Historical failure or short-term success? revisiting post-colonial socialism and the Mozambican “project”, 1975-1994

• Main Author: Pashmforoosh, Golaleh
• Other Authors: Sibanda, Eliakim (History, University of Winnipeg)
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: east Africa; socialism; modernity; state-building; post-colonial
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1993/24041

This study examines the socialist project in Mozambique under the political party Frente de Libertação de Moçambique or Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) from the time of independence in 1975 to the end of its 15-year war with Mozambique National Resistance (MNR/RENAMO) in 1994. After achieving independence from a brutal and obstinate system of Portuguese colonialism in 1975, the chief organization that led the anti-colonial struggle, FRELIMO began a process of creating a socialist-oriented modern nation, modelled on existing examples worldwide. Facing widespread hardship and seemingly insurmountable challenges as well as crumbling communist regimes elsewhere in the world, FRELIMO’s efforts however, soon came to end in the late 1980s. This thesis critically engages the factors that led to the failure of the development of socialism in Mozambique with particular focus on the way that historians and scholars have understood such factors. Combining a review of the existing historiographical literature on the topic as well as data drawn from primary sources from the historical events under study, the aim of the research is to provide an alternative understanding of the collapse of this much-touted and widely observed period of transition for this southeast African country. The thesis suggests re-conceptualizing the notion of single-state self-sufficient socialism as conceived of by FRELIMO, particularly in nations historically subjugated to colonialism and more recently the dictates of international capital, and in doing so also contends that a number of key elements of socialist theories of development have been overlooked in the process. In the context of a recent global economic recession and the seeming deterioration of state authority in the face of globalization, it is necessary to examine the confluence of historical paths that led to the current situation and in this sense the thesis will contribute another view of these histories.