Was the Zimbabwe guerrilla war of liberation worth it?

The article written by Tsolo Dube on Bulawayo24 asks a very painful but pertinent question: The War Veterans owe the Nation an Explanation: why they went to fight in the liberation of our country. This question is the most painful one ever to give a singular answer to it considering the independence we have 36 years down the line. The question will give an answer which will look at several dimensions of the struggle, its fluidity and complexities of the processes that led to pseudo independence: in isiNdebele we call it "isiphongumangathi." That means "as if it could be called independence or pre-independence."

It is a personal opinion, if one said; the War Veterans do not need to give a blanket apology to the nation at all. For various reasons, the war of liberation was inevitable and unstoppable, it had to happen. Countries in southern Africa and beyond were fighting for their independence or had won their total independence from their colonisers. Zimbabwe was not going to be an exception in those regional historical processes. Time immemorial the peoples of southern Africa and indeed beyond have resisted any kind of foreign occupation. The outcomes of any resistance have been in some cases different to what could have been envisaged as the reason for the wars and resistance to get the envisaged freedom from oppression. This is not specific for Africans and Africa. Globally most countries have gone through those inevitable social, economic and political development transformations of class struggles resulting in either wars or revolutions, some of which had global implications.

Looking at the parallels between the revolutionary transformations that took place in Russia since 1860 until 1917 and the developments in Zimbabwe since 1980 will not only answer the intricate question above, but will give a chance to most of us to reflect on our revolution that got lost in 1980 in the hands of Zanu PF. What led to the violent revolution in Russia? Why was it violent, who triggered the violence and why was the revolution hijacked, resulting in Russia becoming much worse than the feudalistic Russia before the actual revolution of 1917 considering the human loss that went with the reforms: land reforms among other social and political and economic transformations?

Russia was a big empire stretching from the borders of Germany right up to the Pacific Ocean. Poverty that dwelt in 70% of the Russian population, mostly experienced by peasantry smelled at every angle, and poverty was the buzzword for the Russian common man; peasant farmer. Most Russians were subsistent farmers who possessed small land; they used very simple means to cultivate their lands. The state of agriculture and production was very poor, in most cases not always very productive. Technology to improve farming was absent and there was no social capital investment to improve it back then.

As luck would have it, in 1890 Russia was drawn into an industrial revolution like many other countries in Europe: the use of iron resulting in the introduction of factories to do production was a revolution itself. Russia expanded; many towns emerged with all its collateral implications, poverty in newly urban places, high density areas, cramped up housing, conditions of work were abhorrend, no trade unions to solve problems for the working class, and bad wages for the workers who lived in squalid conditions was prevalent.

Similarly to the type of life Zimbabweans live today, the Russians back then never abandoned their village home, they worked in towns and returned to their villages where their roots were firmly fixed, they retained the lands in the village as their source of stability to fall back to, something to fall back to in the event of loss of job. This is a sign that the workers forced by push-and-pull effects of industrialization in factories did not give them any sense of security. The emerging urbanization gave the Russia working class some political awareness and they began to be brave in demanding working rights, they started to demand reforms, good housing and working conditions. However the government was not willing to improve the urban class for fear of change. At the same breath they had to improve the urban areas so as to attract direct foreign investment.

Russia, a country that was ruled by a Tsar: Romanov Family, for 3 centuries was impervious to reforms that could have lifted and improved the lives of millions of Russians from abject poverty. Opposing the Tsar was banned. (Just in Zimbabwe, opposing Mugabe is illegal) The reluctance of the government of Russia to modernize Russia was the source of major discontent followed by the absence of the freedom of expression, censorship of books and newspapers, secret police were everywhere harassing the population with trivial accusations. (Like in Zimbabwe today, CIO harasses the Zimbabwe population with trivial accusations, one cannot criticize the state and Robert Mugabe)

There was elaborate elite in the Russian government that composed 20% of the population. Inside the ruling elite was a mass of competing bodies that enacted confusing laws, the judgement and government decisions were arbitrary, random implementation of laws that relied mostly on patronage resulting in a total disconnect between the mass peasants and the imperial government. (This is also reminiscent with what is happening in Zimbabwe today: G40 and Lacoste groups competing each other for succession, confusing Zim-Assets etc)

Again the Russian government had created a mass of soldiers who were treated inhumanly by the imperial government, poorly trained, poorly paid, poor housing conditions and to a great extent malnourished. (You need to look at how thin Zimbabwean police and army are, they seem malnourished, they get their 500 US dollars a month and compare it with former CEO, Mr. Cuthbert Dube who paid himself 500,000 US dollars a month) These entire discontentment's between the Russian imperial government on one hand and mass poverty stricken peasants, the emerging working class that was politicized and the poorly fed army were the fertile ground for a full blown revolution in Russia in 1917. (The relationship between Mugabe and the War Veterans, the vendor culture)

Without having to go deep into the infighting that took place after the great revolution of 1917, Vladimir Ilich Lenin, coming from exile, became the first head of the Soviet Union, was leader of the Bolshevik revolution, and was automatically to become Head of the Russian Communist Party, abbreviated RCP formally called "First Secretary." Bolshevik means of the majority of the people or the proletariat that constituted 70% of the population. Lenin was born of educated parents and he was university educated, a lawyer by profession Lenin, was influenced by the socialist theories of Karl Marx and Friedrish Engels.

Lenin was inspired by the Marxist theories: to quote one of them verbatim; "economic and political systems went through an inevitable evolution by which the capitalist system would be replaced by socialism. In his dialect, Marx achieved a methodology that spoke of real development in a clear comprehensive and accurate way, a way which reflected the actual developmental processes of nature. By applying this dialect to human development, the society will be defined by the mode of production, how the society gets its food, clothing and shelter."  The Marxist theory goes on to say that the "society will develop using the methods of dialectic materialism to unravel the complex processes of historical development and its endeavours to teach the working class to know itself and be conscious of itself as a class!"  The material world is a reflection of those ideas. In a nutshell Lenin was truly convinced about the ideals of socialism, the literature that he fed on when he was in exile; suddenly he had the opportunity to implement those noble ideas to the New Soviet Union, under the banner of the communist party, RCP. To this date Russia is to a big extent entrenched in those dialectic materialistic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrish Engels.

When the Bolsheviks took over the power from the Mensheviks, all political parties were suppressed under the premise that the RCP belonged to the majority proletariat and everything else was counter-revolutionary and anti-socialist. The monarch was not spared, the Tsar abdicated from his throne and his reign was put to an abrupt end. Lenin instituted Red Terror destroyed monarchists during the Russian Civil War. After the purging of unwanted elements within the ruling party through Cheka or secret police, the country at large became relative peaceful in Soviet Union.

Lenin attempted to shape the future of the Soviet Union by sending warnings against the unchecked party members including Joseph Stalin who was Secretary General of the RCP then. But his warnings went unheeded, in retrospect Stalin, after the death of Lenin came out victorious from the protracted power struggle that took place before Lenin's death. (This is happening in Zimbabwe today, the question is who will come out victorious: Dr. Grace Marufu-Mugabe or Mnumzana Emerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa)

Joseph Stalin was a dictator who exercised greater power than any other politician in the Russian history. He was the son of a cobbler who was supposed to go to the Catholic Seminary to become a Priest. As luck would have it, he became the Secretary General of the Communist Party and took over from Lenin without any ceremony. He flouted the ailing Lenin's wishes; the ailing Lenin had written a political testament stating that Trotsky was to become his successor. Instead, when Stalin became Leader of the party and Prime Minister, he expelled Trotsky from the Soviet Union and he had him assassinated in Mexico where he sort asylum in 1940.

Stalin abandoned Lenin's quasi capitalist New Economic Plan in favour of state organised five-year-plan. He fell heavy on peasant farmers by bungling 25 million households into collective farms within a short space of time. Those who resisted where arrested and shot dead cold blooded, some were sent to concentration camps where they were forced to work to death because of savage conditions of work they were subjected to. But this collectivism brought famine in most parts of those collective farming areas then owned by the state. Nine million peasant farmers are said to have died during the land reforms of the Soviet Union.

Stalin industrialised SU rigorously to try to compete with the West. When it failed, industrial managers were arraigned in show trials and were intimidated into confessing imaginary crimes, that was punishable by death. New campaign of terror against members of the communist party began; the very members who brought him into power under the pretext they conspired to assassinate him. (Is it not different from what Mugabe did to General Mujuru, the man who put him into power? Is it not the same, what he is doing to the War Veterans?)   

Show trials of leading communists as means to expand new terror to many members of the communist party including personalities like Zinovyev and Kamenev were sentenced to death, shot by firing squads. Many professionals from the army were court-marshalled including Mikail Tukhachevsky he was charged of treason and executed. These purging and persecutions empowered Stalin immensely to tame the SCP or Soviet communist Party. (The same is the case in Zimbabwe too, unending purging to clean up the Zanu PF from zvipfukuto) Stalin did not only liquidate veteran semi-independent Bolsheviks, but he went heavy on artists, academic world industrial managers, high government officials, legal practitioners, diplomats and Soviet elites, and many party bosses all of whom were totally subservient to Stalin. Soviet political victims were numbered tens of millions of Russian victims.

It can be said with equal truth that Stalin was the chief architect of Soviet totalitarianism. Stalin was a ruthless organiser, created a powerful soviet Army that successful fought in the Second World War; he also led Soviet Union in the Nuclear age. He too destroyed all individual freedoms that still existed. Still to be mentioned is his extension of the Soviet Union to these countries who front lined the WW2; he packaged them all to form a belt of East Bloc countries.

In the same way as Robert Mugabe; Stalin loved himself more than his wife and child. He had a low opinion of his child who committed suicide like is mother. Stalin called himself a Bolshevik boy, a follower of Lenin and co-founder of the Soviet Union; all those claims, in retrospect, were not true at all, he joined the Russian communist Party by shear opportunism, hook and crook, and a bit of luck. He wanted to be known as a universal genius, a shining star, staff of life, a greater father and friend. In retrospect he had very low opinion of the very people who bootlicked him, the very people he savagely persecuted, heaped praises at him as their "Father." Stalin achieved wide visual promotions through busts, statues and icons of himself. The dictator became an object of formal cult, but despised those that praise-sang him, sometimes openly. (The same methods are used to cow the peoples of Mathebeleland to be kind to Mugabe and vote him, disregarding the Gugurahundi atrocities that Mugabe and his henchmen perpetrated and tried to destroy the spirit of the people of Mathebeleland)

Stalin died in 1953 and left uncertainties in the succession, as Stalin did not name a clear successor evident to take over from him. (Mugabe is refusing to name a clear successor) His death however was met with relief to many even from the Communist Party. The "First Secretaries that followed one another after the death of incumbent First Secretary were all cut from the same cloth of Joseph Stalin.

Press fast forward; a young unknown leader emerged in the Soviet Union after the death of Brezhnev, a Brezhnevian era also known as the stagnation era. His name was Mikhail Gorbachev, a reformist. Gorbachev came to power in 1985 as Secretary General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Because he was reform minded, he realised he had make groundbreaking steps to revive the stagnant economy of the great Soviet Union under the name "glasnost" which means openness. He called for transparency in government dealings, limiting strict government censorship, granting freedom of speech and improving human rights. His other arm of reform was "Perestroika" that means restructuring of political and economic systems by introducing and implementing free market economies. Gorbachev was wiped away by a wave of inevitable political and economic changes that were no longer stoppable. It is not that his ideas were bad but the global economy determined the transformations of events including the Soviet Union. When the coup took over from Mikhail Gorbachev it was Boris Yelsin who took over, a much worse evil than Gorbachev. The political and economic uncertainties in the former Soviet Union still linger to this date. The good question is: Is Vladimir Putin the right leader of the Russian people? Is there freedom of speech in Russia? How are the human right abuses in Russia? How is censorship regarding newspapers and media freedom of expression? Is poverty in Russian common man still the buzz-word for Russian peasants?

Coming back to our heading, was the war of the liberation worth it, yes it was worth it because it was inevitable. If Zambia got it right after fighting for their independence and their got a smooth transition to black majority, it did not mean, or did not follow that in Zimbabwe new dawn, the independence of Zimbabwe was going to be a smooth transition. Fighting to replace white regime of Ian Smith's UDI was necessary and unavoidable, it was a process that had to take place at that time and space, albeit with lots of lives lost in the processes leading to independence.

Evidently when we read the Russian history, things did not go according to how Lenin and many other members of the RCP wanted it, despite the fact that he had made a political testament before his death, he also made warning shots against personality cult called Joseph Stalin as possible leader of SU. In the same way, so many freedom fighters realised their error of nominating Robert Mugabe as their leader for many reasons. When they tried to reverse the leadership of Robert Mugabe leader of Zanu PD and Commander-in-Chief of Zanla Armed Forces, he purged them, Rugare Gumbo remaining as the only one from the group of those who saw the need to reverse leadership.

If Mugabe had his way he would eliminate the rebellious War Veterans. It is his age that is now running against his wishes. Thousands of people have perished under Mugabe regime. Millions have been displaced, millions left the country altogether to find better life in other countries and certainly not Zimbabwe. But there is a revolution that is larger than life ahead of us, post Mugabe era and there is also a possibility that we can get it wrong again as evidenced with the political and economic developments in the Soviet Union. Some divine intervention is needed to have some semblance of a brighter future for all Zimbabweans home and abroad.
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