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The 'Tanganyika African National Union (TANU)' was the principal political party in the struggle for sovereignty in the East African state of Tanganyika (now Tanzania). The party was founded by Julius Kambarage Nyerere in July 1954 while he was still teaching at St. Francis' College. From 1964 the party was called Tanzania African National Union. In January 1977 the TANU merged with the ruling party in Zanzibar, the Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP) to form the current Revolutionary State Party or Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM). The policy of TANU was to build and maintain a socialist state aiming towards economic self-sufficiency and to eradicate corruption and exploitation, with the major means of production and exchange under the control of the peasants and workers (Ujamaa-Essays on Socialism "The Arusha Declaration").