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Louis is, of course, right that socialism in one country is impossible. That even goes for an industrialized one, never mind one like Zimbabwe. I never meant to imply anything to the contrary in the article I wrote. But there's also the other aspect: A socialist revolution is almost inevitably not going to break out in a whole series of countries together; it's almost certainly going to start in one particular country. Why could it not have started in Zimbabwe? I think the article also points out the failures (if we want to call it that) that stemmed from both the guerrilla strategy of Mugabe as well as his capitalist/reformist perspectives and program. Maybe most important among them was the failure of land reform. Exactly due to his guerrilla strategy, Mugabe and ZANU were isolated from the working class, including the rural proletariat. This inevitably meant corruption, and that came into massive play in regard to land reform. In addition, what really would have made most sense given the large farms and their resultant economies of scale, would have been nationalization (under the control of the workers themselves). However, Mugabe could not take that path exactly because of his capitalist perspective. If you think that it was right not to have seen the colonial revolution in Zimbabwe as combining with a socialist revolution, then you also have to explain how things could have ended up differently as far as the regime that followed. I also think there is a natural link between failing to have a socialist perspective and failing to have a truly international one. True, Mugabe was linked with the Chinese regime and he probably had other connections. But there simply was not a perspective, program or strategy to link up organizationally with the South African revolution, for example. For one thing, had there been, it would have meant a bitter struggle against the S. A. Communist Party. Could they have won that political battle? Maybe not. But this simply shows the political failings of the colonial revolution in a whole series of countries. Socialists today should draw the lessons from that. John Reimann _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
