Foreign and Domestic Factors in the Transformation of Frelimo

Foreign and Domestic Factors in the Transformation of FrelimoAuthor(s): Mark SimpsonSource: The Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Jun., 1993), pp. 309-337Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/161007 .

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The Journal of Modern African Studies, 3I, 2 (I993), pp. 309-337 Copyright ? 1993 Cambridge University Press

Foreign and Domestic Factors in the Transformation of Frelimo

by MARK SIMPSON*

THIS article examines the trajectory of the Frente de Libertafdo de Mofambique (Frelimo), currently the ruling party in Mozambique, focusing on the complex interplay between various factors which contributed to the metamorphoses it has undergone since its founding in 1962. Recent work in the field of international relations and historical sociology has thrown light on the role of the state as an administrative-coercive entity constantly cross-pressured by domestic and foreign forces, and acting simultaneously on both fronts in pursuit of advantage.' While this scholarship has not focused on ruling parties per se, it is arguable that the standard government versus state dichotomy is of limited analytical value in cases such as Mozambique, where the distinction between party and state remained in practice, until recently, a constitutional nicety. When the ruling party has been institutionalised to the extent of Frelimo, and where the state has become almost an extension of the party, it is the latter that is the key variable in any explanation of political and economic change within society.

As a liberation movement, Frelimo headed the successful anti- colonial struggle against Portuguese rule, a reflection of its ability in bringing together the diverse elements of Mozambican society for the attainment of the shared objective of independence. These alliances between various interest groups were, however, sorely tested in the course of the armed struggle, as a more radical wing of the movement sought to alter the political agenda from one of strictly political independence to that of the wholesale transformation of Mozambican society along Marxist lines. Following the eventual victory of the radical faction, the post-independence period saw the gradual transformation of Frelimo into a restricted Marxist-Leninist vanguard party

* Lecturer in International Relations at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and Visiting Lecturer at the Instituto Superior de Rela6ces Internacionais, Maputo. This research was made possible through the assistance of the Ernest Oppenheimer Institute for Portuguese Studies.

1 See, for example, Fred Halliday, 'State and Society in International Relations: a second agenda', in Hugh Dyer and Leon Magasarian, The Study of International Relations - the State of the Art (London, 1989), pp. 40-59.



MARK SIMPSON

with a revolutionary socialist national project. Class enemies and other

counter-revolutionary forces were identified, and the party became a much more centralised, closed, and authoritarian organisation. And then in yet another mutation, following on logically from the official abandonment of Marxism-Leninism at the Fifth Party Congress in

1989 and its transformation into a broad front 'democratic socialist'

organisation open to all Mozambicans, Frelimo adopted a new multi-

party constitution in 1990. In October I992, a peace accord was signed with the Resistencia

Nacional Mofambicana (Renamo), bringing an end to over 15 years of

externally-funded destabilisation and civil war. Mozambique now finds itself on the verge of its first ever multi-party elections, scheduled for October I993.2 And despite the proliferation of opposition parties since I990, informed observers believe that Frelimo will win the elections. If this turns out to be the case, it will be a reflection of Frelimo's success in both adapting to, and capitalising on, the new realities in post-war Mozambique and the international system.

THE ROAD TO VANGUARDISM

The rise of a revolutionary socialist commitment within Frelimo was a product of its own internal dynamics, and developments within

Mozambique, as well as those in the sub-region, the African continent, and the world. Firstly, the intransigence of Lisbon in the face of demands for independence excluded the possibility of a negotiated decolonisation settlement. This foreclosure of the path of peaceful transition led to Frelimo's decision to resort to armed struggle in 1964, the first step on the road to the radicalisation of the nationalist movement.

Secondly, in the course of the conflict a number of domestic factors

converged to strengthen this process of radicalisation. While the First

Congress in September I962 gave primary emphasis to national

liberation, by 1968 a new conjuncture had arisen which forced Frelimo to reassess its policies. The movement's success in establishing 'liberated zones' where the writ of Portuguese colonialism had been eliminated meant that questions about the ultimate objectives of the revolution were inevitably pushed to the fore, and a dispute arose over how these counter-states were to be organised.

2 Delays in sending U.N. electoral monitors and peace-keepers, as well as in the process of

demobilising the armies of both sides, means that the elections may have to be delayed until April/May I994. Africa Confidential (London), 8 January I993, p. 6.

3Io



THE TRANSFORMATION OF FRELIMO

According to Frelimo's official historiography, the issue gave rise to a clash between two opposing ideological lines within the Front, namely a 'revolutionary socialist' and 'petit-bourgeois' faction. The version put out by the victors in 1969 argued that the polarisation took

place as a result of conflicting views as to how production should be

organised in the liberated zones. As time went on, it became clear that the conflict was actually between divergent views regarding the nature of a post-independent Mozambique.3

Arrayed on one side were the Makonde notables from the dominant ethnic group in the northernmost province of Cabo Delgado, where Frelimo initiated its armed struggle. Led by Lazaro Nkavandame, they attempted to step into the vacuum created in the liberated areas by the exit of Portuguese farmers and storekeepers, and sought to set themselves up as private economic agents responsible for the marketing of peasant surpluses across the border in Tanzania, and as managers of the consumer co-operatives established by Frelimo.

These 'new exploiters', to use the term subsequently attached to this

group of individuals, were supposedly seen by the peasantry as being as

equally exploitative as the Portuguese. And taking their cue from the

peasantry, the leaders of the radical faction within the movement, anxious to avoid a degeneration of the armed struggle into an exercise in the simple substitution of black faces for white ones, began to widen their political agenda to include the elimination of the inequities created by capitalism and the ending of the 'exploitation of man by man .

In the wake of the victory of the socialist faction during the Second

Congress in July I968, co-operative agriculture was encouraged, a skeletal schooling and primary health system was established, and

democratically elected village committees created to carry out basic administrative and judicial functions. Popular receptivity to these reforms was seen to lie behind Frelimo's subsequent success in breaking out of its stronghold in Cabo Delgado. By the time of the left-wing military coup in Lisbon in April 1974, which sounded the death-knell for Portugal's overseas empire, Frelimo was in control of three of Mozambique's ten provinces.

After I968, the war was increasingly seen not only in terms of national liberation, but as a revolution. Frelimo's struggle was no

3 The official interpretation of the events of I968 is contained in the document put out the following year by the Central Committee of Frelimo, entitled 'Os Graves Acontecimentos de 1968 e as Divergedncias Ideologicas' ('The Grave Events of I968 and the Ideological Disputes'), Dar es Salaam, mimeographed, 1969.

3I I



MARK SIMPSON

longer against the Portuguese per se but the whole exploitative system of capitalism, of which the latter were mere agents. Official documents

argued that only by opting for a political line directed to the interests of the masses could new forces be mobilised for the armed struggle. Ideological correctness was stressed and a decision taken to initiate

proceedings with a view to the eventual transformation of the Front into a vanguard party.4

Political developments in Africa as a whole were the third factor to have an impact on Frelimo during the pre-independence period. During the Ig6os, notions of 'African Socialism' dominated post- independence political discourse on the continent. As embodied in the

writings and policies of leaders such as Julius Nyerere, Modibo Keita, Leopold Sedar Senghor, and Kenneth Kaunda, the central premise of the ideology was that African societies were relatively homogeneous, had always been communal in terms of ownership of the means of

production and therefore socialist, and so immune from the class conflicts of advanced capitalist societies. Capitalism, being alien to

Africa, was not an appropriate economic system for the continent, while the supposed non-existence of antagonistic classes precluded the Marxist option.

The African socialist project that most influenced Frelimo was carried out by Nyerere in Tanzania, since the movement had been based there since 1962. Following the Arusha Declaration of 1967, the

key strategy of the ruling Tanzanian African National Union (Tanu) was to create ujamaa villages, communal set-ups where voluntary collective production was to be encouraged. By 1969, however, it was

already clear that the programme had run into trouble. As Goran

Hyden noted:

peasant response to calls for the creation of co-operative or communal production units in the villages was very limited. To the TANU leadership the growth of ujamaa villages appeared so slow that its promise to transform the rural areas was in danger of losing credibility.5 Forced villagisation was begun the following year, despite the

continuing resistance of peasants to communal ownership of the means of production. The massive social dislocations caused by the drive, added to poor weather, led in turn to a food production crisis which

required increasing imports of grain. The lessons drawn from the Tanzanian experience were varied, but

4 See the various issues of Mozambique Revolution (Dar es Salaam) of this period. 5 Goran Hyden, Beyond Ujamaa in Tanzania: underdevelopment and an uncapturedpeasantry (London,

I980), p. I02.

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it was the critiques by Marxists based at the University of Dar es Salaam that most appealed to the radicals within Frelimo.6 According to these scholars, ujamaa failed primarily because, permeated as it was with the idea of social harmony, it did not allow for class struggles, which in the Tanzanian context meant pitting the poor peasants against the rich peasants. Predicated as it was on the supposed non- existence of such social differentiation, Nyerere's 'African Socialism' failed to account for the possibility of kulak resistance. This group sought to sabotage the programme because it threatened the process of

capital accumulation, while the democratically elected administrative structures of the communal villages were perceived by the bureaucratic

bourgeoisie (reminiscent of Frelimo's own 'new exploiters'?) as a threat to their status and ability to control the development process. The attempt to return Tanzania to a status quo ante capitalism was seen to be utopian, since capitalism already held the country in its grips. Social differentiation had already become the overriding reality, which meant that class struggle was a prerequisite for the development of socialism. This was the key lesson the radicals within Frelimo drew from their sojourn in Tanzania.

The fate of other African socialist projects strengthened this

perception. In the aftermath of his demise through a military coup in

I966, Kwame Nkrumah's own analysis of the events leading to his downfall became increasingly Marxist in tone. In texts with which Frelimo radicals would undoubtedly have been familiar, Nkrumah

castigated the whole concept of 'African Socialism' as meaningless, particularly its 'suggestion that the class structures which exist in other

parts of the world do not exist in Africa',7 and came to the conclusion that the only option for the 'working masses' of the continent was to

wage class struggle, and to adopt Marxism-Leninism as a guiding ideology under the leadership of a revolutionary vanguard party.

Together with developments such as the declaration of a Marxist- Leninist People's Republic in Congo-Brazzaville in 1969, the adoption of 'Scientific Socialism' by the armed forces who seized power in Somalia in 1970 and in Benin in 1972, and the fact that the Movimento Popular de Libertafdo de Angola (M.P.L.A.) had been showing increasing

6 For a representative sample of works in this vein, see Lionel Cliffe and John S. Saul (eds.), Socialiam in Tanzania: an interdisciplinary reader, Vol. i, Politics, and Vol. 2, Policies (Nairobi, 1972 and I973). It is noteworthy that Saul, while a Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Dar es Salaam also worked at Frelimo's office in Tanzania, and after independence taught at the Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo.

7 Kwame Nkrumah, Class Struggle in Africa (London, I970), p. Io.

3I3



MARK SIMPSON

attachment to Marxist categories of analysis and Leninist principles of

organisation, this shift to the left in African politics as a whole increased Frelimo's receptivity to Marxism-Leninism as an ideology of social

change. The fourth factor to have influenced the path taken by Frelimo were

developments in the international system as a whole, in particular Soviet attitudes towards the Third World. In the immediate aftermath of decolonisation in the late 1950s and Ig9os, and in a major shift away from Moscow's relative neglect of Africa and Asia under Stalin, who held that the non-existence of a powerful proletariat in these regions precluded the possibility of revolutionary activity, Soviet-Third World relations received a boost under Nikita Krushchev. Soviet analysts began to argue that the global 'correlation of forces' had shifted in favour of the socialist camp, and that many new states were evolving in that direction. As proof they pointed to an increasing number of

homegrown varieties of socialism, such as those espoused by the Ba'athist movements in the Arab World, and the initial attempts at

theorising 'African Socialism' by intellectuals such as Senghor. According to Soviet specialists, the nationalist and anti-imperialist

position of many newly-independent states and liberation movements could no longer be ignored, and they argued that Moscow should

attempt to harness these tendencies for its own anti-Western purposes. They believed that given the ascendancy and positive correlation of the forces of 'national liberation' in the Third World - by which they meant the on-going broad historical process leading to the elimination of capitalism and neo-colonialism - the leaders of these states and liberation movements ('revolutionary democrats', to use the Soviet

terminology) would gradually gravitate towards the socialist camp. Moscow's interest in courting these revolutionary democratic states

and movements, despite the fact that most were non-communist, was welcomed by Frelimo. As a broad coalition of 'progressive forces', Frelimo found itself wooed by Moscow through such networks as the

Soviet-sponsored Afro-Asian People's Solidarity Committee, the genesis of a long relationship between the two organisations. These 'pulls' were

supplemented by 'push' factors such as Washington's general hostility towards 'national liberation' movements in the Third World, and the fact that America was an ally of Portugal within the framework of Nato almost automatically thrust Frelimo into the socialist camp.

This flush of Soviet enthusiasm for revolution in the Third World received a setback with the demise of 'revolutionary democratic

regimes' such as those headed by Kwame Nkrumah and Modibo

3I4




Keita. Under Leonid Brezhnev, relations with Africa became more

guarded, flowing from a more conservative assessment of the continent's

revolutionary potential. Mirroring the assessment of Frelimo's radical faction as to the direction their own struggle should take, Soviet

analysts began to argue for a return to a more orthodox Marxist- Leninist position. Reviewing the track record of 'revolutionary democrats' in Africa, Karen Brutents, an eminent third-world

specialist, argued in 1967 as follows:

As the African revolution gains in depth, the internal weaknesses and objective difficulties in the liberation movement on the continent become increasingly evident. These include... the political backwardness of the peasants who are the main force behind the movement but... are still under the sway of tribal and other prejudices, the inadequate organisation and ideological equipment of some progressive political parties.8 Of particular concern to the Soviets was the composition and structure of the leadership of African revolutionary movements. One of the lessons learned from the fall of the regimes in Ghana and Mali was that

they were too highly personalised. The solution was seen to lie in the institutionalisation of vanguard parties which would ensure the

continuity of radical programmes despite the volatility of third-world

politics. Moscow did concede, however, that while the leadership was

required to accept Marxism-Leninism, this did not mean that such a

party had to be created immediately.9 Such prescriptions spoke to the situation of the Frelimo radicals, who

in the absence of a Mozambican communist party had to take on the r6le of a vanguard within their movement. At the same time, while they had managed to purge it of the 'new exploiters' and had continued to move towards Marxism-Leninism ever since, the fact remained that

they needed to maintain a broad support base in order to further the armed struggle. To have, at this stage, transformed Frelimo into a Marxist party organised along Leninist lines would have brought few benefits, and maybe only served to ostracise large segments of the

population who had been won over to the cause by Frelimo's ideas of

'people's power' as expressed in the democratically elected village committees in the liberated zones, and by the practice of continual consultation which constituted a great source of strength in the course of the armed struggle.

8 Karen Brutents, 'African Revolution: gains and problems', in International Affairs (Moscow), January 1967, p. 2I.

9 For an overview of the theoretical debates amongst Soviet scholars on this issue, see Galia Golan, The Soviet Union and National Liberation Movements in the Third World (London, i988), pp. 78-84.

3I5



The assassination in 1969 ofFrelimo's president, Eduardo Mondlane, threw the organisation into yet another crisis. The following year the Central Committee signalled a major shift in the ideology of the movement, since in addition to the obvious enemy of colonialism was added the new enemy of capitalism, a force seen to have both internal as well as external agents. Further purges took place which strengthened the position of the radicals, the most important expulsion being that of the vice-president, Uria Simango, who had sought to capture the leadership of the movement after Mondlane's death on the basis of an anti-socialist and anti-southerner political platform (the upper echelons of the movement were dominated by mestifos, assimilados, Indians, and whites from the south of the country).

Despite the death of its founding president, and the opposition to its

increasingly Marxist ideology by certain elements within the movement, Frelimo was able to carry forward the armed struggle, putting to rest any concerns that the Mozambican revolution was a one-man project. In a speech given after independence, Samora Machel, who had taken over from Mondlane, claimed that 'the seventh year [1971] was the point of departure for the conscious evolution of the nature of our organisation, its evolution towards becoming a vanguard party of the working masses of our country... with a vanguard ideology.10

CONSOLIDATING THE WORKER-PEASANT ALLIANCE

The changes that Frelimo underwent during the early post- independence period were also the product of multiple forces. As a result of the haste with which the new regime in Lisbon divested itself of its various pieces of real estate in Africa, Frelimo found itself facing an extremely adverse set of circumstances when it took power in June I975. At the time of the cease-fire in September 1974, Frelimo's

military activities were still largely restricted to the northern provinces. Of even greater significance was the fact that in the country's main cities the movement's presence was negligible. In addition, the exodus of Portuguese settlers before and immediately after the transition devastated the country economically. Overnight, Mozambique lost almost all its skilled labour and managerial capacity, thereby increasing the urgency of devising an alternative socialist development policy, something which Frelimo had already committed itself to during the

10 'Mensagem do Presidente da Frelimo para os Combatentes das FPLM e ao Povo Mocambicano, por Ocasiao do 7 Aniversario da Luta Armada de Libertacao Nacional' in 'A Vit6ria Constroi-se, A Vit6ria Organisa-se', in Textos e Documentos da Frelimo, 2 (Maputo, I977).

316 MARK SIMPSON




war. Above all, despite the existing debt to Marxism-Leninism, a post- independence political model had still to be devised before specific rules governing its operation could be laid down. The fledgling regime, groping for solutions to these manifold problems, was open to foreign influences and the temptation to import foreign models.

Initially mirroring the voluntarist tendencies evident in the halcyon days of all young revolutionary regimes, Frelimo sought to overcome these problems with a mixture of enthusiasm and mass mobilisation. In a combination of socialist conviction and dire economic necessity, the state stepped in to fill the gap left by the departed Portuguese, and took on an ever increasing number of responsibilities through a programme of nationalisations.

However, at least for the first two years of independence, these measures were carried out on an ad hoc basis. Furthermore, in many cases the state's control over individual industries was purely nominal. Given the limited resources at its disposal in terms of finance and manpower, there was no alternative but to delegate power and decentralise government. As with the problem of having to expand its influence in areas it had not liberated, Frelimo's solution to the crisis of economic management was seen to lie in the formation of 'dynamising groups'. These entities, located throughout the country in factories, communal villages, and neighbourhoods, were used to transmit Frelimo's message, acting as a link between the party and the population, and responsible for organising everything from literacy programmes to the running of factories.

By the beginning of I977, however, Frelimo had lost faith in these mass mobilisation practices, and at the Third Congress held in February a decision was taken to rein in these organisations. According to the official party history, the change had become necessary in view of the fact that many of these groups were being used by malcontents, and had come to be seen as breeding grounds of Frelimo's perennial enemy, namely an aspirant bourgeoisie.1l Given the chaos just after independence, the movement had been unable to check on the revolutionary credentials of those who came forward to offer their services, with the result that many dynamising groups came to be dominated by people who sought to turn them into a means for private accumulation.

Of greater importance was the simple fact that by '977 this holding

1 See 'O Partido e as Classes Trabalhadoras Mofambicanas na Edificafao da Democracia Popular', Relat6rio do Comite Central ao III Congresso da Frelimo, Maputo, 1977.

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MARK SIMPSON

exercise was no longer necessary. The economy, while still operating at

way below pre-independence output levels, had been restored to some semblance of working order. The party schools had succeeded in

producing sufficient numbers of ideologically trustworthy cadres to man a reconstructed state apparatus capable of direct interference both in the workplace and the economy in general. Finally, there was the element of ideological pre-disposition on the part of an increasingly confident political leadership intent on centralising power. While lip- service was paid to the tradition of decentralised democracy which had sustained Frelimo during the liberation struggle and early post- independence period, this proved impossible to reconcile with either the Soviet model with which the now dominant Marxist faction felt an

affinity, or the challenges, both foreign and domestic, that their socialist

project faced. On the domestic front, opposition was seen to come from a number

of sources. Organised religion, in particular the Catholic Church which had been an important pillar of the Portuguese colonial regime, was viewed with extreme suspicion.12 In addition, there were a whole range of political groupings which sprang up in the period between the cease- fire and the Portuguese handover of power to Frelimo. Suppressed during the transitional government from September 1974 toJune 1975, these parties brought together Frelimo dissidents, such as Nkavandame and Simango, who had survived the various purges which had taken

place in the past, as well as others who had opposed Lisbon's policy of

handing over power to Frelimo without elections.13 Though many of these opposition figures were subsequently imprisoned, their

organisations continued to fracture and regroup throughout the late

I970s, several basing themselves in Lisbon while claiming supporters inside Mozambique.

Of much graver long-term consequences was the formation of Renamo by the Rhodesian Central Intelligence Organisation (C.I.O.) in 1975, which assisted the rebel movement in attacks on Mozambique in retaliation for Frelimo's support for the Zimbabwean African National Union (Zanu). Renamo soon began broadcasting to

Mozambique on its 'Voice of Free Africa' station based in Rhodesia,

12 In a series of speeches in May and June I975, Samora Machel warned churches that Frelimo would be the only organisation allowed to proselytise. Colin Legum (ed.), Africa Contemporary Record, I975-76 (London, I976), p. B278.

13 Frelimo's sense of insecurity was compounded by an abortive settler putsch in September I974 which had been launched on the assumption that Pretoria would come to the assistance of those involved. Ibid. pp. B274-5.

318




and continued to recruit a number of followers for military training by the C.I.O.14 By the time of the Third Congress, Frelimo was confronted with a whole array of'internal enemies' committed to derailing its revolution, thus requiring a stronger, streamlined party.

Regional developments also strengthened the arguments of those pushing for a Soviet-style party. Frelimo's closure of its borders with Rhodesia in I976, and support for the Zimbabwean nationalists, ensured the hostility of Ian Smith's regime. By the beginning of I977 there existed a state of undeclared war between the two countries, with an estimated io,ooo Zimbabwean guerrillas based in Mozambique,15 and the Rhodesian army conducting regular raids across the border.

Of even greater concern to Maputo was the attitude of South Africa. Maputo and Pretoria initially established a modus vivendi, whereby each would abstain from supporting the other's opposition. Frelimo was aware of the disruption to Mozambique's economy which Pretoria was capable of inflicting as a result of the country's dependency on the transmitted earnings of so many thousands of migrant labourers, as well as the importance of the revenue derived from the export of South African goods through the port of Maputo. The new Mozambican Government therefore made a point of keeping the African National Congress (A.N.C.) on a short rein, while the South Africans initially abstained from supporting Renamo. Yet it was clear that both parties had simply adopted a'wait-and-see attitude. Having witnessed the forceful South African intervention in Angola in October 1975 against its sister movement, the M.P.L.A., Frelimo was left to draw its own conclusions as to Pretoria's willingness to live for any extended period of time with a Marxist-Leninist regime right on its doorstep.

The international situation was likewise less than welcoming to Frelimo's revolutionary aspirations. On the one hand, developments such as the victory of similar movements such as the Partido Africano da Independencia da Guine e Cabo Verde (P.A.I.G.C.) and the M.P.L.A., the final demarche of the Americans in Vietnam with the fall of Saigon in 1975, and the declaration of an adherence to Marxism-Leninism in I976 by the Dergue in post-imperial Ethiopia, led Frelimo to believe that history was working in favour of revolutionary socialism. Other events muddied the waters, however. The I973 U.S.-backed coup against Salvador Allende, and American assistance to the Frente JVacional de Libertafio de Angola (F.N.L.A.) and the Unido Nacionalpara a

14 The standard account of the formation of Renamo is contained in the memoirs of Ken Flowers, Serving Secretly: an intelligence chief on record, Rhodesia into Zimbabwe, 1964-i98i (London, I987). 15 Africa Contemporary Record, i975-76, pp. B283-4.

3I9



MARK SIMPSON

Independencia Total de Angola (Unita), both demonstrated Washington's continued resolve to combat communism wherever it raised its head. In more general terms, the mid- I970s saw an erosion of one of the pillars of the policy of detente between the superpowers, namely the rules

governing non-intervention in third-world conflicts, something which would not have escaped the new and vulnerable regime in Maputo.

Both these internal and external factors were responsible for Frelimo

gradually leaning towards the Eastern bloc, and in turn for the changes that were formalised at the Third Congress. The regime was going through a process of post-revolutionary consolidation, and therefore in search of specific ideas on how to reorganise Mozambican society in order to give substance to its pre-existing revolutionary socialist

commitments, while at the same time worried about its own and the

country's security. The U.S.S.R. was able to step into the breach and offer a comprehensive 'package' of measures to Frelimo, geared to help keep it in power.

Soviet commentators continued to woo the new regime, one noting with approval in I975 that Frelimo was 'consistently implementing important socio-economic measures designed to weaken foreign influence, establish control over the main economic levers, nationalise land and real estate firms',16 while others went further in 1976 by arguing that 'processes that could lead to the adoption of the socialist orientation are... now in progress in Mozambique'.17 And it was

undoubtedly the case that Eastern bloc advisors played a decisive role in the formulation of the proposals that were debated at the Third

Congress. Mirroring the programmatic formulations put forward by Soviet third-world experts, Frelimo argued that its struggle had now entered the stage of the 'people's democratic revolution', during which

tlle foundations for the transition to socialism were to be laid.18 The I977 Congress approved the adoption of Marxism-Leninism as

the official ideology of the state and a great deal of ingenuity was

applied to the problem of transferring Marxist-Leninist categories of

analysis to the situation in Mozambique. The class enemy was not seen in orthodox terms as a distinct and established group, but more as a

potential problem. Class struggle was necessary in order to prevent the

growth of an exploiting stratum. A dictatorship of the proletariat was

16 S. Kulik, 'Mozambique: on the road to progress', in New Times (Moscow), 20, May I976, p. 24.

17 V. G. Solidovnikov and N. Gavrilov, 'Africa: tendencies of non-capitalist development', in International Affairs, March I976, p. 33.

18 See Peter Meyns, 'Liberation Ideology and National Development Strategy in Mozambique', in Review of African Political Economy (Sheffield), 22, October-December 1981, pp. 42-64.

320




called for, but once again Frelimo was forced to bow before the realities of society. While accepting that according to Marxism-Leninism the

proletariat had to become the 'dominant force' in the revolution, Frelimo recognised that this class in Mozambique was not yet ready to take on its historic mission given its numerical weakness and low level of political consciousness (the participation of the urban working class in the liberation struggle had been negligible). At the same time, in

recognition of the support rendered by the peasantry during the armed

struggle, this stratum was recognised as the 'principal force' in the revolution. An alliance was to be struck between workers and peasants, though a deconstruction of the semantics made it clear that it was the former that were to enjoy a privileged position in Frelimo's cosmology.

Economic policy was to be subordinated to these political imperatives. The need to institute a dictatorship of the proletariat was adhered to so strictly that 'if this class was a negligible force in

Mozambique it would simply have to be built up until it could play its

proper role'.19 In line with Soviet recommendations, primary emphasis was given to heavy industry in order to develop a powerful urban

proletariat. At the same time agriculture was to undergo further socialisation through the establishment of more collectivised communal

villages and, more significantly, the creation of large, capital-intensive state farms. The latter were seen as the main source of food for the urban population, as well as midwives of a rural proletariat. In general terms, therefore, it was made clear that the state would dominate the economic process and that central planning was the order of the day.

The reforms of the political system which took place as a result of the decisions of the Third Congress flowed logically from the adoption of Marxism-Leninism and the long-term objective of a 'dictatorship of the

proletariat'. Frelimo's statutes were altered so as to transform it into 'the vanguard party of the worker-peasant alliance', a change judged to be necessary in view of the projected intensification of the class

struggle. Stricter organisational principles were adopted, particularly in regards to the selection of party cadres. If conditions in the early post-independence era had forced Frelimo to accept the bonafides of all and sundry, the Congress of 1977 made it clear that Frelimo should be

composed primarily of'vanguard members of the working class', and that the selection process was to be tightened up. The principle of democratic centralism was adopted on the grounds that only if a single unified political centre was established could the goal of communism be achieved.

19 David and Marina Ottaway, Afrocommunism (New York, 198I), p. 80.

32



One of the targets of these decisions were the dynamising groups in the workplace, which were to be converted into production councils

directly subordinate to the party and state-appointed management. Frelimo took on the mobilising role previously assumed by these

organisations, whose 'decentralized and semiautonomous nature

implied a concept of direct democracy and mass participation which contradicted that of the vanguard party'.20 Replicating the East

European model, a whole panoply of' mass organisations' were created which were extensions of the party, such as the Mozambican Woman's

Organisation, the Mozambican Youth Organisation, and the

Organisation of Mozambican Workers. It was also announced that

preparations were to begin for the election of a national People's Assembly in December I977. In the event, this body was simply chosen

by Frelimo's Central Committee, the list being submitted to provincial assemblies for formal ratification. Together, all these changes represented a significant shift away from the methods adopted by Frelimo during the armed struggle.

On the foreign policy front, the alliance with the Eastern bloc was turned into an article of faith at the Third Congress, where in a 9-hour speech Machel stated that

The party which our Congress created is an internationalist one. To make our country a pure revolutionary base for the struggle of other oppressed peoples and classes and to reinforce the world anti-imperialist front are the essential tasks of our party... we openly face the forces of capitalism within our country and the armies of imperialism at the external level.21

In March I977, the Soviet President Podgorny visited Machel in

Maputo and the two leaders signed a treaty of friendship and co-

operation, placing Mozambique firmly within Moscow's network of

ideologically trustworthy allies, together with others such as Vietnam, Cuba, Angola, and Ethiopia.

What happened, in essence, was that Frelimo radically altered its alliances and support base. During the liberation struggle, and just after independence, it had been forced by circumstances (and succeeded) in preserving itself, despite internal dissension, as a broad nationalist Front which in I975 could justifiably claim to be the only true representative of the Mozambican people. It was nevertheless the case that the backbone of the movement had always been the

peasantry, whose interests arguably lay primarily in getting rid of

colonially-imposed structures such as that of forced labour and cultivation of cash crops, as well as fairer prices for the marketed

21 Africa Contemporary Record, I976-77, pp. B292-3.

322 MARK SIMPSON

20 Ibid. p. 82.




surpluses and more social services. On the basis of subsequent developments, it is now clear that their sectional interests did not coincide completely with the project of the Marxists within Frelimo, and certainly did not extend to the 'socialisation of the countryside'.

Frelimo's development strategy caused a rupture within this broad alliance. On the one hand, the offensive against an incipient capitalist class - and this label was applied fairly indiscriminately - ostracised small-scale traders and the richer peasants in the rural areas. At the same time, the countryside as a whole was downgraded in relation to the urban sector, and seen as a source of accumulation to fund and feed the heavy industry which Frelimo had decided was the key to development and the creation of a working class. And more specifically, given the importance attached to state farms at the Third Congress, the small-scale peasant household was accorded the lowest priority in the national development strategy. The movement's social base thus shifted to the towns and cities, and Frelimo came to depend on a numerically weak but relatively privileged urban proletariat, a burgeoning state bureaucracy, and an external network centred on Moscow. This tripartite alliance, it was believed, would assist the party in carrying through its revolutionary socialist programme.

FRELIMO BESIEGED

The years between I977 and 1989 saw the demise of Frelimo's project to transform Mozambique into a socialist stronghold in Africa. Many of the explanations of this period have been put forward by the movement's sympathisers who emphasised the role of external factors, in particular the devastating part played by South African destabilisation through the medium of Renamo. However, more recent works, exemplified by the research of Christian Geffray and Alex Vines, have successfully shifted the focus of enquiry from foreign intervention to the domestic impact of unsuccessful policies, seen now as responsible for creating a groundswell of anti-Frelimo sentiment which foreign interests were able to capitalise on.22

Central to these revisionist works are the effects of Frelimo's socialist policies in the rural areas, namely an increase in the level of co- operative activities between individual peasant farmers (with a longer- term objective of ultimately collectivising this sector), the establishment of more communal villages, and the creation of state farms. The latter were to be the centre-piece of the regime's strategy: highly mechanised

22 See Christian Geffray, La Cause des armes au Mozambique: anthropologie d'une guerre civile (Paris, i990), and Alex Vines, Renamo: terrorism in Mozambique (London, I991).

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MARK SIMPSON

enterprises to which the benefits of central planning and Eastern

European technical assistance could be applied, they were to constitute the main source of food for the cities. As far as the co-operatives were

concerned, these were to be supported since they promoted collab- oration in the family sector, and more concretely would 'produce a larger surplus and so contribute more to the process of accumulation... and consolidate a political base for the revolution

amongst rural producers'.23 This process of co-operativisation was to take place in the context of'villagisation'. Dispersed populations were to be concentrated so as to allow the state to deliver educational and health services more effectively, though the sub-text of this discourse was that it permitted greater political supervision of these communities, allowing the state to 'encourage' people to adopt the superior ways of the new socialist life-style.

By I980 it was clear that the strategy had run into problems, as

falling agricultural output forced Mozambique to launch an international appeal for food that year. According to the regime in

Maputo, voluntary-run co-operatives had shown meagre results, while the number which had switched over to working collective plots stood at a derisory 375 in 1981 and employed a mere 37,ooo00.24 A meeting of

government ministers concluded that 'the agricultural co-operatives are still, in most cases, pre-co-operatives which do not constitute the

principal form of work of their members and do not display... the

advantages of this form of socialist property. 25 Less attention was paid to the dismal performances registered by the state farms, which were

sucking in vast resources but failing to deliver the goods, with yields consistently falling short of production targets. Those conducting studies at the time argued that the problems were of a technical and

managerial nature, and the correctness of the programme itself was never questioned.26

Frelimo's agricultural policy had its most damaging effects on

peasant farmers, who were basically ignored when it came to the

provision of extension services, despite the fact that they produced three-quarters of all crops and were responsible for feeding 80 per cent of Mozambique's population. Rural-urban terms of trade declined as

23 Editorial, Estudos Mofambicanos (Centro de Estudos Africanos, Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, Maputo), 3, I98I, p. 6.

24 Joseph Hanlon, Mozambique: the revolution underfire (London, I984), p. I03. 25 'Levar o Povo a Participar em Todas as Fases do Piano', Summary of the Discussions held

at an Extraordinary Meeting of the Council of Ministers, 20 April 198I, in Notz'cias (Maputo), 2I

April 1981, pp. 3-4. 26 Ibid. 25 August I981.

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the state, which retained a monopoly on the marketing of agricultural goods, sought to keep food costs low for the urban population. In addition, the incentive for peasants to place their surpluses on the market was further reduced as a result of Frelimo campaigns against private traders, as well as the priority given to heavy industry as

opposed to the production of domestic requirements. Given that Frelimo worked on the assumption of the inherent

economic and political superiority of collectivised agriculture and state

farms, the solution was seen to lie in more of the same. A villagisation drive was initiated in I98I, the pace of which picked up substantially after the Fourth Congress in April 1983, when it was reaffirmed that

private agriculture was ultimately to disappear and that the state sector was to remain dominant. The villagisation programme, while initially obeying economic logic by allowing the state to gain easier access to whatever peasant surplus was available under conditions of declining food production, increasingly responded to military imperatives in

light of a rapidly deteriorating security situation, and the voluntary principle was gradually forgotten. Officials often forcibly removed

people from their ancestral lands to hastily erected villages in an

attempt to deny the rebels a 'sea in which they could swim', and only succeeded in building up resentment against Frelimo and making many communities easier targets for Renamo penetration.27

This economic alienation of the peasantry was compounded by Frelimo's campaign against the mores of rural cultural life in an

attempt to create the New Mozambican Man, divested of his unscientific pre-socialist belief systems. Targeting 'feudalism', 'ob- scurantism', and 'tribalism' led to attempts to proscribe polygamy, ancestor worship, and the undercutting of traditional authorities. As has been argued elsewhere:

The humiliation of chiefs, the destruction of religious items, the constant denigration of traditional values by representatives of the party-state, compounded the feelings of resentment against the representatives of an increasingly alien and threatening entity which had already been produced by the process of geographical displacement.28

27 In his pioneering study of the war in the district of Erati in Nampula province, Geffray notes in op. cit. pp. I75-7, that 'Some weeks after the forced displacement of the inhabitants by the armed forces, the first overpopulated villages were attacked by Renamo. After these attacks, the officers commanding the detachment of guerrillas... explained the hostility of their organisation to the communal villages. They invited the villagers to return to the lands they had abandoned under Frelimo's orders.'

28 Mark Simpson, 'Political Decompression and Historical Revisionism in Mozambique', in Southern African Issues (South African Institute of International Affairs, Johannesburg), 4, I992, p. I7.

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MARK SIMPSON

The quickening of the tempo of villagisation, the spread of Renamo

activities, and the increase in South African support for the rebels, all took place during the early 198os. By 1984 Frelimo had its back to the

wall, with the rebels having turned much of the countryside into no- mans land. The movement was in a very real sense under siege, since the security situation meant that large areas had been rendered inaccessible, while its oxygen tank was international assistance, particularly in the form of food aid, which allowed Frelimo to at least

keep alive its primary constituency, the urban population. When the Rhodesians handed over operational control of Renamo to

the South Africans in I980, the timing could not have been more

opportune for Pretoria. The fall of the colonial regimes in Mozambique and Angola in 1975, Frelimo's declared policy of opposition to apartheid and support for the A.N.C., the presence of Cuban troops in Angola, and the continuing assistance being received by the South West Africa

People's Organisation (Swapo) from the M.P.L.A., resulted in a

significant change in the threat perceptions of the securocrats in Pretoria. With the demise of Smith's white-minority regime in I980, another major breach occurred in South Africa's cordon sanitaire, and a new regional policy was adopted, premised on the belief that recent

developments formed part of a plan, carefully orchestrated from

Moscow, to undermine the Republic from bases in neighbouring countries. Such a 'total onslaught' needed to be countered by a 'total

strategy' to neutralise, through a mixture of military and economic

coercion, the support of the Frontline states for the liberation movement in South Africa. As far as Mozambique was concerned, Pretoria's aims were to use Renamo to weaken the country through the destruction of economic targets and communications, and to bring Maputo to its

knees, thus ensuring the removal of the A.N.C. from Mozambican soil.

Maputo proved unable to contain the dizzying spread of the Renamo-led insurgency, and much as it sought to characterise the rebels as simple 'armed bandits' in the pockets of their paymasters in

Pretoria, it is now clear that the phenomenon had deeper social roots so that a purely military approach would always have produced limited results. In any case, one of the problems that Frelimo had to contend with was that its alliance with the Soviets proved to be much less useful than had originally been envisaged. Eastern European instructors, together with military hardware including tanks and combat aircraft, ensured the transformation of Frelimo's guerrilla troops into a conventional army. Yet this Soviet-trained force proved unable to contain rural-based rebels. The experience of the Red Army,

326




which at the time was bogged down in Afghanistan, should have constituted a warning of the inadequacies of Soviet counter-insurgency tactics.

Faced with these realities, Frelimo was forced to enter into negotiations with Pretoria. Maputo hoped that the Nkomati accord of 1984, whereby both sides agreed to end the support being given to each other's opposition movements, would enable it to quickly crush the orphaned rebels. At the same time, following the rejection of Mozambique's application for membership of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon) in 1980 and then again in 1981, overtures had been made towards the West in 1983 with the objective of getting North America and Europe to put pressure on Pretoria to cease its destabilisation policy, as well as in the hope of securing aid to make up for the Eastern bloc's disappointing economic assistance. This move to diversify its external alliance network received a boost when Machel was received in Britain by Margaret Thatcher in 1983, and bore further fruits in 1985 when he was invited to Washington and held talks with Ronald Reagan.

Yet, if Frelimo hoped that a diversification of Mozambique's international connections would be sufficient to end the war, it was to be sorely disappointed. While official South African assistance to Renamo was radically cut back in the wake of Nkomati, it is now common knowledge that elements within the South African security apparatus continued to supply the rebels until P. W. Botha was succeeded by F. W. de Klerk in I989.29 Furthermore, by concentrating on depriving them of external assistance, Frelimo ignored the need to undercut Renamo internally, something which would have required a change in its domestic policies.

Therein lay the problem. Despite the reforms decided upon at the Fourth Congress of 1983, no serious effort was made to reconstruct Frelimo's internal alliances. Some concessions were made to what were seen as short-term problems, such as the cessation in the sale by peasants of their surpluses. Farmers who demonstrated a capacity for creating a surplus were to be given better producer prices, and the supply of consumer goods to the rural areas was to be improved to serve as an inducement. It was also recognised that the state farms had grown too large given the managerial capacities of the central regime, and

29 Documents containing evidence of continued support for Renamo by the South African Defence Force were captured in a joint Mozambican-Zimbabwean offensive against the rebel headquarters in 1985. Even after de Klerk became President, reports continued to filter through of continued external help for Renamo. The Weekly Mail (Johannesburg), 9 March I990.

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MARK SIMPSON

some were broken up into smaller units. Nevertheless, these were seen as minor tactical retreats rather than a profound re-examination of the model adopted in I977. While the excesses of central planning were criticised - in particular the infatuation with large-scale projects - and although planning was to be decentralised as far as possible to the district and provincial levels, at no time was the approach itself questioned. Private agriculture was still ultimately to disappear, and the state sector was to retain its position of dominance.30

This lack of a fundamental critique of the path followed since independence is evident in the report prepared in 1984 by the National Planning Commission. In this document the causes of the economic crisis are seen as being totally of an external nature, such as the foreign- sponsored war, bad weather, and deteriorating terms of trade.31 This continued myopia on Frelimo's part may also be seen in the launching of' Operation Production' soon after the Fourth Congress, the objective of which was to reverse the flow of refugees to the cities, to relieve the pressure on food items in the urban areas, and at the same time to solve the problem of scarcity of labour on the state farms. Over a period of two months, an estimated 50o,oo000 'superfluous' individuals were rounded up and forcibly transferred to the state farms and communal villages, creating more fertile recruiting ground for Renamo. Once again, meaningful solutions to these problems were ignored in favour of administrative fiats.

It is hardly suprising, therefore, that the palliative measures adopted at the Fourth Congress should not have reversed either the spiralling decline of the economy or the deterioriating security situation. Contrary to hopes, the drop in South African assistance failed to deliver the rebels to Frelimo. With the closure of their rear bases in South Africa, Renamo simply moved into the interior of the country and developed a high degree of self-sufficiency by preying off local populations, attacking convoys carrying emergency food aid, and capturing weaponry from Frelimo soldiers. By 1985-6, Renamo had expanded its

operations to all of Mozambique's ten provinces, and industrial

production had collapsed to one-third of what it was before

independence. The figures for marketed agricultural output made even more dismal reading, with the staple, maize, having fallen to one-sixth of its I973 level. The growing rural insurgency and deteriorating economic conditions meant that in 1987 the Government was forced to

30 'Relatorio da Comissao das Directivas Economicas e Sociais' ('Report of the Commission on Economic and Social Directives'), Frelimo, Maputo, 1983.

31 Government of Mozambique, National Planning Commission, 'Economic Report', Maputo, January 1984.

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go cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund (I.M.F.) and World Bank, and a structural adjustment programme, known by its Portuguese acronym P.R.E., was adopted in an attempt to reverse the decline.32

External financial assistance was a life-line, though some within Frelimo may have chosen to view it as simply an ad hoc solution to a temporary problem. Nevertheless, the conditions imposed by the donors did force a fundamental rethinking of the economic model which had been adhered to since independence. If P.R.E. allowed Mozambique access to new sources of finance and a rescheduling of its debt, in exchange the country was forced to accept punishing austerity measures, including massive cuts in the budget deficit, devaluation of the currency, and the restoration of the market to the position of primary regulator of supply and demand in the economy. One key objective of the I.M.F./World Bank package was to reverse the decline in urban-rural terms of trade by ensuring better prices for peasant surpluses, thus in effect shifting the balance in favour of the countryside. While the international financial agencies may have advocated these changes in order to improve the country's chronic food deficiency, Frelimo's objectives probably reflected a realisation that the war would drag on unless something was done to undercut Renamo by winning back the support of the peasantry.

Unfortunately for the regime in Maputo, conditions in the countryside proved unpropitious for the implementation of the policy. The general state of insecurity meant that commercial networks in large parts of Mozambique had simply disappeared. Few private traders were willing to risk the journey to outlying areas to purchase peasant surpluses or to sell consumer goods. And as a result of the destruction and dislocation caused by the conflict, the vast majority of peasants were dependent on food aid, and far from able to feed themselves let alone produce a surplus. While there is some evidence to suggest that cultivators around the relatively safe peri-urban areas of the main population centres were able to benefit from better prices, given the state of insecurity most peasants were untouched by the changes, and at worst may even have not had the choice to benefit from them given that they lived under Renamo control.

If the policy failed to re-establish ties between Frelimo and the peasantry, it was also positively detrimental as regards its impact on the

32 The seriousness of the economic situation had already become evident as far back as I983, when Mozambique defaulted on its external debt which then stood at U.S.$I,664 million. The following year the Government was forced to ask its creditors for a moratorium on repayments. Africa Contemporary Record, i983-84, p. B675.

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MARK SIMPSON

urban population, which the regime had managed to insulate from the worst effects of the war by subsidising basic food items and a rationing system. In addition, increasingly scarce resources in health and education became forcibly concentrated in cities and towns as a result of Renamo's depradations in the rural areas. Under P.R.E., however, this safety net began to unravel.

The progressive removal of food subsidies and the rationing system had a devastating effect on urban families, with the proportion of those in absolute poverty jumping from 5 per cent in 1980 to 50 by I989.33 Price increases for water, electricity, health services, and schooling further contributed to falling living standards, while the tight wage policies demanded by the I.M.F. meant that public employees in

particular were caught in a vice. And the drastic cuts in state expenditure that were an integral part of the programme (the education budget fell from $I25 million in 1986 to 33 million in 1987) meant there was increased pressure on whatever services were available.

Nevertheless, the positive rates of growth registered in the gross domestic product (G.D.P.) during I987-9 seemed to indicate that the downward trend of the years prior to P.R.E. had been reversed. With these figures in mind, Frelimo probably decided that the introduction of austerity measures was a necessary short-term evil, and that there was light at the end of the tunnel. What it overlooked, however, was that these positive growth rates were largely attributable to inflows of concessional finance in the wake of Mozambique's adherence to I.M.F.

conditionality (which in particular boosted imports of inputs and

spares for industry), as well as the legion of aid agencies who through their activities created significant spin-offs in the economy. In 1990, however, the G.D.P. grew by only one per cent.34 The problem was that the rural, agricultural-based strategy upon which the whole

programme was predicated failed to yield the hoped-for increased

output-hardly surprising given that better producer prices and material incentives were meaningless in a state of generalised rural insecurity.

By 99o, it was clear that the war continued to be the major obstacle to growth. And the fact that the Government was rapidly losing popular support in the urban areas was brought home by the crossing of the 'riot threshold' when, in May, striking teachers in Maputo were

dispersed by baton-wielding police. The country's economic realities

33 Joseph Hanlon, Mozambique: who calls the shots? (London, 99 I), p. I5 I 34 Mozambiquefile (Maputo), January I991.

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were decisive for the timing and shaping of the decisions taken at Frelimo's Fifth Congress, and the process of constitutional reform which followed, as well as the moves towards negotiations to end the war.

THE PROCESS OF POLITICAL DECOMPRESSION

AND THE FUTURE

The Fifth Congress in July 1989 was responsible for radical changes in Mozambique's ideological orientation. After years of adherence to Marxism-Leninism and having played a vanguard role in the formation of an alliance between workers and peasants, Frelimo changed to a socialist party of national unity heading a broad alliance between diverse social groups, with a membership that was now open to all, including capitalists and religious figures.35 The new emphasis was

clearly on national unity and consensus in an attempt to recover

ground lost since independence. Some within the party had come to the conclusion that a military solution to the conflict was not on the cards, and that in view of the likelihood of a negotiated settlement with Renamo it would do well to strengthen its social base with a view to

possible elections. The momentum of reforms continued in December 1990, when the

National Assembly adopted a new multi-party constitution presented by the Government, which allowed for direct elections for president, guaranteed freedom of the press, thejudiciary, and religious expression. It also revised the clauses of the I975 constitution which had blurred the distinction between party and state, notably Article 3:

the People's Republic of Mozambique will be guided by the political line defined by Frelimo, which is the leader of the State and society. Frelimo will establish the basic political policy of the State, so as to ensure the conformity of the policy of the State with the interests of the people.36

Article I of the new constitution simply proclaimed Mozambique to be a 'state of social justice', while Frelimo was only recognised in Article 7.2 as having played a 'decisive role... in the victory over colonialism and in the winning of national independence'. And on the issue of

political pluralism, Article 31.1 noted that political parties 'shall

35 The success of the new membership policy can be gauged by the fact that at the Sixth Congress held in August 199 , PresidentJoaquim Chissano announced that Frelimo's membership had risen to almost half a million, up I40 per cent since the Congress of I989. Special Report No. 7 (Mozambique Information Office, London), 4 September I991.

36 English translation of the I975 constitution, in Facts and Reports (Amsterdam), I9-20, 4 October I975, and 2 , I8 October I975.

33I



MARK SIMPSON

compete to form and proclaim the will of the people', while Article 86. I laid down that 'The state shall recognise and guarantee the right to ownership of property'.37

In the course of debates on the I990 constitution in the National Assembly, a motion was passed to change the national anthem which 'contained references to "the struggle against capitalism, the bourgeoisie and exploitation", [which] will be reformulated due to the fact that its wording is considered incompatible with current developments in Mozambique'. In conjunction with the reforms introduced at the Fifth Congress, the new constitution may be partly interpreted as a strategic move to entice the rebels to the negotiating table, given that Renamo had justified its struggle in terms of the need to combat Marxism and introduce democracy in Mozambique.

International pressures had also been pushing Frelimo in this direction. Events in Eastern Europe constituted a warning as to what would happen if it did not open the political arena to others as an escape valve for growing social discontent. In addition, Soviet support had been falling ever since Mikhail Gorbachev had taken power in I985, and Frelimo was witness to a gradual but inexorable retraction of Soviet interests globally. The withdrawal of the Red Army from Afghanistan in February I989, and the Mozambican Defence Minister's announcement, one month before the Fifth Congress, that the Soviets were planning to substantially cut their deliveries of

weapons,38 strengthened the hands of those within the party in favour of a negotiated settlement.

These winds of change blowing from the East were matched by pressures emanating from the West for Frelimo to adopt free-market economic policies and accept political pluralism. And under the banner of 'good governance', which associated capitalism and multi-party democracy, donors helped to persuade the authorities in Maputo of the economic benefits to be gained by implementing political reforms. Indeed, in the interregnum between the abandonment of Marxism- Leninism at the Fifth Congress in July 1989 and the adoption of the new constitution in December I990, President George Bush took

Mozambique offWashington's black-list of Marxist states, allowing the Government access to official Export-Import Bank credits.

As far as the regional context was concerned, the entente between

Washington and Moscow as regards the resolution of various conflicts

37 Special Report No. 2, 5 November 1990. The name of the country was also changed from The People's Republic of Mozambique to simply Republic of Mozambique.

38 Richard Weitz, 'Continuities in Soviet Foreign Policy: the case of Mozambique', in Comparative Strategy (New York), I , I, January-March I992, p. 85.

332




in the Third World led to the agreement reached during December 1988 in New York on Namibian independence, as well as the eventual signing of an Angolan peace treaty in I99I and the phased withdrawal of Cuban troops. This lessening of cold war tensions in the region had a positive impact on de Klerk's Government, which had come to power in 1989 intent on embarking on both a reform programme internally, as well as setting regional relations on a new footing.

As far as Mozambique was concerned, a new dialogue was established between Maputo and Pretoria. This process had begun in the last year of Botha's Presidency, when he met with Chissano in Mozambique in September 1988 to discuss the ability of the rebels to sabotage electricity supplies from the Cabora Bassa dam to South Africa. Botha's threat that such activities would not be tolerated provided evidence of the decision to distance Pretoria from its erstwhile surrogates as South Africa sought to normalise relations with its neighbours. Later, President de Klerk visited Maputo twice, and reaffirmed his regime's commitment to rein-in groups within South Africa who continued to support Renamo.39 Relations between the two countries further improved when Mozambique accepted South African assistance for the rehabilitation of its port system. This lessening of tensions with Pretoria was thus another factor strengthening the hands of those within Frelimo opposed to a continuation of hardline policies on both the domestic and regional fronts.

In the aftermath of the Fifth Congress, developments in Eastern Europe continued to force the Government's hand on the importance of achieving peace, not least because the growing chaos in the U.S.S.R. led to an ending of its military assistance to Maputo. Moscow's policy of global withdrawal was brought home in a painful manner by the cessation of deliveries of Soviet oil in April 199I which led not only to long queues for petrol in the cities, but also seriously compromised military operations. Additional pressures came from Zimbabwe, which had assisted the Mozambican army against Renamo since I982 and guarded the economically-vital Beira corridor. By 1989, however, the opposition to Robert Mugabe was beginning to use the issue of military involvement in Mozambique to castigate the Prime Minister.40 At the same time, aid pledges had been falling consistently since 1987 (from $280 million to 0o6 million by I990) serving notice to the Government that international assistance from the West would not continue forever.41 Above all, however, it was probably the continuing military

39 The New rork Times, I7 December I989. 40 Vines, op. cit. pp. 6I-6. 41 Economist Intelligence Unit, Mozambique Country Profile, gg99i-992 (London, I992), p. 35.

333

13 MOA 31



stalemate in the war which led to the opening of direct talks with Renamo in July I990.

The tortuous course of the negotiations, which would eventually lead to a general peace treaty in October I992, need not detain us here.42 Of greater interest are the domestic political developments that took

place during this period, the most significant of which was the change in the relationship between Frelimo and the state. During the liberation

struggle, Frelimo cadres had taken on not only political but also administrative functions, with the result that in the 'counter-states' created the distinction between movement and proto-state was non- existent. The practice continued after independence, so that the established pattern was for party members to automatically hold down

jobs in the public sector. This fusing of party and state, with the former as the real centre of power in society, was aided by the fact that the

body which should have acted as intermediary between party and

state, namely the People's Assembly, degenerated very early on into a

rubber-stamping mechanism for the legislation handed down from Frelimo's Central Committee.

Under the new constitution, this 'party-state' was broken apart. Whereas previously the president of Frelimo automatically became President of Mozambique, direct universal suffrage for a fixed-term office was introduced, the same principle applying to members of the now renamed Assembly of the Republic. The significance of this

distancing of party and state lies in the fact that the former gradually lost one of its pillars of support. Frelimo's alliance with state employees had been strained to breaking point (if not already snapped) and it could no longer count on this constituency. The unilateral declaration of independence from Frelimo by the Organisation of Mozambican

Journalists and the Organisation of Mozambican Workers, as well as

by the youth and women's wings of the party in I 99 , further weakened its support base.

The strategy has been to compensate for these defections by nurturing a group much in vogue in post-I989 Mozambique, namely the 'national bourgeoisie' which now appears to occupy a privileged position in Frelimo's world-view similar to that previously enjoyed by the proletariat. After years of vilification, this class is currently seen as a solution to Mozambique's manifold problems. It is hoped that the

building-up of a domestic capitalist class, and its involvement in

42 For an overview of the negotiations process, see Chris Alden and Mark Simpson, 'Mozambique: a delicate peace', in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), 3 I, I, 993, pp. I09-3o.

334 MARK SIMPSON




the reconstruction process, will result in radical improvements economically, which in turn will rebound to Frelimo's benefit. Simul- taneously, however, the party has recognised the extent to which structural adjustment has alienated the urban masses. In negotiations with the World Bank in I989, the Government sought to soften the impact of the reform programme by introducing safeguards such as supplementary feeding programmes for the most vulnerable groups.

It needs to be emphasised that, as in all transitions, the situation is still unclear. However, there is already evidence that the much vaunted 'national bourgeoisie' is too weak to play the role prescribed for it in both modernisation and Marxist theories of development. To use the terminology from the latter school of thought, it is a 'comprador bourgeoisie' engaged in commercial and speculative activity, and dependent on foreign, in particular South African, capital. According to some scholars, what is being produced is a form of 'subservient capitalism' that will fail to address Mozambique's long-term needs.43 While money is being invested, most noticeably in tourism, with Maputo returning to its former colonial status as favoured playground for South African tourists, this does little to address the need for reconstruction in the field of social infrastructure, a role that can only be taken on by the state.

These contradictions have made themselves felt inside Frelimo. While attempts were made to preserve party unity by opting for the 'broad church' approach, the rise of a dominant 'neo-liberal' faction has resulted in the marginalisation of the previously hegemonic Marxists. It is significant that at the Sixth Congress held in August I99I, leading Marxists such as Marcelino dos Santos (ex-Minister of Planning) andJorge Rebelo (ex-Minister of Information) did not stand for re-election to the politburo.44

It is also interesting to note that the new dominant group is composed largely of historic figures in Frelimo who have converted, with a vengeance, to the new orthodoxy. As one longstanding Frelimophile has noted, Ministers who had played key roles in the

43 See Kenneth Hermele, Mozambican Crossroads - Economics and Politics in the Era of Structural Adjustment (Department of Social Science and Development, Chr. Michelsen Institute, Fantoft, Norway, I990), who argues on p. 42 that what is now taking place is 'a weak, dependent form of capitalism, which is basically serving the South African economy with labour, transport routes, markets and raw materials... where the primary goal is easy profit, while capitalism's productive capacity remains untapped.'

44 Sergio Vieira, a leading light on the left of the party, and who had held the posts of Minister of Agriculture and Security, failed to even secure re-election to the Central Committee. Special Report No. 7, 4 September I99I.

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MARK SIMPSON

liberation struggle, now advocate 'quite unalloyed "free market"

policies to deal with Mozambique's development problems'.45 And as has been pointed out in various reports, following the 1989 Congress decision to lift restrictions limiting the business activities of members of Government, some high-ranking officials have engaged, quite unashamedly, in building up private commercial concerns, creating a

groundswell of resentment amongst the urban masses who have been told to fend for themselves under the new dispensation. In short, it

appears that growing social inequalities is the price currently being paid for capitalist development.46

Despite these realities, however, Frelimo will in all likelihood win the next elections. A number of factors may work in its favour.

I. Despite the failures of the past, as well as the growing perception amongst the majority of Mozambicans that the party has simply become a trampolin for private accumulation, there remains a residual

egalitarianism in the discourse of some key figures, such as Sergio Vieira, currently president of the commission for social affairs in the

Assembly of the Republic, that redounds to the benefit of the party as a whole.

2. There is the fact that Frelimo itself was responsible for introducing the political reforms that have been generally welcomed, at least in the urban areas, and has taken credit for this opening up of the political arena to other actors.

3. Chissano himself received a significant boost in popularity as a result of the ending of the conflict with Renamo. He was seen as being the architect of the peace process, in sharp contrast to the leadership of the rebels which had played an obstructionist role throughout the

negotiations. 4. The opposition parties that have emerged do not yet constitute a

credible alternative to Frelimo because, despite claims to the contrary (with the possible exception of Renamo), they do not possess national networks and are largely restricted to Maputo. In addition, there is

very little to distinguish between them, most adhering to an ill-defined form of social democracy. Renamo's prospects are also bleak given its

45 John S. Saul, 'Mozambique: the failure of socialism?', in Transformation (Durban), 14, 1991, p. I05.

46 See, for example, Economist Intelligence Unit, Mozambique Country Report, No. 4 (London, I99I), which contains allegations of land-grabbing and dispossession of small farmers by government officials.

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infamous reputation for brutality during the war. In a survey conducted in Maputo soon after the signing of the peace treaty, while nearly 60 per cent of respondents declared their intention to vote for Frelimo, only 0-9 per cent said that they supported Renamo.47

5. There is the weakness of civil society in Mozambique, which militates against the emergence of alternatives to the ruling party. After 17 years of one-party rule, in which the only contestations took the form of armed rebellion waged by Renamo, and the insignificant posturing on the part of various exile groups in Lisbon, political pluralism in the country starts from a very weak base. Where the distinction between private sphere and state action was blurred, as in

Mozambique, and where associational life was restricted to those forms controlled by the state, the emergence of a 'social space' distinct from the party/state was prevented since this might have led to the creation of other political parties.

As a Mozambican social scientist has argued, the problem is that while in Eastern Europe one could justifiably talk about the re- emergence of a civil society which had been suppressed during the years of communist rule, in Mozambique what is occurring is the painful birth of civil society.48 Under such adverse circumstances, it is the current political incumbents which are most likely to benefit.

47 Mediafax (Maputo), 15 October I992, p. I. 48

Agostinho Zacarias, 'A Prop6sito da Sociedade Civil', in Jotzcias, 9 May I992.

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