Class Struggle, Resistance and the Revolutionary Pressures of Crisis in Post-Colonial Zimbabwe.

The current socioeconomic and political impasse, and the accompanying deep-seated social mobilization, movement and crisis it generated in post-colonial Zimbabwe, speaks very eloquently of the very sharp contradictions inherent in the socio-economic formation of the independent states of Africa, and the tortuous, complex and long processes involved in resolving these challenges, or holding them in abeyance. The increasing economic misery in Zimbabwe, the struggle by Zimbabwe's ruling class to keep afloat in the midst of a drowning global economic downturn, the struggle to hold on to state power, the depoliticization of faction a of the ruling class and the masses generally, and the clever but clandestine manoevoure of the Western powers to perpetuate her economic, social and political agenda, are some of the dynamic social forces which are fomenting the revolutionary consciousness and the revolutionary pressures that has put Zimbabwe on the path to its second phase of chimurenga (social revolution) . Using the class analysis model, this paper argues that this social movement presents a classical case of both intra and inter class struggle which are more or no less than a revolution. The character of the struggles, the paper posits, runs counter to the classical notion that social revolution was only possible on well-developed productive forces. In instead, Zimbabwe's second phase of revolution arose out of the serious contradiction in the country's post colonial liberal and neoliberal economic policies, the subsequent growing socio-political and economic alienation of the mass of Zimbabwe's working class and peasantry, and the development of consciousness among this marginalized faction of the populace and the factionalized unit of the hegemonic ruling class in Zimbabwe. The paper concludes by noting that what emerged from the crucibles of the crisis is but a specific kind of reactionary, de-radicalized revolution, which has only eventuated into recreating and reproducing the old social order and class system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]