Journal of Social Development in Africa (1988) 3,2, 67-80 
Review Articles 
Zimbabwe: The Political Economy of Transition, 1980-1986, edited by 
Ibbo Mandaza, Codesria, Dakar, 1986 (430pp, Z$ 13,99). 
The appearance of Zimbabwe: the Political Economy of Transition is 
welcome. This collection of essays by progressive Zimbabwean scholars, 
edited by Ibbo Mandaza, a senior official in the Public Service Commission, 
is a major intervention in the debate on the political economy of 
independent Zimbabwe. The book seeks to address the main processes and 
components of that political economy, its directions and contradictions, and 
the openings it affords for progressive political work. 
As the editor signals in his Preface, The Political Economy of Transition 
is addressed mainly to Zimbabweans. Non-Zimbabweans will do well to 
read it, however, both for what it says about Zimbabwe in the mid-1980's, 
and for the insight it offers on how Zimbabwean scholars see their society. 
The book is timely, for its publication coincides roughly with the 1987 
constitutional changes which mark the end of the first transitional phase of 
the politics of independent Zimbabwe. The essays in the collection bring 
together a wealth of information and argument about a crucial period in die 
country's history. Several authors are quite critical of the different aspects of 
public policy and practice; that such opinions can be published openly 
speaks well for Zimbabwe. Because it is the first resume of the political 
economy of the new nation, and because it comes from a group of 
Zimbabweans who have nailed their political colours firmly to the mast, die 
book's' appearance will surely provoke responses from other political 
positions. For this reason it should advance and enhance the national debate 
on Zimbabwe's political directions and possibilities. 
The Political Economy of Transition will also serve as an excellent 
bibliographic resource on Zimbabwe's political economy. Its twenty-page 
bibliography contains an extensive listing of published sources (usefully 
broken down by sectors), unpublished papers, and official documents. 
Ultimately, however, this reader found the volume disappointing. It 
promises more dian it finally delivers, insofar as it does not address 
adequately a number of important theoretical and practical questions about 
Zimbabwe's professed socialist project. Perhaps the slighdy grandiose tide 
raises the reader's expectations too much: "the political economy of 
transition" begs the question, transition to what? There is an answer on the 
public agenda, for President Mugabe has made explicit his government's 
commitment to transforming Zimbabwe into a socialist society. It follows, I 
diink, that an intervention such as diis book should address die possibilities
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and limits of that project. Yet these essays on 'transition' often do so only in a 
tangential or oblique fashion, despite their authors1 evident sympathy for 
their government's commitment. Many of the essays tend xo itvscribe rather 
than explain political-economic processes in the first half-decade of 
Zimbabwe's independence. And crucially, rarely do they offer much 
commentary on the implications of such processes for any broader 
'transformationist' project. Nor, lasdy, do diey offer much discussion about 
the question of political action: what is to be done, by government, by 
popular organisations, or by progressive intellectuals. 
To say diis is not to demand that any volume such as this be exhaustive — 
the editor's proviso (p.x) acknowledges that it is not — but rather to argue 
that certain critical issues of transition have been neglected or inadequately 
explored. 
We wiE make selecdve reference to some of the essays to elaborate diis 
summary critique: space limitations rule out a comment on all of diem. 
The Political Economy of Transition includes thirteen essays and an 
editor's introduction. The essays are grouped into five 'sectoral' clusters: two 
on politics (including one by die editor), three on the economy, diree on 'the 
agrarian question', two on die labour movement and human resources, and 
diree oh social development The book's 430 pages also include a twentypage 
bibliography, as noted above, and an index. 
The editor's introduction is only twenty pages long, but it requires an 
extended comment. In any edited collection, the introductory essay plays an 
important role in defining die tone and substance of die book as a whole. 
Here, what it doesn't say is probably more important dian what it includes. 
Ibbo Mandaza's introduction is subtided "The Political Economy of 
Transition". Referring to Zimbabwe's protracted (and continuing) struggle 
for genuine independence, and die imperialist direat to it, he asserts diat 
die book is "an attempt to explain why things are what they are, rather than what 
they ought to be" (p9, emphasis in original). Much of die introduction, 
however, is devoted not to, for example, oudining a framework of die 
concepts required for such a task, but radier to a polemic against sundry 
omer scholars and activists who have tried to assess die revolutionary 
process in Zimbabwe. John Saul is die principal but certainly not die sole 
culprit Mandaza's complaint seems to be twofold: first, a critique of die 
colonisation of knowledge, and a demand diat Africans should write dieir 
own history; secondly, an assertion diat Saul and odiers have got it wrong in 
their essentially idealist (in die editor's words, 'romantic') analysis of 
revolutionary processes and possibilities in Soudiern Africa. This latter 
argument is also sometimes tinged widi die suggestion diat diey have no 
business making die assessment in die first place. 
There are two problems widi this. First, die editor's attack on odier 
activists is so close to an ad hominen barrage diat it all too easily deflects die
Review Articles 69 
reader's attention from what is an unassailable argument: namely, that 
Africans should write their own history. No reasonable person would 
disagree — and certainly not John Saul, Horace Campbell, et al. 
At least as important, however, is diat the editor's polemic effectively 
diverts him from the task of explaining Zimbabwe, such is his eagerness to 
discredit others' attempts to do so. The book provides a vital opportunity for 
its authors to establish the conceptual and political terms of debate about 
Zimbabwe's political economy, precisely because it is the first and — so far 
— only comprehensive national intervention in diat debate. The introduction 
offers an opportunity, for example, to show die power of a class analysis 
to explain Zimbabwe's special history and current circumstances, and to 
link diese concepts to classical questions about die transition to socialism. In 
die event, it is an opportunity foregone. Mandaza does not set out much of a 
framework for understanding the processes, problems, and possibilities of 
transition in Zimbabwe, and particularly die transition to socialism. This 
shortcoming hampers odier essays in the book — not because they represent 
diverse points of view, but because the reader has litde sense of an overall 
problematic into which to set the information they provide. Indeed, many of 
the essays suffer precisely because diey offer the reader intrinsically 
interesting information which, unrelated to a broader dieoretical framework, 
loses some of its power. 
To be specific: there is a fairly extensive literature on die postcolonial 
state, much of it spawned by the experience of societies in East and Central 
Africa. There is also a substantial literature on socialist experiments in Africa 
(however one defines these), as well as an important body of literature on die 
economics of socialist transformation. This reader would have preferred to 
see a thorough winnowing of diese, but die editor offers only limited 
comment on several important issues diey raise. These include: 
— the social basis and organisation side of the state, die extent of and prospects 
for alternative forms of politics, and particularly for popular control of 
state structures. The central contradiction between popular and imperial 
interests is properly noted, but diere is litde else in this vein. 
— the role of the party, its ideology, organisation, and social base. What 
options exist for the party, practically and theoretically, in relation to bodi 
die state- and odier popular organisations sucn as unions? (It must be 
noted that the cluster of issues related to die role of the party are barely 
addressed anywhere in the book, and yet these are obviously crucial to any 
political project, socialist or otherwise.) 
•— more generally, the social basis of politics and the conceptual tools for 
understanding this. If Zimbabwe is enmeshed in a web of imperialist 
pressures and interests (as die editor convincingly argues, here and 
elsewhere) then surely die political project to challenge diese rests on the 
internal configuration of class and political forces. A materialist analysis
70 Review Arliclei 
must address these: it is not a matter of "appropriate planning skills in the 
state sector" or even "the correct orientation — and political will — to 
plan for socialism" (p 18), necessary as these are. 
— dependence and transformation, the options for developing a planned 
economy that challenges the inherited logic of the market, both 
domestically and internationally. Zimbabwe's circumstances are peculiar 
and problematic, combining a relatively high degree of development of 
the productive forces with an intimate dependency on regional and global 
markets dominated by much larger powers. And there is apolitical issue 
here that cannot be avoided. It is the one raised by Deutscher's critique of 
the Soviet experience: who pays for accumulation, when the attempt is 
made to construct socialism in conditions of scarcity? 
— what to do? How to "identify the possibilities for the development of a 
progressive development policy?" (p 17). What political space exists for 
progressive intellectuals? for popular organisations? within and outside 
the state and party? what limits and possibilities do these imply? 
The editor is surely aware of some of these questions, but makes litde 
more than passing reference to them. Some exploration of them, conversely, 
could have provided a framework within which the different authors could 
address more sharply the problem of transition in the specific sectors they 
analyse. 
The book's first essay, by the editor, surveys the historical origins and 
current dynamics of the state in Zimbabwe. It seeks to provide an overview 
which sets the broad political context of the essays which follow. Like the 
introduction, its prominence in the book (as well as its fifty-odd pages) lends 
an importance that calls for close scrutiny. 
Mandaza defines the state as a "post-white setder colonial state", a 
cumbersome phrase, but useful in suggesting specific characteristics. The 
essay provides a very competent and succinct summary of the evolution of 
die colonial state, as well as a reflection of the weaknesses and contradictions 
of the liberation movement. (The latter is described, correcdy I think, as a 
radical nationalist movement with, at best, a socialist idiom.) Mandaza also 
explains well the net of imperial forces at work in the decolonisation process, 
emphasising mat the outcome at Lancaster House was an expression of the 
balance of political forces at work. His emphasis on the essential continuity 
of state structures, and the safeguard thus provided for imperial interests, is 
also appropriate. He asserts die emergence since 1980, and its subsequent 
political dominance, of a petty bourgeoisie, a class owing its prominence 
and power primarily to its control of state and parastatal institutions and, in 
some instances, its alliance as junior partner with domestic and international 
capital. "It follows too that this class will be little help in any socialist project. 
The essay is forcefully argued and, as far as it goes, convincing. The almost 
exclusive focus on the petty bourgeoisie has serious limitations, however. It
Review Articles 71 
is a theoretical weakness with political consequences. In the Marxist 
tradition of discourse social classes exist only in relation to one another, and 
hence must be analysed as such. The state in capitalist society is thus an 
arena of class struggle — an instrument of class power, a locus of class 
formation, to be sure, but also object -vnd terrain for contending political 
forces. Mandaza's analysis, however, in its preoccupation with imperial 
interests on one hand and petty-bourgeois political consolidation on the 
other, has little to say about the dominated classes of Zimbabwean society 
and their relation to the state. Yet unless a writer takes account of the 
constraints and possibilities of that interaction, a 'class' becomes a freefloating, 
ahistorical political force. This indeed, is the impression conveyed 
by Mandaza's account. For this reason, it comes uncomfortably close to 6lite 
analysis as practised by orthodox political science. 
• There is also a certain determinism at work. The account of politics before 
1980 is presented with some verve; the reader sees people and organisations 
at loggerheads over who shall govern. The account of the independence 
years, unfortunately, loses that sense of human agency. The petty 
bourgeoisie appears to spring more or less fully grown from the womb of 
Lancaster House, and the main question to be answered, it seems, is what 
relationship it will develop with the agents of capital. 
The editor's introductory protestations notwithstanding, therefore, there 
is little here by way of a materialist analysis (in terms of the social base of the 
nationalist movement, for example) to explain why an emergent pettybourgeois 
class has secured power. Nor, in die absence of an exploration of 
die contradictory relations between this grouping and the popular classes — 
in the Marxist canon, the wellspring of social change — does the reader have 
a sense of the possible trajectories of social and political change. 
Not surprisingly, perhaps, this conceptual weakness has political 
consequences: the account offers little guidance on die practical question of 
what to do. There is litde explanation of die incipient divisions within die petty 
bourgeoisie, or of their implications in terms of political space, for popular 
initiative. [Thefact of division is noted, but litde else.) Nor does the reader 
gain a sense of what class base (if any) exists for the political project of 
transformation. Likewise, there is little analysis of popular organisation, 
particularly of the party and its mobilising potential — no comment at all, 
for example, about why the politicisation of edinicity has been so prevalent, 
with all its divisiveness (problems of inertia and stagnation are mentioned 
and deplored, but there is little else). There is a very real political problem to 
be addressed: as a former ZANLA cadre once put it to me, ZANU-PF 
mobilised the people very effectively politically, for independence, but 
hardly at all for the economic struggle to follow. These are critical issues if 
one understands transition as primarily a matter of political struggle, not 
policy.
72 Review Articles 
In the absence (in this account) of any potential popular motive force, 
Mandaza is forced to identify the impetus for progressive change as, in 
effect, individual preoccupations (p 51). He invokes a putative "progressive 
nationalist" grouping within the petty bourgeoisie as agents of change: not 
unlike the analysis of Tanzania once offered by Saul! Yet Mandaza offers no 
compelling explanation of why such a grouping should exist, nor why they 
should act as he hopes they will. 
The -essay concludes with a reiteration of the inherent contradiction 
between the imperial interests embodied in the state and its petty-bourgeois 
intendants, and the aspirations of the mass of Zimbabwe's people. The 
writer evokes a vision of the "inexorable and inevitable rising tide of thg 
oppressed". Yet, without any prior analysis of the oppressed, nor 
explanation why their revolt is both inexorable and inevitable, this sounds 
very much like the dreaded 'revolutionary romanticism'. 'The people' stride 
onto the political stage — but almost as an exogenous force. Surely the 
analysis of the postcolonial state requires a fuller account of popular 
interests and organisations? 
The three essays on the economy include Xavier Kadhani's overview of 
recent developments, Theresa Chimombe's account of the place of foreign 
capital, and Dan Ndlela's assessment of prospects for industrialisation. They 
are complementary, and present a good deal of information on the current 
state of the economy. While posing some important questions, however, the 
authors refrain from close investigation of key issues inherent in the notion 
of 'transition'. 
Xavier Kadhani's piece exemplifies the problem. He has written a fluent 
and comprehensive survey of major economic developments since 1980. He 
pays comparatively little attention to the politics of economic policy, but still 
identifies questions which are crucial for any 'transformationist' project, or 
any political economy of transition. He notes on p 99, for example, that 
'transformation' entered the political lexicon in the early '80's, but did not 
take on any dear operational meaning. The reader immediately asks why. 
What does this apparent paradox say about the presence of a strategy for 
transformation? Or were there a range of contending 'operational 
meanings', with none pre-eminent? 
To cite a further example: reviewing the Transitional Development Plan 
on pp 101-02, Kadhani notes the absence of an effective planning 
mechanism, and asks, correctly, whether "it is meaningful to 'plan' an 
economy [in] which ownership and control of the productive assets reside in 
private hands, and foreign private hands in large measure at that". This gets 
at the essence of the problem: what options exist for transforming an 
underdeveloped economy which is, in the main, foreign-owned? Kadhani 
calls this an 'ideological' problem, and, having noted it, drops it — or, more
Review Articles 73 
accurately, leaves it for the Five-Year Plan to answer. Yet it forces to the 
surface issues that call for but don't receive examination. These include the 
structural constraints (both external and domestic) on the development of 
an autonomous socialist economy; the range of economic options; and the 
political base for striving for any of these. His excellent summary, finally, of 
•the embrace of orthodox fiscal policy, with the budget gradually taking 
priority as die main instrument of economic policy, only begs more 
questions. What political and economic forces led to this? Now drat it has 
happened, what does it imply for any future 'transition'? 
It's at this point — to return to an earlier theme — that the limitations of 
die book's introduction become apparent. Surely a more comprehensive 
conceptual framework, one which oudined die important dieoretical and 
practical questions, would have placed a deserved priority on the problems 
Kadhani poses. Widiout diat, the issues once raised are left dangling. 
Two of the essays on agriculture I found to be best read as a single unit, 
with Clever Mubengegwi's "Continuity and Change in Agricultural Policy" 
preceding Sam Moyo's exploration of "The Land Question". This reverses 
die order of their appearance in the text. Mubengegwi's piece provides a 
necessary explanatory framework (namely, die essential continuity of 
agricultural policy) for Moyo's work. The latter essay provides an extensive 
and up-to-date summary of die main patterns of land usage in Zimbabwe, 
and emphasises the limited degree of real change in diese since 1980. Moyo 
also notes die process of rural differentiation which is going on in 
Zimbabwe's Communal Areas, in the wake of agrarian reforms that have 
given greater priority to peasant agriculture. But, the essay on "die land 
question" has an oddly anonymous cast to it offering litde explanation of the 
origins of die processes at work, which are themselves described well 
enough. 
Mubengegwi's account of policy provides the necessary complement. His 
is one of the stronger essays in the book, and contains, unlike most odlers, 
some exploration of die implications for socialist transformation of die 
policy he analyses. This latter section is suggestive rather than complete, 
however, and could well have been elaborated. He hints at the critical 
question of what interests have supported an essential continuity widi 
colonial policy, noting die role of the state as "mediator between die 
conflicting interests of two agrarian classes" (p 219). His concluding note 
about the difficulty of developing a strategy for socialising agriculture, for 
example, indicates die need to extend his own analysis: how much could a 
'mediating' state be die instrument of transformation? He does suggest diat 
die true picture might emerge in die next few years, when constitutional 
constraints have fallen away; equally, however, die logic of his own 
convincing argument suggests diat' die very continuity he identifies may well 
have setded die issue already.
74 Rei'iew Articles 
Thomas Shopo's essay on "The Political Economy of Hunger", 
conversely, I found to be quite impenetrable. He asserts the need to reject a 
'market-based approach' to the problem of hunger, and to establish an 
understanding of widespread hunger and ill health as integral parts of the 
process of capitalist accumulation — but never does so. On the contrary, the 
author seems to get so wrapped up in turning phrases (usually derogatory) 
about others' 'market-based' analyses that he never actually answers the 
questions he poses. Asking "what are the basic institutional causes of 
hunger?" for example, he decries the answers of agronomists, legal scientists 
and historians, lamenting their preoccupation with outmoded paradigms — 
but doesn't get around to a competing explanation. There is an obvious 
starting point, of course: any economic system that relies on the exploitation 
of labour power as a commodity to produce surplus value for those who 
control production will almost certainly generate hunger within the 
labouring class, whether it produces food and other agricultural products, 
or widgets. Thus, the fact of hunger in the midst of food surpluses is hardly 
to be wondered at. Shopo, however, cannot summon up an explanation 
even at this level of generality. What can one make of such an essay? It is 
pretentious in the extreme, and the irony is staggering when the author 
complains about a "failure to communicate" the real economic laws 
generating hunger. 
Lloyd Sachikonwe and Brian Raftopoulos offer two well-written essays on 
labour. Sachikonwe's piece is important because it is the only one in the 
book to look at popular organisation — namely, the labour movement. 
Addressing the relations among state, capital, and unions, he draws 
attention to the historical and contemporary weakness of the trade union 
movement in Zimbabwe, and its vulnerable position vis-a-vis both capital 
and the state. He describes the struggle of the labour movement since 1980, 
and the modest advance achieved by the passing of the Labour Relations Act 
of 1985 — modest because its guarantees of workers' rights are hedged by its 
provisions for sweeping interventionist powers for the state. 
The concluding paragraphs of his essay raise some important issues that 
warrant further exploration. From the selfevident premise that "a bourgeois 
state and its apparatus cannot implement socialist labour policies", 
Sachikonwe asserts that the appearance of a socialist labour movement will 
hinge on working-class political activism and leadership. The historical 
experience his own work describes, however, shows little past evidence of 
this. What would be required to encourage it in the future? What are the 
practical possibilities of doing so? And, in the absence of a mobilised 
working class, what prospects exist for any transformative project? Such 
questions highlight the implications of the history and relationships he 
presents, which this reader would have liked to see addressed in more detail. 
Brian Raftopoulos surveys Zimbabwe's policy and practice in the field of
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human resource development: manpower and education planning. He 
notes the achievements, especially the National Manpower Survey, which 
showed the extent of the pool of skills within Zimbabwe's black population, 
and schemes such as the artisanal upgrading programme which followed 
from this. He recognises (much more dian is often the case with articles in 
this field) the centrality of private capital: so long as production is largely 
controlled by international capital, the demand for skills is shaped by its 
accumulative requirements. "Meaningful human resource planning" thus 
becomes very difficult (p 297); indeed, he might have gone further to say that 
any coherent strategy beyond Africanising current job hierarchies is 
probably impossible in the absence of any broader approach to transforming 
production. His piece does suggest, if only implicitly, that considerable 
resources exist to support such a strategy, if and as it is developed. Equally, 
however — and this begs the question not only of what a longer-term 
socialist human strategy would look like, but who would develop it — the 
Africanisation of essentially unchanged state structures has created a 
bureaucratically-based petty bourgeoisie which has litde objective interest in 
a transformative strategy. The short-term achievement in manning die state 
may have diverted (if not pre-empted) longer-term avenues for change. 
The book concludes with diree essays related to social development. 
Rungano Zvobgo and Sam Agere survey die huge strides made in expanding 
and democratising the education and healrii care systems. Zvobgo also 
points to die sizeable social and financial problems that will follow, given the 
limited growth in die economy as a whole. These include bodi die problem 
of financing die enormous recurrent costs of vasdy expanded systems, and 
the suffering which a generation of educated unemployed will sooner or 
later face. He might usefully have also underscored the difficulty of 
genuinely transforming education systems. Odier nations' experience is 
instructive here. • Fifteen years ago, for example, and facing similar 
problems, Zambia undertook a far-reaching examination of its own system 
(essentially the same as Zimbabwe's) and produced a detailed plan for 
sweeping reform. Its fate bears examining: it foundered on political 
opposition from a petty-bourgeois class not so very different from diat 
identified by Mandaza and Raftopoulos. 
Joyce Kazembe's essay on "The Women Issue", the last in die book, is a 
tidy litde essay written in a confident and often colloquial style. She focuses 
her attention on the duster of patriarchal relations historically embedded in 
room, and on the opportunity for challenging diese offered by recent legal 
changes, notably die Legal Age of Majority Act of 1982 and the Matrimonial 
Causes Act of 1985. Her essay could be strengdiened by extending her final 
section, "Women and Politics" to include an examination of die problem of 
political organisation. What kind of movement would be needed for women 
to seize the opportunities afforded by legal change? What organisational
76 Review Articles 
form might it take, and what are the practical possibilities for its 
development? Some comment on these issues — difficult ones, admittedly 
— would have rounded off the essay. 
Unfortunately, Kazembe's essay is the only place in the text where gender 
is addressed. This is a serious shortcoming, no less so because it is so 
common. Most of the sectoral essays require an analysis of gender in the 
social relations they seek to portray; none provide it. The pieces on 
agriculture, for example, are incomplete without an exposition of the place 
of female labour widiin agricultural systems past and present. Current 
processes of rural class formation have an important and inescapable gender 
dimension, but none of the authors acknowledges it. Any analysis of labour 
and trade unions in their relation with capital, furthermore, should 
comment on the role of women as domestic labour (within both migrant 
labour systems and an urbanised working class) and as major actors in the 
so-called 'informal sector'. In light of the power of the feminist critique of 
both orthodox and Marxist paradigms, it is astonishing that a book 
published in the mid-1980's should bear so litde evidence of that critique. 
As a final comment, two stylistic points should be made. First, the text 
abounds with typographical errors. Usually, these are only irritants (column 
headings are transposed, etc) but sometimes they are more substantive in 
their implications: class 'factions' and 'fractions' get confused, for example. 
Secondly, most if not all essays would have been strengthened — their 
argument more easily grasped — by some editorial insistence on the authors 
presenting a thesis, or organising theme, at the beginning of each essay. 
Often, these appear only in concluding sections, thus asking the reader to 
reconstruct the logic of the piece. 
In conclusion, we have an uneven book. The mere appearance of The 
Political Economy of Transition is an important political statement; its 
authors' commitment is thus to be commended. In addition, it presents a 
wealth of information on Zimbabwe today. For that reason alone it would be 
required reading. But this reader found that it largely failed to address many 
of the most interesting and critical questions related to transition; and this 
failure was all the more frustrating because most of those are flagged at one 
point or another in the text. This shortcoming is the more obvious, too, 
because of the large claims made for the book in its early pages — a more 
modest proclamation would have been in order. 
Reviewed by Nick Orwood, Harare. 
References 
Deutscher, Isaac (1968) Marxism In Our Time, Ramparts Press, Los 
Angeles.