Mao Zedong on Africa – His remarks in context

Mao Zedong as a Chinese Marxist-Leninist and communist revolutionary also cared a lot about the situation in other countries. Especially Asia, Africa and South America were his focus. Therefore he also met many African guests. So, what were Mao’s views on Africa and how can we learn from them?

In 1961 Mao said towards a delegation of foreign guests from Guinea, Jordan, South Africa, Senegal, Zambia, Uganda and Kenya:

“Africa is the forefront of struggle.”¹

Mao had in view that in Africa the contradictions of imperialist exploitation would start revolutionary struggles for liberation from imperialism.

Mao said in 1959 to a delegation of representatives from Cameroon, Guinea, Kenya and Madagascar:

“The task for all of Africa is to struggle against imperialism, against those who follow imperialism, rather than to struggle against capitalism or establish socialism.”²

“The nature of the revolution there is a bourgeois democratic revolution, not a proletarian socialist revolution.”³

Did Mao say so because he thought that socialism would be generally impossible in Africa? Did Mao think that the entire world would turn red except Africa? No, this is not the case. The reason for this remark is the fact that from colonial (capitalist) and semi-feudal conditions it is impossible to directly establish socialism. Tsarist Russia used to be an imperialist, therefore capitalist, country with a vast semi-feudal economy. This is why Lenin said in “Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution” (1905) that the proletariat must pursue the (bourgeois-)democratic revolution under its leadership and after it go over to the socialist revolution⁴. Mao said something similar in 1940 in his work “On New Democracy”:

“The Chinese revolution cannot avoid taking the two steps, first of New Democracy and then of socialism. Moreover, the first step will need quite a long time and cannot be accomplished overnight.”⁵

The “quite long time” is relative. A decade later China was already building socialism. So it is just about setting the proper goal at the proper time instead of ignoring the foundations socialism needs to be built up. This fact can be seen in the following quote by Mao from 1947:

“The new-democratic revolution aims at wiping out only feudalism and monopoly capitalism, only the landlord class and the bureaucrat-capitalist class (the big bourgeoisie), and not at wiping out capitalism in general, the upper petty bourgeoisie or the middle bourgeoisie.”⁶

So the petty bourgeoisie and the medium bourgeoisie (national bourgeoisie) are left for the transitional phase from New Democracy to socialism. To succeed to socialism, agriculture as well the petty bourgeoisie is to be collectivized⁷ and the medium bourgeoisie⁸ is to be bought off. This is not new for those who are familiar with basic tenets of Marxism-Leninism.

Mao said also: “To liberate Africa, it is essential to rely on the African people.”⁹ This is very true. He did also mention aid by friends from all over the world, back then especially China, for the revolutionary struggles in Africa. Aid from outside is a good and often important bonus. But can that be relied on? Mao´s line in 1938 was, that the Communist Party of China should mainly rely on itself, though it might seek for help from abroad¹⁰. The most important thing is to have strong political roots in your own country, otherwise the aid from abroad could not be fully utilized anyways.

Mao also proposed the following in 1961 towards a delegation of foreign guests from Guinea, Jordan, South Africa, Senegal, Zambia, Uganda and Kenya: “We should set up an institute of African studies to conduct research on the history, geography and socio-economic conditions of the continent.”¹¹ Of course this institute would have been founded in China to observe Africa from abroad, but who says that African countries could not set up such an institute themselves? There is a big lack of analyses of the socio-economic conditions and its history from a Marxist perspective today, besides the general lack of up-to-date literature on the field of African studies. So with own systematic efforts this gap could be filled.

In June 1964 Mao spoke with the Zanzibarian expert Ali about the possibility of forming a communist party in Africa. An excerpt from their talk:

“Ali: Africa does not have a communist party at present. Do you believe that the time is ripe for the establishment of a communist party in Africa? Do you have any views regarding a united front in Africa?

The chairman: The question of establishing a communist party must rest on whether there are any industrial workers. I see that there are industries in Africa. Many of the countries have industries, some have been established by the imperialists and some have been established by the Africans themselves; there are mines, railroads, highways, and other industries. Although there is no communist party at present, there will be one of these days.”¹²

As we can see, Africa was in Mao´s view no “land behind the moon” that would be incapable of having a communist party (which is, as we know, the class party of the proletariat and vanguard of the working people). Mao had hope into the working people of Africa forming a communist workers movement. And Africa will! It might have taken decades in some African countries, but the Socialist Party of Zambia (founded in 2018) and the Communist Party of Kenya (formed in 2019) are recent examples for this.

Besides the quoted remarks Mao´s works are surely of great use for African comrades, though they are not referencing Africa but the Chinese conditions as they were during Mao´s lifetime. But this is what is very similar to the conditions in most of the African countries today.

Let us learn from Mao for the future!