Arnold Hughes - Marxisms Retreat From Africa

ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: MARXISM

Volume 17

MARXISMS RETREAT FROM AFRICA

MARXISMS RETREAT FROM AFRICA

Edited by

ARNOLD HUGHES

First published in 1992

This edition first published in 2015
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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1992 Frank Cass & Co. Ltd.

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ISBN: 978-1-138-85502-1 (Set)
ISBN: 978-1-315-71284-0 (Set) (ebk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-89107-4 (Volume 17) (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-70827-0 (Volume 17) (ebk)

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MARXISMS RETREAT FROM AFRICA

edited by
ARNOLD HUGHES

FRANK CASS

First published in 1992 in Great Britain by
FRANK CASS & CO. LTD
Gainsborough House, Gainsborough Road,
London E11 1RS, England

and in the United States of America by
FRANK CASS

Copyright 1992 Frank Cass & Co. Ltd.

This group of studies frist appeared in a Special Issue on Marxisms Retreat from
Africa, The Joural of Communist Studies, Vol. 8, No. 2, Published by Frank
Cass & Co. Ltd.

Typeset by Regent Typesetting, London
Printed by Antony Rowe, Chippennham, Wilts

The collapse of Marxism in much of the Third World as well as Europe has been so sudden and spectacular that is hard to believe that in the space of seven years The Journal of Communist Studies could bring out special issues both on the creation of Military Marxist Regimes in Africa1 (in which one of the contributors felt able to claim that military Marxism could well be the wave of the future in much of the continent), and on their demise and the wider collapse of Marxist governments on the continent. The present special issue derives from a roundtable on the theme of The Retreat from Moscow: African and Eastern European Experiences of Disengagement from Marxism, held at the University of Birmingham on 2425 September 1991. Organized jointly by the Universitys Centre for Russian and East European Studies and Centre of West African Studies the small gathering of area specialists from these two regions was funded by grants from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Nuffield and Ford Foundations, whose generosity is acknowledged here. The conference examined the recent experiences of African and East European countries in transition from Marxism or Marxist-influenced ideologies towards an uncertain future based on a market economy and a plural political system, and attempted to link these initiatives with the changing situation in what was still at that time the USSR.

As the greater number of papers presented to the conference focused on the experiences of sub-Saharan African states, and recent events in these countries are neither as familiar nor as well-documented as those in Eastern Europe, it was decided to publish these only, together with additional case studies from two other scholars unable to attend; prefaced by a background survey of the appeals of Marxism to Africans (Arnold Hughes) and a very necessary paper (Margot Light) on the Soviet Unions own retreat from Africa in recent years. It has not proved possible to include contributions on every African country which professed to be guided by Marxist thought during the past two decades, not that there is any complete agreement among scholars about which countries to include in such a classification or on the latters degree of commitment to scientific socialism. Here we have followed the conventional academic distinction between self-designated Marxist-Leninist regimes (Afro-Marxist (Young) or Afro-Communist (Ottaways)), which openly claimed to be pursuing scientific socialist objectives under vanguard Marxist single party rule, and other socialist-orientated African governments (Youngs Populist Socialist regimes), which reject specific Marxist labelling or the centrality of class struggle.2

Choice of case studies also depended on the availability of paper-givers and a regrettable omission is Mozambique, particularly given its inclusion in all studies of African Marxist regimes. Instead, Angola (Mark Webber) is discussed as the other accepted example of a Lusophone African Marxist-Leninist country. Neither was it possible to find specialists to cover some of the self-designated military Marxist regimes Congo, Madagascar and Somalia but four examples are included: the more orthodox and important example of Ethiopia (Christopher Clapham), and the less clear-cut cases of Benin (Christopher Allen), Burkina Faso (Ren Otayek) and Ghana (Jeff Haynes), where the attachment to Marxism-Leninism was either more questionable or less explicitly expressed. Finally, there is a study of the South African Communist Party (Stephen Ellis), which, though focused on an opposition political party rather than a regime, merits inclusion given that it has probably been (and remains so today) the most orthodox expression of Marxism-Leninism in the sub-continent.