be resolved through armed struggle.

This is what constitutes the phenomenal appearance of militant nationalism in

Zimbabwe today, giving the impression of revolutionary nationalism. However, this
outward appearance does not give the correct reflection of the essence of African
nationalism in Zimbabwe which is essentially conservative, narrow and bourgeois in
content. For the convenience of revealing the essence and content of militant
nationalism the major features of the nationalist movement will now be examined.
This will entail the evaluation of the nationalist movement’s fundamental approach
to the question of national liberation, its political programme, political line and its
organisational principles and leadership

Nationalist approach to the political problem in Zimbabwe

To begin with, the Zimbabwean nationalist struggle was and is based on a faulty
foundation that emanates from a subjective analysis of the Rhodesian society. The
subjective analysis is indicative of the nationalists’ inability to thoroughly grasp the
character of the struggle to be waged and to chart out the revolutionary course to
guide the national liberation struggle. It is only through an objective appraisal of the
character of society that the nature of the liberation struggle to be waged can be
correctly determined, that a political programme commensurate with the scope of
the liberation struggle can be drawn and that a correct political line to guide the
struggle can be formulated.

The principal error that arose from the nationalists’ subjective analysis of the
character of Rhodesian society was the perception of the foreign element as the
principal feature of white domination in Rhodesia, which then overshadows the need
to struggle resolutely against the domestic forces of reaction under the guise of
settlerism. This led to the erroneous strategy of directing efforts at the British
Government “the legal colonial power” to the neglect of resolute struggle against the
Smith regime. An attempt was made to correct this error at the beginning of the
1970’s but most regrettably the hangover continues to haunt nationalist politics in
Zimbabwe to the extent that the overall political strategy of the nationalist
movement takes into account Britain’s prominent role in any negotiated settlement.

An earlier analysis of the social character of Rhodesia demonstrated that that it is

the racist white settler community that is the de facto political force in Rhodesia and
not the British Government whose role continues to be exaggerated out of
proportion. The continued assigning of a prominent role of the British Government in
any negotiated settlement is fraught with serious consequences for the national
liberation struggle. It is completely at variance with a consistent revolutionary
approach to the national liberation struggle and leaves a loophole through which the
imperialists will continue to manipulate the nationalist movement through deceptive
and treacherous schemes that seek to provide a neo-colonial settlement in
Rhodesia. This same loophole also serves as safety valve for pressure outlet for the
racist white settler minority whenever the pressure of the liberation struggle
becomes unbearable.

Any sober analysis of Rhodesian society which takes into account the reality of
racist settler domination clearly reveals that basing the liberation strategy on
Britain’s responsibility as the colonial power in Rhodesia, other than for purely
diplomatic consideration of tactical significance only, is a futile exercise which in the
final analysis militates against the genuine and thoroughgoing liberation of
Zimbabwe. Given such a loophole, the British Government will always be in an
excellent position to prevent with relative ease a complete military defeat of the
Smith regime by diverting attention from the armed struggle to political negotiations
at all critical junctures of the struggle as she is assured a prominent role at all times.
This places the British Government in strategic position to forestall the realization of
the legitimate aspirations of the people of Zimbabwe for which precious blood has
already been sacrificed. So long as this loophole remains, the genuine liberation of
Zimbabwe, which can only come through the complete and total seizure of political
power, will never be realised and all the war cries of the nationalist movement will
lose revolutionary significance and degenerate into empty sloganeering. The dangers
of a counter-revolutionary hijack of the revolution will become more material with
each stride in the liberation war.

In this sense, the age old weakness of the nationalist movement has not yet been
rectified but has only been slightly mitigated by changing only in form but not in
content. This fundamental weakness of the nationalist movement stems from a
subjective analysis of the character of the present day Rhodesian society. It can
therefore only be rectified by an objective and scientific analysis of the social
character of Rhodesia which will reveal the essence of racist settler oppression.
Without grasping this simple fact, the scope of the liberation struggle will continue to
be limited and it will neither realize its full dimension nor attain its lofty objectives.
The threat of a neo-colonial settlement will continue to loom over the heads of the
people of Zimbabwe.
Another important feature of the Zimbabwean nationalist struggle that emanates
from the subjective analysis of the Zimbabwean society is the counter-posing of
African nationalism against White nationalism. The black nationalists directed the
efforts of their struggle to Britain in total disregard of the reality of the white settler
factor. The White settlers on their part also directed their struggle for “independence”
within the context of settler domination to Britain. This resulted in the emergence of
two parallel nationalist movements in Rhodesia, one black and the other white. The
Black nationalist movement to all intents and purposes discounted and dismissed
the white nationalist movement as inconsequential.

The source of two nationalist movements in the same country lies in the unique
character of the British colony of Rhodesia which had two racially segregated
mutually exclusive racial groups one black and the other white, each with its own
brand of nationalism. The two communities felt independently affiliated to the British
government and held that government responsible for them. The white community
felt dependent on Britain but at the same time claimed the right, as a superior race to
rule over the Africans whilst the Africans also felt dependent on Britain but sought
the right from the British government to rule over the whites as they were the rightful
owners of the country. This dichotomous political situation arose out of the
complicating settler factor in Zimbabwe’s colonisation that had the blessing of the
British government.

Whilst the two nationalist movements directed their struggles to Britain, the reality
on the ground was that here were two political armies that to all intents and
purposes were poised against each other. Given this reality, and the entrenched
white settler rule and its economic interests based on capitalism, it becomes
ludicrous to conceive of genuine liberation that could result from counter-posing
African nationalism against white nationalism both of which are bourgeois in
essence.

Substituting African nationalism for white nationalism in a country with an

entrenched capitalist socio-economic order will not result in the genuine social and
national liberation of the people of Zimbabwe and the concomitant socio-economic
transformation that will buttress that liberation. It will only result in a change in form
but not in content. Besides, counter-posing African nationalism against white
nationalism reduces the two to a mere racial struggle making both the African and
white nationalists guilty of racism. The only correct solution in the given
circumstances is to counter-pose a revolutionary struggle that transcends the
bounds of African nationalism against white nationalism. Unlike Zimbabwe, Britain’s
other African colonies did not have the complicating white settler factor. This left
African nationalism directed at the British government and its surrogate rule in their
countries. Their nationalism had no racial connotations since it championed the
legitimate demands of the African people to free them from British colonial rule and
not from white settler rule.

It becomes obvious that in Zimbabwe’s case, only a revolutionary struggle will

provide the correct solution to the problem of white settler domination and bring
about the requisite transformation needed to attain genuine national and social
liberation of the broad masses of the people of Zimbabwe. Only a genuinely
revolutionary struggle can effectively combine the displacement of the racist and
reactionary white minority rule with the revolutionary transformation of Zimbabwean
society. As far as the Zimbabwean liberation movement, as it currently stands is
concerned, it is a purely nationalist movement that is completely incapable,  by its
very nature, of carrying out a radical  transformation of the Zimbabwean society, the
only guarantee for genuine  and sustainable liberation. The best it can achieve is
substitution of black for white nationalism within the context of rabid capitalist
development which only serves to perpetuate the bondage of the people of
Zimbabwe.

The moment the need for elevating the nationalist struggle to a revolutionary
struggle is realised, the more obvious it will become that genuine liberation of the
people of Zimbabwe can only be guaranteed by a relentless armed struggle given the
prevailing political circumstances. Without the realisation of the need to elevate the
nationalist struggle onto a revolutionary orbit, the revolutionary significance of the
armed struggle will not be fully appreciated. A peaceful settlement of the
Zimbabwean political impasse at this stage can only serve the interests of
nationalism and never transcend the limits thereof to achieve revolutionary
transformation of society. It will leave the existing socio-economic order with its
attendant structures and institutions; the bedrock of our oppression, intact. The
revolutionary forces in the struggle for the liberation of Zimbabwe should firmly
grasp this point. Only consistent and thoroughgoing revolutionary action can bring
about genuine national liberation and the social emancipation of the heroic people of
Zimbabwe.

In the first place, the white settler regime cannot stand on its own feet economically;
it has to be propped by imperialists, without whose support it cannot survive as
Rhodesia is still a fledgling capitalist formation. It similarly follows that any African
nationalist government cannot ever hope to attain economic independence and
would inevitably be forced to rely on imperialist support for economic survival if it
rests on the same capitalist foundation bequeathed to it by the racist regime.  Any
nationalist government resting on the same capitalist foundation would have to be
dependent on imperialist support for economic and political survival, culminating in a
neo-colonial situation. Such a course of events would be inevitable as long as the
path of revolutionary armed struggle is not adopted and pursued to its logical
conclusion. All indications at present are that even an armed struggle within the
context of nationalist politics will not realize complete victory because the
nationalist struggle appears bent on crowning the armed struggle with peaceful
negotiations as the consummation of the liberation struggle.

The problems bedeviling the Zimbabwean nationalist movement are rooted in the
subjective approach of nationalism to the quest for liberation. This subjective
approach constitutes the foundation that determines the political programme, the
political line and the strategy and tactics of the nationalist struggle. Whatever flaws
characterise the political programme and political line as well as the strategy and
tactics of the liberation struggle, they are merely a reflection of the weaknesses and
shortcomings in the fundamental approach to the liberation struggle that is rooted in
the subjective appraisal of the domestic and international alignment of forces
against genuine liberation.

The political programme of the nationalist movement

Of fundamental importance to any revolution or liberation struggle is its political

programme which reflects the essence of the revolutionary process. The political
programme of a political movement serves to state the basic aims and objects of
the struggle and outlines the central goals of the revolution and the means of
fulfilling them in the light of the domestic and international socio-political situation. It
follows that without grasping the social character of the society undergoing
revolution, the nature of the revolution or struggle to be waged in order to effect
revolutionary change cannot be correctly determined. Neither can a political
programme corresponding to the prevailing socio-economic situation be drawn.

With respect to the political programmes of the nationalist organisation in

Zimbabwe, they define national independence as the goal but stop short of a deep
social analysis that would facilitate the articulation of the basic political demands in
clear and concise terms. The programmes state in general terms about overthrowing
settler minority rule and replacing it with a socialist oriented Zimbabwe where the
political rights of all Zimbabweans will be guaranteed. The political programmes are
replete with glowing Marxist-Leninist terms mechanically transplanted from Marxist
literature completely out of touch with the social realities in Zimbabwe. The
nationalists plagiarise Marxist literature in order to feign themselves Marxist
revolutionaries whereas in reality there are pseudo-revolutionaries. This is a
fashionable trend among the petty bourgeoisie.

The political programmes of the Zimbabwean nationalist organisations know of no

maximum or minimum demands of the struggle and closely resemble election
manifestos of western political parties. They are basically aimed at hoodwinking the
broad masses of the people into supporting one or the other of the prominent
nationalist organisations. They are designed more to impress the broad masses and
the progressive international community than reflecting the basic demands of the
liberation struggle. Where sections of the programmes correspond to the needs of
the struggle other than the demand for national independence, it is more a question
of coincidence than design. In the majority of cases, the nationalists themselves do
not fully understand the actual meaning of the decorative Marxist terms interspersed
in their political programmes.

It simply will not do to state only in general terms about the interests of the people
and the aims and objects of the struggle. They have to be spelt out in clear and
concise terms if the conscious support of the masses is to be won and their
enthusiastic participation in the struggle guaranteed. The basic demands of the
liberation struggle should emanate from the concrete needs of the people and not
mechanically borrowed from other revolutions and struggles. Furthermore, the
respective stages of the struggle should be clearly outlined and so should the
demands corresponding to the stages of the revolutionary struggle. These are the
basic requirements for the formulation of a scientific political programme that
accords with the objective needs of a revolutionary struggle.

As the situation stands, the Zimbabwean nationalist movement lacks such a

programme and has as its fundamental political documents the so called policy
statements and programmes that are no more than stereotypes devoid of
revolutionary content that corresponds to the objective situation in Zimbabwe. This
is typical of petty bourgeois nationalists and betrays their half-hearted commitment
to the revolutionary struggle. These nationalists are insincere to their Marxist
pronouncements and lie in ambush waiting for an opportune moment to hijack the
revolutionary struggle and lead it along the bourgeois path. What they actually aspire
and strive for is to step into the shoes of the white settler minority and continue to
exploit the broad masses in pursuit of their selfish ends and insatiable avarice. But
they are careful not to reveal their true nature to the people and instead masquerade
as revolutionaries during the course of the struggle.

The political line of the Zimbabwean nationalist movement

Given the absence of a sound political programme, it is little wonder that the
nationalists lack a correct basic political line required to lead the liberation struggle
to total victory. In the absence of a correct political line, a clear distinction between
friends and foes of the revolution cannot be made nor can the broad masses of the
people be firmly united behind a common political programme that leads the
struggle. It is the revolutionary organisation’s political line that should define the
nature of the revolution, its tasks, objects, targets, perspectives and the motive and
leading forces of the revolution.

Without a clear understanding of these cardinal aspects of a revolutionary struggle,

that constitute the fundamental question of any revolution,  a political organisation
will at worst  indulge in senseless unnecessary sacrifices of the revolutionary forces
and grope about in the dark, staggering from blunder to blunder. On the other hand,
without grasping the nature and scope of the revolution to be undertaken and the
laws governing it, without grasping its tasks, targets, perspectives, the motive and
leading forces, engaging in a revolutionary struggle will at best be an exercise in trial
and error without any objective basis for the proper subjective direction of the
struggle. Victory will be difficult to achieve under such circumstances and neither
can the revolutionary struggle be thoroughgoing and the danger of defeat and
hijacking the struggle will continue to haunt the liberation movement.

For the nationalist movement, the nature of the revolution to be waged has not been
completely defined and is in the least clearly understood by the nationalist leaders.
Only the objective of national independence has been clearly articulated. As for the
task, the targets, the motive forces, scope and perspectives of the struggle, they are
either half known or unknown or have been left to posterity to define.
Notwithstanding the revolutionary Marxist terms that abound in the political
literature of the nationalist movement, it is difficult to imagine whether they have at
all grasped the fundamentals of articulating a correct basic political line required to
guide the struggle to complete victory.

All indications are that otherwise they have only a rudimentary idea of the need for
revolutionary political line or have no idea at all as to what it entails. An analysis of
the nationalist movement confirms this assertion. The nationalist movement is
characterised by incessant splits, power struggles, antagonisms and hostilities
between various political factions, rivalry and competition in diplomatic activity
aimed at the total exclusion and paralysis of sister organisations, misdirection of
efforts to political infighting within the movement, superficial and divisive
organisational and propaganda work among the masses, degeneration into the
parochial pursuit of tribal interests etc.

The foregoing weaknesses that bedevil the nationalist movement are a clear
manifestation of the absence of a correct general political line to guide the struggle.
They constitute a political syndrome symptomatic of political immaturity and
political degeneracy; a reflection of political undernourishment that only serves to
confirm the assertion that the Zimbabwean nationalists either have only a
rudimentary idea of the requirements of leading and waging a successful
revolutionary struggle or have completely no idea of what a revolution is. It is
definitely not a dinner party as some experienced revolutionaries have stated.
It would appear that the guiding principle of the Zimbabwean nationalist movement
is the pursuit of personal and clique power and not the attainment or revolutionary
ideals. As far as the nationalists are concerned, national independence and liberation
can only be conceived of within the context of the political domination of a given
political clique and not otherwise. Innumerable cases are ample testimony that the
nationalists regard political guise as a matter of expediency  pertinent to the pursuit
of power that can be freely traded with another when convenient, without regard to
the fundamental aims of the struggle, as long as the guise serves the objective of
gaining political dominance  for the individual or related clique. There are numerous
examples of the nationalists switching from one political platform overnight to the
other purely out of power considerations. The political stance of nationalist cliques
can never really be taken for granted as it is subject to modification according to the
prevailing circumstances of the power balance, and influence within the nationalist
movement and the power configuration in the future independent Zimbabwe.

In the light of these characteristics of the nationalist movement, where the general
political line is governed by considerations of pursuit of personal power, it would be
ridiculous and intellectually dishonesty to give prominence to talk of the existence of
a sound and objective basic political programme that could steer the liberation
struggle to complete victory. The unhappy chapter of political divisions, squabbles
and power struggles since the emergence of African nationalism in Zimbabwe, is
eloquent testimony of the absence of such a line to guide the struggle. Political
opportunism and naivety are characteristics of Zimbabwe’s brand of African
nationalism which in turn reflects the superficial character of the nationalists’ degree
of political and national consciousness.

The political blunders that have been committed by the nationalists thus far border
on being politically reactionary. Their only redeeming feature has been keeping the
flame of nationalism burning in the hearts and minds of the people of Zimbabwe.
Otherwise, the nationalists would have been worthy of total condemnation as they
are now more of a liability than an asset to the liberation struggle; their leadership is
virtually now holding the liberation struggle to ransom  on account of the pursuit of
personal and clique power.

The organisational features of the nationalist movement

The Russian leader Lenin said that organisation is the strongest weapon for the
working class in its struggle for political power. The same applies to any oppressed
people who rise up in struggle for their emancipation. Any oppressed people who
wish to overthrow oppression have no alternative but to organise themselves into a
revolutionary movement and rise up in struggle for their liberation. It is only through
organised activity that the revolutionary consciousness of the people can gain full
expression and be transformed into a formidable political force capable of
overwhelming the enemy. Without organisation, the consciousness of the masses
and their revolutionary feelings against the enemy cannot be harnessed and into a
dynamic force capable of defeating the enemy. Organisation lays a solid basis for
victory. It facilitates the coordination of the forces against the enemy and
guarantees the smooth development of the people’s struggle thereby making victory
a reality.

It is critical that the forms of organization and the organisational line of a

revolutionary movement correspond to the objective conditions obtaining in the
country. This enables the movement to meet the demands of the revolution and
facilitates the accomplishment of these twin lofty tasks of overthrowing oppression
and transforming society.

The question of organisation remains one of the thorniest problems arresting the
development of the   Zimbabwean liberation movement. The nationalist
organisations are controlled by the petty bourgeoisie which determines their
organisational form which is essentially bourgeois. The nationalist organisations are
founded on bourgeois organisational principles and attuned to a bourgeois style of
work that militates against the development of the liberation struggle. Their
organisational features are out of touch and discordant with the objective situation
as they are best suited for bourgeois parliamentary struggles. Though they pose as
political parties, they are nothing more than mass organisations with a
heterogeneous class composition. Technically speaking, a political party can only be
an organisation with a definite class character that serves as the nucleus of its class
and has the class as its base. A political party is a product of class struggle and an
instrument of class struggle in the service of a given class. All this is quite at
variance with Zimbabwe’s nationalist organisations that are masquerading as
political parties.
The nationalist organisations have an amorphous character without organisational
rules or strict discipline binding all the members. Consequently, they lack internal
cohesion and organisational solidity which are indispensable conditions for a
revolutionary vanguard to steer the national liberation struggle to victory.  Internally,
the nationalist organisations lack uniformity, standardisation and unity in political
outlook and political action. This renders them vulnerable to infiltration and
manipulation by enemy forces that capitalise on the internal disunity and confusion
to sow seeds of further discord and derail the revolutionary course of the liberation
movement.

The nationalist organisations, being petty bourgeois in character, lack a mass

character. Their leadership of the liberation struggle has stifled the initiative of the
masses who, lacking a proper political orientation, are left at the mercy of the
politically misguided leadership of the nationalists. No thoroughgoing and
painstaking work is done to organise and educate the masses and train a core of
cadres to serve as the backbone of the liberation struggle.  Consequently, the
majority of the members of the nationalist organisations are inexperienced and lack
theoretical and practical guidance, have a low political consciousness and are
incapacitated to carry out effective political and agitational work among the people.
They lack a firm grasp of the content, direction and perspectives of the revolution
which in essence should form the basis for organisational work among the people.
Given this reality, it becomes evident that neither the full weight of the nationalist
organisations nor of the masses themselves can be thrown into the struggle against
the enemy. The conscious participation of the masses cannot be realised either.

Another particular feature of the nationalist movement is the lack of organisational

continuity and coordination between the guerrilla forces and inside the country and
the masses inside the operational zones. This stems from the absence of the
political and organisational link at the local level between the internal branches of
the externally based nationalist organisations and the guerrilla forces. The link
between the internal and external wings of the nationalist organisations only exist at
the national level and not at the local level casting doubt on the existence of
underground structures of nationalist organisations at the grassroots level.
Furthermore, the guerrilla fighters do not set up internal branches of the nationalist
organisations in the operational zones.
As a result, in the absence of organisational continuity between the guerrilla fighters
and the internal organisations of the nationalist organisations the national liberation
war cannot realize its full potential and the full expression of its popular character on
the one hand and the internal branches of the nationalist organisations (if at all they
exist) cannot serve as organs of the national liberation war. It is the internal
branches or local party committees that should eventually replace the reactionary
organs of settler power in the countryside and serve as the organs of the people’s
revolutionary power with the responsibility to support national liberation war effort in
defense of the revolutionary gains of the peoples’ struggle to overthrow settler
oppression.

The organisational weaknesses that characterise the nationalist movement also find
expression within the nationalist armies as well. It will be recalled that nationalist
armies emerged in the course of the development of the nationalist struggle to
become the principal form of struggle in the quest for national liberation. Though the
nationalist military wings are organisationally dovetailed into their respective parent
organisations at the political level, they are regarded as organisationally distinct from
the nationalist organisations themselves without party structures being present in
the armies. In other words, the fighters of the nationalist armies are not technically
card carrying members of the nationalist organisations themselves except at very
highest level.

The nationalist armies are taken as instruments in the service of the nationalist
organisations and not as extensions of the parent organisations. In contradistinction
to revolutionary armies elsewhere, the nationalist leaders have not extended the
nationalist organisation’s structures into their military wings by setting up party
branches and political committees within the armies. Consequently, the broad
masses of the fighters are in reality not politically interred into the nationalist
organisations. They have no say in the political affairs of the organisation and are
not consulted in the decision making machinery nor can they ever hope that their
views could prevail within the nationalist organisations.

Organisationally therefore, the masses of the fighters are not members of the
nationalist organisation, they are members of the nationalist armies. This reduces
them to the level of bourgeois armies that are apolitical. It is only the leading cadres
that are so to speak politically integrated into the nationalist organisations. Unlike
the broad masses of the guerrilla fighters, they have a say in the affairs of the
organisations at the political level. In a revolutionary situation such relations
between the army and the political organisation are ironic and can only be counter-
productive; as the denial of democracy to the guerrilla forces fighting for democracy
sows seeds of discord that could give rise to political instability within the
organisation. Politically, the army, as the instrument in the service of the nationalist
organisation should be imbued with the political line of the parent organisation.
However, the fighters are given only the minimum of political education required to
make them loyal and faithful instruments of the leadership. Beyond this, further
political education is discouraged as it could lead the fighters to interrogate the
political line of the nationalist organisations and bring their leadership under
scrutiny.

All revolutionary political literature is anathema to the nationalist leadership and

considered to be subversive as it might influence and incite the fighters to rise
against authority. The cases of earlier Cuban trained guerrilla fighters within the
nationalist armies are eloquent cases in point. However, out of historical
circumstances, given the West’s aversion to armed struggle, the nationalist
organisations had no alternative but to develop friendly relations with socialist
countries. The nationalists recognised the need for military violence to influence
political developments within Rhodesia, but without support from the West, they
themselves lacked a military background without any military know how whatsoever.
This left them with no other option but to turn to the East. This entailed sending their
fighters to socialist countries for military training where they came into contact with
Marxism-Leninism. This is how the seeds of revolutionary ideology were sown into
the ranks of the nationalist fighters. All that was left was their germination.

Though revolutionary ideas are incompatible with the world outlook of the nationalist
leaders, they have no choice but to tolerate the presence of these revolutionary
seeds amongst their fighters as the price they have to pay for getting military
assistance from the socialist community. The best they can hope for, is to
progressively and timely weed out revolutionary elements who are perceived to be a
challenge or a threat to their authority.
Consequently, though the nationalist fighters are under the political and
organisational leadership and influence of the nationalist leadership, ideologically
the guerrilla fighters were exposed to a Marxist – Leninist world outlook at variance
with that of the nationalists. In the course of time, this ideological outlook develops
to the point of influencing the organisational and political views of the guerrilla
forces. This inevitably sets the guerrilla forces on a collision course with the
nationalist petty bourgeois political leadership. With the latter lacking a correct
general political line and the requisite military know how this contradiction will
eventually develop to hamper the qualitative development of the national liberation
struggle itself.

Furthermore, the restriction of internal democracy within the ranks of the nationalist
armies inevitably becomes a hotbed of tension within the nationalist organisations
with the stringent internal organisation within the guerrilla forces limiting the combat
effectiveness of the army and arresting the initiative of the masses as there is no
tolerance of alternative approaches. The military leadership with close links to the
nationalist leadership decrees what has to be done and how.

It is self-evident that the organisational forms and characteristic of the Zimbabwean

nationalist movement fetter the development of the liberation struggle politically and
militarily. Without overhauling these organisational forms, principles and the
organisational line governing the political and military activity of the nationalist
movement, it will be difficult nay impossible for the revolutionary forces to unfetter
the development of the liberation struggle hamstrung by these constraints. Political
and military setbacks will continue to mount and blur the image of victory that is
dimly looming at the horizon. Given the crafting of a correct basic political line and
determination of the people to overthrow national oppression, the organisational line
of the liberation movement will become the decisive factor in winning final victory.
Waging the struggle without a sound organisational base will only serve to
complicate the path to victory thereby unnecessarily protracting the people’s
liberation struggle.

The Leadership of the Nationalist Movement

The leadership of the Zimbabwean nationalist organisations is an important element
of the nationalist movement. In any revolution, the question of leadership is a key
factor with an important bearing on the development and outcome of the
revolutionary struggle. Leadership can influence the development of a revolutionary
struggle quite independently of the maturation of the objective factors in the country
of struggle. Even when the objective conditions are ripe for victory, leadership can be
decisive in determining the fate of the revolution by leading it to complete defeat.
Leadership acts as the nucleus for the subjective direction of the liberation struggle
and plays an important role in influencing the development of the subjective factors
of the revolution. Generally speaking, the leadership of a revolutionary struggle
should be the embodiment and compendium of the ideological, political and
organisational outlook of a revolutionary movement and should be reflective of the
aspirations of the broad masses of the people and the basic aims of the struggle.

Experience has shown that the class composition as well as the political and
ideological outlook of the leadership of a political movement is a reflection of the
general orientation of the struggle and of the measure of the scope and degree of
maturity of the subjective forces of the revolution with a bearing on the extent of the
conscious participation of the broad masses of the people in the revolutionary
struggle. The erroneous lines and views that sometimes characterise revolutionary
movements are nothing more than a manifestation of the weaknesses and political
immaturity of the leadership.

The struggle of ideas within the ranks of the leadership of a revolutionary movement
are a manifestation of class struggle within it and expresses itself outwardly as a
struggle between two lines, the struggle between correct and incorrect ideas with a
bearing on victory or defeat of the revolutionary struggle depending on which side
prevails. A close examination of the composition and personalities of the leadership
of the nationalist movement will reveal the sources of its weaknesses.

It will be recalled that African nationalism in Zimbabwe began as a movement led by

intellectuals and the petty bourgeoisie against racial inequality in the political,
economic and cultural domains. Ever since that time, the leadership of the
nationalist movement has remained in the hands of the African petty bourgeoisie
and the emergent African national bourgeoisie. The nationalist movement began as
a genuine movement embracing the entire spectrum of the social strata of the
Africans.  African nationalists in Zimbabwe have been characterised by a number of
opportunist tendencies. Opportunist trends particularly played a prominent role in
attracting the petty bourgeoisie into the leadership ranks of the nationalist
movement. Only a few elements of the petty bourgeoisie have been motivated by a
genuinely patriotic desire into the ranks of the nationalist movement. Consequently,
the majority of the petty bourgeois elements within the nationalist movement have
an opportunistic character. This opportunism has given rise to the emergence of
career politicians within the movement. Up to this day very few elements from the
stratum of intellectuals, petty and national bourgeoisie have voluntarily joined active
service within the liberation movement. The majority of them join the struggle in
search and anticipation of political fortunes.

The preponderance of the petty bourgeois elements within the leadership ranks of
the nationalist movement, with their half-hearted commitment to the revolution,
explains the source of the subjectivist ideas and mistakes which plague the political
and organisational lines and the ideological outlook of the nationalist movement.
Furthermore, the presence of career politicians in large numbers within the
leadership ranks explains the source of the incessant power struggles which is so
characteristic of the Zimbabwean nationalist movement.

In common with the petty bourgeoisie elsewhere, the Zimbabwean petty bourgeoisie
and intellectuals, the current helmsmen of the nationalist movement, share the same
weaknesses. They display marked individualistic tendencies and are very subjective
in their approach to problems of the revolution and look down upon the broad
masses of the people whom they despise as being ignorant and backward. They
show only half-hearted commitment to the liberation struggle, displaying excessive
revolutionary zeal during moments of victory and hope but become downhearted and
disillusioned in moments of despair and hardships, leading to their wholesale
desertion of the liberation struggle at critical junctures. They are especially good at
phrase mongering and sloganeering with often great disparity between what they
preach and what they practice. They can only conceive of their active participation in
the revolution within the context of their leading role and never in the position of the
led.
Their opportunistic character, their subjective approach, and lack of faith in the
masses of the workers and peasants, places the revolution in jeopardy, leading it
through unpredictable vicissitudes engendered by their inherent weaknesses. This is
particularly so given their leading role in the liberation movement. However, the
weaknesses of the petty bourgeoisie, though they are an integral part of their class
nature, are not beyond redemption. They can be gradually overcome through their
integration with the masses and through their prolonged participation in an arduous
struggle with the masses, sharing weal and woe with them and through acceptance
of the working class ideology. Without fulfilling these basic requirements, they will
continue to be a burden to the revolution, more so because of the leading positions
they occupy.

With respect to the Zimbabwe nationalist movement, the petty bourgeois leadership
has not met any of these basic requirements through which they could remold their
world outlook and play a useful role in the liberation struggle. Because of their airs of
superiority, individualistic tendencies, their subjective approach to the question of
national liberation and their half-hearted commitment to the revolutionary struggle,
the Zimbabwe petty bourgeoisie, the leading force of the nationalist movement, have
not succeeded in lowering themselves to the level of the masses. They have not fully
integrated themselves into the liberation struggle. Their aloofness from the struggle
became especially manifest after leaps from the reformist and exclusively political
form of struggle to a revolutionary struggle embracing both political and military
forms of struggle. They lagged behind and failed to keep pace with the development
of the struggle on account of their aloofness.

The political outlook and approach of the nationalist leadership has remained
essentially reformist whilst the broad masses of the people and the fighters who
have been actively engaged in the struggle all along, have acquired a revolutionary
outlook and familiarised themselves with the military aspects of the struggle. The
disparity in outlook between the nationalist leadership and the broad masses of the
people and the guerrilla fighters has led to the alienation of the nationalist leadership
from the revolutionary struggle and exacerbated the contradiction between the
leadership’s subjective direction of the struggle and the objective course of the
revolution.
With the leadership being divorced from the actual military struggle and the fighters
and the masses actively participating in it, a common language no longer exists
between the leadership and the fighters and the masses. Rather than taking timely
and practical steps to rectify the situation by lowering themselves to the level of the
masses and fully integrating themselves into the struggle, the nationalist leadership
continues to look down upon the masses and despise military activity as
cumbersome, inferior and beneath their dignity. They overemphasise the division of
labour between political and military work in order to justify their non-participation in
military training and operations. They are unaware that in a revolutionary situation
such as is prevailing in Zimbabwe, political and military affairs are inseparably bound
together and constitute a single integral approach to the problem of liberation. It is
imperative for all revolutionaries to familiarise themselves with both political and
military affairs and be good at both if they are to fully grasp the laws governing the
development of the revolutionary war and correctly handle the relationship between
politics and military affairs in the course of the struggle.

Without a thorough grasp of both political and military affairs, one can hardly acquire
an all-round conception of the revolution let alone lead one to victory. In the concrete
revolutionary situation of Zimbabwe, where only the broad masses of the guerrilla
fighters  have military know how, and are alone together with the rural masses
actively engaged in the liberation war while the leadership has no knowledge of
military art and is in practical terms completely divorced from direct involvement in
the liberation war, it is difficult to even imagine how the direction of the struggle by
the nationalist leadership could correspond to the war situation and create
conditions conducive to the proper development of the national liberation war. In the
circumstances, it becomes difficult to justify their positions as leaders of the
revolution when they are actually trailing behind it.

The more the revolutionary war develops and gains in complexity, the less the
positive role the nationalist leadership can play and the more they lag behind the
pace of the revolution. Such a situation will inevitably exacerbate the disparity in
revolutionary outlook between the leadership and the broad masses of the fighters
giving rise to the potentially antagonistic relations between them. The uneven
development of these political forces of the nationalist movement will eventually and
inexorably lead to political differentiation within the nationalist movement. The
moment the nationalists perceive the beginning of the process of differentiation,
they interpret it as a threat to their authority and their grip on power and react by
resolutely weeding out, isolating and neutralising all those fighters perceived as
potentially threatening to their entrenched positions.

In order to further safeguard and consolidate their leading positions, the nationalist
leaders invariably resort to tribalism so as to divide the ranks of the fighters and
proceed to place candidates of their choice in key positions without regard to merit.
These characters either happen to be tribally loyal to them or to be political
sycophants seeking promotion through obsequious service and servility. The
nationalist leaders resort to all sorts of corrupt practices in a bid to secure the loyalty
of leading cadres especially the military. The majority of the hand-picked
appointments chosen without any regard to merit, turn out to be ignoramuses
without any political or military competence to write home about. The resultant
depreciation and devaluation of the political and military leadership sets brakes to
the momentum and development of the struggle culminating in inexorable political
degeneration of the movement and the deterioration of the entire war effort.

Furthermore, the cognition by nationalist leaders of the scope of the challenge posed
to their leadership by the emergent political and military cadres, armed with
considerable leadership qualities acquired in the course of revolutionary practice,
gives rise to capitulationist tendencies within the nationalist leadership. They
consider the elimination of revolutionary elements to be only a stop gap measure
that in no way guarantees the security of their grip on power. They begin to lose
confidence in the future development of the armed struggle which they perceive as a
hotbed of rebellion threatening their authority. In their opinion, prospects of an
outright military victory would push military cadres to the fore and pave the way for
their ascendance. A complete military victory becomes a nightmare spelling their
political doom. In order to avert the unpalatable situation, to which they can never
reconcile, the nationalist leaders become conciliatory in their approach to the
liberation struggle and covertly wish and strive to strike an early compromise with
imperialist powers.

They begin to prefer peaceful struggle and constitutional negotiations to a relentless

armed struggle. In essence, the nationalists become political dualists. However, they
take special care not to reveal their apprehension of a victorious armed struggle and
their conciliationist posturing. Instead, they intensify revolutionary rhetoric outwardly
while inwardly they wait in ambush for the seizure of a favourable opportunity to
strike a compromise with the imperialists; the only guarantee for their continued
relevance as political leaders. Such political behaviour on the part of the nationalist
leadership is only but an expression of the weaknesses underlying their class nature
and a manifestation of their lack of revolutionary thoroughness. It underscores their
opportunist character and their unreliability as the leading force of the revolution.

The role that has been played by the petty bourgeois nationalists in the liberation
struggle thus far has revealed the ideological, political and organisational
inadequacies of their leadership. Their opportunist character leads them to aspire for
leading positions. Their concomitant half-hearted commitment to the revolutionary
struggle, their subjectivist and individualist approach to the struggle prevent them
from integrating with the masses and actively participating in the struggle and more
importantly from giving proper subjective guidance to the struggle. This makes it
difficult for them to sum up their experiences and draw lessons from their mistakes
and failures. Their inevitable consequent and subsequent alienation from the
struggle gives rise to the political differentiation within the ranks of the nationalist
movement discussed earlier, which culminates in the brutal suppression of
progressive revolutionary elements desirous and capable of unfettering the
revolutionary development of the national liberation struggle. These features of the
nationalists, coupled with their class character and interests, disqualify them from
the responsibility to lead the revolution and instead requires of them long and patient
apprenticeship in the revolution under worker-peasant influence. This is the basic
condition for overcoming their inherent weaknesses and transforming them into
revolutionary activists.

Ultimately, the opportunism of the nationalist leadership and their lack of

revolutionary thoroughness reveals itself in their proneness to compromise with
imperialists. In view of the necessity the national democratic revolution to
uninterruptedly develop into the socialist revolution, the ideological backwardness,
political unreliability and organisational incompetence of the petty bourgeois
nationalist leadership comes to fetter the uninterrupted development of the
revolution. This brings into question the desirability of the continued petty bourgeois
leadership of the national liberation struggle. The nationalist leadership is at this
juncture confronted with two choices; either they conform with the laws governing
the development of the revolution or they will be swept aside by the tide of national
liberation struggle and get overtaken by events.

The brief examination of the fundamental aspects of the Zimbabwean nationalist

movement relating to the fundamental approach to the question of liberation; the
political programme; the basic political line; organisation and the problem of the
leadership of the liberation struggle has revealed the content of Zimbabwe’s brand
of African nationalism. On contrasting this content of African nationalism with its
outward form typified by the struggle against national oppression, the struggle for
the democratic rights of the people of Zimbabwe, all within the context of the world
struggle against imperialism, it would appear that the liberation struggle is advanced
in form but discordant with the content discussed above. It is revolutionary in form
but narrow and short on content and inconsistent with a thoroughgoing revolutionary
struggle.

The liberation struggle is strongly nationalistic in character and not aimed at

transforming the social base of oppressive and exploitative relations in Zimbabwe. 
In this sense, it stops short of being a revolutionary struggle. In as much as the
nationalist struggle is not fundamentally aimed at transforming the social character
of present day Rhodesia, and is at present not showing any signs to the contrary, it
cannot but be bourgeois, conservative and narrow in content without any positive
contribution to the world struggle against imperialism. The best that they could
achieve is the removal of white minority rule in Rhodesia, which in itself is not
enough as it only clears the ground for imperialist neo-colonialist designs in
Zimbabwe.

Without a revolutionary and thoroughgoing transformation of present day Rhodesian

society, Zimbabwe will never break free from the vicious network of imperialist
control, plunder and exploitation. This militates against the highest interests of the
people of Zimbabwe that find expression in genuine national liberation, complete
sovereignty, and democratic rights in the realm of politics, the economy and culture.
So long as the attainment of these lofty ideals cannot be guaranteed, the nationalist
struggle will remain bourgeois, conservative and narrow in content in spite of
peoples’ expectations to the contrary. The determining factor of the essence of the
nationalist struggle is the class nature of the leading force of the nationalist
movement that governs the development, scope and perspectives of the national
liberation struggle. It should be borne in mind that the current struggle for the
liberation of Zimbabwe is nothing more than militant nationalism and has not yet
developed to become a revolutionary struggle.

4) The general effect of nationalism on the national liberation struggle

Ever since the nationalist movement adopted armed struggle as the principal form of
struggle at the beginning of the 1970’s, great progress and significant strides have
been made in the quest for national liberation but the struggle has not achieved the
objective of overthrowing white settler rule and attaining national liberation. Militant
nationalism increased the Smith regime’s isolation and shattered the morale of the
regime’s political and military forces to the point of losing confidence in the
sustainability of white minority rule. It has weakened the country already crippled by
the sanctions battered economy, over-taxed the regime’s manpower, won great
sympathy and support from the international community, greatly aroused the
enthusiasm of the broad masses of the people for national liberation, forced Ian
Smith to resort to one political manoeuvre after another, and obliged the British
Government to come up in desperation with one neo-colonial scheme after another
but final victory remains elusive. Militant nationalism has managed to weaken the
enemy and push him to a point of desperation without defeating him. It has only
realized quantitative growth without the attendant qualitative development required
to topple the enemy.

The major weaknesses of the nationalist movement discussed in the earlier sections
of this work have played a decisive role in crippling the development of the national
liberation struggle and have prevented the realisation of final victory. Consequent of
these weaknesses, the national liberation struggle has now ground to a strategic
stalemate where neither the Smith regime nor the liberation forces can hope for
outright military victory. This situation enhances the possibilities of a neo-colonial
solution to the problem of Zimbabwe’s struggle for independence. It has now
become evident that, in as far as the further development of the struggle is
concerned, nationalism has generally come to play a negative role that militates
against the realisation of genuine national liberation. The following analysis makes
this abundantly clear beyond any shadow of doubt.

Effect on the mass character of the liberation struggle

Political fragmentation and continued political bickering within the nationalist

movement and the erroneous political line pursued by the nationalist leadership have
constrained the national liberation struggle and prevented it from realising the full
potential of its mass character. The revolutionary forces have been split behind
various political factions resulting in the misdirection of their efforts that are now
expended in faction fighting. In such an unfortunate situation the full weight of the
broad masses of the people cannot be applied against the enemy nor can their deep
hatred for settler oppression and the concomitant revolutionary enthusiasm be
transformed into a material force capable of destabilising white minority rule.
Furthermore, the dissemination of factional propaganda among the masses to the
neglect of propaganda work against national oppression, retards the development of
political and national consciousness of the masses and the fighters. Consequently
the masses have failed to appreciate the significance of national unity.

The ideological importance of national unity has been blurred and forced into the
background leaving the masses blinkered with a parochial approach to the question
of national liberation. The erroneous political and organisational lines pursued by the
nationalist organisations have limited the scope for mobilisation and organisation of
the masses. As a result, the nationalist organisations have failed to draw large
numbers of workers, intellectuals and the petty bourgeoisie into active participation
in the liberation war.  The only exception has been the peasant masses and students
who have been motivated more from patriotic desire into joining the ranks of the
national liberation struggle.

The nationalist movements have thus far failed to control and exercise leadership
over the broad masses of the workers, peasants, intellectuals and the petty
bourgeoisie despite a formidable array of  mass organisations operating and existing
legally in Rhodesia such as trade unions, teachers associations, youth movements to
name but a few. They have failed to give political direction to these organisations
and utilize them to support the war effort. Up to now, the broad masses of the people
consider their role in the liberation war as being purely supportive and subsidiary to
the guerrilla fighters. They have not yet been educated to understand that the
national liberation war is a people’s war, their war. To them the liberation war is a
war fought exclusively by the guerrilla forces but of course with their logistical
support and assistance.  It is axiomatic to all revolutionaries that a revolutionary war
is essentially a mass undertaking. Most regrettably, this has not yet dawned on the
nationalist leadership. Broad and united participation of the masses in a
revolutionary war is an indispensable condition for victory. To the extent that this is
not realised in practice, military victory will continue to be an elusive distant goal
beyond the reach of the nationalist movement.

Effect on the development of the war

The major weaknesses of the nationalist organisations discussed above find their
concrete and material expression in the conduct of the national liberation war. On
account of its highly dynamic and complex character and the concentrated activity
associated with it, the liberation war effort serves as an ideal barometer for
evaluating the maturity of the subjective forces of the revolution. The weaknesses of
the nationalist leadership have become acutely manifest in their subjective direction
of the liberation war. Their political immaturity, organisational incompetence and
lack of military know how and the absence of a military line corresponding to the war
situation in Rhodesia, have arrested the development of the national liberation war to
higher and meaningful levels. The only developments that have been achieved to
speak of are geographical coverage and quantitative growth. The war has stagnated
and not gained in scope since its re-launch in January 1976. It has marked time at
the level of scattered, isolated, sporadic and uncoordinated operations of a guerrilla
character conducted by small units.

In the absence of a strategic plan, the war has virtually failed to develop to the stage
of semi-mobile warfare and let alone mobile warfare proper. With the initial
launching of guerrilla activity over an extensive and fluid front, the initial objective of
guerrilla warfare of dispersing enemy forces and building of a large nationalist
armed force have been adequately realised. However the effective weakening of the
Rhodesian forces and the thoroughgoing mobilisation and organisation of the
masses has not been accomplished with the attendant effect of the war remaining
static and circling about the initial stage. This has exposed the guerrilla fighters and
made them vulnerable to piecemeal elimination by the well-equipped Rhodesian
forces. The problem is compounded by substandard and incompetent military
commanders appointed solely out of loyalty considerations and not military
prowess. In the circumstances, the guerrilla forces cannot give full play to their
tactical and strategic advantages nor can they effectively implement elementary
guerrilla tactics encompassing, ambushes, surprise attacks and sabotage warfare.

It would be wishful thinking to expect the war under these circumstances to develop
to the stage of establishing liberated zones characterised by the liberation
movement’s organs of political power within the country. The liberated zones should
serve as the backbone for sustaining the war effort. It requires concerted, thoughtful
planning and sustained military and political effort to attain this level of
development. Without building a powerful army, without the development of guerrilla
warfare into mobile warfare, without the organisation of the revolutionary political
power of the masses, it would be inconceivable to dream of establishing liberated
areas as was the case in Vietnam and China. Equally, it would be inconceivable to
hope for military victory without setting up liberated zones and organs of
revolutionary power in the liberated areas as the guerrilla fighters will be deprived of
a stable and reliable rear to serve as sources of manpower, logistical support and as
the battlefield for annihilating the enemy forces in large numbers.

The four main pre-requisites for setting up liberated zones or base areas are:-

 Strengthening the national liberation forces

 Inflicting military defeats on enemy forces in the projected liberated zone
 Arousing and organising the masses in the area
 Setting up people’s revolutionary organs of political power.
None of these conditions have been fulfilled to satisfy the requirements of setting up
liberated zones that would serve to consolidate revolutionary gains and serve as a
launch pad for further attacks on the enemy.

It is a strategic weakness to rely exclusively on external bases in the neighbouring

countries as this exposes the liberation movement to political pressure from their
backers. If liberated zones are not established and developed, it will eventually
become difficult to sustain the guerrilla operations on a large scale within the
contested zones.

Given the erroneous political line of the nationalist organisations, full play cannot be
given to the resourcefulness and creative potential of the broad masses of the
people and the fighters in the liberation war. The people and the fighters have been
oriented to rely wholly on foreign assistance.  Such an approach to the fundamental
problems of logistical support for the war is counter-productive and completely at
variance with the needs of a revolutionary people’s war which is essentially
protracted and ruthless. This emanates from the enemy’s military strategic
advantage given his superiority in arms and technical equipment. A revolutionary
people’s war should be in a position to continue raging and gaining momentum even
in the situation of a total blockade as exemplified by the heroic examples of the
Soviet Union during the Civil War (1918-20), the people of China during their Anti-
Japanese War of Resistance (1935-45) and the Vietnamese people during their War
of Resistance against the French (1945-54) and against the military adventures of
the US aggressors in Indo China up to 1974.

Without relying on their own efforts, the revolutionary forces cannot persevere in a
ruthless, protracted and arduous struggle to win final victory. They should primarily
rely on their own efforts, improvise, make and produce their own materials and
equipment wherever and whenever possible and seize every opportunity to capture
enemy weapons and materials to sustain the war. As the situation stands, the
production of war materials and equipment by the masses and the fighters is not
under consideration while capturing weapons from the enemy is anathema. The
fighters and the broad masses of the people have not been educated to grasp the
ideological importance of self-reliance while poor military art, lack of an indomitable
spirit of fearing no sacrifice makes it difficult for the fighters to capture weapons
from the enemy. The moment foreign assistance is not guaranteed; sustaining the
liberation war will become difficult.

It requires intensive ideological and political education among the masses and the
fighters to raise their consciousness to the level of understanding and appreciating
the problems associated with a ruthless and protracted war waged by a small, weak
and poorly equipped army against a strong and powerful enemy with the advantage
of superior arms and technical equipment. Without grasping this point, the fighters
and the masses will not appreciate the importance of relying on their own efforts and
of fearlessly and artfully fighting against the enemy so as to capture his weapons
and materials. The material efforts of the masses and the fighters should form the
basis for victory in the national liberation war.

Another chronic problem bedeviling the development of the war is poor organisation
and management of both the army and the war. This problem exists at all levels and
in all aspects of work ranging from political to administrative work within the army
and permeates all levels from the highest to the lowest. Basically, the root of the
problem can be traced to inappropriate organisational principles of the nationalist
organisations and their retrograde work style that has harmful influence in the army.
There is widespread laxity in carrying out orders on the part of both the commanders
and the fighters that stems from a low political consciousness and lack of a firm
political and military discipline within the army. Generally speaking, most of the
military cadres are incapable of formulating correct and effective plans for guiding
and directing military work and combat operations.

In most cases, their approach to military problems is highly mechanical, dogmatic

and stereotyped. Some of the military ideas are often based on foreign experiences
that may not necessarily conform to the conditions in the country. Lack of practical
experience and the requisite competence on the part of the senior commanders
hampers the formulation of an independent general military line that corresponds to
the concrete and particular circumstances prevailing in the country. Revolutionary
experience elsewhere, has demonstrated that mechanically clinging to foreign
military concepts, which may in some cases be already obsolete, brings great harm
to the struggle. Only after the revolutionary forces have discovered the laws
governing the development of their revolutionary war can they creatively apply the
revolutionary experiences of other countries and further enrich the wealth of
revolutionary experience and lead their revolutionary struggle to victory. Without
such an approach, their revolutionary war will not make headway and will continue to
be beset by seemingly insurmountable problems. The emergence of a correct
military line can only come about on the basis of practical experience in the national
liberation war itself.
As things stand at present, there is no active participation by leading political and
military cadres in military operations. They prefer to direct the war from the shelter of
offices in foreign countries. Furthermore, the supervision of the war and checking on
the accomplishments of military assignments is very slack and has given rise to the
anarchical development of the war. If progress is to be made in the national
liberation war, both the leading political and military cadres of the liberation
movement have to grasp the fundamentals of sound administration and practically
engage in the military work so as to create an objective basis for their correct
guidance of the war. This would help enhance their organisation and management
skills not only of the liberation war, but also of the revolution in general and
subsequently of the projected independent Zimbabwe.

Effect on the revolutionary transformation of society

All revolutionary struggles shoulder a twofold task: the destruction of the old society
so as to pave the way for building a new one and the construction of a new social
order on the basis of the destruction of the old society. These twin tasks are both
complementary and mutually compatible and constitute an integral feature of all
thoroughgoing revolutionary processes. They should permeate the revolutionary
struggle from beginning to end. At the beginning of the revolution, the task of
destroying the old social order is primary while that of building a new society will be
secondary. However with the development of the struggle the two processes will
come to be in equilibrium until finally the construction of a new social order
overtakes that of destruction as the revolution marches on relentlessly to a
triumphant outcome. After nationwide victory, the building of a new society will gain
further momentum and be elevated to a higher plane, whilst that of destruction will
persist for some time in a subordinate role in order to obliterate the remnants of the
old social order. Such a process constitutes revolutionary transformation; the
essential element of a genuine and thoroughgoing revolutionary struggle.

As the liberation war develops, the reactionary organs of state power should be
destroyed and be replaced by the people’s revolutionary power. The new organs of
the people’s revolutionary power should mark the beginning of social progress in the
new society and initiate and direct the transformation of the old way of life into a
new order. The transformation of the old society, should embrace the political,
economic and cultural aspects of people’s lives. The broad masses of the people
should become masters of their political destiny, occupy the commanding heights of
economic life and foster unfettered cultural expression.

The political domination of the settler reactionary organs of power, the concentration
of economic power in the hands of monopolies and domestic entrepreneurs and the
cultural enslavement of the African people should be brought to an end and be
replaced by a new popular and just socio-economic order that guarantees the
democratic rights of the people by placing political power in their service so as to
release and set in motion their creative and innovative potential. Such is a reflection
of a thoroughgoing revolutionary process. However as things stand today, the
nationalist leaders are either unaware of the need for such a revolutionary course or
they are totally opposed to traversing such a thoroughgoing revolutionary course.
There are no concrete plans for the subsequent transformation of present day
Rhodesia other than overthrowing white minority rule. The broad masses of the
people and the guerrilla fighters are not conscious of their role as builders of a new
society, thanks to the erroneous political line pursued by the nationalist leadership.
They only conceive of themselves as destroyers of the old society.

As the war develops inside the country, no efforts are being made to set up bases of
people’s revolutionary power to serve as bastions and active agents in the
transformation of the old society into a new one. The national liberation struggle
remains unable to cross the threshold to develop into a revolutionary struggle that
would lay a solid foundation of a new progressive social order. It remains merely a
struggle with the exclusive objective of substituting Black nationalist majority rule for
white minority rule. Such a struggle can by no means be termed a revolutionary
struggle. It would be a misnomer to term it so as it remains a mere armed struggle 
devoid of revolutionary content as the present struggle is not in a position to realise
the lofty ideals of the national democratic revolution.

Even within the rear bases in the neighbouring countries, where the nationalist
leaders have every opportunity to instill revolutionary ideas of the new society
without hindrance, no effort has been made to imbue the fighters and the refugee
population with the ideas of a new Zimbabwe. One would have expected the
essentials of the new society to be reflected in the people’s daily lives within the rear
bases where every opportunity exists to educate the fighters and the people on the
kind of society that they are fighting and sacrificing for. No steps have been taken to
even cultivate and develop revolutionary cadres to serve as the backbone for the
construction of the new Zimbabwe. All the masses and the fighters know is that they
are fighting to overthrow settler oppression. This is not enough.

The fighters and the masses should be educated to appreciate and understand that,
whilst they are fighting to overthrow settler oppression, they are also simultaneously
fighting to build a new society that guarantees all democratic freedoms and rights
for all Zimbabweans without the exploitation of man by man. The struggle to build a
new society is just as important as overthrowing national oppression. It is equally
important for the masses and fighters to fully grasp the fundamentals of the struggle
to create a new society as it is to grasp the methods of fighting to defeat the enemy,
otherwise fighting loses its revolutionary significance and degenerates into a means
of mechanically substituting one oppressive system for another.

So long as the basis for the new society is not firmly laid in the course of the
liberation struggle, and the masses and the fighters are not educated to understand
this, victory in the national liberation struggle will be devoid of revolutionary
significance. It will be more difficult to commence building the new society after
liberation as there will be great resistance from reactionary and retrograde forces. It
will also be difficult to arouse the enthusiasm of the of the masses to support and
actively participate in the  building of the new society and resolutely struggle against
reactionary forces as they will lack the requisite political consciousness that they
should have otherwise acquired in the course of the liberation struggle.

Worse still, commencing reconstruction only after nationwide victory is fraught with
serious consequences for the survival of the revolution. That would pave the way for
the defeat and hijacking of the revolution by opportunists, and pro-capitalist petty
bourgeois elements within the ranks of the nationalist movement. These counter-
revolutionary forces will capitalise on the ignorance and low political consciousness
of the masses and the fighters to hijack the revolution and perpetuate the old system
by stepping into the shoes of the former white minority oppressors to the detriment
of the masses.
That is why it is of utmost importance to nurture and cultivate a strong backbone of
revolutionary cadres in advance. The leading cadres would then spearhead the
construction of the new society in the liberated zones and rear bases during the
course of the struggle so as to ensure and invest in the security of the revolution and
guarantee its uninterrupted development to final victory. Only such a revolutionary
approach could frustrate all counter-revolutionary hopes by opportunist elements
within the nationalist movement and help nip them in the bud. The people should
become their own masters during the course of the struggle.

Fundamental and thoroughgoing reforms affecting people’s lives should be effected

within the liberated areas in the course of the struggle. The reforms could take the
form of self-defence units, the introduction of people’s democracy, equitable land re-
distribution, fair exchange of commodities, setting up schools of a new type
consistent with the revolutionary thrust. Such revolutionary activities will arouse and
boost the enthusiasm of the masses to defend and consolidate the gains of the
revolution and spur them to fight with greater determination and all conquering
enthusiasm till final victory.

So long as the nationalist movement does not transform itself and develop into a
genuine revolutionary movement, so long as the masses and the fighters are not
educated  to understand the significance of transforming the old society into a new
one, the thoroughgoing execution of the people’s national democratic revolution
cannot be guaranteed.

Effect on expanding the scope of the struggle.           

One important effect of nationalism on the national liberation struggle is that it has
prevented the utilisation of all forms of struggle in the quest for liberation. A
revolutionary struggle is not an all out military struggle against the enemy. It is at one
and the same time a political, economic, cultural and diplomatic struggle against the
enemy. A truly revolutionary struggle is an integral form of all these aspects of the
struggle. As long as these various forms of struggle are not well coordinated,
integrated and woven into a single dynamic movement against the enemy, the path
to final victory will be unnecessarily prolonged and needless losses and sacrifices
will be sustained by the revolutionary movement in vain. Though armed struggle may
be the principal form of struggle, it has to be supplemented and complemented by
other forms of struggle if it is to realise its full effectiveness. Absolute reliance on
the military struggle to the neglect of other forms of struggle is a leftist error
tantamount to militarism and could bring great harm to the struggle. Revolutionary
violence does not only compromise military violence but encompasses political
violence as well.

In the course of a revolutionary struggle, armed struggle has to be supported by

political violence which could take varied forms like protest marches,
demonstrations and labour strikes.  The revolutionary movement should capacitate
the masses to give full play to their initiative in the employment of political violence
in support of the armed struggle. It should excel in organising and guiding the
masses through ruthless exposure of the settler regime’s crimes against the people. 
Political violence serves to push the enemy into the defensive politically, enhances
his notoriety and increases his isolation internally and externally.  Political violence
has been successfully employed in other victorious struggles with remarkable
results especially in Vietnam where it was closely interwoven with the military
struggle against the US aggressors and th  puppet regime in Saigon. Political
violence is an important weapon in the hands of the oppressed and should continue
to be a glorious tradition for the struggling masses of oppressed peoples who
should further develop and enrich it with new creative experiences.

Economic struggles should also be closely aligned to and coordinated with political
struggles in order to get maximum mileage in the fight against the enemy. Economic
strikes can be effectively employed to paralyse the enemy’s economy and create
favourable opportunities for the military defeat of the enemy by sowing seeds of
economic confusion within his rear and nerve centers. Strikes that are isolated from
the political struggle are ill-timed and inopportune and can achieve very little. Their
effectiveness can be greatly enhanced by imparting a political character to them and
coordinating them with the political activity of the masses.  Economic strikes that
are well coordinated both with each other and with political violence can have a
powerful impact on the enemy and contribute to exacerbating the general crisis
within his ranks and facilitate his military defeat.
Furthermore, the revolutionary movement should be good at employing both open
and clandestine forms of struggle and at utilizing both the legal and illegal forms of
struggle. The liberation movement should employ all forms of struggle at its disposal
and apply the maximum possible strength of the broad masses of the people in the
struggle against the enemy. The utilization of diverse forms of struggle weakens the
enemy and throws his forces into disarray and confusion and creates favourable
opportunities for the effective use of the liberation movement’s principal forms of
struggle.  Revolutionary forces should not only understand the importance of
employing every means of struggle at its disposal, but should be good at
implementing them to achieve maximum effectiveness.

The possibilities of utilising diverse forms of struggle in the national liberation

struggle in Zimbabwe are great and limitless but little has been done to exploit them.
The reasons behind this are the weaknesses, inexperience and incompetence of the
nationalist leadership. The nationalists fervently pin all their hopes on the armed
struggle as the sole form of struggle and hope that it will deliver victory on its own.
This is a mistaken view with a negative impact on the struggle as it increases the
human cost of the liberation struggle and prolongs the realisation of victory. The
human cost to the liberation struggle could be mitigated by coordinating and
supplementing armed struggle with other forms of struggle which in turn creates
favourable opportunities for the accelerated development of the armed struggle and
brightens prospects of victory.

Furthermore, the nationalist movement has failed to pursue a correct policy of

disintegrating enemy forces and exploiting contradictions within the enemy ranks. It
has already been pointed out that victory in the national liberation struggle is not
dependent on military operations alone but on the combination with other forms of
struggle as well. Besides, the other forms of struggle discussed above, disintegration
of enemy forces also plays a contributory factor to defeating the enemy. It is of
prime importance for the liberation movement to implement the policy of dividing
and isolating the hardcore enemy diehards. This can be accomplished by employing
correct political tactics such as giving lenient treatment to prisoners of war and
carrying out propaganda work amongst the enemy forces and their supporters.
Currently, the nationalist forces pursue a hardline policy based on mass elimination
of enemy agents and their dependents, indiscriminate victimisation of whites
including missionaries, elimination of supporters of the Smith regime, adoption of a
hostile attitude towards enemy forces as a whole without taking into account the
class contradictions among them, intimidation of the masses into submission and
the adoption of a militarist attitude towards the civilian population. All the erroneous
practices are typical of the activities of the nationalist forces within the war zones. 
Such malpractices do not only retard the development of the war but also alienate
the people from the liberation fighters, hardens white feelings against a nationalist
take-over, unites and closes the enemy ranks and offers an objective basis for
undermining and discrediting the integrity of the liberation fighters in the eyes of the
people and the international community.

These erroneous and decadent excesses play directly into the hands of the enemy
and are capitalised on and fed into the enemy’s propaganda machine. They militate
against the interests of the struggle and ultimately retard the development of the
liberation war. So long as the liberation movement does not  pursue a correct  policy
of  disintegrating enemy forces and winning  them over to their side in large
numbers, closely aligning itself with the masses, distinguishing between diehard
reactionary forces and the white population in general, dividing enemy ranks and
isolating the diehards, the national liberation struggle cannot make rapid progress.

The successes that have been scored by the guerrillas on the battlefield have
inflicted considerable losses on the enemy forces politically, militarily and
economically. These losses have in turn given rise to contradictions and division
within the ranks of the enemy. Rather than exploiting these contradictions that are a
direct fruit of their efforts, the nationalist forces have set back with folded arms and
continued to view the enemy as a monolithic granite block without a single crack in
it. Such an attitude reflects political naivety. The nationalist leaders, enmeshed in
power intrigues, fail to perceive these contradictions and cannot grasp the given
opportunities which might persist for a long time before they eventually slip out and
slide down the drain when the enemy makes belated amends.

The disintegration of enemy forces and the exploitation of contradictions within their
ranks are both important weapons at the disposal of the liberation forces that can
produce miracles when properly handled. Revolutionary forces in other countries
have successfully utilised these weapons with marvelous results for their struggles. 
Opportunities for disintegrating enemy forces and exploiting contradictions within
their ranks are great and ever present awaiting exploitation by liberation forces. 
Enemy forces, just like the nationalist forces cannot thrive without contradictions
within their ranks. It however requires considerable political skill to identify and
single out the contradictions for exploitation to own advantage. There is no doubt
that the Smith regime itself practices the same policy towards the nationalist
movement. Unlike the Smith regime that exploits such opportunities to its
advantage, rather than utilising such opportunities and divisions within their own
ranks and exploiting divisions within their ranks to the advantage of the enemy, the
nationalists are experts at weakening their own ranks.

The Nationalist Movement and Imperialist manoeuvres

The struggle for national liberation waged by the people of Zimbabwe poses a direct
threat to the economic interests of both the white settler minority and imperialist
powers. Their determination to cling to political power is driven by the need to
safeguard these economic interests. The victory of the national liberation struggle
poses a serious threat to both the white settler minority and imperialist powers. In a
desperate bid to ward off and neutralise the threat posed by the liberation struggle to
their interests, they conceive diabolical schemes that aim at installing a neo-
colonialist puppet regime in Zimbabwe that would safeguard their interests. They are
especially concerned about the continued development of the armed struggle as this
radicalises the masses that they want to continue exploiting and oppressing.
Besides retarding the development of the national liberation, the nationalist
leadership renders the liberation struggle vulnerable to manipulation by imperialists
in the face of their feverish activity to safeguard their vested interests. The
nationalists have proved to be readily gullible to deceptive manoeuvres by
imperialists and have shown remarkable pliability to their neo-colonial designs.

The nationalist movement has suffered innumerable setbacks through the Smith
regime’s diabolical machinations and imperialist sponsored neo-colonial schemes.
Already, a significant section of the nationalist forces has lined up with the Smith
regime in the so-called “internal settlement scheme”. This is a direct consequence of
the weaknesses inherent in the nationalist movement that the Smith regime is
exploiting with the support of its imperialist backers. Failure by the nationalist
leadership to handle contradictions among themselves in the correct manner has
exposed them to the enemy. The situation has now developed to dangerous
proportions and poses a very serious threat of a neo-colonial settlement. It is thanks
to the weaknesses of the nationalist movement that has made the liberation struggle
conducive to imperialist machinations. The Achilles heel of the nationalist
movement is its disunity on which the enemy forces have capitalised.

Whenever the nationalists sense imperialist manoeuvres in the offing, rather than
fervently working on contingent counter manoeuvres, they patiently wait for the
schemes hoping to exploit them to their advantage and propel themselves into
power. Such a way of doing things is not good for the struggle and easily renders the
liberation movement passive with complete loss of initiative and thereby seriously
compromising the security of the revolution. Such an opportunistic attitude paves
the way for hijacking the revolution and setting up a neo-colonialist puppet regime in
Zimbabwe. The imperialist powers on their part are fully aware of the political
impotence of the nationalist movement and of the great confusion rife within its
ranks. They can afford to patiently work out their diabolical schemes with ease and
self-assured confidence. The nationalist attitude of looking to Britain to broker a
solution to the crisis is not helpful either. In a way Britain is made a reluctant referee
in its own cause. The people of Zimbabwe fight hard for their liberation only to hand
over the results of their sweat to Britain again. What amazing logic!

The brief appraisal of the general effect of African nationalism on the national
liberation struggle and particularly the effect of the nationalist leadership reveals the
negative role they are playing in the liberation struggle. It is evident that nationalism
has now developed to become a fetter retarding the development of liberation
struggle in a number of aspects. They have now reached their limit and exhausted
their revolutionary potential and the best that they could do is to sustain the struggle
at the current level without any prospects for further development. However, even
the current stagnation is temporary and could with time decline into defeat if timely
amends are not made. More importantly, the stagnation could be easily exploited by
imperialist powers to further their neo-colonial designs for setting up a puppet
regime in “independent” Zimbabwe.
Radical changes are necessary if the struggle is to develop further beyond the
current stage of stagnation. To conceive of further development of the struggle into
a revolutionary struggle capable of leading the struggle to final victory under the
auspices of nationalist leadership would be a contradiction in terms given their
retrograde essence. Clearly the development of the national liberation struggle into a
revolutionary struggle cannot be realised within the context of the nationalist
movement given its inherent chronic limitations.

The nationalist movement has made a great contribution to the national liberation
struggle from the beginning but they are now at the deep end when it comes to
transforming the liberation struggle into a revolutionary struggle. It has now
overburdened itself with weaknesses that can no longer be rectified with an African
nationalist framework. The demands of the liberation struggle have now outgrown
its limits. Given the entrenched and deep rooted monopoly capitalist interests, there
is need for a thoroughgoing struggle to achieve real victory. Only a sustained
revolutionary struggle is the basic guarantee for the victory of the national
democratic revolution in Rhodesia’s particular circumstances.

5) Transformation of the nationalist movement into a revolutionary mass

movement

a) The emergence of revolutionary forces within the nationalist movement

As the situation stands, the Zimbabwe nationalist movement has reached the limit of
its potential and is now gradually sliding into a negative role by fettering the further
development of the national liberation struggle to the degree necessary for the
attainment of final victory. It can no longer measure up to this responsibility and has
demonstrated in practice that this task is beyond their ken thanks to its inherent
weaknesses. The analysis of the social character of Zimbabwe has revealed that
national oppression is based on a well-entrenched capitalist order which cannot be
re-shaped to serve the interests of the people of Zimbabwe by reformist nationalism
or the military struggle of militant nationalism. The forcible overthrow or peaceful
replacement of white minority settler rule will in itself do nothing to change its socio-
economic base, the real root cause and source of national oppression, exploitation,
domination, dehumanization and all other kinds of sufferings of the people of
Zimbabwe.

Settlerist oppression and imperialist plunder of our resources are inseparable from
the capitalist order prevailing in Rhodesia. It requires nothing short of thoroughgoing
and dynamic revolutionary action to overthrow the settler minority oppression and
simultaneously transform the social base of that dehumanising oppression. This is
the minimum requirement and basic guarantee for genuine national liberation and
the complete realisation of the people’s democratic rights. This calls for the
transformation of the nationalist movement into a revolutionary mass movement
with a thorough grasp and mastery of the laws governing revolutionary struggles to
accomplish this lofty task. Thorough mastery of the laws and ideology governing
revolutionary struggles will enable the revolutionary mass movement to maintain its
bearings in the course of an arduous struggle amid the maze of social contradictions
and machinations characteristic of an oppressive system.

The transformation of the nationalist movement into a revolutionary mass

movement has become a necessity if the challenges of the national liberation
struggle are to be met and complete victory is to be assured. The incapacity of the
nationalist movement to promote the further development of the struggle
necessitates the emergence of a revolutionary force capable of steering the
liberation struggle to final victory. Such a force is already present in embryonic from
within the womb of the nationalist movement; its period of gestation is rapidly
coming to a close with the objective conditions for its maturation already ripe. The
active participation of the fighters in the struggle and their intercourse with the
revolutionary experiences of other people’s struggles gave rise to the emergence of
the embryonic revolutionary forces within the liberation struggle. It comes about as a
product of struggle and is historically determined by the circumstances of struggle
and expresses itself outwardly as uneven political development within the nationalist
movement. The uneven political development polarises the political forces within its
ranks thereby laying a concrete basis for the subsequent transformation of the
nationalist movement.

The polarized political forces within the nationalist movement coexist peacefully for
some time, but in the course of the struggle, a point is subsequently reached when
they can no longer exist in harmony and promote the further development of the
struggle. The relations between the two poles come to a head when on the one hand,
the old guard nationalist political forces can no longer cope with the struggle and fail
to direct its further development in the required direction and on the other, when the
emergent political forces gather in strength and for all practical purposes no longer
exclusively rely on the old guard leadership in the prosecution of the war. At this
stage, the uneven political development precipitates a crisis. The old guard
nationalist leadership begins to fetter the development of the struggle whilst at the
same time, the emergent revolutionary forces are filled with revolutionary
enthusiasm and become intolerant of the stagnation of the struggle and fervently
desire to carry it to its logical conclusions.

The struggle between the old guard nationalist political forces and the emergent
revolutionary forces is an inevitable process in the course of the development of the
nationalist movement and the national liberation struggle. It arises from the
heterogeneity of class forces within the nationalist movement and from the
circumstances of struggle that bring the class contradictions of the diverse political
forces within the movement to the fore. The crisis within the nationalist movement
can, at this point in time be defused by the peaceful transformation into a
revolutionary movement with the emergent revolutionary forces gaining the upper
hand or it may develop into open antagonism which can only be resolved by
precipitate revolutionary action. The revolutionary transformation of the nationalist
movement cannot be expected to be a spontaneous process devoid of subjective
direction. It can only come about as result of conscious effort. Subjective forces can
play an active role in the transformation process by either accelerating or retarding it.

Though it is historically inevitable, the objective course of the transformation of the

nationalist movement develops independently of the will of subjective forces. In this
regard, it is incumbent upon the emergent revolutionary forces to bring their efforts
into correspondence with the objective conditions if they are not to suffer
unnecessary losses and setbacks.  From a historical point of view, the subsequent
triumph of the emergent revolutionary forces is inevitable.  However, they may suffer
defeats and setbacks, not because their ideas are incorrect, but because in the
balance of forces engaged in the struggle, they may not be as powerful for the
moment as the forces of reaction. They may therefore be temporarily defeated but
are bound to triumph subsequently, sooner or later. Their subsequent victory over
the forces of reaction is historically determined when the objective conditions have
ripened.

b) The revolutionary vanguard

The scenario of the revolutionary development and transformation of the nationalist

movement into a revolutionary vanguard discussed above may be specifically
applicable to nationalist movements that have a heterogeneous class character and
are currently locked in protracted liberation struggles against endogenous, colonial
or imperialist forces of oppression during the era characterised by the integration of
national liberation struggles into the worlds struggle against imperialism and the
general decline and retreat of the forces of imperialism into a defensive shell the
world over. With specific regard to the revolutionary transformation of the nationalist
movement into a revolutionary vanguard, three schools of thought have emerged as
possible routes to the transformation.

The first school, with strong adherents within the ranks of the nationalist forces,
does not view the current stagnation in revolutionary development of the national
liberation struggle as a crisis point for the nationalist movement itself. They regard it
as a temporary setback emanating from the shortcomings of the current leaders of
the nationalist movement. They assert that the shortcomings of the current
leadership are not beyond redemption and continue to be optimistic of bright
prospects of the liberation struggle within the context of the nationalist movement
with all its attendant weaknesses.

The second school, with strong adherents within the fighting forces, views the
current crisis as signaling the complete failure of the nationalist movement and any
other projected political forms that lack a definite class character. With particular
regard to the situation in Rhodesia, they consider all mass movements without a
class character as outmoded and not up to the task of accomplishing a
thoroughgoing revolution in Zimbabwe. They assert that the crisis in the liberation
struggle is a reflection of the sharpening of the contradiction between labour and
capital in Rhodesia. In their view, such a contradiction can of necessity only be
resolved by a proletarian party and not by a mass movement. For the national
liberation struggle to achieve victory, they argue, it should be brought under the
leadership of a proletarian vanguard.

There is yet another school of thought, the third, also with strong adherents within
the fighting forces, which views the current stagnation in the development of the
national liberation struggle as being engendered by the decadence of nationalism
which they say has outlived its days. However, unlike the second school, they don’t
view the stagnation as a reflection of the maturation of the contradiction between
labour and capital in Rhodesia. While taking note of the great level of the
contradiction between labour and capital, and acknowledging its profound effects on
both the objective and subjective factors in Rhodesia, and while further
acknowledging the important role of the working class in the liberation struggle, they
assert that it is not only still possible but that it is the only correct route to continue
waging the struggle within the context of a heterogeneous mass movement that
transcends the limits of moribund nationalism. They regard the call for the
emergence of a proletarian party as adventurous and premature at this point in time
given the prevailing alignment and relative strengths of class forces at present.  They
view the emergence of a revolutionary mass movement as the necessary next stage
in the liberation struggle in the light of the prevailing political situation.

Advocating the formation of a proletarian party would only serve to alienate the
revolutionary forces from the masses, split up the motive forces of the national
liberation struggle and reinforce the ranks of the enemy, thereby rendering the
struggle vulnerable to defeat. The adherents of this school therefore advocate for
the transformation of the liberation movement into a revolutionary mass movement
as being appropriate and not into a proletarian vanguard.

c) The case against the formation of a proletarian vanguard

The third school of thought, that has quite a considerable following amongst the
fighters, appears to offer the only viable alternative to the continued stagnation of
the liberation struggle. Before examining the nature of the proposed revolutionary
mass movement envisaged by this school, it is necessary to clarify its position
further in relation to second school. The arguments against the first school have
been adequately dealt with in the main body of this treatise.
The emergence of a proletarian vanguard is considered premature for a number of
important and valid reasons that have to be fully taken into account before
embarking on that path. Though the working class in Rhodesia, like its sister
proletariat elsewhere is endowed with immense leadership potential and has an
historic duty to deliver humanity from oppression, it cannot stand as a viable
independent political force at this point in time for a number of reasons. Primarily,
capitalism in Zimbabwe has only realised a low level of development as yet. It only
took root in Zimbabwe at the beginning of this century and its pace of development
has been retarded by monopoly capital which regulates the development of
capitalism in accordance with its needs and interests. Monopoly capital takes
special care to reduce competition from domestic capital so as to prevent the
duplication of industries catered for by its subsidiaries elsewhere.

Though the capitalist socio-economic order is well entrenched in Rhodesia, it has not
had much time to produce a sizeable force of workers. The working class is still
numerically small and inferior to the relative strengths of the working classes in
advanced capitalist countries where a strong proletarian contingent exists. The
numerical strength of the industrial workers in Rhodesia is still far below a million
and therefore still weak to constitute a viable and independent political force.
Furthermore, the Rhodesian working class is still unorganised and more of “a class
in itself “than a “class for itself”.  It still has not seriously embarked on an economic
struggle to improve working conditions and fight for its rights not even to talk about
a workers movement worthy of significance. Trade union organisation is still
embryonic and caters for the interests of a small section of the working class in
Rhodesia.

Before the Zimbabwean workers present themselves to the stage of history as an

independent revolutionary force, they first should organise themselves as a class.
Their consciousness has to be aroused and their aspirations channeled into a
workers movement with a definite form. It is only after the workers movement has
assumed a definite form that it can be linked with the struggle for socialism. As the
situation stands today, there is neither a workers movement nor a movement for
socialism of any significance.
Besides, there are several other factors that still militate against the constitution of
the Rhodesian workers into an independent political force. They have as yet not been
steeled in struggle. They lack experience in class struggle especially in comparison
with the working classes elsewhere where strong proletarian parties have emerged.
They have never participated in economic struggle on a wide scale where they could
have gleaned the requisite experience. Very few major strikes have been staged in
Zimbabwe and still less have produced significant results. In the absence of
experience in class struggle, the workers of Zimbabwe have no other school than to
actively participate in the national liberation struggle to acquire the requisite
experience in struggle. They should actively participate in the liberation struggle to
steel themselves and acquire a revolutionary outlook. Furthermore, the Rhodesian
workers still have a very low cultural, literacy and technical level when compared to
the petty bourgeoisie. A high cultural and literacy level is an important asset in class
struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The working class parties in
other countries make great efforts to acquire high cultural and literacy endowments.

Additionally, the current alignment of forces militates against the emergence of a

worker’s party at this point in time. Firstly, the broad masses of the people are not
receptive to proletarian revolutionary ideas at this stage because of the prevalence
of a strong wave of anti-communist propaganda propagated by the Smith regime
that depicts the guerrilla forces as communist agents. Any dissemination of
communist revolutionary ideas will simply play into the hands of the enemy and
result in the alienation of the freedom fighters from the masses. This would serve to
complicate the development of the struggle and diminish the prospects of victory.
Secondly, careful note should be taken of the relative strengths of the petty and
national bourgeois elements within the ranks of the liberation movement. They are
currently its leading force and therefore constitute its backbone though the workers,
peasants and students are the main motive forces.

True to its class nature and interests, the Zimbabwean petty bourgeoisie is not
enthusiastic for socialism and instead wishes to inherit, albeit in modified form, the
present socio-economic base in Zimbabwe. Overlooking the relative strengths of the
nationalist and petty bourgeois forces and their leading role with the nationalist
movement, their ideological orientation and vested interests and proceeding to
organise a proletarian party regardless of the strength of their aversion to it, will not
only split the liberation movement but could also result in an ill-fated liberation
project.

At the current stage of our struggle, the national democratic revolution, and the
specific circumstances and nature of our struggle, national unity is indispensable
and should be tirelessly striven for by all revolutionary and patriotic forces rather
than be thrown into jeopardy through reckless and shortsighted ultra-leftist tactics.
Such an approach would not only bring about the danger of defeat for the liberation
struggle but would also be counter-productive to the cause for socialism. The
national democratic character of the liberation struggle is determined by the tasks of
that struggle which are to overthrow national oppression by the white settler minority
as a guise of British colonialism and restore the peoples’ democratic rights in the
realm of politics, the economy and culture.

The task is not to overthrow capitalist relations of production and capitalist private
property. Such a task would require a socialist revolution that resolves the
contradiction between labour and capital. But the principal contradiction
underpinning Zimbabwean society today is not that between labour and capital but
that of the political domination of the black indigenous people of Zimbabwe and
British colonialism under the guise of white settler minority rule. Therefore, from a
purely political technical point of view, calling for the working class to form a political
vanguard and lead the liberation struggle within the context of the struggle between
labour and capital would be tantamount to calling for a proletarian socialist
revolution in Rhodesia which does not correspond to the social character of
Rhodesia at present.

The weaknesses of the Zimbabwe working class discussed above militate against
their constitution as an independent political force. What is called for at this point in
time is an alliance of the working class with other progressive and patriotic forces
that are in favour of fighting for genuine national liberation that restores the people’s
inalienable rights. That alliance should take the form of a revolutionary mass
movement that will consummate the national democratic revolution. Without such
an alliance, the working class, having no organisation of its own, lacking the requisite
revolutionary experience and aptitude and being extremely fragile at this stage,
cannot hope to emerge as an independent and viable political force capable of
leading the revolutionary struggle without the close cooperation of the other
progressive forces in Zimbabwe. It is therefore imperative for the revolutionary and
progressive forces to reconcile themselves to this reality and actively work for the
emergence of a revolutionary mass movement.

d) The revolutionary mass movement

The basis for the emergence of the revolutionary mass movement has already been
laid within the nationalist movement as has already been discussed. The projected
mass movement should take the form of a political front of all social classes and
strata of the oppressed masses of Zimbabwe. The envisaged revolutionary
transformation and development of the nationalist movement into a revolutionary
liberation movement should be ideological, political and organisational. This would
ensure all round transformation of the nationalist movement and the birth of
revolutionary mass movement rich in revolutionary content. The mass movement
should be the driving force of the national liberation struggle and guarantee the
complete overthrow of national oppression and the concomitant restoration of the
people’s sovereignty and democratic rights in a thoroughgoing consummation of the
national democratic revolution.

e) the ideological plane

Ideologically, the revolutionary mass movement should be imbued with and fall
under the guidance of a revolutionary ideology. In the struggling third world countries
and dependent colonies, the principal contradiction characterising their societies is
the struggle between the broad masses of the people on the one hand and
colonialism and imperialism that takes the form of monopoly capital on the other
and not that between socialism and capitalism. However, the struggles for national
liberation of the oppressed masses of the world is inextricably linked to the struggle
for socialism in a sense as both are struggling against capital with the former locked
in the struggle against monopoly capitalism in the form of imperialism and the latter
against capitalism in general.

Without the support from the world forces of socialism, the struggles for national
liberation against the forces of colonialism and imperialism cannot be
thoroughgoing and without the guidance of their revolutionary experiences genuine
victory cannot be a reality. The revolutionary experiences of the forces for socialism
give solid guidance to struggles for national liberation that enables them to correctly
handle and resolve the maze of social contradictions that characterise the
oppressive system obtaining in Zimbabwe in the face of imperialist manoeuvres and
intrigues designed to derail national liberation struggle and hijack it into neo-
colonialist settlements. However, although the revolutionary mass movement might
draw freely from the experiences of successful struggles of socialist countries, that
does not elevate or equate it to a communist or socialist party of the proletariat.

The revolutionary mass movement differs from a party of the proletariat on the one
hand in that:

i) It has a mass character and has no definite class character in contrast to a

workers’ party

ii) It has as its goal the attainment of thoroughgoing and complete national liberation
and not the establishment of a socialist state. The focus of its struggle is
colonialism and imperialism, monopoly capitalism and not national capital and
differs from the nationalist movement in that:

iii) It falls within the revolutionary orbit of consistent anti-imperialism and wages a
resolute struggle against imperialism and is not confined to narrow nationalism

iv) It spearheads a struggle that is genuinely an integral part of the progressive

world’s struggle against imperialism

v) It has as its content the ideal of transforming the Rhodesian state complete with
its institutions and attendant structures into a new Zimbabwe reflecting the will and
serving the interests of the majority of its formerly oppressed people and not just the
form which typifies nationalism bent on substituting white with black nationalism.

vi) In other words, the revolutionary mass movement would have an enriched content
of anti-imperialist struggle in comparison to a nationalist movement. It also assumes
a revolutionary internationalist standpoint in practice which materially links it to the
struggling masses of the people the world over.

The foregoing ideological content of the projected revolutionary mass movement

distinguishes it from moribund nationalism on the one hand and the party of the
proletariat on the other. It is this ideological outlook and thrust that enables the
revolutionary mass movement to lead the national liberation struggle to complete
victory. Such an ideological outlook capacitates the liberation movement to timely
expose and frustrate all imperialist maneuvers, rally all progressive forces within the
country against the enemy and march in step with revolutionary forces elsewhere in
the struggle against imperialism. It is the primary duty of progressive forces within
the liberation movement to cultivate this revolutionary ideology amongst both the
masses and the fighting forces. In the final analysis, it is the ideological awareness
of the masses and the fighters that lays a concrete basis for the revolutionary
transformation of the nationalist movement.

f) political plane

Politically, the liberation movement should undergo the revolutionary transformation

to become the revolutionary vanguard to lead the national liberation struggle through
a complex and tortuous political course to final victory. To rise up to the occasion,
the revolutionary mass movement should craft a revolutionary political programme,
formulate a correct basic political line to guide the liberation struggle on the basis of
an objective appraisal and understanding of the concrete situation in Zimbabwe and
lead the broad masses of the people in struggle for their national liberation. The
political programme and the basic political line should be a reflection of the objective
laws for the development of the national liberation struggle in Zimbabwe.

The brief social analysis of the situation in present day Rhodesia made earlier,
basically determines the course of the revolutionary struggle to be followed in order
to resolve and sweep away the principal contradiction underlying the Rhodesian
society. From it follows that the national liberation struggle in Zimbabwe is for the
exclusive purpose of overthrowing national oppression and bestowing the
democratic rights of the people of Zimbabwe. Herein lies the national democratic
character of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle. The liberation struggle is national
because it overthrows national oppression, democratic because it bestows the
hitherto suppressed and stifled democratic rights of the people of Zimbabwe,
revolutionary because it is transformational in nature as it destroys the old
oppressive system and replaces it with a new progressive social order. Overthrowing
national oppression and bestowing democratic rights are thus two sides of the same
coin in Zimbabwe’s national democratic revolution. They together constitute an
integral feature of the national democratic revolution in Zimbabwe.

The primary task of the national democratic revolution is the liberation of the people
of Zimbabwe and the attainment of full democracy and not overthrowing capitalist
relation of production i.e. the task of the socialist proletarian revolution. As already
discussed, the full appreciation of the objective course of  development of the
revolution in Zimbabwe in the light of  the contemporary world situation should form
the basis of the movement’s revolutionary programme and the formulation of the
general political line to guide the liberation struggle to victory. Both the immediate
and higher objectives of the liberation struggle should be taken into account the
respective stages of the struggle clearly stipulated and the requirements of the
struggle at each stage clearly defined. A revolutionary political programme that
charts out and maps the whole course of the liberation struggle should be consistent
with this approach. The liberation movement should fully mobilise the broad masses
of the people to unite behind the revolutionary programme whose realization is their
duty.

Corresponding to each of the principal stages of the liberation struggle, the liberation
movement should draw up a minimum and maximum programme that clearly
defines the political content and limitations of the respective stages. Corresponding
to each of the stages of the struggle, the mass movement should also formulate a
basic political line to lead and guide the success of the respective stages. The
general political line of each stage should clearly define the nature, task, motive and
leading forces, the targets and perspectives of the revolutionary stages. The general
political line should serve as the political means of all the policies and tactics
adopted in the course of the struggle against the enemy.

It is the task of the liberation movement to educate the people to understand the full
content of the national democratic revolution. It is the task of the national
democratic revolution to totally and thoroughly overthrow white minority settler
domination and completely restore the democratic rights of the people. The
revolutionary forces should actively and resolutely lead the broad masses of the
people and the fighters in a relentless struggle against the erroneous political line of
the old guard nationalist leadership. They should seize every opportunity to influence
the political line of the liberation movement so as to consolidate its transformation
into a revolutionary movement. They should spare no effort to mobilise political
forces for the transformation process. The revolutionary forces should pay constant
attention to enhancing their ideological outlook, strengthen their ideological unity
and elevate their political consciousness to the level of grasping all the important
aspects and problems of the national democratic revolution. This would put them in
an ideal position to influence the revolutionary transformation of the liberation
movement in the correct direction.

The revolutionary forces should pay special attention to educate the broad masses
of the people and the fighters to understand the significance and importance of
national unity within the liberation struggle. They should fully appreciate the negative
role of the current political fragmentation within the liberation movement which for
opportunist reasons is ascribed to presumed differences in political and ideological
outlook. All attempts to perpetuate the factional existence of nationalist
organisations should be ruthlessly exposed as reactionary and retrogressive and be
opposed resolutely. The principal victims of disunity are none other the masses
themselves whose emancipation would be unduly prolonged with precious efforts
and sacrifices being misdirected to serve narrow partisan interests.

All the Zimbabwean nationalist organisations have identical class composition

which precludes grounds for the presumed “irreconcilable ideological differences”
and “incompatible political approaches” between organisations that have the same
class character and are fighting for the same goal. In essence, all these
organisations are alike with a pronounced petty bourgeois character.  Consequently,
there is no justification whatsoever for an antagonistic relationship between them,
especially during this important stage of national liberation. It is therefore necessary
and important for the revolutionary forces within the liberation movement to close
ranks and join hands in the resolute struggle for both the unification and
revolutionary transformation of the liberation movement. These two lofty tasks are
equally important, mutually reinforcing and complementary to each other. They can
be realised ether simultaneously within the liberation movement or successively.
Efforts should be put in both directions simultaneously in order to achieve maximum
results.

With regard to the revolutionary transformation on the political plane, the process
should culminate in the emergence of a revolutionary vanguard capable of making a
clear distinction between friend and foe and uniting the broad masses of the people
in the relentless struggle against the enemy and leading it to complete victory.

g) the organisational plane

Organisationally, the leadership and composition of the revolutionary mass

movement should reflect its revolutionary content. To give expression to its
revolutionary content, the organisational line of the movement should be based on
the tried and tested mass line and the principles of democratic centralism.
Organisationally, it should be composed of elements from the working class, the
peasantry and revolutionary intellectuals as its main motive forces with a
revolutionary core as its vanguard. Sections of the national and petty bourgeoisie
should also be part of the motive forces although they cannot be firmly relied on to
persevere and prosecute the struggle to complete victory.

There should be a significant swing within the leadership ranks in favor of

revolutionary elements from the working class and progressive intellectuals. Class
origin, political background, revolutionary experience and competence should be the
key criteria for leadership within the transformed liberation movement in
contradistinction to decadent nationalist practices where leading cadres are
appointed on the basis of ethnic compatibility, social status, family background,
academic qualifications and political servility.

True revolutionary leaders are a product of struggle: they develop and get
transformed through struggle, and get tested and steeled in the course of the
struggle. The transformed liberation movement should strictly adhere to this
revolutionary principle and desist from giving responsibility to individuals without or
having little experience. They might not persevere in times of hardship and could let
down the struggle and desert at critical moments when the going gets tough and
becomes unbearable for them. The revolutionary struggle is full of twists and turns
and revolutionary movements are advised to shape their leadership accordingly. All
leading cadres should be equal to their responsibilities and promote the
development of the struggle and not become a hindrance to it.

The leadership of the transformed liberation movement by progressive and

revolutionary elements is fundamental and the basic guarantee for consolidating and
maintaining the revolutionary character of the movement. Without this leadership,
the thoroughgoing execution of the national liberation struggle cannot be guaranteed
and the danger of hijacking the revolution will be ever present.  Revolutionary
elements should persevere in the struggle and display revolutionary qualities fearing
neither hardships nor sacrifices so as to establish themselves as the leading force
and be worthy of that historic role. Revolutionary elements from progressive classes
and social strata especially the working class, the peasantry and revolutionary
intellectuals who prove themselves in the struggle not to be narrow-minded and not
to be careerists or opportunists but to be reliable and dependable should be
promoted into positions of responsibility. This is a question of fundamental
importance of the revolution as it is the basic guarantee for retaining and
maintaining the revolutionary character of the liberation movement.

So long as careerist and opportunist elements continue to occupy leading positions

within the liberation movement, its revolutionary transformation will be greatly
retarded. If the revolutionary transformation does eventually materialise, and
opportunists continue to occupy leading and key positions, the revolutionary
character of the liberation movement will not be guaranteed and the danger of a
relapse into the retrogressive past will remain material. It has already been shown
that petty bourgeois elements are currently at the helm of the liberation movement.
This however should not be interpreted to mean the need for their wholesale
riddance to ensure a smooth transformation into a revolutionary movement. The
replacement of undesirable elements should be phased out till the balance is
eventually shifted in favour of revolutionary elements. So long as there is an effective
critical mass of revolutionary cadres within the ranks of the liberation movement, the
revolutionary character of the movement can be guaranteed.
In addition to strengthening the organisational representation of revolutionary
elements within the liberation movement, the revolutionary mass movement should
adhere to correct organisational principles and adopt a democratic style of work that
gives full play to the initiative, resourcefulness and creative capabilities of the broad
masses of the people and the fighters. A democratic style of work enhances the
revolutionary character of the liberation movement and serves to motivate both the
masses and the fighters to participate in the liberation struggle with heightened
enthusiasm.

Without the adequate organisational representation of revolutionary elements within

the leadership ranks of the liberation movement, and without a sound organisational
line to give expression to its revolutionary character, the transformation of the
liberation movement in the ideological and political planes would lose its purpose
and significance. It is critical to have strong organisational representation of
progressive and revolutionary elements within the leadership ranks of the liberation
movement so as to give material effect to the ideological and political
transformation of the movement.

The emergence of a revolutionary vanguard capable of leading the currently stalled

national liberation struggle to its logical conclusion can only come about as a result
of transformation of the nationalist movement ideologically, politically and
organisationally as discussed above. Without embracing these three pivotal aspects,
the transformation of the liberation movement will be incomplete and the continued
development of the liberation struggle in the right direction cannot be guaranteed. It
is incumbent upon the revolutionary forces to actively and consciously accelerate
the transformation process. The continued development and transformation of the
revolutionary forces themselves is an objective law of social development in the
service of the cause of revolutionary forces. Since all political movements and
political parties are themselves agents of social transformation it is important
therefore for the revolutionary forces to employ the laws of social development in
their service and achieve the transformation of the political movements and parties
themselves to higher forms.

h) The Intensification of the National Liberation Struggle

The transformation of the liberation movement into a revolutionary movement is not
an end in itself but a means to an end. It does not in itself provide magic solutions to
the thorny problems of the national liberation struggle. All it does is to release the
subjective forces capable of giving proper direction to the struggle. Once the
liberation movement has undergone revolutionary transformation, the stage will have
been set for the further development of the liberation struggle and its intensification
to win final victory. The revolutionary transformation of the liberation movement and
unification of the political forces create an objective basis for the intensification of
the liberation struggle politically, militarily and diplomatically. While putting
emphasis on the armed struggle, the liberation movement should strive to
coordinate to the maximum possible all forms of struggle at its disposal and give full
play to the initiative, resourcefulness and creative capabilities of the masses so as to
create favourable conditions for victory.

Taking advantage of the excellent domestic and international situation, which is

decidedly in their favour, the revolutionary forces should escalate the struggle in the
military, political and diplomatic spheres. The white minority regime is in disarray, the
broad masses of the people are desirous of genuine liberation, with the progressive
international forces doing their best to frustrate the neo-colonial manoeuvres for the
so-called internal political settlement engineered by the British and American
imperialists. This is an excellent opportunity for intensifying the liberation struggle.
The liberation movement should strive to increase the isolation of the forces of
reaction internally and externally by employing the correct revolutionary tactics. It
should arouse the masses to rise up against the enemy in their millions and
extensively mobilise the progressive international forces to render all possible
assistance to the struggle.

While hoping for foreign assistance, the revolutionary forces should spare no effort
to rely on the resourcefulness of the broad masses of the people and the fighters to
come up with novel improvisations to support the struggle. The liberation movement
should regard foreign assistance as only serving the purpose of creating a material
base for self-reliance, and for the promotion of self-reliance in the prosecution of the
struggle. The liberation movement should utilise every opportunity to train a large
army of political and military cadres to serve as the backbone of the revolutionary
struggle. The cadres should be educated to understand the theoretical problems of
the revolutionary struggle so as to capacitate them to lead the masses and the
fighters to victory in the struggle and in the creation of a new progressive Zimbabwe.
They should grasp that a revolutionary war is a war of the masses that can only be
waged by fully mobilizing and organizing the masses and relying on them.

The military cadres should have a thorough grasp of the theoretical problems of the
national revolutionary war and military administration and organisation. They should
actively apply their theoretical knowledge to the concrete conditions of the
Zimbabwean struggle. They should continuously sum up their experience in the war
and elevate their subjective ability to direct the development of the war from the
current guerrilla warfare to mobile warfare. The fighters should be given broad and
varied military training ranging from guerrilla warfare to mobile warfare and
specialized technical training in the use of advanced military equipment.

The liberation movement should, on the basis of sound political training of both the
commanders and the fighters, adherence to self-reliance, material assistance from
fraternal countries intensify the struggle to establish revolutionary base areas in the
form of liberated zones. Once established, these revolutionary base areas should
give effect to the popular character of the liberation war and serve as the organs of
national liberation. Particular attention should be paid to the establishment of these
zones of liberation as they enable the liberation movement not only to give full play
to its superiority but to apply their full strength against the enemy and guarantee the
retention of the initiative even in the face of political or military hardships.

So long as the liberation movement has its own secure base areas it will be in a
position to pursue an independent policy and retain the initiative even in the face
immense pressures from any quarter and successfully smash one imperialist
manoeuvre after the other. The establishment of these revolutionary base areas is
therefore an indispensable condition for political and military victory and the basic
guarantee for the independence and initiative of the liberation movement.

Furthermore, the establishment of liberated zones gives the liberation movement the
opportunity to give material effect to its revolutionary policies. The character of the
liberation movement will be easily judged from the policies and the actions it
pursues in the liberated zones. The masses will be in a position to judge for
themselves whether the liberation movement is for their genuine empowerment and
liberation or for their continued exploitation and oppression. Liberated zones are in a
sense, the material expression of the triumphant march of the liberation struggle.

6) Conclusion

The situation in Zimbabwe is currently characterised by the stagnation and profound

confusion within both the ranks of the enemy and the liberation movement. It has
developed into a political and military strategic stalemate. In the face of possible
defeat by the liberation forces, the racist Smith regime has come up with an internal
political settlement scheme with the support of the British and American
imperialists. This is a diabolical scheme to Zimbabweanise the war and entails
splitting up the ranks of the nationalist forces. The objective of the so-called
Salisbury Agreement is to install a neo-colonial puppet regime in Salisbury with a
superficial transfer of power to black puppets and real power remaining in the hands
of the racist white settler minority Smith regime.

The internal settlement scheme falls short of satisfying the political aspirations of
the broad masses of the people of Zimbabwe and hence is doomed to fail. However,
the liberation movement is facing a severe test given frantic efforts by imperialist
forces to prop up the puppet government in Salisbury. Sadly, the Patriotic Front now
spearheading the liberation struggle is failing to exploit the current confusion in the
enemy ranks and deliver decisive blows to paralyse the diabolical scheme. The
nationalist movement is hamstrung by disunity, competition and instability within the
nationalist organisations themselves. These weaknesses stem from the nature of
the nationalist movement itself which is conservative and narrow in its approach to
the struggle. The confused situation within the nationalist movement does not bode
well for the future and holds gloomy prospects for the national liberation struggle
and is potentially fraught with serious political consequences for the people of
Zimbabwe.

Wilfred Mhanda was often known by his nom de guerre, Dzinashe Machingura,

acquired during the war against the white settler regime in Rhodesia in the 1960s.
He was born on 26 May 1950 and he died on 28 May 2014. He was a commander
within the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) and became
a trenchant opponent of Robert Mugabe’s during and after the liberation struggle;
in post-independence Zimbabwe he remained a harsh critic of the new regime. He
formed the Zimbabwe Liberator’s Platform which criticised Robert Mugabe and
his Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) led government
after the 2000 so-called Third Chimurenga. Mhanda’s book Dzino: Memories of a
Freedom Fighter was published in 2011 and condemned by ZANU but recognised as
a vital part of the critical and untold story of Zimbabwe’s fraught and problematic
liberation. Unsurprisingly he was not conferred ‘hero’ status on his death in 2014.