Topic: Non-capitalist development in Africa and Asia: Lessons from the 20th century
Speaker: Matthew Read, coordinator and researcher at the Zetkin Forum for Social Research
Abstract
The theory of “non-capitalist development” was a cornerstone of the communist states’ foreign policy during the latter half of the 20th century. This theory maintained that former colonies in Africa and Asia – where feudal or even pre-feudal relations prevailed – would not have to undergo the same path of capitalist development followed by North America and Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries. Instead, the socialist world system would be able to assist young states in the “Third World” in circumventing capitalism and proceed through a period of non-capitalist development towards an industrialized socialist economy. Mongolia and the Central Asian Soviet Republics were seen as succesful test cases for this strategy.
This lecture will examine the development of the theory in socialist scholarship during the 20th century and highlight some concrete experiences in countries such as Mali, Congo-Brazzaville, Afghanistan, and Syria. When exploring both the successes and limitations of this strategy, we will also discuss how the collapse of the “Eastern bloc” in 1989 and the subsequent rise of China have influenced the prospects of independent development in the former colonies today.
Matthew Read is a coordinator and researcher at the Zetkin Forum for Social Research, where he oversees a project on the history of the socialist states in Eastern Europe and their relations with the Global South during the second half of the 20th century. His most recent work has focused on development research in the USSR and GDR and the histories of socialist-oriented states in Mali (1960-1968) and Congo-Brazzaville (1963-1989).
