ABSTRACT
Natural calamities placed additional strains on the fragile rural economy. The Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) Central Committee Report to the Third Party Congress in February 1977 sketched the broad outlines of its strategy for reversing this downward trend and transforming the economy along socialist lines. The economy is likely to be the central terrain of struggle during the 1980s—a decade FRELIMO has termed critical in the war against poverty, dependency, and underdevelopment. To overcome anxieties and misinformation, and to demonstrate the advantages of communal life to the peasantry, FRELIMO initiated a massive educational campaign. Lisbon’s colonial strategy of blocking industrial development to ensure markets for Portuguese manufactured goods meant that FRELIMO inherited an underdeveloped and distorted industrial sector. Developing an industrial base, however, is a costly proposition—an estimated $600 million for the paper mills and steel factory alone—that requires massive foreign investment.
