NATIONALISM AND REVOLUTION IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA Giovanni Arrighi and John S. Saul IN an earlier essay1 we stressed the poverty of academic debate on the relevance of socialism to development goals in Tropical Africa and advanced the argument that socialism is, in fact, rapidly becoming an historical necessity in order to ensure the further development of the area. At the same time it must be noted that the quality of debate among socialists concerning the actual possibility of revolutionary, socialist transformation in Africa2 in the present historical conjuncture also leaves much to be desired. Thus some circles on the Left have fallen back upon a form of "agrarian messianism", as one writer has characterized it; in this model a pure and undefiled peasantry becomes the major vector for progressive change in Afri~a.O~th er Western marxists, in an attempt (legitimate in rnany respects) to counteract such tendencies, have themselves often taken stands which smack, in turn, of "proletarian mes~ianism".I~f such extremes are to be avoided, and the intellectual bases for relevant strategies laid, greater attention will have to be paid both to the real nature of pre-capitalist African societies as restructured by capitalist penetration on the one hand, and to the processes of capitalist accumulation in the underdeveloped world under the present conditions of oligopolistic market structures and revolution- ized technology on the other. Another related aspect of such oversimplification has been an absence of sufficient differentiation between the component parts of contempor- ary Africa; to further minimize the dangers of too undiscriminating a set of analytical categories we must instead attempt to balance an awareness of such similarities as mark the structures of various regions, states and communities against an adequate understanding of the often more important differences between them. These similarities and differ- ences become more readily apparent within a framework which focuses upon the various kinds of uneven development thrown up by capitalist penetration in Africa. For the underdevelopment of Africa as a whole relative to the industrial centres of the West has been accompanied and mediated by uneven development as between regions, states, tribes and races within Africa itself and this fact adds important dimensions to the class struggle in Africa and to the character of the resistance of progressive African forces to contemporary imperialism. 137 Not surprisingly the kinds of oversimplification already mentioned have tended to preclude a correct identification of the major forces underwriting the stability of the present continental conjuncture, while at the same time inhibiting an adequate assessment of those contra- dictions relevant to defining the possibilities for progressive action. We feel therefore that the general qualifications which we have introduced above urgently require clarification if such revolutionary potential as exists in Africa today is not to be wasted. It is in fact a sense of urgency which has prompted us to attempt a work of synthesis which the lack of relevant research on more limited questions makes difficult and tentative. We hope in this way to contribute to a definition of the problems that demand investigation and clear confrontation, though we are aware that the methods for their solution can only evolve from the revolutionary praxis of the African people. Any attempt to identify the major determinants underlying con- temporary African realities and, in particular, to identify those forces which provide the dynamic for uneven development as a continental process, must first assess the structure of western capitalism's interest in Africa; such a focus suggests in turn two hypotheses of crucial signifi- cance. First, there has been a broadening of Western capitalist interests in the underdeveloped world in general due to the more direct involve- ment of the multi-national corporations in such industrialization as takes place in the peripheriesR This relative shift of emphasis away from the pattern of classic "extractive" imperialism (whose drive was postulated primarily upon the guaranteeing of supplies of raw materials and of outlets for the sale of manufacturing goods in the under- developed world) has been reinforced by the sharp decline in profit- ability and attractiveness of the agricultural sector of overseas interests. Second, the factors determining the drive for export of capital from the advanced capitalist centres have themselves been shifting dramati- cally in the wake of the post-war technological "revolution". In particular, the exploitation of cheap labour overseas has lost much of its significance;Vnstead the factor of overwhelming contemporary importance is the existence of a relatively developed and rapidly ex- panding industrial structure, as the latter ensures the smooth operation of capitalist manufacturing enterprises from the standpoint of outlets for their products and sources of factors of production. Other deter- minants, such as the aforementioned low relative labour costs, favour- able political climate, possibility to export profits, and the like are also important but are highly imperfect substitutes for this dominant fact~r.~ The combination of these two novel aspects of capitalist development on a world scale have come to define, in effect, a "second phase" of imperial predominance. Of course, investment in extractive industry retains much of its traditional centrality in relationship to the mining sect~r,b~ut even here the dominant factors will be the presence and nature of mineral deposits and the degree of freedom accorded to the investing enterprises in pricing output, since this is the main device used by vertically integrated combines to transfer surpluses across political boundaries. One major exception is gold mining, where price is not subject to oligopolistic determination and for which, therefore, cheapness of labour retains much of its significance. The above considerations suggest a hierarchy of capitalist interests in the various regions of Sub-Saharan Africa. Clearly, what we shall call the Southern Africa Complex, centred around industrial South Africa and Rhodesia and including South-West Africa, Angola, Mozam- bique and the quasi-Bantustans of Swaziland, Lesotho and Botswana, is by far the most important region in respect of the above criteria, being characterized by a relatively developed industrial structure and exceptional mineral wealth; concomitantly the scope of Western capital- ist involvement in the area is vast indeed. This is, of course, a familiar story and will bear only limited repetition here.g Britain, with over £1,000 million invested in the Republic of South Africa and some £200 million in Rhodesia, remains the major investing capitalist country in the area. Dennis Austin, a veteran British observer of African Affairs, has sketched the full scope of British economic interests in South Africa-banks, investments in manufacturing and mining, trade, access to gold-and, characteristically, blanched, as has the British Government on all occasions, at any prospect of rocking so profitable a boat.1° By 1963, South Africa had overtaken the U.S. and Australia as Britain's biggest earner of investment income abroad. U.S. investment in South Africa is still a bad second to Britain's but its significance lies in its rapid growth. Thus U.S. direct invest- ments alone rose from $50 million in 1943 to $140 million in 1950, $286 million in 1960 and $467 million in 1964 when South Africa accounted for almost 30 per cent of all U.S. direct investment in Africa.ll This rapid growth of U.S. direct investments, which are also being rapidly diversified into manufacturing, is not surprising in view of the fact that "in 1964, the last year for which [Dept. of Commerce] figures are available, U.S. direct investments generated earnings of nearly $100 million, equal to 21 per cent in net worth, making South Africa the most profitable country for private investment in the world".12 In 1961 when the panic after the SharpvilIe massacre caused some investors to pull out it was perhaps their greater "calculating rationality" which encouraged the eighty American firms then in- volved in South Africa to stand fast. Indeed : "When action came in 1961 it was concerted and direct. American firms increased their investments by $23 million (to about $442 million in 1962), and an ad Izoc financial consortium advanced a $50 million loan to the Government, the First National City Bank putting up $5 million, the Chase Manhattan Bank $10 million, the International Monetary Fund $38 million, the World Bank, $28 million, and 'U.S. lenders not publicly identified' $70 million. The situation was saved. Since that crisis the number of American companies investing in South Africa's future has nearly tripled."" Needless to say, French, German and other interests have all been involved in the new gold rush. Not surprisingly, despite verbal protestations, the activities of the American State have not diverged far from the logic of support for the South African status quo already witnessed in such private under- takings. Various observers have catalogued a number of striking in- stances of such American governmental activity but similar lists could be compiled for other capitalist powers. Item, the U.S. government contributed 4.9 million dollars or 29.77 per cent of the budget of an organization called the Inter-governmental Committee for European Migration which by 1965 had brought 25,000 Europeans to South Africa, mainly in the vital skilled worker category. Item, [Despite] widespread African fears and international speculation that uran- ium-rich South Africa may try to develop both nuclear energy an,d nuclear weapons, the American Atomic Energy Commission [has] trained South African technicians at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and loaned the South African Amtomic Energy Board a reactor consultant (Thomas Cole of Oak Ridge National Laboratory) to whom the South Africans con- sider themselves 'largely indebted for the successful commission of Safari 1', their first nuclear reactor which was dedicated in August, 1965, in the presence of Dr. Alvin Weinburg, director of the Oak Ridge National Labora- tory.14 Item, the many roles of "Citizen Eberhart", American representative to Gabonese and Zambian Independence celebrations, the prime mover of powerful Rand Mines and a director of the Anglo-American Cor- poration of South Africa, of the Witwatersrand Native Labour Associa- tion and of the Native Recruiting Corporation, confidant of Presidents described by Lyndon Johnson as "a humanitarian of the first order".15 The list could be extended indefinitelv. Of course, in addition to such a range of involvements in the Republic of South Africa itself, a wide variety of Western capitalist interests are also conspicuously active in the other territories of the Southern African Complex, like Rhodesia, South West Africa and Angola, although, particularly in the latter two instances, investment is there directed mainly to the exploitation of mineral resources.16 In sharp contrast to this situation, the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa, with its lack of an industrial structure, growing shortage of foreign exchange (which endangers the export of profit), little developed capitalist relations of production and low density of population remains a region of relatively small comparative attraction for foreign manu- facturing concerns. As a result that "broadening'' of Western capitalist interests which has been observed in other regions of thc underdeveloped world17 and which was referred to above, remains embryonic in tropical Africa. As C. C. O'Brien has suggested, the area considered as a whole still occupies something of a "reserve position in the international capitalist strategy7'. We shall return to this point in Section 111, but it is important to note here that this conclusion does not fully apply to those few countries like Gabon, the Congo, Nigeria and Zambia endowed with known mineral resources of great importance to the world economy which are therefore of special concern to international capitalism. It should also be noted that countries like Kenya, Ghana, and the Ivory Coast, which (owing to their relatively more structured economies) play or can play the role of peripheral-centres, are import- ant in ways denied to more marginal economies.18 This is not to deny that such countries, which are those more directly impinged upon by the "second phase" of imperialist economic predominance mentioned above, will also find their genuine transformation constrained in the long-run by the logic of their continuing dependent relationship, how- ever novel the terms of that dependency.l9 But the differential patterns of growth involved are, nonetheless, among the most significant aspects of uneven development on the continent and can come to have import- ant implications for differing internal situations as between various African states and for the kinds of inter-state relationships which are constructed on such foundation^.^^ Nor should independent Africa's relative unimportance be seen to preclude the possibility of the capital- ist world's playing its trump cards when more subtle measures of con- trol, generally successful in the present continental conjuncture, prove inadequate. Thus, in Gabon, French paratroopers intervened in 1964 to restore their tottering puppet Mba. America's logistic and military support for Tshombe in his suppression of the threat to his collabora- tionist government from the Eastern Congo in 1964 was equally graphic, though somewhat more nuanced was its support for Mobutu when the game (and American interests) took on a more anti-Belgian character. Certainly future strategic calculation must never under- estimate the implications of such events. Notwithstanding certain clualifications, however, it can be assumed that the retention within the international capitalist system of so profit- able a field of investment and source of strategic raw materials as the Southern African Complex occupies the dominant position in the structure of Western capitalist interests in Sub-Saharan Africa. In consequence their main concern vis-2-vis independent Africa is to pre- vent the growth of strong politico-economic systems independent of Western capitalist hegemony in the countries bordering upon the South- ern African Complex (Congo, Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania) which could, among other things, seriously threaten (through their support for the increasingly radical liberation movements) white rule in Southern Africa. International capitalism, as noted above, will further have more sectional but nonetheless important interests in controlling political- economic processes of development in those countries which we have singled out as peripheral-centres and (in particular) as centres of , mineral exploitation. Interests in the other countries can be assumed to be mainly indirect, in the sense that whatever measure of control international capitalism may exercise over them will aim more at their retention as satellites of the peripheral centres or their use as pawns in increasing the strategic security of centres of mineral exploitation, than at securing fields of profitable investment and trade. The implications of this structure of interests will become obvious as we proceed. We should however further clarify these interests by defining them in relation to issues which have traditionally been assigned crucial significance. To begin with, the intensity of conflicts over labour retribution between international capitalism and wage workers in the periphery has been considerably lessened. It is of course true that the immediate effect of a rise in wages and salaries is a reduc- tion in profits. Yet, owing to the low labour intensity of productive processes controlled by the multi-national corporations, this effect is likely to be small and, given the oligopolistic character of such cor- porations, can be largely passed on to those classes and strata (in the industrial centres and especially in the peripheries) that are unable to protect their real incomes.'l In addition, under African conditions, higher wages can reduce significantly labour turnover, thereby rais- ing productivity, particularly in those enterprises where the stability of the labour force is a requirement for imparting specialized skills. Obviously, this is a fact of the most crucial significance for assessing the likely role of the wage-earning sector in contemporary Africa, a consideration to which we shall return. More generally, the fact of rapidly rising wages and salaries, by introducing a bias in consump- tion and accumulation patterns in favour of imports, by weakening government finances (the State being the major employer of labour in most independent African countries), and by undermining the com- petitive position of local capitalist strata (if they exist at all), will be one more powerful force promoting the further political-economic in- tegration of the modern sectors of the periphery with the advanced capitalist centres.22T hat some of the latter results are also such as to sustain a general economic structure inhibiting the full extension of those neo-colonial involvements which we have seen to be characteristic of "second-phase imperialism" is merely one of the more dramatic contradictions of international capitalism's presence in contemporary Africa. International capitalism is inevitably antagonistic to the sorts of comprehensive planning which might definitively rupture such con- straints upon the development process. Nonetheless, certain seemingly novel departures do become acceptable to, are even encouraged by, an international capitalism increasingly concerned to free some of the continent's potential for industrialization. Thus, a degree of state involvement in the economy, particularly in the non-extractive sectors, has not always seemed a great threat to a flexible contemporary international capitalism. As a matter of fact, partnership agreements or management contracts with African statal and parastatal enterprises are increasingly seen by the international corporations as effective ways of reducing or eliminating altogether entrepreneurial and political risks, while profits are obtained in the form of royalties, fees for "technical services", use of patents and brand names, and through sales of equip- ment.23W hat is crucial to such a capitalism is the continuation of this stream of payments and therefore the orientation of such industrializa- tion as may take place in Africa towards reliance upon the industrial capitalist centres. Nor is contemporary international capitalism necessarily antagonistic to the development of larger politico-economic units and common markets. On the contrary, as the phase of import substitution in the light industrial sector draws to a close, the excessive balkanization of Africa becomes a serious constraint upon the extension of its conti- nental role. Paralleling the attitude towards State involvement, it is only unification aimed at a process of autonomous industrialization (an historical necessity for the successful modernization of African societies)24 that would antagonize international capitalism. The latter can, on the other hand, be relied upon to promote African unification provided that it widens the scope for its own involvement on the continent. It is no accident that AID has placed a growing emphasis upon the construction of broader markets and regional group- ings, that the Korry Report on Africa stressed that American aid to Africa should be increasingly geared to such units, or that this was also a point of emphasis in the recommendations of the Report of a special Sub-committee on Foreign Economic Policy of the United States House of Reprentative~.~~ The fact that the United States, more than any other capitalist power, is promoting the idea of larger economic units in Africa, is significant in another respect. So far we have not differentiated among national interests within international capitalism. Yet Western capital- ism is no simple monolith and its national dimensions must be taken into account in any analysis of its structure. Neo-colonial relations continue to be mediated to Africa in diverse ways. By and large the most prominent remain those channels first established during the period of formal colonial dominance. This is particularly the case for those ex-French colonies who now find themselves entwined with the former metropole through the multiple mechanisms of the franc zone and Common Market agreements, and their economics thereby encouraged in the maintenance of integration with, and effective subordination to, their European counterpart: "through partici- pation in formulating and financing African development plans, through the control of money and credit policies, and through tariff and trade agreements, France thus exercises a dominant and detailed influence over the direction of de~elopment".S~im~ ilarly, but to a lesser degree, privileges for Britain and Belgium have been reproduced in the "de-colonization" process of their former colonies. These national components of centre-periphery relations in Africa must however be analysed in historical perspective. It is undisputable, for example, that even in the French case, such a component has been significantly weakened,27a nd that the major force behind this tendency has been the consolidation of United States hegemony within Western capitalism. For the U.S. has unquestionably established itself since the war as the world's pre-eminent economic force, a fact under- lying its insistence upon a liberalisme absolu in the Third World which gives free play to its economic superiority in what Oglesby has termed the "free-world empire". Critically weighed within such a perspective, the winning of formal independence in Africa must be seen as related to the process of internationalization of centre-periphery relations. It is in fact evident that the complex of international capitalism, particu- larly when seen to be increasingly skewed in an American direction, had little reason to be hostile to the process. Formal decolonization had, in fact, the virtue of liberalizing economic access to the erstwhile colonies. If, as must have seemed a good bet, trustworthy indigdnes were those likely to seize and hold the reins of power, a neo-colonial solution then seemed an acceptable answer to the growth of nationalist pressure in much of the continent. Even in places like Rhodesia and the Portuguese territories there is little doubt that this could be looked to as a viable solution by many of the interests involved, though, as will be apparent, there were additional complicating factors in these in- stances. Seen in this light, the mechanisms of French and other ex- colonial powers' control referred to above appear in large measure defensive in nature. As Barbe notes : "Thus, as opposed to the thorough-going liberalism advocated by American imperialism, French imperialism tends to interpose a set of controls [un semi- dirigisme], a practice better-fitted to its position of secondary importance [puissance de second ordre] (in spite of the pretentions articulated by our leaders)".28 To be sure, Africa has remained less central to American concern than other areas of the globe. I11 1964 U.S. capital directly invested in the continent amounted to only $1,629 million or less than 4 per cent of total U.S. capital directly invested abroad. Further, the bulk of it (80 per cent) was accounted for by capital invested in South Africa and in a few oil producing countries.29B ut throughout the conti- nent there is evidence of a growing range of American involvements, as witnessed by the numerous examples collated by Vignes30 of American banks and companies expanding their interests and contacts. This growing involvement is not always congruent with the interests of, and is therefore resisted by, other Western actors. Thus, according to the former American ~mbassadorto Gabon, "in several African coun- tries de Gaulle's government has been discovered, sometimes in little " scheming ways and sometimes in ways not so little, to be working against the United States, to frustrate [U.S.] policies and diminish IU.S.1 infl~ence".I~n~ Gabon itself, Darlington suggests, the French intervention to restore Mba which was rkferred to above was as much directed to forestall further American aggrandizement as to realize any other objective. The reasons for this are self-evident to him : in Gabon "the French resented U.S. Steel's large participation in manganese and Bethlehem Steel's 50 per cent share in the iron ore. They were considerably disgruntled when Foley Brothers of Pleasant- ville New York obtained the contract from the World Bank to make . . the survey for Gabon's railway. ."32 And the "proxy fight" in the Congo during the past few years over mineral interests has also wit- nessed an expanding American involvement, presumably related to her expanded military and political role, which has led to overt conflicts between the United States and Belgian busine~ses.~~ These conflicts are peripheral manifestations of intra-capitalist con- flicts in the industrial centres34 and speculations on the particular manner (and the timing thereof) in which they will be solved are beyond the scope of our analysis. We shall simply assume that the present phase of relatively intense intra-capitalist competition will end with the "survival of the fittest" i.e. the American based giant corporations and those Europeans and Japanese based corporations which will succeed in attaining the size and efficiency of their American counterparts. As current trends already show,35 nationalities will, in the process, be largely transcended within the corporations themselves, which then tend to acquire a multi-national character. The relevance of this phenomenon for Africa is already apparent and can be gauged by following through the complex patterns of interlocking and overlapping corporate structures traced in Nkrumah's book already cited. Strictly national interests become less clear in such a maze. Thus, even if it is true that Western "monopoly capitalism" is no simple monolith, there are reasons to expect it to become increasingly so; its political-economic domination of Africa will accordingly be "rationalized". A first implication of this rationalization would be a strengthening of that trend towards capitalist sponsored economic and political integration in Africa which we discussed earlier, because the obstacles to such an integration traceable to the persistence of links with ex-colonial powers would be relaxed. A second effect would be a weak- ening of the bargaining position of the African ruling classes in their dealings with Western capitalism as much of what strength they can presently claim seems to derive from opportunities provided by the competition among capitalist powers. Such a "bargaining position" may have helped the Francophone African states to gain various con- cessions in the sale of their primary products to France (and her partners in the E.E.C.), the quid pro quo being privileged access by the metropole for the launching of various forms of investment. This was obviously not part of a development strategy designed to alter drastic- ally the structure of the "colonial" economies but it did increase the possibilities for the ruling classes to gain a breathing space for them- selves and their economies. More controversially, it has been argued that a state like the Congo could hope to obtain more significant leverage over the proceeds from its mining resources because of such c0mpetition.5~A nd Western aid, though it has in any event tended to serve the primary purpose of reinforcing development strategies reliant upon international ~apitalism,w~o~u ld be more forthcoming as long as the situation remained an ambiguous one for competing capitalisms. When also placed in the context of an abatement of intense East-West competition characteristic of the present period of peaceful coexist- e n ~ eo,n~e ~re alizes that such general phenomena as the increased difficulties experienced by African states in striking favourable bargains for their agricultural interests39 and the relative decline in available aid must be interpreted, in the absence of any signicant attempts to break out of the overall neo-colonialist pattern, as merely reflecting the key trend towards increased subservience vis-h-vis a rationalizing international capitalism which we have been tracing. We have already mentioned the centrality of Southern Africa to international capitalist concern; among what we might call the various "sub-totalities" of Sub-Saharan Africa, characterized by different class and power structures, it is immediately apparent that the Southern