Enough has been said to demonstrate that the NEC report is not merely politically incompetent, but shows a readiness to ignore, suppress and falsify all evidence which does not fit in with its preconceived conclusions.
It is necessary, however, to take up some of the other distorted and falsified “charges” that are levelled against SALEP and reply to them briefly.
1. SALEP was set up by “a small group of white South African individuals”; it is “essentially little more than a … group of exiled white intellectuals.”
Not only is this false; the International Department well knew it to be false.
From the time of its foundation, SALEP’s members and supporters have been overwhelmingly black workers and youth in Southern Africa. SALEP, for obvious security reasons, has never published membership lists. But it had three publicly-named founder-coordinators.
One of them, David Hemson, is an exiled trade union activist’ in South Africa banned by the apartheid regime in 1975 – and recently arrested and detained by the Zimbabwe government, with other trade unionists and ZANU members, for campaigning to democratise trade unions and for organising socialist workers’ education. In the South African Star in March he was described as a “key figure in organising black trade unions in Natal in the 1970s.”[1]
The second, Martin Legassick, taught at Warwick University until 1981, when he resigned to work for SALEP. He has been a supporter and member of the ANC since he first worked for it in 1963. He served for eight years on the Africa Sub-Committee the Labour Party’s International Committee.
The third founder-coordinator was the late George Peake, a bricklayer by trade, and a trade union and Congress movement leader in South Africa from the 1940s. He was arrested in 1956 on charges of high treason along with 155 other Congress movement leaders, including Nelson Mandela. He was the first black prisoner on Robben Island this century, where he served, and quarried rocks, with Mandela. Going into exile, he became a UCATT convenor and a Labour Party Councillor in Britain.
Another prominent co-worker of SALEP’s is Nimrod Sejake, who was secretary of the Sactu-affiliated Transvaal Iron and Steel Union in the 1950s. He was also one of those arrested in 1956 for high treason. His work in building trade unions is warmly praised in Sactu’s official history, Organise or Starve – and, indeed, it is a photo of him (together with his then-assistant John Nkadimeng, the present General Secretary of Sactu) which appears on the book’s cover – addressing metal workers outside a factory.
The International Department was well aware of all these facts – yet all relevant information on the credentials of SALEP’s supporters, and all evidence showing black membership of and support for SALEP, is totally suppressed in their report.
Such conscious falsification alone is sufficient to discredit the whole NEC report. But matters go further than this.
Firstly, the International Department sent a researcher, one Julian Eccles, to interview SALEP representatives. One of those Eccles spoke with was a former SA black youth movement activist detained by the regime in the course of 1975 and 1976, and served with a banning order. This gets no mention either.
Secondly, Julian Eccles acted as a kind of security guard at the 1985 conference of the National Organisation of Labour Students (held on 2-3 March 1985) – which had on its agenda scurrilous resolutions attacking SALEP along the same lines as the (as-yet-unpublished) NEC report.
Mr. Eccles was among those responsible for policing the exclusion from this conference of SALEP members and supporters who wanted to present SALEP’s case. He can hardly have failed to see that those whom he was excluding were overwhelmingly black.
Yet the report systematically pictures SALEP as a “white” organisation! What is one to make of a ‘researcher’ who turns from ‘black’ into ‘white’ the evidence which is right before his own eyes?
Clearly this falsification was ‘necessary’, to attempt to lend credibility to the fiction that SALEP’s views were “completely outside the spectrum of mainstream progressive opinion”.
But the International Committee and NEC cannot escape responsibility for these falsifications either.
The facts on SALEP’s membership and support were drawn to their attention by members of the committees who opposed the ban on SALEP.
Moreover, none of the members of these committees could have been unaware that, since 1980, SALEP speakers, usually black, had spoken at labour movement meetings in their constituencies and in their trade unions up and down the country – roughly at the rate of two meetings a week.
Moreover, at the very same meetings of these committees at which the decision to proscribe SALEP was taken, there was clear evidence of the support present for SALEP among Southern African trade unionists, namely in Zimbabwe.
These meetings – in the case of both the International Committee and the NEC – had it on their agendas to consider the detentions, by the Mugabe government, of Zimbabwean trade unionists along with SALEP co-workers.
Yet, despite this evidence, the International Committee and the NEC endorsed a report characterising SALEP as a solely South African and “essentially” white organisation – and went ahead with their decision to proscribe SALEP!
2. On finance, the International Department report quotes figures to “show” that SALEP has an accumulated deficit of some £2,000, and continues, “SALEP says their debt is covered by indefinite loans from sources who ‘don’t want to be disclosed’. Asked why no full accounts were provided in the past, SALEP stated that they did not see it as relevant to the issues involved. SALEP is constitutionally bound to ensure all monies received are paid into a bank account which, SALEP claims, is currently ‘in the black’. SALEP, despite its purported educational aims, has no Charity Commission or other legal status. SALEP say only a ‘mutually agreed’ person may review their financial position ‘on their premises.’”
Yes, SALEP is constitutionally bound to ensure all monies received are paid into a bank account. Yes, this account is currently in credit, and is required by the bank to be so. No, SALEP has not applied for “Charity Commission or other legal status”.
Full accounts have always been provided to SALEP’s supporters and it is completely false to imply otherwise.
In addition, this is what SALEP wrote to the International Department regarding finances:[2]
…this is one of the areas of information which we have always protected very carefully. This is to ensure that there is no risk of the information (however indirectly or unwittingly) coming into the possession of the South African security police or anyone hostile to the workers’ movement in South Africa.
…our regular and committed donors have full, but confidential, access to our annual financial reports and are highly satisfied with our financial controls. If the International Committee has further questions about finance, we would be prepared for a mutually-agreed qualified accountant to view our annual financial reports on our premises. I should like these facts communicated to the International Committee.
What was in fact “communicated” to the International Committee was, to put it mildly, a deliberately distorted version of this statement, dripping with malicious innuendo ‘
It is also the case that SALEP has a certain accumulated ‘deficit’ which has been covered by indeifinite and interest-free loans from SALEP supporters. That they “don’t want to be disclosed” is for the same obvious security reasons spelled out in the above letter – but their willingness to offer this support shows their commitment to the aims and work of SALEP. The NEC report makes this appear something sinister!
Since SALEP was founded, our income has been a creditable £5,000 plus a year, on average, as a result mainly of pounds and pennies raised at labour movement meetings. We are encouraged to report that, since the witchhunt was first launched against us on committees of the Labour Party in October 1984, our flow of income has increased.
We look forward to continued and increased labour movement financial support, in order to allow us to fulfil the increased demands which are being made upon us.
3. “It is impossible to affiliate to SALEP. Individuals cannot take out membership of their own volition, as they can in CND or the Anti-Apartheid Movement. A supporter’s only hope of having a say in its affairs is by donating so much as to be approved by the Committee to attend the AGM.”
SALEP is not a British organisation like CND, and it is not a solidarity organisation like the Anti-Apartheid Movement. It is merely a modest education project working within the broad labour movement. It has no pretensions to a mass membership.
SALEP is, moreover, a Southern African organisation which, for obvious security reasons, is presently compelled to have its main office in Britain. Its actual membership is overwhelmingly Southern African – and consists, as the constitution says, of “any person who supports its objects and who is willing and able actively to participate in the work of the Project.”
Because the majority of SALEP’s members and supporters are scattered in different countries in Southern Africa, it is extremely difficult for a majority of them to ever meet in one single place. Naturally SALEP’s Annual General Meetings have to take account of this fact, and not take on a character which would disenfranchise the majority of SALEP’s members.
At the same time, since SALEP is run partly through the generosity of support which has been given it by the labour movement in Britain and other countries outside Southern Africa, we have felt it correct to invite regular and committed donors abroad to attend our Annual General Meetings.
It is a scandalous lie and insult, however – when our most regular and committed donors are workers living often at poverty level – to allege that “a supporter’s only hope of having a say” in SALEP’s affairs “is by donating so much as to be approved by the Committee to attend the AGM”.
4. SALEP was set-up by individuals when they were “unable to use the platform of Sactu’s newspaper and suspended from the ANC.”
Two of those who founded SALEP (David Hemson and Martin Legassick) were suspended – unconstitutionally and undemocratically – from the ANC in exile in 1979, along with two other comrades. But what was the background to these actions?
In January 1977 Sactu began publishing a newspaper – Workers’ Unity – for the first time since its leadership had gone into exile in the early 1960s. The newspaper was established mainly as an organising weapon for Sactu to initiate underground work in South Africa (which, in the preceding fifteen years and more it had signally failed to do).
But, after two years, there was no sign that Sactu was in fact becoming rooted among workers in struggle inside the country – and this was hindering the development of Workers’ Unity as a real workers’ paper. In fact the Editorial Board was becoming increasingly bogged down in conflict which reflected serious political differences on what the role and tasks of Sactu were.
In April 1979, as a contribution to discussion and resolution of these problems, the editor submitted a memorandum to the Sactu NEC which argued:
…that the cornerstone of Sactu’s approach to the revolution must be the recognition that economic gains, national liberation, and democracy, could be secured for the black workers only through an uninterrupted struggle to overthrow capitalism and begin the building of socialism; that the black working class is the only social force capable of leading the revolutionary struggle in the interests of all the oppressed, and, to undertake this task, must be organised first and foremost as workers; that the workers must be mobilised with the aim, at the decisive point, of defeating the armed force of the state with the revolutionary armed force of the mass movement.
The response of the Sactu NEC was not to discuss the issues involved, but to dismiss the editor from his post and from the Editorial Board of the paper. Subsequently, the NEC showed itself totally unwilling to discuss the political issues involved with other activists in exile and, to suppress discussion, closed down a Sactu sub-committee in London.
As they were allowed no means of airing the vital issues in discussion within the movement in exile, the ex-editor of Workers’ Unity and several other comrades sharing the same ideas, raised the arguments in a printed discussion document. For this, they were immediately suspended, without even a hearing, from the ANC. They all have, nevertheless, continued to support the ANC, and call for their reinstatement.
It was clear at the time that these bureaucratic actions were taken because of the political viewpoint put forward by these comrades – and that behind these actions lay the South African Communist Party clique dominating the ANC and Sactu in exile, who were opposed to the putting forward of genuine Marxist policies.
These facts have recently been confirmed by ANC spokesmen themselves. At a meeting organised by the African National Congress in London on 8 January 1985 Labour MP Dave Nellist asked the reasons why Marxists had been suspended from the ANC in 1979, and called for their reinstatement.
ANC spokesmen admitted that the suspensions were for political reasons, and stated that those involved could be reinstated only if they changed their political views! Moreover, they continued, the ANC was in ‘alliance’ with the South African Communist Party, and anything to do with Marxism was the province, and only the province, of the South African Communist Party.
Does the Labour Party NEC want to lend its support to these unconstitutional and undemocratic actions carried out by the South African Communist Party?
In fact the duty of the Labour Party is, side-by-side with the oppressed in South Africa, to support democracy within the SA liberation movement – and to support those putting forward positions from the standpoint of the working class.
5. “SALEP’s formation coincided with the establishment of the ‘Marxist Workers’ Tendency of the ANC’ by SALEP’s co-ordinators and others.”
Were this “coincidence” true, what anyway would it prove? Why, any more or less than SALEP’s, do the political positions put forward in Inqaba ya Basebenzi, Journal of the Marxist Workers’ Tendency of the ANC, constitute ‘crimes’ warranting proscription from the Labour Party?
However, the fact is that SALEP is an autonomous organisation whose objects are set out in its constitution and demonstrated in the work that it has already undertaken.
The constitution states that SALEP’s objects are:
(a) to prepare and distribute material relevant to labour education and the related needs of working people;
(b) to contribute to, support and further, in any material way possible, any education work being conducted among the workers in South Africa;
(c) to aid, supplement, and assist existing trade union educational and training programmes being carried out by trade unions in South Africa;
(d) to carry-out, promote and encourage specific research on questions of practical relevance to the struggle of South African workers and their organisations;
(e) to publish in booklets, tapes, illustrated, audio-visual or any other form the results of research undertaken and any other educational material for the purpose of advancing the workers’ movement in South Africa;
(f) to examine, prepare and publish political and economic material relating to the experience, strategy, tactics and organisational methods of workers in South Africa, and the link between the struggles of South African workers and the workers’ movement internationally;
(g) to translate material of the Project for workers into African languages, Afrikaans and English;
(h) to do all that is necessary to carry out and further the work of SALEP and to obtain financial contributions for the achievement of all or any of the objects of the Project.
6. “SALEP and the ‘Marxist Worker’s Tendency’ despatch materials to South African addresses from London, frequently unsolicited. Many of the sources they quote, such as Lenin, are banned in South Africa and organizations and individuals found in possession of such materials can be heavily punished. Noteworthy too is the fact that the ‘Marxist Worker’s Tendency’ publication ‘Inqaba Ya Basebenzi’ is not banned and is openly sold on South African University Campuses and, with a Cambridge Heath imprint, has a South African ‘50 cents’ sale price on the masthead. All official ANC publications are banned.”
These allegations reveal profound political ignorance of the actual state of affairs in SA as regards censorship in practice.
In reality, SALEP publications, as well as those of community groups, students, the ANC, Sactu, and the Marxist Workers’ Tendency of the ANC, have been banned.
But the mere formal fact that the regime bans publications does not of itself prevent them from circulating in the country, clandestinely or semi-openly. For the same reasons that the apartheid regime finds it impossible to crush the mass movement, it cannot fully impose its aims of banning and censorship. The regime’s police cannot be everywhere at once – not even on the university campuses.
To lessen the risks involved to individuals using its material, however, SALEP has deliberately avoided the use of quotations from Marx, Engels, Lenin etc. in its publications. We challenge the International Department to find a single such quotation in a SALEP publication!
Moreover, is the International Department unaware that the trade union, community, etc. press inside SA is constantly testing and pushing back the bounds of censorship – to the extent of publishing extensive material on the Freedom Charter, the ANC and Sactu, and the nature of capitalism? The thirst of the black workers and youth for revolutionary ideas pushes constantly in this direction. SALEP welcomes every advance which is made of this kind as a result of the forward movement of the workers.
So far have things gone that the regime itself has been obliged to lift its ban on the Freedom Charter – and, in the recent period, has actually ‘permitted’ the capitalist press to quote extensively from such leaders as Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo.
The Labour Party NEC report simply trades on supposed ignorance of these facts in Britain, hoping to convey to the labour movement an impression that SALEP (simultaneously!) is reckless on security and enjoys the favour of the SA regime! Both of these smears are utterly false, and are cynically put forward for the malicious purposes of the Stalinists and the right-wing.
7. “Allowing such publications to circulate freely in South Africa is consistent with the regime’s aim of sowing as much public dissent in the liberation movement as possible, thereby weakening it and reducing its credibility with the people.”
This allegation – as well as another assertion in the document that SALEP (and Inqaba) were set up to “undermine the liberation movement” – is a dirty slander in the time-honoured tradition of Stalinism, which cannot honestly debate ideas. (We might as well say that the NEC’s attempted suppression of SALEP is ‘consistent’ with the SA regime’s aim of suppressing socialist workers’ education!)
If the NEC report had the courage to spell out the implication of these statements openly, it would be that SALEP (and/or Inqaba) are agents of the apartheid regime.
That was in effect the slander made (under the influence of Stalinists) by one of the National Organisation of Labour Students leaders, one John Mann, at a Labour Party Youth Sub-Committee meeting when the issue of SALEP first came up there. Faced with a letter from SALEP’s solicitors, he had to retract this allegation, describing it as “ludicrous”.
Now the International Department report – written, ‘coincidentally’ by another ex-student in the camp of the NOLS leadership – seeks to reintroduce the same allegation in revised form.
This is worthy of as much contempt as the ‘explanation’ by the Zimbabwean Minister of Information as to why he had detained trade unionists, ZANU members and SALEP co-workers – all socialists. It was, he implied, because they were in fact seeking to install in Zimbabwe a reactionary neo-colonial regime!
In the same vein the International Department report has the stupid effrontery to criticise members of SALEP as “very fundamentalist Marxists”, and at the same time imply that they are serving the interests of the regime.
These are the same methods as those of the capitalist gutter press who describe Arthur Scargill as a fascist – and of Stalinism at its height which assassinated Trotsky with the accusation that he was a ‘fascist agent’.
What lies behind all such slanders is the fear – common to the capitalist class and the Stalinist bureaucracies of Russia, Eastern Europe etc. – of a growing workers’ movement grasping the Marxist ideas which can guide it in the struggle to eliminate all forms of elitism, bureaucracy, and oppression – the struggle for workers’ democracy and socialism.
Members of the Labour Party will be ashamed to find their NEC associating itself with these Stalinist methods of ‘argument’.
8. “Allegations of their [SALEP’s] links with Militant are confirmed by total agreement of political analysis on all questions. SALEP and the Marxist Workers’ Tendency both use Cambridge Heath Press for typeset print work… In the last few years the only newspaper to encourage their work has been ‘Militant’, and their most prolonged support comes from the LPYS.”
Were all this the undistorted truth, it would in no way justify the decision to proscribe SALEP from the Labour Party – any more than the political views put forward by supporters of the Militant newspaper justify actions by the Labour Party leadership to engage in witchhunts or expulsions against them.
But what is the nature of the evidence presented for this allegation?
(a) That the “only” newspaper to encourage SALEP’s work has been Militant. As we have pointed out in this pamphlet, SALEP’s work and publications have been commented upon favourably in numerous publications, both in SA and the labour movement in Britain.
(b) That SALEP publications, as well as Inqaba ya Basebenzi, are published on the same press as Militant.
SALEP, like many other labour movement publications – including constituency Labour Parties, Trades Councils, etc. – has its materials published by Cambridge Heath Press on a commercial basis. From them we get a cheap and efficient job.
(c) That there is “total agreement of political analysis on all questions”.
For the International Department to have proved such a point in full would have taken considerable labour! But perhaps the report means that both SALEP and Militant stand, within their respective spheres of work, for the interests of the working class internationally, and for democracy and socialism. To this SALEP pleads guilty.
In fact it is to the credit of Militant – and a demonstration of the commitment of this newspaper to socialist education and links with workers abroad – that it has supported the work of SALEP.
In the same way it is to the credit of the Labour Party Young Socialists that the “most prolonged support” for SALEP has come from them.
But the report, characteristically, suppresses other evidence of SALEP’s support of which its compilers were well aware.
SALEP is officially supported not only by the Labour Party Young Socialists, but by the Labour Party Women’s Conference. It has received support and encouragement from Labour Party constituencies and wards, from trade union branches, from trades councils, etc. up and down Britain – and in other countries as well.
Left-wing Labour Party leaders also support SALEP, including Tony Benn, who has written:
The South African Labour Education Project has established itself with strong support from the Labour Movement in Britain to bring together the experience in lessons of Socialist Trade Unionism in Britain and in South Africa to assist in the struggles there.
I hope it is strongly supported in this country where we have a lot of experience that we could put at the disposal of the South African working class as well as giving strong political support to help them in their liberation struggle.”
Labour Party members, and the labour movement generally, should endorse these remarks – and redouble their support for the liberation struggle in South Africa and for SALEP.
They should not be deterred by an NEC report which shows a remarkably “total agreement of analysis on all questions” between… Stalinists and the most conservative elements of the Labour Party right-wing.
© Transcribed from the original by the Marxist Workers Party (2020).
Continue to Part Part 7
[1] 17 March 1985
[2] 23 January 1985
