The issues in debate political expression.
The present situation demonstrates to the contrary that despite the national oppression that exists, despite the centrality of democratic demands in mobilizing the masses, and despite the immediate necessity for all the oppressed to concentrate their forces against the apartheid regime, there is, nonetheless, a very great diversity
IN THIS ISSUE of International Viewpoint, we are publishing a number of documents from South African organizations involved in the struggle against the racist regime. They illustrate the wide- ranging debate that is going on today in the movement of the oppressed and exploited in South Africa. The bourgeois press unfortunately points of view about political the immediate tactical problems and long-term perspectives.
It is for this reason, in part that it is absurd to present the ANC as "the national liberation movement"
does not of other fanciful views of the position of the forces involved in the struggle.
However, the special character of the South African social formation, the economic and social developments over recent decades, as well as the complexity of the strategic and tactical problems posed by the fight against the racist regime have promoted a diversity of political standpoints within the mass movement.
The selection of documents that we are publishing here is an attempt to offer an initial outline of the positions of the various currents. The objective of the following article is to point up some of the main aspects of the debate in the South African mass movement.
PETER BLUMER
South Africa has a very long history
National Congress (ANC) was founded different sorts of in 1912. Many organizations, groupings, splits, and alliances have had their moment on
Political groups, unions, and a multitude of associations have arisen and then disappeared or underrecomposition in the course of the oppressed. South debates that have gone through the international workers movement. A
Communist party was formed in 1921, appeared at the
Trotskyist current beginning of the 1930s.
The political heritage of the mass movement.
generations that came into
The activity in the 1920s and radical were caught up in furious
1930s on questions such as the debates objectives of the revolutionary process, the policy of noncollaboration with alliances, and the the class regime, re of the Second World War.
mational Viewpoint 30 September 1985 experience has left a political cultural heritage for the new political mass movement. Of course, it would be wrong to overestimate the extent of collective memory in a country subjected to strict where at the start of the 1960s the possibilities for political organization. But there has not been such a break in the continuity of opposition as to cut off the activists from the body of previous
This continuity of the opposition movement has been fostered by the existence of a layer of intellectuals among the oppressed and by the possibility that has existed analysis and historical long as this was done in forms that took account of the censorship of "subversive" material.
The economic development South Africa has experienced spectacularly expanded the ranks of the Black industrial working class. (1) At the same time, social differentiation has deepened within the Black regardless, and as the only legitimate representative of the South African people, or the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU), which is linked to the ANC, as the only legitimate representative of the working class.
For reasons that have to do with its economic and social development, South Africa cannot give rise to a nationalist movement comparable to the Angolan People's Liberation Move. ment (MPLA) or the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO). A complex national and social formation naturally engenders different points of view. And this leads to different sorts of practical activity, inasmuch the mass mobilization enables each component of the movement to test its own political and organizational projects
The big Natal strikes in 1973 and the youth rebellion in Soweto in 1976 were not, for example, inspired, or still less, led by the ANC. In the first instance, the actions were the first experiences in the struggle of a new working class, and they paved the way for the emergence of a new sort of independent trade-unionism a few years later.
As for the Soweto rebellion, it represented the peak of the Black Consciousness nationalist current, which was subsequently to exert an influence over a part of the workers movement.
For its part, the ANC has emerged today as the main current in the mass movement. After 1978, it attracted part of the activists of the Black Consciousness movement who had left South Africa and found themselves without perspectives in exile. For them, the armed struggle policy that the ANC pursued in the refugee
1. The term "Black" is used in South Africa to unify the various components of the oppressed population. The apartheid slation divides the population
"Coloured," "Indian," and *Afri the last being in tum classified accord:
to the ethnic group to which they belong
7
camps offered a solution to their preoccupations. Some other activists were also won over to the ANC whilst incarcerated in the racist
The ANC is seen by a part of the mass movement today as the only political solution in day-to-day strugfor various the other political positions have not perspectives for the masses. which presents itself as the national liberation movement, has an extensive network of activists and active sympathizers, who work in the community and in the trade-union movement. It is deeply involved the United Democratic Front (UDF), alongside certain sections of the churches and white liberal organizations. It will therefore be able to draw towards it a section of the movement. But it has not yet succeeded in winning the leadership of the process of organization that is going on in the industrial working The situation in the workers movement
To a large extent, the workers are organized at the plant level in a trade union movement that is quite often hostile to the ANC and which is aiming to form a united national confederation at the end of this year.
Moreover, the growing Communist Party control over the exile apparatus of the ANC threatens to make the ANC leadership look more and more like an instrument of the CP, and this can only tend to provoke new debates with the other components of the mass movement.
these conditions no political preconception can justify any necessity to conceal the political differences that exist. The struggle in South Africa is going to continue. It will be very prolonged and very complex. It is essential to be careful both about speculations and in noting and assessing the facts as they develop. Big changes in the political panorama are still possible. The proper approach, therefore, is one of active solidarity with all components of the mass movement.
The documents we are publishing here cannot give a full picture of the debate. In order to begin to get an idea of the discussion, however, let us start by outlining some of the main questions it focuses around.
South Africa experienced very strong industrial growth in the period 1965-1980 and along with it an abrupt growth in the Black working class. This young working elass in itself posed an initial dilemma. Did not 8 its very existence make it necessary to build a new workers movement (or rebuild the old one)? Was it not necessary, therefore, to reconsider fundamentally the problem of develowhere such a proletarian base, in the strict sense of the term, had not existed before?
This debate was a line of cleavage between a large part of the union leaderships and the Communist Party. Some leaders of the National Forum (NF) expressed a point of view on this question quite close to that of the unions. The Communist Party, which is banned in South Africa, denounced violently on a number of occasions those who were talking about organizing the workers moveconsiders that it is already organized and already has a political vanguard, in the form of
Thus, the Communist Party leadership thinks that the union movement should accept SACTU as its framework for organizing and collaboration with the ANC. Up until the start of the 1960s SACTU was a major union organization. (2) Since that time, however, it has dwindled to being an exile apparatus under the control of the ANC.
It must not be thought that the SACTU has influence in workers movement comparable to the support that the ANC and the UDE seem to have in the mass antiapartheid movement. For the moment, the leaderships of the main independent unions have enough authority in the Black working class not to leave the SACTU the same sort of space that the absence of a political alternative has left for the UDF and the ANC to fill.
In stressing the new responsibilities of the trade-union movement with respect to organizing the workers movement, some union leaderships implicitly indicated a longterm political project, that is, paving the way for the emergence of a proletarian leadership by building workers
The Communist Party has responded by explaining that by the unions cannot engage in political activity in the way a party can. Using quotations from Lenin, it has also denounced what it calls "a legal Marxism" in South Africa. (4)
In reality, all sides in this debate understand that there is a vacuum today because of the lack of a proletarian political leadership in a country where there is a powerful, concentrated, and mobilized working class. The ANC may fill a part of this vacuum, but it has not demonstrated that it can fill it entirely, inasmuch as it also has to serve as the framework : for a broad multi-class alliance. The Communist Party may have set its sights on filling this political space. But it is very little known inside the country today and cannot operate publicly.
On the other hand, the union movement is still far too heterogeneous and fragile to be able to shoot ahead toward assuming political responsibility. Nothing is settled in this area, and the process is only beginning
For the reasons pointed up above, there are also major differences on tactical and conjunctural questions Every component of the movement own view of the problems of bringing about a recomposition of the mass movement.
When the trade-union organizations began to develop at the start of the FOSATU, thought that it was necessary to make tactical use of some of the rules imposed by the racist state, requirement that the unions obtain legal registration participate in the (5) Others thought that compliance with such regulations was an unacceptable compromise with the
The latter position both by the unions influenced by the Black Consciousness movement and by the ANC and SACTU. It is possible, on the other hand, that the very tough position that the SACTU took on this matter had something to do with its relatively weak position in the union movement at the present time. Little by little, the major unions have come to accept registration and participation in the industrial councils. Moreover, the unions that sought to make noncompliance a political dividing line and a point of principle have lost ground, and now find themselves on the sidelines of the process of trade-union unification that is underway.
The problem of the tempo of the mobilization and the tactics for organizing the movement of the op pressed also comes up with respect to the formation of the UDF. Leaving aside the differences over this form of organizaiton, to which I will return later, some unions have had to consoli2. Cf. "The African Communist" Organ of the Communist Party of South Africa London-Leipzig, 93, second quarter of 1983; No. 99, fourth quarter of 1984; and No. 100, first quarter of 1985 3. Ct. "The Deepening Radicalization in South Africa," in "International Viewpoint" No. 65, December 19, 1984. 4. The African Communist," No. 99. "The dangers of 'legal Marxism' in South Africa. 5. On this debate, see "Independent Black Unions in Southern Africa, in IV No. June 7, 1982, and "A Federation of the Independent Unions" in IV, No. 31, May 30, 1983. International Viewpoint 30 September 1985
International Viewpoint 30 September 1985 date their own ranks before plunging into other kinds of activity.
Their adversaries have seized this caution to make a denunciation of the unions for what they analyze as a failure to take political positions. It seems that most of the main union organizations want to carry through the formation of a national confederation before considering how to act politically. This, however, did prevent them last year from coming out against Pieter Botha's constitutional changes. (6) They called for a boycott of the elections to the Coloured and Indian parliaments in August 1984.
The differences really concern the timing and tactics for building the movement. Some think the base of the community organizations in which the Chartist current, represented by the UDF is very strong, is already sufficient to permit a certain audacity in mobilization. (7)
think that before taking any it is necessary to stabilize organizaiton in trade union movement, (SAAWU), which are strongly linked to the Chartist current, have joined the UDF. Some federations, such as the General Workers Union (GWU), the Food and Canning Workers (FCWU), and FOSATU have not joined the UDF or the National Forum. The Council of Unions of South Africa (CUSA) made the very tactical choice of joining both, without playing any big role in their activities.
Another question related to various analyses made of the workers movement is the problem of democin the mass movement. biggest unions state regularly that one of their main concerns is educating their members in workers democracy. Some of them base their functioning on networks of shop stewards. No one challenged their right to do so. But the affair has taken on another in connection with the
Some unions aceuse this front of eing only a conglomerate of leader-
Ips of various organizations that lites the members of these componts only formally, behind a name, ut does not offer them the basis for making real decisions about the UDF'S political orientation.
This question assumed a greater pe when a difference appeared
March 1985 between the member ganizations of the UDF and some ons over issuing a stay-away call
Port Elisabeth. Each side claimed at it had consulted its ranks demoratically. The UDF was in favor of ing the strike call. But the unions for postponing the action.
This difference led to a bitter dispute, and trade unionists were even threatened with death by groups accusing them of betrayal. (8)
The national question is one of the most complicated issues in the South African situation. And different positions on it lead systematically to different courses of action.
While the Black Consciousness current has undergone considerable evolution and become more differenciated in recent years, it has also been based ideologically on the idea that all the oppressed (Coloureds, Indians, and Africans) had to liberate themselves psychologically and ideologically by breaking with the slave mentality and with white values.
This approach led in a certain way to the theory of two nations, a white nation and a Black one. For some members of this current, it was only from the Africans, which it saw as the most oppressed and exploited, that a real vanguard of the oppressed nation in formation could come.
The ANC and CP on the other hand, have held up till now the theory
"internal colonialism" and "colonialism of a special type." In line with this, they have considered that there were a number of distinct "nationalities" in South Africa, that is, the whites, the Africans, the Coloureds, and the Indians.
Thus, this current had to be in favor of distinct political mass movements for each of these "nationalities," with the ANC representing the Africans. (9) In reality, Since the end of the 1950s, the ANC has debated the question of letting whites join its ranks. And at its recent congress, it decided to bring white, Coloured, and Indian leaders into its
A third point of view has been National Forum [published below on page 19]. The advocates of this posimaintain that the objective of building an egalitarian nation in which is linked to the need for building nonracial class organizations open to denounces this interpretation of the question, and rejects theory that "the is nationalist in form socialist in content" as an ultraleftist position. (11)
No one, however, seems to oppose the idea that a nation has to be forged in the struggle. And contest the idea that this process will be linked to for socialism. But that does not make the debate any less byzantine. In fact, way each current analyzes the national question determines forces with which they seek alliances, as with Indian and Coloured petty-bourgeois layers and with certain sectors of white liberals. And this is combined with the debate on the nature of the revolutionary process.
The diverse terminology used in the antiapartheid mass movement -"Non-racial," "multiracial," "Black consciousness," "multi-nationalism" -thus reflects special debates and different political practices.
In the South African context, how is the national question to be combined with the social one? Depending on their answer to this query, the political organizations approach the problem of relations with the more privileged strata of the Black petty bourgeoisie in different ways. Class alliances
Under the apartheid system, the non-white petty bourgeoisie is, to be sure, subject to the same segregationist laws as the rest of the oppressed community. But, in particular among the Coloureds and Indians, there is a solid, stable, prosperous petty bourgeoisie. In commerce, you can even see the beginnings of an Indian bourgeoisie. And a similar phenomenon is starting to show up now among the Africans, even though the new African businesspeople are often only fronts for white companies in the townships, Black neighborhoods, and Bantustans.
The problem that arises for all those who want to bring down the apartheid system is on what level and in what form these social layers can be involved in the struggle for demo-
9
layers as such and their organizations.
Here also the entry into the UDF of is not so much movements such as the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS)
or the Black Sash ( a civil rights group)
has provoked disputes. These organithe on lized quite in the democratic movement. (12)
forms should
More generally, the question arises of relations with the liberals who are led politically in fact by the dominant finance and industrial capital dominated by the English.
Transvaal Indian
Congress and
1985. (13)
this is by no and democratic the toiling masses.
"monopolistic"
community"
wealth.
sectors.
it in by very
Barlow nothing, ly plenty of room
" (14)
can sometimes see rather workerist resp or problems parallel
While the in a petty-bourgeois social layers.
The problem is not white democrats or progressives who act as indiviof the duals or join the organizaitons in nents
- churches, order to be active in them. Nor does are the question of white workers arise very much at all today. In some cases, they may be attracted by the progressive trade-union movement. But the bulk of them have lined up with the right or the extreme right in order defend their position as a labor components that is the accorded them by apartheid.
seen by many
The debate is rather over the with the ANC.
relations between certain white social
10
In the same way, in the union movement, the organizations that present themselves as the most
"Chartist," while they are relatively
small, have assumed the role of propagandists for establishing an organic m link between the future single nat- ca ional labor confederation and the exile apparatus of the SACTU. The relationship of the mass movement to the ANC
Up until 1981, the SACTU consi- m derably underestimated the process of C the formation of new independent th unions in the country. After recognizing the existence of this movement, the SACTU tried to bring it under tutelage, so far without great C "The strong and unions, "
"Therefore, level unions working as it is political political "points
12. These two white organizations The are defined as follows by the book struggle for South Africa, a reference guide to movements, organisations and institu tions, " Zed Press, London, 1984: NUSAS,
"Antiaparth eid student organisation open to all students, but based mainly on white students (overwhelmingly of bourgeois background) at English speaking universities the main lett NUSAS represents one wing forces within liheral of institutions, Black Sash, "Organisation based mainly on white women bourgeois origin... In 1981 it supported resolution declaring that the principles of the Freedom Charter offered the only viable alternative to the present exploita tive and repressive system.
13. On the Kennedy visit, see "Rising struggle against apartheid spurs debates and maneuvers. • in IV, No. 80, July 15.
1985
14. Newsweek, September 16 1985.
15.In French in original. "Sactu news letter," Summer 1983. International Viewpoint 30 September 1985
of view" in order to counter this pressure.
In some cases, this political conflict has led to splits in the unions. This happened, for example, in the Black media workers union, when the advocates of affiliating to the UDF decided to form a new union. (16) The armed struggle
The question of the AN is now more and more linked to that of the Communist Party. The debates that the AN has experienced over the last twenty years about white activists joining its ranks have become combined to a large extent with the discussion about its relations with the
This could be seen, for example, at the ANC's last congress, in Morogoro in 1969, and the discussion recurred the latest congress, which was held in Zambia in June. Joe Slovo, the white leader of the CP and already leader of the military wing of the ANC has just been elected onto the National Executive Committee of the ANC. Moreover, the general secretary of the CP is also a member of the leadership of the ANC.
In reality, the CP has had an influence over the ANC for a very long time. But the new political situation undoubtedly put new demands on the apparatus outside the country. The theoretical documents ANC and the South African CP are osmosis is putting the question of relations with the AN on another political level. In fact, it seems that the ANC has decided to make its political with the South African
All those who seek to create an to the ANC-SACP have tressed the sectarianism of the Chartist rrent and its tendency to favor ances with white liberals. enounced sometimes as a framework class collaboration because it meludes a Black employers organiation and NUSAS.
In practice, the UDF is first of all alliance between the ANC and churches that oppose apartheid.
Hing too much stress on the involveof liberals could lead, paradoxito a dangerous underestimation he role of the churches as a means controlling the mass movement.
Moreover, to convince the broad ses the agitation against collaborwith the tiberals has no more rete argument than the inclusion
NUSAS in the UDF. Now, it is thing to think that the UDF ects an attempt to build a bridge
International Viewpoint 30 September 1985 to a section of the white bosses. It is quite another to think that oppressed masses can make such a political extrapolation however well founded it may be.
Among those currents in the mass movement with anti-Stalinist reflexes, some may think that the imperialists
African big capital are out for an immediate deal with the ANCCP leadership on the order of the one
British and Mugabe's Zanu in Zimbabwe. However, the breadth of the mass movement, its steady radicalization, and the extent of Western interests in South Africa limit the credibility of
After the repression of the 1960s the ANC chose the road of armed struggle, operating from bases in the Front-Line States. This armed strug gle was conceived of as rural in character, and up until 1977 it produced no significant results. (17) After 1978, drawing the lessons of the Soweto events, the ANC has oriented toward armed actions in urban areas. This ally called armed propaganda" than activity, in fact, can be more military struggle.
The ANC has carried out a series of very spectacular operations, such as This propagandist activity doubt gained the ANC points in the criticisms have been made of these actions. Some see them as being to an extent irresponsible, ending as a rule in the sacrifice of activists and incapable of weakening the represregime, actions in the last analysis that make more difficult the task of those who are patiently building up the mass organi-
In the new situation, with the spontaneous violence of the masses, it has seemed that the ANC's armed struggle did not help to advance the self-defense of the masses. Facing the army, the demonstrators still have quite rudimentary means for defending found a source of encouragement in the ANC's commando raids, for example some of the youth, are now expecting some concrete response from it for defending the townships against the police and the army.
While all currents in the mass movement obviously face the same problem, the ANC which has built a good part of its popularity on its capacity to carry out commando actions is now going to have to show that it is also concerned about mass self-defense and the problems involved in the violence of the oppressed masses.
In South Africa, it is all the more important to prepare the masses for violent confrontations with the repressive forces because it would be illusory to hope for any major divisions in the bourgeois army.
The South African army is essentially a white army, created to defend the domination of the white race. In these conditions, the most that an anti-militarist, defeatist policy could hope to achieve would be to discourage some young whites from serving in a racist army. So far, no progressive force has come up with a satisfactory answer to these
All these debates invariably come down to differences on the nature of the coming revolution. The CP and the need for a national and democratic stage of the revolution in order prepare the conditions for the transi.
Such forces as the AZAPO and
Forum leaderships, which are still very heterogeneous, have not entirely clarified their position this question. But this on general propaganda socialism, and seems to suggest in to resolving the democratic socialism. (18)
The UDF has not taken a programinasmuch as that is not the function assigned to it by its founders.
Finally, it is notable that the press of some of the independent unions has systematically published educational articles about capitalism, social classes, and the fight for socialism.
In general, everyone agrees that the consciousness of the mass movement is developing first of all in a context of democratic and national struggles. The differences are over the role of the working class in the struggle and that is to come out of the revolutionary struggle and which is to resolve the national and democratic questions
The anti-Communist laws, however, limit the clarity with questions can be debated. The positions of the CP and the ANC can be seen easily since they publish magazines outside South Africa and work underground inside the country. The other organizations, regardless of their character, are obliged to watch what they say and what they write. 16. On the split in the Media Workers Association of South Africa (MASA); see 'South African Labour Bulletin, Vol. 9, No. 4, February, 1984. 17. There are many features that make rural guerrilla warfare impracticable in South Africa. 18. "Manifesto of the Azanian People" National Forum Committee, Johannesburg, 1983.
11
SOUTH AFRICA
DOCUMENT universal political struggle ... in such a manner as to obtain the support of all opposition strata for the struggle and for our party?. (5)
We should note Lenin's emphasis on the broadness of the task facing