WHOIS TO LEAD THE POPULARANTI-IMPERIALIST REVOLUTION IN AFRICA?: In Refutation of Issa G. Shivji's Petty-Bourgeois Neo- Marxist Line. Omw0nyOjwok+ INTRODUCTION When in 1844 Karl Marx, then living in Paris, decided finally to break with Arnold Ruge - who was about to abandon the revolutionary struggle - Frederick Engels reported from Barren (Germany): "It is impossible, he wrote to Marx, "to convince Jung and a multitude of others that a difference of principle exists between us and Ruge; they remain of the opinion that it is merely a personal squabble". 1 (stress added) In September 1937, at the heat of intense revolutionary struggle in China, Mao T se-tung launched a bitter attack on liberalism. He warned that liberalism, by rejecting ideological struggle and sticking to unprincipled peace, endangers the movementby: "giving rise to a decl,l'Lent, philitical degeneration in certain units and individuals in the Party and the revolutionary orga- nizations" . 2 Mao's attack on liberalism and Marx's treatment of Ruge clearly demonstrate that both rejected a 'let-it-be' attitude towards erro- neous views. In East Afrtca within the last decade, an erroneous petty-bour- geois Neo-Marxist line has developed pretending tt>.'analyse' our society and to show the road to a --'correct revoluti0n.ary practice'. Instead of immediately combating this anti-proletarian line and politically weeding it out, some people simply took a liberal and totally philistine attitude. They often resorted to the argument that unity was the important thing or that it would be 'dangerous' to attack the Neo- Marxists because it would 'alert the enemy'. The result has been that .. the Neo-Marxists continued to rear their heads and to engage in ince- ssant provocations. But when the challenge was finally taken up by persons like D.W. Nabudere3, Y. Tandon4, A.B. Kayonga and S..M. Magara5 the previous provocations turned into hidden murmurs, sulk- + Lec1lurer, Faculty of Law, University of Dar es Salaam. 105 ing, and (as we are told by a questioner of New University Echo ; some began to 'complain behind the doors' instead of engaging in principled debate. All this goes to show that Neo-Marxists are lions only 'behind the doors', for they do not know what broad democratic struggle is. Nevertheless they are dangerous precisely because by blindly reject- ing all operation above board, among the democratic and patriotic opinion they can only isolate themselves from the very popular masses whose task it is to liberate our countries. This, of course, is contrary to Marxism-Leninism and to proletarian practice. For in East Africa, as in all oppressed countries, the working class has great need for, and must mobilise the entire people - isolating only the tiniest minority which is totally and recalcitrantly wedded to the imperialist enemy. Neo-Marxist theory cannot provide such a solution because even when paying lip service to Marxism, it is but a cover, since the Neo- Marxist line is alien to dialectical and historical materialism. Because of this fundamental philosophical and theoretical weakness it cannot provide any serious and rigorous analysis of a given situation. Because its analysis is inevitably faulty, it cannot understand the history of Tanzania and East Africa. Moreover, because it does not grasp the fundamental character of our epoch; the present situation; the place of East Africa in the world; the historically determined position of the different classes, and especially the proletariat, in a country such as Tanzania - because it cannot correctly fulfil this vital task, Neo- Marxism is not merely useless; it is a real danger to our oppressed peoples and classes. The lesson of the Latin American subcontinent is instructive, where Trotskyism and revisionism have bogged down for nearly a century a heroic people who had valliantly and success- fully fought Spanish and Portuguese Colonialism. Philistinism and liberalism must be abandoned because the mass of the people who expect to hear from those who identify with them feel betrayed and risk falling prey to the petty-bourgeois line of Neo- Marxists and other predators. Take the case of Issa G. Shivji and his analysis of Tanzania. In 1970 Shivji published an article in Cheche under the title The Silent Class Struggle .• A few years after that he wrote an unpublished 106 piece, Class Stru&~le Continues. Then in 1976 appeared Class Strug- ~les in Tanzania. When in his Imperialism, State, Class and Race D. W. Nabudere showed concretely that Shivji is not a Marxist-Leninist but a Neo- Marxist and a Neo-Trotskyist a number of people including Karim Hirji9 and what he considers to be 'progressive circles' in Tanzania were shocked that Shivji's erroneous line had been uncovered and openly exposed. Since then, subsequent rejoinders have not only clarified some of these whohad been genuinely confused by Shivji's Neo-Marxism but they have also left the defenders of Shivji in the cold. That is why they have had to rush indoors to grumble there. Never- theless Shivji's writings continue to circulate freely. And since he has not openly repudiated any of his falsifications of Marxism and the pro- letarian position, we reserve the right to attack these errors with a view to annihilating them politically from the ranks of the anti-imperia- list movement, in Tanzania and East Africa. We intend to show in this contribution that on the question of the leadership of the present stage of the revolution, Shivji greatly caricatures the ideology of the proletariat; that he puts into question the revolutionary role of the proletariat; that in this way he opens the door for other classes to pretend to lead the popular anti-imperi- alist struggle; that this is partly a result of failure to correctly analyse the present epoch, and therefore, to identify the principal enemy of the oppressed people of Africa; that this can only lead to an incorrect assessment of the friends of the proletariat and hence to a fundamental error on the nature of the alliance which must be forged in the struggle; that Shivji has not correi:tly grasped the essence of either the Guinean anti-colonial struggle or of the Chinese revolution. In the final analysis, our aim is to show that Shivji's relegation of the leading role of the proletariat to that of the "leadership of the prole- tarian ideology" is counter-revolutionary; and that the ieadership of any class other than the proletariat would be the doomof the struggle. 10 1. SHIV}IDOES NOT UNDERSTAND IMPERIALISMANDTHE. NATIONALQUESTIONWITHREGARDTO TANZANIA. The heart of Shivji t s theoretical problem lies, really, in the fact that although he makes reference to it occasionally, he does not 107 have a scientific conception of imperialism; and because of this Lenin's and Stalin's as well as Mao Tse-Tung's analyses of the National ques- tion completely escape him. Everyone knows that Tanzania as a country is a product of imperi- alism, arising during the colonial phase as remoulded and cemented during the neo-colonial phase. But what does this fact mean? It means that Tanzania was created when capitalism in Europe had already passed the stage of free competition; when monopolies had arisen; when indus- trial and bank capital had merged to form a new type of capital - finance capital. It arose, therefore, as part of the final division of the world by competing imperialist powers. These features of the period that led to the constitution of Tanzania mean that from the very beginning, the tendency developed towards the negation of any emergent national capital, since increasingly neither the constant part of capital nor, quite often, a great part of variable capital could ever be acquired from within Tanzania. This means that the financial oligarchy - that tiny section of what Shivji and other Neo-Marxists call the 'metropo- litan bourgeoisie1, and who live by clipping coupons from the stock exchange - was already the economically dominant and politically ruling section of the bourgeoisie. The colonisation of East Africa at the end of the last century and the constitution of Tanganyika and Zanzibar was part of the struggle by the financial oligarchy against the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. It formed part of their struggle for sources of raw materials, for cheap labour, for a wider market and as a back-yard for the export of capital. All these facts are clear from Lenin's theses on Imperialism, but Neo-Marxists either ignore it or do not see their importance. It is in this light that President Nyerere's often-quoted address to the Convocation of Ibadan Univer- sity (November, 1976) cannot be quoted enough. In this speech, the Tanzanian President honestly and without reserve brought out the essence of neo-colonial imperialism. He said that when colonial oppre- ssion was liquidated, this was not the end of the road. Not only does the new Government find itself greatly limited by the inherited institu- tions but it further discovers "that it did not inherit effective power over economic developments in its own country". And the reason is clear; For the neo-colonies : 108 "(T)here is no such thing as a national economy at all! Instead, there exist (in the neo-colonies) various economic activities which are owned by people outside its jurisdiction, which are directed at external needs, and which are run in the interests of "external economic powers. Further, the Government's ability to secure positive action in these fields... depends entirely upon its ability to convince the effective decision makers (i.e. the imperialist countries, 0-0) that their own interests will be served by what the Government wishes to have done11 .-11 [he President was rightly concerned about the seriousness of this jituation. It is in the light of this that he put his finger at the heart if the problem of national oppression. To quote him again: "Neo-colonialism is a very real, and very severe, limitation on national sovereignty". 12 ut how does imperialism operate in the neo-colonies? It does so by lentifying and promoting local agents. Here again Nyerere as a atriot showed a much deeper grasp of the inner workings of imperialism lan 'Marxists' in East Africa who talk of the so-called 'bureaucratic ourgeoisie1 as the enemy, rather than of imperialism operating tirough local compradore elements. .He said: "Some of our people identify tneir own personal interests with the existing neo-colonial situation. They are to be found among the local agents of foreign capitalists (note this, Shivji) and among the local capitalists who have developed in the shadow of large foreign enterprises". 13 Does this not constitute a correct identification of the enemy f the Tanzanian and East African people as a whole? We submit that : does. We further submit that any attempt to play in the hands of aperialism by weakening the ranks of the anti-imperialist struggles tirough talk about the 'bureaucratic bourgeoisie' or even of identi- Irlng all local bourgeois and petty-bourgeois elements (including biall traders, handicraftsmen, rich farmers or capitalist farmers) s the "immediate enemy1, without concretely analysing their links ith. foreign monopolies and therefore with imperialism, is Neo- Larxist , unscientific and reactionary. In this way it will be impos- jlble for the proletariat to constitute around itself a broad anti- jrperialist united front in struggle, since the analysis revels in di- iding- the ranks of the people and shielding the real enemy, i . e . jiperialism operating through the local compradore class. The task jp the Tanzanian Marxist-Leninists cannot be to invent imaginary 109 'enemies'; iiistead it is to concretely identify the compradore elements in production as agents of the principal enemy of the Tanzanian people. In this respect Shivji brings nothing but confusion, especially in Chapter seven entitled 'UHURXJ and After: the Rise of the 'Bureau- cratic Bourgeoisie', and in Chapter 8 entitled 'Arusha and After: the 'Bureaucratic Bourgeoisie' Forges Ahead1. Shivji identifies this so- called 'bourgeoisie' with the top echelons of the state-Ministers, Pri- ncipal Secretaries and Managers of parastatal enterprises but even then he leaves things very vague and confused. The confusion in Shivji is so great that he has completely ignored the basic state but in pro- duction. The confusion turns into chaos when at page 69, our 'Marxist' talks of the 'bureaucratic bourgeoisie1 as "the ruling sector of the petty-bourgeoisie". And yet Shivji tells us that the various sections of the 'bureaucratic bourgeoisie" are 'self-explanatory1. Shivji's confusion in the analysis of classes is compounded by his total neglect of the national question, and therefore of the character of the present anti-imperialist struggle in Tanzania. The Marxist-Leninist position is to look at the national question concretely and historically. In his analysis of Western Europe, Engels explained that nations emerged as part of the struggle by the bourgeoisie to liquidate feudalism and develop a national market in competition with the bourgeoisie of other countries. Whereas in primitive society, when classes had not yet emerged, social ties were founded on tribal links, thereby highlighting the language question; with the emergence of slave and feudal states territory, not ethnic ties, became the basis of the development of the State and the elimination of the primitive democracy of tribal society. This is analysed in detail by Engels in The Origin of the Family, Private property and the State. With the rise of the bour- geoisie, however, as Lenin correctly explained in his refutation of Rosa Luxemburg and other erroneous positions in The Right of Nations of Self-Determination, a historically concrete presentation of the problem must distinguish two periods of capitalism, each of which has its specific features. First of all: "there is the period of the collapse of feudalism and absolutism, th.£ period when the national movements for the first time become mass movements and in one way or another draw all classes of the population into politics"l6 (stress Lenin's) 110 During this phase there i s : "the awakening of national movements and the drawing of peasants, the most numerous and the most sluggish section of the population, into these movements, in connection with the struggle for political liberty in general and for the rights of the natioa in particular". 17 This is what led to the constitution in Western Europe of states which, with few exceptions like Ireland and Switzerland, were also single nations. The next phase, was the period of fully formed capitalist states with long*established constitutional regimes and a highly developed antagonism between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, i . e . the rise of imperialism. In this period: "developed capitalism, in bringing closer together nations that have already been fully drawn into commercial intercourse, and causing them to intermingle to an increasing degree, brings the antagonism between internationally united capital and the inter- national working-class movement into the foremost". 1$ This epoch led to the constitution of multi-national states in Eastern Europe. It is also this, imperialist phase of capitalism that led to the colonial expansion that brought about the establishment of most of the states of Africa today including Tanzania; and so it remains the epoch of the present neo-colonial phase of imperialist oppression. J.V . Stalin not only developed Lenin's theses on the national question; he not only applied this analysis to the concrete situation of the Soviet Union - before the rise of modern revisionism - he further enriched Lenin's analysis of the national question as a colonial question and correctly summed up the tasks of revolutionaries in the oppressed countries in a number of brilliant expositions that are to be found in the collection Marxism and the National and Colonial •JQ ... — Question . If only Shivji had read and understood Stalin on this matter, he would have realized that when Mao Tse-tung advanced his, thesis of the new-democratic revolution as a stage in the anti-imperialist struggle and as part of the proletariat's revolutionary struggle to impose its dictatorship over the exploiters during the advance towards socialism, he was resolving a problem that Shivji's neo-Marxist analysis cannot solve, namely what to do about the fact that Tanzania is a poor, agrarian, country greatly-oppressed by imperialism. Mao Tse-tung showed the way out for all Marxists-Leninists in colonial, semi- Ill 20 colonial and neo-colonial countries in his New Democracy. It was on the basis of this scientific presentation of the national question that at the commemmoratLon of the twenty-eighth anniversary of the Communist Party of China, Mao wrote On the People's Democratic Dictatorship in which he summed up the experience of the Communist Party of China and the Chinese people as having been directed by the strategic aim of establishing: - "the people's democratic dictatorship under the leadership of the working class (through the Communist Party) and based upon the alliance of workers and peasants".22 It is, thus, Shivji's lack of a correct position on the question of imperialism and his failure to realize that in none of the African cou- ntries has the national question been resolved (since it would require the leadership of the proletariat in a democratic, patriotic alliance to the exclusion of only the compradore classes) that leads him into blind and unprincipled attacks against important sections of the anti- imperialist united front that will have to be formed in struggle. It is further this error which makes Shivji stumble and fall in the face of the most heroic history of the Tanzanian working class and the anti- colonial national movement, and to this we now turn. 2. HOW SHIVJI DOWNGRADES THE ROLE OF THE TANZANIAN PROLETARIAT IN THE UHURU STRUGGLE. To begin with, Shivji's notion of the proletariat is extremely strange for someone who calls himself a Marxist. Throughout Capital Marx insisted, and went ahead to demonstrate, that the proletariat arise as a result of capital-labour relation in production. To quote Marx himself: "As simple reproduction constantly reproduces the capital relation itself, i . e . the relation of capitalists on the one hand, and the wage-workers on the other, so reproduction on*a progressive scale, i . e . accumulation, reproduces the capital-relation on a progressive scale, more capitalists or larger capitalists at this pole, more workers at-that. The reproduction of a mass of labour-power, which must incessa- ntly incorporate itself with that capital for that capital's self-expansion which cannot get free from capital andwhose enslavement to capital is only concealed by the variety of individual capitalists to whom it sells itself, this reproduction of labour-power forms, in fact, an essential of the reproduction of capital itself". 23 112 Marx concluded: "Accumulation of capital i s , therefore, increase of the proletariat11,24 Instead of looking at the emergence of the proletariat in Africa and its increase in the process of capital accumulation, which is taking place all the time and has been so ever since capitalism was intro- duced into the continent after the imperialist division of Africa and its colonial subjugation, Shivji prefers a static 'classical 1 definition, namely: "a large (sic!) group of wage-earners employed in large (sic!) capitalist industry and constituting a substantial (sic!) proportion of the population". 25 Naturally, having presented us with this sort of artificial and static definition, he 'finds' that a proletariat 'did not develop' and 'could not' have developed under colonialism and today under neo-colonia- lism. 26 Nevertheless Shivji tells us that a class of 'wage-earners' did 27 develop; and he even calls them a 'working class' and identifies the sectors in which they emerged, namely: "in the plantations, in the docks, in transport and commerce, and in construction, building, etc. "28 SMvji's stubborn and blatant rejection of the proletarian chara^ cter of the Tanzanian and African working class i s , of course, not in the least surprising - for they are aimed at down-grading its class role in the anti-colonial revolutionary struggle and therefore at denying the necessity for its leadership in the present phase of the anti- imperialist struggle. The latter aspect of Shivji's reactionary devia- tion we shall see, but how does he down-grade the role of the Tanza- nian proletariat during the anti-colonial struggle? Shivji's argument in Class Struggles in Tanzania is that throughout most of the colonial period the working class did not struggle against the colonial oppressor; did not fight for democratic rights and justice; and did not even organise, until after the Second Imperialist War when it allegedly succeeded to organise at long last. Moreover, argues our 'Marxist', the workers kept themselves out of the mainstream of the national anti-colonial movement until in 1958 the 'alliance' between TANU and the Tanganyika Federation of Labour ( T . F . L . ) was 'forged' when, according to Shivji, by that 'alliance': 113 "(t)he workers had thrown their lot (sic!) with the nationalist movement". 29 Shivji goes further and tells us that the only contribution the worker s "probably" made to the independence struggle is when they organised strikes in "strategic" sectors of the economy. Thus, what is but a culmination of a long process which from the earliest opportunity gave to the working class a leading role in the anti-colonial movement, Shivji takes as the beginning of the proletariat's participation in the struggle! This is Shivji's "dialect- ics" as applied to Tanzania's history. Let us look at the naked facts. Whywas the TANU-T . F. L. alliance formed? Precisely because of all the classes that stood foremost in opposition to (colonial) imperia- lism, the proletariat - for this is what they were although Shivji seeks to deny it - had actually proved to be the most uncompromising, the most ruthless, the most determj.nedenemyof colonial oppression, and that it was an essential componentof the national movement. Shivji misunderstands Tanzania's history because he does not see the central fact that the anti-colonial movement(whether it took ethnic, religious, cultural or any other form) never really took off, never developed in a clear direction, never really threatened the colonial system until the proletariat - however weak or embryonic it might have been - gave to it a solid national, consistently anti-imperialist and democratic stamp. And the failure of the peasants in the Maji Maji struggle (1905-07) is but one example. Shivji is writing about 'class struggles in Tanzania, but deals with workers, in abstraction from the fact that without the proletariat the nationalist struggle was doomedto failure. Once the TANU-T . F. L. alliance was established~ declares Shivji:- "The workers had thrown in their lot with the nationalist move- ment and the wave of strikes during the 1950's was probably (sic!) instrumental in bringing about independence": 30 And he adds:- "Thus, despite their numerical smallness, the workers' contri- bution, given their strategic role in the economy, cannot be belittled". 31 No,,"these two sentences are once again a caricature of Tanzania's history. It is, of course, true that the proletariat did not assume the 114 aegemonic leadership of the anti-colonial movement, because it failed o come out with its own Party. Nevertheless the working class did lot simply 'throw their lot1 with the anti-imperialist struggle and cer- fainly its contribution to the struggle was not just confined to the fact hat they occupied a 'strategic' position within Tanzania's economy. They were the national movement's most militantly consistent compon- ent as a class, whereas the other classes tended towards vaccilation and compromise with the enemy. That the proletariat did not lead the national movement through its own party, but instead got incorporated in an amorphous 'alliance' with the petty-bourgeoisie was the cause of the present neo-colonial oppression of the country by imperialism, but it is a far cry from Shivji's underestimation of its role. As far as 1924- a strike of joiners at Kwiro Mission had shown the militant character of this 'dangerous' class, in the eyes of the colonialists. Throughout the 1930's there were workers on sisal estates and other plantations. The warf labourers' strike in Tanga (1937) clearly showed the developing militancy and consciousness of the proletariat when 250 workers left work for two days and aroused sympathy from broad sections of public opinion. Two years later, the colonialists witnessed a highly, coordinated strike - not limited to Tanzania but linking workers at the docks of Dar es Salaam, Lindi and Mombasa. The workers were already beginning to see the international character of their struggle, right at the level of production, and there- fore the need for solid internationalist links. The working class struggle in Tanzania entered into the mainstream of the national anti-imperialist movement at least as far back as the 1930's, while Shivji imagines in his own head that it started with the TANU-T.F.L. alliances! The consistently democratic, patriotic and militant character of the Tanzanian working class in the 1930's and the vaccilations of the petty- bourgoisie is very well illustrated by the political experience of an anti-imperialist democratic nationalist organization led by the petty- bourgeoisie called the Tanganyika Africa Welfare and Commercial Association (TAWCA). In the mid-30's Fiah was a shop-keeper. He took to the promotion of the national movement very early in his life, and founded the 115 patriotic paper, KWETU as the mouth-piece of TAWCA. From the very beginning this Association did not hide its political aims:- "Since the Africans are not represented in the Legislative Council, "said the proposed by-laws of the Association, "this Association, as the Central body, looking after the welfare of all Africans in Tanganyika Territory, would always watch carefully any laws proposed by the Government which may affect Africans and after consideration, would make such representations to Government, and Members of Legislative Council, as the Association consider proper in the interests of Africans... Every African is bound to obey the Association, whether he is contributing or not, just as he obeys the Govern- ment". 32 The more the Association became militantly tanti-imperialist, how- ever, the more epressive the colonial state became. The more the popular movement insisted on their democratic rights and freedoms the more the colonial state sharpened its carrot and strict policy. By 1936 Governor MacMichael reported to the Colonial Office: - "Here we have a shopkeeper of doubtful antecedents... from Uganda who puts up by-laws which reeks of politics and bad digestion, conflict with liberty of the individual and the responsibility of Government to the people and show signs of a desire to achieve influence and subscriptions".33 What happened to the Association and to its leader Erica Fiah is however, instructive in showing whether the working class in Tanzania simply 'threw in their lot with the nationalist movement' through the TANU-T.F.L. alliance on the eve of independence, as Shivji says, or whether all along they had championed and played a leading role, in the struggle. What happened from 1936 is that the more the colonial state put down its feet the more the petty-bourgeois membership of the TAWCA wavered, vaccilated and finally abandoned the Association. Those who remained now sought to water down its tone; to abandon the anti-imperialist, demo- cratic and militant line by arguing that the Association 'must not1 engage i n 'polities'. Things became so disgusting to a consistent patriot like Erica Fiah that in 1939 he quit the Association. But to do what - to simply sit? Not at all. Fiah abandoned the petty-bourgeoisie to help organise the working class in the docks of Dar es Salaam. Did Fiah leave the TAWCA to go to dockworkers for sentimental reasons? Not at all. He did it because in practice, in the field of practical politics, he had discovered the true nature of the petty- 116 bourgeoisie and the militancy of the proletariat. Engels once said of the petty-bourgeoisie:- "They are extremely unrealible except after a victory has been won, when their shouting in the beer houses knows no bounds. Nevertheless, there are very good elements amongthem, who join the workers of their own accord" •34 Erica Fiah had discovered this fact that Engels had long talked about - but right in the field of political action. Shivji does not see that the working class did not 'go' onto the side of the national movementonly in the 1950's but had championed the Uhuru struggle all along. Shivji does not realize that in their economic struggles the proletariat in Tanzania had long age discovered - at least some 20 years before the TANU-T.F .L. 'alliance' - that imperialism was the principal enemy of not only themselves as a class; but of the entire Tanzanian people. While he tells us that the working class's role in the anti-colonial struggle 'cannot be belittled' because of its "strategic role in the economy" Shivji precisely belittles the role of the proletariat in Tanzania's history. For it was not just the 'strategic role' of the workers in the economythat mattered. It was their position in production as suppliers of surplus value; their concentration in production (in comparison with other classes); their natural (i. e. inevitable) need to organise for economic struggles; and their unflinching demands for democratic rights for not only themselves but the broader masses of the population. These were the conditions that gave the working class their militancy; their uncompromising stand in opposition to imperialism, for self-determination and for democratic rights and freedoms. These were the factors that made the proletariat a major force in the independence movementaa fact which Shivji realizes only vagUely, and too late. That the other classes later on - and at the -last moment - usurped this leadership role, has to be analyzed concretely in order to draw both positive and negative lessons from Tanzania's history. Shivji cannot do this important job because he does not seem to have seriously studied Tanzania's hisrory either, and this because accord- ing to him, it would have taken him "too far afield". This then, is the -basis of Shivji' s caricature of Tanzania's history and of the consistently revolutionary history of the Tanzanian- proletariat. 117 Shivji says of the Tanzanian working class with a most derogatory tone: - "Notwithstanding the workers1 role in the Uhu.ru struggle, TANU never came under the influence of proletarian ideology nor were workers considered (Sic!) the leading force in the struggle. The trade union movement was basically structured on traditional (English) lines led by some elements from the petty bourgeoisie. If anything, the TANU ideology was essentially peas ant-based" .35 The significance of this passage i s , to be found in the statement in which Shivji goes so far as to dismiss - or at least down-grade the revolutionary character of the African proletariat. He says:- "It is true that the small working class in the African countries cannot be considered to be the same as the European proletariat (who says they are Shivji!) or ipso facto (not, please!) revolut- ionary" . 36 These two passages alone would need a book, entitled Anti-Shivji, to refute point by point any pretensions this 'Marxist1 may claim for being, in his own words, one of those who are "imbued with proletarian ideology". It is difficult to imagine what proletarian ideology can per- mit anyone to doubt the historically-tested and proved revolutionary character of the African working class and of the Tanzanian proletariat in particular. Indeed what 'Marxism' can ever lead anyone into doubting - even for a single second - the revolutionary character of the working class wherever they may be? Only Shivji1 s Marxism. First of all, to say that TANU 'never came under the influence of proletarian ideology'; or that the workers were not 'considered' the leading force in the struggle, proves nothing about the concrete, objective, reality which is independent of Shivji's will but his subjective, idealist position which slanders the proletariat. If during the anti-colonial phase of the strug- gle the Tanzanian proletariat did not get to acquire and develop in a coherent manner their own ideology, i . e . Marxism-Leninism, this fact must be analysed concretely, in order to expose the factors that, hindered it. In doing so, what is certain however is that sociological 'explanations', like those of Shivji, that ascribe all to the smallness or migrant nature of the proletariat in Tanzania will not do. It may be mentioned,.for Shivji's benefit, that if ever he felt like examining this matter concretely as a true Marxist-Leninist, it would be use- ful for him first to start with a study - not just read or scan through - Lenin's What is to be done? 118 What Shivji does not seem to realize is that whether or not the proletariat was 'considered' the leading anti-imperialist force by other classes is of absolutely no importance in regard to the role it actually played. What is important is what was the reality which is that although it did not acquire leadership of the national movement, nevertheless it played a leading role, at least up to the period of the birth of TANU. Marx once said:- "Just as our opinion of an individual is not based on what he thinks of himself (noteD, so we cannot judge of such a period of transformation byits own consciousness; on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained rather by the contradic- tions of materialliie". 37 The contradictions of material life in Tanzania, and Africa generally, since imperialism introduced capitalist relations in our societies makes it that of all the classes that stood and continue to stand face to face with imperialism, the working class was and remains the most determined enemyof imperialism. The working class is the most uncompromisinglyopposed to national oppression. Shivji has not grasped this fact - and is forced to resort to eclecticism. "(E)ven amongthe working class itself", he tells us, "ther.e are certain sections which tend to be more conscious than others. These small sections can form the nucleus to influ- ence others. In each concrete situation, revolutionaries have to find, in Cabral's words 'our little proletariat'" . 38 We shall soon see tha.t Shivji's references to Cabral border on opportunism because he ha.snot at all understood this African patriot and because what Cabral says, far from proving his point, in fact, completely disproves it. For Cabralhad an immense confidence in the working class. Whereas Shivji is unsure of its revolutionary capacity. But what is difficult to understand from Shivji is how'he can on the one hand say that there is no proletariat 'in the classical sense' in Africa; 39and that the African working class is not, by its nature revolutionary40 while on the ether hand' agreeing' with Cal)ral that we in Africa have to find 'eur little proletariat' . It is evident that Shivji is the very embodimentef contradictions. If there is any lesson to draw £romeclecticism, it is that it can lead 119 to Shivjism, Le. the worst forms of.confusion in 'analysing' a neo- colony. The Author of Class Stru~~les in Tanzania has told us that a proletariat "in the classical sense" did not develop in many African countries; he at least doubts the revolutionary character of the African working class; he has downgradedthe revolutionary role of the Tanzanian proletariat during the anti-colonial struggle and simply taken a vulgar sociological explanation of the difficulties the working class organization faced at the time. We need now to see why Shivji is taking such an openly anti- proletarian line in the name of the 'proletarian ideology' . Shivji informs us that while the working class was faced with all sorts of set-backs: "In addition, different structures (!) in the colonized countries have produced (note!) their corresponding strata (again note!) with revolutionary (!) potential" .41 It is the first time we come across structures that are productive; inde~d so productive that soon we see emerging from these structures 'corr.esponding strata', which have 'revolutionary potential'. This is Shivji's Marxism. Marxism not of classes but of productive 'structures' and 'strata'! Althoughit is difficult for Marxists to understand what our analyst means by the above sentence, he himself is quite clear in his own mind as to what he means. Thus from this.muddle, he draws the conclusion that: "Therefore, depending on actUal conditions in the concrete situation of each country, various alliances are possible for revolutionary action" .42 And whythis escape from the working class and hurried rush to the issue of alliances? Whois going to form this alliance and which class will lead it? Regardless of the question of the leadership of the work- ing class itself in the Tanzanian struggle: "Whatis important", says Shivji, "is that such revolutionary strata are mobilized under the leadership (noteD of the prdletarian ideolo~y"43(the stress is Shivji's) Clearly Shivji is determined to separate classes from their ideological positions; and we need to examine a bit more closely what this Q.ualismmeans and inevitably leads to. 120 3. HOWSHIVJISEPARATES THE PROLETARIATFROM ITS IDEOLOGY. To avoid confusion and misunderstanding, we need to point out that both Marx and Engels consistently stressed the importance of ideological and political education of the working class along the lines of a correct theory, if the proletarian struggle is to succeed. This is why Engels tells us in his Review of Marx's A Contribution to the. Critique of political Economywhich appeared in 1859 that:- "After the defeat of the Revolution of 1848-49, ••• our Party relinquished the field of emigrant squabbles .•• t.othe vulgar democrats. While these were chasing about their he~rts' content, scuffling today, fraternising tomorrow and the day after once more washing their dirty linen in public, while they went begging throughout America and immediately after- wards started another row over the division of the few coins they had collected - our party was glad to find once more some quiet time for research work (to Layoutthe Party's) theoretical foundation".44 Following in the exampleof these great teachers of the prole- tariat, Lenin said in What is to be done? that the importance of a correct ideological, theoretical and political line could not be over- stressed because, first, the Russian Party was still young and had to settle "accounts with other trends of revolutionary thought that threaten (note Shivji!) to divert the movementfrom the correct path"; secondly, that being an international movement, the proletarian organization and the evolutionary party must make use of the experi- ences of other countries and do so critically in order "c:totest them independently"; thirdly, because the tasks that confronted the Russian Party" (had) never confronted any other socialist party before". It was in this connection that "the role of the vanguard fighter can be fulfilled only by a party that is guid~dby the most advanced theor:(.45 (Lenin's stress). Howrelevant Lenin's position is to the present situation in East Africa! Shivji quotes a sentence from this most profound analysis of Lenin at the beginning of his book, but onreading the wholebook one" easily sees that his real teachers are not the Marxist-Leninists but Paul Baran; Paul Sweezy, Charles Bottelheim, Nicos Poulantzas, A. G. Frank, Stavenagen and the host of 'independent' Marxists, and we appeal to the reader to check this for himself. 121 St~lin's success in mobilizingthe Soviet working class and people to continue Lenin's line, advance socialist construction and defend the first socialist state from the hungry schemes of imperialism was only possible.- in spite of someminor errors - thanks to his correct theoretical, ideological, political, and therefore strategic and tactical line in the struggle against the opposition, especially the Trotskyist and Bukharinist wings. As for Mao Tse- tung, his continual appeal for a correct line, his relentless struggles against both right and 'left' deviations, his numerous reports and writings on the need for political and ideological work amongthe masses, can be seen in each of the five volumes of his Selected Works that have been published so far. All this said, however, we come back to Shivji and find that he begins by separating the proletariat from the proletarian ideology and then absolutising the role of the latter. J'wo situations need to be distinguished here. First, there is the proletarian leadership of the struggle with their ownideology, i. e. Marxism-Leninism as its own ideological line .. Secondly, there is the leadership of bourgeoisie or petty-bourgeoisie, camouflagedby slogans which pay lip service to the 'proletarian ideology', but which can obviously be nothing but a mere masquerade of 'socialism'. Shivji does not distinguish between the two, and ends up telling us that it is possible for any other class to lead the present anti-imperialist struggle in Tanzania with success., proVidedthat its party is 'imbued' with proletarian ideology. This naturally leads Shiyji to sink into the deepest oblivion of idealism. Marx and Engels were absolutely emphatic about the revolutionary role of the proletariat and in the Manifesto of the CommunistParty they did not say that this revolutionary role is due to the proletarian ideo- logy-but to its place in capitalist production. "Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today", they wrote in 1847, "the proletariat alone (take note, Shivji!) is a really revolutionary class". 46 Whyis this so? To quote Marx and Engels again:- "The other classes decay and.finally disappear in the face of modern industry; the proletariat is its special and essential product. The lower middle class, (note!) the peasant, all these 122 Shivji starts off by denying the existence of a proletariat 'in the classical sense' (whatever that means) in Tanzania and Africa while at the same time saying a working class exists. He proceeds to say this working class is not necessarily revolutionary and then sinks into the ridiculous position of defendingthe proletarian ideology but not the proletariat itself. The writer of Class Struggles in Tanzania is so afraid of real class struggle that he fears we mightmiss his utopian dactrine of the leadership of the proletarian ideologyi hence he repeats the doctrine over and over with amazing zeal. He starts to expoundthis doctrine in his appraisal of the anti-colonial struggle under PAIGC48. Again while completelymisrepresenting the Chinese revolution, as we shall see, he says:- "The important and decisive point is that the struggle was led by a party expoundingproletarian ideology".49 In the next paragraph we are again told:- "As we have been emphasizing all along, class struggle is a political struggle for state power, and therefore what is important is that potential revolutionary classes and strata are organized for their political conflict under the leader- ship of the proletarian ideology". 50 (stress Shivji' s) In the next page, having for a second time quoted Cabral without understanding him, Shivji concludes:- "Thus a large developed proletariat is not an essential condition for struggle against capitalism and the building of socialism. There exist in the African situation other strata - for example, lower sectors of the petty bourgeoisie (sic!!!) - with ,revolutionary potential, and these can be mobilized in alliance (noteD with the peasantry and the working class under the leadership of the pro- letarian ideology". 51(again stress original). Here Shiv]i totally fails to see the two phases of the Struggle and dashes straight to "the building of socialism". Nevertheless Shivji's theme is dear on at least two points:- 1. That in the struggle facing the African people today, the leadership of the proletariat is unnecessary; and 123 2. ° That the lead~rship necessar:y is. not of the wo:ki~g class" its~lf, but only "the leadersh:Lp of the proletar:Lan :Ldeology He even suggests specifically that 'oth~r strata' wh:Lc~?-e cla~s to 'have revolutionary potentIal' can be moblhzed? W:Ltha view to establi,shing an 'alliance', through the :Ldeology of the proletariat. The question of alliances in class struggles is a vitally impor- tant one, for, numerous liberation movements have seen success crumble at the very last minute precisely because of having failed to make a correct appreciation of the classes in struggle; their concrete positions vis-a-vis each other; the principal enemy of each given moment; and therefore the revolutionary alliance of all the classes and forces within the society that can be united, in order to liquidate this principal enemy and advance the struggle a step further. Engels stresseso in Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, that during the phase of the rising °Dourgeoisieand the struggle against feudalism, it was in the interest of the working class and the peasants to ally themselves with the bourgeoisie in the struggle against feud- alism. It was in the interest of the working class and the peasants to ally themselves with the bourgeoisie, even under the latter's leader- ship in order to liquidate the backward, autocratic feudal state, liberate the peasants and re-enforce and consolidate the proletariat itself as a class. Once this was achieved, the task of the proletariat was to unite with the peasants in order to crush the bourgeoisie and capitalist exploitation. By 1856 however, when the correlation of class forces had fundamentally changed, Marx was writing to En-'!els: "The whole thing (i. e. the struggle, 0-0) in Germany will depend on the possibility of backing the proletarian revolution try some second edition of the Peasant War. Then the affair (i. e. the revo- lutionary struggle, 0-0) will be splendid. "52. Marx's and Engels' theory of class alliances in revolutionary struggle are most clearly brought out in The EiRhteenth Brumoaire of Louis Bonaparte; in The Peasant War in Germany; in The Civil War in France; in the Peasant Question in France ~d Germany; in The Class Struggles in France 1848 to 18.50and in their corres- pondence. 50 it is not 5hivji who has discovered the question of alliances an<:lhe does not claim such a discovery. What he has certainly dis- covered - to the detriment of the African working class _ is th~t 124 during the present ..epoch of the most intense imperialist oppression, the working class must not lead the popular front. The workers, Shivji tells us, are too few; full of migrants and may not be revo- lutionary. Therefore they must be bypassed. First, 'potential revo- lutionary strata' must be mobilized (by whom, we are not told) to the exclusion of the proletariat. Then, having done so, the peasants and workers can be brought in simply as tags, just to aid Shivji's 'revo_ lutionary' classes and 'strata'. Who are these 'revolutionary strata', these strata which are more revolutionary than the workers? Shivji does not enumerate them. But he gives us a clue when he suggests that: "There exist in the African situation other strata - for example, lower sectors of the petty- bourj::(eoisie- witq.revolutionary potential ... lI53(stress added) There we see the modern petty- bourgeois Narcissus looking at and falling in love with his own image in a sprinj::(!What is not realized, of course, is that in the same way as Narcissus pined away and transformed himself into something else - in his case a flower - so does our 'Marxist' stand the risk of transforming himself into the ideologue of some other class - the petty-bourgeoisie! And in effect Shivji declares himself the ideologue of the 'lower Sectors of the petty- bourgeoisie' though in Marxist attire. Thus beginning as so- meone 'imbued with proletarian ideology' we get someone imbued with the ideology of the lower sections of the petty bourgeoisie masque- rading as a Marxist-Leninist. The working .class in struggle will find.its leaders. Neverthe- less Shivji's caricature of Marxism and proning of the silent dreams of the 'lower sectors' of the petty-bourgeoisie, and hence of the petty- bourgeoisie as a class-dreams that are completely unrealizable under imperialism domination - makes it most important for su.ch proletarian leaders to pay heed to Engels' warning when he wrote in 1874:- "In particular, it will be the d~ty of the ~eaders to gain an ever clearer insight into all theoretIcal questlOns, to free themselves more and more from the influence of traditional phrases inherited from the old world outlook, and constantly to keep in mind that socialism since it has become science, demands that tt be pur- sued as a' science, that is, that it be studied" . 54 12.5 Engels added:- "The task will be to spread with increased zeal among the masses of workers the ever lucid understanding thas acquired and to knit together evermore strongly the organisation both of the party and of the trade union". 55 Having caricatured Marxism; slandered the African proletariat, and taken away all revolutionary content from the anti-imperialist struggle by considering it as a struggle 'under the leadership of the proletarian ideology1 with the proletariat itself only as a tag, Shivji now turns around to 'defend' scientific socialism. "Those who argue against the applicability of scientific socialism in Africa because the theory was based on a developed proletariat which does not exist in Africa are therefore expecting concrete conditions to conform to scriptures! This is not Marxism". 56 What a brilliant defence of Marxism! First of all you accept the bourgeois nonsense that a proletariat does not exist in Africa. Then you turn round to say we must not expect your so-called 'concrete conditions' (i,e. absence of a proletariat), 'to conform to scriptures! You then proceed to dismiss your own reasoning as 'not Marxism1. The point is this:- If there is no proletariat in Africa, then the struggle in Africa is not a proletarian one. And if the struggle is not a proletarian one, then for what do we need the proletarian ideology, i . e . Marxism-Leninism? Here the non-Marxist petty-bourgeoisie in Africa are far more consis- tent with themselves than the 'Marxist' Shivji. For they openly declare that there is no working class in Africa, and hence conclude that Marxism-Leninism is inapplicable to Africa. Marx and other teachers of the working class again and again taught us that dialectical and historical materialism, i . e . the science of the proletariat, arose and can continue in existence only - repeat only - because the proletariat is there. Marxism is the ideology of the proletariat. No other class can consistently apply the proletarian ideology. Any attempt by anyone to divorce Marxism from the prole- tariat itself is reactionary because it seeks to present the struggle as being for but not by the proletariat themselves. Shivji and his friends must accept one of two things:- 1. Either there is a proletariat in Africa; and therefore there is a proletarian ideology which is its arm against its enemies. 126 2. Or there is no proletariat in Africa; in which 'case let no one disturb the African people with the"nonsense of being 'led' by the ideology of a class which is not there. We put this point so sharply precisely because as we have insisted) the existence of a proletariat is not a question of numbers. It is a question of relations established in production and the tendencies established therein. This is so regardless of the specific characteri- stics this proletariat possesses in each country. Shivji has to accept another thing, namely that for him to imagine that any other class can use the ideology of the proletariat and yet for such an ideology to retain its proletarian content is to sink into the depths of a utopian dream. The question as to where ideas, cons- ciousness, knowledge - and therefore ideologies, philosophies and theories - come from is part Qfthe ABC of Marxism. 57 We realize that it is not an easy job to stick to the view that all ideology is a product of a class and can only be used by that class. The fact that the petty-bourgeoisie, or any other class can claim to be 'led by the pro- letarian ideology' in any given situation does not - and cannot - mean that it is so. They are not to be judged by what they think of themselves. For example in the Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels were able to identify three types of non-proletarian socialism of their time, - namely reactionary socialism; conservative socialism and critical-" utopian socialism which gave birth to communism58. Each of these belonged to a specific class or section of a class. All of these trends represented a I socialist' school. But to the proletariat what mattered was that they as a class could not serve themselves with the ideologies of other classes and expect to gain power. In the same way, no other class can adopt the substance of the proletarian ideology. When the petty- bourgeoisie talk of socialism, they mean a totally different thing from what the proletariat uncterstarld by socialism. Substance must be distinguished from form. Shivji's failure to grasp this point leads him.into deep trouble. 127 4. SHIV]I DOES NOT UNDERSTAND AMILCAR CABRAL OR THli. LESSONS OF THE ANTI-COLONIAL ARMED STRUGGLE IN GUJN~A-BISSAU AND IN AFRICA AS A WHOLE. Starting rom the late 1950' s the anti-imperialist revolutionary struggle in Africa advanced to the stage of popular and protracted resistance in a number of countries. In contradiction from the earlier armed movements in which the working class did not playa leading role (including the Mau Mau resistance in Kenya) the new phase of the anti-colonial armed struggle started in Algeria. With the defeat of French colonial imperialism, the people rose up in arms against Portuguese colonial oppression in Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau. This revolutionary wave is still rippling in the rest of Soutp~rn Africa while neo-colonial Africa is not far behind. What was the character of this struggle? First of all it was anti-imperialist; thus what was at issue waS the solution of the national question. But it was not a struggle against imperialism in a general, un- specified manner. Thus, secondly, it was a struggle to resolve the national question as a colonial question. 'l'his means that in the struggle to organise and advance the revo- lution and defeat the enemy, it was possible to unite much broader section of the population, from a much wider political base than it would be possible in a neo-colonial or even a semi-colonial situation. Nevertheless does it mean that the anti-colonial united front which emerged in these countries was an amorphous 'alliance' whose only uniting factor was 'the proletarian ideology? Shivji thinks so and quotes Amilcar Cabral to support his case. He should read Cabral again! We shall quote his reference to Cabral in full before showing our author's total misunderstanding, and therefore misrepresentation, of Amilcar:- "One important group in the town", says Cabral, "were the dockworkers (note!); another group were the people working in the boats (note again!) carrying merchandise, who mostly live in Bissau itself and travel up and down the rivers. Those_people proved highly conscious of their position and of their economic importance and they took the initiative of launching strikes without any trade union leadership at all (noteD. We therefore decided to concentrate all our work on this group. This gave excellent results (you 128 seeD and this group soon came to form a kind of nucl~us (note, ShivjiD which influenced the atti-q.tdes of other wage- earning groups (sic!) in towns - workers proper and drivers (noteD who form two other important groups. Moreover, if I may put it this way, we thus found our little proletariat" . 59 Amilcar Cabral is so clear! On whom did the PAIGC rely to form the nucleus of the movement? Cabral tells us that at first they concentrated on:- a) dockworkers; and b) people working in the boats. He says that after the strikes they went on to organise:- a) "Workers proper" and b) "drivers" Instead of taking the kernel of what Cabral tells us, namely that although it did not develop its own part, the working class played a leading role within the P AIGC movement, Shivji dashes out shouting:- "What is important is that such revolutionary strata (imagine!) are mobilised under the proletarian ideolo~". 60 (stress or.iginal) This shouting is futile because Cabral is not simply speaking of the ideology of the Guinean struggle. He is more concrete than Shivji and specifically tells us that this ideology was not an empty slogan but based on recruitment from within the ranks of the workers. Shivji however is not satisfied to misinterpret Cabral once, he does it a second time informing us that he "cannot resist" quoting the Guinean patriot to support his undimensional and idealist view that: - "(The leadership of the proletarian ideology) is truer still in the case of cadres who may have varied class origins. In fact, the leadership and the cadres (note!) may even come from bourgeois and petty bourgeois classes: provided they are imbued with proletarian consciousness (sic!) such traitors to their classes are only too common in history". 61 Once again Shivji has confused two issues, namely one, the ne6!d for the leadership of the proletariat as a c;lass in revolutionary struggle; and two, the question of those individuals from other classes who - as a minute exception - join the working class Party and may even - as a still greater .exception - become good Cadres and possibly occupy a leadership role therein. In: either case, of course, one cannot have a working class Party without a proleta- rian ideology. 129 Moreover to Shivji the 'traitors to their classes' are not an exception but ::he rule. They are, indeed, so common that they must usurp the leadership of the proletarian struggle and make revolution on behalf of, and for the proletariat. Once again :in Shivji we see a 'proletarian theory' which tells the proletariat: - "Don't worry. You need not lead your own st~ggle .as a class. There are many bourgeois and petty- bourgeols trmtors to their class who will come to lead you!" This, then, is Shivji's dogma. A dogma of 'proletarian ideology'. A dogma aimed at emasculating the working class struggle and betraying it to the leadership of other classes. Instead of drawing correct lessons from the short-comings of the past struggles of the African proletariat in order to fortify and develop proletarian militancy, the author of Class Struggles in Tanzania"offers his services to the 'lower sectors of the petty-bourgeoisie!' Such is Shivji the revolutionary! The author's second quotation from Cabral refers to the stage when Cabral is talking about the recruitment and formation of cadres. "We were faced with another difficult problem, we realised that we needed to have people with a mentality which could transcend the context of the national liberation struggle, and so we pre- pared a number of cadres from the group I have just mentioned, some from the people employed :in commerce and other wage earners (noteD, and even some peas-ants (noteD so that they could acquire what you might call a working class mentality. You might think this is absurd - in any cas e it is very difficult; in order for there to be a working class mentality the material conditions for the working class should exist, a working class should exist. In fact, we managed to inculcate these ideas into a large number of people - the kind of ideas, that is, which there would be if there were a working class. We trained 1,000 cadres at our party school in Conakry, in fact for about two years this was about all we did outside the country. When these cadres returned to the rural areas they inculcated a certain mentality into the peasants and it is among "these cadres that .we ~ave chosen the people who are now leading the strug gles".61 Again not only does this go on to confirm that many proletarian. elements played a leading role within P AIGC; but further, Cabral, who was !lot a member of a Communist or Marxist- Leninist party, turns out to be a concrete, to the point and consistent in his practice, whereas a self-styled Marxist preaches to the proletariat to accept the leadership of other classes through 'the proletarian ideology'. 130 5. HOWSHIV}IMISREPRESENTS THE PROL"ET ARIANLEADER- SHIP OF THE CHINESEREVOLUTION We now go to Shivji's reference to the Chinese people's struggle against imperialist oppression and feudal exploitation which ended in the victory of 1949. Having brought out his doctrine of the leadership of the proleta- rian ideology, Is sa Shivji continues:- "Even the Chinese struggle was based (sic!) mainly on the peasants and.not on the proletariat, though given the concrete conditions of China, the peasantry itself objectively, had revolutionary capacity. The important and decisive point is that the struggle was led by a party expoundingproletarian ideology" . 62 In this brief paragraph, the author has accumulated a mass of confusion, half-truths and down-right nonsense; and it is evident that Shivji' s doctrine of proletarian ideology has turned into an obsession. First, confusion _ what does Shivji mean by the phrase that the Chinese struggle was "based" mainly on the peasants and not the proletariat? If by it he is speaking of a political leadership by the peasants, this is downright contrary to facts, as we shall see. If by it he means numerically more peasants took part in the Chinese revolution than the workers, then that is evident. China, as Mao . Tse-tung realized quite early, (despite the fact that 'left' opposition from within the Chinese CommunistParty made it difficult to see the significance of this fact), was a rural, agrarian country. Therefore most of the population consisted of peasants. How could the CPC lead the Chinese revolution to the end without fully allying the peasants to the working class? It could not. And this was precisely the heart of the struggle against the first left-opportunist line from August 1927 to the end of 1928. Once this line was corrected, and especially once Mac's strategy of mobilizing the countryside to take the cities was accepted within the Party, the peasants became even more deeply involved in the struggle. Mao stressed again and again that the peasants and especially the poor peasants were the workers' most solid allies, the most powerful detach- ment against feudal oppression in the rural areas. 131 In: hi's Report on an Investi~ation of the Peasant Movement in Hun