Keywords: Zanzibar, Tanzania, revolution, ACP parties, ZNP/STD, John Okello

Exactly half a century ago, on the night of January 11-12, 1964-just a month after the Sultanate of Zanzibar - a British protectorate since the end of the 19th century - gained independence (December 10, 1963), a revolutionary coup took place in its capital

At 2 a.m., about 800 Afro-Shirazi Party/'ASP-AFP Youth League activists armed with improvised edged weapons seized government arsenals, police stations, and communications equipment. In less than 4 hours, the coalition government of the Zanzibar Nationalist Party (ZNP), which represented the interests of the country's dominant Arab minority (see table), and its ally, the Zanzibar and Pemba People's Party (ZPPP), was overthrown.

On the afternoon of January 12, Sultan Syed Jamshid bin Abdullah and his entourage fled to Mombasa, Kenya, on the Salama motor ship that he owned. Government ministers hid in the city and surrendered to the rebels by the end of the day. A day later, the resistance of the Arab community of Zanzibar, on which ZNP and STDs relied, was suppressed. This ended the eighteen-month rule and domination of the Arab aristocracy on the island.

EVENTS OF 1964: OVERTURE AND FIRST ACT

On January 18, 1964, the People's Republic of Zanzibar and Pemba was proclaimed, headed by the Revolutionary Council (RS) and its Chairman, ACP leader Abeid Amani Karume, who became President of the Republic.

The revolution was preceded by a kind of" overture " - almost a decade of active struggle between the main political forces of the sultanate: on the one hand, the Nationalist Party of Zanzibar and the People's Party of Zanzibar and Pemba, and on the other, the Afro - Shirazi Party, which defended the interests of the economically oppressed and politically oppressed African majority.¹ At the end of 1963, ^the Umma Party, which broke away from the ZNP, joined the confrontation as a third force (the party's leader, A. M. Babu, was the general secretary of the ZNP from 1959 until leaving it in 1962.2). Its mainstay was pro-Chinese Arab youth from poor but educated families. In October 1963, the AKP and Umma formed the Opposition Front.

After independence in December 1963, tensions in the country only increased. Distrust of the ZNP/STD Government increased as broad segments of the African population became convinced of the Government's unwillingness to take measures to improve their situation, living and working conditions. On the contrary, all of the country's internal development activities have contributed to strengthening the position of the Arab minority in Zanzibar. Moreover, the ZNP/STD coalition has threatened to ban all opposition forces.

The struggle waged by the Africans against Arab domination, against the Nationalist Party and the STD party that was blocked with it, supported by the Sultan and the British colonialists, eventually ended in an armed uprising. Describing the January events in Zanzibar, a well-known American magazine noted: "This was not just a conspiracy of ambitious party activists ... It was a real social revolution, carried out under the leadership of the Afro-Shirazi Party. " ³

Let us note the main components of the socio-political situation in pre-revolutionary Zanzibar:

- racial and ethnic mosaic of Zanzibar society: the islands were inhabited by Africans of various nationalities (local Shirazi and migrants from the continent, who made up over 75% of the total population), Arabs - "Manga" (from Oman) and "Shihiri" (from Yemen), Indians (of Indo-Pakistani origin), Comorans, Goans, etc. (see the table);

- political and socio-economic domination of the Arab minority-descendants of the Omani aristocracy who migrated to Zanzibar in the first half of the 19th century.;

- the immigration of Africans to the islands from the mainland since the beginning of the 20th century, especially during the twice - yearly clove harvest, the main export crop, the basis of the island nation's economy, has joined the ranks of the poorest part of the population of Zanzi-

* The Sultan and his family settled in London after receiving a pension from the British government. For several years, he did not give up trying to find the means to restore the power of his dynasty in Zanzibar.

Table

Ethnic composition of Zanzibar

* According to the 1948 Census, the last one to provide data on the number of ethnic groups (Notes on the Census of the Zanzibar Protectorate. 1948. Zanzibar, 1953, p. 4). In the next census (1958), 93.6% of the 299,000 inhabitants were classified as "Afro-Arab", where This included Arabs, the local Shirazi population, Africans who migrated from the continent, and people from the Comoros, etc. (editor's note).

Source: Lofchie Michael. Zanzibar: Background to Revolution. London, Oxford University Press. 1965, p. 25.

bara, thus introducing even greater cultural and political heterogeneity in Zanzibar society;

- political and managerial decisions made by the government of the Arab minority were characterized by ignoring the interests of the African majority, oppressing the opposition;

- awareness by Africans of their unequal, oppressed position;

- the failure of the British colonial administration to ensure the transfer of power to the majority of the population;

- Foreign policy course of the ZNP/STD government (focusing on the Arab world, first of all-on Nasser's Egypt) did not meet the expectations of most Zanzibaris;

- the tense international situation both around Zanzibar and in the world as a whole, as well as the desire of external forces (Great Britain, the USA, the USSR, Egypt, Tanganyika) to prevent the growth of the influence of political competitors on the islands, led to the involvement of independent Zanzibar in global politics, albeit for a short time.

The coup was not without its numerous victims, mostly of Arab origin. John Okello, one of the leaders of the rebellion (more on him below), stated in his book (for the island of Unguja*): the number of people killed - 13,635 (of which 1,640 were Africans), wounded and taken into custody-21,462 ⁴. In addition to the revolutionary fighters, numerous groups of volunteer "helpers" from among the rural African population participated in the coup. It should be noted that no attacks on Europeans were recorded during the entire revolution, and the situation on the neighboring island of Pemba was generally calm.

The January 1964 events and the large number of victims of the coup gave rise to various versions-from a" conspiracy " involving Cuba and China to an "invasion" from neighboring Tanganyika. Over the next few months, Zanzibar was in the center of attention of world powers - the United States, Great Britain, the USSR, and China. "Cuba in Africa", as the revolutionary Zanzibar was dubbed by the Western media, was involved in the confrontation of the "cold war".

Zanzibar leaders chose to withdraw from this confrontation, even if at the cost of losing their country's sovereignty: on April 22, 1964, the treaty establishing the United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar (since October 1964-the United Republic of Tanzania/ORT)was signed in Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanganyika, and on April 26 entered into force. Thus, the independent People's Republic of Zanzibar and Pemba lasted only about a hundred days.

PARADOXES OF THE ZANZIBAR REVOLUTION

There were many paradoxes and oddities in the events of January 1964. Here are just the most notable ones.

The material resources of the rebels at the beginning of the uprising were scarce - they lacked transport, communications, and food supplies. All this was requisitioned by them already during the fighting.

At the beginning of the revolutionary events in the city of Zanzibar, the rebels had at their disposal an extremely modest fighting force - several hundred fighters armed with edged weapons.⁵ This weapon, in fact, was a household inventory-knives, pungs (swah. panga-a wide cleaver, used in East Africa instead of an axe), shovels. The rebels received modern weapons only during the coup, capturing them in police stations. In total, about 40 to 50 revolutionaries had some experience of military service in the past. The Government had police units in the capital (there was no army in the Sultanate) of about 100 people (African police officers from neighboring Tanganyika) and a mobile force (MS) of 150 people, staffed mainly by people of Arab origin. The police and police officers were armed with firearms, including automatic weapons, and

* Zanzibar includes the Unguja Islands (swah. Unguja (as the indigenous people used to call the island of Zanzibar proper), Pemba, Tumbatu and several other small islands since ancient times. The capital of Zanzibar is the eponymous city of Zanzibar.

they had complete fire superiority over the rebels.

Despite the apparent weakness of the rebels at the beginning of the fighting, the revolutionary coup succeeded. His success was already determined at the end of the third hour of events. Two facts are particularly noteworthy.

First, several rebel detachments were operating simultaneously in different parts of the city. The high quality of planning and execution of the plans of the rebels on January 12-13 was in contradiction with the obvious fact that they had no experience of military operations and the low educational level of the leaders of the uprising known to us.

Secondly, during the fighting in those January days in the city of Zanzibar, all the prominent "legal" oppositionists were absent - they were in Dar es Salaam, the capital of neighboring Tanganyika.

The revolution was led and carried out by John Okello and the so - called "Committee of 14", who were previously unknown not only to the general public, but also to informants of the Zanzibar government, which included the most determined leaders of the ACP Youth League. Many researchers believe that the AFP leader Abeid Karume was not involved in the planning and implementation of the coup, as were other leaders of the AFP6. After the success of the rebellion became apparent, power in the islands actually belonged to John Okello ⁷.

The rebels ' capture of the Voice of Unguja radio station (Swah, "Sauti ya Unguja") was their most important success. The radio station was used with the greatest efficiency. At 7 a.m. on January 12, the first radio address of John Okello, who proclaimed himself a "field marshal", was made to the Zanzibarans.

The appeals were read out by Okello himself in Swahili and contained death threats against supporters of the deposed regime, as well as orders and instructions. For example, banning the activities of hostile parties, inviting the leaders of the Zanzibar opposition to come from Dar es Salaam to the rebel headquarters and lead the government, etc. Speeches by J. R. R. Tolkien Okello, on the radio and at numerous rallies in the first days and weeks after the revolution (eyewitnesses reported that he could lead his listeners into a daze, like a trance ⁸), bewildered external observers and compromised the new revolutionary government in the eyes of the international community.

The identity of" Field Marshal " Okello deserves a separate discussion.

John Okello is a Ugandan from the Lango people of the Nilotic language group. Swahili wasn't his first language, and he didn't speak much English. At the age of 2, he was baptized under the name Gideon. A Protestant Christian, of a mystical, but at the same time integral and even Messianic character. In 1959, he found himself on Pemba, working as a day laborer on clove plantations, but soon moved to Zanzibar "at the direction of a mysterious voice", which in a dream informed him of his mission - "to free captives and slaves and bring the unintelligent to reason"⁹ on an island in the Indian Ocean. At the time of the revolution, he was 27 years old.

Okello's bravery and efficiency during the fighting on the night of January 12 established him as the first military leader of the African rebels. Mass repressions and atrocities committed against the Arab part of the population of Unguja were associated with his name (there were no mass repressions on Pemba).

Okello was very popular in Zanzibar among Africans until his expulsion from the islands by the Revolutionary Council in March 1964. Subsequently, he tried to engage in political activities in Kenya and Uganda, but without success. Eventually, he returned to his native village in northern Uganda, where he spent several years. Okello went missing in 1971.10 There is reason to believe that he was killed on the orders of the then Ugandan President Idi Amin (1971-1979), whose custom was to physically eliminate political competitors, not excluding potential ones.

TURN AFTER THE COUP

The overthrow of the ZNP/STD Sultan and Government in January 1964 had a major impact on all aspects of Zanzibar's public life.

The political system of the state has completely changed - the constitutional monarchy with an elected parliament, a coherent system of government and a judicial system was replaced by the People's Republic of Zanzibar and Pemba, and in fact - the dictatorship of a relatively narrow group of revolutionary "leaders" united in an irremovable Revolutionary Council.

RS Chairman and President

Zanzibar A. A. Karume enjoyed almost unlimited power in the islands and ruled without regard to the laws. A one-party system was introduced, dominated by the Afro-Shirazi party. There was no legal opposition. Karume practiced arbitrary arrests and executions of political figures who seemed dangerous to him. Many of his former colleagues in the political struggle of the early 1960s also suffered, including Abdullah Kassim Hanga (in 1960-1961 he studied in Moscow, at the Peoples ' Friendship University named after him. Patrice Lumumba; TV journalist Elena Hanga-his daughter) and Osman Sharif ¹¹.

The ZNP/STD regime relied primarily on Arab aristocratic families, the Arab part of the state apparatus, Arab entrepreneurs and small landowners from among the Zanzibari-Shirazi, especially in the northern part of the island. Unguja, and on Pemba.

The social base of the new ACP regime after the revolution was mixed, but definitely not aristocratic. First of all, the ACP was supported by urban and rural wage workers and small entrepreneurs-Africans, the poorest part of the peasants, and a small number of African intellectuals.

After the revolution, the large-scale plantation economy of Arab landowners and the system of rural labor were eliminated, and land reform was carried out in the interests of the poorest segments of the population. The new regime established control over foreign and domestic trade, and began implementing a number of economic and social projects (often unsuccessful) in the spirit of state capitalism and even Chinese-style socialism. Due to the poor quality of government and economic management, the state of the economy and standard of living in Zanzibar steadily deteriorated until the late 1980s.

The ethnic composition of the population has undergone significant changes. In the first months after the revolution, the Arab and Indian populations of the islands were reduced by about half. The emigration of Arabs and "Asians", as well as other ethnic minorities, continued during all the years of A. Karume's rule until his assassination on April 7, 1972, at the headquarters of his own party, the AKP12.

The foreign policy of the revolutionary Zanzibar was characterized by a turn from Egypt to the Soviet bloc and the PRC. The beginning of this turn was the rapid recognition of the new government of Zanzibar by the socialist countries (USSR, PRC, GDR, Czechoslovakia, Cuba, etc.).

The United Kingdom, the United States, and other Western countries have been slow to recognize it. This worried the Karume regime, which feared a counter-coup in Zanzibar involving outside forces. It is precisely this circumstance that can explain the willingness with which the government of African nationalists adopted, at the suggestion of the pro-Chinese leaders of the Umma party, a socialist and" anti-imperialist " coloring, requesting (and receiving) assistance from a number of socialist countries (at the call of A. M. Babu, the Umma disbanded itself at the end of January 1964, and its members joined the ACP).

This assistance was versatile. The USSR and the People's Republic of China took up military construction - and with success: in 1965, Zanzibar, then a federal unit of Tanzania, believed that they had the most efficient army in all of East Africa. The People's Republic of China and the GDR-for industrial and social development, the People's Republic of China - for agriculture.

Practical military assistance to the revolutionary government of Zanzibar from the USSR began, apparently, in March 1964. According to the CIA, on the night of March 17, a Soviet cargo ship called the Fayzabad arrived at the port of Zanzibar. ¹³ Don Petterson, an employee of the US Consulate in Zanzibar, reported: "Bill Hall, an employee of the US Embassy in Zanzibar... berthing company, and other port employees... we received orders to prepare lighters for the night unloading of some newly arrived vessel... The port was cordoned off, and the cargo from the ship was unloaded and stored in secret. Soon we managed to get information about the ship-it was from the Soviet Union, and about its cargo: weapons, military equipment and ammunition. " ¹⁴ It is possible that the first group of specialists from the USSR arrived in Zanzibar on the Fayzabad to train the Zanzibar military ¹⁵.

Arab emigrants who left Zanzibar in the 1960s and their descendants believe that the 1964 revolution was inspired from Tanganyika in order to absorb the Arab island into "black" Africa. In many cases, it comes down to direct accusations against the then Government of Julius Nyerere for organizing the invasion of Zanzibar and even a "crusade" against Islam16.

Thus, the Arab emigrants see the case in such a way that Zanzibar was illegally deprived of its sovereignty by external forces that used puppet revolutionaries to suppress and partially exterminate the Arabs, that is, the part of the island's population that most consistently supported the political and cultural independence of Zanzibar. Internal contradictions in the island society are not considered serious enough by emigrants to lead to a revolution ¹⁷.

One cannot deny the significant role of the external factor in the pre-revolutionary confrontation of political forces in Zanzibar. Indeed, the Zanzibar opposition, especially Hanga and Karume, enjoyed Tanganyika's support, including material support. Babu and Umma received aid from the PRC and possibly Cuba. However, it is not clear what external forces were doing in favor of the group of little-known individuals who de facto carried out the coup in January 1964. The scarcity of material resources at their disposal indicates just the lack of external "recharge".

If we accept the view that Karume and his supporters came to power in January 1964 as a result of an "invasion" from Tanganyika, then the creation of ORT is a kind of annexation, and not a union of two states. Thus, the position of the current Tanzanian ruling elite, as the heirs of Nyerere and Karume, will be in a vulnerable position, especially in Zanzibar, where an opposition has already formed, fighting for power under the slogans of greater autonomy for the islands, the revival of Islamic Zanzibar culture and the restoration of historical ties with the Persian Gulf countries.¹⁸

The political struggle on the islands reached a high level at times. Especially in 2001, after the 2000 Tanzanian presidential election, which was characterized by significant irregularities in the counting of votes in favor of the ruling Revolutionary Party (Swah, Chama cha Mapinduzi/ CCM - HCM), serious riots occurred in Zanzibar. Then, as a result of clashes between supporters of the opposition Civic United Front (CUF) and security forces, 35 people were killed, about 600 were injured, and 2 thousand people were forced to flee to Kenya.¹⁹

The United Civil Front, formed in the early 1990s, promotes local Zanzibar patriotism as opposed to Tanzanian patriotism and builds its ideology on the concepts of Islamic society. In this sense, he continues the line of the Nationalist Party of Zanzibar, although the social and ethnic base of these two forces is far from identical. Unlike the ZNP, the KUF does not rely on the Arab landowning class - due to the lack of one in modern Zanzibar-but on the part of the population that considers itself Shirazi - the indigenous inhabitants of Zanzibar.

The question of the legitimacy of the creation of ORT leads to the question of restitution of property confiscated from Arabs and Indians in the 1960s. KUF does not rule out discussing this topic with representatives of the Arab-Zanzibar emigration, although it avoids making policy statements on this point, which is extremely sensitive for a significant number of Afro-Zanzibaris, in whose favor the confiscated property was redistributed property.

Thus, the issues related to the Zanzibar Revolution have not only remained relevant for Tanzania, but still, in our opinion, retain an explosive potential for this country.

¹ For more information about the inter-party struggle in Zanzibar, see: Teterin O. I. Socio-political development of Zanzibar. Diss.... Candidate of Historical Sciences M, Institute of Africa LN USSR, 1972. 401 p. I think it is necessary to note that this dissertation is the only study in Russian African studies on the recent history of Zanzibar (up to and including 1972). After its defense by the author in February 1973, the work was assigned the stamp "chipboard" - "For official use". A copy of the dissertation was not sent to the VGBIL special archive - only the abstract, in the form of which there is a single entry (signature) from 1975 (!). Only at the beginning of 2011 the label "chipboard" was removed, and O. I. Teterin's dissertation is now available in open storage. For more information, see: Teterin O. I. How it was. About the" defenses " of the candidate and after... / / Under the sky of my Africa. History, culture, and languages of the peoples of Africa. Issue 6. ISAA MSU, IVI RAS, Moscow, Klyuch-S Publ., 2012, pp. 94-113.

² For more information about Babu and his political views, see: Teterin O. I. Babu Abdul Rahman Mohammed / / History of Africa in biographies (under the general editorship of A. B. Davideon). Moscow, RSUH, 2012.pp. 776-788.

³ Current History. April 1965. Vol. 48, N 284, p. 220.

^{Okello John.} 4 Revolution in Zanzibar. East African Publishing House. Nairobi, Kenya. 1967, p. 160. In this regard, O. I. Teterin noted: "In other words, almost every 10th inhabitant of the islands suffered.... It seems to us that these figures are extremely high. According to other sources, less than 2.5 thousand people were killed. (Statist. L., 1964, February 7)" // Teterin O. I. Okello John Gideon / / History of Africa in biographies ... p. 954.

^{Clayton Anthony.} 5 The Zanzibar Revolution and its Aftermath. 1 (urst & Co (Publishers) Ltd., London. 1981, p. 72.

^{Clayton Anthony.} 6 Op. cit.; Petterson Don. Revolution in Zanzibar. An American's Cold War Tale. Westview Press, Oxford. 2002, p. 52.

^{Teterin O. I.} 7 Socio-political development of Zanzibar... Chapter 1, item 4 "The Revolution of January 12, 1964", pp. 112-128.

⁸ http://www.lukehurley.co.nz/2010/03/01/zanzibar-3-okello/

^{Okello John.} 9 Op. cit., p. 66.

¹⁰ For more information, see: Teterin O. I. Okello John Gideon ... pp. 947-956.

¹¹ For more information, see: Teterin O. I. Karume Abeid Amani // The History of Africa in biographies ... pp. 846-861.

^{Teterin O. I.} 12 Why and who killed the first president of Zanzibar / / Asia and Africa today. 2012, N 4.

¹³ Central Intelligence Bulletin. 18 March 1964, p. 9.

¹⁴ Cit. by: Petterson Don. Op. cit., p. 182.

¹⁵ O. Teterin worked as a Swahili translator in this first group of Soviet military specialists from 1965 to 1966. For more information, see: Teterin O. I. On Zanzibar, a little about yourself and others / / In Egypt and on Zanzibar (1960-1966). Memoirs of Soviet military translators. Publisher: I. B. Bely. Moscow, 2011, pp. 102-200.

¹⁶ www.zanzinet.org/journal/jan_00_wk2.html; http://islamic-population.com/africa/Tanzania/Nverere%20against%20islam%20in%20Zanzib ar%20and%20Tanganyika.htm

¹⁷ http://www.zanzinet.org/journal/jan_00_wk2.html

^{Burgess Thomas.} 18 An enduring trust. The life story of Seif Sharif Hamad // Race, Revolution and the Struggle for Human Rights in Zanzibar. Ohio University Press, Athens. 2009, p. 309.

¹⁹ Tanzania: Zanzibar Election Massacres Documented. Human Rights Watch. 10 April 2002.

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