NEITHER THE FORMER SOCIALIST STATE NOR WESTERN CAPITALISM WOULD SAVE TANZANIA

News:

On Wednesday 3rd June, 2026, President Samia Suluhu Hassan conducted a three-day state visit to Russia. The visit included a meeting with President Vladimir Putin, her address to the 29th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF 2026), as well as being awarded an honorary doctorate degree (Honoris Causa) by the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University).

Comment:

This was the first time visit since 1969 that a Tanzanian President has visited Russia. Hassan had extensive bilateral talks with her Kremlin counterpart President Vladimir Putin on expanding cooperation in trade, energy, agriculture, education, tourism, as well as mining deals, including the $1.2 billion Mkuju River uranium project.

According to Moscow, the bilateral trade between the two countries grew by up to 25 percent last year. The balance of trade between Tanzania and Russia is around $307 million (€264 million) per year, but with a new Russia-Tanzania Business Council created in January this year, the figure is expected to increase. According to UN Comtrade data for 2024, Tanzania imported about US$295 million worth of goods from Russia and exported only about US$9 million worth of goods to Russia. Therefore, just like other Western Capitalists, Russia is exploiting Tanzania in the name of free trade, globalization, and foreign investment.

Tanzania has a huge amount of resources in minerals, massive agricultural land, and huge lakes with a long coastline of the Indian ocean that is vital for economy, geopolitics, and strategic transit routes of bulk wealth of Congolese minerals and goods of other land locked neighboring countries, yet it lacks ideological muscle. As result, it embraces at the former Socialist states of Russia and China for protection as the alternative to American and European hegemony and exploitation.

However, the expectation of Tanzania and other developing nations on former socialist nations is in vain and far from the reality. In fact, after the natural death of the socialist ideology, especially the disintegration of USSR in 1990, both former Socialist states of Russia and China ended up embracing the capitalist ideology and implement it within their states.

Thus, under capitalism, the issue of exploitation is their goal and is inevitable. This means developing nations must comprehend that former socialist nations and western capitalist states are two parts of similar coins, and they are not distant from colonialism and exploitation.

The real protection and true liberation of developing nations including Tanzania cannot be obtained from former socialist nations nor western capitalist nations, but by embracing the different ideology of Islam under its Khilafah state. Its history and reality of its rules prove vividly its capacity in serving humanity with a great deal of justice and fairness.

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Said Bitomwa
Member of the Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir in Tanzania