People's Republic of Mozambique

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The People’s Republic of Mozambique (abbreviated PRM) was a socialist republic in southeast Africa existent from 1975 to 1990. During this period it fought a war declared by antisocialists from South Africa and RENAMO.

History

Prerevolutionary background

Mozambique was a Portuguese colony with a very privileged white élite. Literacy, healthcare, and women’s rights were poor. Less than ten percent of the black population was literate, and most of the literates had only an elementary education.[1] Only a small fraction of the black population was enrolled in school.[2] The so-called trade unions behaved like those in the Kingdom of Italy during the interbellum period.[3]

Revolutionary period

In the 1960s some lower-class Mozambicans formed FRELIMO, a socialist organization dedicated to fighting colonialism. A few Africans willingly collaborated with the colonists, but FRELIMO later let them go.[4] In 1974, the Estado Novo was overthrown and in 1975 FRELIMO declared Mozambique to be a People's Republic. The socialists organized a voluntary, more democratic education programme that was open to all.[5] However, because of their low budget they often had to rely on amateur educators who were sometimes as young as eighteen years old.[6] The PRM employed dynamizing groups to educate people in communities and worksteads, and over five hundred thousand Mozambicans became literate as a result.[7]

Because of antisocialist aggression, the Mozambicans suffered approximately one million deaths from the 1960s to the early 1990s.[8]

Economy

FRELIMO’s ascension to power was welcomed by the peasants as an end to forced cropping.[9] The PRM also campaigned to upgrade agriculture with a sevenfold increase in enrollment and a plan to transform all of the elementary schools into secondary schools by 1985.[10] While the family farms and state farms fared somewhat well for a while, experiments with farming cooperatives proved very difficult and often unfruitful,[11] sometimes because the low-budget state failing to deliver equipment to the cooperatives.[12] Warfare and drought also contributed to agricultural difficulties. However, the PRM also passed down some unrealistic output targets to various production units; they showed inadequate sensitivity to the broader economic problem of what conditions would be necessary to facilitate an expansion of production, and in this sense more traces of voluntarism may have attached to the planning process than the People’s Rep. of Mozambique originally suspected. This planning model under discussion also had potentially negative implications for the possibility of active lower-class participation in the setting of their own production norms.[13] The Mozambicans oversaw a steady increase in their access to electricity and potable water.[14]

Family farming nonetheless suffered a crisis in 1983. While antisocialist aggression undoubtedly influenced the difficulties, Frelimo vice-president Marcelino Dos Santos discussed erroneous policies such neglecting to manufacture hoes in favor of awaiting imported tractors, distributing tinned beaned from which nobody had bothered to collect surplus production, and overloading the peasantry with unnecessary items instead of necessities such as lamps, cloth, files, and hammers, inhibiting their ability to exchange their production for goods. The Fourth Party congress decided to shift focus away from state farms and onto family farms and even private farms. The republic encouraged foreign investment and lifted price controls from a variety of agricultural products in a desperate attempt to encourage production. Private farms overall became the main beneficiaries of the new policy, despite the wishes to encourage agricultural cooperatives as well. Nonetheless, the entire agricultural sector was in turmoil by the late 1980s, and emaciation threatened millions of people. The antisocialist banditry remained a significant influence on the agricultural problems.[15]

Infrastructure

Education

During the early 1970s, approximately 90% of all Mozambicans were illiterate. Consequently, Frelimo started an ad hoc system which produced as many as 500,000 literates between 1974 and 1978 alone, and soon the republic adopted more literacy campaigns on larger scales.[16] However, increasing literacy was difficult: internal problems such as ineffectual planning on the national scale, in addition to the difficulties in producing the neeeded books and training the literacy monitors rapidly enough, meant that much of the teaching was not as good as it could have been, and many adults were either too busy or too ashamed to attend literacy classes regardless. The antisocialist violence also inhibited the campaigns though.[17] Fewer women than men took up the educational opportunities, in part due to the centuries of patriarchal socialization.[18] Overall, though, the general public was still much better education than they were under the antisocialist dictatorship; by 1980 for example, the population’s illiteracy rate shrunk to 72.2%.[19]

Culture

Gender relations

Gender equality improved significantly overall, but in some areas improvement was only marginal. The PRM encouraged women to take on rôles traditionally associated with men, and women started taking up rôles in government and production, but unfortunately they had made little progress with regards to the division of labor in households.[20] Women’s representation was modest, but was also the best in Africa.[21] The feminist OMM was too reliant on party direction, not pressing the party enough with regards to gender issues, and their early plans for the agrarian programme unfortunately went unimplemented.[22] Other improvements were more significant: the PRM would, for example, take resources out of the tight budget in order to ensure the maintenance of the women’s organization, and the government guaranteed that women would get a share of development aid. Economic support was generally far greater than what women received from officials channels in antisocialist states (at least without too much struggle) even despite the PRM’s much poorer access to resources.[23]

References

  1. ↑ John S. Saul, ed. (1985). Template:Citation/make link. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 19. Template:Citation/identifier.  John S. Saul, ed. (1985). A Difficult Road: The Transition to Socialism in Mozambique. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 19. ISBN 0-85345-591-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  2. ↑ John S. Saul, ed. (1985). Template:Citation/make link. Template:Citation/make link. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 160. Template:Citation/identifier.  John S. Saul, ed. (1985). "3". A Difficult Road: The Transition to Socialism in Mozambique. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 160. ISBN 0-85345-591-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  3. ↑ John S. Saul, ed. (1985). Template:Citation/make link. Template:Citation/make link. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 254. Template:Citation/identifier.  John S. Saul, ed. (1985). "5". A Difficult Road: The Transition to Socialism in Mozambique. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 254. ISBN 0-85345-591-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  4. ↑ John S. Saul, ed. (1985). Template:Citation/make link. Template:Citation/make link. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 89. Template:Citation/identifier.  John S. Saul, ed. (1985). "2". A Difficult Road: The Transition to Socialism in Mozambique. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 89. ISBN 0-85345-591-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  5. ↑ John S. Saul, ed. (1985). Template:Citation/make link. Template:Citation/make link. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 166. Template:Citation/identifier.  John S. Saul, ed. (1985). "3". A Difficult Road: The Transition to Socialism in Mozambique. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 166. ISBN 0-85345-591-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  6. ↑ John S. Saul, ed. (1985). Template:Citation/make link. Template:Citation/make link. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 175. Template:Citation/identifier.  John S. Saul, ed. (1985). "3". A Difficult Road: The Transition to Socialism in Mozambique. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 175. ISBN 0-85345-591-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  7. ↑ John S. Saul, ed. (1985). Template:Citation/make link. Template:Citation/make link. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 167. Template:Citation/identifier.  John S. Saul, ed. (1985). "3". A Difficult Road: The Transition to Socialism in Mozambique. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 167. ISBN 0-85345-591-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  8. ↑ Waidtlow, Heller (1990). "U.S. supports "one of the most brutal holocausts since WWII"". Retrieved 2020-01-18.
  9. ↑ John S. Saul, ed. (1985). Template:Citation/make link. Template:Citation/make link. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 218. Template:Citation/identifier.  John S. Saul, ed. (1985). "4". A Difficult Road: The Transition to Socialism in Mozambique. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 218. ISBN 0-85345-591-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  10. ↑ John S. Saul, ed. (1985). Template:Citation/make link. Template:Citation/make link. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 196. Template:Citation/identifier.  John S. Saul, ed. (1985). "3". A Difficult Road: The Transition to Socialism in Mozambique. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 196. ISBN 0-85345-591-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  11. ↑ John S. Saul, ed. (1985). Template:Citation/make link. Template:Citation/make link. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 233. Template:Citation/identifier.  John S. Saul, ed. (1985). "4". A Difficult Road: The Transition to Socialism in Mozambique. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 233. ISBN 0-85345-591-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  12. ↑ John S. Saul, ed. (1985). Template:Citation/make link. Template:Citation/make link. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 214. Template:Citation/identifier.  John S. Saul, ed. (1985). "4". A Difficult Road: The Transition to Socialism in Mozambique. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 214. ISBN 0-85345-591-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  13. ↑ John S. Saul, ed. (1985). Template:Citation/make link. Template:Citation/make link. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 124. Template:Citation/identifier.  John S. Saul, ed. (1985). "2". A Difficult Road: The Transition to Socialism in Mozambique. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 124. ISBN 0-85345-591-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  14. ↑ John S. Saul, ed. (1985). Template:Citation/make link. Template:Citation/make link. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 297. Template:Citation/identifier.  John S. Saul, ed. (1985). "6". A Difficult Road: The Transition to Socialism in Mozambique. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 297. ISBN 0-85345-591-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  15. ↑ Urdang, Stephanie (1989). Template:Citation/make link. Template:Citation/make link. New York: Monthly Review Press. pp. 108–9. Template:Citation/identifier.  Urdang, Stephanie (1989). "4". And They Still Dance: Women, War, and the Struggle for Change in Mozambique. New York: Monthly Review Press. pp. 108–9. ISBN 0-85345-772-7.
  16. ↑ Urdang, Stephanie (1989). Template:Citation/make link. Template:Citation/make link. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 225. Template:Citation/identifier.  Urdang, Stephanie (1989). "11". And They Still Dance: Women, War, and the Struggle for Change in Mozambique. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 225. ISBN 0-85345-772-7.
  17. ↑ Urdang, Stephanie (1989). Template:Citation/make link. Template:Citation/make link. New York: Monthly Review Press. pp. 226–7. Template:Citation/identifier.  Urdang, Stephanie (1989). "11". And They Still Dance: Women, War, and the Struggle for Change in Mozambique. New York: Monthly Review Press. pp. 226–7. ISBN 0-85345-772-7.
  18. ↑ Urdang, Stephanie (1989). Template:Citation/make link. Template:Citation/make link. New York: Monthly Review Press. pp. 230–3. Template:Citation/identifier.  Urdang, Stephanie (1989). "11". And They Still Dance: Women, War, and the Struggle for Change in Mozambique. New York: Monthly Review Press. pp. 230–3. ISBN 0-85345-772-7.
  19. ↑ Urdang, Stephanie (1989). Template:Citation/make link. Template:Citation/make link. New York: Monthly Review Press. pp. 221–2. Template:Citation/identifier.  Urdang, Stephanie (1989). "11". And They Still Dance: Women, War, and the Struggle for Change in Mozambique. New York: Monthly Review Press. pp. 221–2. ISBN 0-85345-772-7.
  20. ↑ Urdang, Stephanie (1989). Template:Citation/make link. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 24. Template:Citation/identifier.  Urdang, Stephanie (1989). And They Still Dance: Women, War, and the Struggle for Change in Mozambique. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 24. ISBN 0-85345-772-7.
  21. ↑ John S. Saul, ed. (1985). Template:Citation/make link. Template:Citation/make link. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 361. Template:Citation/identifier.  John S. Saul, ed. (1985). "8". A Difficult Road: The Transition to Socialism in Mozambique. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 361. ISBN 0-85345-591-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  22. ↑ Urdang, Stephanie (1989). Template:Citation/make link. New York: Monthly Review Press. pp. 26–7. Template:Citation/identifier.  Urdang, Stephanie (1989). And They Still Dance: Women, War, and the Struggle for Change in Mozambique. New York: Monthly Review Press. pp. 26–7. ISBN 0-85345-772-7.
  23. ↑ Urdang, Stephanie (1989). Template:Citation/make link. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 28. Template:Citation/identifier.  Urdang, Stephanie (1989). And They Still Dance: Women, War, and the Struggle for Change in Mozambique. New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 28. ISBN 0-85345-772-7.
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