The Berlin Conference and the Carve-up of Africa: Part 1

Ruth Nhere

It has been 40 years since this article was published in “The African Communist”, No. 98, Third Quarter, 1984, and it is still relevant to this day. The analysis of the Imperialists’ Berlin Conference of 1884 resonates with the challenges that continental Africa in general, and South Africa, in particular, is grappling with. Principally, it will only be on the basis of the understanding of the revelations contained in this article that we may be able to appropriately address such challenges.

Imperialism and Africa

This year the world is marking the 100th anniversary of the Berlin conference at which the imperialist countries divided the continent of Africa and shared the loot amongst themselves. This conference, formally summoned by Portugal but actually initiated by Germany and France, lasted from November 15, 1884, until February 26, 1885. Fourteen European countries and the United States took part in the proceedings. The ‘General Act’ produced by the conference contained clauses which aimed to lay down the rules governing Europe’s ‘scramble for Africa’. What created the need for such an accord?

It was the maverick King Leopold of Belgium who was posing the most serious obstacle to the consolidation of territories already held by the major European powers. With the Congo basin under his control, any plan by others to create a unified African Empire was bound to fail. As sovereign master of this huge territory, which separated the west from the east coast of the continent and the southern from the northern regions, Leopold was in a position to prevent contact between regions under the control of any of the other ‘great powers’. True, it was possible for any of the other great powers to defeat Leopold with ease, but such a conflict was not in the interests of any of the imperialists at that stage.

The Berlin Conference found a way round this problem. While recognising Leopold’s nominal sovereignty over the area, the conference decided that within the Congo Basin “the trad of all nations shall enjoy complete freedom”.

The Congo was the priority item on the Berlin Conference agenda, but two more decisions of the conference were incorporated in international law by the General Act: first, ‘freedom of navigation’ of the Niger and Congo rivers by the signatories was agreed; secondly – and equally important for imperialist expansion – the basis for regulating new occupations of African territory was agreed, laying down the criteria for judging what constituted ‘effective occupation’ and the mode of setting up a Protectorate by the conquering power.

By the time of the conference the greater part of Africa had already been apportioned between the European powers. Various parts of the West African coast had been occupied by Britain, France and Germany. Southern Africa and a considerable part of East Equatorial Africa were in the hands of Britain and Germany while France and Germany had also seized the coastal regions of West Equatorial Africa. In a number of regions though, most notably Uganda and the Boer Republics in South Africa, the domination of the ‘Great Powers’ had yet to be established.

Despite a high level of inter-imperialist rivalry, the major European powers were united in their wish to remove a major obstacle to their ability to create contacts between their various possessions. This was ‘Leopold’s Congo’, in the heart of the continent. Breaking the Belgian King’s sovereignty would also provide a source of raw materials and a profitable new market. This was essentially what the Berlin Conference was intended to achieve.

The significance of the conference did not, however, lie in its terms of reference. Rather it should be understood as one of the outcomes of a maturing process in the development of capitalist relations in Europe. It clearly pointed to the birth of a new epoch in world history, that of imperialism.

The Stage of Monopoly Capitalism

Lenin’s study of imperialism provides the key to understanding of the forces which gave rise to the convening of the Berlin Conference. He showed that the development of pre-monopoly capital, in which free competition was predominant, reached its limit in the 1860s and the 1870s.

“We now see that it is precisely after that period that the tremendous ‘boom’ in colonial conquests begins, and that the struggle for the territorial division of the world becomes extraordinarily sharp. It is beyond doubt therefore, that capitalism’s transition to the stage of monopoly capitalism, to financial capital, is connected with the intensification of the struggle for the partitioning of the world.” – V.I. Lenin

This delineation of the transition of capitalism to its highest stage is amply demonstrated by the history of Europe’s conquest of Africa. Prior to the 1870s, the ‘Great Powers’ tried to expand their bases on the coast of Africa. Conflicts between them involved individual capitalists or companies acting on their own or enjoying the support of their respective governments. With the shift to imperialism, battles were fought between monopolistic organisations of finance capital represented by the government of the imperialist powers.

This qualitative change in the nature of Europe’s attack on Africa has often been obscured by bourgeois analysts. Lenin’s attack on their evaluation retains its validity today: “To substitute the question of the form of the struggle and agreements (today peaceful, tomorrow warlike, the next day warlike again) for the question of the substance of the struggle and agreements between capitalist associations is to sink to the role of a sophist”. – V.I. Lenin

Monopoly companies were formed in Europe with the task of subjecting whole regions of our continent to capitalist exploitation. The German Southwest African Company (1883), the French Compagnie Francaise de l’Afrique Equatoriale (1880), and the British South Africa Company (1889) were just some of the monopolies set up for this purpose. Their operations involved the importing and plundering of African products, the establishment of plantations, speculation in land and the exploitation of mineral resources. (To be continued … In South Africa)

Castro Khwela
Good evening fellow Compatriots!