Image - South African Daily Sun urges its readers to consider themselves lucky, as the local “rats of higher prices” don’t have the same appetite as the Zimbabwean ones

The Importance of Zimbabwe

The Zimbabwe elections in March have once again brought the Zimbabwe situation onto the front pages of the bourgeois press. Our rulers would dearly love to see the end of the Mugabe regime and cataloguing its repressive savagery, its attempts to rig, then amend, the election results serves this purpose. The European and US ruling class, however, despite their pretended outrage at the brutality of Mugabe's regime, have no concern for the violation of human rights in Zimbabwe or indeed anywhere else in the world. This is clearly demonstrated by their own violations of human rights and international law in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and numerous other places where they torture and murder their enemies without hesitation. Nor have they any concern for the desperate situation of the Zimbabwe working class. Their motives are the usual sordid ones of the bourgeois class, namely the advancement of their capital, gaining sources of raw materials and spheres of investment; in other words, the protection of their imperialist interests.

The catastrophic situation in Zimbabwe, which is considered below, is producing desperate hardship and leading to social disaster. A measure of the seriousness of the situation is the split in the ruling ZANU party which led to one of Mugabe's henchmen, a former finance minister, Simba Makoni, standing against him in the presidential election. A further indication of the regime's internal crisis is its failure to successfully rig the March elections. Even according to its own electoral commission, the opposition won control of the House of Representatives and their presidential candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, won a greater share of the vote than Mugabe. Mugabe himself described the results as "disastrous" and promised to mobilise the ZANU party more effectively for the run off presidential election. This means, of course, beatings and murder of opposition politicians and those suspected of voting for them. More repression, however, cannot disguise the fact that the regime is tottering. One of the key forces propping up the regime is the assistance it gets from China. By means of Chinese investment, loans and military grants the regime continues to function, despite a collapsing infrastructure and an economy in desperate crisis. The Chinese role was underlined by the arrival, shortly after the election, of a shipload of Chinese arms, suitable for repression of civilians, at the South African port of Durban. These were destined for the Mugabe regime.

This arms cargo was given clearance by the Thabo Mbeki's African National Congress (ANC) government. It was left to the South African dockworkers, in an uplifting act of international solidarity with Zimbabwean workers, to prevent the arms reaching Mugabe's thugs. By refusing to unload these arms in open defiance of the South African state, they demonstrated a courage which the feeble South African bourgeoisie lack. Not only did the dockworkers succeed in blocking the arms but they ensured that the unloading of the ship became an international political issue. The US (for its own imperialist reasons and not for any support for the Zimbabwean working class), now applied pressure on Angola and Mozambique not to let the ship unload either, and the arms were eventually returned to China.

The question of what happens next in Zimbabwe is important to the European and US ruling classes for two main reasons.

The first is that an economic collapse in the country could affect the entire southern African region and thus threaten both mining interests, which are largely owned by western capital, and the minerals they produce which are vital for certain sectors of production and have been called "strategic" by the US. The region is already being destabilised by the Zimbabwe crisis. It is estimated that three million workers have left Zimbabwe and most are in South Africa or Botswana. South Africa already has enough problems of its own. As we predicted in all our articles in the 1980s and early 1990s, the end of apartheid would not mean the end of misery and exploitation for millions of South Africans. Whilst the West treated Mandela like some democratic demi-god, his ANC reneged on every point of its own charter. Instead of state capitalism as the Charter promised with its nationalisation of the main industries, it welcomed international finance into the country, allowed the whites to keep their property and shackled the working class to international capital. Since 1994 (when the ANC took over), the number of people living on less than a dollar a day has doubled to four million. The unemployment rate has doubled to more than 40% ⁽¹⁾ and workers are being pitted against each other in the competition for jobs and houses. By houses we mean shacks since the number of shack dwellers in South Africa has grown by 50% since apartheid ended as two million evictions have taken place. The migrants from Zimbabwe simply add to their numbers. It is here that the very ugly rioting and mob attacks on refugee workers have recently taken place in South Africa. The seriousness of these attacks is shown, not only by the reported 50 or so deaths but also by the South African regime's need to deploy the army to assist the police. This is the first time the army has been deployed against South African civilians by the post apartheid government. Tens of thousands of workers have been forced to return to Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Many of these workers were skilled and their departure is disrupting production in the mines and in industry.

The second reason is that further destabilisation of Southern Africa could increase the penetration of Chinese imperialism which has been slowly but surely establishing itself as the major power in Africa at the expense of the US and Europe who have dominated the area since the mid19th century.

On the Brink of Social Collapse

Zimbabwe remains potentially one of the richest countries in Africa. It has vast mineral wealth, good agricultural land with developed irrigation systems, resources such as rivers for generating hydro electricity and a developed rail and road transport system. However, because it has refused to comply with the dictates of western imperialism, specifically those demanded by the IMF and World Bank ⁽²⁾, it now resembles a country devastated by war. It needs to import food and electricity whereas it previously exported both. Lack of maintenance has meant the roads are so full of pot holes traffic is reduced to weaving between obstructions at a crawling pace; the central control system for the railways has collapsed, sewage is running in the streets, water supplies are erratic and drinking water is rationed. The health service has broken down and there is no money for importing medicines. Life expectancy is now only 37 years and infant mortality is 123 deaths for every 1000 live births. A decade ago the equivalent figures for life expectancy and infant mortality were 65 and 59 respectively. Out of the population of 13 million a decade ago, three million have now fled the country as refugees, and 25% of the remaining population are orphans due to the unchecked ravages of AIDS. 80% of the population are in extreme poverty living on less than the equivalent of $2 per day ⁽³⁾.

The economic situation is disastrous. The country has a $2.5bn debt and is unable to borrow from western institutions or banks because of its failure to implement the IMF's Structural Adjustment plan. ⁽⁴⁾ 80% of the population are unemployed and families are only surviving through remittances sent home by workers abroad, in foreign currency. Inflation has made the Zimbabwean dollar (Z$) virtually valueless and the shops are empty. Savings and pensions in Z$ have become worthless. About 10% of the population are on the brink of starvation. In its last announcement of the inflation rate, the Central Statistical Office (CSO) calculated it at 355 000% for the year ending February 2008. A director of the CSO, Moffat Nyoni, who clearly thought this astronomical rate was not too bad, since it was actually announced, said the government was always looking for cheaper items to include in the "consumer basket" ⁽⁵⁾ but when cheaper items could not be found the figures for inflation were not released. The CSO inflation rate for inflation is considered a gross underestimate since prices are now doubling weekly. The unofficial estimate for annual inflation in May was 1.2 million %. Rates like these are matched only by those of the German Weimar Republic in 1923! To avoid people having to carry suitcases of money about for even the most basic purchases the government is issuing larger and larger denomination notes. In early May the Zimbabwe Central Bank issued a new bank note of 250 million Zimbabwe dollars (Z$) which at the time was worth US $1.50. Only 10 days later, however, they had to issue a 500 million Z$ note but by the time it was issued it was only worth US $2. The bank has since issued Z$5bn, Z$25bn and Z$50bn notes which does not indicate much confidence in the inflation rate coming down.

Workers Hit by Inflation and Government Attacks

Inflation always hits workers hardest as wages do not keep pace with price rises. The policy of gradual inflation, which was at the heart of the management of capitalism in the period after World War II, was devised specifically as a means of producing a steady erosion of workers' real wages, and thus a steady increase in capitalists' profit. When inflation is as dramatic as it is in Zimbabwe the effect on workers is catastrophic. It is impossible for workers to win increases in wages which keep up with inflation on such a scale without continual struggle which would lead to continual confrontation with the state forces of repression, namely the police and the army. This would lead either to massacre or overthrow of the government.

It is clear the working class has been demoralised by emigration of millions of workers, 80% unemployment and the direct attacks on them by the government. The state has tried to break up the concentration of urban workers and unemployed and disperse them to the countryside where they would be easier to control. The campaign of 2005, which was called "Murambatsvina" or in English "drive out the trash" saw the police and army demolishing the shacks ⁽⁶⁾ of the homeless in the capital Harare and other major cities. These slums were where casual workers and the unemployed were living. The people living there were those no longer able to survive in the countryside; those forced to try and sell their labour power in the cities; they were first generation proletarians. Workers in this condition are found in their millions in all the major cities of the southern hemisphere and their existence is a testament to capitalism's need to create a reserve army of labour linked to capitalist productive relations but not fully integrated into it. They help to increase the competition between workers, but, when unemployment is so widespread as in Zimbabwe, the social effect is not quite what the regime intended. The ZANU ⁽⁷⁾ regime, which still calls itself socialist, saw the slum dwellers as a force which could collectively rise up and overthrow it. It correctly saw these people as a threat, as a detachment of the working class, and dispersed them by force. The demolition of the slums and squatter settlements made 700 000 homeless and affected a total of 2.4 million people ⁽⁸⁾. It further increased the tide of emigration and thereby removed a large section of the urban working class from the large cities. These events go some way to explaining the passivity of the Zimbabwean workers in the face of this tremendous crisis.

In May the poverty datum, for a family of 6, was Z$16bn per month ($64) or 35US cents each per day. 80% of the population are at this level or worse off!

Workers' response to the erosion of their living standards on this scale has been muted for the reasons given above. Strikes by workers in the state sector, which we reported in Revolutionary Perspectives 42, have not recurred. Instead of class struggle there is an individual struggle to survive. The strike call by the opposition following the attempted rigging of the election, which was a call to strike for a bourgeois, rather than a working class, demand, was ignored.

The Wider Imperialist Struggle

As we demonstrated in Revolutionary Perspectives 42 ⁽⁹⁾, both ZANU and the MDC represent sections of the Zimbabwean bourgeoisie and these sections are aligned to different factions in the wider imperialist competition for the exploitation of Southern Africa.

ZANU has been ostracised by the West, and the cutting off of finance to the regime has been the West's attempt to produce its collapse. At the same time, Western interests built up the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) as an alternative ruling group. Western capitalist corporations, particularly the mining houses, poured money into the organisation and financed its elections. The MDC stands for returning the country to the bosom of western imperialism. ZANU, in its search for a way out of the corner in which it found itself initiated the "Look East" policy and turned to Chinese imperialism for support. Under this policy Chinese trade with Zimbabwe and Chinese investment in the country has increased dramatically. Trade with China, which was $191mn in 2002, is expected to be $500mn this year. Chinese companies are operating in Zimbabwe producing building materials and the Chinese are taking a share of the country's iron, chrome, nickel and platinum production. Chinese/Zimbabwean joint ventures have been set up in mining, transport, communications and energy ⁽¹⁰⁾. The operations of the Chinese in Zimbabwe are part of a more general strategy which the Chinese are following throughout Africa.

China and Africa

The enormous growth taking place in China is producing a massive accumulation of capital which, of course, requires continued growth to valorise capital values. The size of the Chinese economy is expected to exceed that of Germany this year, and it is now the case that three of the five largest corporations in the world are Chinese, the largest being PetroChina ⁽¹¹⁾. The Chinese are scouring the world for sources of raw materials and energy to fuel this massive growth. It is this which is behind the Chinese penetration of Africa during the last decade. China's trade with Africa is now $55.5bn annually and exceeds that of the US. China has investments in Africa of over $6bn and, in November 2006, China promised a further $5bn would be invested in the coming years. In addition the Chinese have forgiven $1bn of existing debt. Approximately 800 Chinese companies operating in Africa engaged in oil extraction, raw materials extraction, construction of infrastructure projects such as roads and dams, agricultural production, telecommunications and even productions of commodities for export. The Chinese have, for example, established industrial enterprise zones in Liberia, Zambia and Sierra Leone in which Chinese companies produce commodities using local workers. These factories produce commodities such as textiles for export. These zones allow Chinese factories to evade EU and US import restrictions. Through all these arrangements, the Chinese are obtaining 25% of their oil imports from Africa, together with cheap raw materials and markets for Chinese commodities manufactured in China itself.

During the three decades following the early 70s, Africa's share of world trade, of world manufacturing and its per capita income all declined dramatically ⁽¹²⁾. In the last 25 years poverty in Africa has virtually doubled. At present 44% of the continent's population, or 300 million people, live on less than $1 per day whereas in 1981 the number was only 159 million. However, 70% of the continent's population are still peasant farmers or herdsmen, and the continent still has great potential for development as the size of the working class is increased. Chinese moves into Africa are exploiting not only its raw materials, but are also motivated by the potential for exploiting its workers. Needless to say, Chinese investments have been welcomed with open arms by the African bourgeoisie, because the capital flowing into the continent revives growth and employment. This capital comes as an African version of the Marshall Aid plan. With this inflow of Chinese capital, African growth rates have increased from around 3% in 2000 to 5.7% in 2007 ⁽¹³⁾.

Most of the Chinese infrastructural work is carried out by Chinese workers. Workers are brought in from China, live in gated camps and have little contact with local people. The work is often paid for by the export of raw materials. For example, in Angola, the repair of roads and railways is paid for by export of Angolan oil to China. In the enterprise zones where Chinese factories are producing commodities for export and local workers are employed, these workers are treated the same as workers in China. Pay is low, for example, in Zambia textile workers receive between $24 and $88 per month, long hours are expected and safety standards are minimal. All this is nothing more than capitalism in action and the fact that the local bourgeoisie welcome it should not surprise anyone. However, while the local bourgeoisie may welcome the Chinese in Africa, the US and European bourgeoisie do not.

What is developing in Africa is a conflict of imperialist interests between the US and China. This conflict comes into focus and can be clearly seen in various countries, such as Sudan, where the US has lost its hold on the country's oil resources, and now Zimbabwe, where sources of platinum, chrome and nickel are threatened. Whereas, in the period up to the collapse of the Russian bloc, the clash of imperialist interests in Africa was between the US and Russia today it's between the US and China. The contestants have changed but the reasons behind the conflict remain the familiar ones of the struggle of imperialism for resources, spheres of investment and workers to exploit.

Nothing Changes for Workers

For the working class in Africa it matters little whether the capital exploiting it is US owned or Chinese owned. Mugabe has tried to play the populist card that Zimbabawe has kept out the imperialist agencies of the West (the IMF and the World Bank, etc.) who have held South Africa in thrall since apartheid ended. However, the consequent destruction of the Zimbabwean economy has forced him into the arms of Chinese imperialism. It is one further illustration that there is no real national "independence" in the imperialist epoch of capitalism. Under all regimes of capitalism its exploitation remains unquestioned and the objective of that exploitation, namely the generation of profit, is unaltered.

In Zimbabwe, workers are living on the brink of starvation and can only expect to live on average for 37 years. This is of little interest to capitalists as long as the dead workers are replaced to create the maximum of surplus value (the source of capitalist profit) for international capital. These fundamentals will not change whichever imperialist power dominates the region. The only way in which the descent into poverty and barbarism can be halted is by a change in the system. At present the battered Zimbabwean working class is not yet in a position to fight back and many put their hopes in an election defeat for ZANU. But, if the MDC replaces ZANU as imperialism's chosen government, the exploitation of the working class will not decrease. Only the ending of capitalist production and the institution of global production for social need will put an end to the nightmare in Zimbabwe. At present this is some way off but the strikes that have recently taken place in Zambia and South Africa indicate that the working class in the region is ready to fight. The solidarity shown by the South African dockers sends out the message that Zimbabawe's workers are not alone. Ultimately, though, this fight has to take place in the context of an international overthrow of capitalism. Global capital can only be defeated by a world working class which is politically organised and united. That is what we are working for...

(1) There are two measures of unemployment in South Africa. The narrow measure which only takes into account those who have actively searched for work in the last 4 weeks (25%) and the broad measure which includes those who want work but have not searched in the last 4 weeks (40%). In actual fact independent estimates put the real figure nearer 50% (see "South Africa - The Statistics" in Le Monde Diplomatique (September 2006) .

(2) This is discussed in more detail in Revolutionary Perspectives 42 "As Economic Collapse Looms the Vultures Gather".

(3) Reported by BBC 12th April 2008.

(4) This is discussed in detail in "As Economic Collapse Looms the Vultures Gather" in Revolutionary Perspectives 42.

(5) This, of course, is exactly what the all capitalist governments do. The UK government is continually trying to fudge the inflation figures. See Revolutionary Perspectives 45 "Food and Fuel Price Rises."

(6) The campaign of demolitions was not only limited to shacks but schools, office blocks and orphanages were also demolished.

(7) ZANU is an acronym for Zimbabwe African National Union and previously described itself as socialist and "Marxist." It is, on the contrary, nationalist and bourgeois.

(8) See crisisgroup.org .

(9) See "As Economic Collapse Looms the Vultures Gather" Revolutionary Perspectives 42 & leftcom.org

(10) See yaleglobal.yale.edu .

(11) See Financial Times, 17th March 2008 "China's Champions".

(12) See Revolutionary Perspectives 31 "A Showcase of Capitalist Decline".

(13) See imf.org .