Merle L. Bowen. The State Against the Peasantry: Rural Struggles in Colonial and Postcolonial . Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia, 2000. x + 256 pp. $65.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8139-1917-1.

Reviewed by Rosemary Elizabeth Galli

Published on H-SAfrica (October, 2000)

FRELIMO'S Socialist Experiment in Agricul‐ peoples for the purpose of collective production ture and in order to create social services for their in‐ Merle Bowen has written an important indict‐ habitants. Bowen pulls no punches. She describes ment of the almost ten-year experiment with so‐ FRELIMO as having "evolved from a popular and cializing agriculture begun in the mid-1970s by victorious liberation movement into a bureaucrat‐ the postcolonial government of the Mozambican ic, anti-peasant, one-party state" (p.1) and its poli‐ National Front, FRELIMO, and disavowed in 1984. cies as inimical to peasant interests. When FRELIMO took power in 1975, the pop‐ Bowen also shows that in many ways FRE‐ ulation of the country was overwhelmingly rural LIMO continued policies which had their origins and the economy based on agriculture, especially in the colonial period and she structures her export agriculture, and services, particularly in opening chapters, on the state and policy issues, the areas of transport and port facilities, for its with a focus frst on colonialism from the 1950s to neighbors. There was a small industrial sector, 1975 and then on the socialist experiment. She mainly catering for the consumer needs of the distinguishes her critique from those who blame Portuguese settlers. Despite having a majority of the failure of rural on the de-stabiliza‐ its supporters in rural area, FRELIMO gave priori‐ tion eforts of and other countries ty to industrialization as the motor of its national (Saul, Hanlon, among others), and also from those development strategy with agriculture relegated who see the primary fault for the rapid decline in to providing exports for earning foreign exchange production as due to the disruption of settlement and raw materials for domestic industry. The agri‐ patterns and denigration of the cultural practices cultural strategy was based upon a three-pronged and political structures of Mozambican rural soci‐ approach: creation of large-scale state farms; en‐ eties (Gefray, Cahen). Bowen saves her argu‐ couragement of production and consumer cooper‐ ments for the latter: villagization did not cover atives; and stimulation of the villagization of rural the entire country and did provide valuable H-Net Reviews health and education services and clean water to ceptionally well-endowed locale. Secondly is her the 1,360 communal villages. As far as the charge demonstration of the ways in which individuals that the party substituted its structures for 'tradi‐ and households adapted both Portuguese and 'so‐ tional authorities', Bowen identifes these local cialist' policies to their own particular survival authorities with the hierarchical, authoritarian strategies. In other words, this is not simply a Portuguese administration and has little sympa‐ record of the closing of of options by FRELIMO thy for them. but of producer initiative and creativity in a situa‐ Bowen's major attack on FRELIMO has to do tion of adversity. To the extent possible, the vari‐ with the organization's non-comprehension of the ous strata of producers turned the cooperative to realities of rural life, shown in its adoption of a their own advantage. However, even they could dualist perspective. "In planning their develop‐ not defend themselves from the growing civil war ment strategy, the new leaders embraced a sim‐ in the country and things fell apart from 1984 on‐ plistic vision of agrarian class structure based on ward. a dualist model of a traditional subsistence-orient‐ Bowen worked among the people of the Ilha ed peasantry opposed to a modern large-scale for two years on a project spon‐ commercial sector." (p.205) FRELIMO expected to sored by fve Scandinavian countries within the transform this peasantry through collective pro‐ context of the MONAP (Mozambique-Nordic Agri‐ duction, cooperatives and urbanization in com‐ cultural Program) program which dominated the munal villages. It expected to restructure in one Ministry of Agriculture in the 1980s alongside fell swoop what it saw as an archaic mode of liv‐ Eastern European advisers. Her account is there‐ ing and production and "it failed to consider the fore intimate, full of the life and energy of the process for getting from where people were to people with whom she worked. What becomes where FRELIMO hoped they could be." (p.119) Fi‐ clear from her study is that FRELIMO attempts to nally, FRELIMO never opened a discussion with replace the rural commercial structure estab‐ anyone but itself over either ends or means. lished by the Portuguese were inefective and that The literature on the antagonism of the State this was particularly difcult for the Ilha produc‐ and the peasantry in Africa is voluminous and, ers who, for the most part, were used to market‐ mercifully, Bowen does not rehearse it again. ing their crops. Ilha cultivators used the FRELIMO Moreover, since the 1980s there have been a num‐ cooperatives as an outlet for their production. ber of studies on the anti-smallholder bias in Wealthy producers used the cooperatives in order Mozambican programs and in her sister Lu‐ to get access to agricultural inputs and both they soafrican countries, Guinea-Bissau and Angola and the poorer families used the cooperatives as a (Wuyts, Raikes, Galli and Jones, among others). way of obtaining essential consumer goods in What Bowen brings to this legacy is an analysis of short supply in the local area. the impact of the Frelimo strategy in one concrete Bowen has produced a fascinating tale of the setting, the Ilha de Josina Machel, a rural locality dynamic evolution of family agriculture in a small situated at the confuence of the Incomati and fertile, well-watered area of Southern Mozam‐ Matseculi rivers in Manhica district, Prov‐ bique from the 1950s until 1983, when she left the ince. Two things above all make her study impor‐ area. She shows the integration of the area into tant. First is her exposition of the links between the South African mining community, into the lo‐ the 1950s and the 1970s and 1980s when both the cal economy dominated by the Incomati Sugar Portuguese government as well as FRELIMO en‐ Mill, Portuguese settler farms and the Cereals In‐ couraged the formation of cooperatives in this ex‐ stitute during colonialism, the latter two being re‐

2 H-Net Reviews placed mainly by the MONAP project after Inde‐ tion, while the remaining seventy-fve percent are pendence. de facto poor peasants who consume most of their Chapters four to six show how the communi‐ production. There are problems basing one's anal‐ ty responded with a diferentiated labor force for ysis solely on a study whose reliability may be in the mines, settler farms and the sugar cane felds, doubt as well as with categorizing producers ac‐ how it fed the sugar cane workers and local urban cording to landholding size. For one thing, the sig‐ areas even with such exotic crops, in an African nifcance of having two hectares difers widely setting, as wheat. Out of the population of over depending upon soil fertility, amount of rainfall, three thousand, two farmers evolved into capital‐ access to sufcient labor and inputs. Moreover, ist entrepreneurs and twenty others were accord‐ there is no indication whether the size of holding ed the status of pequena agricultures ('small farm‐ represents lands only under cultivation or total ers'). It is a pity that she does not describe this landholdings. process of capitalization, as it would have greatly In the studies conducted by the Institute for enhanced her analysis and our understanding of Rural Development in which I participated, we the social, economic and political set-up under found that a more reliable yardstick for classify‐ late colonialism. It is particularly interesting be‐ ing wealthy, middle and poor peasants is the cause Bowen follows the course of one of these amount of labor available to a household. Access farmers until 1993 and shows that even after the to animal traction is the exception rather than the war with RENAMO, he was able to re-establish rule in most of Mozambique, so that having one himself as a farmer-trader on a capitalist basis. or more pair of oxen and a plough was an almost Chapter six details the cases of seven individuals automatic sign of a wealthy farmer. Having three and households in 1982 who were more typical of or more wives and a number of teenage children the majority of small commodity producers of the was also a good indicator of an upper status. Mid‐ Ilha. dle peasants lived mainly in nuclear families and There are some problems with Bowen's analy‐ had the help of children and other family labor. sis of Mozambican rural cultivators, part of which In the areas that we perused in the center and lies in the fact that her experience is limited to north of the country, it was not unusual for the southern producers. A greater part lies with her majority of producers to cultivate two or more analytical concepts. >From page one, she intro‐ hectares and to have quantities of produce for duces us to two categories of 'peasants', the mid‐ sale if the weather was 'right' and thus the har‐ dle peasants who have at least three hectares and vest abundant. Poor peasants were mainly the el‐ who have animal traction, rely on family labor derly, sick or physically handicapped, widows, and sometimes hire seasonal workers, and the widowers, in a word, the abandoned that were poor peasants, who have two or less hectares of barely able to support themselves. land and who use manual labor provided by their In her analysis of the case studies of Chapter families to work the land. She derives these two six, the poor households number only thirty-fve categories from her work with the Ilha producers percent of her survey of all the cooperative mem‐ and an agricultural census of landholding made bers (two hundred and seventy people) of two of in 1970. Because twenty-fve percent of holdings the cooperatives on the Ilha. These are also fami‐ in the census were three or more hectares, she lies with an insufcient labor force. One would classifes these as middle and upper peasants have expected the number to be higher if her who, according to her, number 390,000 and are analysis based on the agricultural census was ac‐ responsible for most of the commercial produc‐ curate. Moreover, she characterizes the remain‐

3 H-Net Reviews ing sixty-fve percent as 'middle peasants', a much groups upon whom they were mutually depen‐ greater number than the national fgure of twen‐ dent, so I think she would agree with me that the ty-fve percent according to the census. The 'mid‐ restrictions placed upon them were upon their dle peasants' were split into two groups on the ba‐ wealth creation and not upon capital accumula‐ sis of sources of income; the frst group had a con‐ tion. tributing wage earner whereas the second group Bowen's southern focus leads her into making had an income-generating activity. The question I such statements as "Colonial Mozambique was in‐ have for Bowen is were there no upper peasants tegrated into a regional southern African econo‐ in these cooperatives? Why, for example, is Fer‐ my under the domination of South Africa. Its nando Chavango, with three wives, twelve chil‐ economy was structured primarily to serve the dren, four teams of oxen, sixteen sickles, seven needs of South African ." (p.27) This she hoes, two cows, six hectares under cultivation, as attributes to the economic weakness of Portugal. president of the cooperative and party secretary While this characterization may have some truth of his neighborhood not classifed as a wealthy or in it in relation to the southern provinces of Ma‐ 'upper peasant'. There are other such cases puto, Gaza and , it would be very hard among the ones she cites. to apply it to the situation of the North and Cen‐ Another source of perplexity is Bowen's use tral areas of the country in whatever epoch of the of the term 'capital accumulation' when she prob‐ country's history, which is why RENAMO's recent ably means wealth creation. She states in various but certainly idle threat to break the country into parts of her narrative that the Portuguese restrict‐ two at the Save River is not as nonsensical as it ed the 'capital accumulation' of the wheat cooper‐ may seem. ative they formed on the Ilha. This is a particular‐ I have reservations about Bowen's reading of ly poignant story when Portuguese technicians the regulado structure under colonialism and tell the Ilha cooperative members who want to since colonialism. There are a number of other in‐ buy a tractor that tractors are not for Africans, accuracies as well but these do not detract from only Europeans. Bowen repeats the accusation be‐ the real merit of this case study in helping us ap‐ cause under FRELIMO the cooperatives were not preciate the resourcefulness of rural peoples, the allowed to sell their produce above the ofcial rich regional diversity of African societies and in price (they did anyway!). She says: "As the project- making us humble about making generalizations assisted cooperatives became more independent not grounded in detailed empirical analysis. This and economically viable, they encountered state book should be required reading for all Mozambi‐ policies that limited their opportunities to accu‐ can politicians and government ofcials, interna‐ mulate capital." (p.130) There is also repeated use tional development agencies, non-governmental of the term 'proletarianization' in relation to organizations, and all who pretend to work with women and others working seasonally in the sug‐ rural societies around the world. ar cane felds or even in the South African mines. REFERENCES None of these people were separated from their means of production so that the more correct Cahen, Michel. Mozambique, la revolution im‐ term is probably 'semi-proletarianization'. Later plosee: etudes sur 12 ans d'independance, on, at the end of Chapter six, Bowen characterizes 1975-1987. Paris : L'Harmattan, 1987. the cooperative members as a whole as petty com‐ Galli, R.E. and Jones, Jocelyn. Guinea-Bissau: modity producers responsive to market incentives Politics, Economics and Society. London and New and also as people willing to compromise proft- maximizing in the interest of solidarity with other

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York: Frances Pinter and Columbia University Press, 1987. Galli, R.E. "The Food Crisis and the in Lusophone Africa," African Studies Re‐ view, vol. 30, no. 1, 1987. Gefray, Christian. La cause des armes au Mozambique. Anthropologie d'une guerre civile. Paris: Karthala, 1990. Hanlon, Joseph. Mozambique: the Revolution under Fire. London: Zed Press, 1984. Raikes, Phil. "Food Policy and Production in Mozambique since Independence," Review of African Political Economy, vol. 11, no. 29, Sum‐ mer 1984, pp. 95-107. Saul, John S. ed., A Difficult Road: The Transi‐ tion to Socialism in Mozambique. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1985. Wuyts, Marc. Peasants and the Rural Econo‐ my in Mozambique. Maputo: Centro de Estudos Africanos, 1978. Copyright (c) 2000 by H-Net, all rights re‐ served. This work may be copied for non-proft educational use if proper credit is given to the au‐ thor and the list. For other permission, please con‐ tact [email protected].

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Citation: Rosemary Elizabeth Galli. Review of Bowen, Merle L. The State Against the Peasantry: Rural Struggles in Colonial and Postcolonial Mozambique. H-SAfrica, H-Net Reviews. October, 2000.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=4630

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