On 25 September 1964, when Frelimo took up arms against the Portuguese colonialists in the northern areas Frelimo guerrillas on the march to victory of Mozambique, its detachment was made up of only 250 fighters. ent state. months of transitional government have been brought to an end.
The independence of Mozambique was not won without cost. The Portuguese colonialists - - eyeing the revenue from the colony's agricultural products and the potential of its oil and mineral resources - strove desperately to head off the liberation struggle. In these manoeuvres they were solidly backed by the Western powers - which benefited from enormous investment concessions in Mozambique. A major role was also played by the Rhodesian and South African regimes, who rightly saw their own survival threatened by this developing struggle on their borders.
ATROCITIES
It was only two years ago that the revelations of some priests gave widespread publicity to the atrocities of mass murder and genocide perpetrated by the Portuguese. Yet these acts of terrorism in no way dampened the support given by the Mozambican masses to Frelimo. By 1973, Frelimo controlled most of the three northern provinces of Cabo Delgado, Niassa and Tete. The struggle had also spread to Manica e Sofala - the white heartland containing the nerve centres of the colonial economic system.
The new period opened up in April 1974 by the fall of the Catano dietatorship in Portugal highlighted the maturity of Frelimo's political and military leadership. It resolutely pursued its demand for immediate independence and rejected any form of compromise. This was accompanied by a developing programme of mass mobilisations and organisation of the urban areas. On the military plane, the freedom fighters successfully launched the armed struggle in Zambezia proToday Mozambique is an independFour hundred years of colonial domination, ten years of courageous armed struggle, and nine point in the period of 1967 -1969. External and internal difficulties were racking the movement. In Rhodesia a white minority regime had assumed power with the blessing of imperialism; the guerrillas in Zaire had suffered complete liquidation; and the Cabora Bassa dam project had got off the ground. Internally, the liberated zones posed a political problem which the diverse and frontist leadership of Frelimo could only solve with some ideological clarification.
Two opposing currents emerged. This is how Marcelino Dos Santos, vice-president of Frelimo, summed up the debate: "The erroneous line, represented by Simango, was orientated towards a war of national liberation in order to drive the foreigners out of Mozambique; but the same system of capitalist exploitation which to-day takes the form of colonial exploitation would be maintained. The correct line, represented by Mondlane, is based on drawing the masses into the liberation struggle.... and aims at the creation of an independent state where there will be no exploitation of man by man. The position of the majority was therefore a decisive break with the traditions of reformist nationalism as seen in STOP NALGO Frelimo president Samora Machel all the British and French colonies But is this to say that Frelimo has a clear-cut ideological stance? Frelimo still describes itself as a frontist organisation In one of his declarations Samora Machel, the President of Frelimo, said: 'Mozambicans of all races, ethnic groups, beliefs and all social origins identify themselves with Frelimo? Furthermore the question of a vanguard party has still not been posed. Nor, despite Frelimo's Socialist phraseology has a clear-cut socialist programme yet been elaborated.
There has been no firm commitment to thoroughgoing change of the economic system. And yet, since Mozambique's economy depends to a large measure on foreign investments, indigenous petty-bourgeois layers will not take long to crystallise on the morrow of independence. Class differences will sharpen at a rapid rate.
The problem is that the radicalisation of Frelimo took place in a very empirical way: socialist experiments developed in the liberated areas because of the pressures of war and the needs of the immediate situation. To-day Frelimo militants say that the need for a vanguard organisation and a prog. ramme does not arise because the 'people will take care of any reationary or capitalist solution as they took care of the armed struggle!
IMMENSE PROBLEMS
The nationalist leadership is to-day confronted with immense problems qualitatively different from those of administering liberated zones. The various disguises of imperialism in the continent, the low level of class struggle, and a lopsided economic structure inherited from the Portuguese could very quickly drive it within the neo-colonial web. Further more 100,000 Mozambican workers leave each year for work in the mines of South Africa; and the Cabora Bassa dam, for which South Africa will be the main client, is on the point of completion. Very shortly, these economic constraints will compel Frelimo to make a decisive choice.
The building of a 'socialist' Mozambique will not be possible within a few days. The revolution must be consciously spread to the whole of Southern Africa. There cannot be socialism in one African country! It is thus imperative that Frelimo struetures the mass movement around anti-capitalist objectives.
The Mozambican working class constitutes 10 per cent of struggles it unleashed last year. In fact, in the whole of the southern African region the struggle for national liberation has set off specifically anti-capitalist struggles among the working class. In South Africa, Rhodesia, and specially in Angola recently, the militancy of the working class has demostrated that one cannot separate the struggle for national liberation from the struggle against capitalism.
That is why one cannot call for the unity of all 'authentic classes to build a 'new Mozambique. The balance of forces in Mozambique itself will depend to a large extent on the situation in the whole of Southern Africa. While economic compromises may well be unavoidable, only the support of Mozambique for the liberation struggles in South Africa and Rhodesia — most immediately that of ZANU -will enable the new government to confront and overcome the tasks which now face it.
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