Many of the most important differences and similarities between Angola and Mozambique predate the arrival of the Portuguese in the fifteenth century.

When we put the question of Marxist economic orientation in this context, the two decades of so-called Marxist development seems rather a small issue when compared to half a millennium of colonial history.

In terms of broad similarities, both countries contain within their borders a variety of African ethnic groups, many of which had no sense of common identity prior to the arrival of the Europeans. Both countries also contained substantial kingdoms, with well-defined borders and centralized political control: most notably the Kongo kingdom on the west coast of Africa, which had its capital in what is now Angola (though it extended northward into what is now Zaire and the Congo), and the kingdoms of Sofala and Muenemutapa in Mozambique.

The goals of the Portuguese were not primarily ones of conquest and settlement. Rather, the principal aim of the early explorers was to open routes for extraction of commodities, among which were spices, gold, ivory, and slaves. This had important implications for the local populations, as it meant that there was no overriding need for the Portuguese to control territory or to rule directly. Rather, it was more convenient for them to reach accommodations with local political leaders in order to develop trading relationships which would allow them to extract the desired export commodities. For the most part, there was no concerted effort to promote economic development, or to settle Portuguese colonists on these lands, and this remained the case until the twentieth century (Issacman and Isaacman, 1983; Newitt, 1995).

Until the partition of Africa by European powers in the late 1800s there was little effort by the Portuguese to settle or directly control the interior of either country. However, at that time it became clear that the main criterion for colonial borders was to follow the dictum “possession is 9/10 of the law” — or 100 percent in this case. Accordingly, the Portuguese began to push into the interior of both Mozambique and Angola, an effort that picked up speed in the 1930s when Portugal sought among other things to alleviate its own unemployment problems by exporting large numbers of settlers and peasant farmers abroad.

This massive influx of Europeans resulted in a situation in which virtually every formal sector job in the economies of both countries was dominated by whites. Every salaried job, including taxi drivers, waiters, ticket takers, etc. was held by the Portuguese, leaving no role whatsoever for Africans in the formal sector. Agriculture, too, became heavily Europeanized, with a large smallholder African peasant sector coexisting with a commercialized sector of medium-sized European farms and large plantations. Equally important was a virtual monopoly by the Portuguese on the network of rural traders who linked all agricultural producers to the market. These bush traders and shopkeepers provided an outlet for peasant production and in return served as providers of agricultural inputs, consumer goods and informal credit.

This chapter will argue that “Marxist” economic ideology as practiced in the Lusophone African context is virtually indistinguishable from general justifications for authoritarian extractive regimes of any political stripe, and that the extractive regimes of post-independence Angola and Mozambique are in many ways simply extensions of the old colonial regimes under new management. Though the newly independent governments in Angola and Mozambique were openly and avowedly “Marxist” in their economic convictions, this was more of a label of convenience than a real indicator of ideological conviction. The true conviction in each case was a determination to replace colonial hegemony and control with that of the ruling party, a goal which is shared by many political persuasions in Africa and around the world.