Socialist transition in the capitalist periphery: A case study of agriculture in Zimbabwe

Abstract

Zimbabwe's liberation struggle yielded a government publically committed to socialist transition. The plan was for ZANU-PF, the ruling party, to seize control of the state and restructure the economy as part of a Marxist-Leninist vanguard party. A primary transformation objective was to develop black agriculture through the establishment of producer cooperatives and state farms while increasing support to peasant farmers. Internal and external constraints, international pressure, and a growing class alliance between the black bourgeoisie, white-settler farmers and emergent peasant producers effectively stifled prospects for radical agrarian restructuring. A conservative bi-modal agricultural strategy became the backbone of government policy. Large-scale capitalist agriculture was maintained and supported. A small-farm development effort was increasingly targeted to ‘progressive’ black farmers. At the present time, class formation in Zimbabwe's labor reserves is accelerating. Food surpluses have not resulted in improved nutrition nationally. Historical processes of black farm marginalization—particularly in semi-arid regions and amongst unwaged households—continue. Capitalist consolidation of white-settler agriculture is accelerating the substitution of labor for capital at a time when national unemployment is skyrocketing. The capital and land resources necessary to restructure agriculture are monopolized by large-scale capitalist farmers. The development of capitalism in Zimbabwean agriculture is generating growth but intensifying spatial and social agrarian differentiation. This is consistent with classical Marxian interpretations of the agrarian question. It is unlikely that rural Zimbabweans will experience anything resembling a socialist transition in the short-term. But numerous contradictions associated with capitalist agricultural development may ultimately create socio-economic conditions supportive of a socialist economic development strategy. Political pressures for land reform are presently intensifying. In Zimbabwe, the struggle for control of political power and economic resources has shifted from race to class in a very short period of time.