colonialists and began to consolidate its economic position, while
the mass of the people continued to wallow in their age-old
miseries, unaffected by the act of independence.

Frequently, however, that act of independence also opened the
door for a doggish competition of the various sectors of the petty
bourgeoisie for pre-eminence, hence giving rise to the constant
changes of government which Africa is now so much used to. In
Tanganyika, the post-independence strikes were partly a result of
the ambition of the trade union leaders to challenge the new
government leaders — both categories of leaders being more and
more alienated from the ranks of workers and peasants for whom
they had been speaking most vociferously in the period preceding
independence.

The new government leaders, aware of the potential power of
the trade unions, moved very fast to crush their capacity. Within
the first year of independence, new legislation restricting and ef-
fect banning strikes was passed, subsequently some of the most
outspoken trade union leaders were either co-opted into the
government machinery or were detained under a new detention
act. Strikes were therefore reduced from 203 in 1960 to 13 in
1965, and man days lost from 1.5 million to 1.9 thousand.'? The
culmination was reached in 1964 when, following the army
mutiny, the trade union movement was totally disbanded and its
leaders detained for alleged complicity in a coup attempt.

Of this period, many writers have endeavoured to present a
dramatic picture of a struggle between, on the one hand a
progressive and even revolutionary government/ TANU leader-
ship, and on the other a reactionary, neo-colonialist and racist
Tanganyika Federation of Labour.

The TFL-TANU tussle, though it appeared to be a struggle for per-
sonal power, was fundamental and deeply rooted in the conflict of the
two diametrically opposed stances: the TFL wanting to retain the
colonial economic infra-structure, but with Africans, ‘owning and man-
ning’ it, and the TANU wanting to restructure the economy to initiate
socialist development of the entire people — the wage workers and the
peasants. '?

This is a very simplistic and one-sided explanation. It fails to take
into account the contradictions which emerged in the society on
the morrow of independence, particularly the intra-class rivalry of

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