COSATU DOCUMENTS
They have detained thousands of our comrades - among them Moses Mayekiso, Lizzie Phike, Enoch Godongwana, Noel Williams, Matthews Olifant and Amos Masondo. They have sent their army and police into our townships and into our children's schools and into our worker meetings. Their allies have sent vigilante death squads to attack and kill workers all over the country — like our MAWU [metal workers' union comrades who were murdered at Mphopomemi.
They have tried to crush workers who dare to struggle for what they deserve - at General Motors, OK Bazaars, BTR, Goldfields and Impala.
We all know the situation is serious. We all know we need the maximum unity if we are to defend ourselves and move forward in our struggle. We all know we need to learn from our mistakes and setbacks if we are to consolidate our gains, strengthen our organization - and move forward in 1987.
Comrades: this year we have to overcome our problems. This year we have to overcome our divisions. This year we have to build the greatest possible mass united action under the leadership of the working class.
How can we do this? One industry, one union -now! We have to make sure all our structures - at the local, regional and national level — are consolidated and working properly. To do this effectively we need one union, one industry.
We promised at our launch that we would merge and form big industrial unions within six months. It is now 14 months and still we do not have one union in each industry. This cannot be allowed to continue.
We have a big job to do, comrades. We have to organize millions and millions of unorganized workers into our ranks. We have to bring the millions of unemployed, farm, railway, construction and public sector workers into our ranks. We can only do this by building strong and powerful industrial unions. Nothing must stand in our way.
Workers — make sure your union is coming together to form one big union in your industry! Build and strengthen shop steward councils All our structures must be strengthened, especially our local shop steward councils. They are one of the pillars on which COSATU stands. Make sure your views are represented by your shop stewards on the local COSATU shop steward council in your area. If there is no shop stewards' council in your area
COSATU DOCUMENTS then you must make sure one is formed.
Build the COSATU shop stewards' councils as the organized voice of worker unity in every area. Build worker solidarity At our launching congress, we said "An injury to one is an injury to all" will be our guiding light, and we adopted powerful resolutions to guide us in the struggle ahead. We have made some progress - but not nearly enough.
Too often we have stood back watched while our comrades struggled alone against the bosses or the government - like at GM, Crossroads, Impa-
Too often we stood back and watched while our comrades were detained even though we have resolved to fight every attack on our organization with united action.
And when we did take decisions for strong action - like the July 14 action against the Emergency or the December 1 action against the killings of our MAWU comrades - some problems and divisions in our movement weakened
This is bad, comrades. We must build our structures, our unity and our ability to mobilize more strongly and seriously — so that we can take action on what we decide instead of just having resolutions on paper.
The bosses and the government have seen this weakness too. They saw how we built June 16 and May Day into the biggest national general strikes ever, with millions of people taking action. They were scared. They saw how the NUM [miners' union] and some affiliates mobilized the biggest ever national industrial action, against the death our our comrades at Kinross gold mine.
how we failed to build July 14 and December 1 - and they grew more confident.
We must not forget that the base of our power is in the workplaces. We must ensure that every workplace has strong, democratic structures and active members. And we must not allow our differences to undermine our unity in action. Differences we will always have. They are necessary in every democratic organization to find the best ideas for the strongest way forward. That is what worker democracy means. But it also means that once we have made a decision, we are all loyal to that decision - and we do our very best to carry it out in a disciplined and comradely way.
To let differences lead to a split in a union, as happened in NUTW [transport workers' union]; or hold up the organization of a region, as happened in the Eastern Cape and Witwatersrand regions; or weaken a local, as happened in the Johannesburg local, is terrible comrades. Please, let's make sure these things do not happen and that we discipline people who try to divide us. Campaigns This year we will be working to turn our powerful resolutions into The campaigns for a living wage for all workers, for the organization of the unemployed under the banner of COSATU and for national united action under the leadership of the working class are cru-
Already, all over the country, workers are building these campaigns in action. The heroic OK workers have been on strike for a living wage for weeks now. COSATU workers have blacked supplies to OK in solidarity with the workers. The youth and all progressive organizations have increasingly been drawn into solidarity action with the workers.
SOUTH AFRICA Build the Living Wage Campaign Together, we in COSATU must take these campaigns forward. The struggle for a living wage will be COSATU's main campaign in this year. We must especially organize and unite our mass strength behind a clear, co-ordinated, united, national living wage campaign, and for the organization of the unemployed.
Our campaign will strike at the heart of the profit system. What we want is what we need to live decently. If the bosses' capitalist system can't provide us with what we need, then we don't need the bosses' system. We want the wealth we created to come back to us, so we can all have decent lives. Build mass united action Mass united action is our strongest weapon. As we move forward we must draw behind us support and solidarity from the millions of workers, youth and progressive democratic organizations outside our ranks.
In this way we will build a campaign of united action under the leadership of workers and around our demands.
In all our campaigns, we will get the best results and strengthen our leadership of the struggle if we take the initiative and build the widest possible unity in action behind our demands. This year we must make sure that our May Day and June 16 campaigns are much bigger than last year so that they truly are our national holidays.
We can expect the strongest resistance to our struggle for national united action from the bosses and the government. In their desperation they will try even harder than before to attack our
They will try to create vigilante gangs, especially from the unemployed, to divide and intimidate us. They will try to encourage tribalism, racism, factions and division wherever they can to undermine our unity. We must not let them. Organize the unemployed We have to organize millions of unemployed under our federation to strengthen our common struggle for jobs for all at a living wage. We, the organized employed workers, can help the struggle of our unemployed comrades by implementing our resolution for a ban on overtime and a 40 hour week. Let us mobilize support for this campaign and join unemployed workers in fighting for the sharing of all work on full pay and a massive public works programme,
5
paid for by the bosses, to create jobs and provide us with things that we need. May 18, 1987 • International Viewpoint
together, we would move forward together against poverty, ignorance and
SOUTH AFRICA Build worker self-defence We have to organize our own defence to protect ourselves and our struggle against attack.
Already, in many areas, COSATU workers are starting to defend themselves. We have to strengthen this a hundred times over, in every workplace and every township. These attacks are getting so serious, so many people have died, that we must organize self-defence in every workplace and every township to consolidate and protect the gains we have made
No-one else will defend us or ou struggle. We must do it. Build democratic community ind youth organization:
he problems facing us at work and our communities are the same. Nowhere do we have control over the decisions that affect our lives: the rent we are forced to pay; high transport costs; terrible conditions in the townships.
These issues are directly related to the starvation wages workers are paid.
That is why COSATU workers are leading the struggle to build street committees in the townships. Like our unions in the workplaces, street committees will give us the democratic organization, unity and strength to fight for all the things we need — including control over every aspect of our lives through our own democratic organization under the leadership of organized
There is a lot of discussion about alliances and allies in our struggle. The strongest, best and most reliable allies of the working class are the youth. Like us, the youth exploit no-one. They have nothing to lose and everyour power to build this bridge as soon as possible — and to make it as strong as possible. Women workers come first In our movement women workers have a special place because they carry the heaviest load of all. It is the duty of every COSATU worker to make sure that the demands, participation and struggle of women workers are strengthened a thousand times over. If our liberation does not succeed in creating free people equal to each other in every way, then we would not be liberated.
Our struggles for maternity rights, equal pay for work of equal value, childcare facilities that meet workers' needs, gainst sexual harassment and harmfi york must have the highest priority i
Our leading role in the struggle depends on the courage, determination and leadership of women workers. One federation - one country - now! Comrades — we are at a crossroads. We see a year of more struggle, more hardship and more suffering - and more hope. Now is the time. If we are to live, then we must go forward together against the bosses' system of profit and greed. We can see how far we have come. COSATU is the home for every worker in South Africa - employed and unemployed. That is why the old bosses' federation, TUCSA, has broken up. That is why the bosses are desperately trying to promote UWUSA [the Inkatha union] against COSATU. All their divi-
COSATU DOCUMENTS sive efforts are doomed to failure if we are united. There should now be no obstacle to all democratic unions to come together with us and form one federation in one country. Our tasks We are committed to the leadership of the working class in the struggle. This year we must show what this means by consolidating and uniting our organization, COSATU, in decisive united action with other progressive organizations under the leadership of organized workers.
To do this we will need the widest possible democratic debate, through all our structures, on our weaknesses and our strengths, so that we can come to our national congress in July with the program for the workers' way forward.
We must, through our organized strength and unity and clarity of purpose, really unite and really lead the vast mass of our people to a new, transformed society — a society where the needs of workers will be paramount.
How we build this society and what it will be like must be deeply discussed in our affiliates and in COSATU structures before the congress and after it.
Comrade workers - the future is in your hands. The struggle depends on you and you alone. Make sure your organization, COSATU, is united. Make sure your union is participating fully and actively in all the structures of COSATU. Make sure COSATU is democratic. Make sure COSATU is doing what you want under your control. The workers united can never be defeated. *
Workers can manage thing to gain by marching together with us to a workers' future.
We must do everything we can to
FROM EACH according to abilities, to each according to needs.
build close links with the students and
Imagine what we could do if just the big seven companies were managed according to workers' needs and not bosses' profits. Workers would be at youth and their organizations; to share our experiences with them of building the steering wheel of the economy. Together, through our mass democratic organization — and to share democratic organizations, we would plan what to produce according to our vision of our struggle and the fuwhat was needed most by all the people.
ture. At the same time, we must give
We would work for ourselves and the future. We know it would not be maximum support to the struggle for easy. We would have all the problems left us from capitalism to deal with.
people's education and the building of
Student Representative
But we would look and see. We need houses. We need schools. We need
Council's and control over the schools.
roads. We need electricity. We need sewerage. We need running water.
We need sports fields, theatres, halls and cinemas. We need buses and
Organize farmworkers
We would see how much we needed and where it was needed most. We
Farmworkers are starting to get orgawould produce these things as our most important tasks. We would share nized under FAWU. As farmworker oramong ourselves all the work. And we would share among ourselves the ganization develops, a solid bridge will be built between workers in the cities
We would not all be rich. No-one would be rich. We would not all be poor.
and workers in the countryside.
No-one would be poor. We would be constantly working together to improve
Millions of rural workers — together with the rural poor — will join hands
Planning together, working together, sharing together, learning with organized workers in the cities to
6 struggle, in the factories, mines and shops, for control over the land where they live and work. We must do all in
International Viewpoint • May 18, 1987
Things would not change overnight.
trains. We need food and clothes.
the quality of our life.
COSATU DOCUMENTS
End the
cheap
labour
system
undamental challenge te capitalism in South Africa. The struggle for a national minimum living wage will strike at the heart of the oppressors' and the exploiters' apartheid, capitalism is built upon ultra-cheap, ultra-exploitable and ultra-controlled labour. The controls over the African working class began to be developed one hundred years ago. Apartheid — as these controls came to be known — was created to help the bosses make profits in the gold mining industry, which was the real base for the development of industrial capitalism in South Africa.
Profitability of the gold mines was limited because the gold rock was very deep and very low grade. Machinery to get the rock out of the mines was imported and expensive. These high costs could not be passed on to the consumer because the price of gold was fixed.
So the bosses believed the only way they could make a very high profit was by getting ultra-cheap labour — by exploiting workers far more than in other parts of the capitalist world.
After a long struggle the mining capitalists managed to force workers to work for very low wages. This was made possible by forcing Africans to depend on wages for their survival (by taking away their land through the 1913 Land Act and through imposing taxes); by controlling workers' movement (through the compound system and the pass laws) and their access to jobs (through the migrant labour system and the labour bureaux); by controlling where the workers could stay (through Group Areas, the pass laws); and by maintaining a huge reserve army of unemployed who would always compete for jobs and keep wages down.
In the beginning, this system of ultra-exploitation was created for the mines. But other capitalists involved in manufacture, farming and so on also took advantage of the controls over the working class. They, too, founded their businesses and profits on the base of ultra-controlled, ultra-exploited workers.
It has been the task of the government to maintain this system of exploitation and oppression to this day.
S. AFRICA For the past century, successive governments have been dutifully keeping the working class under the thumb of the ruling class. They have been keeping and modifying the apartheid controls that exist to ensure high levels of exploitation.
The economy of today has thus been built upon the labours of many generations of ultra-exploited workers. Capitalist profit in South Africa has always depended on high exploitation. And what is high exploitation but returning as little as possible of the wealth workers produce back to them?
Basing an economy on such high levels of control and exploitation has brought its own political problems as well. While the few capitalists have reaped benefits, they also have created the seeds for their own destruction. More than ever before the working class is now organizing around, and struggling for, a program to transform society in a socialist direction.
There is an economic cost to apartheid capitalism as well. Paying very low wages has led to high profits. But it has also meant that there is a vast worker consumer market with many needs — for housing, food, clothing and so on - but with no money to buy these needs.
Because of low wages, the working class and the poor, which form the majority of the population, have little money to spend. This means small demand for goods and services, that industry is limited to providing very little for the working class and that there is a smaller manufacturing sector than there could be. In turn this means less economic growth in South Africa as a
SOUTH AFRICA SAFRI whole leading to fewer jobs. So, in trying to get high profits through paying starvation wages, the capitalists end up with getting less profits because they pay little wages.
Instead of a growing economy which is able to provide for workers' needs, there is a shrinking economy which provides retrenchments and poverty.
This is a problem which the capitalists cannot solve. Their logic tells them to pay more so that more money is available to be spent on consumer items which could lead to higher profits. Greed outweighs capitalists' logic
But their logic is opposed by their greed. Their greed tells them that the more wages they pay, the less profits they get in return. Being capitalists, their greed outweighs their logic. And the whole economy suffers as a result. The manufacturing sector remains small, there is very little economic growth and so too few new jobs are created each year to overcome unemployment.
If the bosses were forced to pay higher wages, they would worry that there would be a fall in their profits because of increased labour costs. If they then were allowed to pass on the increased labour costs to the consumer by putting up their prices, inflation would go up which would mean that goods would be more expensive. Which, in turn, 7 would mean that even with bigger pay packets, workers would not be able to afford to buy what they wish. So, even May 18, 1987 • International Viewpoint
SOUTH AFRICA with bigger pay packets, workers and the economy would be back to where they started. That is, so long as the bosses are allowed simply to put up the cost of goods to keep their profits up.
The solution to this problem cannot be left in the hands of the capitalists. Workers and their organizations must seize the initiative and build over the economy. Increasing pay packets will go a long way toward bettering the position of the economy. With more money in workers' pockets, there will be more demand for goods and services. That will lead to growth and the creation of new jobs.
The demand for a living wage could have positive effects leading nomic growth, providing more jobs and providing a better quality of life for the
But so long as bosses are allowed to put their interests first (their interest in high profits), this is unlikely to happen. Either they will resist wage increases or they will put up prices. Neither situation will benefit workers or the economy.
Open your
books
WE WANT to see your
accounting books. We want to see how every cent we have made for you has been spent. We don't just want to see financial statements. We want to see all your receipts, cheque books and financial papers. We need to know about these things so we can see how much you are robbing us.
Capitalism in South Africa is completely undemocratic. The government does not allow Blacks to vote or have any power in deciding how the wealth of South Africa is going to be spent.
They do not even consult the consumers and workers when they are considering increasing bread or petrol prices. They do not consult when they are deciding how to spend the money they collect through taxes.
They refuse to let us have any say in the government at all. They use their power to keep the wealth in the hands of a minority.
It is just the same with the bosses. When the bosses decide on what they are going to do with the profits, they do not consult the workers who pro-
8 duced those profits.
In fact, they would not even consult us about our wage increases if they could. Just look where there are no unInternational Viewpoint @ May 18, 1987 ions — like on the farms. There the bosses decide what wage increases — if any — are going to be given. It is only through the power that we have built up in our trade unions that we can force the bosses to negotiate about our wage in-
For the bosses and the government, democracy is not a principle to be pursued. For them it is something to be fought. They try to crush our unions and break our strikes. They try to destroy our community, youth, women, student and political organizations and detain
All because they want to hold on to their wealth and power. The last thing they want us to have any say in is what should be done with the wealth in the
Take, for example, the national budget. Every year the government gets billions of Rands taxes to spend on governing and running the country. Before they decide how to spend that money we are not consulted at all. The government simply goes ahead and works out its budget.
The accounting and budget books of the country should be opened to us so that we can see how the wealth we prohave the power to decide on the priori-
The same in the factories. We worked hard every day to produce the profits of a company. But the bosses keep their finance books closed to us.
Because it is us who produce the profwe must have the right to see what is being done with the money. We must be able to study the company records so that we can decide how the profits should be spent. Also, we will be able to check that what the bosses say about profits is true. Often they hide profits, or spend a lot of the profits on wasteful things. We can make sure that this is the money we get for our living wage.
Sometimes the bosses' books show us that there is very little money in the company. Then we must find out why. We can't support a system where we work hard only to find there is nothing for us. If all our work was part of an overall plan of production for the good of all, we would never waste our labour.
How can we see the books? We can see a summary of the company reports when the company is a "public" company. Public companies allow members of the public to buy a share of the company. They do this by issuing worth a certain amount on the Johannesburg stock exchange.
Individuals or other companies can then go and buy shares in that company. But there are a fixed number of shares that can be bought and so, if one or two people buy up most of the shares, they can control that company themselves — even though others have
COSATU DOCUMENTS shares in it.
These public companies have to issue reports to their shareholders. Because their shareholders are usually very many, they have to make their reports public.
In these reports are the chairman's report, a report on the activities of the company, a list of what other companies that company owns or controls, and a financial report done by the auditors of the company.
In the financial reports are listed the profits made, the taxes paid, the money they borrowed from the banks, the amount of profits given to the shareholders — and much more. These reports are usually available at public libraries, and anyone can go to the public library and ask for them.
Struggle to win a living wage
But because the reports are only summaries, they do not show the full details about how the money was made, how much salaries were paid to management, what workers' wages were, what machines were bought, from whom and for how much. In other words these -and other — very important facts are
So workers who are employed by public companies can find out only a limited amount about their companies. A closer look would reveal a lot more. Finding this out is very important, if we are to learn the full story about how our companies are run, and where the wealth we made has gone. We can only see these books if we are strongly enough organized to demand, and to force, the bosses to open them to us.
Workers who work for private companies can, at the moment, find out even less without struggle and organization. The law says that private companies do not have to report their profits or losses to anyone except the government (who keep these facts secret).
If we are to find out about how these bosses are spending the money we make for them, then we must demand - that they open all their books to us. The knowledge we will get from their books will strengthen our struggle and help build our control over what is going on where we work. If they have borrowed money from the banks of other businesses or a parent company then we must see the books of these companies as well.
The bosses will resist our demands with all their might. Nothing is more precious to them than these business secrets — except profits! We will have to fight to get the books open. That fight is a key part of our struggle to
COSATU DOCUMENTS Unite by July WE LIVE and work in the 20th most developed capitalist country in the world. Our economy is dominated by a handful of giant monopoly companies. Nearly 90 percent of the wealth we produce is owned and controlled by just ten big companies.
Our struggle for a living wage Is a struggle to make sure the wealth we produce comes back to us to meet our needs. We need strong and powerful organizations to challenge the mighty monopolies in the struggle for a living wage
Experience has taught us that unions who organize in only one region, or unions who try and organize all workers no matter where they work are no good against the monopolies. They can never get the national industrial power we need to fight the monopolies who dominate the whole country and every Industry.
That is why workers decided that a principle of COSATU must be to unite to form powerful national industrial unions in the major sectors. We have made some progress, but not enough. Now the CEC has decided that all unions in the same industry must merge and unite by July. By our next national congress in July there must be only one union for each major industry.
By forming one union in each industry we will gain massive strength and unity in our industries. COSATU will be a federation of giant industrial unions, linking together workers In all the major Industries. We will be organized as never before in our history.
This national industrial organiza tion is essential for mobilizing campaigns like our living wage campaign. Our will, our courage, our programme — we have thase things. Now we need our organization to put them into action. One union - one industry. One federation - one country. That is the organization we need and that is the organization we will have.
Workers together, in each industry and throughout the whole country, will build the unity, coordination and solidarity we need to win in our struggle. We willl build our national industrial unlons. We will build our COSATU. We will build our campaign for a living wage. We will build our future *
"National
and class struggles cannot be counterposed"
SYDNEY MUFAMADI is the assistant-general secretary of COSATU. He comes from a trade union that was affiliated to the United Democratic Front (UDF), before the founding of COSATU, and therefore represents a particular point of view. [See the introduction on page four.]
Mufamadi sent the following message to NUSAS [the liberal white student union], on December 2, 1986. HE SALIENT features attesting t the validity of our exposition of th current conjuncture lie in the perceptible inability of the regime:
• First, to alter the general correlation of the forces in its favour;
• Second, to restore the confidence of business tycoons who are beginning to reconcile themselves to the inevitability of People's Power — their trip to Lusaka being a desperate search on their part, for a commitment from the ANC to underwrite them a political insurance policy;
• Third, to devise a strategy which will enable it to win the battle for the soul of the international community.
That objective reality being the one side of the body of evidence which leads to the inescapable conclusion that the gradual maturing of a revolutionary situation is in evidence, we need to look at the subjective factor — assess its role and its prospects. In view of the fact that the regime can no longer
SOUTH AFRICA claim to have a policy (during the day it claims to be the best reformist government ever seen in this country — at night it abandons all all pretences and resorts to naked terror), there is good ground for the assumption that this country can no longer be governed in the same old way.
The logical extension of that assumption is the stubborn fact that our people are beginning to render themselves ungovernable. In all spheres of society, people are gearing themselves up to take their destiny into their own hands. In the schools, universities, townships, villages, factories, shops and mines, you need more than the Bureau of Information to dissuade our people from forming alternative structures through which they can articulate their aspirations and pose as an alternative power. Teargas cannisters, rubber bullets and live bullets could also not do the trick The resilience which township residents have exhibited in the face of state brutality (both in their capacity as people who are refusing to pay rent and as members of street committees), indicate their determination to storm and pulverise the fortress of apartheid.
Isolating the enemy in the struggle for power
Theoretically, the already alluded to scenario is informed by an approach which characterizes our struggle as a national democratic struggle. The social forces which were mobilized to bring us to the prevailing situation where we can safely say that our country is standing at the dawn of a major transformation do not lay claim to one particular class affiliation — both in terms of the place they occupy in production relations as well as in terms of their possible long-term objectives.
Our multi-class strategy for transformation is a strategy which seeks to isolate the enemy in the struggle for power - thereby making preparations for the enemy to lose power and vest that power into the hands of the democratic majority. Such, we believe, is the revolutionary approach to the movement for liberation.
Given the fact that other class forces which legitimately feature in the extra-parliamentary opposition lineup are not consistently democratic, the political influence of the working class must of necessity be brought to bear on them in order to help them to purge their outlook, and therefore their activities, of undemocratic admixtures. 'Wise counselling" from the libraries holds that those who have discovered that socialism is the answer must write-off 9 everyone else as a petit-bourgeois participant in the struggle. Needless to say, that outlook is not consistent with May 18, 1987 • International Viewpoint
SOUTH AFRICA working class discipline.
It is an erroneous tendency which derives from an attempt to counterpose the national and class aspects of our struggles, as if these two live in two different worlds.
At least there is general agreement in that the working class must be in the forefront of struggle.
Two things that we are convinced of are that that position cannot be negotiated for and that the working class cannot be in the forefront of struggle in which it is not participating.
Any dreams to the contrary have the fatal effect of making a socialist South
Africa just another promised land.
November 29,
1986 marked the first anniversary of the formation of the Congress of South
African Trade Unions.
The formation of COSA-
TU was hailed by progressive forces, at home and abroad, as a giant step in the direction of liberating our country from the nightmare of national oppression and economic exploitation.
A frank review of the process which took place in the run-up to the formation of COSATU will reveal a display of a tremendous degree of immaturity on our part as participants in what has historically come to be known as trade union unity talks.
At one stage we came to a conclusion that there was no basis for unity amongst the very trade unions which we defined and continue to define as progressive.
We started grouping unions into factions of what we termed
"like-minded"
unions. Book-writers, rather than helping us extricate ourselves out of that seemingly stalemate situation, actually sustained the uncalled-for hostilities by striving to prove that one faction was more working class than the other. Of course, the falsity of those positions was proved by the formation of COSATU which, at the time of its launch, claimed a total paid-up membership of almost half a million workers.
That formation of COSATU brought together 36 progressive unions which had two different structural formations:
1 industrial unions and general unions.
COSATU adopted a resolution which calls for the organizing of effective national unions and unifying them into a
0 national federation. Clearly, this process calls for the phasing out of general unions. This does not in any way
International Viewpoint • May 18, 1987 imply that we undermine the historically important role which general unions have played in the development of the progressive labour movement in our country.
History itself has proved that general unions are vulnerable to the bosses, the state and Bantustan puppet administrations, who, in their notorious collusion, are hell-bent on crushing all progressive formations. This consideration, coupled with the need on our part to give organizational expression to the concept of unity, clearly indicate that general unions have outlived their usefulness. A transformation at that level will eliminate unnecessary competition among unions and will certainly bolster our capability to undertake effective campaigns on the ground.
"We are not an alternative political party"
It also needs to be pointed out that COSATU was born at a time when, in response to the ferment which is currently gripping our country, the regime declared a state of emergency over 36 magisterial districts of our lands. In the situation our task is to make that crisis much more substantial by harnessing the insurrectionary mood of our people and moulding it into an effective weapon for the seizure of power.
However, while realising the need on our part to undertake political cam-
DOCUMENTS paigns in the interests of our members and in the interest of the broader working class, we could not pose as a political party nor an alternative one. The only to way open to us was to undertake such political campaigns through our structures and in alliance with progressive community, youths', students, women's and political organizations which already existed. This makes us a component of the mass democratic movement of our country ...
The occupation of factories by workers has far reaching implications. It raises the question of who controls the factories and who should in effect control them? Spontaneous as it was, it should be seen as consciousness in its embryonic form. It is this type of activity which, if properly followed up, can rid us of the almost nightmarish speculations as to what is going to happen the day after the Springbok colours have been lowered from the Union Buildings in
However, it needs to be pointed out that strike struggle in itself cannot defeat capitalism. For the state apparatus which is clearly functioning in defence of bourgeois interests cannot be expected to melt because there is a strike at one big store, or in a goldmine for that matter. The real transformation of the state is secondary and derivative of the shifts in the balance of class forc
Success at that level depends on the balance of forces in society and on the scope of the class struggle by the masses. That approach, which we believe is a correct one, clearly shows that working class struggle is not the sole province of COSATU. It is only armchair politicians who overemphasise the theoretical aspect of struggle at the expense of its dialectical complement — practice — who fail to come to grips with that simple fact of life.
Unfortunately, theory cannot reveal all the alternatives opening up in the revolutionary struggle, because life, struggle and revolutionary action turn out to be more complicated than the finest theoretical analysis. Theory, coupled with practice, will reveal that the national democratic approach envisages the two stages of our revolution as stages which are basically uninterrupted.