From exile to the thick of the struggle: Ruth First and the problems of national liberation, international sanctions and revolutionary agency

Leo Zeilig

Review of African Political Economy, 2014, vol. 41, issue 139, 134-152

Abstract: Much of Ruth First's work examined the projects for radical transformation of Africa's political economy. She was aware of the failures of independence, writing in 1970 that decolonisation had been little more than 'a bargaining process with cooperative African elites'. But she remained an enthusiastic advocate of some of these 'projects' on the continent. In 1977 she moved to Maputo to contribute to the socialist transformation of the country. This paper looks at First's contribution to the critical appraisal of independence in Africa and her own commitment to the transition to socialism in Mozambique. In this commitment are many of First's greatest strengths, but also some limitations and contradictions. The paper also presents a biographical account of Ruth First's astute enquiries into the development of capitalism in Southern Africa and the two-stage theory of revolution.

Date: 2014
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/03056244.2014.878085 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:revape:v:41:y:2014:i:139:p:134-152

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CREA20

DOI: 10.1080/03056244.2014.878085

Access Statistics for this article

Review of African Political Economy is currently edited by Graham Harrison, Branwen Gruffydd Jones, Claire Mercer, Nicolas Pons-Vignon, Aurelia Segatti and Ray Bush

More articles in Review of African Political Economy from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().