generally differs in several respects from that of classes in the
countries of ‘classical’ capitalism. Hopefully, some of these dif-
ferences will become clear in this discussion on the working class
in Tanzania.

If it is now a cliche that the basic functions of colonies is first to
serve as an outlet for the export of capital by the colonial powers,
second to act as a market for the manufactures of those powers,
and third to serve as a source of raw materials for the industries of
the colonising countries, for the British imperialists, Tanzania —
or Tanganyika as she then was —was used almost solely as a field
for the extraction of cheap raw materials. Barring the period
before the first world war when the country was under German
rule, little capital investment was made in Tanganyika during the
whole period of colonialism, nor was there any serious attempt
made to lay the foundation for the growth of a wide market for
imported goods. At the time of independence in 1961, for in-
stance, British direct investment in the country stood at £8.2
million, compared to £46.3 million in Kenya, £50.2 million in
Ghana, and £98.6 million in Nigeria in that same year:.!

For this reason, the development of the productive forces in the
country were overly retarded. If colonialism everywhere stifles the
development of the productive forces in the colonies by fragmen-
ting their economies into specialised unrelated sectors, making
them dependent on foreign forces for dynamism, funnelling out
most of the surpluses generated in the colonies, and hence making
it impossible for the process of capital accumulation to proceed
normally, in situations such as those of Tanganyika the retardation
of the development of the productive forces was doubly
magnified. This state of affairs was underlined by the fact that
Tanganyika was only part of the larger East African economy
which the British ruled and exploited more or less as a single unit,
and in which Tanganyika featured as a sub-satellite.

At the time of independence, therefore, less than 5 per cent of
the population was in wage employment, a third of which was in
sisal production alone. The industrial sector consisted of some 300
generally small-scale private companies or partnerships managed
by Europeans and Asians. Essentially, such industries as there
were had been constructed for the purposes of facilitating the ex-
traction of raw materials. Cotton, coffee, sisal and diamonds

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