and enabling representatives of the new
exploiting classes, faithful servants of
the bourgeoisie and imperialism, to
seize power.
Assuming the heritage of Comrade
Eduardo Mondlane, closely integrated
with the masses of the people and resolutely supported by the fighters of
the People's Forces for the Liberation
of Mozambique, the most dedicated
sons of the people, the revolutionary
vanguard of FRELIMO stood up
against the forces of opportunism and
reaction during the historic Central
Committee meetings held in April 1969
and May 1970, and exposed, isolated,
neutralised and eliminated the erroneous political line of the new exploiters.
This victory, which led to the cleansing
of our ranks and the deepening of
FRELIMO's ideology, created the conditions for transforming the armed
struggle into a people's war, for going
over from a liberation struggle to the
higher phase of a people's democratic
revolution.
The ideological transformations which
took place led to a new impetuous development of the liberation struggle:
the strategic defeat of colonialism in
the period from May to September
1970 during Operation Gordian Knot,
the smashing of the blockade of the
Zambezi by the expansion of the armed
struggle to south of the Zambezi in
November 1970, and the opening of
the Manica e Sofala front in June 1972.
It was from the time of the failure of
the big Gordian Knot enemy operation
that the irreversible deep-rooted and
profoundly popular nature of the revolutionary process led by FRELIMO
was affirmed, and it was from that
time that the disintegration of squalid
Portuguese colonialism started to be
hastened at a giddy pace.
Neither the transformation of the colonial war into a colonial-imperialist
war through the internationalisation of
the aggression against our people nor
the intensification of the plunder of
our resources by the monopolies, the
most criminal strategic plans like the
Cahora Bassa one, could halt the progress of our struggle and its progressive
expansion to the whole country.
The attempt to terrorise our people by
widespread terrorism, the systematic
bombing of villages, schools, hospitals,
cultivated fields, the use of chemical
agents and, finally, massacres like those
at Wiriyamu, Joao, Chawola and Inha
minga, sharpened the contradictions
and strengthened the people's determination to destroy the enemy.
At the international level, Portuguese
colonial-fascism, which still had some
room for manoeuvre, thanks to the active complicity of the capitalist countries, and particularly some members
of NATO, started to be denounced
with renewed vigour and was isolated
abroad, as shown by the expulsion of
Portugal. from one international organisation after another.
The watchword issued by the Central
Committee in December 1972, calling
for a general offensive on all fronts,
hastened the collapse of the enemy.
It is obvious that the general offensive
was not confined simply to stepping
up large-scale battles, and neither could
it have been successful, even militarily,
had it been reduced to this. In issuing
the watchword calling for a general
offensive on all fronts, the 1972 Central Committee meeting affirmed, first
and foremost, the need for ideological
unity. In other words, actual practice
had shown that unity based on the negation of the enemy and on just the
demand for independence was not
enough. It was essential that unity
be achieved on the basis of a clear and
unequivocal definition of the principles
of what we want to do, how we want
to do it, and what kind of society we
want to build, and above all, the principles asserted must be lived by and
developed through consistent practice.
The struggle therefore spread, new
fronts were opened and the ideological
line gained strength in the liberated
areas, establishing a clear dividing line
in relation to the enemy-controlled
zone. Sound foundations were laid
for people's democratic power.
It was a correct line combined with
correct practice which led to the destruction and defeat of Portuguese colonialism and opened up a new phase
in the Mozambican people's independence process which started with the
Lusaka Agreement and has just ended
with the proclamation of the complete
national independence of Mozambique.
The task of the Transitional Government was essentially that of consolidating the power so arduously won,
especially by extending popular mobilisation and making it more far-reaching. We congratulate the Transitional Government for the success it has
achieved in its task, for the conditions it
created for people's power to be really
extended and consolidated in our country.
We need to be conscious of the great
difficulties we shall have to face as a
result of the colonial situation, which
the Transitional Government could
obviously only partially tackle.
With the proclamation of the People's
Republic of Mozambique we are star- J
ting a new phase of our history in j
which we are going to put into practice everywhere in the country the political, ideological, economic, social and
cultural gains won during the struggle.       ^
To say the People's Republic is not !
to voice an empty and demagogic formula. To say the People's Republic
means to give substance to the aspirations of millions of dominated and 4
exploited Mozambicans for whom independence is a precondition for the end
of exploitation and the establishment of
a people's regime.
To say the People's Republic is to say
Independence, to say the People's Republic is to say Revolution.
The State is not an eternal and immutable structure; the State is not the
bureaucratic machinery of civil servants,
nor something abstract or a mere technical apparatus. The State is always
the organised form through which a
class takes power in order to fulfil its
interests. The colonial State, an instrument of domination and exploitation
by a foreign bourgeoisie and imperialism which has already been partially
destroyed by the struggle, must be replaced by a People's State, forged
through an alliance of workers and
peasants, guided by FRELIMO and defended by the People's Forces for the
Liberation of Mozambique, a State
which wipes out exploitation and
releases the creative initiative of the
masses and the productive forces.
In the phase of people's democracy
in which we are now engaged as a
phase of the Mozambican revolutionary
process, our aim is to lay the material, ideological, administrative and social foundations of our State.
We need to be aware that the apparatus
we are now inheriting is, in its nature,
composition and methods, a profoundly
retrograde and reactionary structure
which has to be completely revolutionised in order to put it at the service
of the masses.
There are other realities we also need
to be profoundly conscious of: the fact
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