Winning the war!!!!

[RWalker]

This is an excerpt from a dialog I had with some very principled comrades in Zimbabwe who are preparing to defend their nation and Africa...as the intensification of the war against Africa is global, we know for example that it is certainly happening here in the Americas and the rest of the diaspora, we must all be prepared to fight and win this war...it is my hope that my small contribution will help generate some discussion as to how we go about winning the war and uniting our people around the world.

Roy

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BASIC SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM

We went to the election completely unprepared, unorganised and this against an election-weary voter. Our structures went to sleep, were deep in slumber in circumstances of an all-out war.
Comrade President Robert Mugabe
Unite for Victory - President
The Herald (Harare)
17 May 2008


Please pay particular attention to the fragment “all-out war,” this is phrasing that a President of a country would not use lightly. It is his intention to wake up the people of Zimbabwe to the level of the threat facing the country and the population. In the article he also reminds the reader that what Zimbabwe is facing is naked neo-colonialist aggression designed to reinstate the rule of the Rhodesian Front via the charade of the MDC turncoats.

If you wish to survive this carefully constructed assault on your sovereignty and liberty, you will have to master the art of revolutionary warfare…it is the only counter to reactionary warfare. Winning wars are not simply a matter of military readiness and organization, it is a function of the proper coordination of military, political and diplomatic systems. This is what we will be discussing in this last tutorial.
A Little Background
Zimbabwe is one the great centers of ancient civilization in Africa and the world. The Great Zimbabwe ruins remain a source of wonderment to this very day. As has been the practice in such cases the builders of the civilization have been falsely deprived of the credit for their achievements.

Since the advent of the European enslavement of Africans and the conquest of Africa, consolidated by colonialism, the achievements of the African peoples have been denied by racist scholars and others in position to misrepresent history. This obviously applies to the achievements of the early Zimbabweans, which as with most of Africa, with the indigenous cultures of the Americas, and elsewhere, the credit for the construction of the splendid physical artifacts of Zimbabwe civilization has been attributed to others, and not the people of the area. Here is how the martyred Walter Rodney presented this aspect of history:


When Cecil Rhodes sent in his agents to rob and steal in Zimbabwe, they and other Europeans marveled at the surviving ruins of the Zimbabwe culture, and automatically assumed that it had been built by white people.

Even today there is still a tendency to consider the achievements with a sense of wonder rather than with a calm acceptance that it was a perfectly logical outgrowth of human social development within Africa, as part of the universal process by which man's labor opened up new horizons The sense of reality can only be restored by making it clear that the architecture rested on a foundation of advanced agriculture and mining, which had come into existence over centuries of evolution.

Zimbabwe was a zone of mixed farming, with cattle being very important, since the area is free of tsetse flies. Irrigation and terracing reached considerable proportions…. countless small streams were diverted and made to flow around hills, in a manner that indicated an awareness of the scientific principles governing the motion of water. In effect, the people of Zimbabwe had produced “hydrologists” through their understanding of the material environment. On the mining side, it is equally striking that the African peoples in the zone in question had produced prospectors and “geologists” who had a clear idea of where to look for gold and copper in the subsoil. When the European colonialists arrived in the 19th century, they found that virtually all the gold-being and copper-bearing strata had been mined previously by Africans -though of course not on the same scale as European were to achieve with drilling equipment. Among the Zimbabwean people, there also arose craftsmen who worked the gold into ornaments with tremendous skill and lightness of touch. pp. 65-6, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Walter Rodney


The misrepresentation of the achievement of the Zimbabwean people is part of the general propaganda designed to relegate the African peoples to the category of pre-history beings. If one accepts this maliciously false thesis, then, the advent of European slavery and colonial domination is a blessing to such “benighted”, individuals rather than as crimes against humanity.

Thus we have a multitude of criminally specious concepts emerging from the malevolent enterprise of slaving and colonization. Processes that were cynically described as the “white man’s burden” to “civilize” and “bring to Christ” the heathens of not only Africa, but most of the non-European world.

Of course by the 20th century the great majority of humanity had thrown off old fashion colonialism, only to be confronted with the even more sinister system of oppression and exploitation. Neo-colonialism.

But the imperialists and neo-colonialists did not catch peoples of the world with their guard down. No, the struggling mass of our planet were fully aware of the cruel chicanery of the imperialist agenda:

In March 1961, the Third All-African People’s Conference met in Cairo. Speaker after speaker went to the rostrum to denounce neo-colonialism, and at the end of the conference a special resolution on the subject was adopted. It was clear that for these spokesmen of Africa neo-colonialism certainly had a meaning; for them it was a precise term which related to the specific problems they were facing. From December 1965 to January 1966 I was in Havana, attending the first Tri-Continental Conference of Asia, Africa and Latin America, Here, too, as I heard for myself, speaker artier speaker describe the most detailed terms the activities and manifestations of neo-colonialism in his country. And here, too, as in Cairo, at the end of the conference the delegates endorsed a comprehensive resolution setting the characters of neo-colonialism and the necessary to struggle against it.
p 10 Introduction to neo-colonialism: The New Imperialism in Asia, Africa & Latin America
Jack Woddis


But the peoples of the world did more than merely make declarations against neo-colonialism. The Cuban victory against US neo-colonialism coupled with that of the Vietnamese peoples leading to the defeat of both the US-backed French imperialists and ultimately the US itself, along with its puppets in Saigon and a collection of allies from other neo-colonized and imperialist countries, demonstrated conclusively that neo-colonialism could be defeated.

The emergence of the armed phase of the African Liberation movement and the inability of the western power, under the guise of the UN, to defeat the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) in the “police conflict in Korea,” the first limited imperialist war in response to the Soviet nuclear capacity, demonstrated the way forward for the peoples of the world: namely armed resistance.

The problem of the imperialists and neo-colonialists were further compounded by the development of a nuclear weapon by the PRC in 1964.

Of course there were many setbacks also, the assassination of Lumumba and the war against the peoples of the Congo, the overthrow of the Nkrumah / CPP government and the destruction of the continent’s liberation movements’ military training base, the hijacking of the OAU resulting in the temporary defeat of the drive to build Pan-Africanism, the assassination of Che Guevara, the manipulation of the Sino-Soviet ideological and programmatic disagreements and a host of similar defeats suffered by the people of the world for example the CIA coup against the people’s democratic government in Iran, the brutal coup in Chile and the murder of the democratically elected Head Of State, Allende, the assassination of many African leaders, both at home and in the diaspora and so on.

Nevertheless, these counter-revolutionary action did not and could not halt the peoples will to be free, their determination to strive for a better life.
What is Neo-colonialism?
The following text is taken from Kwame Nkrumah’s Introduction to his book, Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of imperialism. It provides us with sufficient grounding to continue our discussion


THE neo-colonialism of today represents imperialism in its final and perhaps its most dangerous stage. In the past it was possible to convert a country upon which a neo-colonial regime had been imposed — Egypt in the nineteenth century is an example — into a colonial territory. Today this process is no longer feasible. Old-fashioned colonialism is by no means entirely abolished. It still constitutes an African problem, but it is everywhere on the retreat. Once a territory has become nominally independent it is no longer possible, as it was in the last century, to reverse the process. Existing colonies may linger on, but no new colonies will be created. In place of colonialism as the main instrument of imperialism we have today neo-colonialism.

The essence of neo-colonialism is that the State which is subject to it is, in theory, independent and has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty. In reality its economic system and thus its political policy is directed from outside.

The methods and form of this direction can take various shapes. For example, in an extreme case the troops of the imperial power may garrison the territory of the neo-colonial State and control the government of it. More often, however, neo-colonialist control is exercised through economic or monetary means. The neo-colonial State may be obliged to take the manufactured products of the imperialist power to the exclusion of competing products from elsewhere. Control over government policy in the neo-colonial State may be secured by payments towards the cost of running the State, by the provision of civil servants in positions where they can dictate policy, and by monetary control over foreign exchange through the imposition of a banking system controlled by the imperial power.

Where neo-colonialism exists the power exercising control is often the State which formerly ruled the territory in question, but this is not necessarily so. For example, in the case of South Vietnam the former imperial power was France, but neo-colonial control of the State has now gone to the United States. It is possible that neo-colonial control may be exercised by a consortium of financial interests which are not specifically identifiable with any particular State. The control of the Congo by great international financial concerns is a case in point.

The result of neo-colonialism is that foreign capital is used for the exploitation rather than for the development of the less developed parts of the world. Investment under neo-colonialism increases rather than decreases the gap between the rich and the poor countries of the world.

The struggle against neo-colonialism is not aimed at excluding the capital of the developed world from operating in less developed countries. It is aimed at preventing the financial power of the developed countries being used in such a way as to impoverish the less developed.

Non-alignment, as practised by Ghana and many other countries, is based on co-operation with all States whether they be capitalist, socialist or have a mixed economy. Such a policy, therefore, involves foreign investment from capitalist countries, but it must be invested in accordance with a national plan drawn up by the government of the non-aligned State with its own interests in mind. The issue is not what return the foreign investor receives on his investments. He may, in fact, do better for himself if he invests in a non-aligned country than if he invests in a neo-colonial one. The question is one of power. A State in the grip of neo-colonialism is not master of its own destiny. It is this factor which makes neo-colonialism such a serious threat to world peace. The growth of nuclear weapons has made out of date the old-fashioned balance of power which rested upon the ultimate sanction of a major war. Certainty of mutual mass destruction effectively prevents either of the great power blocs from threatening the other with the possibility of a world-wide war, and military conflict has thus become confined to ‘limited wars’. For these neo-colonialism is the breeding ground.

Such wars can, of course, take place in countries which are not neo-colonialist controlled. Indeed their object may be to establish in a small but independent country a neo-colonialist regime. The evil of neo-colonialism is that it prevents the formation of those large units which would make impossible ‘limited war’. To give one example: if Africa was united, no major power bloc would attempt to subdue it by limited war because from the very nature of limited war, what can be achieved by it is itself limited. It is, only where small States exist that it is possible, by landing a few thousand marines or by financing a mercenary force, to secure a decisive result.

The restriction of military action of ‘limited wars’ is, however, no guarantee of world peace and is likely to be the factor which will ultimately involve the great power blocs in a world war, however much both are determined to avoid it.

Limited war, once embarked upon, achieves a momentum of its own. Of this, the war in South Vietnam is only one example. It escalates despite the desire of the great power blocs to keep it limited. While this particular war may be prevented from leading to a world conflict, the multiplication of similar limited wars can only have one end-world war and the terrible consequences of nuclear conflict.

Neo-colonialism is also the worst form of imperialism. For those who practise it, it means power without responsibility and for those who suffer from it, it means exploitation without redress. In the days of old-fashioned colonialism, the imperial power had at least to explain and justify at home the actions it was taking abroad. In the colony those who served the ruling imperial power could at least look to its protection against any violent move by their opponents. With neo-colonialism neither is the case.

Above all, neo-colonialism, like colonialism before it, postpones the facing of the social issues which will have to be faced by the fully developed sector of the world before the danger of world war can be eliminated or the problem of world poverty resolved.
Neo-colonialism, like colonialism, is an attempt to export the social conflicts of the capitalist countries. The temporary success of this policy can be seen in the ever widening gap between the richer and the poorer nations of the world. But the internal contradictions and conflicts of neo-colonialism make it certain that it cannot endure as a permanent world policy. How it should be brought to an end is a problem that should be studied, above all, by the developed nations of the world, because it is they who will feel the full impact of the ultimate failure. The longer it continues the more certain it is that its inevitable collapse will destroy the social system of which they have made it a foundation.

The reason for its development in the post-war period can be briefly summarised. The problem which faced the wealthy nations of the world at the end of the Second World War was the impossibility of returning to the pre-war situation in which there was a great gulf between the few rich and the many poor. Irrespective of what particular political party was in power, the internal pressures in the rich countries of the world were such that no post-war capitalist country could survive unless it became a ‘Welfare State’. There might be differences in degree in the extent of the social benefits given to the industrial and agricultural workers, but what was everywhere impossible was a return to the mass unemployment and to the low level of living of the pre-war years.

From the end of the nineteenth century onwards, colonies had been regarded as a source of wealth which could be used to mitigate the class conflicts in the capitalist States and, as will be explained later, this policy had some success. But it failed in ‘its ultimate object because the pre-war capitalist States were so organised internally that the bulk of the profit made from colonial possessions found its way into the pockets of the capitalist class and not into those of the workers. Far from achieving the object intended, the working-class parties at times tended to identify their interests with those of the colonial peoples and the imperialist powers found themselves engaged upon a conflict on two fronts, at home with their own workers and abroad against the growing forces of colonial liberation.

The post-war period inaugurated a very different colonial policy. A deliberate attempt was made to divert colonial earnings from the wealthy class and use them instead generally to finance the ‘Welfare State’. As will be seen from the examples given later, this was the method consciously adopted even by those working-class leaders who had before the war regarded the colonial peoples as their natural allies against their capitalist enemies at home.

At first it was presumed that this object could be achieved by maintaining the pre-war colonial system. Experience soon proved that attempts to do so would be disastrous and would only provoke colonial wars, thus dissipating the anticipated gains from the continuance of the colonial regime. Britain, in particular, realised this at an early stage and the correctness of the British judgement at the time has subsequently been demonstrated by the defeat of French colonialism in the Far East and Algeria and the failure of the Dutch to retain any of their former colonial empire.

The system of neo-colonialism was therefore instituted and in the short run it has served the developed powers admirably. It is in the long run that its consequences are likely to be catastrophic for them.

Neo-colonialism is based upon the principle of breaking up former large united colonial territories into a number of small non-viable States which are incapable of independent development and must rely upon the former imperial power for defence and even internal security. Their economic and financial systems are linked, as in colonial days, with those of the former colonial ruler.

At first sight the scheme would appear to have many advantages for the developed countries of the world. All the profits of neo-colonialism can be secured if, in any given area, a reasonable proportion of the States have a neo-colonialist system. It is not necessary that they all should have one. Unless small States can combine they must be compelled to sell their primary products at prices dictated by the developed nations and buy their manufactured goods at the prices fixed by them. So long as neo-colonialism can prevent political and economic conditions for optimum development, the developing countries, whether they are under neo-colonialist control or not, will be unable to create a large enough market to support industrialisation. In the same way they will lack the financial strength to force the developed countries to accept their primary products at a fair price.

In the neo-colonialist territories, since the former colonial power has in theory relinquished political control, if the social conditions occasioned by neo-colonialism cause a revolt the local neo-colonialist government can be sacrificed and another equally subservient one substituted in its place. On the other hand, in any continent where neo-colonialism exists on a wide scale the same social pressures which can produce revolts in neo-colonial territories will also affect those States which have refused to accept the system and therefore neo-colonialist nations have a ready-made weapon with which they can threaten their opponents if they appear successfully to be challenging the system.

These advantages, which seem at first sight so obvious, are, however, on examination, illusory because they fail to take into consideration the facts of the world today.
The introduction of neo-colonialism increases the rivalry between the great powers which was provoked by the old-style colonialism. However little real power the government of a neo-colonialist State may possess, it must have, from the very fact of its nominal independence, a certain area of manoeuvre. It may not be able to exist without a neo-colonialist master but it may still have the ability to change masters.

The ideal neo-colonialist State would be one which was wholly subservient to neo-colonialist interests but the existence of the socialist nations makes it impossible to enforce the full rigour of the neo-colonialist system. The existence of an alternative system is itself a challenge to the neo-colonialist regime. Warnings about ‘the dangers of Communist subversion are likely to be two-edged since they bring to the notice of those living under a neo-colonialist system the possibility of a change of regime. In fact neo-colonialism is the victim of its own contradictions. In order to make it attractive to those upon whom it is practised it must be shown as capable of raising their living standards, but the economic object of neo-colonialism is to keep those standards depressed in the interest of the developed countries. It is only when this contradiction is understood that the failure of innumerable ‘aid’ programmes, many of them well intentioned, can be explained.

In the first place, the rulers of neo-colonial States derive their authority to govern, not from the will of the people, but from the support which they obtain from their neo-colonialist masters. They have therefore little interest in developing education, strengthening the bargaining power of their workers employed by expatriate firms, or indeed of taking any step which would challenge the colonial pattern of commerce and industry, which it is the object of neo-colonialism to preserve. ‘Aid’, therefore, to a neo-colonial State is merely a revolving credit, paid by the neo-colonial master, passing through the neo-colonial State and returning to the neo-colonial master in the form of increased profits.

Secondly, it is in the field of ‘aid’ that the rivalry of individual developed States first manifests itself. So long as neo-colonialism persists so long will spheres of interest persist, and this makes multilateral aid — which is in fact the only effective form of aid — impossible.

Once multilateral aid begins the neo-colonialist masters are f aced by the hostility of the vested interests in their own country. Their manufacturers naturally object to any attempt to raise the price of the raw materials which they obtain from the neo-colonialist territory in question, or to the establishment there of manufacturing industries which might compete directly or indirectly with their own exports to the territory. Even education is suspect as likely to produce a student movement and it is, of course, true that in many less developed countries the students have been in the vanguard of the fight against neo-colonialism.

In the end the situation arises that the only type of aid which the neo-colonialist masters consider as safe is ‘military aid’.

Once a neo-colonialist territory is brought to such a state of economic chaos and misery that revolt actually breaks out then, and only then, is there no limit to the generosity of the neo-colonial overlord, provided, of course, that the funds supplied are utilised exclusively for military purposes.

Military aid in fact marks the last stage of neo-colonialism and its effect is self-destructive. Sooner or later the weapons supplied pass into the hands of the opponents of the neo-colonialist regime and the war itself increases the social misery which originally provoked it.

Neo-colonialism is a mill-stone around the necks of the developed countries which practise it. Unless they can rid themselves of it, it will drown them. Previously the developed powers could escape from the contradictions of neo-colonialism by substituting for it direct colonialism. Such a solution is no longer possible and the reasons for it have been well explained by Mr. Owen Lattimore, the United States Far Eastern expert and adviser to Chiang Kai-shek in the immediate post-war period. He wrote:
‘Asia, which was so easily and swiftly subjugated by conquerors in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, displayed an amazing ability stubbornly to resist modern armies equipped with aeroplanes, tanks, motor vehicles and mobile artillery.

‘Formerly big territories were conquered in Asia with small forces. Income, first of all from plunder, then from direct taxes and lastly from trade, capital investments and long-term exploitation, covered with incredible speed the expenditure for military operations. This arithmetic represented a great temptation to strong countries. Now they have run up against another arithmetic, and it discourages them.’

The same arithmetic is likely to apply throughout the less developed world.
This book is therefore an attempt to examine neo-colonialism not only in its African context and its relation to African unity, but in world perspective. Neo-colonialism is by no means exclusively an African question. Long before it was practised on any large scale in Africa it was an established system in other parts of the world. Nowhere has it proved successful, either in raising living standards or in ultimately benefiting countries which have indulged in it.

Marx predicted that the growing gap between the wealth of the possessing classes and the workers it employs would ultimately produce a conflict fatal to capitalism in each individual capitalist State.

This conflict between the rich and the poor has now been transferred on to the international scene, but for proof of what is acknowledged to be happening it is no longer necessary to consult the classical Marxist writers. The situation is set out with the utmost clarity in the leading organs of capitalist opinion. Take for example the following extracts from The Wall Street Journal, the newspaper which perhaps best reflects United States capitalist thinking.

In its issue of 12 May 1965, under the headline of ‘Poor Nations’ Plight’, the paper first analyses ‘which countries are considered industrial and which backward’. There is, it explains, ‘no rigid method of classification’. Nevertheless, it points out:
‘A generally used breakdown, however, has recently been maintained by the International Monetary Fund because, in the words of an IMF official, “the economic demarcation in the world is getting increasingly apparent.”’ The break-down, the official says, “is based on simple common sense.”’

In the IMF’s view, the industrial countries are the United States, the United Kingdom, most West European nations, Canada and Japan. A special category called “other developed areas” includes such other European lands as Finland, Greece and Ireland, plus Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The IMF’s “less developed” category embraces all of Latin America and nearly all of the Middle East, non-Communist Asia and Africa.’

In other words the ‘backward’ countries are those situated in the neo-colonial areas.
After quoting figures to support its argument, The Wall Street Journal comments on this situation:

‘The industrial nations have added nearly $2 billion to their reserves, which now approximate $52 billion. At the same time, the reserves of the less-developed group not only have stopped rising, but have declined some $200 million. To analysts such as Britain’s Miss Ward, the significance of such statistics is clear: the economic gap is rapidly widening “between a white, complacent, highly bourgeois, very wealthy, very small North Atlantic elite and everybody else, and this is not a very comfortable heritage to leave to one’s children.”

“Everybody else” includes approximately two-thirds of the population of the earth, spread through about 100 nations.’

This is no new problem. In the opening paragraph of his book, The War on World Poverty, written in 1953, the present British Labour leader, Mr. Harold Wilson, summarised the major problem of the world as he then saw it:

‘For the vast majority of mankind the most urgent problem is not war, or Communism, or the cost of living, or taxation. It is hunger. Over 1,500,000,000 people, some-thing like two-thirds of the world’s population, are living in conditions of acute hunger, defined in terms of identifiable nutritional disease. This hunger is at the same time the effect and the cause of the poverty, squalor and misery in which they live.’
Its consequences are likewise understood. The correspondent of The Wall Street Journal previously quoted, underlines them:

‘... many diplomats and economists view the implications as overwhelmingly — and dangerously — political. Unless the present decline can be reversed, these analysts fear, the United States and other wealthy industrial powers of the West face the distinct possibility, in the words of British economist Barbara Ward, “of a sort of international class war”.’

What is lacking are any positive proposals for dealing with the situation. All that The Wall Street Journal’s correspondent can do is to point out that the traditional methods recommended for curing the evils are only likely to make the situation worse.

It has been argued that the developed nations should effectively assist the poorer parts of the world, and that the whole world should be turned into a Welfare State. However, there seems little prospect that anything of this sort could be achieved. The so-called ‘aid’ programmes to help backward economies represent, according to a rough U.N. estimate, only one half of one per cent of the total income of industrial countries. But when it comes to the prospect of increasing such aid the mood is one of pessimism:
‘A large school of thought holds that expanded share-the-wealth schemes are idealistic and impractical. This school contends climate, undeveloped human skills, lack of natural resources and other factors — not just lack of money — retard economic progress in many of these lands, and that the countries lack personnel with the training or will to use vastly expanded aid effectively. Share-the-wealth schemes, according to this view, would be like pouring money down a bottomless well, weakening the donor nations without effectively curing the ills of the recipients.’

The absurdity of this argument is demonstrated by the fact that every one of the reasons quoted to prove why the less developed parts of the world cannot be developed applied equally strongly to the present developed countries in the period prior to their development. The argument is only true in this sense. The less developed world will not become developed through the goodwill or generosity of the developed powers. It can only become developed through a struggle against the external forces which have a vested interest in keeping it undeveloped.

Of these forces, neo-colonialism is, at this stage of history, the principal.
I propose to analyse neo-colonialism, first, by examining the state of the African continent and showing how neo-colonialism at the moment keeps it artificially poor. Next, I propose to show how in practice African Unity, which in itself can only be established by the defeat of neo-colonialism, could immensely raise African living standards. From this beginning, I propose to examine neo-colonialism generally, first historically and then by a consideration of the great international monopolies whose continued stranglehold on the neo-colonial sectors of the world ensures the continuation of the system.

This is what the peoples of Africa have to face and overcome today; this is what the people of Zimbabwe have to face and defeat. To accomplish these things will require the optimal unity of the people of Zimbabwe, which in and of itself, can only be constructed within the context of the overall unity of the peoples of Africa. That is in the context of Pan-Africanism, the total liberation and unification of Africa under scientific socialism. The failure to build Pan-Africanism has very palpable consequences, as for example the dismal situation in present day South Africa, were Africans are killing Africans in the backward belief that Africans from other states are directly responsible for the abysmal poverty of the Africans born in that semi-colony. (South Africa’s concept of two economies, the major economy being in the hands of the remaining settlers on behalf of the imperialist world and the second smaller, inconsequential economy in the hands of the indigenous peoples of the area, is nothing more than neo-colonialism, if one is honest, if one is principled, they must accept this fact.)

Neo-colonialism’s War Against Africa and African People


Kwame Nkrumah wrote in the Introduction to Consciencism,

"The issues are clearer than they have ever been. The succession of military coups which have in recent years taken place in Africa, have exposed the close links between the interests of neocolonialism and the indigenous bourgeoisie. These coups have brought into sharp relief the nature of the class struggle in Africa. Foreign monopoly capitalists are in close association with local reactionaries, and have made use of officers among the armed forces and police in order to frustrate the purposes of the African Revolution."

This in summary is the nature of the class struggle in Africa. A class struggle fueled by neo-colonialism’s war against the African people and the concept of a unified African polity.

Just as Marx in Capital (Vol. 1) pointed out that the enslavement of Africa and the near-total extermination of the red people of the Americas was the main input of the development of capitalism, Lenin pointed out in Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, the seizure of African and other peoples’ lands was the essential aspect of world imperialism strategy to avoid revolution in their home countries, Nkrumah demonstrates that the logical progression of the illogical criminal enterprise of imperialism is neo-colonialism.

Neo-colonialism in Africa, is today trying to overturn the gains of the post WWII 20th century African Liberation Movement.

In Zimbabwe, for example, neo-colonialism seeks to negate the destruction of the settler state, and as we stated earlier in this tutorial, Comrade President Mugabe has publicly stated that their intent is nothing less than the reinstatement of the rule of the Rhodesian Front in a new form. But Africa and just people will not allow that.

For as Dr. Nkrumah observed in Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare,

The predominant racial group must, and will, provide the government of a country. Settlers, provided they accept the principle of one man one vote, and majority rule, may be tolerated; but settler minority government, never. They are a dangerous anachronism, and must be swept away COMPLETELY and FOREVER.

Nkrumah consistently warned of the danger of the African demographic sectors aligned with international capital, he cautioned us to be prepared to combat these nefarious, unprincipled internal elements with every means at our disposal…the MDCs, COSATUs of the world as well as those like the Zambian President, Levy Mwanawasa and the little sniveling rodent Desmond Tutu and the like. Such groups and individuals posture themselves as servants of the people but in fact do the bidding for the enemies of the peoples; which perforce makes them also enemies of the peoples.

These avaricious individuals and groups, businesspeople linked to international capital, political leaders, elitist professionals, corrupt intelligentsia, counter-revolutionary civil servants, police and military factors dependent on international capital, see their material interests threatened by the rise of the class of the oppressed people in Zimbabwe.

Just as the reactionary Vietnamese marched into Dien Bien Phu whistling the French Republic Anthem, in a vain attempt to rescue the US-backed French forces from imminent military defeat at the hands of the Vietnamese patriots, there are Africans elements, some using left and ultra-left phraseology, who hope to secure / maintain their position of relative privilege and the position of their imperialist masters by blunting the theoretical and practical consciousness of the peoples of Africa. Just as the Vietnamese reaction found their doom and graves in Dien Bien Phu, we know that the African reaction will find its demise in Zimbabwe.

Pan-Africanism

Robert Sobukwe, founder of the PAC-Azania said this about Pan-Africanism

"On the structure of the United States of Africa, there appears to be no clear agreement yet among African nationalists. At the Accra Conference, Dr. Nkrumah stressed the necessity for such a communion of our own to give expression to the African personality...
So it is a unitary constitution that PAC envisages for the United States of Africa, with all the power vested in a central government freely elected by the whole Continent on the basis of universal adult suffrage. In such a set-up, only continent-wide parties committed to a continental program, and cutting across sectional ties and interests, whether of a tribal or religious nature, are possible.
A socialist government will in turn promote the idea of African Unity and the concept of free and independent African personality. The potential wealth of Africa in minerals, oil, hydro-electric power and so on is immense. By cutting out waste through systematic planning, a central government can bring about the most rapid development of every part of the state...
...In a United States of Africa, there will be no "racial groups", and I am certain that with the freedom of movement from Cape to Cairo, Morocco to Madagascar, the concentration of so-called minority groups will disappear. Pan-Africanism will give Africans everywhere much needed infrastructure to utilize to complete the tasks of African Liberation.


Pan-Africanism as defined by Nkrumah is about structures, superstructures and infrastructures…it is first and foremost about the nature of government systems: an All-Africa Socialist Union government. The government provides the primary structure needs of a society as it gives coherence and definition to the society by providing a workable interrelation, arrangement of the various parts of the society, it is the functioning element of the political, economic, social, in short general cultural goals, objectives and need of the society.

The structure is given coherence, and in that sense, built on essential superstructures, first and foremost the ideology and philosophy of the given society. Superstructure at work can be seen in the production and distribution of revolutionary propaganda to promote the society’s views and aims. This is why Cuba’s Fidel Castro wrote:
We cannot for a minute abandon propaganda, for it is the soul of every struggle." (April 17, 1954 letter to Melba Hernandez, one of two women combatants involved in the attack on the Moncado Barracks)

To neglect propaganda would be tantamount to dismantling the state’s, the movement’s, the society’s superstructure. You must increase your propaganda work.

Infrastructure gives the society, the nation, the state, the revolution the underlying functional capacity and instruments that hold such entities together such as electrical systems, communication and transportation. This is precisely why Lenin linked the electrification of the country with the building of socialism; why Cuba puts such emphasis on health, education. Why people like Nkrumah, Mao, Giap and Che constantly advocate(d) the necessity of the people acquiring every increasing technical capability so that the people can create a technological society in their own image.
.
These are the kinds of things revolutionary governments in places such as existed in Nkrumaist Ghana strive to give their people and reactionary governments such as the UK pretend to offer to all the citizens and residents of the state, but in fact maintain a steeped stratification in the nature and quantity of services provided to given sectors of the society, all based on class and race. This is precisely what the UK-US axis plans for a defeated Zimbabwe…this is why you must take the admonition that you are involved, engulfed even, in an all-out war, seriously. This is not hyperbole on the part of Comrade Mugabe, this is a correct, scientific analysis of the situation.


The Principled War for Africa’s Liberation

An outstanding success of our Party consists in its making a correct appraisal of the correlation of forces between ourselves and the enemy, perceiving the emergence of a historic opportunity and taking the strategic decision to liberate the South and completely defeat the US neocolonialist war of aggression. Moreover, our Party closely followed the dialectical development of the correlation of forces between ourselves and the enemy throughout the offensive, actively created and seized favorable opportunities and launched a daring, determined and well-timed offensive to achieve victory within the shortest possible time. p 24, How We Won The War, Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap

Point 16 of the UNIA Declaration of the Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World, states

"We believe all men should live in peace one with the other, but when races and nations provoke the ire of other races and nations by attempting to infringe upon their rights [,] war becomes inevitable, and the attempt in any way to free one’ self or protect one’s rights or heritage becomes justifiable."

According to Clausewitz's war is the "continuation of politics (Politik) by other means", Ho Chi Minh, General Giap, Lenin, Che, Mao, Fidel shared this view, and other leaders of revolutionary liberation struggle also.

Indeed the revolutionary leadership has taken the maxim a step further than the framework and implicit parameters of Clausewitz's famous quote. They have clearly enunciated politics and warfare as complementary elements in liberation.

It is also the view of adherents to philosophical consciencism – that is the overarching philosophical and ideological system of the followers of Nkrumah. How do we achieve this kind of political - military power? Well obviously it must start with ideology / philosophy and organization.



...Every true revolution is a program; and derived from a new, general, positive and organic principle. The first thing necessary is to accept that principle. Its development must then be confined to men who are believers in it, and emancipated from every tie or connection with any principle of an opposite nature. From Consciencism, taken from a quote of Guissepe Mazzini, the Italian Revolutionary


Osagyefo further elucidates

Practice without thought is blind; thought without practice is empty. The
three segments of African society which I specified in the last chapter, the
traditional, the Western, and the Islamic, co-exist uneasily; the principles
animating them are often in conflict with one another. I have in illustration
tried to show how the principles which inform capitalism are in conflict with
the socialist egalitarianism of the traditional African society.

What is to be done then? I have stressed that the two other segments, in
order to be rightfully seen, must be accommodated only as experiences of the
traditional African society. If we fail to do this our society will be racked
by the most malignant schizophrenia.

Our attitude to the Western, and the Islamic experience must be purposeful.
It must also be guided by thought. For practice without thought is blind.
What is called for as a first step is a body of connected thought which will
determine the general nature of our action in unifying the society which we have
inherited, this unification to take account, at all times, of the elevated
ideals underlying the traditional African society. Social revolution must
therefore have, standing firmly behind it, an intellectual revolution, a
revolution in which our thinking and philosophy are directed towards the redemption of our society. Our philosophy must find its weapon in the environment and living
conditions of African people. It is from those conditions that the intellectual content of our ideology must be created. The emancipation of the African continent is the emancipation of man. This requires two aims: first, the recognition of the egalitarianism of human society, and second, the logistic mobilization of all our resources toward the attainment of that restitution.

The philosophy that must stand behind this social revolution is that which I
have once referred to as philosophical consciencism; consciencism is the map
in intellectual terms of the disposition of forces which will enable African
society to digest the Western and the Islamic and the Euro-Christian elements
in Africa, and develop them in such a way that they fit into the African
personality. The African personality is itself defined by the cluster of
humanist principles which underlie the traditional African society. Philosophical
consciencism is that philosophical standpoint which, taking its start from the
present content of the African conscience, indicates the way in which progress
is forged out of the conflict in that conscience. Consciencism

To win this war Africa must fight with all of its resource, particularly its vast human resources. This means waging People’s War
Understanding the Nature of People’s War

People’s War is war that deploys all the forces available to the people of the nation. For we Africans, this means the regular armed forces in harmony with various types of irregular forces: guerilla units, militias, civil defense units, working at various levels, notably the local village, the commune, national, regional, continental levels.

We must all play our part in winning this war. Winning the war is not just the responsibility of. Zanu-PF military and political cadres alone, it is the job of all true Zimbabwean patriots, and the African world at large, to defeat our common enemies.

We know this will not be simple nor will it be easy. We know that the imperialist will fight to the bitter end. He will never voluntarily dismantle their system of exploitation and oppression, they will never on their own accord relinquish their criminal control over Africans and Africa, and on their own initiative call a halt to their methodical crimes perpetrated upon Africa and African peoples.

We know that we will have to apply sufficient force to compel them to do so. This is true of Africa as a whole and by definition every part of Africa.

Zimbabwe is not an exception to this fact. Indeed, Zimbabwe is foremost among the areas in the world that are in the “eye of the storm”.

It is time that we recognized the fact that a war is being waged against us, and pursue this war in a fashion designed to insure our victory and comprehensive liberation. Wars as you know, are fought by three main means, to wit: military, diplomatic and political.

Wars are largely fought for political economic objectives and reasons, thus we must unite our political forces in the interest of achieving a positive outcome of the current phase of our struggle. .
How is this to be done?
NOTE: all quotes in this section are from HANDBOOK OF REVOLUTIONARY WARFARE.

As Dr. Nkrumah details the way we must fight this war in his classic work Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare,

A war that he reminds us is continental in scope:

The dimension of our struggle is equal to the size of the African continent itself. p. 43

Dr. Nkrumah correctly points out that

Revolutionary warfare is the highest, inevitable answer to the political, economic and social situation in Africa today. We do not have the luxury of an alternative. We are faced with a necessity. p. 42



Nkrumah further clarifies that what is missing in our prosecution of the continental war is proper forms of agency, proper forms of organisation, forms that would facilitate continent wide (and by extension global African) coordination, management and administration.


The continental scope now attained by popular insurrection in Africa is a reality. It remains for us to design effective co-ordinating machinery. pp. 55-6


He saw this form of coordination coming from the All-African Peoples Committee for Political Coordination (AACPC) and the All-African Peoples Revolutionary Army (AAPRA)– and ultimately an aggregate revolutionary party of the liberation, socialist, anti-imperialist, anti-colonial, anti-settler colonial, anti-zionist parties of Africa, that is the A-APRP … all as instruments to both serve and accelerate an All-African Socialist Union Government. This government would be able to mount the necessary diplomatic actions to complement the purely military and political activities of the combined African Peoples.

These isolated battles must be fought as part of the great revolutionary, liberation struggle, and within the framework of our politico-military organisation (AAPRA-AACPC). p. 89

He understood that


...the people are the makers of history and it is they who, in the final analysis, win or lose wars. p.75


Because,


The people's armed struggle, the highest form of political action, is a revolutionary catalyst in the neo-colonialist situation. p. 52


This is particularly germane to the situation that Zimbabwe finds itself confronting, as you and your fellow citizens of Zimbabwe are on the veritable front line of the war between Africa and neo-colonialism. You must not hesitate to fight to victory and you must not be liberal with comprador elements in your midst such as the MDC criminals

Thus he warns us that,


...if armed militia are not organised the masses cannot manifest their power in the struggle against the enemy. p. 60


And that,

The creation of our continental people's militia is the logical consequence of the unfolding of the African liberation struggle, and it is the essential condition for the emergence of a people's free and united Africa. p. 63

And that,

Between a zone under enemy control where the masses are awakening and a hotly-contested zone, there is only one missing link: a handful of genuine revolutionaries prepared to organise and act p. 49

Because as he forthrightly stated

We must have every inch of our land and every one of ours mines and industries. p. 80

Nkrumah has also left specific instruction to help us understand what to do and to grasp specific crucial aspects of the whole revolutionary war of liberation:

He tells us that there are certain things vital to our preparation to fight…how should we go about it, what are the prerequisites to preparing ourselves to fight and so on…

I believe he would start by emphasizing the role of propaganda.

Our propagandists must leave no problem untackled, no mistake unexposed. Truth must always be told. It is a proof of strength, and even the hardest truth has a positive aspect which can be used. p. 100

And like Fidel, he recognises the essential role and value of proper propaganda systems:

Propaganda is a means of liberation, an instrument of clarification, information, education and mobilisation. p. 95

He would remind us to mobilize and organize all the critical human factors that are essential to winning the war. The workers, both industrial and agricultural, indeed he put a particular emphasis on those who work the land, the farm laborers, the small peasants and so forth, as they are the majority of the African productive population.

He would admonish us to work hard to involve every other category of African patriot from around the world, ranging from the our people in the African Diaspora to truly nationalist bourgeoisie willing to break with their class and any non-African willing to fight and die for Africa’s cause.

Nkrumah placed a special emphasis on the development of conscious women and youth. Among these general groupings he placed critical emphasis on the development of conscious students – those few who willingly serve as revolutionary catalysts. He emphasized them because he knew from practice that this group possesses important intellectual skills vital to our cause, along with their youthful exuberance and optimism, manifested in their belief that we can build a better future.

He would remind us that it is the role of students. Along with conscious workers, to assist in the awakening the revolutionary consciousness of the Africans who work the land. Thus we see that our students are essential assets in the general development of propaganda and overall cultural advancement.

As he observed:

The youth belong to the revolution... students must constantly guard and revitalise the revolution. On our youth depends the future of Africa and the continent's total liberation and unity. p. 88

He wrote that the degree of the nation’s development is reflected directly in the degree of the consciousness of the women and thus every possible effort should be used to help our women develop to their fullest.

What would he say to the leadership of the African States, who are supposedly acting in unison via the AU, the successor to the fatally flawed OAU? He would remind them of the stakes and the nature of the contending parties, capitalist imperialism on one hand and the oppressed and exploited African people on the other; and the constantly shifting balance of power between the two forces:

I think he would start be reminding them that,

Independence must never be considered as an end in and of itself but as a stage, the very first stage of the people's revolutionary struggle. p. 16

Internally

The capitalist imperialist states face serious economic and social difficulties. Rising prices, balance of payments problems, widespread and repeated strikes are only a few of the symptoms of the general malaise. In the United States, the grave domestic situation is aggravated by the massive counter-attacks of the African-American revolutionaries. Almost everywhere, behind the smoke screens, the social and economic situation is unhealthy, and particularly in the second class capitalist states. And these mounting economic crises mean heavier dependence on the exploitation of the peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The need for self-critical objective diagnosis.

If imperialists are faced with so many external and domestic difficulties, how then can they afford to step up their aggression in Africa? To answer this question, it is necessary to examine the internal factors which make our continent so vulnerable to attack, and particularly to look closely at the whole question of African unity. For this lies at the core of our problem. There are three conflicting conceptions of African unity which explain to a large extent, the present critical situation in Africa:

1. The mutual protection theory: that the OAU serves as a kind of insurance against any change in the status quo, membership providing a protection for heads of state and government against all forms of political action aimed at their overthrow. Since most of the leaders who adhere to this idea owe their position to imperialists and their agents, it is not surprising that this is the viewpoint which really serves the interests of imperialism. For the puppet states are being used both for short-term purposes of exploitation and as springboards of subversion against progressive African states.

2. The functional conception: that African unity should be purely a matter of economic co-operation. Those who hold this view overlook the vital fact that African regional economic organizations will remain weak and subject to the same neo-colonialist pressures and domination, as long as they lack overall political cohesion. Without political unity, African states can never commit themselves to full economic integration, which is the only productive form of integration able to develop our great resources fully for the well-being of the African people as a whole. Furthermore, the lack of political unity places inter-African economic institutions at the mercy of powerful, foreign commercial interests, and sooner or later these will use such institutions as funnels through which to pour money for the continued exploitation of Africa.

3. The political union conception: that a union government should be in charge of economic development, defence and foreign policy, while other government functions would continue to be discharged by the existing states grouped, in federal fashion, within a gigantic central political organization. Clearly, this is the strongest position Africa could adopt in its struggle against modern imperialism.

However, any sincere critical appraisal of past activities and achievements of the OAU would tend to show that, as it is now constituted, the OAU is not likely to be able to achieve the political unification of Africa.

This is obviously why imperialists, although against the idea of political union, will do nothing to break the OAU. It serves their purpose in slowing down revolutionary progress in Africa. This state of affairs is mirrored both in the discouragement of freedom fighters in the remaining colonial territories and South Africa, and in the growing perplexity amongst freedom fighters from neo-colonized territories.

The struggle for African continental union and socialism may be hampered by the enemy WITHIN, - those who declare their support for the revolution and at the same time, by devious means, serve and promote the interests of imperialists and neo-colonialists. "Examination of recent events in our history, and of our present condition, reveals the urgent need for a new strategy to combat imperialist aggression, and this must be devised on a continental scale.

Either we concentrate our forces for a decisive armed struggle to achieve our objectives, or we will each fall one by one to the blows of imperialism in its present stage of open and desperate offensive." pp. 39-41

And emphasize to them that

...in unity lies strength, African states must unite or sell themselves out to imperialist and colonialist exploiters for a mess of pottage, or disintegrate individually. p. 35

And he would remind them that our war is one of political-economic necessity not of malicious criminal aggrandizement or petty vindictiveness.

I think he would say to them in closing,

Our armed struggle for freedom is neither moral nor immoral, it is a scientific historically-determined necessity. p. 19

And I believe he would conclude with this simple straightforward statement:

The new phase of the armed revolutionary struggle in Africa embrace the entire continent. It is essential that we know what we fight, and why we fight. Imperialism and neo-colonialism must be broken down into their component parts so that we can clearly see them. We must know their world strategy. p. 1

I close with this exhortation:

People of Africa, arise!
Defeat Imperialism, neo-colonialism and settler domination,
Stand together and unite in the revolutionary struggle
Forward to victory,
We shall conquer

Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah