A discussion relating to pan-African solidarity
By “VC” Below are two (edited) responses to Dr Jean-Baptiste Mbera, Secretary General of the United Democratic Forces of Rwanda (FDU-Inkingi), who has for a long time past kindly contributed to Africa Left Network Forum (ALNEF) and to CU-Africa. The whole discussion, including Dr Mbera’s extensive contributions, can be read at the CU-Africa group discussion archive (click here <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/cuafrica> ), under “Rwandan Opposition Leader Reacts to Murder…” and previously, “Rwanda: The People Shall Govern”. Whereas the topic in this case is Rwanda, yet the general problem of solidarity between African countries arises often, and typically in more than one place at the same time. For four current examples, we could take Swaziland, Central African Republic, South Sudan, and Benin (where a two-day general strike is scheduled to begin tomorrow). I have tried to put forward the case for using class analysis as the primary means of understanding all these cases. Class analysis does not exclude consideration of other factors, but it places those other factors within a common framework, and it allows them all to be related to the pervasive environment of aggressive Imperialist neo-colonialism. I am posting these words in response to the comrade who wrote, concerning Benin: “Cde VC, how do we support this strike, where here is SA, Pretoria in particular?” In the absence of organised initiatives, the CU can only begin by trying to understand these situations. Hence I think we need a discussion, and I hope that comrades are willing. Here begins my first response to Cde Mbera: Dear Cde Mbera, in your previous post, you wrote: “We don’t fight Paul Kagame as such. It would be both narrow and futile. We fight an unacceptable and recurrent political system that is based on ethnic exclusion and denial of civil liberties. We fight the current regime because it is sectarian and dictatorial. We fight a supramacist and dictatorial regime.” As a communist forum, one would like to ask: What is the political economy of Rwanda, and how is it changing? This is in the sense of “political economy” as the arrangement and relative strengths of the class forces in the country. It would also have to take into account the overall growth of productive forces in the country. As communists, we would expect there to be a class dictatorship in Rwanda, as much as in any other country. While not discarding what you say about sectarian bias, yet in the absence of good data on the class make-up of Rwandan society, we would consider ourselves unable to make good judgements concerning that aspect. In South Africa, although our Freedom Charter begins “The People Shall Govern”, yet we are not democrats for nothing, or for the sake of democracy, as such. We are determined to solve both class and national questions, knowing that the resolution of each is the condition for the resolution of the other. In the absence of a clear understanding of the class question in your country, in its abstract parts and in its concrete whole (its unity-and-struggle-of-opposites), we would not be able to have a firm basis from which to examine the question of ethnicity. We would be forced towards ethnic empiricism alone for an explanation of Rwandan reality; and we would want to avoid such a reliance on empiricism. Rightly or wrongly, as you may think, we are dedicated to an understanding of the primary motive forces of history in terms of class. Therefore, if at all possible, please do inform us a little about the class differentiation in your country, and about the development of the productive forces there. Cde Mbera then posted a long article of his, from an earlier time. I replied: Thank you for responding to my request for more explanation of the political economy of Rwanda. I would like first to compare your use of certain terms, with the way that the Communist University has criticized the same terms as they relate, in the first place, to South Africa, and to how they are used in South African political discourse. The particular terms in question are “lumpen”; “bourgeoisie”; and “primitive accumulation”, or just “accumulation”. Then, I would like to problematise what appear in the literature as two different understandings of the place of Imperialism within the political economy of neo-colonialism, where, in one view, Imperialism allies itself with the most anachronistic class forces (rural, feudal and tribal) against the two modernizing classes, bourgeois and proletarian; or in the other view, allies itself with a part of the bourgeoisie (“comprador”) which then acts as “agent” of Imperialism within the country. I take the latter to be (approximately, for the moment) your view. Terms: Bourgeois and Proletarian The literal (German) meaning of “lumpen” is “in rags”. This term was used by Karl Marx in the period 1848 to 1852 to differentiate between the working proletariat, and the idle proletariat, with the latter resembling the original, idle proletariat of Ancient Rome. The working proletariat is not “in rags”, but the idle proletariat has nothing at all, except what may be given to it. As we know from Marx’s works, the “lumpen proletariat” was quite easily purchased (with “whisky and sausages”) by Louis Bonaparte, and then used as an armed force against the working proletariat. So we have tried to maintain this precise distinction, and to avoid the use of “lumpen” as a general swear-word to describe people we don’t like (e.g. vulgarisers, demagogues and proto-fascists). We can leave it aside for the moment and then see how it may apply to the bourgeoisie. Before that, we would need to look at the term “bourgeoisie”. The bourgeoisie is a complex phenomenon, characterised by profound overall changes over time, and at any point in history, by dramatic internal contradictions and strife. The bourgeoisie is never united. It only achieves a degree of unity occasionally, and at one remove, when the state power is bourgeois, and the state is able to provide the bourgeoisie with an “executive committee”. The bourgeois class has been the most constantly active class in history for hundreds of years past, and it still remains the most active, sometimes for the better, but mostly for the worse. The bourgeois class in its first attempt at creating a world system, used not capitalism, but capitalism’s rival and in some sense, opposite: slavery. The globalised bourgeois slavery system of the East and of the West, has left its mark upon the world, such that the major division upon which capitalist Imperialism rests, still follows the lines imposed by the three centuries of international bourgeois slavery. The bourgeoisie adopted capitalism in the metropolitan countries, and then imposed this new system on a global scale, from the beginning of the 19th Century, replacing chattel slavery with wage slavery. This was an enormous global reversal. At [roughly] the same time, in France, according to Marx, under the regime of Louis Philippe, a financial variation of the bourgeoisie had arisen and it had become the ruling faction. This is the one that was overthrown in 1848. But this was not the end of the financial bourgeoisie, as we can see today. In 1920, Lenin noted that “the overwhelming mass of the population in the backward countries consist of peasants who represent bourgeois‐capitalist relationships.” In other words, the normal development of the peasantry is towards bourgeois capitalism, and the consciousness of the peasantry corresponds to this trajectory. This is so when the peasantry is rural, and it persists when the same peasants migrate to the towns, so long as they remain unemployed and until they become employed as working proletarians. The survivalists of the towns, as well as the poor peasants, can qualify for your term “lumpen-petty-bourgeois” – petty-bourgeois in rags. And these are many in number. Of the whole bourgeoisie (i.e. all of those with bourgeois intentions, including the petty bourgeoisie) most are far poorer than the working proletariat. This is a very important paradox. It is the working proletariat that gains class-consciousness. Therefore, the size (both absolute and relative to the other classes) and the degree of self-organisation of the working proletariat is the most crucial and dynamic factor in the whole political economy. Related to this is the existence or otherwise of a vanguard party of the working proletariat – a communist party. You have told us very little about the Rwandan working class. All you have said is that: “There were close to 300,000 Rwandans earning a salary both in the public and the private sector in 2002 according the RPF government out of an active population of 4,500,000 individuals aged between 15 and 65 years. The rest (92%) were self-employed, mostly in rural areas (87,6%).” I understand, from other sources, that the total population of Rwanda is about 12 million people. Most of the population is living off the land, but how this is arranged is not apparent from your message, Cde Mbera. What is the system of land tenure? Is it freehold? On the CU, we have at one time or another looked at the situation of the peasantry following the French, Russian and Chinese revolutions [and in South Africa]. One needs to know the detail, the specificity, the empirical facts on the ground, and you have not given us those sufficient details, yet. Lastly, for the moment, and briefly, on the bourgeoisie itself: The financial bourgeoisie has become so dominant in the world that it is reducing the capitalist (i.e. those who extract surplus value at the point of production) class to a subordinate and sometimes ruined position. Hence the term “lumpen-bourgeoisie” can have a meaning in the modern world: distressed bourgeoisie. Finance rules, and production becomes stressed and contorted. This has global consequences, such as the “meltdown” of 2008 and following. It does affect us in South Africa. What about Rwanda? Accumulation The word “accumulation” in Marx’s “Capital” means the growth of the prerequisites of capitalism, such as a monetary system, communications and a market, a potentially capitalist bourgeoisie and a proletariat that can be forced to work. Accumulation means the enlargement of all of these factors. “Primitive accumulation” simply means the first assembly of the prerequisites of capitalism. The sense of accumulation, primitive or otherwise, as being the creation of a hoard of wealth, is explicitly rejected by Marx. If we are blind to this distinction made by Marx, then we will not be able to explain the phenomenon of rich people who do not employ others in production, but only seek rent [and/or interest], and of others who may not be so rich but are capitalists in the true sense that they employ people. As much as it may appear that the ones who employ people are “exploiters” and therefore constitute the class enemy, yet at this time when capitalist-style employment is the only employment, the number of capitalists and the size of their operations is crucial. You have told us that the Rwandan ruling class stole property and got a lot of money from “aid”, but you don’t tell us anything about the growth of capitalist business within the country. Rwanda, with its abundance of the greatest resource of all – people – has to have a higher relation of production than subsistence agriculture. So this question of “what kind of accumulation” is basic. Citizen, Subject, and Comprador In his book “Citizen and Subject”, the Ugandan intellectual Mahmood Mamdani described the typical alliance of Imperialists with the most rural and anachronistic sections of society. He showed how Imperialism could act against secular, modern, democratic and bourgeois relations of production. He showed how the heart of the anti-Imperialist liberation alliance was typically, as it is in South Africa, between the working proletariat and the nationalist elements of the bourgeoisie. Other writers, including yourself, I think, and for another example the late Jack Woddis, whose book “An Introduction to Neo-Colonialism” I have been reading lately, have put forward the idea of the “comprador” bourgeoisie, acting as a servant of international capital. This is an idea with a long pedigree. Both of these opposing views have their respectable supporters. I am a supporter of the Mamdani view, and an opponent of the idea of “comprador” capitalist. I would go so far as to say that “comprador” is a myth, or largely a myth. The typical African sellout leader is not likely to be a true bourgeois, but is a mock bourgeois who is actually beholden to non-capitalist rural leadership (chiefs or traditional leaders) for political support, voting numbers, and military recruits. The fake nature of such a bourgeoisie gives rise to the stinging critique of it made by Fanon and others, but it is Mamdani who relates the substantial political cause, whereas Fanon simply describes it as a farcical mistake. It is not a mistake. The true bourgeoisie, if it acquires state power in a post-colonial country, at once acquires the mortal enmity of Imperialism, and is likely to be the early target of direct military aggression, initiated by the Imperialists. This is what we have seen recently in Iraq and Syria, and on the African continent, in Libya and in Côte d’Ivoire. In fact, all the wars of Imperialism have this general purpose: the destruction of independent capitalist production. To escape from the Imperialists, a national democratic revolutionary alliance, as envisaged by Lenin in 1920, is required, and this is primarily a class alliance. The purpose of non-racialism and of non-tribalism is so that class can come to the fore as the basis of such a national alliance. The purpose of democracy is the formation of organised, self-conscious class interests. The institutions that are required are the national liberation movement, which is the vehicle of class alliance; the trade unions of the working class; the vanguard party; and in my opinion also a mass organisation of the working women. In addition, in South Africa we have SANCO, which is potentially the organisation of the local petty-bourgeoisie. We believe that appeals to general human rights, will by themselves serve more to obscure than to reveal the necessities of struggle. 6 January 2014 -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. 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