Study On Nkrumah's African Socialism

Kwame Nkrumah is a famous statesman, ideological theorist in the history of Ghana. He led Ghana people to overthrow the colonial ruling and won Ghana's independence, Later he actively explored African socialist road and tried to apply it to Ghana. His thinking is rich and profound, and wrote totally about 22 books. The ideology of African Socialism and Pan-Africanism are the best-known. This paper mainly studied the Nkrumah's African Socialism and its influence on the development of Ghana after independence.The formation of Nkrumah's African Socialism was closely linked to his upbringing background and overseas experiences. So the establishment of a socialist society in Ghana was his. long-cherished dream. But upon Ghana's independence, given the multiple developing roads to select from, Nkrumah made great changes in his blue planning. The changes in his thoughts, on the one hand, were due to a series of factors, and on the other hand, mirrored the hardship in the exploration.Nkrumah's African Socialism was rich and complicated, this paper chiefly summed up in four areas:1,Communalism Socialism was the core of his African Socialism, it does not only embody that Nkrumah was longing for primitive communalism, but also invisibly reflected Nkrumah's diverse cultural characteristics.2,Class division and class struggle were important links of his theory. On the one hand, he stressed that there was no class, no class struggle in traditional African society, which were accompanied by the invasion of foreign capitalism. On the other hand, he desalinated domestic class struggle, and positively led the contradictions to abroad. All these were conducive to the consolidation of new-born political power and the cohesion of different social forces.3,Economic reconstruction and comprehensive modernization was its economic and social affairs' expressions. It manifested that: the government should intervene comprehensively; should formulate and implement a series of social development plans; should require for economic independence. It was a guiding principle for socialist practice.4,One-party system which under Democracies was the important part of Nkrumah's African Socialism. It also demonstrated his strong sense of religion and culture. For one, one-party system was conducive to create the authority and promote national identity; for another, it also easily caused the other extremes, such as the personal power concentration, personal cult and party tyrant.Nkrumah explored socialist road in Ghana, which had harvests, but also failures. He actively promoted the socialist industrialization, agricultural modernization in Ghana, invested a lot of unproductive construction, created a series of social and public services, and also accelerated the pace of a one-party system's implementation, to consolidate his personal power. All achievements on construction were there to see, however the internal dangers were more and deeper. When these dangers reached to the diehard extent, a coup completely smashed Nkrumah's dream which building a Socialist Ghana.Had Detailed analyzed on the basis of his theory and exploration, This paper summarized some basic characteristics about his African Socialism: 1,Communalism Socialism reflected a strong African personality; 2,His African Socialism and Pan-Africanism were mutually reinforcing; 3,it echoed neocolonialism; 4,it reflected the diverse culture; 5,it showed his complex thinking of the ideal society and the reality.Re-thingking of Nkrumah's African Socialism, we need to excavate the roots why his African socialist road ended up a failure. It was not only the limitation of the theory itself, but also the failure of implementation. We can't erase these mistakes and shortcomings. In addition, we also need to try to re-establish some historical coordinates to view this historical figure. After all, we can not use modern standards excessively to judge past figures. Nkrumah left us with not only a rich and valuable legacy of political theory, but also more lessons about national development, which was a valuable asset for many developing countries in exploring and deciding their own development path.