This study is a penetrating insight into the historical process of formation of a new state; the steps taken to create the basis for a democratic development, and the forces working for economic modernisation through centralisation and advanced technology. The study centers on conflicts between these two approaches in a poor and illiterate society. It connects the pre-independence processes with the politically dynamic period up to the the Party Congress of 1983 and the Nkomati Agreement with South Africa. It links the macro-perspective of Maputo to the efforts and frustrations of the simple peasants in the north.
Contents: 1. Introduction – The study of a contradiction -- 2. The armed struggle: where socialist ideology was born -- 3. Popular power. Democracy and socialist tradition -- 4. No easy transition from extreme colonisation -- 5. The adoption of a socialist perspective -- 6. Economy and state during transition -- 7. Organising the people -- 8. Mueda in the 1980s – popular power and the peasant -- 9. Popular power in Cuba – contrasts and similarities -- 10. Socialism in a poor country