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The ‘Class Struggle’ in Africa: An Examination of Conflicting Theories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Extract

Well over 50 years ago, John Mensah Sarbah, a Gold Coast lawyer, romantically described the traditional social order in these terms: ‘In the African social system the formation of a pauper class is unknown, nor is there antagonism of class against class.’1 Similar views still prevail throughout most of Africa and the western world. Moreover, a rationale based on this ostensible ‘classlessness’ is employed by Africa's leaders to justify single-party rule and the repression of dissident elements in society, and to explain and defend policies of African socialism.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1964

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References

Page 379 note 1 Quoted by Nkrumah, Kwame, ‘The Future of African Law,’ in Voice of Africa (Accra), II, 4, 04 1962, p. 14.Google Scholar

Page 379 note 2 Aspaturian, Vernon, ‘Revolutionary Change and the Strategy of the Status Quo’, in Martin, Laurence W. (ed.), Neutralism and Nonalignment: the new states in world affairs (New York, 1962), p. 176.Google Scholar

Page 380 note 1 Although few of these men discussed ‘class’ or social stratification in exactly the same terms, or shared a common terminology, they all employed what can be justifiably regarded as essentially a class mode of analysis. Their common denominator was the ability to see societies structured along class lines—essentially products of economic, political, and social divisions which tended to shape political decisions along characteristic lines.

Page 380 note 2 A recent trend among American scholars, particularly among contemporary political sociologists, has served to resurrect class analysis. See Lipset, Seymour Martin, Political Man: the social basis of politics (New York, 1960)Google Scholar, and Mills, C. Wright, The Power Elite (New York, 1957)Google Scholar, among others.

Page 380 note 3 For example, the notable work by Fanon, Frantz, Les Damnés de la terre (Paris, 1961)Google Scholar. Among the exceptions to this generalisation are Kilson, Martin L. Jr, ‘Nationalism and Social Classes in British West Africa’, in Journal of Politics (Gainesville), xx, 2, 05 1958, pp. 368–87,Google Scholar and Friedland, William H., ‘African Socialism: a sociologist's view’, a paper presented at the meeting of the African Studies Association, Washington, 13 10 1962, especially pp. 79.Google Scholar I do not mean to imply that a class approach would necessarily yield a more accurate picture, but merely to note a methodological gap in scholarship on African politics.

Page 381 note 1 See Hertz, Frederick, Nationality in History and Politics: a study of the psychology and sociology of national sentiment and character (London, 1944), pp. 208–11Google Scholar, and ch. vii, ‘The Social Background of Modern Nationalism’.

Page 382 note 1 Aspaturian, op. cit. pp. 79–80. There are, of course, exceptions to this, particularly where the British policy of indirect rule served to bolster the power of the land-based traditional authorities, as in Northern Nigeria.

Page 382 note 2 Ibid. pp. 177–9.

Page 383 note 1 This statement appeared in the organ of the Parti démoratique de Guinée (P.D.G.), Horoya (Conakry), 110, 13 03 1962;Google Scholar Touré's italics.

Page 383 note 2 Ibid.

Page 384 note 1 Touré, Sékou, L'Action politique du parti démocratique de Guinée. La Planification économique. Plan triennal de développement économique et social (Conakry, 1960), vol. v, p. 384.Google Scholar

Page 384 note 2 See Hodgkin, Thomas, African Political Parties (London, 1961), pp. 28–9.Google Scholar Assane Seck is one of the intellectual leaders of Senegal's opposition Parti du regroupement africain (P.R.A.).

Page 384 note 3 See my articles: ‘Nkrumah's Theory of Underdevelopment: an analysis of recurrent themes’, in World Politics (Princeton), xv, 3, 04 1963, pp. 438–54;Google Scholar and ‘Marxism-Leninism and African Underdevelopment: the Mali approach’, in International Journal (Toronto), XVII, 3, Summer 1963, pp. 300–4Google Scholar, for an abbreviated discussion of this point.

Page 385 note 1 Scalapino, Robert A., ‘Sino-Soviet Competition in Africa’, in Foreign Affairs (New York), XLII, 4, 07 1964, pp. 650–1.Google Scholar

Page 385 note 2 Keita, Madeira, ‘Le Mali et la recherche d'un socialisme africain’ (Embassy of the Republic of Mali, Washington, n.d.), pp. 34.Google Scholar

Page 385 note 3 Keita, Madeira, ‘The Single Party in Africa’, in Présence africaine (Paris), II, 30, 1960, p. 34.Google Scholar See also excerpts from a speech by Kouyaté, Seydou Badian, Mali's Minister of Development, to the Dakar Colloquium on African Socialism, reprinted in Africa Report (Washington), XIII, 5, 05 1963, pp. 1516.Google Scholar

Page 385 note 4 Senghor, Léopold Sédar, ‘The Senegalese Way to Socialism’, in Review of International Affairs (Beograd), XII, 258, 01 1961, p. 5.Google Scholar This view has been expressed by the Ivory Coast's Felix Houphouet-Boigny. See L'Afrique noire (Dakar), 6 12 1951;Google Scholar and at the 1957 Constitutive Congress of the U.G.T.A.N. (Union générale des travailleurs d'Afrique noire) held at Cotonou, Dahomey, where the leaders abandoned the ‘class struggle’ theory.

Page 385 note 5 Senghor, Léopold Sédar, On African Socialism (New York, 1964), p. 94.Google Scholar

Page 386 note 1 Senghor, Léopold Sédar, ‘A Community of Free and Equal Peoples with the Mother Country’, in Western World (Brussels), 18, 10 1958, p. 40.Google Scholar Similar thoughts have been advanced by Nyerere and quoted by Friedland, ‘African Socialism’, p. 9.

Page 386 note 2 For further background to this question, see Dumont, René, L'Afrique noire est mal partie (Paris, 1962).Google Scholar

Page 386 note 3 Nyerere, Julius, ‘Ujamaa’: the basis of African socialism (Dar es Salaam, 1962)Google Scholar, and his ‘One Party System of Government in Africa’, in Voice of Africa, II, 5, 05 1962, p. 21.Google Scholar

Page 387 note 1 The N.E.P.U. Party of Northern Nigeria, Declaration of Principles, as quoted in Hodgkin, Thomas, ‘A Note on the Language of African Nationalism’, in St. Antony's Papers, No. 10, African Affairs: Number One (London, 1961), pp. 37–8.Google Scholar

Page 388 note 1 Action Group Bureau of Information, Democratic Socialism: being the manifesto of the Action Group of Nigeria for an independent Nigeria (Lagos, 1960), pp. 5 and 7.Google Scholar Viewing Nigerian society along class lines is not a recent addition to Action Group thought. Obafemi Awolowo, party leader since its inception, wrote in 1945 that there were three classes in Nigeria. At that time, however, he differentiated between: (1) the ‘educated classes consisting of the professional men and women, teachers, and clerks’ (2) ‘the “enlightened” classes consisting mainly of traders and artisans’; and (3) ‘the ignorant masses’. He went on to discuss them in some detail and specifically their actual and potential roles in Nigerian politics. See his Path to Nigerian Freedom (London, 1947), pp. 31–2.Google Scholar But the 1945 categories were based largely on educational differences; those of 1960 were founded on economic divisions. This was a fundamental innovation.

Page 388 note 2 Democratic Socialism, pp. 6–7 and 8–10.

Page 389 note 1 Quoted in the New York Times (Western edition), 7 and 9 01 1964.Google Scholar

Page 389 note 2 The Washington Centre of Foreign Policy Research, Two Communist Manifestoes (Wathington, 1961), pp. 6679.Google Scholar

Page 390 note 1 Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Programme of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union: adopted by the 22nd Congress of the C.P.S. U., 10 31, 1961 (Moscow, 1961), p. 45.Google Scholar

Page 390 note 2 Potekhin, I. I., ‘Africa's Future: the Soviet view—an abridgement of I. I. Potekhin's booklet Afrika Smotrit V Buduschcheye (‘Africa Looks Ahead’) published by Izdatel'syva Vostochnoy, Moscow, 1960’, supplement with Mizan Newsletter (London), III, 4, 04 1961, pp. 34.Google Scholar

Page 390 note 3 Potekhin, of course, employed the Marxist historical analysis, in which feudalism is regarded as one of the three pre-capitalist stages of economic development. This approach is bound up with land ownership by the lord, and his partial ownership of the serf peasant. But African feudalism, to be a useful analytical designation, must be divorced from reference to land ownership. The feudal relationship, if it can be applied to tropical Africa at all, is essentially an interpersonal association based on an unequal political relationship of super- and sub-ordination—protection on one hand, service on the other. For more extended discussion of this point, see two articles by Maquet, Jacques J., ‘A Research Definition of African Feudality’, in The Journal of African History (Cambridge), III, 2, 1962, pp. 307–10;Google Scholar and also ‘Une hypothèse pour l'étude des féodalités africaines’, in Cahiers d'études africaines (Paris), 6, 1961, pp. 292314.Google Scholar Jack Goody challenges the utility of the term as applied to Africa in ‘Feudalism in Africa’, in The Journal of African History, IV, I, 1963, pp. 118;Google Scholar see especially his useful bibliography, pp. 16–18.

Page 391 note 1 Potekhin, I. I., ‘Land Relations in African Countries’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), I, I, 03 1963, p. 39.Google Scholar

Page 391 note 2 Potekhin, I. I., ‘On African Socialism: a Soviet View’, in Friedland, William H. and Rosberg, Carl G. Jr (eds.), African Socialism (Stanford, 1964), p. 110.Google Scholar

Page 391 note 3 ‘Classes in African Society’, in Mizan Newsletter, III, 6, 06 1961, pp. 1823.Google Scholar See, for example, articles by Braginsky, M. I., Katsman, V. Ya., and Orlova, A. S., which appeared in Sovetskaya Ethnografiya (Moscow), no. 6 of 1960 and no. I of 1961.Google Scholar

Page 392 note 1 Parsons, Talcott, The Social System (Glencoe, 1951), pp. 356–8.Google Scholar