Tanganyika and Nyerere's Experiment

Tanganyika, formerly German East Africa, was administered by Britain first as a League of Nations mandate and then, from 1946, as a UN trust territory. This status gave its nationalists an international audience: TANU leader Julius Nyerere, a teacher known as 'Mwalimu', addressed the UN Trusteeship Council in 1955. With few settlers and a TANU that won almost every seat in elections, Tanganyika became independent peacefully on 9 December 1961. After a revolution in Zanzibar in January 1964, the two joined in April 1964 to form Tanzania.

In the 1967 Arusha Declaration Nyerere set out a vision of African socialism, 'Ujamaa', based on self-reliance and communal villages. Supporters credit him with promoting national unity, the Swahili language and literacy; critics point to forced villagization in the 1970s, which moved millions of people, and to economic decline. Nyerere's decision to step down as president in 1985 was unusual among leaders of his generation.