David Johnson, World War II and the Scramble for Labour in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1939-1948. Harare: University of Zimbabwe Publications, 2000. iv + 179 pp. ISBN: 0-908307-85-3.
Reviewed for EH.NET by Laird Jones, Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania (December 2002).
At first glance, David Johnson's monograph on Zimbabwean labor during the Second World War appears unlikely to interest the general economic history reader. It is a rather slim volume with a seemingly over-focused title. Turning the pages, however, it is soon apparent that the author has attempted a much broader project. Interpreting the war years as a crucial watershed, Johnson seeks to connect two major bodies of research in modern African history: the development of an early colonial economy and labor regime, and the rise of postwar political and labor activism. Far from being narrowly focused, his study weaves together a number of labor-related themes, from farm work to industry, and policy to protest.
What is most refreshing about the book is that it examines Zimbabwean labor history outside the shadow of the South African literature, making comparisons and drawing upon theses developed elsewhere in colonial Africa. In particular, the author cites Walter Rodney on the war as a watershed, Fred Cooper on the war and workers, and Bruce Berman and John Lonsdale on settler politics and the colonial state. Of course, Johnson does make reference to scholarship on Zimbabwe and South Africa, but the broader perspective is both informative and more appealing to a wider audience.
The argument begins strongly. The introduction asserts, "the war was a pivotal moment in the relationship between capital and labor in Zimbabwe, then Southern Rhodesia. Under the guise of support for the British war effort, undercapitalized settler producers -- who were unable to attract an adequate supply of labor through a dependence on market forces -- used their political power to influence the state to coerce Africans into wage employment in order to take advantage of unprecedented opportunities presented by the expansion of internal and external markets." Moreover, the author connects these efforts to postwar labor unrest and later mass nationalism. He cautions, "settler prosperity and the economic development on which it was built were not withoutcontradictions. The expansion of the war and post-war years ... greatly increased the social basis for Africans to challenge theireconomic and political subordination."
The first chapter clearly establishes that military service was not a significant Southern Rhodesian contribution to the allied war effort. Africans generally dreaded it. Nor did white settlers volunteer in great numbers. Even the Southern Rhodesian government did not encourage mass enlistments. Instead, it pursued a strategy of training small, highly skilled combat units. In part, Johnson argues, this official reticence stemmed from longstanding fears of armed rebellion. No settler-dominated legislature wished to see large numbers of Africans under arms, whatever the circumstances. But in greater part, Johnson maintains, reluctance to raise a larger fighting force stemmed from the desire of settler farmers, would-be manufactures and mine operators to capitalize on the war economy, and for this they required African laborers, not African soldiers.
Chapter two outlines the wartime stimulus to the Southern African economy, and settler efforts to cash in, which Johnson terms, "the lucrativeness of loyalty." The Southern Rhodesian government, for example, hosted a number of British flight training facilities. Construction of these bases proved a windfall for settler contractors, as did provisioning the influx of military personnel for local merchants. More important, wartime demand revived the mining industries and gave company owners greater leverage to lobby for higher mineral prices. The agricultural sector expanded too and in Zimbabwe none saw their situation more improved than tobacco planters. Finally, wartime shortages of imported European consumer goods proved an impetus to secondary industrialization in many Southern African cities.
The key variable in the wartime economic boom, the author argues in chapter three, was African labor. Since the official repeal of corvée labor in the 1920s, settler employers had faced a dwindling supply of local workers. Many young people simply found cashcrop agriculture on the Reserves more remunerative than wage labor on settler farms or in the mines. For nearly two decades the situation failed to become acute, because during the Depression there was sharply reduced demand, and worker shortfalls weremade up with low wage migrants from less prosperous neighboring colonies. It was the war, Johnson points out, which brought the matter to a head. In settler agriculture, mining and industry there was sharply increased demand for workers, and at the same time, several neighboring colonies severely restricted the outflow of migrants, ostensibly to aid their own war efforts. Rather than relying on market forces, however, Southern Rhodesian employers attempted other options -- professional recruiting organizations, appeals to more distant labor pools, and increased demands on their remaining work force. Settler farmers had long lobbied the Southern Rhodesian government to reimpose forced labor, and following the failure of the 1941-42 maize harvest finally pushed through the Compulsory Labor Act.
Forced labor, in the midst of a war against authoritarianism, was a dicey matter. The author presents considerable evidence in chapter four that conscription was most unpopular in the Reserves. Further, he suggests that even the colonial state was contradicted in this effort. Certainly, elected officials sought to reward settler employers. However, conscription quotas placed on African chiefs or headmen in the Reserves undermined the legitimacy of the colonial regime on the ground. And a return to forced labor risked criticism from anti-colonial and labor activists in Europe. Therefore, officials justified the scheme as essential to the war effort and organized it accordingly. Young people were formed into large units, and worked in gangs, traveling from one job site to the next. Some might be engaged in military construction, others in roadwork, and many in agricultural fieldwork.
These four chapters contain several noteworthy assertions. First, the author documents that settlers maneuvered within the context of the war to gain political and economic advantage. The point has certainly been made previously for Eastern and Southern African in the case of the First World War, but less for the Second. This contention also provides better context for postwar politics, at least for settler efforts to set legislative agendas and to impose reactionary forms of control on African populations. Second, Johnson points out that settler enterprises exploited forced labor long after the literature suggests. Moreover, they did so during a crucial recovery, which some argue was a take-off period for large-scale, settler agriculture. Whereas others have attributed this belated settler success to better access to extension services or transport, new hybrid seed types, mechanization or political control over para-statal marketing boards, the author reintroduces the question of primitive accumulation and returns African labor to center stage. This contention too has great bearing on the postwar situation as well as on the present, but unfortunately these connections are not developed.
The argument becomes clouded in chapter five, which outlines the postwar repeal of compulsory labor, as well as employer initiatives to organize state-related recruiting entities to make up shortfalls. Most failed, the author argues, since during the immediate postwar period there was relative prosperity in the Reserves, and few young people were willing to seek low wage agricultural employment. Moreover, those in need of work headed to urban areas or undertook clandestine migration to South Africa. Thus, the author places European settler and African peasant agriculture in competition, a common theme in the Southern African literature, and implies that in the postwar period, from a labor standpoint, it was settler agriculture that suffered. Unfortunately, while these are interesting observations, supported in some instances by documentary evidence, they seem difficult to sustain without considerable further research. How could settler agriculture expand throughout the period in the wake of an apparent worker shortage? Did "external" migrant labor again come to play a key role? What about other factors besides labor? Likewise, "peasant" agriculture has largely been considered to be in commercial decline after the war. Certainly there were belts of prosperity close to urban food markets or transportation routes. But in more isolated areas, those that had for years been exploited as labor pools, had conditions really improved to the point that few people would take occasional farm work?
The sixth and final chapter jumps to the urban areas to outline postwar African political and labor activism. It is a rather abrupt transition in that the preceding chapters deal largely with settler farmer politics and rural labor. At several points the author does state that wartime conditions led to an expansion in mining and stimulated secondary industrialization, but beyond these generalizations, he provides little information on actual conditions in mines, factories or transportation facilities. The policy connections are also difficult to discern. Did wartime compulsory labor policy play any role in sparking postwar urban protests? Were there rural-urban linkages? Were there other wartime urban or industrial policies that factored into postwar unrest? Unfortunately, the book ends abruptly and the author offers no conclusions.
David Johnson's initial study constitutes a promising beginning to a massive topic. It provides some important analyses, on wartime politics and forced labor in particular. The data on clandestine migration to South Africa also is original and impressive. However, given the book's limited length, its contributions are not thoroughly developed. In the future, the author needs to flesh out his thesis with further research on rural-urban linkages in labor activism or political protest, on the impact of urban wartime policies, and perhaps on the process of secondary industrialization.
Laird Jones teaches African and World History at Lock Haven University. His research is in late modern East African urban and economic history. He is currently working on a project about consumer imports.
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