Revolutionary Nationa Union. -IV
The national question and the land question in the South African revolution
| tional capitalist economy and of the ac-| tion between rich and poor which, coinciding are one of the essential bases of the interna- I wages of migrant workers. It is this polarisa- the economies of Botswana, Lesotho and
A capitalist country of a special type 1. In the course of the last decade southern
Africa has emerged as an area of major importance in world politics. The victory of the liberation movements in the former Portuguese territories, the end of the white racist regime in Zimbabwe, and the upsurge of mass struggle in South Africa, have turned what was once a region of stable' domination into upheaval. The fact that a number of strategic raw materials and a large volume of imperialist investments are concentrated in this part of the continent makes this crisis situation of great concern to imperialist
The key to the future of southern Africa lies in the Republic of South Africa. This country is the most important regional base revolutionary force in the region. But it also contains an industrial economy richer than any on the African continent, built by the labour of a large and powerful black working class. If the productive powers of the South African workers were to be freed from the fetters of racism and capitalism, they could become an immense social force for the liberation of Africa from imperialist domina-
The South African Republic is a semi-industrialised capitalist country, still depen-. dent, despite important industrial developinvestments and assistance from imperialism. But it is capitalist country of a particular type. The great majority of the population and the overagricultural producers do not have the right of citizenship in their own country, neither do they have rights of self-determination, nor elementary democratic or political rights. This is a unique situation internationally that results from the particular forms of implantation of capital via the white settler colonialists allied with foreign capital: first to Dutch and British colonialism, then to imperialism generally. Apartheid is only the final form of the racial segregation by which international capital and the leading layers of the local whites have been able for more than a century to maintain the super-exploitation of the black proletariat which is the source of the profits of the gold and diamond mines, that cumulation of capital locally.
South Africa is a semi-industrialised capitalist country for which manufacturing represented 22 per cent of gross domestic product in 1975 (against 17 per cent for Egypt and 10 per cent for Nigeria, the next two most industrialised countries on the continent). By way of comparison this proportion is 23 per cent for Mexico, 35 per cent for Argentina, 28 percent for South Korea and 30 percent for Hong Kong. In 1977 the growth of South Africa's GDP was three times the average for the rest of the continent. By the end of the eighties it is predicted that the secondary sector will account for 28.9% of GDP.
It has the greatest concentration of mineral wealth in the capitalist world. It is the foremost world producer of gold (75 per cent of capitalist world production). It ranks third for uranium and diamonds, second for chrome, seventh for phosphates and coal, of which it is one of the principal exporters, eighth for nickel and iron ore. Its share of the world production is 92 per cent for platinum and 62 per cent for manganese. Mineral production is around 20 per cent of national production and up to 80 per cent of exports.
It is the share of this mineral income in the general income that in part maintains its dependence on imperialism. South Africa's gold production is more a factor leading to its dependence on the imperialist market than a means of pressure or autonomy. Fluctuations in the price of the yellow metal strongly influence the South African economy. The Pretoria regime is not really able to exert any influence over these externally determined factors. The lower prices of gold and their fluctuation since 1981 explain why they no longer hedge the South African economy against international recession: deficit of the balance of trade and a rate of inflation of
This immense wealth is jointly controlled by South African and foreign capital, more and more closely integrated one with the other, and incorporated in trusts and companies operating in joint ventures. The other pole of society is found in the impoverished mass of black workers (African, "coloured" and 'indian' according to the official terminology) for whom per capital income is about 10 percent of that of the whites. The most misery is found among the peasantry of the Bantustans, largely dependent on subsidies from the South African state and the as it does with apartheid and the control of all whites, makes the South African social situation explosive. 2. South Africa occupies an absolutely unique position on the African continent. It alone is the site of nearly 50 per cent of all imperialist investment in Africa south of the Sahara. The importance of its mineral riches and mining exports makes it one of the essential bases of the international capitalist economy. The development of the colonial revolution, notably in the Middle East, has increased South African global strategic importance. In June 1981, a private conference was held in Buenos Aires which included military personnel from the USA, South Africa, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile and Brazil. It had the purpose of discussing the long-standing project of a South Atlantic Treaty Organisation. Washington was particularly interested in using the military base at Simonstown abandoned by the British in 1975.
The development of the national liberation movement in Black Africa, especially in southern Africa, has led to the consolidation of South Africa as the main counterrevolutionary force of the region. Its military interventions into Zimbabwe before inMozambique have a tendency to extend over a defence budget has quadrupled in ten years and has now reached 2.5 billion rand annually. The armaments industry in South Africa is a sector of prime importance that is already capable of manufacturing heavy weapons based on foreign models imported in the past. The government has encouraged the movement of savings towards national defence bonds and foreign companies such as Barclays Bank, Telefunken and a subsidiary of the French Thomson group have also invested in such bonds. The South African state has been able to capitalise on certain technologies introduced by foreign firms by exploiting their military possibilities, in order, as always, to get round the UN recommendations for a halt to all arms trade with South
The growth of the South African economy necessitates more and more the incorporation of African countries into its commercial sphere of influence. A significant amount of capital invested in these countries comes from South Africa. It dominates in different ways
finally defeated, it is difficult to reconcile | dependent on the technological expertise of
Black miners learn their trade (DR)
the big industrial powers. For this reason, and also because of the permanent financial and commercial needs of the Republic, South African capitalists are most often obliged to have recourse to joint-ventures for any large-scale undertakings. But above all this bourgeoisie remains dependent on the mechanisms that have made possible its profits - apartheid and the national oppression imposed on the majority of the population. It cannot therefore overthrow these barbaric forms that have been responsible for its own process of capital accumulation. It therefore finds itself historically condemned not to be able to obtain a development identical to that of a typical ruling class of an advanced capitalist country. The narrowness of the internal market, itself dependent on apartheid constitutes another aspect of this objective blockage and cannot be overcome by the South African ruling class. Thus between 1972 and 1980 South Africa borrowed nearly 7 billions US dollars from overseas banks via
Swaziland. It exercises a strong influence on | these imperatives for South African commer- 186 different loans. Typical are the loans those of Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Zambia, particularly in the latter's mining sector. A significant part of the foodstuffs consumed in these countries is provided by South Africa. The South African communications network extends over a part of the subcontinent. In Mozambique the exploitation of the port of Maputo depends on materials and personnel from South Africa. The same country's giant Cabora Bassa dam exports most of its power production to South Africa. Furthermore in some of the countries of the region there is a temporary emigration of the work force to the South African mines. This economic influence now extends as far as Kenya, Zaire, the Congo and Mauritius. For the single year of 1980 South African exports to Africa increased by 66.6% reaching a level of 1.1 billion rand.
All serious efforts to weaken the economic weight of the racist bastion must be supported. However the present appeals of the 'front line' states for international aid to reduce their dependence are utopian. It is a tragic and dangerous illusion to believe that the imperialist states are going to help these countries decisively to break with South African influence when they themselves have such a big stake in the latter. Precisely because the 'front-line' states have dominated economies the only possible political position to have there is to struggle simultaneously against the economic, political and military influence of the racist state and to fight the local ruling classes who are the accomplices of imperialist domination.
There is a real contradiction between on the one hand, the necessity for the racist regime to play the role of counterrevolutionary policeman over a part of the continent which accentuates the indignation and hatred of the mass of Africans for South Africa, and on the other, the need to gain crucial parts of the continent as arenas for its own commercial expansion. The most effective solution to this problem would be the installation, with the aid of imperialism, of more conciliatory regimes in these surrounding countries. But as long as the anti-imperialist consciousness of the masses of Angola, Mozambique and Zimbabwe is not
18 cial expansion with those of military repression against countries that remain for the moment bourgeois nationalist regimes brought to power by mass anti-colonialist movements and now having their own separate interests as a developing national ruling class. This contradiction is the basis of one of the tactical differences between some imperialist milieus and Pretoria that relate simply to what is the most effective means to combat the mounting mass movement in the region — and not ones that arise from fundamentally divergent political and economic objectives. Gold, and technological dependence 3. The growth of the South African economy has produced a powerful class of white South African capitalists. From the mid-1920s a tax (the Excess Profits Tax) hit mining profits, permitting a redistribution of profit and the development of state and private manufacturing industry (in particular steel or production linked to the needs of the mining industry). But at the same time the interpenetration of national and international capital, both in mining and in manufacturing grew stronger. Since the unequal exchange plays a primary role for imperialism (in opposition to the traditional and colonial interests in mines) the development of South African industry is, for multinational companies, an target for the export of machines and equipment. The increase of South African industry is also the consequence of this change during the last 30 years in the world capitalist appearance of a South African finance capital sector is a recent development in the history of capitalism in that country, but in no way is a sign of its 'completion'. It is in fact yet another illustration of the law of uneven and combined development (which besides is in no way limited to South Africa). It would however be premature to deduce from it a qualitative change in the relations between the South African bourgeoisie and imperialism. The sector of the ruling class that holds this section of finance capital remains made by such as Barclays to the South African Oil Fund that aims, via the Sasol oil from coal projects, to offset dependence on foreign oil. 4. Despite the fact that a South African finance capital has emerged which even engages in the export of capital, foreign capital continues to predominate in the banking sector. In 1978 two foreign banks, Barclays and Standard Bank Investments, on their own represented 52 per cent of the overall funds of the 20 most important financial institutions of the country. The next three largest the Netbank, the Volkskas and the Bankorp were controlled by South African capital.
In the mining sector foreign participation is very strongly entrenched going up to 72 per cent of capital in the best gold portfolios quoted. They are of the order of 40 per cent of the total mineral sector capitalisation on the stock exchange, worth in 1979 some 35 billion Rands. US firms control 25% of South African mines actions.
Foreign companies totally control the electronics industry. They control around 80 per cent of sales and the multinationals entirely dominate the computer-data communications industry. In the car industry three-quarters of annual turnover is accounted for by foreign firms, the rest going usually to concessionaires holding licenses. With regard to sources of energy, South Africa is still far from being able to liberate itself from foreign control. Caltex, Mobil, BP, Total and Shell control around 85 per cent of the oil industry of the country. 95 per cent of refined petroleum products are processed in four refineries, three of which belong to multinationals that own between them 91 per cent of service stations.
Also in the coal industry, traditionally in the hands of South African companies, Total, Shell and BP have obtained mining and selling rights, no doubt in exchange for the oi that has been difficult to import since the decision of the Arab League in 1973 to stop all sales of oil goods to South Africa.
During the last eight years foreign investment has almost tripled in value, going from |10.5 billion rand in 1973 to 23 billion in 1978
and 30 billion R at the end of 1981 (45% of | agriculture, the bureaucracy and the army. At | public sermons at the international level, in tice of the majority of the small business, this situation. In spite of all its hypocritical the short term the economic development of
GDP). Yet this represents accumulated profits and inflation: in the past two years there has been a deficit on capital account. The principal owner of this capital remains Great Britain with around 8 billion followed by the rest of the EEC with 6 billion and the USA with 5 billion. The South African government is trying to reform the bank framework and to increase its own political control on the Bank Companies. In the banking sector, using the banking act of 1974 it obliged financial institutions to reduce foreign participation to 50 per cent by 1985. This will essentially affect four banks: Barclays, Standard Bank, Hill Samuel and the Southern French Bank (a subsidiary of the Compagnie francaise de l'Indochine et de Suez, today nationalised by the French government). The estimated 350 US companies operating in South Africa employ about 70,000 Africans, comprising 2% of the total African labour force.
But the contradictions of dependence remains. The government has created a financial rand' marked down by 25-38 per cent below the commercial rand in order to favour foreign investment, more particularly that of non-residents. The market for this 'financial rand' is located in London with two auxiliary the bottom these differences concern the needs of modern capitalism, for a rationalisation of capitalist domination and a widening of the market. The differences between the liberals and the ruling National Party center on one question: how best to avoid upsurge of the oppressed and the opening of a revolutionary crisis. The liberals think that a controlled democratisation will block the process of radicalisation of the mass movement. The majority of the National Party believe that the least major concession reinforces the determination of the masses and that only the stabilisation of apartheid by the creation of a 'Coloured' and 'Indian' petit-bourgeoisie can avoid the worst. No fraction of the bourgeoisie is in fact ready to give all political and democratic rights to the black worker and peasant masses. F. van Zyl Slabbert, leader of the liberal opposition, for example, accompanies the proposals for a democratic
Standard Oil
no way has it decided to put into question the system of racial segregation. Some recent studies have besides proved that American and European firms established in South Africa in general ignore the 'Codes of Conduct' (which moreover are set at very modest levels) elaborated by various official bodies which aim to achieve equal wages between blacks and whites 'through example'. The Sullivan Code of the USA and its equivalents established by 'the EEC have shown themselves quite incapable of counter-acting the imperatives of capitalist profit in South Africa. In 1980 a British government document admitted that 33 British companies paid salaries below the 'poverty line' to their black employees and that 20,000 black wage earners in British subsidiaries were paid at rates below the very modest standards prescribed by the EEC
The development of capitalism in this
Honeywel BANK markets in New York and Johannesburg.
The South African government is also trying to reduce this dependence in the areas of energy and armaments. It has made considerable investments in the state companies that now dominate numerous industries. The Iron and Steel industry (ISCOR) and electrical generating (ESCOM) have been under state control since their beginning in the 1930s. It has also taken many steps to increase local production and to assist South African enterprises to become majority shareholders in certain key branches. The determination to resolve the oil problem has led to a concentration on technical research for substitutes.
It is precisely in this area that the difficulties and contradictions of this 'nationalist' policy are illustrated. South African technological skills often require imperialist industrial inputs for their realisation. For instance for the Sasol Il and Ill projects which have the objectives of transforming coal into petroleum products, 40 per cent of the costs are being borne by foreign capital.
Multinationals such as the petroleum companies or some British banks will be shareholders in Sasol III. It is therefore clear opening-up with a right of veto for the white| country, the importance of foreign inoverall that the development of capitalism in South Africa is reinforcing the weight of foreign investments and technology. The government can try to favour investments by the South African bourgeoisie but overall it is failing to reduce substantially its dependence on foreign capital. Industrial growth does not only increase technological dependence, it depends itself in part on the international market for gold.
5. The material base of the former contradiction between the interests of the Afikaaners and the English speaking bourgeoisie has been largely modified. The intertwined interests of the factions of the dominant classes no longer allow such a simplification. It is, however, true that the big industrial and financial boureoisies (mostly English-speaking) opposes the political pracminority, and explains his idea that 'universal franchise must be distinguished from majority rule'.
It is the National Party itself which is at this stage divided on this between 'verligte' (enlightened) and 'verkrampte' (hard line). But these political conflicts show only a growing political crisis amongst the bourgeoisie amidst a situation of social tension in the country. They in no way indicate the determination of any fraction of the ruling class to accept the need for a fundamental change in the policy of racial segregation. Some new political organisations like the Herstigte National Party,the National Conservative Party and neo-Nazi groups show, on the contrary, that some sections of the white population are preparing for confrontation.
Imperialism is the principal beneficiary of vestments or the appearance of a South African finance capital are not therefore miraculous events presaging the evolution of the country towards bourgeois democracy as a result of the so-called objective needs of capitalism. The contradictions within this system will not give birth to its reformist transformation. On the contrary, the more wealth is accumulated by the bourgeois camp the less is it possible to call into question the prison camp conditions imposed on the black population. The evolution of capitalism in South Africa each day further accumulates the basis for its violent overthrow.
The South African bosses and the more 'enlightened' political leaders recognise on the contrary that the rigorous system of job reservation for whites and the low professional qualifications of blacks holds back in
19
----- pull-quotes on this page -----
IBM MORGAN E HARVARD OUT NoW I RC AMERICAN PARES Pilsbury
----- photo credits and running heads -----
- Citicorp GENERALS ELECR A CHASE CONTINENTAO
were also fundamental to the needs of mining white areas. 90 per cent of the economically | analysis the South African state is directed to the country. At the 'Manpower 80s* symposium it was revealed that South Africa would have to train nearly 5 million extra workers in the next eight years. The government has decided to accelerate professional training for 'african' and 'coloured'. It has embarked on a re-moulding of the employment market by opening jobs in new sectors to blacks. But this cannot immediately solve industry's problem of skilled labour nor the problem of enlarging the internal market for consumer goods. On the other hand this does hit the white labour aristocracy which constitutes the social base of the regime and reinforces the already strong inflationary tendencies of the South African economy. This debate currently pre-occupies ruling class circles in South Africa. The 'generous' idea of encouraging small-scale black enterprises directed towards the townships' market and the possibility of extending house ownership to certain 'privileged' black persons will in
Black workers village in Natal sugar plantation (DR)
amongst | and industry for a cheap and controllable lactive population worked in agriculture but one way reduce unemployment blacks. In 1977 only 26.1 per cent of skilled jobs were held by blacks. The debate among ruling class layers about equal pay, professional qualifications for blacks and their right
- labour supply. Apartheid is therefore essentially a structural necessity arising from the development of capitalism in this country and
'anachronistic return to preis not an provided only 0.9 per cent of the national income of this territory. But for the biggest of the Bantustans, the Transkei, it is predicted that in the year 2000, 1.9 million of the 5 to trade union organisation is no longer only ai capitalist forms. question of economic needs but equally a question of the survival of white domination and the defence of the capitalist system in the country.
The Bantustans and the land question 6. South African capitalist agriculture today is the end result of an evolution that did not immediately take the form of generalised wage relations. Colonial penetration by and large expropriated the land from the African population and broke up traditional systems of tenure. There remained an African peasantry without ownership rights, living on lands formally belonging to whites. The 1913 Land Act had the objective of reducing this 'squatting' system. From then on the payment of rent through labour rendered' became the general means of tenure on the white-owned land (with the exception of Crown Lands and land owned by companies). According to this new system African peasants remained on the proprietor's land and cultivated a plot there but were under obligation by contract to supply labour. This development only took place as a result of the direct intervention of the state against the peasant squatters. This organisation of agricultural labour was in
Today some 70,000 white farmers own 85 million hectares, nearly 85 per cent of all agricultural land. Nearly 750,000 workers (nearly all black) are employed there. 500,000 others work on a seasonal basis. Apart from this white sector we find in "black" areas and Bantustans 1.25 million of people whose essential professional activity is agriculture They are dependant for a large part of their subsistence on wages earned by relatives outside of agriculture. 28% of the active population is related to agricultural sector. The contribution of agriculture to the GNP has fallen from 16% in 1946 to 6.8% in 1981. Today for 10.5 million of "migrants" in "white" areas there are 9.6 million people living in the Bantustans.
The entire evolution of the South African agrarian system has followed from its inception a dual objective: removing the native population from ownership of, and access to, the land in order to assure the farmers and white capitalists of a cheap politically controlled labour force. Today this remains the fundamental function of the Bantustans — to place the African population in reserves where they are deprived of resources, thus obliging them to sell their labour power at 'starvation-level' wages to South African capitalists and to remain as a reserve army of labour far from the industrial centres. The remillion inhabitants will be unemployed Already today this Bantustan is unable to produce more than one third of the food requirements of its population. The infant mortality rate is 282 per thousand live births against 18.5 for whites in South Africa. People not belonging to the officially accepted race in a particular area are constantly harassed by the authorities thus adding to the persistent persecution directed at preventing the unification of the black masses. Black trade union militants are imprisoned, even killed, by the puppet 'authorities' of these territories on behalf of the white racists. 7. In her book The Accumulation of Capital Rosa Luxembourg insisted that a 'million white exploiters of two national groups cemented their fraternal alliance in the form of the Union of South Africa by depriving 5 million black workers of their civil and political rights'. This collusion, or at least this community of interest, expresses itself unevenly and in different ways. The pressure of the state against squatting encouraged accumulation by the Afrikaaner peasantry and its investment outside of agricluture in industry and banking. The pact established in 1924 between the National Party and the Labour Party was another form of consensus between different white layers. It was this government that established a protectionist tarif, assisted agriculture and created the nasome ways a sort of transitional system. cent setting up of industries on the periphery Through the 1936 Native Trust and Lands Act and the initial measures of the apartheid regime after the Second World War, which. stopped all legal migration of black workers to the towns, payment of rent in labour supplies disappeared to give way to a pure and simple agricultural wage labour force. This development took place under pressure from the Boer farmers through their farmers' union and at the parliamentary level through the arrival in power of the Nationalists in 1948. The racist apartheid institutions founded at this epoch arose therefore in part from the new needs of a capitalist agriculture conscious of its requirement for a stable labour force. They
20 of the 'reserves' is an even more cynical expression of this policy. Thus the racist regime deprives this population of all civil and political rights, puts it under constant repression, places it under structures of artificial retribalisation in order to keep it divided and without the capacity to defend its most elementary rights - including that of selling its own labour power in a collective fashion in a unified labour market.
One indication of the desperate character of the Bantustans' economies is given by the fact that in Venda in 1975 82 per cent of the population consisted of people who depended on remittances from migrant labour in the tionalised sector, notably the steel business, ISCOR, the Excess Profits Tax also favoured the bourgeois bloc unifying a part of Afrikaaner interests with those of the English-speaking capitalists and imperialism.
Racial discrimination has worked in favour of the profit-making of all sections of the bourgeoisie in South Africa. The existence of two labour markets — one for whites and one for blacks - has facilitated the combination of the defence of an internal market, albeit limited, founded on white salaries, and very low cost production rooted in the existence of the reserve army of black workers and their minimal salaries. In the final
sustaining this articulation. In this context it for national democratic demands, for nahas been possible to combine on the one side, the emergence of a South African bourgeoisie and on the other, the imperialist interests searching for the maximum return on their investment. The South African state has served a dual function which still explains the complicity today between the white South African employers and foreign investors. The existence of an autonomous state apparatus since 1910 has been an important factor in the strengthening of a white South African bourgeoisie and in the stimulation of its in-
The racist regime thus has a real margin of manoeuvre, especially because it knows that it can, even if only temporarily, maintain a position of relative isolation thanks to the resources of the country, its own relative economic development and the autonomy of the interests of the multinationals in relation to imperialist governments.
That is why it regularly uses these possibilities to put pressure on the West's governments so that they will line up with it in a more determined way. Certain military interventions such as Operation Proteus in 1981 - against Angola can have this as one of its objectives. From a struggle for democratic rights to the anti-capitalist revolution 8. The South African revolution will conform with class reality, that is, with the social, economic and political structures of the countional liberation (equal rights, freedom of expression and organisation). The development of the revolutionary process from a struggle for national democratic demands into a fight for anti-capitalist objectives will thus be
That is why the growth of the mass movement will bring together on the one side the formation of the black community associations locally and nationally leading to the unity of the black masses against the racist regime, and on the other, the formation of unions and other organisations of the proletariat properly speaking - while it is still not possible to predict the precise articulations of the two organisational forms. development of agrarian capitalism in the white zone and the generalisation of wage 'labour must favour the collective appropriation under whatever form of agricultural holdings in the wake of a revolutionary victory of the black masses. Today it is not possible to predict what would be the precise demands of the masses in the countryside and amongst the semi-proletarianised layers. The destruction of the Bantustan system will obviously require a radical agrarian reform that the population of these areas, along with perhaps a part of the unemployed in the townships, will tend to want to extend to the big agricultural capitalists, who own the best land. It is thus impossible at this stage to foresee the relationship between an agrarian reform that gives land to the poor peasants and the semiproletarians and the nationalisation of a sector or large-scale capitalist agriculture. It is
| above all the fight to unify all the oppressed and exploited and to win their right to constitute a single nation. The motor force of this struggle is the industrial proletariat, unifying around itself the youth of the townships, the mining and agricultural proletariat and the poor peasantry. It is already significant that a part of the mobilisations in the township are associated with boycotts, boycott of meat in the Cape during the strike in the slaughterhouses) and that actions led by young Indians and coloureds take similar forms to that of the African
The white labour aristocracy, more and more elevated out of the productive sector constitutes a privileged and arrogant caste of whites' (Trotsky) that seeks to defend its
The 1924 Pact, through the subsidiary positions it gave the unions of the white working class fuelled the disappearance of the latter as an autonomous political force. This phenomenon was reinforced as they became more and more composed of workers of Afrikaaner origin and not English speakers alone (who had been closely aligned to labourist unionism in the 20s and 30s).
Already, faced with the new wages and job policies of the Botha government, a part of the supporters of parties to the right of the Nationalists (HNP and fascists) is made up of white workers and employees.
It is however possible that the crisis South Africa now faces will shake up very small sections of whites and lead them to take notice of the struggles of the black masses. The South African revolutionary marxists will confront these elements with a precise choice: either try. It will take the form of a process of per- the mobilisations themselves and the role of manent revolution that would seek to resolve the national question, the question of equal civil and political rights and the land problem in the interests of the great majority of the population: Africans, Coloureds and In-
At the same time given the preponderant agricultural proletariat in population, the struggle for these rights will the organisations of the proletariat that will definitively determine the nature of the demands of the rural masses.
The agrarian question is inextricably tied up with the national question notably insofar as it relates to the destruction of the Bantustans. The struggle for the right to land • (land to those who work it') will combine with the struggle against all aspects of 'separate development'.
with the black oppressed against imperialism and the white racist bosses or with the white exploiters and against the oppressed.
New development of independent trade unions 9. The 1970s saw the political re-awakening of the movement of the masses after the defeats it underwent in the early 1960s. In parbe carried out through increasingly pro- The national question in South Africa is ticular it brought forth as a permament letarian means of action and organisation and
Skilled white workers support separate development (DR) will be combined more and more with the struggle for class objectives proper to the pro-
Already by 1970 1.5 million black workers were employed in industry and provided 85 per cent of the labour force in this sector. At the same date 36.6 per cent of the economically active population were concentrated in four principal industrial regions (of these 23.3 per cent were in the Pretoria-Witwatesrand area. The concentration of more than 9 million blacks (out of a black population of 20 million) in the townships - immense shanty towns on the periphery of the big industrial cities — has reinforced the explosive character of this evolution.
The South African revolution will begin on the terrain of the national question. The struggle in the factories expresses above all the will of blacks to organise as black workers to win their emancipation. Their mobilisations (salaries, work conditions, residence rights, solidarity against repression) with the struggle
21
reature the struggles of the workers and youth about the kind of unity and federation, the militants coming out of the more radical
FCWU and GWU insisting on the discussion original leadership had been replaced with reduce this intervention to simply a selfand urban masses generally.
It was first the struggles of the workers in 1972-3, then the uprising in Soweto in 1976 which were characterised by new forms of radicalisation amongst the amongst workers. The struggles in the winter of 1980 illustrated that the centre of gravity of the struggle against apartheid is today the working class. This now confronts the white power structure on two levels. One is around economic demands and the other the right to impose union recognition, a fight that provides a lesson and inspiration for the entire mass movement, community associations etc.
The independent trade-union movement is still young and divided. Two federations; Federation of South African Trade Unions (FOSATU) and the Council of Unions of South Africa (CUSA), as well as a certain number of trade unions (General Workers Union, GWU; African Food and Canning
South African Allied Workers Union, SAAWU; the Assemles and Components Workers Union, MACWUSA;...) share the bulk of the trade-union membership of the black workers. The independent trade-union movement (leaving apart COSU) declares itself 'non-racial', which, in the conditions of South Africa is a pedagogic formula for class-conscious trade unionism as opposed to trade unions by race led or influenced by 'coloured' or 'indians' or by movements like the Zulu Inkatha. The problems arise little by little, introducing between all these organisations, and within them, debates and differences. The question of registration, that of 'industrial councils', as well as that of directly political demands, have already occupied a big place in these debates The principle of 'non-collaboration' with the institutions of the racist state should become more precise with each new experience of struggle and of confrontation with the regime or the bosses.
The question of 'registration' confronts the trade unions with a political problem. The effects of this regulation, fixed by Wiehahn commission, are to well and truly other with SAAWU, and MACWUSA raising the question of non-registration as a key ques tion, making this point a preliminary. Yet, if such a situation should last for some time, the burgeoning unity, even if partial, would express the steps forward accomplished workers more and more organised. This high and growing level of consciousness is a strong force pushing in the direction of an increasing unity between the unions which will show the deepest roots in the working class.
But in the final analysis the key question today is to give a political content to the battle for trade-union unity. This should be posed not only at the top but also in the workplace where sometimes there exists two differenc independent trade unions. trade-union unity will be a stage towards trade union unification. It is only in these conditions that the workers movement will be capable of discussing and sorting out each new problem which arises, each trap set by the government, the liberals, the multi-national bosses, and imperialism. The present division is not a means of clarification between the different organisations. On the contrary, by the differentiation of local experiences and implantations, it feeds the confusion, and
A unified trade-union movement will have the means to resist the pressures of all types already exercised by certain imperialist, liberal or social-democratic agencies to 'help' the trade unions. Unity will also be a way of broadening the capacities for intervention! among the unemployed, the youth without work, women, and the disinherited population of the Bantustans.
The workers vanguard is rapidly going to find itself at a crossroads. The regime will certainly not for long tolerate the present evolution of the movement. It cannot allow the black working class to continually challenge its authority in this way.
No illusion should exist of the possibility of the regime allowing a status quo with the already existing movement. In order to respond to the inevitable growth of repression it
Youth League, recognised the leading role of the African masses. Nonetheless its greatest weakness remained the absence of a class perspective and its strategy of revolution by stages. Dominated by the Communist Party this leadership adopted the perspective of a bourgeois democratic stage and oriented itself towards collaboration with sections of the liberal white population. These politics led to a sector splitting and the emergence, on a nationalist line, of the Pan African Congress
After the massacres of 1960 the ANC and the PAC oriented towards a strategy of rural guerilla warfare. There can only be a negative balance sheet made of this orientation. Today the ANC and the CP seem to have turned towards an urban guerilla tactic without any
This change is not only an indication of the setback of rural guerillaism but also of the pressure of the South African social formation and the decisive weight to the urban masses. The ANC has delayed in seizing this evolution as much because of its programme as its international links. On 6 August 1976,. Olivier Tambo, President of the movement, again stated to an Algerian newspaper, El Moujahid, 'the Soweto events are also the expression of the present stage of the development of the struggle in South Africa, of the preparation of the people for the struggle against the racist regime, and its ability to develop the same actions as FRELIMO, the the Zimbabwe liberation movement.' Such a comparison does not yet have any material base in the social and political reality of South Africa.
Moreover the echo such actions amongst the masses hardly favour their self-organisation. They turn attention towards the ANC and can increase its popularity but they do not bring together nor unify the struggles of the masses. They tend to substitute spectacular actions for the slow work of preparation of the masses for their own self-defence. The consequent repression of the regime against nationalist militants engaging in such allow repressive control by the government. A will be necessary to be prepared. Immediate actions has been consistently merciless. But it struggle against the principle is therefore the already complex history of the South African trade unions in no way allows us to characterise those who are registered as undoubtedly collaborationist or compromised. This is parsteps need to be taken to strengthen plant level shop steward organisation, to improve internal union democracy and broaden the field of union activity and mobilisation. The union leaderships themselves will have to, at least partially, play the role of a political is quite difficult to see what gains the masses have made from their heroic sacrifice.
A guerilla dependent on the 'front line' states with the support of a part of the OAU no doubt fits into the framework of ANC and CP diplomacy. In the short term it can be a ticularly true for the 'registered unions' which leadership. To promote this process a decisive response to the desire to fight expressed themselves as prominent combative unions in recent strikes and struggles. Within the trade union movement some consider registration as a tactical question and others as one of
The first unitary conference of all the independent trade unions held in Langa in August 1981 adopted a resolution condemning the principle of registration as it is conceived by the state and recalled that all of the participants "refuse to subject themselves to control by anybody other than their own members". The independent trade unions met on two other occasions after this first step toward unity. It seems that strategical divergences have separated the different unions in two sides, one with FOSATU,
22 step will be the emergence of a single national federation of workers on a non-racial and democratic basis, accepting within itself the right of tendency and freedom of discussion.
The lack of a mass independent workers party 10. The real weakness of the mass movement is not the result of lack of determination on the part of the oppressed but the absence of a revolutionary leadership and a clear perspective for black political organisation. The growth of the mass movement after the war propelled the African National Congress to the forefront. This organisation, after its within the refugee community of the front line states. But in the absence of real contact with the struggles emerging in the factories and townships, it will wear out this fighting spirit shown against the military and political apparatus of the racist regime in the long
It is not meanwhile excluded that in the immediate period the ANC will undergo some development, in particular thanks to the international aid it is able to receive from certain African states and the USSR. It has an external apparatus and cadres in the interior that enables it to capitalise partially on the present radicalisation. It can also try and adapt its policy to the rise of struggles by orienting in a more tactical way to the black trade union movement and to no longer
fluence the complexity of the actual fight on cording to them, express itself in the slogan of !knew a new growth. The NEUM, like the proclamation of SACTU, the trade union ap-
'non-collaboration' with the state and racist institutions.
But the construction of the revolutionary party also depends on the organisational capacity to form cadres, to stablise the leadership, to centralise different interventions made in the mass movement. They did not paratus in exile which is linked to it. But con-t the forming
_orientation rooted in the to
Stalinist conceptions of the CP, the ANC still between different components of the movemaintains today a sectarian stance, according to which the masses must unify themselves between the relations that the AN has with behind it alone. This self-proclamation as the the liberals and the pressure which the in-
"true' revolutionary leadership does not assist | dependent non-racial trade unions exert.
in the objective necessity of uniting struggles and organisations.
However, the ANC has strong credit among the population. Thousands of youth and workers take their inspiration from it, confusedly, not on the basis of its programme, but as a symbol. This influence can ground could well open breaches in another side and produce serious divergences ment. There already exists a contradiction
For its part, the PAC, today very weak, is marked by oscillations and turns that veer from armed struggle to reformism passing through a radical nationalism that is tinted with Maoism. The Black Consciousness Movement has also undergone a grave crisis of orientation accentuated by the repression it pay sufficient intention to these questions. And repression aggravated the situation. The Trotskyist movement in general and the NEUM (which never officially designated themselves as trotykyists) in particular failed to increase their influence within the mass movement and underestimated the tasks of the united front in relation with the other components of the political movement. This isolated them at the time of the greatest radicalization during the 40s and the 50s in spite of some very important issues more particularly in the trade union movement.
Besides, when the Non-European Unity
The AŻAPO, a little Movement appeared in 1943 there remained a also be explained by the intense campaign of certain liberal milieus to evoke this political movement widely in the press in order to better project its image as 'sole representative undergone.
has organisation, which is for the moment one of its political descendants, seems to have evolved towards a recognition of the role of the
† hope of seeing a mass radical current develop, in which the revolutionaries could build a
• vanguard nucleus.
spokesperson'.
It is, however, certain that in the ranks of very South Africa became more complex. Repressupporters and militants of the ANC there are heterogeneous current has imprinted itself, sion increased and a strong pressure was excadres and militants whom it will be necessary to win to a revolutionary programme of class
•political experiences. It has above all failed by- be separated as a minimum program from independence.
The influence which the ANC has can!
allow it to capitalise on the social movements which it has not in any way initiated and still and to centralise the fight by what is clearly before on the education of the cadres and less led. It is today at the centre of the preoccupations of those who want to avoid a socialist revolution in South Africa at any price. Moscow, the front-line states, certain social-democratic parties, certain liberals, working class.
Notwithstanding that, this overwhelmingly on the present generation of youth and will mark for a long time its not understanding the necessity to unify all the mass movement (and not only 'African') necessary: of building a revolutionary party.
Despite a clear understanding of the objectives of the South African revolution the Trotskyists in the country did not succeed in the 1930s and 1940s (when a South Africa sec-
But after the World War Il the situation in erted on all the opposition currents. The programme for national emancipation could not other revolutionary objectives. It was necessary to insist still more strongly than political preparation for repression. The cohesion of the vanguard around a clear programme of permanent revolution was a viatl necessity ot maintain themselves in the new situation, without compromising with the and certain imperialist groups would like, for tion of the Fourth International existed) in - dream of rural guerrillaism or with illusions in different reasons, to find a leadership in the constructing an alternative leadership to the ] international pressure on the racist regime
ANC that would accept some sort of Lancaster House' deal. But the violence of the class struggles in South Africa will not easily allow this sort of solution. And if the ANC strengthens on one side its ideological innationalists and
Stalinists.
They did, however, know how to analyse the relation-.
ship between the national question and anticapitalist objectives. The class-independence of the emancipation movement should, ac-
The political and organisational vulnerability of a current to the left of the nationalists and the Stalinists did not therefore allow the construction of an alternative leadership at the end of the 1950s when the mass movement
23
To affirm that the proletariat can suc-respect South Africa is not an exception to the socialist revolution in South Africa. In this mote and to develop the debate between dif-
ANC and the PAC, suffered a defeat in the 1960s after having gone through a crisis and fragmentation. 11. The central task today is to build a united' mass movement capable of destroying the apartheid system. The crisis of the racist state is based in the growing refusal of the black masses to submit to national and social oppression. For this the construction of mass organisations (trade unions, student, neighbourhood or peasant associations etc.) is determinant.
At the moment the neighbourhood associations against housing and rent conditions, like the non-racial sport associations, are playing a very important role in the organisations of the oppressed. It is the unity of all these associations and organisations in a vast centralised national movement that will be really capable of overturning the racist system.
This task of unifying the struggles will be incomplete without the definition of a programme and leadership capable of centralising the struggles of the different sectors, and of posing along with this objective the need for self-defence of the black community. This must be one of the aspects of the work of constituting a mass movement against apartheid. There is in effect a direct link between the sense of strength and determination which the unification of the mass movement of blacks cessfully lead and centralise the struggle against apartheid, attaining national and democratic rights and itself all the oppressed, is to say that this process may lead to the constitution of a workers and peasants government, going forward to engage in the struggle for the proletarian revolution and socialism. An important step must be fought for in the workers movement: the building of a Workers Party devoted to defence of the interests of the whole working class and oppressed people and the total destruction of the apartheid system. In practice this means a party based upon the black workers and their organisations. The formation of such a party would represent a major advance in the consciousness and level of organisation of the workers.
The existing organisations are to different degrees marked by sectarianism. This only makes more fundamental support for all real initiatives now in progress towards unification of the mass movement, in particular the development of trade union federations, the success of which is much more important from the point of view of the interests of the masses than any type of military operation, however successful. The unifying attempts of the mass movement include: - abolition of all apartheid laws and the bantustan system.
theory of permanent revolution. It is impossible to try to abolish apartheid without attacking capitalism (that is to say, the capitalist property of the mines, factories, banks and land) whose development has been at the origin of the entire racist system. This regime cannot just wither away. It will have to be overthrown. Such a revolutionary overturn will establish the basis for collaboration between the peoples of the whole of southern Africa against imperialism and capitalism. This will be a decisive development of the socialist revolution in the African continent. International solidarity 12. It is necessary to construct a revolutionary organisation that intervenes at the heart of the mass struggle in order to raise the level of conand to forge a revolutionary leadership capable of giving an answer both to the current problems and those that will arise tomorrow. This organisation must endeavour to unite all those in agreement on the central questions of the South African revolution: — for the united front of all black organisations and associations which fight uncompromisingly against apartheid. - for mass struggle against the racist regime, across the entire country would give, and the - abolition of all laws that restrict the right! for a workers and peasants government. possibility of the masses themselves organising the protection of their mobilisations, the self-defence of their neighbourhoods and - the right to form independent trade leading role in the united front against aparorganisations. The revolutionary vanguard in this country must be able to master this problem of the link between the development of this mass movement and the organisation of armed self-defence.
The mass movement must definitively emancipate itself from the well-off Coloured and Indian petit-bourgeoisie, and the reactionary 'tribal' movements. This has already been widely done in certain regions. One of the central objectives for the regime in keeping the between 'Africans' 'Coloureds' and 'Indians', is to promote a leading layer, artificially enriched notables, or managers, administrators or those in the liberal professions with high incomes. It is for this reason that there exist several small industries and big businesses belonging to Indians. There even exists a so-called Indian bank in Natal, the New Republic Bank. The parties like the Labour Party (Coloured), the to land ownership on the basis of racial criteria. unions bringing together African, Coloureds intimidation. - refusal to collaborate with apartheid institutions.
abolition of all repressive legislation (the Suppression of Communism Act, press censorship etc. and the release of all political prisoners). - convening of a constituent assembly democratically elected on the basis of one person one vote.
In these circumstances the Republic of South Africa would in practice become a "black' republic. Obviously this does not exclude complete equality for all, nor fraternal relations between the races (this depends particularly on the conduct of the whites). It is absolutely clear that the distinctive character of the state would be given by the vast majori-
- for the unity and independence of the black working class and the recognition of its theid. For a single, unified, independent and non-racial trade union.
- for a break with substitutionist guerilla orientations.
- for the socialist revolution in South Africa and its extension to all Southern Africa through the fight against imperialism and neo-colonialism.
These positions are not specific to South Africa but are distilled from the living experience of the working class world wide These tasks and objectives of the South African revolution find reality in the anti-imperialist struggles in Indochina and Cuba which were only completed because they gave birth to anti-capitalist revolutions and the construction of workers states. By contrast the lessons of Angola and Mozambique where imperialist interests maintain their dominance and where the masses have still not obtained tl
Reform Party and the Natal Indian Congress 'emancipated from elementary democratic rights illustrate what (Indian) are the reflection of these class interests.
Moreover, movements like Inkatha, an about 200,000 membership organisation created by Buthelzi, chief of the Kwa-Zulu homeland, play a similar role, but at a greater level, in the control and intimidation of the Zulu workers and allows its leadership to become more wealthy through corruption and help from the racist regime. This process is complemented by control of the apparatus of the Bantustans.
The strengthening of the democratic structures of the independent community organisations and education given by the trade unions should bring about a reduction in the influence of these reactionary organisations. 24 their servile dependency' (Trotsky).
These objectives underline the importance of solidarity with the struggles arising right across the country, in the towns as much as in the rural areas, in the townships as much as in the Bantustans. The movements that might appear in the latter must be considered as a section of the struggle of the black population of South Africa against the regime and its puppets. At the same time it is certain that the national liberation struggle will produce sooner or later anti-imperialist demands against the multi-nationals and the capitalist powers - accomplices of apartheid
This struggle for the overthrow of apartheid, liberation and for democratic rights, opens the way to the happens to movements of national liberation that stop halfway. In Zimbabwe where the Lancaster House agreements have maintained a neo-colonial situation, despite the arrival of Mugabe in power neither the questions of ¡land nor those of complete democratic privileges nor that of the misery of the mass of blacks have received any credible response.
The proletarian revolution necessitates an organisation which can draw such lessons and integrate itself in the construction of an international revolutionary leadership. To help in this attempt the Fourth International has the objective of building a South African section
But the Fl favours the largest possible unity on precise points that will facilitate carrying the struggle forward. It is necessary to pro-
ferent components of the freedom movement factions has been limited to the odd verbal for a Savimbi/Unita government in its Namibia without threats or constraints — we
The response of the imperialists to these SWAPO.
in this country. The formation of a mass revolutionary movement in South Africa is only at its earliest stages. That is yet another reason for accepting and indeed being in condemnation. In fact South Africa's actions have served their needs perfectly. The attacks on Angola provide an opportunity to draw at-
¡tention to the continuing presence of Cuban
Finally the Fourth International supports all the movements in South Africa which are fighting the racist regime in order to abolish apartheid and win full national and democratic rights for the African, Coloured favour of political debate and for encourag-- forces in that country — something which has ing political rapprochement on the basis of been drawn into the question as somehow partial political agreements.
13. The necessity for supporting the struggle - Namibia and negotiable away in the same against apartheid in South Africa means that package. Meantime, the theft of Namibia's the FI should take part in the construction of solidarity a vast permanent international movement. This calls at one and the same time for specific activities of the FI and the participation of its militants in the activities of equivalent to the South African presence in wealth continues at an escalating pace. Both South Africa, which is fuelling its weapons and power programme and Britain which now gets more than half of its uranium (from the Rossing mine which is the biggest mine exand Indian masses. b) The Anti-Apartheid movements Trotskyist militants participate in the activity of these solidarity organisations to make them mass movements that work in a united front fashion which are active and capable of launching and sustaining campaigns: - Against links on relations of all types with the Anti-Apartheid movements in their coun- ploited by the Rio Tinto Zinc, a British comtries.
a) Specific activity of the Fourth Interna-_Zimbabwe, has interests) are anxious to delay pany in which Lord Carrington, who led the
Lancaster House neo-colonial agreement on the racist regime and the South African market in order to increase the political and economic isolation of the RSA.
- For the support of struggles and in partional It is necessary to publicise the unfolding struggle in South Africa and to underline the objectives and demands of the black masses exploitation. They have now rewritten the fighting against the racist regime. The press of the International's sections should regularly protection from arbitrary deprivation of For the stopping or disruption of South report on the situation in this country. private property without prompt and just African sports tours which are Whenever the struggles in South Africa become the key events of the day our movement will respond to the need for solidarity by launching centralised world campaigns which can bring together strong, punctual mobilisations against the apartheid regime. Members of our movement will propose to the trade unions they belong to that they take positions and initiatives of concrete support to the struggles in South Africa. In particular, members of the Fourth International working in companies having subsidiaries or interests in South Africa propose to trade unions and workers that they demand the bosses respect equal wages and trade union rights for black workers employed by them in South Africa. They call on the trade union branches to support and link up in a united way with the trade union structures built up by the black workers this country. In this way Trotskyist militants insist on the necessary solidarity between the workers of their country and their black comrades in South Africa. Whenever possible they raise the need for financial collections, solidarity resolutions and trade an independence that might threaten these supplies. As a second line of defence they will introduce into any negotiated settlement a series of guarantees for the continuation of its relevant UN resolutions to incorporate ticular support for trade union organisation and anti-apartheid mass associations in South
Africa. For the development of active solidarity within the trade unions with the black working class in South Africa. For the liberation of all political prisoners.
used as
Black and white segregation, the reality of apartheid (DR)
union aid to their fellow workers in the same multinational or company in South Africa. + compensation'. They will also certainly try to diplomatic representatives of the racist
At this time one of the most urgent questions is the struggle in Namibia. Since 1977 the group of 5 western countries (USA, UK,
West Germany, Canada and France) have been at the centre of prolonged and frequently stalled negotiations with the South African
Government, its puppets of the Turnhalle
Alliance, the front line states and the main liberation movement SWAPO. These have been constantly frustrated in the achievement of any settlement by the actions of the South re-introduce institutional guarantees for whites of the kind found in the Lancaste
House Zimbabwean agreement and a similar peace-keeping force to supervise any settlement.
Revolutionary marxists will oppose this imperialist plot on the clear line of unqualified self-determination for the people of - Namibia. We do not recognise the right of the five imperialist powers to be involved in any † settlement. Imperialists out of Namibia regime. - For non-exlusive support to all political forces fighting in South Africa against racism and Apartheid. Thus through our activities we fight in these associations against all sectarianism - the latter occasionally results in privileged support being given only to the ANC (as members of the Communist Party often propose) or only to the PAC. Solidarity associations in ex-
Africans, most notably their walk out from Now!' Consequently we defend Namibia's ile should give aid to all fighters and victims the conference in Geneva early in 1981. Mean-I immediate time they have engaged in prolonged and sustained warfare against neighbouring front- this territory, including the port of Walvis line states, most prominently Angola. This Bay and the right of all people of this country has had the object both of destroying
SWAPO's rear bases and of destabilising the
Luanda regime, perhaps by creating the space SWAPO should be able to freely organise in southern areas.
right to independence, the withdrawal of all South African troops from to participate in free elections on the basis of
'one person, one vote. We demand that reserve the right to criticise the programme of without discrimination. The alignment of solidarity associations on such or such a political movement can only reinforce division in South Africa itself.
This resolution was adopted by the United Secretariat of the Fourth International at its January 24 to 27, 1983, meeting.
25