After winning a war of national liberation, FRELIMO faces the vexing question of whether socialism now can be established. With respect to Guinea-Bissau, Amilcar Cabral emphasized: ‘This depends on the instruments used to effect the transition to socialism; the essential factor is the nature of the state....“ No doubt his statement was premised on the belief that socialism begins with the conquest of the state by the producing classes. They must seize the state apparatus to defeat the ruling class whose power is concentrated there. Both the means of coercion and the forces that reproduce the system itself are part of this domain. It is only by gaining control of state power, which is a political act, that the working classes can subsequently organize a socialist economy.

On June 25, 1975, following ten years of armed struggle by the Mozambican people against Portuguese colonialism, the People’s Republic of Mozambique was born. Led by the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO), which was formed out of the merger of three nationalist organizations in 1962, the Mozambican people had seen many social, political, and economic changes come to the liberated areas in northern Mozambique long before the formal declaration of national independence. FRELIMO, even during the struggle, had begun to confront the legacy of over 400 years of Portuguese colonialism and systematic exploitation and underdevelopment of Mozambique’s human and natural resources.

On June 25, 1975, Mozambique became independent. The transfer of power from Portugal to FRELIMO (The Mozambican Liberation Movement) marked the first phase of national liberation. FRELIMO, unlike many nationalist movements whose exclusive concern was to capture the colonial state, emphasized that independence marked only the beginning of a longer process to dismantle exploitative institutions and transform basic economic and social relationships. The new era of “People’s Democratic Revolution” based on socialist principles envisioned “the construction in Mozambique of a society ... where the material living conditions of the people are constantly improving and where their social needs are increasingly satisfied.”

A striking aspect of the on-going revolution in Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau is the insistence on the need for the liberation of women to be an explicit and integral part of that process. “Liberation of women,” reads an oft-quoted statement of Samora Machel, FRELIMO president, “is a fundamental necessity for our revolution; a guarantee of its continuity and a precondition for victory.” In a similar vein, Amilcar Cabral, assassinated leader of PAIGC, used to state firmly that their revolution could not be successful unless it ensured the full participation of women, or, “In Guinea-Bissau we say that women are fighting two colonialisms; one against the Portuguese and the other against men.”

Our schools, our syllabuses, our independence—without which we would not be here—are the fruit of scarifice, of the struggle of generations of our ancestors, of our grandparents, of our parents. They are the fruit of Revolution.

To the students we say: you are those who continue the Revolution. We leave in you all our hopes, the hopes of the future of our country. But in order that you can continue the Revolution, you must assume the deep significance of your mission as students. You must understand that the school where you study is the fruit of the blood of sacrifice of our People.

The challenges ahead for Mozambique as it engages in cultural transformation as well as in other areas of fundamental change are enormous. But the record of conquests and victories over the last 15 years has been equally enormous and remarkable. The Mozambicans are determined and confident in their ability to build a new and revolutionary people’s culture, based on the worker-peasant alliance, transforming antiquated and exploitative culture into one which allows for a rich blossoming of the human personality and potential. In this confidence and determination, there may be lessons for us all.

The problem of cultural change in the People’s Republic of Mozambique can be reduced to the question: how can certain indigenous traditions, values, customs, and art forms be combined with other domestic or imported values and modes of cultural expression and brought into line with new social structures?

Mozambique “switched from a pro-Chinese to a pro-Soviet stance during the Angolan civil war,” writes a commentator in the influential U.S. quarterly Foreign Policy of Fall 1977. “Mozambique said to Cool on Soviets, Turn West,” headlines a Washington Post dispatch of December 15, 1977. The Economist’s Foreign Report claims in its advertising to have been the first to describe the ideological infighting within FRELIMO and the swing to Russia. The commentators seemed to have missed Mozambique’s 1977 trade fair in September, at which the People’s Republic of China won first prize for an exhibit corresponding to Mozambique’s needs, but if they had been there one might well have seen headlines proclaiming Mozambique’s shift back to China.