Walter Rodney, African Socialism and the Concept of Intellectual Guerrilla Warfare

Abstract

Walter Rodney was one of the most important historians of his generation. Born in British Guiana, he graduated in History in Jamaica, received a PhD in African History in London, and worked as a university professor in Jamaica and Tanzania. He combined rigorous academic training and activities with a Marxist perspective and the black movement. He actively participated in the construction of socialism and social struggles in the 1960s and 1970s. From 1975 onwards, he began to develop the concept of “intellectual guerrilla”, a unique way of conceptualizing the role of the black intellectual activist at that time. In this article, I intend to reflect on the author’s activities in Tanzania and the Caribbean, in order to delimit the formation and meaning of “intellectual guerrilla”. My hypothesis is that Rodney forged this concept seeking to articulate the academic sphere with politics, carrying out the latter through the former. Thus, the concept would be an offshoot of his previous activism on both continents. I focus my analysis on a long statement the author gave while teaching for a semester in the United States, problematizing his speech and drawing conclusions from his reflection on the reality that surrounded him. In addition to seeking to understand the concept of “intellectual guerrilla warfare,” I also aim to expose the author’s interpretations of social struggles, Marxism, and the relationship between intellectual life and the construction of socialism at that historical stage.