The Rise and Fall of African Socialism : Navigating Ideological Shifts and Development Challenges
In the transition to independent Africa, nationalist governments found themselves in an economic quandary where two economic models were dominant: capitalism and socialism. If they were to use capitalism, it should have meant they smacked neo-colonialism and put back the arms of Western expatriate capital, and that could seem to subvert the gains of the liberation struggle. Thus, African leaders believed that while Marxism was an important ideology, it needed to be modified for the African contexts where there was no industrialization, class struggles were not a driver of history, and religion was an important aspect of community lived realities. Against this background, African nationalists chose to go with socialism and went on to coin African socialism’, which seems to hold different meanings for its advocates. Yet its adherents, when placed in the camp of the Soviet Union or China by the West, protested their discomfort.
Socialism has had an immense effect on Africa´s development and shaped its international relations. The emergence of socialism in Africa is critically linked to socialist solidarity offered to anti-colonial nationalist movements across Africa by different anti-imperialist movements. At the end of the Cold War, new materials became available to third-world actors fighting for freedom, particularly the Soviet Union. Thus, socialist philosophy was the focal point of the relationship between states that were pro-Marxist-Leninist in Africa. This period was also a period with a vast escalation of socialist ideologies that were manifesting from the academics and writers in the West. Soviet leaders such as Nikita Khrushchev renewed their interest in Africa after realizing a wave of decolonization and took the opportunity to assist and spread socialist ideas and find fresh allies among the first generations of African leaders.
This internationalization of Marxist-Leninist ideologies across the world influence the spread of socialism to Africa and the world over. In the Sierra Maestra, Cuba, when the 26 July movement consolidated power, Ernesto Che Guevara believed that the guerrilla learned from the worker’s revolution, so they also learned the value of organization and again taught the value of rebellion to freedom fighters and pro-Marxist-Leninist in Africa. Khrushchev, like Che, believed that the chances of building socialism in Africa were higher than for capitalism, as many nationalist leaders had proclaimed their interests in Marxist ideas. This is also seen in how the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo), Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), and Zimbabwe African People´s Union (ZAPU), among other liberation movements, sent students to socialist countries for military training, some in education and health, and returned to assume those roles in communities, helping spread socialism and establish cooperatives.
In some parts of Africa, the work of notable leaders like Guevara in spreading socialism was noticed. Guevara went on a mission in the Congo to support the Congolese revolution. In the context of China, it influenced the creation of a socialist literary network, particularly after the assassination of Lumumba of Congo, and this facilitated the spread of Maoist discourse of world revolution. Soviets maintained relations with the African liberation movements through their established African Affairs section. For instance, the Soviets provided support to the war of liberation, in 1961, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the African Party for Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC) received their first military assistance packages from the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. Also, Guevara toured African states, discussing his plan to export the Cuban path of liberation against anti-Simba fighters using Marxist ideology and the foco guerrilla strategy. In 1965, in Tanzania, he met Laurent Kabila, who requested help to fight in the Congo revolution, in Brazzaville, he met Agostinho Neto, who asked for the Cuban’s support for the Angolan liberation army.
African Socialism and the Move to Socialist Policies.
Although the origins of socialism can be traced back to the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc states, it is believed that it has been in existence in Africa and is deeply rooted in cultural values, norms, and notions. Julius Nyerere, the first President of Tanzania, coined African socialism based on ujamaa (familyhood), while some scholars argue it emanates from the traditional heritage, the recognition of society as an extension of the basic family unit. Thus, if we are to understand socialism in Africa based on Ujamaa, that explains how African states cooperated in the liberation struggle. In the quest for a wider African identity and solidarity, African leaders faced a conundrum in advocating African freedom and unity together with creating and promoting a cohesive national identity. Rooted in its indigenous traditions of communalism and solidarity, African societies were viewed as collectivists and have developed an understanding of solidarity norms among themselves.
The first generation of African leaders, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, Ahmadou Ahidjo of Cameroon, Sekou Touré of Guinea, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, were cognizant of the fact that the principal goal of the state is to survive. Thus, the fact that domestic interests, strategic culture, or commitment to set national ideals dictated more benevolent or cooperative international goals led African leaders to adopt African socialism. For Nyerere, “ujamaa” or “familyhood” describes African socialism that is opposed to capitalism, which seeks to build a happy society based on the exploitation of man by man. Hence, African socialism is equally opposed to the classical doctrine of socialism that seeks to build its happy society on a philosophy of inevitable conflict between man and man. Nyerere believed that African states are rooted in their past, the traditional society that produced Africans.
There were different motivations observed for socialist ideologies and their influence on African diplomacy. African solidarity norms among African leaders gave them a sense of unity and continental consensus on international politics. In Sino-Africa relations, the motivation for cooperation highlights the focus on economic aid, technical assistance, and military support to African countries. China and other Eastern bloc countries were motivated to build relations with Africa based on socialist ideology adoption and acceptance and creation of socialist platforms. Socialist ideologies entail a sense of reciprocity, mutual respect, cultural exchange, and win-win solutions between states as an important factor in diplomatic relations. Also, social ownership of the means of production, redistribution of wealth, and state self-determination were dominant components influencing Africa´s approach to foreign policy. Identities also influence socialist ideologies and how African states relate with others in the international system. In both cases, the identity of diaspora populations is forged in a struggle for political, economic, and social survival and revolves around the imperative of a return to the land of origin or homeland.
Why Socialism is failing
In the mid-20th century, when African countries gained their independence from colonial rule, they sought to build their nations on socialist principles. Socialist principles were widely applied by African leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso, and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania. Nyerere´s Ujamaa provided specifications for the development of indigenous African socialism, which then influenced Tanzania´s policy towards immigration ethics and law. He identified that the foundation and objective of African socialism is the extended family and that a true African socialist does not look at one class of men as his brethren and another as his natural enemies. The challenge, however, was to incorporate and commit to Marxism-Leninism policies in the post-colonial period. For instance, under the leadership of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia, like other former socialist or socialist regimes in Africa, there has been high pragmatism in incorporating a global neo-liberal agenda.
“Socialism” can be simply put in as “state capitalism” or “state socialism” because private enterprises continue to exist across Africa. Socialist states have been established and dismantled at different times, often failing to survive the rule of particular leaders in Africa who provided driving forces and personalized ideological orientations. Socialist activities and principles were mainly influenced by the quest for liberation of the colonized African states and to gain their national identity. The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union put a final nail into socialism in Africa. Socialist states of Africa eventually embraced structural adjustments and liberalization projects and sought assistance from the International Monetary Union and the World Bank. The SAPs required that African states liberalize their economies, reduce government spending, and privatize state-owned enterprises, and these policies dismantled the socialist structure in favor of capitalist reforms.
Conclusively, the spirit of socialism is against the exploitation of people, and the battle of Marx and Engels was the abolition of classes. In the communist manifesto, we read: “The distinguishing feature of communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products that are based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few”. Henceforth, the collapse of socialism in Africa is mainly attributed to the lack of trust in the vision, lack of security strategies, misunderstanding of the concept of socialism, and the problem of consistency.