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Nkrumah's Theory of Underdevelopment: An Analysis of Recurrent Themes*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Kenneth W. Grundy
Kenneth W. Grundy
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
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Extract

In recent years tremendous concern has been expressed about the problems of what had first been identified as “backward,” then euphemistically “underdeveloped” or “undeveloped,” and now more positively “developing” or “emerging” areas. A wealth of factual and theoretical studies has been produced, attempting to view the problems of underdevelopment broadly and to construct a conceptual framework by which we might comprehend the apparently complex phenomena occurring in those regions. In spite of this growing scholarly interest, and without attempting to minimize the contribution of those who are laboring in this as yet untapped field, it is this writer's contention that too few studies have been undertaken which examine and analyze the views of those individuals most influential in shaping the future of the emerging states—the national political leaders.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , April 1963 , pp. 438 - 454
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1963

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References

1 Among the few notable exceptions are Bretton, Henry L., “Current Political Thought and Practice in Ghana,” American Political Science Review, LII (March 1958), 46–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fischer, Georges, “Quelques aspects de la doctrine politique guinéenne,” Civilisations, IX, No. 4 (1959), 457–78Google Scholar; Hodgkin, Thomas, “A Note on the Language of African Nationalism,” in St. Antony's Papers No. 10, African Affairs: Number One, ed. by Kirkwood, Kenneth (London 1961), 22–40Google Scholar; Laqueur, Walter Z., “Communism and Nationalism in Tropical Africa,” Foreign Affairs, XXXIX (July 1961), 610–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Wallerstein, Immanuel, “The Political Ideology of the P.D.G.,” Présence Africaine, XII (First Quarter 1962), 30–41.Google Scholar

2 Gold Coast Weekly Review (July 20, 1955), as quoted in Kilson, Martin L. Jr. “Nationalism and Social Classes in British West Africa,” Journal of Politics, XX (May 1958), 380.Google Scholar

3 Nkrumah, Kwame, “African Prospect,” Foreign Affairs, XXXVII (October 1958), 45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 See, for example, his speech on the tenth anniversary of the founding of the CPP, quoted in Nkrumah, Kwame, I Speak, of Freedom: A Statement of African Ideology (New York 1961), 162.Google Scholar

5 Nkrumah, Kwame, Towards Colonial Freedom (2nd edn., London 1957).Google Scholar

6 Nkrumah, Kwame, Ghana: The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah (New York 1957), 46–47.Google Scholar The substance of these ideas was reiterated recently in I Speak of Freedom, ix.

7 For a more detailed examination of the views of the Malian leaders, see Grundy, Kenneth W., “sMarxism-Leninism and African Underdevelopment: The Mali Approach,” International Journal, XVII (Summer 1962), 300–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For extended discussions of Guinean ideology, see Fischer, “Quelques aspects”; and Wallerstein, “Political Ideology of the P.D.G.”

8 Nkrumah, , Autobiography, III.Google Scholar

9 Ibid., 190–91.

10 Ibid., XV. See particularly Kwame Nkrumah, What I Mean by Positive Action, Ghana Pamphlets No. I (Accra 1949).

11 Nkrumah, , Autobiography, 111–12.Google Scholar

12 lbid., XV.

13 Nkrumah, “African Prospect,” 47 (his italics).

14 Nkrumah, , I Speak of Freedom, 53.Google Scholar

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16 Quoted in Nkrumah, , Autobiography, 200–1.Google Scholar

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18 Nkrumah, , Autobiography, XV–XVI.Google Scholar

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20 Nkrumah's, “Christmas Eve Broadcast” of 1957, quoted in African and Colonial World, VI (February 1958), 4.Google Scholar

21 Nkrumah, , Autobiography, XVI.Google Scholar

22 Nkrumah, I Speak of Freedom, 165. See also Nkrumah's Building a Socialist State: An Address & to the C.P.P. Study Group, April 22, 1961 (Accra 1961).

23 Britain, Great, Statutory Instruments (1957, No. 277), The Ghana (Constitution) Order in Council, 1957, para. 54.Google Scholar

24 Africa South of the Sahara, No. 704 (October 14, 1960), 25–26. More recently he again repudiated rumored intentions of taking over private enterprises. New York Times, October 3, 1962.

25 Nkrumah, Autobiography, 154–55.

26 Ibid.

27 A radio address delivered December 22, 1961, reprinted in Africa Report, VII (January 1962), 13–14 and 17.

28 Nkrumah, “African Prospect,” 52–53.

29 Nkrumah, Kwame, “Positive Action in Africa,” in Duffy, James and Manners, Robert A., eds., Africa Speaks (Princeton 1961), 53.Google Scholar

30 Nkrumah, I Speak of Freedom, 200.

31 New York Times, December 9, 1958.

32 For a more complete discussion of Nkrumah's relations with East and West, see Lefever, Ernest W., “Nehru, Nasser, and Nkrumah on Neutralism,” in Washington Center of Foreign Policy Research, Neutralism (Washington, D.C., 1961), 100–2Google Scholar; Anglin, Douglas G., “Ghana, the West, and the Soviet Union,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, XXVI (May 1958), 152–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Winston Cone, L., “Ghana's African and World Relations,” India Quarterly, XVII (July-September 1961), 258–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33 Nkrumah, I Speak of Freedom, 218. See also Statement by Osagyejo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah … on Certain Aspects of African Unity (Accra 1962).

34 See Padmore, George, Pan-Africanism or Communism?: The Coming Struggle for Africa (London 1956)Google Scholar; and Du Bois, W. E. B., “Pan-Africanism,” Voice of Africa, I (June 1961), 15–16.Google Scholar

35 Bretton, “Current Political Thought,” 51.

36 Britain, Great, Colonial Office, Report of the Commission of Enquiry into Disturbances in the Gold Coast, 1948 [Watson Commission], Colonial No. 231 (London 1948), 17–19.Google Scholar

37 Nkrumah, “Movement for Colonial Freedom,” 398. Contrast this position with Sékou Touré's, which contends that, as a mass party, the PDG can have no vanguard or elite. He asserts that no single group or person “can ever be in advance of the point of view of democracy. … If a man is in advance of the people, it is for him to place himself at the level of the people or to identify himself with them. It is not for the people to place themselves at the level of one man.” Touré, Expérience Guiníene et Unité Ajricaine (Paris 1959), 364.

38 Bretton, “Current Political Thought,” 51.

39 Nkrumah, Autobiography, 45.

40 Gold Coast, Legislative Assembly, Debates, 1954, Official Report, Issue No. 1 , February 25, 1954, cols. 979–82.

41 The Times (London), February 14, 1951.

42 Roevekamp, Frederick W., “Harlem Cheers Nkrumah,” Christian Science Monitor, July 29, 1958.Google Scholar

43 Nkrumah, Autobiography, 13.