(Copies to the Secretariat and to other Sactu formations with responsibility for work.)
Comrades,
My dismissal as editor of Workers Unity by the NEC, at its April meeting in Dar es Salaam, is of very little personal significance. I have always been willing to make my contribution to the workers’ struggle in any capacity.
This dismissal is, however, of considerable political significance – because it indicates a turn by the leadership away from the revolutionary working class standpoint and the tasks which Sactu has put forward over the past period.
For the past three months these matters have been hidden from the rank-and-file members and supporters of Sactu and from the working class at large, even though nothing less than our entire future conduct of the struggle is at stake. This cannot be allowed to continue. I am writing this letter in the hope that the vitally necessary discussion in our ranks, which is already long overdue, may be set in motion.
To understand clearly why the present situation has arisen, it is necessary to look at the development of Workers Unity during the past two-and-a-half years and the growth of the political struggle in Sactu over its political line.
I was the editor of Workers Unity from the time we launched it at the end of 1976 until the fourteenth issue (March 1979). During the period of the tremendous upheavals at home, after the Soweto events of June 1976, when the black working class, young and old, were on the march, it was possible to put forward in Workers Unity – with the unanimous consent of the Editorial Board – a clear revolutionary working class position against national oppression and capitalist exploitation. This was fully consistent with the principles of Sactu laid down in our Constitution nearly twenty-five years ago.
The first six issues of Workers Unity were whole-heartedly endorsed by the NEC at its meeting in January 1978. At the same meeting, the policy statement in the pamphlet, Looking Forward, which expounds the same revolutionary ideas, was adopted unanimously.
However, as time passed, with a temporary lull affecting the black workers’ struggle at home, right-wing and anti-working class pressures began to reassert themselves forcefully in exile. Whispering campaigns began against Workers Unity, denouncing its militant workers’ point of view.
The right-wing wish to limit our movement to an ‘anti-apartheid’ struggle, and refuse to develop the crucial link, through the organisation and mobilisation of the working class, between the struggle for national liberation and the struggle for socialism. The right-wing represents middle class interests against the interests of the workers.
Regrettably, these right-wing pressures also found an echo in Sactu and on the Editorial Board of Workers Unity.
From early in 1978, mounting attempts were made to force the paper to retreat from its established political line, to abandon the standpoint set out in Looking Forward, and to hold Workers Unity back from tackling the burning issues of the practical struggle of the oppressed workers at home.
It became necessary for comrades who stood by the original ideas, to wage a struggle on the Editorial Board to defend the paper. The continuation of the original line of Workers Unity, more or less intact, up to the fourteenth issue, was only made possible by a determined struggle against the proposals and obstructions of the right-wing.
One of the things which increased the displeasure of the right-wing over Workers Unity was the fact that the ideas which the paper put forward, awakened such a strong response among supporters of Sactu, both in South Africa and also in the trade unions and solidarity organisations abroad.
The leadership of Sactu-in-exile has always welcomed diplomatic and financial support. But the support aroused by Workers Unity was more than diplomatic – it was active support; rank-and-file support in the international labour movement; positive support for our ideas and a desire to see Sactu put into effect at home the policies and the practical tasks which Workers Unity proclaimed.
The more campaigns were organised to support Sactu on the basis of the policies put forward in Workers Unity, the more expectations were raised among our supporters and the more questions came to be asked about the progress made by the leadership in building Sactu in South Africa.
The questions asked of Sactu abroad are only a small reflection of the burning questions in the minds of the class-conscious workers who read Workers Unity at home.
Increasingly, the leadership was brought face-to-face with vital questions about its intentions, and vital choices affecting the future of Sactu itself. Either Sactu had to be developed inside South Africa to fulfil its potential as a revolutionary trade union – an independent workers’ organisation linked to the liberation struggle – or its credibility would more and more be called into question before the workers of South Africa and of the world. Workers Unity – by its analysis, by its demands, by the practical tasks it put forward – was casting a spotlight upon Sactu itself.
The revolutionary road ahead was clear: Sactu had to break with the passivity of the past fifteen years in exile and begin seriously to organise among the workers of South Africa.
But to the right-wing, who fear the independent organisation of the working class, the alternative was to remove the ‘irritation’ of Workers Unity – by taking it under their control, and reversing its original political line. That has been the essence of the strategy of the right-wing in Sactu in the political struggle of the past year. Their intention is to lace Sactu up in a straitjacket in exile, and tame its workers’ voice.
At first the Marxist left-wing in Sactu (of which I consider myself a part) was supported in the defence of Workers Unity by some comrades among the leadership. But the right-wing, regrettably, enjoys a bureaucratic power in exile which it would not retain for long if the oppressed workers of South Africa could be the judge of its merits. As time passed, those leading comrades who had supported us wavered. Because of their conservatism, political uncertainty, and fear of a struggle, the good intentions of these elements fell prey to the pressures of the right-wing.
It was not only in London that these pressures were brought to bear. In Dar es Salaam, I am told, the point was reached where the pamphlet, Looking Forward, was placed under an informal ‘ban’ – with leading comrades in Sactu keeping their own official policy document locked-away and undistributed.
As is usually the case with those whose ideas cannot stand-up to open discussion and criticism, the right-wing did not fight their battle against the policies of Workers Unity by means of a free and full debate in Sactu.
Around mid-1978, it became common knowledge that certain members of the Editorial Board were expressing dissatisfaction about Workers Unity outside Board meetings, and outside the ranks of Sactu, while at the same time giving their formal (if grudging) consent on the Editorial Board to the contents of every issue published.
One member of the Editorial Board (who is also on the NEC) reported these facts to the Board at the time, describing what was taking place as “a dirty campaign against Sactu”.
We immediately urged that a special meeting be held to bring all the issues into the open for full discussion, so that all complaints could be properly aired, properly resolved, and the work of Sactu taken forward. This meeting was agreed to, but never held.
More than six months before the NEC met in Dar es Salaam, it had already come to my attention – from Africa, Britain and elsewhere in Europe – that moves were going on behind the scenes to have me removed as Editor. Even in solidarity circles, the word was put out that I was soon to be removed for my political views. In Africa, during January, I heard the news that I was ‘no longer’ the Editor of Workers Unity… but that was at least a little premature!
On the Editorial Board the debates had become increasingly intense, and deadlock repeatedly arose over crucial political issues. I was accused, together with another comrade on the Editorial Board, of always wanting Workers Unity to put forward Marxist ideas! Yes, precisely – because it is only on the basis of the scientific ideas of Marxism, and under Marxist leadership, that the workers’ movement in South Africa can be victorious.
By the early part of this year, the right-wing were making it clear that they expected the April NEC meeting to “resolve” the deadlock over Workers Unity. For my part, I hoped that this might be done by the NEC conducting a full discussion, throughout the ranks of Sactu, and a thorough study of all the issues involved – so that our work could be taken forward.
But the anti-Marxist right-wing on the Editorial Board and among the leadership of Sactu had a different outcome in mind. They were determined to have me removed as Editor of Workers Unity. They saw this as a necessary step to be able to take the paper firmly under their own political control.
The NEC has cleared the way for the right-wing to do just that. The consequence will be to stifle the independent workers’ voice with which the paper has spoken in the past.
I shall leave aside the fact that the NEC dismissed me in my absence, without a hearing, and without informing me in advance that it was to consider any complaint against me or any proposal to remove me.
I shall leave aside, too, the ‘inability’ of the Secretariat to secure my clearance to enter Tanzania, so that I was conveniently prevented from attending the meeting.
The important issues are the political ones – and they involve nothing less than the future of our organisation and its role in the workers’ struggle.
I sent a memorandum to the NEC raising for its consideration vital matters of policy, strategy and tactics, on which all the political differences in Sactu hinge and on which the future of Sactu itself depends.
Refusing formally even to consider the memorandum, the NEC resolved to dismiss me from my post. I was also removed from the Editorial Board.
The NEC can remove me as an individual, but it cannot remove Sactu from the very serious questions and problems facing it – if it is to take-up its task and duty of organising the workers at home. The desire of the NEC to avoid these questions, and to turn its back on these problems and tasks, is shown by its failure to give me reasons for my dismissal – other than to say vaguely: “you were putting forward policies which were not those of Sactu”.
What policies? And where am I said to have put them forward? In Workers Unity over the past two-and-a-half years? In my memorandum to the NEC?
On these questions the NEC maintains a stony silence – despite the fact that nearly three months have now elapsed since my dismissal and despite my repeated written requests to the NEC during this period.
I have asked for the reasons to be specified in writing, not for my personal satisfaction, but because the issues raised by Workers Unity and by Looking Forward, and which are elaborated in the memorandum, are very important matters for the whole of Sactu, and indeed for the whole working class movement in South Africa to consider and debate.
As for my own politics, I repeat what I have written to the NEC before: I stand for the principles set out in the Constitution of Sactu; for the Sactu policy statement in the pamphlet, Looking Forward; and for the line expressed in the first fourteen issues of Workers Unity, the official organ of Sactu. I stand, furthermore, for the ideas in the memorandum which I submitted to the NEC on 8 April.
If, as I believe, the leadership of Sactu-in-exile is now turning its back on the principles and policies set out in the Constitution, in those fourteen issues of Workers Unity and in Looking Forward – and is instead now dictated in its course by the disastrous policies of the right-wing – this cannot be allowed to occur without full discussion throughout our ranks and WITHOUT THE FULL IMPLICATIONS BEING BROUGHT HOME TO THE WORKERS’ MOVEMENT.
By refusing to spell out the precise political reasons for my dismissal, the leadership hopes to prevent discussion and to carry through its right turn behind the backs of the workers and supporters of Sactu. Surely this is a situation which is wholly unacceptable in an organisation basing itself on the principles of working class democracy?
I would be failing in my revolutionary duty, and in my loyalty to the working class and to Sactu itself, if I knowingly allowed such a thing to pass in silence. The situation is made all the more urgent by the crisis facing the trade union movement in South Africa in the wake of the Wiehahn Commission, and the essential tasks of Sactu at home among the workers at the present time.
These are added reasons for me to associate myself with the statement made today to the NEC by members of the Sactu Technical Sub-Committee in London – which I have also signed.
Fraternally in the struggle,
Robert Petersen
(Formerly Editor of Workers Unity) London
© Transcribed from the original by the Marxist Workers Party (2020).
