THE MUGABE regime has been beaten in the polls by the trade union backed Movement for Democratic Change and is now considering its options to try and cling onto power.
Zanu-PF represents a corrupt and venal Zimbabwean ruling class which has robbed the working class and the rural poor of the gains of the revolution that threw out British imperialism, represented by the Smith regime.
Historically the masses of the working class and the rural poor were the driving forces of the anti-imperialist movement.
When the British ruling class, led by Thatcher, intervened holding the 1979 Lancaster House talks, after the fate of the Smith regime had been decided, the Mugabe-Nkomo leadership proved to be remarkably conciliatory.
Not only did Mugabe dance with Thatcher, a deal was made that Zanu-Zapu would unite to run the country, and that what had been the white ruling class, would keep the land, the mines and the industries.
In fact, Smith remained an MP and was addressed as comrade Smith. His supporters were delighted to call Mugabe comrade, since as far as they were concerned, the impossible had happened, they had lost the war but were keeping their land and the mines.
This idyll for the exploiters lasted until the mid-1990s when the IMF and the World Bank began cracking the whip, demanding the repayment of massive loans. Mugabe responded, as the leader of the Zimbabwe bourgeoisie, by attacking the working class and its trade unions to wrest back the gains that had been made, such as free education, health care and cheap food.
Out of these attacks arose the Movement for Democratic Change, founded in 1999 and based on the trade unions, which the regime began to prosecute and persecute.
In 2000, Mugabe sought to maintain his popularity by beginning the expropriation of the white farmers, without any serious preparation for the continuing production of food stuffs.
Very speedily the best land fell into the hands of his cronies – politicians, police chiefs and generals, who were not interested in food production but in becoming a new nobility – the country was on the road to starvation and hyper-inflation.
The regime, out of fear, then turned on the poorest people, on the tens of thousands of squatters in the main cities, and drove them out of their shacks, demolishing the shanty-towns and in the process creating mass homelessness to go with the mass unemployment.
Mugabe’s defeat in the elections signifies that the working class and the masses have had enough. The Zimbabwean workers’ revolution has begun.
The historic task of the working class is to lead the rural poor to complete the revolution that Mugabe abandoned at Lancaster House in 1979.
This means that the trade unions must demand that the regime quits at once and that the western capitalist powers must stay out of Zimbabwe.
They must call on the rank and file of the army and the police not to take part in any repressions of the working class and to refuse to carry out orders to do so.
A workers militia must be organised to defend the trade unions and workers areas. In the event of police attacks such a militia must be armed to defend itself.
There must be a drive forward for a workers’ and small farmers’ government. This will nationalise the land and organise state farms that can provide a hungry nation with the food and the jobs that it needs.
As well, the mines, the major industries and the banks must be nationalised and put under workers’ control and management.
A section of the Fourth International must be built to lead this historic struggle. This revolutionary way is the only way to take Zimbabwe forward and to prevent a return of the imperialists and the white farmers.
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