On each and every day of May 1, workers are packed into open spaces and stadiums to celebrate and reflect on what is by calendar the Workers Day.
Of recent events, serious cracks have emerged between the mass popular political alternative and some of the elements in the leadership of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) and the startling climax was the walk out of mass leaders and the people during a presentation of a speech by the union’s leadership.
This article shall use historical dialectical materialism to trace the relationship of politics and labour in Zimbabwe, and identify the cause for the current cracks and suggest alternative routes out of the conundrum.
The place and spirit of workers in any society captures and depicts the relationship between those who control the means of production and those who do not.
The relationship between those who control the means of production and those who do not (workers and the unemployed) is the traditional stage for politics and revolutions all the way to times beyond the 1789 French revolution.
The life of humans has thus been a struggle for material control .
Those who control power and capital will thus insist on the masses to use the Zig and the masses in street corners will run fierce battles with the police insisting that it does not have buying power.
The stage for politics and revolution is thus on materialism.
Historical dialectical materialism is thus a theory of understanding history and society and is associated with the legendary Karl Marx and Friedrick Engels.
The core of their thought process is that all change is ' materialistic ' , that the ' negation of the negation ' is constant and over time small quantitative changes produce a “qualitative” change.
That all thoughts and social institutions come to being only as a superstructure built upon and founded on an economic base.
According to this theory the forces that birthed the liberation struggle were materialistic and dialectic , similarly the current status of the (ZCTU ) is informed by historical dialectical materialism.
To understand the labour dynamics of Zimbabwe, a history lesson is important.
The period ( 1890) is significant for the colonisation of Mashonaland, while ( 1893) signifies the Anglo- Ndebele war and the fall of the Ndebele state to signify total colonial status for what we now call Zimbabwe.
The period from (1893) is characterised by the settlers taking away " materials " from our ancestors.
The massive cattle of King Lobhengula were annexed , all fertile land was grabbed and a system of creating slavery was instituted on our people.
Through taxation in the most devious ways like hut tax and dog tax , the " material " place of our people was injured and like in any society this created confrontation between those who controlled the means of production and the masses and the “negation of the negation” was set in motion.
The small quantitative changes led to a full blown qualitative change, which we know as the first Chimurenga of (1896-97).
Our people revolted in revolution and waged a war , whose result was the peace (indaba) at Matopos.
The point made is that the seed of revolution in Zimbabwe is always linked to the labour conditions of the masses.
The long period after the ( indaba ) was marked by intensification of a fascist police state and targeted “lawfare” on our people.
Law has always been a tool of those who control the means of production to control the behaviour of the masses and ensure that they remain " materially" unhealthy.
The Land Apportionment Act of 1930 is a good case in point.
There thus must be seen at an early stage, even in colonial times the intricate link between law , politics and material well being.
That we call “state conflation” is a vice that Karl Marx decried many centuries ago, it is the method in the madness of those that want to control resources at the exclusion of the masses.
The response to the settler’s madness was trade unionism. In the period of the (1940s) black trade unionism gained massive ground.
The leading organisations in this crusade were the Reformed Industrial Union and the Commercial Union led by the luminary Charles Mzingeli.
The other leaders of this period include Benjamin Burombo, Masotsha Ndlovu, Stanley Culverwell, Aaron Jacha and Joshua Nkomo.
The point I pause to make is that hard national times impact most on the workers and the unemployed and these naturally come together in resistance — unionise.
Trade unionism in its pure sense , is resistance to exploitation and provides the fire and apparatus for full blown political solutions to social inequalities.
The state has the police and soldiers to enforce its ideology , it has national state broadcasters for its propaganda - a Trade union that exists to sing accolades to the state is just an agent . It is a Trojan horse.
Trade unionists often all realise that the realisation of labour goals is linked without separation to political regime change goals.
Labour leaders and movements thus metarmophosis into mass political movements.
In the 1950s the labour movements ignited the fire of mass nationalism and by the year 1957 they formed the first nationalist mass movement led by Joshua Nkomo known as the Southern Rhodesia African Nationalist Congress (SRANC).
The trend of mass national political leaders being a product of trade unions is a reality of history in this nation and is a construction of historical dialectical materialism.
Trade unionism on its own is labour focused , mass politics is broad based.
The result of a trade union transfiguration into politics is that it has to share the stage with other like forces .
The formation of the (SRANC) was thus a combined effort of trade union leaders with young youth leaders like Charles Chikerema and George Nyandoro of the City Youth League.
The other ally in such struggles will always be the intellectuals and at this stage , Herbert Chitepo the first black lawyer was part of this formation.
I pause to make the point that every fascist regime to protect its " material " accumulation always stands ready to ban by hook or crook opposition political parties.
It is a preoccupation of a fascist state to destroy opposition parties , put to prison their leaders and supporters.
The formation of the NDP and Zapu speak to the method of fascists to always destroy vibrant opposition parties.
The subsequent formation of (Zanu) in (1963) led to an armed struggle led by Zipra and Zanla forces whose result was the Lancaster House Settlement and the election of 1980, which brought independence and a promise of material gain to the masses of our people.
In the ideological prism of historical dialectical materialism, 1980 achieved a change of political leaders by name and colour .
The real situation remained the same mostly in that those who controlled the means of production did not change , Zimbabwe is driven by mining and agriculture and these remained in the hands of the white minority.
The chance presented by the “political” change was that the black majority government would share the cake and be friends of the left wing.
The legend Karl Marx is a realist. At a cursory glance ( 1980) was the ultimate goal , but in the eye of him who is fixated to the ultimate goal it was not. In the eyes of Marx and Engels , independence without material share is a waste.
The majority goverment did not engage in a viable mass based programme of land redistribution during the period of 1980- 1999.
The government again did not give people mining rights during this period.
The black majority remained workers for the minority and the black nationalists now in power were conscripted into the class of those who controlled the means of production.
A list of rich people in Zimbabwe by general observation will show that during this period , politicians and their counterparts in the loot became rich.
The struggle changed course , the agents of change became themselves one with the former coloniser and more time was spent in foreign shopping in Paris and London at the expense of left wing politics and policies.
I pause to make the point that the result of a black government that did not materially share “material” with the masses gave pace again the forces of “negation of the negation”, which had never gone to rest as they are continuous.
The masses in view of inequality intensified trade unionism, just like their ancestors in the 1940s .
The leaders of this new breed include Morgan Tsvangirai, Gibson Sibanda, Lucia Mativenga, Jourbert Mudzumwe and many others.
These did not reinvent the wheel , and using old tactics the ZCTU of Tsvangirai led massive national protests for the worker and on the other side , students led massive protests in tertiary institutions as led by Learnmore Jongwe, Nelson Chamisa , Job Sikhala and many others.
Other mature intellectuals congregated in the National Constitutional Assembly ( NCA) and called for constitutional change and in this terrain we had the likes of Lovemore Madhuku , Welshman Ncube ,Douglas Mwonzora and others.
A period of exacerbated ' negation of the negation ' was ignited and the NCA’s no vote victory of 1997 and the Tsvangirai stay aways marked the climax of this period.
In 1999 , just like in 1957 these forces of change came together and birthed the MDC and a trade unionist became the leader.
The more things change , the more they remain the same goes the old adage.
Realising that the masses were no longer on their side for known " material " reasons , the government unleashed in the most bizzare of ways the land reform programme.
The idea was to fast track land redistribution , one wonders how a black government had to " fastrack " land reform when they had power since 1980 .
The powers that be realised the effects of a changed base and tried to change the course of history overnight.
The process of the dialectis is “gradual” it is not one of “fast track”.
The results of the 2000, 2005 and 2008 elections are clear that the heartbeat of the masses long left the liberation movements.
Whatever the effects of rigging , the year 2008 was supposed to be the new 1980.
The derailed triumph of the dialectis saw a regime that like the Bourbons had “learnt nothing and forgotten nothing”.
By night methods the big mass party started splintering, and its supporting resting arm the labour force was targeted.
Every trade union inclined to the masses was weakened by a planted splinter union.
The ZCTU became a shadow of the former, it has become a conglomoration of struggle leaders and fascist agents.
It has lost the credibility status in the eyes of its members , and people have fixed their hope on the mass political leadership (by whatever name or party you call them).
The president of the ZCTU is not known nationally and younger Zimbabweans don’t even know what this organisation is and what it hopes to achieve.
The pattern of present reality is that Nelson Chamisa of now is the custodian of the hopes of the workers and all the genuine forces found on the left wing side.
The true ZCTU is with Chamisa and the people , and the ZCTU in name is with the state.
The current ZCTU is thus a construct of state agents and remnants of the people's leadership.
There is no room for a non- aligned ZCTU , this is an excuse for treachery.
The real ZCTU is those loud cheers that were given to Gift Ostallos Siziba .
The future is in a new ZCTU registered or not , the current is to be liquidated unless a miracle transfiguration is achieved.
The place of labour will not be changed by state agent infestation, the forces of material politics remain unchanged and true forces march towards a climax of the awaited triumph of historical dialectical materialism in Zimbabwe.