1. Socialism in Tanzania

2. African Socialism
African Socialism Stresses African Traditional Values
Describing African communities as classless, communal, egalitarian
African socialism is an attempt to recover these values and combine them with modern technology and modern state institutions
Diverge from Karl Marx scheme
Skip capitalism

3. Marx theory of historical evolution
Primitive socialism
Slave Society
Feudalism
Capitalism
Socialism
Central Role of the state in economic and political life
Establishment of one party system

4. African Socialism: Ujmaa in Tanzania
Nationalism in Tanzania
It was a German Colony called Tanganyika
Came under British trusteeship
Nationalist movement was led by Tanganyika African National Union (TANU)
Led by Julius Nyerere

5. Born in 1922
Educated at Makerere College in Uganda, and then worked as a teacher at a Catholic school between
He went to UK and got an MA in history from the University of Edinburgh in 1952
Influence of Fabian socialism
In 1954, he founded Tanganyika African National Union (TANU)
Tanganyika became independent in 1962
In 1964 annexed the Island of Zanzibar to form United Republic of Tanzania

7. Social Composition of Tanzania
Inhabited by over 120 ethnic groups
Racial divisions: Africans, Asians, Arabs and few Europeans
Religion: Islam, Christianity, and African religions
Importance of unity
Nyerere urged his people to think first as Tanzanians

8. Economic development
Few natural resources and relied heavily on agricultural production
Main task was to increase production to generate surplus that could be invested
Nyerere’s rejection of capitalism
He embraced socialism

9. Nyerere African socialism
Ujamaa (familyhood)
It was critical of individualism associated with capitalism
Advocated social equality and public ownership of means of production
He believed that Soviet-style socialism would not be suitable for Tanzania
“Africa’s conditions are very different from those of Europe in which Marx and Lenin wrote and worked. To talk as if these thinkers provide all answers to our problems, or as if Marx invented socialism, is to reject the humanity of Africa and the universality of socialism…….But socialism did not begin with him, nor can it end in constant reinterpretation of his writings”

11. Thus ujmaa was not imported ideology but a philosophy that aimed to address African conditions and African needs
Democracy and socialism have deep roots in “our past”
African socialism was inherent in the notion of extended family and mutual cooperation
Adoption of Ujmaa at Arusha Declaration in 1967

12. Arusha Declaration
Objectives: “create a society based on co-operation and mutual respect and responsibility, in which all members have equal rights and equal opportunities, where is no exploitation of one person by another.”
Identification 4 issues to be addressed:
Potential inequality between state employees and civil society
Capital may come at the expense of human-centered development
How to make private investment benefit all
How to prevent imbalance in urban-rural development

14. Implementation of Arusha Declaration
Prevented government employees and leaders from taking additional jobs, renting out property
Keep salaries of bureaucrats down
Nyerere himself lived and worked in a village for a time
Human-centered development: introduction of education, literacy campaigns, nationalization of private firms both local and foreign

15. Rural Development Majority of Tanzanians lived in rural areas
Priority should be given to the rural sector
Challenge: Most rural folks were smallholding peasants who were mainly concerned with their own subsistence
Villagization solution: bring the majority of them into “model” villages that would act as collective units of production
Achieve more production when all villagers would work together on common land
Central idea: combine tradition of village culture of mutual assistance with modern methods of agriculture

16. Government officials would teach peasants modern agricultural techniques and to supply them with modern machinery
The majority of schools and health services were built in these villages
Villages served as centers to practice local democracy
Community members make decisions for themselves
By 1977 over 13 million Tanzanians lived in Ujamaa villages
It failed to achieve economic expansion to cope with population growth

17. Assessment of Ujamaa
Failure of the state and its ideology to motivate villagers
They were attracted to several aspects of Ujmaa, but did not adopt the modern agricultural methods
They were not used to collective farming
Peasants did not have capitalist orientation and were not concerned with need for surplus
10 years after Arusha declaration Nyerere admitted that “the truth is that the agricultural results have been very disappointing”

18. Peasants farmed common land after they attended their own individual plots
Working in collective farm was supplementary

19. Role of the state in the failure of Ujamaa
On occasions people were settled in unproductive areas
Lack of infrastructure to transport harvest
Government bureaucrats resorted to coercion in the face of peasant reluctance
Local administrators began to develop patron-client relations with villagers
Administrators using funds to build their own enterprise

20. Tanzania’s economy was growing at the rate slower than its population growth
Persistence of state management of the economy until the 1980s
It succumbed in 1986 when it accepted Structural Adjustment Program involving liberalization of the economy

21. Nyerere and his government administered a stable and equitable society
Remarkable improvements in education and health care
Erosion of these achievements with SA free market policies
Economic growth accompanied by concentration of wealth
Multi-party system and political violence
Ujamaa produced welfare and significant degree of social cohesion
Liberal policies created wealth and less cohesion