Tanzania's socialist period sparked significant global interest – frequently quite romanticized, of the type termed “Tanzaphilia” by Ali Mazrui. Its emphasis on the village as the site and source of a soft type of democratic socialism, its avowed non-alignment and commitment to self-reliance, its forgiving attitude towards the remaining domestic colonial settlers but unsparing commitment to dismantling the remaining settler states on its southern border, and its rejection of Marxist notions of class struggle made Julius Nyerere's Tanzania an attractive model for pan-Africanists – social democrats and liberals alike. Despite its official rejection of class ideologies, however, the Tanzanian state that emerged at the tail end of the period was a one-party-state in which a particular class category ruled supreme: the bureaucratic elite, rooted in economic sectors and regimented mass organizations that had come under party-state control. Independent associations and social movements such as those embodied by autonomous trade unions, striking workers, and self-governing rural mass movements that had existed in the first years of Tanganyika's independence had been repressed and replaced with party-state-controlled structures. Serious political opposition had become criminalized, and independent media nationalized. When Tanzania's ruling party eventually veered to the right, it faced no serious obstacles in doing so.
The above indicates that Tanzania's socialist experience was not fundamentally dissimilar to what transpired in other African states between the 1960s and 1980s. What sets Tanzania apart from most cases is that its ruler Nyerere, and his TANU/CCM party, not only retained power, but also broad popular support and a high level of international prestige even after its socialist project wound down. Interest in the Tanzanian Ujaama period lingers on. The volume under review is an example of this. But it presents a novel take on events, parting ways with the literature's predominant focus on rural transformations and Ujamaa villages, “away from the countryside and grassroot experiences of socialism and towards the capital and governing elite” (p. 11).
In Revolutionary State-Making in Dar es Salaam George Roberts “joins a growing number of works which explore the potential for cities to serve as a geographic lens for writing political histories which ground global and transnational dynamics in local contexts” (p. 3). The global is here represented by Cold War rivalries and African liberation politics, while the local is represented by the increasingly authoritarian state-making politics of the elite. The focus on elite politics is explicit and the volume thus adopts a top-down perspective (p. 13).
The volume's chapters cover relatively disparate themes, connected by their situation to the 1960s and 1970s Dar es Salaam and a consistent thematic attention to their effects on, or meaning for, aspects of Tanzanian state-making.
In the first of these chapters, Roberts describes how Tanzania's capital became “a Cold War city”: “not just a mecca for liberation movements, but also a critical site of Cold War competition” and “a notorious site of rumour, propaganda, and espionage” (p. 27). A key factor was a foreign policy that sought non-alignment while nevertheless supporting African liberation struggles. This caused tensions with Western powers, and pitted Tanzania against its neighbouring settler colonies. Other factors discussed include the Zanzibari revolution of 1964 (which resulted in its union with Tanganyika, creating the United Republic of Tanzania) and the subsequent mutiny of the army's sole regiment – put down by British forces. These factors created a sense of insecurity, but also set the stage for a leftward shift in the politics of state.
The first major step in this direction is discussed in the second chapter: Nyerere's 1967 landmark Arusha Declaration, which established socialism and self-reliance as goals. The politics of the Arusha period are explained primarily as outcomes of elite rivalries and “the agency of individual politicians” (p. 67), responding to insecurities and a developmental impasse. The role of Nyerere looms large, in calling all the decisive shots and deciding what elite “faction” stays on top momentarily. The elite rivalries described are thus largely relegated to the jockeying for his favour, as the final arbitrator.
Next, attention is turned to another arena where Nyerere's final arbitration proved decisive: the jockeying for Tanzanian favour by the two German states, and Tanzania's attempt to balance their engagements with the Cold War blocs they represented. This example illustrates that non-alignment did not mean equidistance. After a brief dip in the mid to late 1960s, relations with the FRG were soon restored to prominence, and those with the GDR were played down. Roberts explains this in terms of “Nyerere's distaste for East Germany” (p. 121), as well as the ham-fisted ways in which the GDR sought to build relationships with the Tanzanian elite. One might suspect that the overriding imperative to attract Western aid – which the author notes but assigns secondary importance to – was an even stronger factor. Whatever the cause for opting for stronger relations with the Federal Republic, it eventually boiled down to Nyerere's favour.
By switching the focus to the 1969 assassination of Mozambican FRELIMO's leader Eduardo Mondlane in Dar es Salaam and the politics of its exiled liberation movements in the chapter that follows, Roberts displays the enmeshment of foreign – African liberation politics in this case – and Tanzanian politics in the city in a nuanced and riveting manner. Roberts convincingly demonstrates that “liberation politics were ingrained in local Tanzanian affairs and their transnational connections” (p. 140). But it remains the story of the politics of elites – Tanzanian and liberation movement elites overlapping.
In the fifth chapter glimpses of mass politics emerge. Three demonstrations that occurred in 1968 are discussed, illustrating how “transnational motifs and languages” of the global protest movement of that year locally “were tethered to the nation-building and foreign policy aims of the Tanzanian party-state” (p. 174). In fact, at least one of the protests was ordered by Nyerere himself (p. 186). Roberts argues that the demonstrations in Tanzania differed from the global trend by being supportive of their own ruling party and government, but it is questionable to what degree this sets Tanzania apart from other African states at the time. The radicalism of youthful participants nevertheless tested the boundaries of what the Tanzanian party-state would tolerate, and in some cases “drew interventions from President Nyerere himself” (p. 175).
This is followed by a chapter discussing media politics and the process by which the ruling party acquired firm control over the sector – leading to a situation where Nyerere himself appointed and fired editors of major newspapers. It also discusses the curtailment of more radical journalism, again, by Nyerere's decision.
In the final chapter, Roberts discusses the 1971 “TANU Guidelines” – a manifesto that prescribed progressive reforms such as the nationalization of rented houses, and unleashed popular energies in a wave of labour unrest. But to call this path “ultra-radical” (p. 260) seems a bit over the top. Indeed, as Roberts notes, the guidelines “did not represent a sudden power shift in itself”. The strike wave that followed was met with repression, and Nyerere reshuffled the government, replacing potential challengers with inexperienced loyalists: “a clinical political move that confidently asserted Nyerere's authority” (p. 266). Prominent radical Abdulrahman Mohamed Babu was to be arrested a couple of months later.
The author's attention to detail is impressive and his knowledge of the subject area impeccable. The volume deserves praise for how well it connects the different spatial levels of analysis, and integrates them through the prism of the local, creating a riveting narrative in an appealing style of writing. However, a couple reservations are warranted.
Whereas the elite-focused approach indeed can be said to “restore the agency of individual politicians” (p. 67), it comes at the cost of muting the agencies of the multitude/masses. Without consistent attention to the interplay between rulers and ruled (and the dynamics of legitimation, representation, and contestation between them) it is difficult to discern the real pull the latter has on the former, including in the design of policy. Elite politics devoid of its relations to the masses lacks a determinant dimension.
In this volume, there is a tendency for much of the elite politics to collapse into the final call of Nyerere. The author acknowledges the danger of an exaggerated focus on the person of Nyerere: “It remains difficult not to write about Nyerere ‘saying this’ or ‘doing that’”, he writes (p. 218). But the approach selected makes it all the more difficult to avoid. A central problem of the “from above” elite focus is that it imbues the state with an implausible level of autonomy from society. The absence of a theory of the state – particularly in post-colonial African contexts – and its relationship with society contributes to this.
There is a tendency to be kind on the elite in general (and Nyerere in particular), who do not appear to be bound by any common social interests as an elite – or emerging ruling class. This conceals conflicts of interests and disguises them as purely ideational or personal. For an elite perspective on politics to be meaningful it must interrogate elite social interests. In the context of the Ujamaa period in Tanzania, as well as in much of contemporaneous Africa, this is connected with the bureaucratic nature of the dominant classes and categories, an element that was thoroughly theorized in Tanzania itself at the time. A unifying thread of almost all the policies that won the day in the debates and conjunctures discussed was that they advanced the material and political interests of bureaucratic categories and classes: increasing bureaucratic control over the economy and society, growing authoritarianism under the aegis of the one-party-state, the “political approach” to development over the “economic approach”, the gradual repression of labouring classes and radical dissent, and the subordination of the rhetorical commitment to self-reliance to escalating volumes of Western aid.
This volume vividly brings out the processes of state-making that elevated post-colonial bureaucratic categories and eventually transformed them into a ruling class. Although it was dressed up and concealed in the language of popular socialism, this aspect – the creation of a ruling class out of bureaucratic categories – is arguably the most revolutionary aspect of the state-building enterprise detailed in the book. Whereas Tanzania's socialist period had pronounced particularities, it is also what unifies the post-colonial history of Tanzania with most of its continental neighbours, creating another layer of connections.
