Vijay “Pitfalls” Algiers to Arusha quiz
Part 2: Pitfalls
Algiers
1. What characterized the revolution in Algeria in the middle of the 1900s? What was the FLN?
In 1962 the Algerians evicted the French, the FLN came to power, and one of its founders Ahmed Ben
Bella became the nations president. He helped to create the FLN along with 8 other main leaders.
2. What characterized the leadership of the revolution initially and when the FLN came to power
and Ben Bella became the nation’s president in 1962?
They were sons of artisans or from the middle class, some were arabs, others Kabyle(Berber). They were
encouraged by the victory of Dien Bien Phu when they defeated the French. In 1954 they met to discuss
strategy and called for their underground army to revolt beginning the Algerian War of Independence
that would be victorious with 300,000 – one million people dead.
3. Who is Frantz Fanon? What is his significance? What was his argument about armed struggle
and the limitations of the national liberation project once it took state power? What were the
flaws of the project?
The French responded to the uprising brutally and created conditions for all forces to join the FLN. A
young Doctor, Frantz Fanon was a trained psychiatrist in France who worked in an Algerian hospital. He
published Black Skin, White Masks in 1952 that was a searing diagnosis of racisms effect on people of
color. He documented the atrocities for the French media and the FLNs own El Moudjahid in The
Wretched of the Earth in 1961. In these essays, he defended the right of national liberation movements
to adopt armed struggle as the movements would do at the Havana conference or tricontinental in
1966. He also discussed the limitations of the project once the movement took power (122)
4. What are the limitations that favor a 1 party system and the tendancy to continue
authoritarian state structures?
The states that came to power failed to enable the people who created the platform for freedom to
have an equal part in the project to build it. They failed to realize the promise of a radical democracy
(122)
The great flaw came from the assumption that political power could be centralized in the state, that the
party should dominate the state and that they people could be demobilized after their contribution to
the liberation struggle
There was no class analysis
There were no democratic structures established or built to socialize production or decision making,
without both there was no socialized democracy
Vijay “Pitfalls” Algiers to Arusha quiz
The FLN became the sole party and Ben Bella, or the president, became the sole formulator of state
policy of which frustrated the workers or general interests (123)
5. What were post revolution conditions? What kind of reforms took place that favored
revolutionary goals?
The seven and a half year war and colonial rule from 1830 – 1962 had drained Algerian society and
destroyed or compromised African instutitions and organization. The earth was dessicated, the wealth
siphoned off to the first world. Few factories, few schools, few hospitals had been built.
12 million people: 4.5 were impoverished, 2 million had been locked in concentration camps, when the
French departed so did the main bureaucratic staff which meant the state momentarily collapsed. The
FLN had to take charge, create functional institutions and settle a massively displaced population that
resulted form colonialism and the anti-colonial struggle
The March Decrees favored worker self management, declared vacant property the collective property;
legalized worker self management on farms and in factories and forbade speculation. The new
government institutionalized the inventiveness of the workers and farmers
Adversely, the reforms tied workers to the state instead of realizing the vision of a socialist society. The
revolution failed for the peasants. Absent of leadership and new functioning institutions people reverted
to traditional authorities (influence of) including Islamic religious leaders. Lack of technical training
meant that the FLN relied on the petty bourgeoisie who did not flee back to france, so they maintained
their status and influence (126) they made up 44% of decision making posts and 77% of management
posts. They leached the system of money and enjoyed relative autonomy. The working class democracy
was repressed or disallowed. The list of reforms promised socialist society while the character of
government remained largely the same.
6. Why did the revolution fail the peasants? Why and how did the petty bourgeoisie and
bourgeoisie usurp the revolution? What are the conditions and flaws that led to this
outcome?
Ait Ahmed criticized Bellas regime: that the state had reduced the nation to the politics of clans, or to
the level of the old social classes, little in the institutional framework of society had been altered.
The problem had been identified, that of political centralization, but ahmed knew the power of
imperialism to insinuate itself into a weak civil society. This contradiction, rather than any diabolical
intent was often what led many 3rd world states into reproduction of authoritarian state structures.
7. To what does a “naturalistic analysis of political rights refer?
The idea that if colonial power is removed, if the state is controlled by the national liberation forces, if
these forces produce a decent economic model, then the people will be free (it mimics the approach of
the world bank rather than empowering the people by brining their views to the center of the national
Vijay “Pitfalls” Algiers to Arusha quiz
debate on priorities or how to address the unequal power relationships that resulted from European
colonialism and patriarchy.
8. What is the logic of a one party system?
That rival parties have generally little interest for the great majority of people; national politics is central
to the national liberation view of the one-party state. To break the party into factions would obviate the
idea that the freedom struggle had united the people with one interest to create a nation against
imperialism. Classes and social divisions could not be allowed to disrupt the fundamental unity of the
nation and enable rival parties to destroy the revolution. To allow dissent might open the door to
influence by imperial forces
9. What was Che Guevara or Ho Chi Minhs philosophy to avoid these failures or pitfalls? Who is
Paolo Freire?
Ho Chi Minh warned against the tendency toward bureaucratization and commandism. He said that the
bureaucratic attitude “shows fondness for red tape, divorce from the masses of the people and
reluctance to learn the experiences of the masses.”
Collective Mastery allows people to work on their own initiative and own accord and to use compulsion
to do unexplained tasks – something not achieved with commandism
Che discussed volunteerism and communist morality that came from and engendered the work councils
that are a feature of Cuban social life.
After Cabral’s success in Guinea-Bissau his government invited Brazilian educator Paolo Freire to visit
and provide assistance on popular pedagogy for the creation of a non-beauracratic society.
10. What were obstacles to creating a popular state?
Lack of technical skill and the class hierarchy that persisted
11. While the broad economic policies that favored socialism continued to be implemented
through Boumedienne, who dominated the state power and wealth?
He continued the nationalization of industry (oil) the class that dominated was the petty bourgeoisie,
many who had developed out of the military officers core. They were the parasitic bourgeoisie that
Fanon had warned about ( think it was him)
12. Because of the pitfalls of the attempted Algerian revolution what economic and political
system developed in the 1960s and afterwards? Was the experiment successful in
overthrowing the imperialist state?
Ahmed Ait’s Front of Socialist Forces attempted to Assasinate Ben Bella in 1964 and the main
trade union there began to assert itself (130) By the 1960s Algeria had moved away from
Vijay “Pitfalls” Algiers to Arusha quiz
socialism to state capitalism because they failed to build socialist institutions in which the
people would build the new country.
Demobilizations of the populations usually led to military coup and military rule
Neo-colonialism persisted and repression of revolution continued (133)
La Paz
1. What was the colonial history of Bolivia? Why was it Europes Treasury during the colonial
period? Discuss Potosi, the Tin Oligarchy and La Rosca.
The silver that flowed from Potosi into Europe created the price revolution of the 16th century; in the
19th C the tin oligarchy (la rosca or the screw) cultivated by simon ituri patino governed the country by
force or through its representatives. The tin left to Liverpool, England, to be smelted there in factories
owned by Patino.
2. What was the pitfall of Bolivia’s successful national liberation movement in 1952? Who
initially led the movement? What characterized the reform measures in the 1950s? How did
this challenge the traditional authority of the Latifundias?
In 1951 the old MNR won a key election that challenged la rosca and class allies. The military revoked
the election. In 1952 The MNR returned to power in a popular coup, the leader and president was Vitor
Paz Estenssoro who began substantial reforms on behalf of the popular base. It opened suffrage to
everyone, they nationalized tin and implemented land reform (135) Miners and campesinos were the
power base of the movement. Latifundas or 6% owned 92% of the land.
He dismantled the military and created militias or Grupos de Honor
The popular democracy that occurred was considered anarchy by the United States.
3. How did “The Alliance for Progress” under Kennedy’s administration influence the success or
failure of the liberation movement? What was the US 2-step process to undermine the
radicalness of the revolution?
The Alliance for Progress in 1963 was an alliance of the bourgeoisie/military and united states to
develop Bolivia militarily and economically in the interest of United States corporations. General Renee
Barientos officially represented the government of the (MNR) movimiento nacionalista revolucionario,
the left revolutionary party that had been in power since its successful armed rebellion of 1952
The United States began a 2-step process to undermine the radicalism of the revolution (American
coroporations had bought the tin mines in 1946 but were not directly threatened fundamentally)
1. Provided 20 billion to central and south American states for economic development and military
assistance
Vijay “Pitfalls” Algiers to Arusha quiz
2. Created the military Alliance for progress, America contributed millions of dollars to the military,
of which had been cut in the socialist revolution. The military then put itself at the service of the
US government, it was Barrientos that led the coup on the socialist government (37)
President Paz began to crack down on the communist party or forces and dismantle the massive
social movements and turned for support to the institutions of the old regime, the military, and
church, as well as the U.S. He demobilized the militias and , and generally the power base of the
revolution was demobilized and disarmed.
4. How is the attempted revolution in Guatamala and Bolivia the same or different?
The reforms directly affected United Fruit and the Rockefeller corp so there was immediate
action in overthrowing arbez elected government, while us dominance structurally remained
sound in Bolivia, they could undermine the revolution through military investments and making
alliances with the new bourgeoisie.
5. What was Fanon’s prescription for avoiding military and imperial collusion? What is the role
of a militia in a revolutionary country as opposed to a standing army or centralized military?
How is Cuba an example?
To educate the army politically, or nationalize it in other words
General polticial mobilization did not succumb to coups or easy intervention by imperialism
Classic case is revolutionary cuba: Castro maintained the level of popular participation in revolutionary
activities as part of the order of governance. To defend the nation, the government transformed the
army and supplemented it with militias of various kinds that provided homeland defense during
invasions, participated in agricultural operations and literacy campaigns 139
6. What role does dissent play in the creation of a progressive democratic movement?
Dissent is a fundamental liberty that plays a political function of not alienating parts of the population,
but also because it might carry useful suggestions and criticisms that are otherwise silenced by the echo
chamber of government. New nations that demobilize and disarm their populations fall prey to military
intervention, often driven by imperialist pressure
The CIA and US military are clearly documented in the coups
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Dominican Republic (1963)
Ecuador (1963)
Brazil (1964)
Indonesia (1965)
Congo (1965)
Greece (1967)
Cambodia (1970
Vijay “Pitfalls” Algiers to Arusha quiz
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Bolivia again in 1971
Chile in 1973
7. What was the role of the United States in the 1950s and onward in relation to the repression
of democratic movements? What is the RAND corporation and “military modernization”?
RAND and Eisenhowers Draper Committee in 1959 found that supporting the military was beneficial to
US corporate interests. Political scientist, Samuel P. Huntington created a subfield called “military
modernization.” He consulted with the CIA and others and played a central role in the Trilateral
commission founded in 1973
8. What is the Tri-Lateral Commission
Representatives of the dominant classes of Asia, Europe, and North America who were concerned with
the overall framework of order than with the management of every regional enterprise.
9. What was the impact of Military Modernization on placed like the Congo, Indonesia or Chile?
They produced brutal dictators that mutilated the populations and looted the treasuries, they produced
primitive accumulation for a small circle of the rulers family members and served the interests of the Trilateral commission (141)
10. What were the promises and reality of military modernization in Ecuador or Guatamala?
They offere to useful examples of the limitations of the pentagons theory of military modernizations. In
both cases the pentagon backed the military rulers. Ultimately the people prevailed or triumphed and
the structure that was created did not go along with the modernization theory (142-143) its not a chess
game, the people pplay a significant role in the final outcome.
11. How should you best analyze a coup or military intervention to avoid false generalizations
about the motives or processes?
It requires an assessment of the struggles within a society, of the class dynamics, the regional
interactions, the history of ethnic strige, and other such relations. Those who act alongside the US
military, such as Bolivia’s Barrientos or Indonesia’s Suharto are emblems of certain class fragments that
have domestic reasons to use the US government for their own ends . they and the classes they defend
are part of the ensemble of imperialism, even if as subcontractors (143)
12. What is Huntington’s theory of “Changing Societies” and therefore the role of the military that
Ruth First corroborates in part?
Vijay “Pitfalls” Algiers to Arusha quiz
In a society that changes, so does the role of the military, ultimately the elite imperialists seek a society
marked by its middle class, it is stable and provides for a society that can achieve the accumulation and
concentration of massive wealth. Communism is the demon of the elite but the champion of the poor.
13. What is the distinction made between a “Generals Coup” and a “Colonels Coupe”?
In 1970 militant south African intellectual Ruth First, published her study on coups on the continent “the
Barrel of a Gun” offers a general theory of power for newly independent states which explains why they
are so vulnerable to army intervention politics….military rulers are schooled in hierarchical order and
efficient action and claim to stand above politics. They argue that they rule for the nation, much like the
one-party system of the liberation state
Power lies in the hands of those who control the means of violence, it lies in the barrel of a gun, fired or
silent
Bali
1. What cohorts of the populations worldwide were drawn to Communism as an ideal in the
1920s and why were they drawn to this alternative way of thinking about social, political and
economic arrangements?
Communism grew in the 1920s among people who had been embittered by the failures of constitutional
nationalism and revolutionary terror as well as empire
Intellectuals and peasants were drawn to the promises of communism, dictatorships and authoritarian
governments everywhere worked fast to destroy anyone with communist ideals of equality and freedom
2. How did conservative/capitalist factions respond to this popular development in places like
Chile and Indonesia? Discuss the communist developments and how conservative factions
responded. Identify all of the conservative factions.
Chile: communist party founded by Luis Emilio Recabarren and crushed by the oligarchy
Indonesia: (PKI founded in 1920) communists the Indonesian Communist Party urged a popular uprising
against the Dutch and new bourgoesie in 1948. 36,000 people jailed and when President Sukarno came
to power it was with the blood of communists on his hands. By 1965 when he fell, there would be 1-2
million more communist sympathizers who were dead. Sukarno gestured toward cooperation between
islam, Marxism and nationalism, the 3 main resources of the freedom movement. He founded the
nationalist party and nationalist insitutions: NASAKOM, NAS and Agama or religion. And communism
KOM.
PKI became a critical base for him as he moved towards the left. By 1951 it had recovered from the
massacres of 1948 and new leadership included Dipa Nusantara Aidit. The PKI grew to 3.5 million people
by 1965. With all of its organizations: youth groups, womens groups, trade union federations, cultural
Vijay “Pitfalls” Algiers to Arusha quiz
league, peasants front and scholars association it had loyalty of 20 million people in a population of 110
million.
The labor movement took over Dutch Firms
PKI supported development of democratic capitalism and Aidat articulated a 4part strategy
1.
2.
3.
4.
To enlarge the party and its mass organizations
Constrain or win over the progressive sections of the national elite
Use sukarnos move to the left
Neutralize the armed forces (by 1955 30% of those in uniform were PKI sympathizers)
In response to the Sumatra and Sulawesi rebellions (supported by the CIA) Sukarno declared martial law
1957-1963 who received 20 million dollars from the US to bolster its military.
Sukarno, by the 1960s had a strong army and communist party of which demanded a fifth force of
amred workers and peasants be created. The army overthrew Sukarno and installed General Suharto
whom with the support of a theocratic right wing waged war (1965-1966) on communists killing
100,000 to 2 million people, this was the New Order.
Aidit was caught and killed. The island of Bali lost 8% of its population, or 100,000 people, villages
disappeared.
The US and Australia encouraged the massacred and blamed the genocide on communists, US policy
contributed substantially or significantly to the New Order and Suhartos taking of power.
Between the 1920s and 1930s communist parties on three continents grew with USSR support
In Vietnam the communist party grew from scratch, with no industrial working class and a limited
history of socialist struggle
3. What ideological and political changes took place within the communist parties as
recommended by COMINTERN in 1935? Include in your discussion the concept of a National
Democratic State and Beijing’s theory of New Democracy.
In 1935 COMINTERN Congress told communist parties to work in tandum with other parties to work
against fascism. (157) USSR shifted it alliances from the Nazis in 1939 to the Allies in 1941. The
collaboration of the communist parties (the popular front) with the united front weakened the parties
and easily fell prey to the CIA and the nationalist regimes. (157)
Communists then tried to seize power to delink the new state from international capital and rush
through the stages of development:
Lin Biao of China called for uninterrupted revolution wich included an alliance with bourgeois
democratic forces.
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In 1960 The USSR unveiled its concept of the National Democratic State which referred to the
noncommunist national liberation states that emerged within the 3rd World. These states governed with
their own variation of socialism.
Beijing proposed a theory of New Democracy: a coalition of the proletariat, peasantry, the petty
bourgeoisie and domestic capitalists to jon against imperialism and towards socialism. The communist
party would lead them to develop capitalism to expedite growth rates and the transition to socialism.
The concepts of the national democratic state and new democracy allowed Moscow and Beijing to
accept noncommunist regimes and national liberation movements as sufficient for the nonindustrial
world. The development of Communism took a back seat to the promotion of national democratic
fronts.
Countries who organized across class to move to change the basis of social production:
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Nassers Egypt
Qasims Irag
Boumediennes Algeria
Indira Gandhis India
Ne Win’s Burma
Selou Toures Guinea
Ayun Khans Pakistan
Modibo Keitas Mali
They all became part of the USSR and Peoples Republic of Chinas favoirt states, even though most
suppressed their local communist parties.
4. Where were the strongest communist movements by the early 1960s? How did nationalist
leaders incorporate them in their rise to power and why did they move to exterminate them
in the aftermath. Discuss the main points of the PKI, SCP and ICP.
By the early 1960s the largest Communist parties in Asia, Africa and Arab lands:
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PKI of Indonesia
Sudans Al-Hizb al-Shuyu’I al-Sudani (SCP)
ICP, Iraqi Communist party
They commanded the respect of large portions of the population and controlled peoples organizations
such as trade unions, women’s leagues and youth associations and within decades would be devastated
by an attack by the national bourgeoisie and united States who called on the military to exterminate
them
Communists were useful to the rise of authoritarian states> Sukarno needed the PKI, Qasim overthrew
the Iraqi monarchy with their support in 1958 and Colonel Jaafar al-Nimeiri rejected a corrupt military
junta in Sudan in 1969. By 1958 all political parties had absorbed the political program of the ICP, even
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Baath party in Iraq because they needed the support and organization of the communist factions to
come to power. When the ICP revived its banned oranizations such as the Peace Partisans, the League
for the Defense of Womens Rights and the League of Iraqi youth the party grew to more than 25,000
with an additional mass membership of a million (1/5 of the total population of Iraq). Qasim founded
Baath and after he came to power Michel Aflaq promoted his party over the ICP calling communism
western and alien. The Baath party, backed by the US and led by Saddam Hussein took over the
government in a coup in 1959 beginning repression and annihilation of the ICP finally taking the state in
1963.
1968 Jussein came to power, and the USSR became a major ally along with a pro-soviet faction of the
ICP who joined hands, the Ant-baath group fell to military repression. 160
By 1978 after acquiring considerable military aid including nuclear reactors from the USSR, Hussein then
destroyed the remaining ICP in 1978. His repression of communism gained him the support of
Washington who created an alliance in 1983. The survivors of the ICP fled to the Kurdish regions.
In Sudan, Nimeiri came to power on a Nasserite agenda and could not rule without the SCPfounded
originally in 1944. The SCP recruited Christians and muslims. Once in power he destroyed the people by
the 1970s.
The crackdown led many communists to the gun but without sufficient mass support:
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Iraq: 12 militants includeing Khalid Ahmen Zaki of the Popular Front for Armed struggle tied a
insurgency, to be gunned down by the Iraqi military in 1968
Pierre mulele, a minister in Lumumba’s deposed government took up arms against Mobutu’s
regime by failed within a few years
India, 1967
South America, Maosim came as castroism, armed struggle in Argentina and Venezuela among
many, failure led to brutal military dictatorships and killings
Omphalos is a religious stone artifact, or baetylus. In Greek, the word omphalos means "navel". In Greek
lore, Zeus sent two eagles across the world to meet at its center, the "navel" of the world.[1] Omphalos
stones marking the centre were erected in several places about the Mediterranean Sea; the most
famous of those was at Delphi. Omphalos is also the name of the stone given to Cronus. In the ancient
world of the Mediterranean, it was a powerful religious symbol.[2] Omphalos Syndrome refers to the
misguided belief that a place of geopolitical power and currency is the most important place in the
world.[3][4]
Bandung was the Omphalos
Demise of five major leaders of the progressive tendancy reveals much abuot the collapse of solidarity
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Nehru died in 1964
U Nu of Burma and Nkrumah were deposed by military coups
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Nasser was weakened by the collapse of the United Arab Repbulic
Tito began a genial rapproachment of the USSR
Nehru, U Nu and Nasser had vexed relationships with their local communist parties
Niether Moscow or Beijing spoke for the atrocities committed against the real communists
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Atrocities committed by the Indonesian army
The Moraccan government waged war against the National Union of Popular Forces and the
assassination of its leader Ben Baraka in Paris in 1965
The Congolese army against the movement of National congolais and the assassination of its
leader Lumumba in 1961 with Beligan and US collusion (163)
Sudan, Iraq and Indonesia continued to adhere to the Bandung Principles and foreign policy objectives
of the 3rd world agenda while becoming authoritarian, repressive and expansionary (163)
In 1977 a NAM meeting in New Delhi, Sudan’s representative called to restructure the UN so that it
would be more democratic a and support the New International Economic Order but was ignored
Countries included in NAM were accepted simply because they agreed to the basic principles of nonalignment and because they shared a similar international economic analysis.
5. What was the impact of the destruction of the left by the 1970s? discuss the concept of
anticolonial nationalism and cultural nationalism that replaced it with the left’s destruction.
What were the methods used by old social classes to repress progressive movements?
The destruction of the left by the 1970s had an enormous impact on the third world, The anticolonial
nationalism of the left was traded for the cruel cultural nationalism that emphasized racialism, relgion
and (163)hierarchy
The new movement took shelter in a manufactured vision of “tradition” and claimed to speak to an
authentic culture of their regions as opposed to the modern or western influence of the progressive left.
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The myth of Bali as a paradise
Arabs as puritanical
Hindus as hierarchical
Africans as tribal
All these visions of tradition emerged with a vengeance fro the old social classes as a way to battle the
left, they claimed they were the authentic representations of their civilization. It helped to falsify history
in a way that has served the people in power while silencing those who suffer injustice. (164)
Tawang
1. Using China, India and Burma as examples, how did the colonial concepts of boundaries affect,
the post-colonial state and what conflicts arose as a result?
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In 1962 The Chinese Peoples Liberation Army waged a successful campaign against India’s military
capturing Dalvi (165)
In 1954 India and China had signed the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-Existence, the Panchsheela which
called for mutual understanding and cooperation on all issues. At Bandung Nehru, Shou En Lai had
stood together to proclaim a New Asia.
The PLA had border disputes with several countries including Burma, India, Pakistan and the USSR.
Disputes originating with the Czarist Regime and Manchu Empire (for example).
In Burma, the Kachin people rose in rebellion when Burma and China signed an agreement in 1960
without their consultation. Conflict was not between the states, but the people not considered in the
new arrangement. (167)
2. How did border disputes affect the national liberation state social agenda? How did it lead to
militarization?
Wars over borders provided a major excuse to grow the military of the national liberation states which
suffocated the social justice side of national budgets. Border disputes orginated in colonial policy.
The PLA had fought against Japanese occupation, a civil war against the Kuomintang from the 1930s to
the 1950s and assaulted Tibet late into the 1950s in expansion
3. How did concepts of nationalism change with border disputes and lead to more conflict? What
is the classic colonial approach to the creation of borders?
The Sino-Indian border war is a good example of conflict that arose in new post colonial states that has
adopted a more European notion of nationalism instead of their previous anti-colonial form. This was a
major problem for nationalist states. The idea of nationalism that had sustained the anticolonial
movements would be challenged by the process of state formation.
Nations don’t have natural borders, nor well defined historical borders, natural landscape are not
accepted boundaries everywhere, not everyone has ancient roots that can be used to define them.
Premodern states did not consider an accurate delineation of boundary and the people who ived in its
vicinity to moved around for trade and pilgrimage. The Himalayas run along the borders of Burma,
Nepal, India, China, Pakistan and Afghanistan and encompass communities that use it for transit and
religious pilgrimages, new boundaries bifurcate linguistic or ethnic communitites.
In 1913 British government send Fred Bailey and Henry Morshead to discover a lack of recognized
boundary there, the Monpa had no relationship with Tibet, china or india. International morders meant
little. Tawang is the region that interconnected these borders where a monstary was built between
1643-1647. ( a horse decided the location- brahmic practice of deciding boundaries).
Bailey and Morshead took a classis colonial approach to borders and decided where they were
depending on where they could conquer and guarded the new boundaries in terms of security of the
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empire. In 1893 the British created the Durand Line that ran through the homelands of the Pashtu
speakers to maintain Afghanistan as a border territory between Russia na dIndian.
In 1914 Britian fashioned the McMahon line to divied their indian domains from those of the Chinese.
They drew lines that fit their needs with no or little consideration to the people it effected. (170)
4. How did new technologies, combined with European Ethno-nationalism impact borders and
create further conflict? How did ethno-nationalism affect secular nationalism and therefore
create further conflict? Site Pakistan as an example.
With new technologies, new more precise borders were created within the context of European ethnonationalism. European nation states emerged out of the Monarchies and baronies of earlier epochs, the
idea that motivated these nation states was that they must contain people of the same ethnicity or
race(1970)
Nationalism is a modern phenomenon justified by a false past or the existence of a previous time where
such a nation existed.
Multi-nationalist states had little need for chauvinism of ethno nation states. India for example was
divided by language and did not privilege race or religion. Borders were not recognized because it was
an inconvenience for those who lived there. In 1958 Nehru and Zhou settled a boundary dispute in the
context of Chinese or Han Chauvinism ( superiority complex) that competed with Big Nation chauvinism
which prevailed. The idea of an ethno-chauvinism emerging within and around the broader
internationalism of Chinese communism or Nehruvian secular internationalism provided an alternative
(172)
Ethno nationalism in china began to emerge disrupting the secular nationalism that Nehru had
constructed leading to greater disputes (172)
The states cultural institutions began to imagine the history of the state in ethno0cutlural terms rather
than anti-imperialist terms, leaders created symbols and myths of the new nation. War encouraged
chauvinism (172)
Result of this was the partitioning of India and creation of Pakistan where 13 million muslims and hindus
were displaced and one million people killed.
War and the money invested in war retarded social development and the national state agenda, military
spending trumped social equity.
5. In 1982 the UN offered two paths to nations in determining their agendas, what were the two
paths, and which did many 3rd world nations ultimately chose? Discuss China as an example
beginning after 1962.
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By 1982 the UN offered a choice between pursuing the arms race or moving consciously and with
deliberate sped toward a more stable and balanced social and economic development and warned it
could not do both (173)
The 3rd World moved towards creating relationships with Atlantic and Soviet arms dealers. Militarization
became the reality while social development remained an ideal. China abandoned communism for
capitalism after the Sino-Indian war of 1962 and its movement towards alliances with the United States
and policy of supporting dictatorships that massacred communists.
Vijay Caracas Notes and Questions
1. What was the 3rd world hope for how Oil would impact their nations. Who came to control the
worlds oil supply and how?
The hope in Venezuela was that the oil would be used to benefit the country, but instead it exploited
the country to benefit the oligarchy and oil companies.
In 1936 workers demanded a wage increase, the oligarchy and U.S. refused. The vice president of
Venezuelan Gulf, W.T. Wallace, felt that there was no need to care for the workers because they were
inferior and would not conform to americnan practices, but would try and get something for nothing (US
racism and repression and the practice of calling the other what in fact they were, getting something for
nothing)
1950s oil production doubles
1948-1957 revenues 7Billion
Dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez (1952-1958) turned the oil revenues towards the reconstruction of urban
venezuela, the wealthy created a paradise in Caracas Valley while the remainder lived in poverty. Rural
people were removed from their villages and lands to build public housing estates, landless peasants
flooded the cities.
Oil promised salvation, When investors discovered what to do with oil in the 1850sthe main colonial
states, America and czarist Russia made it their mission to control the majority. The main energy
corporations by 1950 included exxon or esso, shell, BP, Gulf, Texaco, Mobil and socal or chevron. The
Seven sisters or conglomerates controlled 85% of the crude oil produced outside Canada, china the
USSR and US. As a cartel of private companies they ensured the got the best prices for crude oil and
controlled the entire oil market. (178)
The regimes could have used the rent paid by the oil companies to increase social wage, expand public
education, health, transport and others to advance the people, instead it went to the expansion of
Vijay “Pitfalls” Algiers to Arusha quiz
luxury consumption for bureaucratic-managerial or monarchal elite, the oligarchy in Venezuela or Ibn
Saud Clan in Saudi Arabia and to oil the military machine.
2. Who benefited from the 7 Sisters? How did they respond to oil producing countries trying to
benefit from their national wealth to the threat of the profit margins of the 7 Sisters?
Bolivia-Paraguay oil war 1932-1935
Nigerian Civil war 1967-1970
1957 the 7 sisters made 828 million in Venezuela with not restrictions. The US supported the Junta that
came to power in the 1940s to maintain good relations with the oil cartel. The people wanted to
nationalize oil. The oligarchy sent a delecation to Saudi Arabia and Iran to see if the main oil lands could
come to an agreement on prices, the Saudis had a political beef with Venezuela the latter supported
Isreals creation (179)
In 1958 a progressive government led by Accion Democratica expressed an interest in recouping a larger
share of oil profits.
Mexico use to be a major provider of the worlds oil, 25%. After the Mexican Revolution of 1911 the new
regime tried to get a handle on the profits. US based standard oil and british based Mexican eagle
struggled and after two decades, lazaro cardenas became president, in favor of oil interests. The
depression and overproduction of oil and the strangle hold of the 7 sisters led to a drop in earnings for
countries including mexico. In 1937 oil workers threatened a strike for wages and working conditions,
Cardenas responded in 1938 by nationalizing oil and the US responded by crushing mecxico
economically (180) and turning their focus on Venezuela. The private cartels controlled international
prices and strangled the ability for the 3rd world to develop.
3. How is the concept of “The colonial crop” and an obstacle to development for the 3rd World?
How did oil producers try and overcome this obstacle?
Because of the low level of capital available in the darker nations, the regimes tried to strengthen the
colonial crop, what they had in raw they could not refine and export. The reliance on the single crop or
material meants that the national liberation state could not be too confrontational toward the only one
whould would buy the commodity and make it profitable. Concessions to conglomerates meant that the
regime frequently lost control over production, soveriengty generally and got a mediocre return.
By 1980 115 countries that were developing remained dependent on one commodity for over 50% of its
export revenues, and most relied on petroleum exports.
The 7 sisters played with prices in the 1950s and in response Nasser’s Egypt and the Arab League hosted
the First Arab Petroleum Congress in 1959 and included Venezuela. They gathered as the 7 sisters
reduced the posted price for middle east oil. Venezuelas Juan Pablo Perez Alfonzo joined the AD
government in 1958 as the minister of mines and hydrocarbons, he led a charge against the 7 sisters and
earned the government 60% of oil revenues and established the notion that Venezuela had sovereignty
Vijay “Pitfalls” Algiers to Arusha quiz
over tis subsoil so that the entire oil industry was a public utility. He believed the oil reserves should
benefit the people well into the future. (he followed the theory of public commodity cartels forwarded
by Prebisch)
Franck Hendryk, legal counselor of the Saudi Government presented a paper that argued that oil should
benefit the nation or people and not the cartel. The statement came with the blessing of the Saudi
Petrolum minister Abdullah al-Tariqi, a devotee of Nasser. (183)
He annoyed the Arab-American Oil company or Aramco with his criticism that the company controlled
Saudi Arabia politically and economically. He demanded more democracy and called for a constitution
on the peninsula – he was known as the Red Sheikh.
He met with Perez Alfonzo to draft an agreement known as the Maadi Pact that set up the Oil
Consultative Commission which pledged to meet annually and pushed a five point plan to stablizine
prices, integrate the operations of the industry so the oil companies did not run rings around the oil
lands, begin the refinement of oil products in the darker nations themselves and to establish national oil
companies. They created a basis for the oil producers cartel.
After another price drop by the 7, the oil producers formed a public cartel or OPEC, five charter
members controlled or produced 82% of the worlds crude oil exports (Venezuela, Kuwait, Saudi arabia,
Iraq and iran)
Perez Alfonzo argued that oil was exhaustible and the proceeds should benefit the nation that produces
it. OPEC demanded that oil companies maintain a steady price and prevented a price reduction of oil.
3rd world political forums tried to move a similar agenda a OPEC, to create various public cartels for the
otherwise cheap raw materials brought in a market created by the private transnational cartels mostly
located in the first worl. (or else by prices set by the members of the Council for Mutual Economic
Assistance) 185
This was done unsuccessfully
OPEC nations also failued to use massive oil profits for the creation of a fund to help stabilize other
commodities that would have led to the successful establishment of other public commodity cartels
such as for cacao and copper.
By 1999 OPEC became ineffective, unable to dethrone the 7 sisters. And because their collaboration
squelched the growth of independent oil firms in the world market (186)
3rd world governments attempted to nationalize their resources to disrupt the power of the 7 sisters and
other private cartels, but it did not overturn their overwhelming planetary power. Nationalization
usually came to mean the power over the resources moved from the cartel to the bourgeoisie that
controlled or substantially influenced the managerial state.
Venezuela is a good example of this failed attempt to recover her resources 187
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4. What was the impact of OPEC ultimately? What was its successes and failures?
1973 OPEC oil embargo was attempt of arab nations to unite people in favor of policies that would
capture more revenue at home, in order to maintain control over its impoverished population. Gaddafi
in Libya raised prices in 1970 and the sisters cabed with a price increase. OPEC raised the price in 1973
Nixon surmised that for the US this would
1. Squeeze the two main economic competitors (western Europe and Japan)
2. Earn profits for the oil lands, which would be recycled to US financial insitutions. The elimination
of capital controls in the US economy in 1974 facilitated this proess
5. What was the NIEO and how did the first world respond to the proposal?
The UN adopted NIEO, the New International Economic Order in 1974 that would address poverty and
development in the third world that got no purchase from the industrial powers
In 1974 the UN General Assembly approved the Charter of Econmic rights and duties of states taken
from NIEO that included several articles outlining the prohibition on penalties imposed for economic
systems chosen by states independently, that no state should use economic power against the interests
of another people, industrial nations rejected this idea. 189
Vijay notes and questions
Arusha
1. What was the Arusha Declaration and what was Nyerere trying to address with that agenda
he set out? What did he understand would be the obstacles of building a socialist state?
In 1967 Julius Nyerere, president of Tanzania unveiled the Arusha Declaration at the Tanganiyka African
National Union. He declared his plan to build a socialist state in which most of the resources were
managed by a few british and Tanzanian owners and managers. He understood that with the
infrastructure of colonialism and culture it engenderd, the task would be difficult. . Germans and British
had stripped the nation of their resources and left a state apparatus designed to exploit people, not
liberate them.
2. To build a genuinely socialist state, what is required?
To create a country based on egalitarian and national liberation ideals, it would require mass support,
institutions to channel that support (191)
The Arusha declaration validated the principles of liberty and equality, individual rights and collective
well being. The state had to eliminate poverty, ignorance and disease.
3. Explain how Nyerere tried to build a socialist state and why his attempt ultimately failed.
Vijay “Pitfalls” Algiers to Arusha quiz
In the attempt, they adopted the idea of a socialist village (ujamaa vijini) and tried to rush the process
along
It had to solve the main demands of the people before the political capital ran out. Agricultureal output
was 2% while the population growth was 3%. The industrial sector needed to be developed in order to
produce capital goods, refine and process materials food and mineral
Rather than becoming burdened by the IMF and World Bank through “aid” they took a 3 way approach
1. Nationalization of the economy in areas of finance, infrastructure, energy, cruscial raw material
extraction, and capital goods production
2. The development of the agricultural sector
3. The encouragement of industrialization
He planned for agricultural change and then industrial growth seeking to produce equality in the
agricultural population
4. What is the difference between a welfarist state and a socialist state?
In idian and Egypt the agenda was socialist, but became welfarist
The declaration drew from a socialist experiment in which the state must create equity among the
population, and that the equity needed to be crafted at a level of production and not simply
consumption (193)
5. How did the implementation of his goal fail? The goal was not the problem, rather its
implementation:
It targeted landless peasants but failed to delineate how the mechanism of delivery of its policies would
utilized peasants, particulary women. The plan failed to create the insitutions or consider how labor was
organized, it marginalized the people. It preached socialism but failed to build it. 194
When that failed they tried to create village settlements where 3,500 families were relocated to create a
socialist agricultural village, instead they promoted small scale capitalist agriculture.
Ultimately 3 million, or 20% of the population was removed. The two flaws of this approach is that while
collectivization radically transformed the social relationsof famers it failed to consider the gendered
aspects of labor or social power. The second is that it ended up forcing many peasants to settle in an
unorganized and unplanned manner, people lived on fertile grounds and tried to plant in infertile
grounds. Socialism in a hurry became undemocratic and authoritative. 196
The schemes failed and turned citizens away from the 3rd world project, then to become subservient to
the dynamics of world trade and imperialism rather than the subsistence needs of the lcoalities that
could have governed their development.
1940s-1980s india displaced 25 million people and the Chinese shifted 40 million people 197
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Policies that might have been useful or valuable were corroded by the use of force.
In India, in spite of Nehrus agenda, the plans failed and turned the process of industrial and agricultural
produced into something found in any advance capitalist economy 199. Welfare was siphoned off to try
and address the worst inequity so there was more a division of spoils than equitable production.
6. What was the product of this attempt of building a socialist state? How were the people
affected?
In the 3rd world who created domestic bourgeoisie and and were prone to the protections of the
dominant rural and urban classes sought land reform out of the need to increase production. The elite
did not want to lose their means and political clout through land distribution.
El Salvador 1932 the rural elite engineered the massacre of 20,000 peasants who occupied private land
and opposed export-led agriculture. (200)
In some places land reform was conducted to avoid full revolution: South Korea, Japan and Taiwan
Japana and the US forced land reform to avoid revolution (200)
7. How did the land reform agenda change in the 1960s, why and how? Discuss the Rockefeller
corporation.
Consensus of land reform changed in the 1960s as a new kind of agrarian solution entered the 3rd
World. 1945 rockefeller foundation piloted a program in mexico to increase agricultural yields using
chemicals and the World Bank joined in what they called the “Green Revolution.” There were areas
were growth rates increased but the impact was not balanced and the chemical created long term
negative affects to people and the environment. The Technological additivies raised costs for small
business owners and favored agribusinesses. Because of the negative impacts and failure to improve
the conditions of small farmers, the idea of land reform fell out of favor (201)
The state failed to address the principle disadvantages of the population – the lack of power to control
the main instruments of production including land, water and credit (201
8. Discuss the failed attempts at land reform and how it was replaced with an agenda that
included “food security”? How did the World Bank undermine the remnants of the revolution
and begin dismantling the 3rd world agenda? How were third world leadership complicit?
In lieu of land reform the 3rd world turned toward the question of food security
What followed the failed agenda that had Included land reform and the creation ofCreation of
commodity cartels was reduced to food security. The 1974 universal declaration on the
eradication of Hunger and Malnutrition put forth a program of welfare rather than socialist
reorganization that would sociailize production.
Vijay “Pitfalls” Algiers to Arusha quiz
Schemes of socialized distribution and consumption enabled farmers to enter cooperatives and
to attain fair prices. In the 1980s the world bank ended land reform and rural welfare of
distribution of goods through welfare mechanisms. Instead they argued that hunger could only
be alleviated through comprehensive land reform and the reconstruction of rural socities by
redistributing purchaning poer and resources toward those who were undernourished. The
world bank engineered a program in which 3rd world would stop producing foods and would
start buying them on the world market. The imports exhausted the state reserves until they had
to beg the US based sgribussiness to build capital-intensive farms such as in Tanzania essentially
making them dependent on the US capital (203)
9. What were the pitfalls of the 3rd World agenda?
The pitfalls of the 3rd world, struggle and new nations neither reorganized social relations
effectively nor disrupted the colonial type state structure bequeathed to it. By making alliances
with the old social classes and adopting the colonial bureaucratic structure, the new nations
destroyed the 3rd world agenda, the governments sought to rule over the population that
sustained the revolution rather than incorporating them into the new agenda to achieve it.
What remained was then assaulted in the 1970s, a debt crisis and a policy of planetary
reorganization fostered by the 1st world assassinated the 3rd World.