SOUTH AFRICA / AROUND THE WORLD the unions, they are tending to pass from understandable tactical preoccupations to political convictions largely similar to those of the CP.
These ideas are going to run up against two problems. The first is that of the real - as opposed to pretended - political line of the CP with regard to the ANC The CP explains, in effect, that in its struggle for a socialist society it is first necessary to go through a stage during which the big democratic and national questions are resolved. It is in the name of this stage that it is engaging through and alongside the ANC, and taking full responsibility for, the course of the negotiations.
Now, there will very quickly arise a contradiction between the theory of the full and complete resolution of the democratic and national tasks by a "post-apartheid state" and the coming compromise with the existing regime. Without radically reducing the concept of democracy it is hard to see how the current discussions can lead to an authentic solution to the big democratic and national demands, including putting an end to racial discrimination and exclusion through poverty.
Problems of democracy in workers' movement
The other problem which will confront the COSATU union leaderships is the growing deficit in democracy inside the workers' movement itself. There has been a progressive withering away of the system of control from below and of shop stewards' organization. The financial independence of COSATU is very limited in this respect. And the more political or strategic a decision is, the more certain it is that it will be taken at the top. This was where the decision was taken that the union leaderships should take part in the official negotiations and situate itself in a "strategic alliance" with the ANC and SACP.
This raises a very serious problem of union independence, and it is thus a further contradiction for the CP who claim that their raison d'etre is to defend the independence of the working class in the political battles underway.
In general the width of the gulf between the professions of faith in the imminent victory of the liberation movement and the extreme realism of the concrete proposals is astonishing. This is the case, for example, with the unions' project for a Workers' Charter. This debate will reach its culmination in September with a congress bringing together the two main confederations, COSATU and NACTU.
In COSATU today the debate with the rank-and-file over the elaboration of the Workers' Charter amounts to a five-part questionnaire concerning questions 24 which, however important, have nothing ! to do with any project for a different sociInternational Viewpoint #188 • July 2, 1990 ety. 1° At the start it was the union left that put forward this project in order to enter into a debate on the perspective of an independent workers struggle against capitalism.
Political break with capitalism not posed
All this has nothing to do with the idea of equipping the working class with a programme starting from immediate demands and going on to sketch out an anti-capitalist project. It is rather a question of drafting a labour code — a very democratic one, but without posing any political break with the capitalist organization of the enterprises and labour market.
Finally even the content of the Freedom Charter is being called into ques tion. The debate on nationalization, in which Mandela himself took part, is indicative. On May 23, in front of several hundred businessmen he stated in substance that "nationalization and redistribution" are not the only economic words in the ANC's vocabulary.
According to him, the country should draw its inspiration from the anti-trust laws in force in the United States and Britain to avoid concentrations of economic power. Participation in the administrative councils of the enterprises by directors named by the government would also be a possible option for the state.
The perspective of a sweeping nationalization of the big trusts has thus been abandoned. For the ANC leader the problem bears less on the economic mechanisms than on the composition of the government. The principle of a government where the AN and De Klerk's National Party would openly cohabit is now openly accepted.
How, in this case, can one imagine the near future in terms of the "transition" and victory of the "national democratic revolution"? *
NJURY 10. The questionnaire sent to the rank-and-file to formulate this Charter talks of the rights of the workers (conditions of work, social security and so on), union rights (negotiations and strikes), the rights and protection of women, family assistance and political rights, essentially the independence of the unions from the state. Of 24 questions, only one asks, in a very general manner, "What political rights should workers have?"
ARGENTINA Mayday against Menem THE Argentinian left has just scored a success against Peronism, through the organization of a united demonstration which brought 100,000 people together in Buenos Aires on May 1, at the appeal of the United Left coalition (whose components include in particular the Movement Towards Socialism — MAS, an organization of Morenist origin which had two deputies elected at the last elections in 1989 - and the Revolutionary Front of National Liberation — FRAL, a Communist Party front), with the participation of organizations of the independent left.
Despite the criticisms made of the govemment's policy by certain bureaucrats of the General Confederation of Workers (CGT, led by the Peronists), the latter did not appeal to their supporters to demonstrate on May 1, for fear of being dwarfed by the mobilization of the left.
Since the end of the dictatorship, Argentina has experienced an unprecedented crisis. There are now 2 million unemployed, 45% of the inhabitants of the capital are living in a state of poverty, and 1.2 million children are suffering from malnutrition. Successive devaluations have not arrested inflation. After having pardoned all soldiers guilty of violations of human rights under the dictatorship, Menem, a good pupil of the International Monetary Fund, has undertaken a sweeping privatization program (including railways and telecommunications) and has threatened to forbid strikes in the public sector.
On May 1, however the left showed that it was capable of competing with Peronism in the workers' movement, and it has taken a big step forward.* FRANCE The deconcentration of capital? LONG term changes in the structure of employment in numerous European contries underline certain problems of organization for the workers' movement. Industrial restructuring and changes in the labour market are favouring an erosion of the workforce in the big industrial and commercial workplaces. In other words, the growth of employment in small firms rather than big leads to a greater dispersion of the workforce, and often to a lowering of collective consciousness and means of organization.
All this is as yet only a relative tendency but it has already had political consequences. In France, for example, more than half of the workforce now work in enterprises of less than 50 people. A recent survey (in Le Monde, June 13, 1990) concluded that in France employment in enterprises of more than 500 workers fell from 20.7% in 1975 to 14.6% in 1986. In the building and public works
AROUND
THE
WORLD
sectors, 4% of workers only work for big companies, whereas 36.1% are employed in firms of less than 20 workers. This phenomenon, combined with an absolute transfer of workers from industry to the tertiary sector, weighs heavily on the experience and political consciousness of the workforce.
In such countries as France, the labour movement faces a considerable challenge if it is to avoid a rapid degradation of trade union organization in the work place. * SOVIET UNION Supporters of the "Chilean model" The March 23-29, 1990, edition of Nouvelles de Moscou contained an article by Youri Korolev entitled "The economic defeat of Allende". Korolev, who worked in the ministry of the economy under the Allende government, reviewed the economic factors which, according to him, led to the defeat of Popular poration... Pinochet bought to Chile some gifted young scientists from the econom1cs taculty at Chicago, and put them at the head of the ministry of economics and finance. Ten years later, they have reached their objective".
For Korolev, there is no doubt about the success of Chile, whose economic growth, "rose last year to 10%" and which is "a powerful competitor on the world market". The social costs of this "success" are consciously overlooked by Korolev. [See next issue of IV for an analysis of the "Chilean miracle"]. * SYRIA International appeal AT THE END of March 1990 15 people were arrested after writings were painted on walls in the town of Yabroui, to the
AROUND THE WORLD north of Damascus comparing the Syrian president Hafez-el-Assad to the late Romanian dictator Causescu. Some of the prisoners are still being held and one of those arrested died two weeks later, as a result of internal haemorrhaging caused by ill treatment while in the hands of the security services.
Faced with this kind of repression and the constant violation of human rights in Syria, a Committee for the Defence of Democratic Liberties and Human Rights in Syria has been set up in France. It has just launched an international appeal:
"A state of emergency has existed in the Syrian Arab republic for the past 27 years with its corollaries: a total absence of individual and public liberties and permanent violations of human rights. There are more than 18,000 political prisoners in Syrian jails. Most of those arrested suffer physical and moral torture which are systematically practised. Several have died.
The signatories of the appeal are demanding from the Syrian government:
• The immediate freeing of all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience.
• An end to the state of emergency and the laws and decrees flowing from it.
• Respect for democratic rights and, in the first place, freedom of expression and of the press, of political and trade union association and demonstration."
To support the appeal write to International Viewpoint, 2, rue Richard Lenoir, 93108 Montreuil, France. *
Unity and led
Chile into the
"impasse from which Pinochet
MISSION emerged".
In opposing the the choice of economic and social policies undertaken by the Allende government to SOUP LINE FORMS TO RIGHT→ the "natural order" of the existing international organization of production, Korolev condemns all alternatives to the "neo-liberal" economic models which have been imposed by the International Monetary Fund in most Latin American countries and in many other parts of the world.
In his opinion, "a national renaissance, in opposition to imperialism as a system, constituted the fundamental idea of the Chilean concept. And it is also this that constituted the principal danger".
Korolev, whose positions are now indistinguishable from those of the most stalwart defenders of the "Chicago Boys", the monetarist advisers who helped Pinochet develop the famous "Chilean model", affirms that, contrary to other military dictatorships whose leaders "understand nothing of economics and who, in the best of cases (...) think only of the well being of their cor-
----- pull-quotes on this page -----
CAPITALISM AS VICTORIOUS. COMM CRUMBLI PASS IT ON..... 25 July 2, 1990 • #188 International Viewpoint