Vol. 72/No. 25      June 23, 2008

The devastation across a large part of Myanmar, known as Burma until 1989, illustrates not only the storm’s power, but the country’s underdevelopment—a consequence of its subjugation by British colonialism and modern imperialism, and by the military caste that rules it today.

This article—the first of two examining the historical background to Burma’s crisis—will discuss how London’s plunder of the country helped pave the way for the rise and consolidation of the military regime that has shown such contempt for working people in the wake of the cyclone.  
 
Colonial conquest
Starting in 1824, it took three wars for British-led colonial forces based in India to bring Burma to heel. Burma’s royalty had built an empire that lasted more than 1,000 years based on strong military regimes. The British colonial power completed its conquest in 1886, annexing Burma to India.

The British spurned the traditional structure of Burmese society. They staffed the upper layers of the civil service with English-speaking people from India.

In addition to expanding rice production and processing, they stepped up exploitation of the country’s rich mineral resources and teak forests, building only the infrastructure needed to develop foreign trade.

Such industries usually employed workers brought in from India and, to a lesser extent, China. Away from the cities, Burmese rice farmers, crippled by debt, were often replaced by tenant farmers of Indian origin.

Burmans, the majority nationality, could not even turn to the army as a reliable source of employment. British military officers recruited first from the Karen, Chin, and Kachin nationalities. In 1940, only 12 percent of troops were Burman.

By World War II Burma was a major exporter of rice and petroleum. But development was skewed to the interests of the British colonial system.  
 
Independence struggle
Burmese resistance to colonial rule, growing through the early 20th century, took many forms, from labor actions, to militant student protests, to peasant revolts. Buddhist monks played a prominent part in many demonstrations. The movement reached its peak in the late 1930s.

The independence struggle in neighboring India had a big impact. So did struggles and political currents in labor and independence movements around the world, including the Russian Revolution of 1917.

By the time the Burmese Communist Party (BCP) was formed in 1939, however, the revolutionary Bolshevik-led government in Moscow had been replaced by the narrow, nationalist bureaucracy headed by Joseph Stalin with its counterrevolutionary foreign policy. Through the 1940s and ’50s, the BCP molded its participation in the independence struggle to the needs and dictates of Moscow and Beijing.

Perturbed by growing opposition to its rule, London granted Burma nominal independence in 1937. It was too little, too late for the independence leaders, who welcomed the outbreak of World War II and the defeat of British forces in Burma by the Japanese invasion. Tokyo further raised their hopes by convening a meeting of 30 Burmese leaders and promising to back a new Burmese Independence Army.

The independence fighters quickly became disillusioned with their Japanese backers. Forming the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League (AFPFL) in 1944, they began fighting alongside the British army. In March 1945 they declared official support for the Allies and helped to retake Rangoon.

Elections in 1947 for a constituent assembly saw a sweeping victory for the AFPFL leaders. Three months later Aung San, a leader of the interim government and the father of present-day opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, was assassinated, along with other government leaders. In October Prime Minister U Nu and his British counterpart, Clement Atlee, signed the treaty of independence in London.

With the legacy of colonialism weighing heavily on it, independent Burma faced significant barriers to progress. The economy had been laid to waste by World War II.

No national revolutionary leadership had emerged that could build on the momentum of the anticolonial struggle and mobilize working people to defeat imperialism and carry out a revolution for sovereignty and social progress.

An AFPFL-led government was elected in a landslide in 1951. Prime Minister U Nu declared the government to be both socialist and Buddhist. Some key British firms were nationalized. A slow-moving land reform was initiated.

With economic difficulties on the rise, elections in 1956 saw increased returns for the opposition National United Front, which acted as a front for the BCP. With the government breaking up along factional lines, U Nu invited the military to intervene in 1958.

The military’s officer corps began stepping into the political and economic vacuum left by the colonial regime, which had retarded the development of modern indigenous classes.

Restored to power, Prime Minister U Nu announced plans to nationalize a number of import firms in January 1962, which would have taken the Burmese Economic Development Corporation out of military hands.

Two months later military chief Ne Win deposed the government and set up a 17-officer Revolutionary Council. Military rule had begun.

To be continued.  
 
 
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