Table of Contents
Revolutionary Roots
Mao Zedong: A political journey
Mao Zedong (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), (also Mao Tse-tsung) was the Chinese de-facto leader from 1949 to his death in 1976 and the inaugural Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party.
Mao’s father, Mao Yichang, was a peasant farmer who built himself up through sheer hard work into a successful businessman in Shaoshan, Hunan province, China. In his later life, Mao Zedong would describe his father as a strict disciplinarian who would brutally beat him and his siblings. His father’s strictness and rags-to-riches story seemed to leave a huge mark on Mao Zedong.
Mao grew up during a time of great upheaval in China. China’s imperial dynasty, which had lasted for over 2000 years, would eventually come crashing down in 1911. A nationalist takeover would quickly devolve into a fragmented civil war up until 1928. Despite a decade of relative prosperity, China was invaded by Japanese forces in 1937 and was made a stooge of Japanese imperialist expansion. By 1949, however, Mao had managed to lead a communist uprising that established the People’s Republic of China.
Mao’s political ideology evolved and grew with him. He was initially drawn to the republicanism advocated by Sun Yat-Sen, the leader of the 1911 nationalist revolution that overthrew the Qing dynasty. Mao even called for Sun to become president in a school essay. In 1919, Mao would be at the heart of student-led demonstrations at Tiananmen Square which demonstrated the government’s weak response to Japanese encroachment and its unfavourable treatment by the Treaty of Versailles.
These demonstrations would later become a driving force behind the May Fourth Movement – an uprising against the imperialist Chinese government and the New Culture Movement – an anti-establishment political doctrine that criticized traditional Chinese political culture and called for mass political representation.
Mao, who had grown up reading classical Western literature by Charles Montesquieu, Adam Smith and Jean-Jacques Rosseau took a particular interest in the New Culture Movement. He had continually picked up more ‘radicalized’ socialist ideas and had come across communism, which had been introduced by him by his academic mentors, but was still unconvinced by it.
Russia was going through a similar political movement as China at the time, which had resulted in the Bolshevik revolution, led by Vladimir Lenin. Lenin’s brand of communism resonated with Mao, pushing him over the edge and transforming him into a de-facto supporter of communism. Mao joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) upon its formulation in 1921.
Up until World War two, Mao fought alongside and against the republican government, led by the Kuomintang Party. By 1935, Mao had risen to the helm of the Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang were nonetheless forced into an uncomfortable alliance against the Japanese during the Second World War.
Japan’s defeat at the end of the war resurrected the differences between Mao’s CCP and the Kuomintang. By 1949, the Kuomintang had been displaced across the Taiwanese strait and onto the island of Taiwan. Back on the mainland, Mao established the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on October 1, 1949. Taiwan became the home of the Republic of China and was recognized by the international community as the true government representative of the people of China up until 1971.
Mao would establish a socialist government led by the core ideals of communism. However, his socialist approach was a lot more expansive, as he believed that mass movements and mass criticism were necessary to check the bureaucracy and government.
Mao’s institutional reforms were revisionist; as they sought to scramble then reorganize China into a socialist utopia, with communist doctrine at its helm.
Mao’s brand of socialism is at the core of revolution and modernity today. Mao led a societal movement, ushering China from the age of imperialism, an age of imperialism in which it had lasted for centuries, in favour of an expansive political doctrine.
Mao gave identity to a China struggling to find its place, following years of conquest and humiliation from external powers. He dared to question the status quo and he incentivized the Chinese people to reject the reality of their past in favor of a radical agenda anchored in self-determination and prosperity for the masses.
William Ruto: From humble beginnings
William Ruto’s story shares a lot that of Mao.
Kenya’s incumbent president is representative of the political atmosphere present in Kenya’s political system.
Much like Mao, Ruto came from a humble background, and he was a roadside chicken seller at one time.
His life changed when he was introduced to Moi’s KANU party in the early 1990s. KANU was the dominant political outfit in Kenya, which was then a one-party state.
Ruto quickly rose through the ranks, becoming an influential part of the Youth for KANU, a charismatic movement aimed at popularizing Moi’s rule even in the dawn of multi-party politics in Kenya.
By 2002, Ruto was an established political figure in Kenya and was an elected Member of Parliament for Eldoret North constituency. In 2007, he decamped from KANU and joined the ODM party which was established and led by Raila Odinga. Odinga had left KANU in 2001 to be part of the NARC movement which would eventually end KANU’s 40-year grip on power in 2003.
Odinga, who was now part of Kibaki’s ruling regime would re-unite with Ruto under the ‘Orange’ movement which successfully campaigned against a new constitution proposed in the 2005 referendum. Ruto was part of this movement and would hence play an influential role in the formation and establishment of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party. Ruto had declared his intention to vie for the country’s presidency in 2007 but shelved his political ambitions in support of Odinga.
Odinga would lose to Kibaki in the 2007 general elections, leading to the outbreak of deadly post-election violence in Kenya. Ruto would be implicated by the International Criminal Court (ICC) as one of the main perpetrators of the violence. As the next election cycle drew closer and the ICC case loomed over his head, Ruto would find an avenue for an alliance with Uhuru Kenyatta, one of his co-accused in the ICC case.
The two founded a nationalist political alliance that would trounce Raila Odinga in the 2013 presidential elections. Ruto served as Uhuru’s deputy for two terms, up until 2022.
Nonetheless, Uhuru and Ruto had a fractured political relationship in the second term of their term, much due to Uhuru’s new-found political bromance with Raila Odinga. Ruto would stage a political coup, forming his own political movement with some of Uhuru’s core generals and at the heart of Uhuru’s political backyard. Ruto would narrowly emerge victorious, winning a slight majority of 50.49% of the vote compared to Odinga’s 48.85%.
Ruto’s win was significant especially because of the political messaging carried by his campaign. Ruto claimed to challenge the status quo of Kenya’s political arrangement which had dominated since the country’s independence.
Throughout his campaign, Ruto preached a ‘hustler’ versus ‘dynasty’ to anyone who cared enough to listen. The ‘dynasty’ was the political class of old that was in power and dominated Kenya’s political sphere. This was Ruto’s way of taking jabs at Uhuru and Raila, who were his political nemesis at the time. Uhuru’s father Jomo Kenyatta was Kenya’s first president and he was deputized by Raila’s father Jaramogi Oginga.
The term ‘hustlers’ was representative of the lowly Kenya, working (hustling) his/her way through life, with little if any support from their government amid times of economic and sociological upheaval. Ruto branded himself as a self-made hustler, who bootstrapped his way up from selling chicken on the roadside to becoming a political mogul. Ruto’s rags-to-riches story resonated with many Kenyans, who felt their country’s leaders had become aloof towards them.
Ruto was categorical that the dynasties (Uhuru and Raila) had to leave power to allow the hustlers, the true representatives of the country’s demographic, to rule. His message resonated a ton with a huge proportion of Kenyans. In his campaign manifesto, Ruto painted out the stark difference between the two possible outcomes of the 2022 elections;
On 9 August you will be called to choose between two roads. One leads to constitutional democracy, institutionalised politics and opening the doors of opportunity to the many. The other takes us back to imperial presidency, deeper into personalisation of power, and to the inevitable predictable end of economic apartheid that we see so often around the world.
Then Deputy President Hon. William Ruto EGH, Kenya Kwanza Manifesto: The Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda, 2022-2027, Launched June 30, 2022.
Ruto was of course on the ‘good side’. The manifesto promised economic transformation, expanded social care, strengthened democratic institutions and diverse opportunities for women and the youth.
Shared Political Dogmas
Socialist ideas, communist influence
While not directly influenced by Mao before him, Ruto’s political ideology shares similarities with Mao.
Mao was a self-built political figure who for decades was responsible for growing the Communist Party’s reach and influence in China. Ruto started as a ‘political nobody’, before slowly and gradually building political influence over decades. Both Mao’s and Ruto’s backgrounds make for the perfect ‘Cinderella stories’.
Like Mao before him, Ruto called for the establishment of a socialist political order led by the masses, for the masses. Ruto’s socialist takeover was meant to be revolutionary, marking a departure from decades of domination by a small clique of oligarchs, tribal leaders and the political bourgeoisie. Ruto termed his socialist transformation as the bottom-up economic model, which placed the interests of the ‘lowest, most vulnerable’ individuals first.
Whilst Ruto’s political ideology wasn’t as radical as Mao’s, it nonetheless maintained elements of revisionism, calling for the reconstruction of Kenya’s political class. In his manifesto, Ruto stated that Kenya needs ‘national democratic political parties that enable them to participate fully in decision making, to hold leaders accountable, and above all to give everyone an equal chance to lead based only on their ability and desire to serve, irrespective of their tribe, gender, physical disability or social background.’
Essentially, a socialist democratic system that puts everyone in charge.
Quite coincidentally, Ruto’s leadership would take a turn for the worst, much like that of Mao.
Failed political projects
In 1958, Mao introduced a proposal named the Great Leap Forward, a set of economic plans meant to transform China from an Agrarian society to an industrial powerhouse. The Great Leap Forward was part of Mao’s Five-Year Plan. The plan introduced industrial and agricultural collectivization, essentially banning all forms of private enterprise, as a means to empower communal output and self-sufficiency. As the name suggests, the plan was for China to take a massive leap into economic prosperity, bypassing the gradual process of industrialization undertaken by the Western powers and the Soviets.
The Great Leap Forward was an utter disaster. The lack of institutionalization meant that production quality was poor, agricultural output was low and the goods produced were not of high enough quality for export let alone local consumption. The suppression of private enterprise and intellectualism hampered innovation. Local administrators would often inflate the yield output in reporting to the CCP to escape punishment for not meeting quotas. This culminated in the Great Famine of China (1959-1961) in which millions died as China couldn’t produce enough food to feed itself.
Mao recognized the failure of this endeavour. At the 1962 Seven Thousand Cadres Conference (one of the largest delegate conferences by the Chinese Communist Party attended by over 7,000 party members), Mao offered self-criticism of his policies. He substantially semi-retired from his role delegating most of his administrative duties to his deputies; Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping. Open criticism of Mao and his political thought was also encouraged in the aftermath of the conference.
However, Mao would quickly renege on this new-found openness. As soon as he was done licking his wounds, he reasserted his power through the Great Cultural Revolution starting in 1966. Mao now blamed everyone but himself for the failures of socialist utopia, launching a campaign to weed out all anti-communist elements within the governing party and beyond. Shaoqi, Xiaoping and Peng Dehuai, who were once some of Mao’s closest allies were stripped of their positions, publicly shamed and kicked out of the party.
Mao’s cultural revolution extended beyond party lines. He launched an all-out assault on what he termed as the ‘Five Black Categories’ which were classifications of social-political status that hindered the agenda of the Communist ideology. These categories were made up of; landlords, rich farmers, counter-revolutionaries, bad influencers and rightists. These categories were later expanded to include traitors, spies, capitalist roaders and the “stinking old ninth”; the intellectuals. Those perceived to belong to either of these categories were persecuted and sometimes, even killed.
The Great Cultural Revolution also targeted elements of Chinese culture that were established before the Chinese Communist Revolution (1927-1949). These were termed the Four Olds; ‘old ideas’, ‘old culture’, ‘old customs’, and ‘old habits’. As part of the movement, old artefacts were destroyed, remains of Imperial-age rulers were exhumed and burned, road and public sites were renamed, and ethnic and religious minorities were attacked.
The message was evident. Mao’s school of thought on philosophy, politics and societal order was the only school of thought allowed. Anyone who dared to challenge him would face the consequences.
William Ruto is a man within a quagmire.
It doesn’t take a genius to see that his Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda is not working.
In his manifesto plan, Ruto promised to end state capture in the country, disarming power from a few oligarchs and placing it in the hands of the people.
Ruto blamed the ruling ‘dynasties’ for the prevalence of state capture in the country. He referred to an infamous quote by JM Kariuki, a harsh critic of Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta which stated that Kenya is a country of ’10 millionaires and 10 million beggars’.
Mao had a scathing hatred for capitalists, imperialists and the so-called ‘rightists’. Ruto had a vendetta against Kenyatta and Odinga, and the so-called ‘dynasty families’ and the ‘deep state’. They represented a conservative order within the political system controlled by a set of powerful, shadowy individuals.
Mao’s and Ruto’s ideologies both highlight the elements of class struggle, where the poor and economically impoverished fight to overthrow the bourgeoisie that lords over them. I’d go as far as to argue that Ruto’s political doctrine contained some Marxist elements to it.
He did not promise any form of a socialist utopia. But nonetheless, it represented a departure from Kenya’s staunch capitalist identity.
Ruto’s Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda draws parallels with Mao’s Great Leap Forward. It promises rapid economic transformation achieved by a revision of social order; where the government would empower the ‘hustlers’ whilst taking power away from the oligarchs.
In theory, at least.
In practice, Ruto’s political system has devolved the Kenyan government into a cryonicist system of tycoons, most of whom cannot substantiate the source of the wealth. As opposed to rewarding his fellow ‘hustlers’ who magnanimously voted him to power, Ruto has taken full control of the ship, rewarding his loyal benefactors, pageboys, failed politicians and shady businessmen with everything from hand downs to inflated government tenders.
A ‘cult of personality’
Ruto has turned Kenya’s democratic political system into a politburo. The politburo is the central decision-making organ of the Chinese Communist Party. During Mao’s tenure, the politburo was mostly made up of Mao loyalists, all of whom were committed to implementing Mao’s school of political thought. Even detractors such as Deng Xiaoping, who would later succeed Mao, still shared a lot in Mao’s school of thought. On top of this was the continuation of a communist autocracy as the mode of political governance. The politburo yields absolute political power and is answerable to no one other than the guy at the top.
Ruto’s government is a politburo, in every way, shape or form. Initially, it was made up of a close crop of ‘shareholders’ who had a part to play in his election to office. However, a popular uprising against his government in 2024 made him realize that he needed the entire political class on his side. So, by offering the opposition party a piece of the government pie, he created a unified political force comprised of a huge chunk of the country’s political elites. A politburo made up of Kenya’s entire political class. Including the so-called ‘dynasties’ that he always stood up against.
In unifying the political class, Ruto also unified the masses against him.
Ruto isn’t in power to destroy dynasties. He came to create his own. So he kinda lied. And Kenyans fell for it.
He became the very monster that he swore to destroy.
Ruto’s politburo has transformed Kenya into a one-party state in practice. There isn’t an opposition movement anymore. His political ambitions now threaten to transform Kenya into a totalitarian state, much like that of Mao’s Communist China.
Mao’s communist leadership was built upon vanguardism, a core concept of Leninist-Marxism. Vanguardism was fronted by Vladimir Lenin, the father of modern-day communism in his ambitions for Russia’s communist revolution in 1917. Vanguardism legitimized the absolute power yielded by the communist party, as it was the sole protector of the masses against the encroachment of the system by the bourgeoisie. The communist party would act as a crop of close-knit individuals whose entire raison d’etre would be to protect and advance the communist manifesto.
Vanguardism only ended up legitimizing the existence of an extremely powerful communist party. So, despite a populist revolution and the removal of imperialist rulers in both China and Russia, the authoritarian system of power never went away.
Unbeknownst to him, Ruto’s political ambitions have led him to implement the principle of vanguardism to a tee. He did not begin by transforming Kenya into a communist state but his socialist political agenda, captured in his manifesto, was a step in that direction.
The Kenya Kwanza government has become a political vanguard that legitimizes its autocratic stay in power under the guise of protecting the well-being of Kenyans. It claims to strive to make the lives of the Kenyan citizens better. All while screwing them behind their back the whole time.
In the span of two-and-a-half years, Ruto’s government has increased taxes on Kenyans, drowned Kenya into deeper levels of debt, been implicated in massive corruption scandals and murdered innocent Kenyans. All while gaslighting us into believing that we, Kenyans, are the ones in the wrong for calling him and his government out on their misconduct, abuse of power and incompetency.
Rule like Mao, end up like Mao
Mao’s misguided political ambitions almost destroyed China. Even he had to admit that they were too extreme at some point. It took a reformist in Deng Xiaoping to lead China down the path of becoming the economic juggernaut it is today. For that to happen, the Chinese Communist regime had to do something that Mao would have found unthinkable; embrace free market capitalism. But that could only happen with Mao out of the picture. Mao had to vacate office (which was only possible by death).
China’s economic growth only started after Mao died in 1976, and his die-hard loyalists were disarmed from power.
Ruto’s misguided political ambitions are driving Kenya down the wrong path. I know that he doesn’t care less about admitting that fact. I believe that he actually may be living in a delusion, convincing himself and those around him that he is doing the right things, and making the right political decisions for this country. Or he just doesn’t care about the country and only cares about lining his pockets, taking as much as can and stuffing the rest abroad. That can also be said of the political yes-men and women that surround him.
Which could explain why Kenya is one big active crime scene, with corruption and looting happening across all levels of government.
Ruto was the man chosen to reinvigorate this country’s economic prospects and transform our economy into that of a modern developing country. He was supposed to be the knight in shining armour, who would come to save the country from decades of political exploitation. He was instead a trojan horse, a man who took advantage of Kenyans’ insecurities and naivety to ascend to the country’s highest office. Just to fulfil his own selfish and lethargic ambitions.
Kenya’s socio-economic growth will only start after the man has been vacated from power. He is holding this country hostage, especially since it has proven impossible to prove to him that whatever his political plan was, it clearly isn’t working.
And so, I say this standing on the blood of all the young, innocent Kenyans who had to die for the sake of fighting for a better country.
#RUTOMUSTGO.
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