During the interregnum between the announcement of the election results in March 1980 and the independence ceremony in April, approximately 16,000 workers staged wildcat strikes across Zimbabwe. While previous scholarly analyses have focused on the failure of these strikes to catalyse a sustained movement, this article reads them as timely enactments of the workers’ vision of decolonisation during a fragile moment of transition. First, rather than reacting to state policy making, the strikes seized the brief opening to make demands to which the incoming government was forced to respond. Second, the strikes intervened in a broader debate about the speed at which political change ought to unfold in the new state. This debate was reflected through the terms ‘reconciliation’ and ‘transformation’, which circulated in public discourse and framed ZANU(PF)’s approach to governance. These terms captured two different approaches to the predicament that the party found itself in once it acquired power. Reconciliation centred on gradualism and moderation, while transformation emphasised the rapid change of extant colonial institutions. Caught in this bind, through the mechanism of the wildcat strike, workers refused the injunction to wait for the formal transfer of power to access the freedoms promised to them, enacting a sense of anticipation that made distinct claims on the future government.

在 1980 年 3 月选举结果公布和 4 月独立仪式之间的空档期，大约 16,000 名工人在津巴布韦各地举行了野猫式罢工。虽然之前的学术分析都集中在这些罢工未能促进持续的运动上，但本文将它们解读为工人在脆弱的过渡时期对非殖民化愿景的及时实施。首先，罢工不是对国家政策的制定做出反应，而是抓住短暂的机会提出新政府被迫回应的要求。其次，罢工引发了一场更广泛的辩论，争论的焦点是新州应以何种速度展开政治变革。这场辩论通过术语“和解”和“转变”反映出来，它在公共话语中流传，并构成了 ZANU(PF) 的治理方法。这些术语涵盖了该党在获得权力后发现自己所处困境的两种不同方法。和解以渐进主义和温和为中心，而转型则强调现存殖民制度的迅速变化。陷入这种束缚，通过野猫罢工的机制，工人们拒绝了等待权力正式移交以获得承诺给他们的自由的禁令，表现出一种对未来政府提出明确要求的期待感。而转型强调现存殖民机构的迅速变化。陷入这种束缚，通过野猫罢工的机制，工人们拒绝了等待权力正式移交以获得承诺给他们的自由的禁令，表现出一种对未来政府提出明确要求的期待感。而转型强调现存殖民机构的迅速变化。陷入这种束缚，通过野猫罢工的机制，工人们拒绝了等待权力正式移交以获得承诺给他们的自由的禁令，表现出一种对未来政府提出明确要求的期待感。