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The Ujamaa Village in Tanzania: A Comparison with Chinese, Soviet and Mexican Experiences in Collectivization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Dean E. McHenry Jr
Affiliation:
The University of Illinois

Extract

The Mexican ejido, the Soviet kolkhoz, the Chinese commune and the Tanzanian Ujamaa village have all been encouraged by governments as a means of reorganizing the countryside on a communal basis. Few policies have had so profound an effect on people's lives as have those associated with the collectivization of agriculture. It is the purpose of this paper to examine the degree of similarity in the collectivization experiences.

Type
Communal Politics
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1976

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References

1 These figures should be considered approximations, since there is variation from source to source in reported magnitudes. The size and population figures are from the World Almanac and Book of Facts, 1973 Edition (New York: Newspaper Enterprise Association, 1972), pp. 542617.Google Scholar The rural percentages are calculated from the 1970 estimates of rural and urban population in Statistical Office of the United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Statistical Yearbook, 1972 (New York: United Nations, 1973), pp. 80–8.Google Scholar The area farmed figures are from the following sources: (a) for Tanzania, Tanzania, Statistical Abstract, 1965 (Dar es Salaam: Government Printer, 1967),Google Scholar Table A.3; (b) for China, Chen, Nai-Ruenn, Chinese Economic Statistics, A Handbook for Mainland China (Chicago: Aldine, 1967),Google Scholar Table 5.1 (estimated from the 1957 figure of 111,830 hectares); (c) for the U.S.S.R., Paxton, John, ed., The Statesman's Year-book, 1972, 1973 (London: Macmillan, 1972), p. 1407;Google Scholar and (d) for Mexico, Exterior, Banco Nacional de Comercio, S.A., Mexico 1970, Facts, Figures and Trends (Mexico, 1970), p. 63Google Scholar (1960 figure). The estimates for the percentage in collective farms were derived from sources given for Figure 1, footnote 16.

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5 Special Correspondent, Socialist Land Reform in Tanzania,” The African Communist, No. 45 (Second Quarter 1971), p. 75,,Google Scholar and the percentage of Ujamaa villages registered as multi-purpose producer cooperatives was 3.57 in 1972 and 6.08 in 1973, Daily News (Dar as Salaam), 21 06 1972Google Scholar and Sunday News (Dar es Salaam), 1 06 1973, respectively.Google Scholar

6 Approximately 5% of the land, though, is in state farms according to Deleyne, Jan, The Chinese Economy (London: Andre Deutsch, 1973), p. 84.Google Scholar

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41 Ibid., 16.

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43 From mimeographed student reports on visits to Ujamaa villages, Institute of Adult Education, University of Dar es Salaam.

44 Cooperative Education Centre, Cooperative Union of Tanganyika, Ujamaa Vijijini, Barua 1 (Moshi: CUT, n.d.), pp. 67.Google Scholar To promote equality and thwart the development of rural classes is also a prime objective as specified by Nyerere in “Socialism and Rural Development,” op. cit., p. 348.Google Scholar

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