Zanu (PF) considers communism

Debate about ideology is taking centre stage as President Robert Mugabe’s beleaguered minority party restructures in a frenzied bid to emerge from decade-long electoral defeat at the hands of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC.

Zanu (PF) also appears anxious to impress Chinese, Russian and South African communist parties, which it is courting for financial assistance after looting the treasury became impossible following the take-over of the finance portfolio by the MDC under the inclusive government.

“We will not be the first to transfer a socio-economy from capitalism via socialism into communism,” said Don Muvuti, a Zanu (PF) central committee member and former MP, one of the party officials leading the debate.

Socialism failed

Muvuti said the 1987 unity accord between Zanu (PF) and (PF) Zapu had re-affirmed the party’s ideology as Marxist-Leninist, which he equated to “communism, the basis of which is poverty eradication (so that we can) prosper together forever”.

Writing in the Zanu (PF) propaganda sheet, The Peoples Voice, Muvuti claimed socialism failed in the 1980s because Zanu (PF) was ‘prevented’ from redistributing land. He neglected to mention that most of the farms that were acquired for resettlement using Western funds were snatched by Mugabe cronies at the expense of genuine land-hungry blacks.

In 1980, Mugabe declared socialism the official ideology of Zimbabwe. The new government set about trying to implement Soviet-style collectivisation. Using the party militias, known then as youth brigades, the new government set upon employers and business people who were branded ‘capitalist traitors’.

Businesses were forced to close or were taken over by Zanu (PF) to be run as co-operatives. Although some international donors were willing to sponsor the co-ops, most of the enterprises collapsed due to theft by senior party officials, mismanagement, bureaucracy and disagreements on how to share profits and losses.

The new move to embrace communism appears aimed at justifying Mugabe’s current attempts to seize large foreign-owned businesses in the name of empowering the poor.

“This is done by putting the means of production currently still in the hands of the minority into the hands of the entire Zimbabwean society on an equal basis,” Muvuti claimed.

Lining Zanu (PF) pockets

Observers have warned, however, that the businesses being targeted will end up lining the pockets of a few Zanu (PF) hawks at the expense of the poor.

Party officials hope that declaring communism as their ideology will bring them closer to their desired allies, the Chinese, Russians and South Africans. This way they hope to shake off the ‘capitalist’ West which has condemned Zanu (PF)’s avarice and the penchant by senior officials to steal public resources, including donations, to enrich themselves. The plunder is blamed for plunging the country’s once-vibrant economy into the doldrums, but Mugabe chooses to blame sanctions for the collapse.

Top officials of the Chinese communist party recently visited Zimbabwe for talks with Zanu (PF). They donated US$200 000 to the party in violation of the Political Parties Finance Act which bans foreign funding of political organizations.

By singing communist hymns, Mugabe and his officials could also divert attention from their massive looting of the Zimbabwean economy.

The party’s leadership code, which required the top brass to declare their assets and account for them under socialism, was abandoned after some officials became filthy rich, mostly by fleecing the treasury.

In 1990, Mugabe unofficially renounced socialism and embraced capitalism in a series of reforms sponsored by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Just as the reforms began to bear fruit after a decade of belt-tightening by the people, war veterans raided the treasury in 1998, claiming millions in unbudgeted gratuities. This, and the theft of money from the social dimensions fund meant to cushion the poor and retrenched workers signalled an end to the reforms, much to the delight of Mugabe and his gang, who were evidently fed up with scrutiny from the Bretton Woods institutions.

Free markets

Apparently, the countries from which Zanu (PF) seems to be getting lessons on communism are actually turning away from the discredited ideology and embracing free market economics.

A senior Chinese official told the Zimbabweans that they should reform their politics and economics in order to attract Western capital, which he said was the surest way to develop. The official pointed out that Chinese economic expansion was anchored on Western capital, which came at a price.

The official said the generation that had given Zanu free weapons in the 1970s was gone and had been replaced by Western-educated professionals – whom he referred to as the ‘Tiananmen generation’ – whose interest in Africa was business and not politics.

Typically, the senior official’s advice was ignored and his speech never made it into the Mugabe-controlled media.

During the Cold War, it became the norm for liberation movements and poor African countries to align themselves with capitalism, socialism or communism in a bid to attract support from the feuding super-powers. However, the collapse of the Soviet Union ended all that, with countries like Zimbabwe suddenly having to stand on their own. This created economic problems for them as they were used to being given freebies by the conflicting parties in exchange for their support. Leaders like Mugabe, who had attained some clout through organisations like the Non-Aligned Movement, were driven into obscurity. Suddenly, they found themselves having to be accountable to their own people and not the foreign masters who used to rule the world.