Originally appeared in Inqaba ya Basebenzi No. 18/19 (February 1986).
by Richard Monroe
Last year, Van Zyl Slabbert and Gatsha Buthelezi established the National Convention Movement, whose “eventual objective”, states its manifesto, is “the calling of a National Convention by the government of the day at which representatives of all the people of South Africa will thrash out an agreed constitution”.
The idea stems from the National Convention of 1908-09, at which representatives of the South African ruling class, with the agreement of British imperialism, drew-up the segregationist constitution of the Union of South Africa.
Resurrected
Today the idea is resurrected by sections of the ruling class because of their enormous fear of the developing revolutionary movement of the mass of the oppressed. They can see that neither old-style apartheid repression, nor Botha’s neo-apartheid combination of repression and ‘reforms’ is sufficient to bring this movement to a halt.
But could such a Convention play any role in bringing about national liberation and democracy? Could it even come into existence?
In 1981, when the idea of a National Convention was being raised in the same circles, Inqaba published an article, by Daniel Hugo and Paul Storey, suggesting how the question should be approached by our movement.
Conspiracy
We explained that, for the liberals, a National Convention represented “not a vehicle for the orderly concession of democratic rights and equality to the majority, but a conspiracy against democracy and against equality.” The Rand Daily Mail,[1] we said, came as near as we could expect to spelling out the liberal bosses’ National Convention strategy when it wrote:
Nationalists say a convention would be a ‘sell-out’ of the whites. On the contrary, it is probably the only way to safeguard the security of whites in South Africa over the long term.
Whites have white rule. Blacks want majority rule. An agreement has to be struck somewhere in between.
Every section of the capitalist class is relentlessly opposed to majority rule in South Africa – to one-person-one-vote in an undivided country – because they know the black majority demand this to secure the power to demolish the whole system of cheap labour, and carry through the implementation of the Freedom Charter. The demand for majority rule poses a deadly threat to the survival of capitalism itself.
That is why the ‘liberal’ capitalists and their representatives are constantly cooking up new divide-and-rule schemes for the ‘confederal’ or federal’ re-division of the country. The intention of such schemes, as Cosatu explained at its founding conference, “is to maintain power and control in the hands of the present minority and perpetuate an oppressive and exploitative system”.
The National Convention strategy is, on the one hand, a recognition that state repression alone is no longer sufficient to maintain the rule of the capitalist class over the majority. At the same time, as Inqaba pointed out in 1981 – in key passages of the article which we republish here – the liberals “take it for granted that the convention would meet under the guns and supervision of the existing state”.
This state is based on white minority rule: its strength depends on the ability of the ruling class to enlist to its support a murderous armed force recruited from the ranks of the privileged whites.
In the same way, the 1908-09 National Convention derived its constitution-making ‘authority’, not from any popular mandate, but from the armed power of British imperialism, which had recently conquered the Boer Republics.
At any negotiations among ‘all political interest groups’ in South Africa held under the guns of this state, the representatives of the ‘liberal’ capitalists would not be there to discuss the transfer of power to the people. Their aim would be to get their divide-and-rule schemes adopted. With the weapon of state power in their hands, they would be out to bribe, trick, and threaten black leaders with a following among the masses into accepting these undemocratic schemes for dividing the oppressed.
Through the experience of revolutionary struggle against the regime and the bosses, an understanding of these pitfalls of the ‘National Convention’ has become increasingly widespread among active workers and youth. Among them, the idea is overwhelmingly rejected. The slogan that “Big business and the state are two sides of the same bloody coin” expresses the recognition that, to achieve national liberation, the bosses’ state must be smashed. Inqaba supporters have been in the forefront of explaining and arguing for this position.
Shift
Increasingly, this standpoint is reflected also in the official bodies of the movement. Thus, in the period since the launching of the United Democratic Front in 1983, there has been a noticeable shift in its stand on this question.
In 1983, leaders of the UDF wrote to President Botha. If, they stated, all political prisoners were released, exiles recalled, and organisations un-banned, “The chosen leaders of all our country’s people can then sit together in an atmosphere free from fear and suspicion to work out a constitution based on the will of the people – a constitution acceptable to all.”[2]
But, even were the government to carry out those demands, how would this create “an atmosphere free of fear and suspicion” – while there remained in existence not only the state’s prisons and torture-chambers, but its murderous armed forces which the ruling class could at any time order into the factories, mines, docks, or townships?
Under the pressures of the subsequent revolutionary upsurge, delegates to the UDF National Council in April 1985 showed their awareness of these realities. According to the Sowetan,[3] among the demands of this Council meeting were the “disbanding of the SADF, Koevoet, the SAP and all other repressive apparatuses”.
Clearly the delegates to the Council could not have supposed that the ruling class would voluntarily disband the central instruments that sustain its power over the masses. What this resolution reflected was the recognition that national liberation could not be achieved unless the movement itself took-up the task of organising to carry-out the complete dismantling of the bosses’ state.
UDF
Murphy Morobe, UDF publicity secretary, partially echoed this position in explaining, later in the year, why the UDF would not affiliate to the National Convention Movement. “The end product of such a (National) convention”, he stated “would be, some form of ‘power sharing’ between various groups – a solution that implies that all participants will have to agree to some form of compromise.”
For the UDF negotiation does not mean South Africa’s ‘leaders’ can sit around and work out a solution while the people sit outside the conference room waiting to hear the outcome.
The myth is that a think-tank of leaders meeting in effect under’ the shadow of the South African Defence Force or the South African Police and over the heads of the people will be able to arrive at an acceptable deal. This is a fundamentally undemocratic and elitist view.
The Star, 22 October 1985. [Our emphasis – Editor]
In this respect, Comrade Morobe’s position on the National Convention is correct. Unfortunately, he did not pursue the logic of his argument to its full conclusions. He continues:
The UDF believes that any negotiation must be the product of a democratic process which involves the masses. After all, the outcome of negotiation requires mass acceptance if peace is to be attained.
A climate favourable to mass participation needs to be created. This means that the African National Congress and other political organisations must be unbanned. All detainees and political prisoners must be released unconditionally. Apartheid must have been totally dismantled and there must be free political activity.
These are not bargaining chips – they are conditions which must prevail for democratic participation in free negotiations.
When we call for the release of Nelson Mandela it is not so that he can be whisked-off to some top level negotiations behind closed doors (assuming that he would allow this). We demand that Mandela and all other political prisoners and detainees be released to play their full role in the development of a mass-based democratic participation.
It is meaningless to push for a national convention while the basic preconditions have not been met.
All the oppressed demand the release of Mandela and all political prisoners and detainees, and the un-banning of banned organisations. But, even if such preconditions were met, a National Convention would still be meeting under the ‘shadow’, or, more accurately, the brute force, of the SADF and the SAP – unless and until these have been dismantled. That can only be brought about through the armed power of the mass movement itself – and this means the overthrow of the ruling class’s state power.
But then the task of the movement will be, not constitutional negotiations with the representatives of the defeated capitalists, but the establishment of the democratic organs of the rule of working people.
This is why, in 1981, Inqaba suggested that it would be better if “we reached into the fighting traditions of our movement and raised” (as an alternative to the idea of a National Convention) “the slogan of a Revolutionary Congress of the People” – of a “public assembly to which the people in every workplace, township and rural locality send delegates in proportion to their numbers, elected on the basis of one-person-one-vote – and subject to immediate recall to ensure that their electors’ wishes are strictly carried-out.”
Precondition
The practical precondition for a Revolutionary Congress of the People – the condition necessary to ensure its sovereignty and ability to implement its decisions – would be that the present state had been defeated and its armed power dismantled and replaced by the armed people.
It is the vital responsibility of our leadership in its propaganda to prepare the whole movement with a clear understanding of the need to replace the present state machine with the democratic power of the working class – and to arm the movement clearly against the tricks and manoeuvres of the capitalists. Properly explained, the slogan of a Revolutionary Congress of the People could assist in this task.
In contrast, to explain that a National Convention inherently involves “some form of compromise” of the demands of the oppressed, and to dismiss it only for now, while leaving open the possibility in the future for participating in this scheme of the liberals – which seems to be Comrade Morobe’s position – unfortunately fails to prepare the movement for its revolutionary tasks.
This is even more the case because the aims of the National Convention Movement are a utopian dream.
Sections of the capitalist class, their representatives, and, in the future, even the government, can and will seek ‘talks’ and ‘negotiations’ with leaders of our movement. More bodies like Botha’s new ‘national statutory council’ can and will be established.
But this will take place in a situation where the classes and races are becoming inevitably more and more polarised as the impasse of apartheid and capitalism deepens. The spectre of workers’ revolution will more and more hang over the ruling class and the whites.
It is inconceivable, in this situation, that the state, undefeated, would become ‘neutral’ and that final constitution-making authority could be handed over to a ‘National Convention’ of representative leaders of the people.
The ruling class is searching desperately for a ‘reformist’ way forward. But at the same time, to hold the black masses in subjection, it depends utterly on the cohesion of the existing white-dominated state machine.
For some years the leadership of the PFP has based its political strategy, not on the prospect of winning an election, but on becoming a potential partner in a coalition government with the verligte Nationalists. Such a coalition, they have hoped, would lay the parliamentary basis for calling a National Convention.
But now Van Zyl’s Slabbert’s resignation is a clear indication that this strategy lies in ruins.
Compromises
On the one hand, to sustain its parliamentary strategy, the PFP leadership has engaged in political compromises which have increasingly alienated its left-wing, particularly the youth. Recently, big conflicts have occurred over the PFP’s attitude to conscription, and to participation in the coloured and Indian ‘parliaments’.
Yet, on the other hand, in the ranks of the white electorate, the verligte forces remain inevitably a middle class minority. Launching the Convention Alliance, Slabbert stated that a National Convention would ‘fail’ if even Treurnicht were excluded from it![4] But Treurnicht is gaining an echo among the ranks of the whites precisely on the basis of denouncing even Botha’s timid ‘neo-apartheid’ plans as a ‘sell-out’ of white privilege and ‘identity’ to the black masses. How on earth could Treurniclet agree to participate in a National Convention intended to “share” power with the ANC?
To sustain National Party government, and the cementing together of the classes among the whites, Botha looks over his shoulder to the threat from his right, rather than towards the ‘support’ he might gain in coalition with the miniscule forces of the PFP.
The talk in the press of 35 ‘left-wing’ Nationalist MPs being ready to split with Botha and follow Slabbert if he stayed in parliament is laughably naive. How many of these MPs would hold their seats after that if Botha called an election!
Slabbert’s resignation, followed by that of Alex Boraine, results from a recognition that the pace of changes and realignments possible through white parliamentary politics will inevitably lag hopelessly behind the changes which the ruling class needs to make if it is to deal with the revolutionary polarisation of society and the challenge which it is now facing.
Slabbert is still for a National Convention. Yet how could a National Convention get off the ground without its constitution-making authority being authorised by “the government of the day” (the NCM’s words), and parliament?
Military Rule
If, as is possible at a later stage – parliamentary government is altogether dispensed with and direct military rule is introduced – could this perhaps ‘clear the way’ to a National Convention? Those who argue this forget that the maintenance of the present armed state power intact (or fundamentally so) would remain the first priority of a military regime – in fact, would all the more be its first priority. Such a regime would, indeed, be engaged in carrying out even more atrocious massacres against the black people than its predecessors.
The idea of real power being conceded to a National Convention under such conditions is ridiculous. Yet, without the transfer of real power being on the agenda, it would be impossible for leaders of the movement to participate or remain in a ‘National Convention’.
Revolutionary Pressure
The pressure on the ruling class for a National Convention is the reflection of the revolutionary pressures of the masses against apartheid and capitalism – a pressure exerted most directly upon the leaders of Congress.
Slabbert and Boraine now project for themselves the role of “honest broker” between “parliamentary” and “extra-parliamentary” forces. But what lies at the root of the polarisation between the supporters of the existing parliament and the extra-parliamentary movement is the question of state power.
On the one side are those who cling to capitalism, and who are thus compelled (however they try to hide it) to stand for the maintenance of the existing racist state. On the other side is a mass movement which, for the sake of its vital needs, is compelled to struggle for this state’s overthrow. Neither the ‘liberal’ capitalists nor the leaders of the movement, however much they might ‘in principle’ be willing to compromise, can in reality bridge this gulf in South Africa.
When, in the course of the revolutionary events that lie ahead, it becomes clear that the maintenance of the present state makes a compromise agreement through a National Convention impossible, then the representatives and leaders of the contending classes will face a stark choice – capitulation, or a fight to the finish.
The capitalists, however ‘liberal’, cannot surrender without a fight their historical position as owners of production and as ruling class. They will lean on the bloody state power as their ultimate line of defence – at the expense even of their extra-parliamentary representatives who continue to try to square an impossible circle.
The leaders of the movement – what choice would they face? With no alternative but abject surrender, the revolutionary black working class will demand of its leadership nothing less than an uncompromising struggle for the conquest of state power.
At the same time, the National Convention strategy serves the liberal bosses as an important carrot to dangle before middle class black politicians, in order to try to dilute the aims of our movement. This is why the leaders of the Convention Movement have been exerting such efforts to try and induce the leadership of the UDF to affiliate.
In November, its chairman, Jules Browde, claimed that
I’ve been in touch with influential UDF members who, in private, are encouraging towards the NCM advising us not to be deterred by the fact that they won’t participate at this stage. I sympathise with their problems; so many UDF leaders are detained that bold policy decisions are difficult to take. But ultimately I believe that if the NCM takes off they will come in.
Financial Mail, 22 November 1985
Browde puts the cart before the horse. With Gatsha Buthelezi’s remaining credibility as a figure of opposition to the regime dwindling even in KwaZulu-Natal, the Convention Movement is incapable of ‘taking off’ without the support of the UDF or the ANC.
In pursuit of precisely such support, the Sunday Times[5] gave credence to the story that
A dramatic new alignment of anti-government groups – backed by the ANC – is to be formed… The National Convention Movement (NCM) … will be one of the members… Yesterday the NCM management committee confirmed it will actively support the move. It is understood the ANC has been in contact with various parties and preliminary discussions are well advanced. Further meetings in Lusaka are possible soon… Its prime objective, claim supporters of the idea, will be the forging of a climate which could lead to a negotiated settlement of SA’s problems.
Contacted in Lusaka, ANC spokesmen repudiated the idea of “an organised entity” – but were reported as welcoming
…greater unity of purpose and action and greater collaboration…. We proceed from the fact that there should be a greater unity and greater co-ordination between all those who serve the real interests of the people of SA. Because the ANC is an illegal organisation in SA, it cannot participate in the process, but we remain available for consultation here in Lusaka.
Sowetan, 15 January 1986
This has only fuelled the speculation. The Sunday Star[6] reported that
The banned African National Congress (ANC) and the fledgling National Convention Movement (NCM) both say they want to talk to each other to form a broad front against apartheid.
A spokesman for the ANC in Lusaka said this week that dialogue must first take place with the NCM before a decision can be taken on whether to form any broad front and whether such an arrangement should be formal or informal…
…the Progressive Federal Party and Inkatha … have withdrawn from the management committee to reduce their profile and attract United Democratic Front membership.
But the UDF has had nothing to do with the NCM and observers believe there is no prospect of co-operation unless the green light is given from Lusaka.
The ANC leadership should decisively and clearly reject the idea of an ‘alliance’, formal or informal, with any section of the bourgeoisie, including the National Convention Movement, or other bodies which may succeed it to serve the same purposes.
Real Interests
Our movement is a non-racial movement. We welcome every white who breaks with the ruling class and identifies her or himself with the real interests of the overwhelming black majority of the people of South Africa.
But there is a fundamental difference between a pursuit of non-racial working class policies and attempts to generate co-operation between fundamentally opposed class forces.
Let us be clear. Whatever the character of their membership, the PFP and the NCM – inside or outside parliament – are capitalist organisations, formed to further the interests of the capitalist class. In no way, as organisations, can they “serve the real interests of the people of South Africa”.
Slabbert and Boraine have resigned from parliament. We can draw satisfaction from the setback that represents to Botha and to the capitalist PFP. But does that mean that our movement should ‘congratulate’ these bourgeois politicians and welcome them into the fold?
Have they now repudiated federalism? Will they now explain that the problems of South Africa cannot be solved without majority rule and the full implementation of the Freedom Charter?
Will they break with, and denounce, their backers among the monopolies and stand with the masses in the struggle against capitalist exploitation?
Those are the tests by which our movement is compelled to judge who “serve the real interests of the people of South Africa”. Our task is not ‘greater unity and coordination’ with the PFP and the NCM, but to smash their influence by winning over to the aims of the movement those whom they mislead.
But, when it comes to the struggle against the state, it is not these bourgeois and upper middle class whites who are the key. If the fundamental obstacle to the revolution lies in the strength of the white-dominated state-machine, then a fundamental task which opens up for the movement is to split the state on class lines – by neutralising and winning away the white workers and white troops who are its reliable core of support.
This task is not helped, but rather hindered, by dabbling in cosy chats and talk of “greater unity and co-ordination” with the friends of the capitalists.
In a New Year Speech, Comrade Tambo stated that “The time has come that our white compatriots should join the mass democratic struggle in their millions.”
Those “millions” are mainly white workers, many soaked in vile racism, yes, and all enjoying privilege, yes – but working people, enslaved to the monopolists nevertheless. At present, they follow not Van Zyl Slabbert, but Botha, Treurnicht, Jaap Marais…
They cannot be won in big numbers to our struggle unless and until the revolutionary movement of the black working class has risen to its full power and really challenges the state with armed overthrow. And then they can be paralysed or won away from their racist right-wing leaders only if they are given the confidence that our movement has the power, and the programme, for breaking the stranglehold of the monopolies, and ushering in a new society in which there can be democracy and security for all working people.
Unless the ANC leadership takes up the task in this revolutionary way – with no concessions to white privilege – these millions will remain as cannon-fodder for the ultra-right to sustain apartheid and capitalism in power.
Over time, our movement can build the power to split the whites and leave the rulers of society impotent.
“No Programme”
The African Communist (1st Quarter, 1986) recognises that the businessmen backing the National Convention Movement “have no programme for genuine reform, only measures for the avoidance of revolution and the perpetuation of capitalism”.
At the same time, it claims, “The ANC has made it abundantly clear … that there is no point in taking part in a National Convention until the power of the regime has been broken.”
But, once the power of the regime is broken, what will be the point of a National Convention? Surely the African Communist could not be suggesting that, with the power of the bosses’ state “broken”, it will be the time to negotiate with the defenceless businessmen about “the perpetuation of capitalism”?
No comrades. Let the movement keep its eyes firmly on the task identified by the April 1985 UDF National Council – to defeat and dismantle the SADF, Koevoet, the SAP, and all the repressive apparatuses. For this purpose, let us carry on the task of building the mass movement with clear revolutionary aims and perspectives, to prepare the victory of the working class, to gain national liberation, and begin the building of socialism.
No political compromises with the capitalists or their representatives!
Forward to a Revolutionary Congress of the People!
Forward to workers’ power, democracy and socialism!
© Translated from the original by the Marxist Workers Party (2021).
No to a Capitalist National Convention – Yes to a Revolutionary Congress of the People
Originally published in Inqaba ya Basebenzi No. 3 (July 1981).
by Daniel Hugo and Paul Storey
The idea of a National Convention to ‘settle’ the future of South Africa by negotiation, has become a theme tune of the ‘liberal’ section of the capitalist class and is repeatedly echoed by the PFP and the English-language press. The idea has also become popular with those members of the black middle class (Buthelezi, Tutu, Motlana, for example) who fraternise with the liberal bosses and preach the benefits of capitalism.
What lies behind this ‘National Convention’ idea, and what attitude should our movement take towards it?
Today the struggles of the oppressed are growing on every side, while the ruling class is being thrown increasingly onto the defensive.
The white elections in April demonstrated, not the strength and self-confidence of the government and its supporters, but their deep divisions and lack of perspective for the future.
The 20th anniversary of the white Republic demonstrated, not the stability or security of the racist regime, but the determination of the black majority – and a growing number of young whites – to overthrow it. Even The Star (3 June) had to admit that the “celebrations” only “highlighted the huge differences in South African society”.
Renewed conflict has erupted between school students and the police in Bosmont, Coronationville, Newclare, Westbury… Struggles have broken out over rent and housing at Tembisa and Reiger Park… Above all, there has been a massive increase in trade union strength and militancy of the black workers.
The Buffelsfontein miners’ strike, the solidarity of Ford and GM workers with their brothers at Firestone, the confrontation at Leyland, the strike and boycott involving Wilson-Rowntree … these are only recent examples among 250 recorded strikes since January 1980.
Just the increase in black trade union membership from 60,000 to 200,000 over the past year has already impressed on the whole country the mighty potential of organised labour to unite and lead the mass movement to victory.
This lesson has not been missed by the bourgeoisie, at home or abroad. The Sunday Express (10 May) quotes a ‘political commentator’:
The pressures Mr Botha is going to have to face over the next few years do not even bear comparison with the tasks of his predecessors. The labour unrest that Mr Botha is going to have to cope with will make June 1976 look like a tea party.
The British Financial Times in its survey on South Africa (26 May) carries the headline: “Black unions the greatest threat” – and doubts whether the “artificial distinction between politics and labour relations can be sustained”.
It cannot and will not be sustained. Increasingly, the class movement of the workers is proving to be the magnetic pole of unity for all the oppressed in the struggle for national and social liberation.
This, above all, terrifies the bosses and underlies the deepening splits within the ruling class and the regime.
The ultra-right who dream of turning the clock back to unvarnished baasskap, can at this point offer no convincing policies either to the big bourgeoisie or even to the majority of white voters. This accounts for the present stalemate of the right wing of the NP, and the failure of the HNP so far to take-off as a mass force.
At the same time the ‘liberal’ capitalists (from Botha/Malan in the NP to the PFP and Oppenheimer), while indulging in empty talk of reform, in practice cannot abandon ruthless police-state methods in confronting the black working class. Botha is notorious as a butcher. Also Oppenheimer’s ‘liberalism’ was exposed in its true colours by the actions of his managers against the Sigma workers.
Nowhere in the world has the capitalist class ever agreed to dismantle the military-police machinery for repression of the working class. And yet the SA capitalists daily discover that brute force alone cannot hold back the mass movement.
This is the background on which we should assess the liberals’ call for a National Convention. They reflect the growing understanding of capitalists that at some point in future, the old methods of military-police repression will have to be decisively supplemented… by relying on the co-operation of leaders from among the blacks.
Of course the tendency in this direction is not new. Both Vorster and Botha have repeatedly set up puppet bodies, like the Bantustan assemblies, the CRC, the SAIC, the President’s Council and the stillborn Black Council, in the hope of hoodwinking the masses.
But the more far-sighted strategists of capital have seen that outright collaborators and stooges among the blacks, far from holding back the mass movement, have only attracted contempt and inflamed the anger of the people.
Instead these capitalists take as their example the Lancaster House ‘settlement’ in Zimbabwe, where they were able to negotiate with acknowledged leaders of the struggle and, with the latter’s help, to rescue capitalism (for the time being) from the jaws of revolution.
As a result, while important changes were conceded in Zimbabwe, the capitalists preserved their property in land and in industry, preserved their position as bosses, preserved the exploitation of the toilers, preserved privileges for whites, and preserved the state machine as an instrument for defending capitalism against the aspirations of the working people.
That is the example they hope to see repeated in South Africa. That is what they have in mind when they call for a National Convention.
The Rand Daily Mail (11 April) comes as near as we can expect to spelling out the purpose of the ‘liberal’ bosses’ National Convention strategy:
Nationalists say a convention would be a ‘sell-out’ of the whites. On the contrary, it is probably the only way to safeguard the security of whites in South Africa over the long term.
Whites have white rule. Blacks want majority rule. An agreement has to be struck somewhere in between. [Emphasis added.]
To the liberals, therefore, a National Convention represents not a vehicle for the orderly concession of democratic rights and equality to the majority, but a conspiracy against democracy and against equality. Here is revealed the gulf which exists between the democratic poses of the liberals and the concrete class interests they defend.
An enormous gulf also exists between the idea of the capitalists’ National Convention and its coming into being.
Previously in Inqaba we have explained why capitalism depends on cheap labour in South Africa, and why this makes it extremely difficult for the ruling class to launch any concerted moves towards democratic reforms. They simply cannot afford to release the working class from its chains.
The US Under-Secretary of State for Africa, Chester Crocker, was reflecting this problem for capitalism when he explained to the American Congress in 1980 the obstacles in the way of a National Convention:
In some policy circles, there is a fixation with the goal of getting Pretoria to schedule a national convention… This is a benign wish, but the practical obstacles are awesome and the prospects at this stage dim…. The basic structure of racial legislation, white political control and the homelands policy will not be dismantled in one dramatic conference – at least not until key elites have developed a far more extensive basis for mutual respect and awareness, or not until the situation has first become desperate. Neither of these conditions exist today.
What the imperialist Crocker means is that for the capitalists to open up negotiations about a democratic constitution at the present stage would be madness.
The “mutual respect and awareness” of “key elites” is already quite “extensive”. Bishop Tutu, for example, is so “aware” of capitalist interests, and “respects” them so utterly, that he is quite willing to see the pass laws only “phased out” (!) in order to “avoid chaos” (!!). Nevertheless a National Convention would place demands on the table which the capitalists cannot possibly accept.
It would awaken enormous expectations among the people that would spill over into revolutionary confrontations once the convention fails – as it must – to meet the demands for immediate and complete democratic rights.
For this reason a National Convention would only be convened as an absolute last resort – when the state is losing control, when the working class is on the point of conquering power factory by factory and street by street, and when the bosses have no alternative but to depend on black leaders to salvage their system.
That time will come in South Africa. It will be the time of greatest opportunity for the working people – when victory is within our grasp, and when a firm revolutionary leadership at the head of the masses would enable the ruling class to be overthrown, the bosses’ state to be destroyed, apartheid to be abolished, and the building of a democratic socialist society to commence.
But that will also be the time of greatest danger. If the leadership trusted by the masses then wavers from the path of revolution, leans towards compromise with the ruling class, and allows itself to be snared in the capitalists’ National Convention strategy, a catastrophe will be prepared.
A revolutionary situation is not a time when the classes are ‘reconciled’, but precisely when their antagonism reaches the greatest height. It is not difficult to foresee the likely consequences which a South African version of ‘Lancaster House’ would entail.
The black leaders involved would be forced to call on the people to suspend their actions ‘for the time being’ and await the outcome of the talks. The momentum of struggle could thus be broken and the unity of the mass movement begin to waver.
Whole sections of workers could lapse into inactivity instead of relentlessly pursuing their drive to wrest power from the capitalist class. New provocations from the ultra-right would spark new out-bursts of mass anger, but now unco-ordinated and without a central lead.
The bosses could drag-out negotiations, relying on the popular leaders in the National Convention to appeal for ‘patience’ and ‘order’, and so wear down the movement with frustration, uncertainty and resulting division.
At the same time, behind the cover of ‘negotiations’, the bosses would re-group the forces of reaction and prepare for counter-attack. Under such conditions the ground would be prepared for counter-revolution, with the state machinery, still uncrushed, playing the crucial role. The police and military would provoke confrontations in the streets, gunning down workers and youth to create an atmosphere of confusion and defeat. Sporadic resistance would be met with savage racist repression.
While the outcome of a resulting civil war would not be a foregone conclusion, on one point we can be sure. Should counter-revolution triumph in South Africa, not only the conciliators of the ‘National Convention’ would be trampled underfoot. Every independent organisation of the working people would be systematically destroyed before the capitalist class could be satisfied that a ‘healthy economic climate’ had been re-established.
Repeatedly it has been shown in history that a policy of class compromise in a time of revolutionary crisis fatally disrupts the workers’ movement and opens the way to defeat. In Spain in the 1930s, the victory of fascism resulted from precisely such a policy; in Chile in 1973, counter-revolution slaughtered over 50,000 workers and peasants. In South Africa a still greater bloodbath could result.
This holocaust of counter-revolution would not stop at the Limpopo. All the gains of the struggles in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Angola and elsewhere would be ruthlessly attacked.
The greatest clarity is needed in our movement to guard against these dangers. The leaders of the mass organisations, in particular of the ANC, need to clearly expose the pitfalls of class collaboration with the capitalists and spell-out the revolutionary alternative.
In his New Year Message for 1981, the ANC President, comrade Tambo, specifically dealt with the question of a national convention.
Correctly, he points out that the call for a national convention is a “call for action” as long as the regime opposes it, and that a national convention could only come about as a consequence of bitter struggle.
The problem arises, however, when the ruling class finds itself with no alternative but to resort to the tactic of the National Convention itself. With this problem, and all its attendant dangers, comrade Tambo unfortunately does not deal.
“The national convention we are talking about,” he says,
…is one which would be a democratic forum vested with sovereign powers. It would bring together the leaders and representatives of the people of South Africa, and would produce a blueprint of the kind of South Africa that would meet the aspirations of the majority.
Also the SA Communist Party has this demand in its programme.
Democracy
But a number of important issues arise from this conception, which it is very important that the leadership consider and clarify.
Firstly, the National Convention proposed by the capitalists and their hangers-on would not be a “democratic forum” at all.
A democratic forum would be a public assembly to which the people in every workplace, township and rural locality send delegates in proportion to their numbers, elected on the basis of one-person-one-vote – and subject to immediate recall to ensure that their electors’ wishes are strictly carried out.
No class, group or party would be entitled to a greater voice in such an assembly than corresponds with its support among the people.
But the capitalists – even the most ‘liberal’ – have in mind no such thing. They want negotiations (if possible behind closed doors) where, far from submitting to the will of the majority, they intend to manipulate, bribe and blackmail, using all their economic power and the threat of the military-police apparatus, in order to secure their interests.
Consequently, on the count of democracy, our demand can have nothing in common with the ‘National Convention’ idea of the capitalists.
Secondly, the National Convention proposed by the capitalists and their hangers-on would not in reality have “sovereign powers” at all. They take it for granted that the convention would meet under the guns and supervision of the existing state. And that state is nothing but the instrument for capitalist dictatorship and minority rule against the majority.
The majority can be truly sovereign only to the extent that the existing state is demolished and democracy secured by the arming of the people.
Therefore the very conditions which comrade Tambo attaches to the ‘national convention’ – if consistently adhered to – would make it the opposite of the ‘National Convention’ which is now conceived of as the last resort by the ‘liberal’ bourgeoisie.
Would it not be better if we in the ANC spelled-out clearly to the people that the capitalist ‘National Convention’ would be a deception and snare which no democrat – let alone socialist – can support?
And would it not be clearer if, instead of using the term ‘national convention’ for our demand – the same term which is used by the liberal tricksters – we reached into the fighting traditions of our movement and raised the slogan of a Revolutionary Congress of the People?
The Kliptown Congress of the People in 1955 itself adopted a ‘blueprint’ – the Freedom Charter – which, whatever its inadequacies, contained the demand for the takeover of the mines, banks and monopoly industries from capitalism, the central element in a revolutionary programme.
But no part of that programme could be implemented because power was not in the hands of the working people. The Congress itself was surrounded and invaded by the armed racist thugs of the bosses’ state.
Workers’ State
Economically and politically, the interests of the working class and all exploited people are directly opposed to those of the capitalist class. The working class needs to organise its full forces and struggle independently of all bourgeois influence, so as to rally round it all the oppressed for the destruction of the capitalist state and the establishment of a democratic workers’ state.
The capitalists, far from surrendering their power, will fight frantically to retain it. Nor does guerrilla action provide the means to overthrow the present regime and the present state. This state will only be defeated by the mass of society rising, arms in hand, against it.
It is the task of the organised working class to prepare and lead the forces in this struggle. The youth in the guerrilla camps need to be freed from their present isolation and integrated into the mass movement, under working class leadership, to share their skills and fighting spirit with the workers, youth and women moving into action.
Neither guerrilla attacks nor a ‘national convention’, but mass armed insurrection in a revolutionary crisis, must be seen as the means – the only possible means – to seize power from the ruling class. On the basis of these perspectives the ANC can and must be built in the factories, townships, mines, reserves, farms and schools as an impregnable fortress of the coming workers’ revolution.
© Transcribed from the original by the Marxist Workers Party (2021).
[1] 11 April 1981
[2] SASPU National, October 1983
[3] 9 April 1985
[4] Star, 25 September 1985
[5] 12 January 1986
[6] 19 January 1986
