A standing army, police are chief instruments to defend the nation

10 Oct, 2021 - 00:10 0 Views
A standing army, police are chief instruments to defend the nation

The Sunday News

Teddy Ncube
THE title of this contribution is a quotation of some of Lenin’s words in his book; ‘‘The state and revolution’’.

The book was written in the period August-September of 1917. It was written on the eve of the first successful socialist revolution in the world, ‘‘the October 1917 socialist revolution in Russia led by Lenin himself’’. This revolution toppled capitalism in Russia and replaced it with socialism.

The capitalist ownership of the means of production was replaced with a socialist, proletarian (workers or soviet) ownership of the means of production, which is ownership by the population as a whole.

The revolution was led by the communist party of Russia, also known as the Bolsheviks led by Lenin.

The great October socialist revolution; established a worker’s state or soviet power in Russia; with its own armed forces that suppressed the capitalist class in that country.

But what is soviet power? What is the essence of this new power which people in most countries still do not understand?

The nature of this power, which is attracting larger and larger numbers of workers in every country, is the following: In the past, the state was in one way or another governed by the rich, or by the capitalists. But now, for the first time; the state is being governed by the classes, and moreover by the masses of those classes, which capitalism formerly oppressed.”

The soviet Red army was then created for the new socialist system; the army was to save the workers from the restoration of the power of landowners and capitalists.

Lenin said; the definite task of the Red army (which knew its historical role), was to emancipate the working class. So was the case in the US at the success of that country’s 1776 revolution led by General George Washington.

The USA army’s role was to defend that revolution, to save the US ruling capitalist class from; the restoration of British rule, the coming back of the British ruling class and to make sure that slaves remained slaves and the working class remained just that.

The revolution in the USA was an anti-colonialist revolution, a revolution against British colonialism that freed the US bourgeoisie. It was a bourgeoisie revolution against British colonialism.

But, what about Zimbabwe?

The state of the newly-independent Zimbabwe was created by a compromise independent constitution hammered out at Lancaster House in London.

The Zimbabwe independent state was formed by the former colonial slaves (the black people) and the former colonial slave owners (the British ruling class and its white Rhodesian racist settler representatives, its proxies, and their black friends like Abel Muzorewa, Khayisa Ndiweni and Ndabaningi Sithole).

Normally in class society, when a revolution takes place, when one class (or one group of classes) removes another class (or another group of classes) from power, both politically and economically, the victorious class (classes) replaces the old state with a new one. It creates a new socio-economic formation.

In Zimbabwe however, the war that led to Zimbabwe’s independence did not lead to an outright or absolute defeat of the Rhodesian army by Zipra and Zanla,  that is, to the point where the Rhodesian army was forced to surrender and lay down its arms in defeat and was disbanded.

Britain made sure that military defeat did not happen. Britain feared that the military defeat of its Rhodesian proxies would lead to the establishment of a political and economic order that would not favour British interests not only in Zimbabwe but in the whole region of southern Africa and Africa in general; as, the new independent Zimbabwe would most definitely and tremendously reduce Britain’s economic and political interests and influence in the country, thus southern Africa and Africa in general.

That was the thinking of the British ruling class then.

The thinking of some western powers when it comes to Zimbabwe was that former President  Robert Mugabe and Zanu-PF should have been removed from power because he and his party could not protect western economic interests, business and political interests in the country and Southern Africa as a whole — yet all the party wanted was for the West to accept that Zimbabwe is a sovereign country that must be left alone to decide its life and future and have the indigenous people owning and directing both the political and economic affairs of their country.

All Zimbabweans do not want is a neo-colonial relationship with the west.

This article was taken from Hon Cain Mathema’s  2017 book called “I defend the Zimbabwe defence and security forces”.

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