THE library at the academy was well stocked with material for the Marxist Lenist scholar.
Those evenings were moments of pure pleasure for me.
At least I could do some reading … a tradition I carried from my days at school back home. I ran through the shelves hoping to find novels … there were none. There was a lot of material on Political Economy, a vey difficult subject which I steered clear of.
There was a lot of Russian literature; the works of Lenin, Stalin. My favourite were the four volumes of the selected works of Mao Tse Tung.
After the snippets from orientation lectures by some P.C at Doroi, I was able to do detailed reading on Mao’s eight points of attention, the eulogy of Norman Bethune, revisionism and various other topics that were the core of ZANLA ideology.
I read for myself Mao’s guerrilla strategies that became used to widely and various other sections that became the bedrock of ZANLA ideology.
The best thing about the selected works of Mao was that he was readable. The discourse was simple and very clear.
Mao wrote for the average reader in a conversational tone- you could almost hear his voice.
Russian and German literature on Marxism was dense, heavy going and I still hold that opinion.
They wrote for advanced scholars who would read with dictionaries and an encyclopaedia beside them.
Marx wrote down to his audience from a high pedestal. The more complex and convoluted the better.
I tried Das Kapital but could not go beyond half a page. There was some Albanian called Enver Hoxha also very difficult to read.
I never came round to read Kim Il-Sung and the famous juche idea, but he was there.
It was a relief to access books in a raging war … under a bright lamp in the middle of the bush!! It was not quite like the one back at school, but a library in the middle of nowhere with two to three thousand books on the shelf was something out of the ordinary.
This was one of my best times in the struggle. When there was no power, you could flip through a few pages using a lamp fuelled by diesel oil.
I never saw such luxuries again until independence in 1990.
Some of these PCs as they were called, were not real scholars.
When the Vashandi crisis reached its climax nobody bothered about us because we were not trained.
A few leaders were whisked away. Gamanya like Dzino, Elias Hondo and Musoni simply disappeared. Junior staff returned to reorient the college.
Several things happened in the aftermath of the Vashandi crisis. It was no longer cool to engage in debate in Marxism Leninism or to reflect on the selected works of Mao. While being educated was essential, for some time it was frowned upon.
Consequently when I was drafted into the next intake at Takawira, I went into it gladly never to set foot on the academy again.
Despite all the books and relative luxury, l did not miss it. It was comrade Tongo who came to restore order in Chimoio after the crisis and among the changes was the renaming of the sub camps of Chimoio.
Thus Wampoa became Chitepo, Mapinduzi became Takawira, North China became Nehanda etc.
I do not know whether the political academy ever flourished after the Vashandi era because it had been a Vashandi project and this always cast a shadow on it. For some it was not high on the priority list especially with an enemy to fight back home.
I never bothered to find out its fate because after my training in August 1977, I was drafted into some unit on its way to the front.
With pleasure I marched off into combat head high, never to return to Chimoio or Mozambique except short forays collecting war material at Mavhonde.
I never saw the printed word in abundance again except for the odd newspaper or some grade 1 or 2 text.
I never had so much reading material.
It was very healthy to appear uneducated because many commanders could hardly read and write … education was almost equivalent to being a mushandi.
When the bombs fell on Chimoio, Chitepo Political Academy was not spared. It never recovered from that blow.
I do not hear of such an institute again at Mavhonde or any other camp in Mozambique.
In the wisdom of distance and safety of time, I see the College as a good idea at the wrong time. Maybe there were other priorities such as engaging the enemy in the field than engaging in ideologically duels.