Introduction
The following survey of the African labour movement at its origins, and of the economic and social context in which it emerged, appeared in three instalments in the American socialist review The New International (Summer 1956, Winter 1957 and Spring 1957). The author was Dan Gallin, writing as André Giacometti (cf. The Giacometti File, elsewhere on this website).
The three articles were reproduced by the IUF on the occasion of its Third African Regional Conference (Lusaka, Zambia, September 1986) and are part of the volume containing the background documents and the report of the conference. Below, the introduction to the IUF edition, by Dan Gallin.

Introduction / part I / part II / part III
Introduction to the IUF edition (1986)
THE LABOUR MOVEMENT lN TROPICAL AFRICA – ITS BEGINNINGS
Africa was a very different place in the middle 1950s. Colonialism, in its traditional forms inherited from the nineteenth century, still ruled much of the continent. Neither American nor Soviet interventionism had become as prominent as they are now, although the signs were unmistakeably there. The crisis in South Africa was more latent, and the apartheid state was only in its beginnings, strong and arrogant. High hopes were placed in national independence as a means of achieving free, just and prosperous societies. The degeneration of liberators into oppressors, as in Sekou Touré’s Guinea, the return of foreign domination in the form of neo-colonialism, internal wars of independence, such as the one forced on the people of Eritrea for the last twenty-five years, man-made famines, political disunity caused by superpower manipulation — all these, thirty years ago, were bitter experiences as yet hidden in the future.
The labour movement, throughout Africa, had begun to emerge as a unifying and liberating force. It was then, as it is now, despite its divisions, the only universal reality on the continent, transcending national borders and, at that time, colonial spheres of influence.
The purpose of the article was to acquaint American readers with this emerging reality and to explore the roots of a labour movement which was virtually unknown a the time. It is written from a socialist point of view, that is, from the standpoint of one who regards the African working class as the only genuinely liberating force on the continent, the only one capable of bringing about a free, just and sustainable society, and the only one capable of standing up to the new division of Africa into US and USSR spheres of influence, which began in the years following the second world war. The fact that, as subsequent history showed, African trade unions were not always strong enough to carry out their independent agenda, and themselves frequently succumbed to the pressures of the rival imperialisms, does not detract from the validity of the analysis, nor from the policies that follow. No labour movement in the world has been able to deliver on promise as quickly as the crisis of society would have required, or as its pioneers had hoped.
We are re-issuing this survey to help restore its historical memory to the African labour movement, and as background to the debate on its long-term perspectives and strategies.
Introduction / part I / part II / part III