Jomo Kenyatta characterised Kenyatta as a Pan-Africanist. However, Maloba observed that while during the colonial period Kenyatta had embraced "radical Pan African activism", this was in "marked contrast" to the "deliberate conservative positions, especially on the question of African liberation", that he espoused while Kenya's leader. As leader of Kenya, Kenyatta published two collected volumes of his speeches: "Harambee" and "Suffering Without Bitterness". The material included in these publications was carefully selected so as to avoid mention of the radicalism he exhibited while in Britain during the 1930s. Kenyatta had been exposed to Marxist-Leninist ideas through his friendship with Padmore and the
Jomo Kenyatta attitude that tribalism was backward and retrograde; his positive attitude toward tribal society frustrated some of Kenyatta's Marxist Pan-Africanist friends in Britain, among them Padmore, James, and Ras T. Makonnen, who regarded it as parochial and un-progressive. Assensoh suggested that Kenyatta initially had socialist inclinations but "became a victim of capitalist circumstances"; conversely, Savage stated that "Kenyatta's direction was hardly towards the creation of a radical new socialist society", and Ochieng called him "an African capitalist". When in power, Kenyatta displayed a preoccupation with individual and "mbari" land rights that were at odds with any socialist-oriented collectivisation. According to Maloba,