Sending the Ghost of a Cadre Party Back to the Grave

Basil Davidson's book "The Black Man's Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation State" provides useful insight into the problems Africans inherited from the era of colonialism. When Europeans imposed on Africa their system of competing nation states by way of conquest and subjugation, they were motivated by their own strategic interests, not those of Africans. This impromptu initiation of a group into another culture, and the state of a people not yet ready to meet the challenges the new era brought, would linger and characterize the continent. It would become the source of much disarray for years to come.

At the time African countries were gaining independence, this new system, the colonial economy in particular, had not penetrated as deeply into African society as would allow for the rate of development seen in those Asian countries that had also been colonized. For example, Africa lacked strong enterprising groups with international connections that would have helped Africa keep up with international economic growth. Another example would be tribalism and ethnic unrest seen in much of Africa, that is a major impediment to development and persists to this day due to the manner the continent was divided.

The very first leaders of the newly independent African countries were not exempt from this rule. They had no first hand knowledge of running a state or of large scale economic development. Following in the footsteps of China's Mao Zedong, they copied from the Soviets. They learnt how to run a country while in office. Many became very good leaders, and did manage to effectively address many of the problems inherited from the era of colonialism. The task was not easy, and the unsteady and slow pace of progress testifies to this truth. Our leaders did much for us, but the one thing they all failed to achieve was move the continent up into the developed country category.

Of all the issues faced by Africa with a root in this past that it is still not very prepared for, not properly arranged for, and does not possess the means to handle as the third world, the phenomenon of cadre parties in the context of the African mode of social provisioning (that is still largely tradition based), is perhaps the most pernicious.

Cadre parties are defined as political parties dominated by elite groups of activists. They developed in the 19th century in Europe and America. They reflected a fundamental conflict between the aristocracy and bourgeoisie at a time when each class's ideology was being formed. Bourgeoisie liberal ideology.swept the aristocracy's conservative ideology away, thanks in large part to its appeal to the grassroots (bourgeoisie ideology spoke of the aspirations of this class as well), and would determine the future form the cadre party would take from then on.

Cadre parties would soon evolve into highly organized political units. Their capacity to take over and direct crucial national activity and set in motion a self perpetuating political culture is the main reason the system they created was referred to as a machine in its own right. Indeed, they were capable of creating a social machine the likes of which wayward communist revolutionaries have been at pains to emulate.

At a time when the suffrage was restricted to taxpayers and property owners in the 19th century, cadre parties went about ensuring they got power by offering various rewards to voters in return for the promise of their votes. They could offer such inducements as jobs, trader's licenses, immunity from the police, etc. Operating in this manner, they could guarantee a majority in an election. Once in control of local government, the police, the courts, and public finances, the machine and its clients were assured of impunity in illicit activities, for example, granting of public contracts to favoured businessmen, and so on.

The drawback of the system created by a cadre party was the fact the moral and material cost was very high. The corrupting effect on a people's mentality couldn't be understated. The machine was also often purely exploitative, performing no services to the community whatsoever. In the final analysis, it disadvantaged the community, especially in competition with countries that were not so encumbered, bringing nothing but untold miseries and tragedies to the common masses. This is the main reson why, in the western world cadre parties were in large part replaced by people's parties, and consigned to history books. They were incompatible with the march of progress. However, they have since reared their ugly heads among unsuspecting cultures of the world, never failing to wreak havoc in their wake. Today in Zambia, the MMD is a textbook example of a cadre party. Their every act since they came to power has marked them off as one. In the typical fashion of a paranoid cadre party, they sought and attained absolute control using underhanded tactics. It didn't take long before the MMD had become a power unto themselves. They could beat people up with impunity. They could do as they wished with public finances and property, etc. It belongs by the territory that, from the very onset, talent became as much a myth created by the previous regime, as the enemy they had to unseat at every turn. "Anybody can do anything" was their motto, and by the top down manner, this thinking soon infected the land. Nothing was sacred any more as they went about replacing experienced and often talented people in order to control vital social institutions. What became of ZNBC is a well known example to give for this.

But soon, reality came calling. Mediocrity and wantonness reigned supreme in the land and major social projects were either stripped clean of value, or they ground to a halt, otherwise they were simply allowed to dilapidate. Very little was going right but, fortunately for the machine, people were not seeing this. To the majority, the dilapidation going on around them was all that was wrong with the country. They failed to see this as the epitome of much more rot within the government.

The country was allowed to go into auto-pilot because those supposedly leading it were interested in matters that belonged by a crime syndicate. The party was a highly organized organization that didn't have what it takes to run anything other than a cadre party. In taking over the running of vital institutions, they infected the country with this quality too, so that, in time, this third world country didn't have what it takes to prosper. The dilapidated, second class third world country that became of Zambia after two decades of their rule was the inevitable outcome.

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