REVOLUTION BY REVOLUTION:THE TANZANIAN ROAD TO SOCIALISM.

Abstract

This is primarily a study of a road to socialism followed by one African country—Tanzania. The study aims to answer a number of questions about this particular road, but it also aims to pose just as many for future debate. The Tanzanian socialist experiment (Ujamaa) is unique in several ways it is evolutionary; it is eclectic and pragmatic in methods, rather than doctrinaire, and without a rigid sociological theory of change; it is democratic and basically agrarian. It is a revolution from above, clearly following a non-Marxist road to socialism. In our methodology, we have deliberately tried to be as unorthodox as the experiment itself. We have combined three approaches, namely (1) historical analysis of concrete rural development policies (1920-73) to show their socio-economic concomitants and the historical roots of the current predicaments;(2) a macro-focus, analyzing the changing strategies and options of the central leadership; and (3) a micro-approach, using concreate district cases to illustrate the problems and the prospects for achieving centrally defined goals in what is in fact multi-local national community