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Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the revolutionary visions expressed in ZPRA’s military and diplomatic launch in the early 1970s. Moving beyond usual attributions of Sovietness, it traces diverse influences and their role in restored solidarity, military re-organization and ZPRA’s culture of military training

Paper long abstract:

In 1972, ZAPU launched its revolutionary army ZPRA. It did so at a juncture of rivalrous ideological elaboration among liberation movements. The launch was designed for maximal global visibility - to show potential recruits and the world that ZAPU was now a transformed, revolutionary movement, back on the ‘correct’, ‘authentic’ path and newly capable of fighting after a series of devastating crises that had threatened its military survival. The paper compares two discrete domains where revolutionary political ideas were performed and materialised to different ends– the global diplomatic fora of exchanges to secure external support and ZPRA’s own military training in Morogoro camp, designed to inspire loyal, disciplined cadres. In global diplomacy, ZAPU used its newly released document – ‘the ideological concept’ - as material evidence of maturity and sophistication. The story of the production, vision and circulation of this document sheds new light on the interactions across a globally dispersed network of allies, liberation movement politicians, representatives and students. In ZPRA’s Morogoro training, political ideas also mattered but were detached from the content of the ‘ideological concept’. ZPRA’s military instructors combined older Algerian influences on drill with inspiration from new Soviet training and experiences fighting alongside the PLO in Lebanon. Visions of modern socialist Zimbabwean futures inspired a new cohort of guerrillas, who expressed their imaginaries in a new confidence and pride in their sense of themselves as ZPRA professional soldiers.