Scholars of Zimbabwean history have argued that organised African labour was subordinated to petit bourgeois nationalism. This article refutes these assessments and argues that, in the period between the formation of the first mass nationalist organisation and the adoption of the armed struggle, organised labour and nationalism were intimately connected, a fact that reflected in part the structural position of the African workers in a colonial society. This relationship was, however, disrupted by the adoption of armed struggle by the nationalists in 1963.
Read
