Simultaneous revolutions: the Zimbabwean case

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Abstract
The state of Zimbabwe's political economy seems to indicate that a potential Marxist revolution lost its fire somewhere along the line and dissolved into contradiction‐riddled reformism under the ZANU (PF) government. This article argues that Zimbabwe's post‐independence contradictions are grounded in at least four simultaneous revolutions which took place in the years following World War II. Two of the revolutions were of a type which, borrowing from Antonio Gramsci, can be termed ‘passive’, and the remaining two resembled ‘anti‐passive’ and ‘council’ revolutions. Each unfolded separately but simultaneously and each brought tangible but partial transformations of consciousness, state, economy, and class structure which linger into the present and which defy easy characterisation as the results of ‘a’ failed revolution. The article treats the theoretical characteristics of simultaneous revolutions first and then details their application to the Zimbabwean case.

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