[Marxism] Amilcar Cabral (PAIGC)

[Waistline2 at aol.com]

For Marxists the active forces in the historical process are classes.   It 
is the fascists--specifically the Hitlerites--for whom a "People," a "Volk," 
 is the basic unit of history.  Because the term "a people" cannot be  
defined except in the sloppiest of fashions, acting in the name of "a people"  
allows any demagogue to do anything at all with the supreme justification of  
nationalism.

Comment
 
Address delivered to the first Tricontinental Conference of the Peoples of  
Asia, Africa and Latin America held in Havana in January, 1966" 


""Those who affirm — in our case correctly — that the  motive force of 
history is the class struggle would certainly agree to a  revision of this 
affirmation to make it more precise and give it an even wider  field of 
application if they had a better knowledge of the essential  characteristics of 
certain colonized peoples, that is to say peoples dominated  by imperialism. In 
fact in the general evolution of humanity and of each of the  peoples of 
which it is composed, classes appear neither as a generalized and  simultaneous 
phenomenon throughout the totality of these groups, nor as a  finished, 
perfect, uniform and spontaneous whole. The definition of classes  within one 
or several human groups is a fundamental consequence of the  progressive 
development of the productive forces and of the characteristics of  the 
distribution of the wealth produced by the group or usurped from others.  That is to 
say that the socio-economic phenomenon ‘class’ is created and  develops as 
a function of at least two essential and interdependent variables —  the 
level of productive forces and the pattern of ownership of the means of  
production. This development takes place slowly, gradually and unevenly, by  
quantitative and generally imperceptible variations in the fundamental  
components; once a certain degree of accumulation is reached, this process then  
leads to a qualitative jump, characterized by the appearance of classes and of  
conflict between them." 
Cabral  
 
The first sentence clarifies the meaning of the word people as "certain  
colonized peoples, that is to say peoples dominated by imperialism." 
 
For my money I bet that Cabral general use of the term people, meant  
specifically the people where he lived, in Guinea (B) and the Cape Verde  
Islands, as they were colonized, exploited and oppressed by Portuguese  
Imperialism, without reference to the people's tribal, religious, language,  dialect, 
etc. differences. 
 
This is just a guess. 
 
 
WL. 
 
 
 
 
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