its subsidiaries its own °‘Guidelines’ on the establishment of
workers’ councils, it defined the role of TANU Branches in in-
dustries in these terms:

The TANU branch is the polifical consciousness of its members and
supervise party matters in the organisation. It does nor deal with
disciplinary matters — that is the work of the workers’ committee. Nor
does it do the work of management. But again, it can be used to good
purpose if it is consulted on matters which it is competent to deal with.>?

It seems to me that the roots of the problem stem from the very
nature and content of the party in Tanzania. The Arusha
Declaration, and the TANU guidelines more emphatically, have
called upon the party to assume leadership in all affairs of the
nation:

The responsibility of leading the masses together with their various in-
stitutions in their efforts to safeguard their freedom so that the
Revolution for the liberation of Africa may continue lies in the Party.
The duty of a socialist party is to guide all activities of the people. The
government, parastatals, national institutions, etc. are instruments for im-
plementing the Party’s policies. Our short history tells us of the problems
that may arise when a party does not guide these as its instruments.
The time has now come for the party to take the reins and lead all mass
activities.>*

This is not the place to discuss thoroughly the party in Tanzania.
We should just note that it has not been able to assume these
responsibilities so far because of very serious structural and
ideological limitations. In fact it is doubtful if TANU is the
‘socialist party’ that the above quotation talks about. Its mem-
bership so far is very amorphous, so are its ‘functions’. TANU'’s
role today seems to be to do ‘everything’ — meaning therefore
‘nothing’ in practice. Thus an official of the National Development
Corporation is said to have stated that TANU had only one duty
in the Corporation, to collect dues! He was right in the sense that
he described correctly the realities. This problem is of course not
peculiar to Tanzania — it is in fact a characteristic of all ex-
colonial countries.

After independence, the party sinks into an extra-ordinary lethargy.
The militants are only called upon when so-called popular
manifestations are afoot, or international conferences, or independence
celebrations. The local party leaders are given administrative posts, the

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