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Algerian Socialism and Its Critics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

John R. Nellis
John R. Nellis
Affiliation:
Carleton University
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Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , September 1980 , pp. 481 - 507
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Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1980

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References

1 Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace (London: Macmillan, 1977), 17Google Scholar.

2 Carmichael, Joel, Arabs Today (Garden City: Anchor Books, 1977), 147Google Scholar.

3 Deutsch, Karl, “Theories of Imperialism and Neo-colonialism,” in Rosen, Stephen and Kurth, James, (eds.), Testing Theories of Economic Imperialism (Toronto: Lexington Books, 1974), 31Google Scholar.

4 Moore, Clement Henry, Politics in North Africa (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970), 9Google Scholar.

5 Ibid., 295.

6 Quandt, William B., Revolution and Party Leadership in Algeria, 1954–1968 (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1969), 264Google Scholar.

7 See Rodinson, Maxime, Islam and Capitalism (New York: Pantheon, 1974)Google Scholar.

8 Said, Edward, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon, 1978)Google Scholar.

9 Ibid., 55.

10 Said notes: “only the Orientalist can interpret the Orient, the Orient being radically incapable of interpreting itself ibid., 289.

11 Ibid., 284–328.

12 Ibid., 322.

13 Ibid., 325.

14 Moore, Politics in North Africa, 322.

15 Quandt, Revolution and Party Leadership, 254.

16 Gallagher, Charles F., “A Note on the Maghreb,” in Zartman, I. William (ed.), Man, State and Society in the Contemporary Maghreb (New York: Praeger, 1973), 12Google Scholar. (Article written in 1967.)

17 Moore, Politics in North Africa, 99.

18 Ibid., 129.

19 See Jönsson, Lars, “La révolution agraire en Algérie, Historique, contenu et problèmes,” Scandinavian Institute of African Studies Research Report No. 47 (Uppsala: 1978), 45ffGoogle Scholar.

20 Ibid.; figures on land nationalized and farmers rewarded, 26; promising evidence, 74–75. A second source cites different figures. Daniel Junqua writes of 1,350,000 hectares and 900,000 date palms distributed to 127,000 recipients, with 28,000 landowners being affected, Le Monde, January 5, 1979.

21 Jönsson, “La révolution agraire,” 74.

22 Nellis, J. R., “Socialist Management in Algeria,” Journal of Modem African Studies 4 (1977), 548–50Google Scholar.

23 Ibid., 551.

24 Leca, Jean and Vatin, Jean-Claude, L'Algérie politique, institutions et régime (Paris: Presses de la fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1975), 76Google Scholar. This work presents an analysis of Algeria as of 1972.

25 Cubertafond, Bernard, “Réflexions sur la pratique politique algérienne,” Maghreb/Machrek (1975), 25Google Scholar.

26 The terms “sufficiently” and “satisfactory” are used, rather than “completely” or “fully,” to indicate the increasing flexibility of modern left analysis. To claim that left theorists see only the interplay of material self-interest would be to create an easily dismissed, excessively economistic view. See the “Introduction” in Miliband, Ralph's Marxism and Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 9Google Scholar.

27 See Lazreg, Marnia, The Emergence of Classes in Algeria (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1976)Google Scholar; Ammour, Kader, Leucate, Christian, and Moulin, Jean-Jacques, La voie algérienne: les contradictions d'un développement national (Paris: Maspero, 1974)Google Scholar; Minces, Juliette, L'Algérie de Boumediène (Paris: Presses de la Cité, 1978)Google Scholar; Chaliand, Gérard and Minces, Juliette, L'Algérie independante (Paris: Maspero, 1972)Google Scholar; Chaliand, Gérard, Mythes révolutionnaries du tiers-monde (Paris: Editions de Seuil, 1976)Google Scholar; Chaliand, Gérard, L'Algérie; est-elle socialiste? (Paris: Maspero, 1964)Google Scholar, and the articles by Ammour, Abdelkader and Lamrani, Fadela in “Du Maghreb,” a special issue of Les Temps Modemes, No. 375 (1977)Google Scholar. Other recent works on Algeria include: Balta, Paul and Rulleau, Claudine, La Stratégic de Boumediène (Paris: Editions Sinbad, 1978)Google Scholar, and Dahmani, Mohamed, L'Algérie, légitimité historique et continuité politique (Paris: Le Sycomore, 1979)Google Scholar.

28 The socialist pretensions of the Ben Bella and Boumedienne regimes are well documented. Note that the first reported statement by the new president, Colonel Chadli Bendjedid, was that Algeria's socialist option was “irreversible.”

29 For example, see Balta's articles, “Le tournant socialiste en Algérie,” Le Monde, December 28 and 29–30, 1974Google Scholar.

30 Front de Libération Nationale, Charte Nalionale (Alger: El Moudjahid Press, 1976), 5Google Scholar.

31 Ibid., 3.

32 Bruno Etienne regards this “unitarianism” as the central issue in Algerian politics. He argues that it and the nationalism which supports it is derived from “a religion which favours a type of unanimous consensus.…” See his L'Algérie, cultures et révolutions (Paris: Editions de Seuil, 1977), 98Google Scholar.

33 Charte Nationale, 7.

34 Ibid., 5.

35 There is an extensive literature on the rural self-management programme which was enacted on the nationalized land. The best studies are Gérard Duprat's exhaustive Révolution et autogestion rurale en Algérie (Paris: Armand Colin, 1973)Google Scholar, and Claudine Chaulet's case study, La Mitidja autogerée (Alger: SNED, 1971)Google Scholar.

36 The Economist, Quarterly Economic Survey, Algeria: Annual Supplement (London: 1974), 4 and 16Google Scholar.

37 The phrase is said to have originated with M. Ghozali, former president of the hydrocarbon state firm, SONATRACH, and presently a minister in Colonel Chadli's cabinet.

38 Leca and Vatin, L'Algérie politique, 474.

39 Some 200 socialist villages (or VARAs; villages agricoles de la révolution agraire) have been established. The programme is behind schedule.

40 Lazreg, The Emergence of Classes in Algeria, 183.

41 Quandt offers what can be discovered about the origins, occupations and aspirations of this group (Revolution and Party Leadership in Algeria, 66–86).

42 As Aiden Foster-Carter has noted, in areas where “capitalism was not the natural growth from preceding conditions, which it was in Europe, it was inevitably viewed … as an alien intrusion rather than an immanent socioeconomic trend …” (“Neo-Marxist Approaches to Development and Underdevelopment,” in de Kadt, E. [ed.]. Sociology and Development [London: Tavistock, 1974], 86)Google Scholar.

43 Information on the size and actions of the remaining private sector is hard to obtain. Lazreg's argument leads herto postulate that the socialized sectorof the economy has not been growing and that the private sector is in resurgence. Her data to support the former statement come from 1971; for the latter, 1968. Even so her sources indicate that over two-thirds of employment was in the public sector at that time (The Emergence of Classes in Algeria, 114). There have been more nationalizations and expansion of the state sector since then.

Nonetheless, it is clear that the private sector retains great importance. The secretary general of the national union noted in 1976 that the private sector contributed: 50 per cent of all agricultural production; 65 per cent of the construction industry, with some 4,000 firms in this sector; 50 per cent of textile, skins and leather production, and 80 per cent of retail trade. His point was that the commanding heights of the economy, in finance, heavy industry, importations and foreign trade, were in state hands (El Moudjahid, June 1, 1976, 4).

44 Lazreg, The Emergence of Classes in Algeria, 8.

45 Ibid., 10.

46 Ibid.

47 Leca and Vatin, L'Algérie politique, 89.

48 Etienne, L'Algérie, cultures et révolution, 32.

49 Charte Nationale, 7–11.

50 Knapp, Wilfrid, North West Africa, A Political and Economic Survey (3rd ed.; Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1977), 151Google Scholar.

51 Leca and Vatin, L'Algérie politique, 201, 209.

52 Ibid., 209.

53 Lazreg. The Emergence of Classes in Algeria, xii.

54 Chaliand, Mythes révolutionnaires de tiers-monde, 152.

55 In March 1977, Boumedienne announced in a special “State of the Nation” address, that “the problem of the management of the economy, and more particularly, of production and service units, will constitute our major concern for the coming years.… This will be the priority task of the government.” Reported in El Moudjahid, special supplement on “L'état de la Nation,” March 31, 1977, 6Google Scholar.

56 Charte Nationale, 5.

57 Ibid., 6.

58 This argument is well made in Benachenou, A., “Foreign Firms and the Transfer of Technology to the Algerian Economy,” ILO World Employment Programme Research Working Paper, WEP 2–28/WP 10,Geneva, 1976, 59Google Scholar.

59 Reported in the New York Times, “International Economic Survey,” Section 12, February 5, 1978, 12Google Scholar.

60 Daniel Junqua, “L'Algérie au milieu de gué,” Le Monde, 3 parts, January 3, 4, and 5, 1979. This information is from part III, January 5.

61 Knauss, Peter, “Algeria's Illusory Search for Autonomy: ‘Diversified Dependency,’” paper given at the International Studies Association,Washington, DC, 1978Google Scholar.

62 Benachenou presents data to support this view (“Foreign Firms.”)

63 Junqua, Le Monde, January 5, 1979. I have taken figures from Daniel Junqua's articles in Le Monde not because he can be classed as on the radical left, but simply because his data are the most recent available. Illustrations from Lazreg, Chaliand or the others cited in footnote 27 would follow the same logic but use older, and less damaging, statistics.

64 Ibid.

65 See Quandt, Revolution and Party Leadership in Algeria, 128.

66 Lazreg, The Emergence of Classes in Algeria, 6.

67 Ibid., 7.

68 Ibid., 160.

69 Samoff, Joel, “The Bureaucracy and the Bourgeoisie: Decentralization and Class Struggle in Tanzania,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 1 (1979), 50Google Scholar.

70 Moreover, one might question the correctness of the class categories put forward. For example, James Bill's earlier study of the applicability of class analysis to Middle Eastern societies made no mention of any petit bourgeois class. Lazreg is closer to Algerian reality than Bill, but one could certainly dispute the validity of her taxonomy. For Bill's classification see “Class Analysis and the Dialectics of Modernization in the Middle East,” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 4 (1972), 424Google Scholar.

71 Leca and Vatin, L'Algérie politique, 473.

72 Lazreg, The Emergence of Classes in Algeria, 12 and especially 188.

73 For prime example, I can find no evidence that the private sector is increasing in size.

74 See Smith, Tony, “The Underdevelopment of Development Literature: The Case of Dependency Theory,” World Politics 2 (1979), 247–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an equally critical view from the left perspective, see Leys, Colin, “Underdevelopment and Dependency: Critical Notes,” Journal of Contemporary Asia 7 (1977), 92–107CrossRefGoogle Scholar.