{"id":1207,"date":"2020-03-30T17:04:02","date_gmt":"2020-03-30T15:04:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marxistworkersparty.org.za\/?page_id=1207"},"modified":"2020-04-23T11:39:38","modified_gmt":"2020-04-23T09:39:38","slug":"chapter-four","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/?page_id=1207","title":{"rendered":"Chapter Four"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Strategy and Tasks<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In a sense, the South African\nrevolution has begun. We have now entered upon (in Trotsky\u2019s words) \u201ca series\nof battles, disturbances, changing situation, abrupt turns, constituting in\ntheir entirety the different stages in the proletarian revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that does not mean we are in\na \u2018revolutionary situation\u2019 \u2013 i.e., that the objective conditions have matured\nfor the victory of the revolution, or that the overthrow of the regime is\nimminent. On the contrary. The state is still immensely strong. Only the first\nreal cracks are appearing in the foundations of the racist system. The forces\nof bourgeois reaction have by no means yet been fully mobilised, let alone\ntested and exhausted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will require years of\ndrawn-out, tenacious struggles, in which millions of oppressed people rise to\ntheir feet \u2013 where there will be defeats as well as victories, retreats as well\nas advances, bloody clashes and mighty shocks \u2013 before the way will have been\nprepared for the collapse and overthrow of the regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This process can extend over\nfive, ten or even more years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The strategy of the black working\nclass movement in SA must, on the one hand, be based on the fact that we are\nnow in the epoch of the revolution; that tens-of-thousands are already locked\nin daily battle with the ruling class and the state; that the task of\nconquering state power now looms over everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, however,\nstrategy has to take account of the fact that state power cannot be conquered\nin SA through one or a few cataclysmic blows. This situation gives rise to many\ncontradictions and poses tremendous difficulties in front of the movement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

International Experience<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is necessary, if we are to\nfind the way forward in South Africa, to make a careful study of other revolutions,\ninsurrections and civil wars. From them we must glean all possible theoretical\ninsights and practical experiences to apply to the SA situation. But historical\nexamples and parallels must not be taken one-sidedly, or applied mechanically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no general blueprint for\nrevolution; everywhere and at every time it is necessary to make a concrete\nanalysis of the fundamental processes and the relation of forces between the\nclasses in struggle, while taking account also of peculiar and exceptional circumstances\nthat may arise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1895 old Engels wrote an\nintroduction to Marx\u2019s work, The Class\nStruggles in France, 1848-50<\/em>, in which he explained how the changes which\nhad taken place in Europe after 1850 necessitated careful reappraisal of the\nstrategy of proletarian revolution there and of the preparations necessary for\na victorious insurrection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through a long period of\nrelatively peaceful development of capitalist industry, the bourgeoisie had\nbeen able to consolidate a formidable state power, and much more reliable\nmilitary means for the suppression of insurrection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Engels termed \u201cthe\nunprepared onslaught\u201d was no longer a means of gaining victory, as it had been\nin the past. \u201cRebellion in the old style, the street fight with barricades,\nwhich up to 1848 gave everywhere the final decision, was to a considerable\nextent obsolete.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This did not mean that\nstreet-fighting, barricades, etc., would have no role to play in the\nproletarian revolution. But they would not suffice<\/strong>,\nas in the past, to win over the troops and thus bring down the government. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Need for Preparation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was now necessary for\nrevolution to be more thoroughly and consciously prepared<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The time of surprise attacks, of revolutions carried through by small conscious minorities at the head of unconscious masses, is past. Where it is a question of a complete transformation of the social organisation, the masses themselves must also be in it, must themselves already have grasped what is at stake, what they are going in for with body and soul… But in order that the masses may understand what is to be done, long, persistent work is required…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This would require a combination\nof tactics, depending upon the circumstances: the building of powerful trade\nunions, political organisation, propaganda work and parliamentary activity (where\nworkers had the franchise).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making full use of the sphere of\nlegal activity permitted to it, the working class would strengthen its\nposition, win the middle layers of society to its side, undermine the state and\ndrive the bourgeoisie to \u2018despair\u2019. Instead of depending on the lightning\nrevolts which in the past had characterised the movement of the revolutionary\nproletariat, it was necessary now to engage, in effect, in a protracted war of\nposition against the bourgeoisie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the conscious purpose of these\nmethods of struggle would be to prepare\nthe ground for revolution<\/strong> \u2013 to lay the basis ultimately for an armed mass\nstruggle which could succeed in breaking the loyalty of the troops and winning\nthem to the side of the working class in action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Engels, having set out in detail\nthe military difficulties of overthrowing a powerfully armed industrial state,\nposed this question:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does that mean that in the future the street fight will play no further role? Certainly not. It only means that the conditions since 1848 have become far more unfavourable for civil fights, far more favourable for the military. A future street fight can therefore only be victorious<\/strong> when this unfavourable situation is compensated by other factors. Accordingly, it will occur more seldom in the beginning of a great revolution than in its further progress, and will have to be undertaken with greater forces. (Our emphasis.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It is the lesson of revolution\neverywhere that so long as the armed forces of the state remain basically\nintact; so long as the ruling class retains an effective monopoly of armed\nforce; so long, in other words, as it can rely on its troops and so exercise\nmilitary superiority \u2013 the revolution cannot triumph.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In purely material terms, the\nruling class and the state possess overwhelming advantages militarily. A\nstrategy for defeating the state involves first and foremost crippling the\nability of the ruling class to use its military forces against the revolution \u2013\nby rendering the troops politically unreliable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This general point applies just\nas much in a country like South Africa where the troops, overwhelmingly, are\ndrawn from and led by a racial group separate from the revolutionary masses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is why a victorious\nrevolution \u2013 and even insurrection itself \u2013 is nine-tenths a question of the political preparations<\/strong> and only\none-tenth a military question. But, at the same time, the military element\nremains absolutely decisive also.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Troops \u2013 who face the threat of\nbeing shot by their officers for mutiny \u2013 can only be infected by revolution to\nthe point of deserting en masse<\/em> or\nturning their guns against their own commanders and going over to the \u2018people\u2019 once the revolution shows that it has the\nstrength to win and the will to go through to the end<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Revolutions in Europe<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The great revolutionary upheavals\nwhich swept over Europe at the end of the First World War demonstrated that\neven the strongest bourgeois states could be brought to the verge of collapse\nby a mass working class movement, once fully mobilised and seeking a revolutionary\nway out of the nightmare of capitalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this revolutionary wave was\ndefeated \u2013 mainly because the workers were held back from decisively conquering\npower by reformist leaders of the mass organisations! At the same time, young\nand undeveloped revolutionary organisations proved unable to lead the working\nclass to take or hold power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the long decades of relatively\n\u2018peaceful\u2019 capitalist development prior to the First World War, the labour\nleaders had used trade unionism, parliamentary activity, etc., not as a means\nof consciously preparing the working class for revolution, but as a means of\nreconciling the proletariat with the bourgeoisie in the name of an imaginary\nstep-by-step transition through reforms to ultimate \u2018socialism\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of seeing reforms, as\nMarxists see them, as the by-product of the workers\u2019 revolutionary struggle,\nthe leaders of the labour-bureaucracy promoted reforms as the be-all and\nend-all of the movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, when it came to revolution,\nthey were found wanting, and in many notorious cases crossed-over blatantly to\nthe side of the ruling class. They split the workers\u2019 organisations, crippled\nthem and demoralised the masses, preparing the way for vicious\ncounter-revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was only in Russia that there\nhad been built a revolutionary party and cadre \u2013 the Bolsheviks \u2013 sufficiently\nstrongly rooted in the workers\u2019 movement to succeed on the basis of Marxist\nideas in defeating the influence of the reformists and so decisively affect the\noutcome of the struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the Russian Revolution \u2013 the \u2018classic\u2019\nproletarian revolution as far as Marxists are concerned \u2013 nevertheless took\nplace in highly unusual, indeed exceptional circumstances. Trotsky has\nexplained (see, for example, Lessons of\nOctober<\/em>) that the actual course of the Russian Revolution, far from\nproviding an exact pattern of other revolutions in future, could not be\nreplicated elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In February 1917 the Tsar was\noverthrown by a virtually peaceful and\npractically unarmed mass uprising<\/strong>, led by the workers. The ruling class\ncould not immediately resort to civil war against the proletariat because it\nlacked the weapon with which to do so. This was despite the colossal size of\nthe Russian army.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Russian army was, in\ncomposition, essentially a peasant army. The terrible conditions which had\ndeveloped in the course of the First World War, the horrific slaughter and\nstalemate in the trenches, and the suffering of the oppressed, landless and\nindebted peasants, combined to shatter the cohesion and discipline of the army\nand drive it to revolt. The Russian soldiers participated in the forefront of\nthe revolution, elected delegates to the soviets, etc., alongside the working\nclass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, the bourgeoisie\ncould manoeuvre, leaning on the reformist leaders, Mensheviks and Social\nRevolutionaries, who were raised to power by the mass movement in the first\nperiod of the revolution. Thus they\ncould gain time while preparing for counter-revolution.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As previously explained, the\ntasks of the revolution were bourgeois-democratic and it was only through experience\nthat the mass of the proletariat could realise the necessity of itself taking\nstate power in order to carry-out these tasks. Not through experience alone,\nhowever, but with the help of patient explanation by the Marxist cadres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only when the workers were clear\nas to the tasks could they in turn win the support of the poor peasants for the\nconquest of power. The role of the party was to raise and organise the\nconsciousness of the working class. Had there not been a strong Bolshevik\nparty, with the clear political leadership of Lenin and Trotsky, then the Russian\nRevolution would have been defeated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As it was, the revolutionary\nturmoil, and the groping of the working class towards power, propelled the\nruling class to the premature adventure of General Kornilov\u2019s revolt in August\n1917 \u2013 an attempt at a counter-revolutionary military coup and overthrow of the\nreformist Kerensky regime. Kornilov\u2019s attack collapsed. His forces\ndisintegrated or were won over by the armed workers, led by the Bolsheviks.\nThis prepared the way for the victorious workers\u2019 insurrection in October. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Almost Without Bloodshed<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By that stage, such was the\nweakness and virtual collapse of bourgeois resistance, as well as the\ndiscrediting and disarray of the reformists, that the October insurrection itself was accomplished almost without\nbloodshed<\/strong> \u2013 at least in Petrograd, where it began, and which was the\nepicentre of the revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was only after<\/strong> the workers were in power that the civil war opened in earnest.\nAgain, the First World War decisively affected events. Only after the victory\nof the Allied imperialist powers in the world war could they organise\nintervention by 21 foreign armies against the revolution in Russia. Had it not\nbeen for the existence and strength of the Bolshevik party and the conquest of\npower by the working class, the giving of the land to the peasants, etc., there\ncould have been no question of revolutionary victory in the civil war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trotsky pointed out that the\npeculiar combination of circumstances surrounding the Russian Revolution of\n1917 could not be repeated, and that in all likelihood serious armed clashes\nwould occur between the ruling class and the mass movement well before<\/strong> the victory of the workers\u2019\nrevolution in most developed countries in future. This was because the\nbourgeoisie would probably have more favourable conditions and initially more\nreliable armed forces at its command, and would use them all the more\nvigorously in civil war against the proletariat \u2013 not least because of the\nlessons it had learned from the Russian Revolution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Civil War Developing in SA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is obvious that, in South\nAfrica, peaceful or even relatively peaceful conquest of state power is out of\nthe question, and that, with elements of civil war already developing in the\ncountry, conditions for eventual armed insurrection will only develop out of\ncivil war. All the powers of resistance of capitalist society, all the forces\nof the white reaction, will have to be overcome in struggle before the conquest\nof state power is completed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The strategic task is to turn what will otherwise become a barbarous\nracial war into a revolutionary class war.<\/strong> That will demand tremendous\ncapacities of organisation and leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The example of the Spanish\nRevolution of the 1930s is instructive. There the mere election of the Popular\nFront in 1936 was enough to propel the ruling class to civil war. They had the\nopportunity to use the army against the workers and poor peasants, and they did\nso ruthlessly. The landlords and capitalists sided overwhelmingly with Franco\u2019s\nmilitary rebellion against the Republic. This was despite the fact that bourgeois<\/strong> Republican \u2018democrats\u2019 filled\nthe seats in the first Popular Front government, while the Socialist and\nCommunist Parties were not included in the Cabinet at that stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reason the ruling class\nresorted to armed counter-revolution was that even the most tame \u2018democratic\u2019\nand reformist programme endorsed by the labour leaders in the Popular Front\ncould not disguise the reality that a proletarian revolution was inevitably\ntaking place. The class questions were to the fore; the issue of property<\/strong> was starkly posed in the\nmovement of the workers in the towns and of the agricultural labourers and poor\npeasants on the land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In South Africa even genuine\ndemocratic elections are ruled-out this side of the victory of the workers\u2019\nrevolution, for reasons we analysed earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Spain, the refusal of the\nSocialist and Communist leaders to recognise that a socialist revolution was\ninvolved, and the vicious measures especially of the latter to forcibly hold\nback the working class in the name of a \u2018democratic\u2019 class-compromise with the\nbourgeoisie and landowners, led to the revolution\u2019s defeat and the crushing by\nFranco of the Spanish proletariat for a whole generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In South Africa the movement must\nbe organised and led on a clear policy of preparing the forces for socialist\nrevolution, if there is to be a victory of the working class in the civil war\nwhich looms ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Problem of Leadership<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The success of the proletarian revolution internationally depends above\nall on solving the problem of leadership.<\/strong> This was shown in all the great\ninter-war revolutions which were defeated; again in the aftermath of the Second\nWorld War; again in all the capitalist countries today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Europe, the end of the Second\nWorld War provided exceptional objective opportunities for the victory of the\nworking class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The troops who had come through\nthat terrible slaughter, and had seen the near-barbarism to which capitalism\nhad reduced much of the world, wanted to change society. The workers had\ntraining in arms, were battle-hardened, and in many cases had arms in hand; the\nbourgeoisie could not wield the state power effectively against them. In fact\nin several European countries, capitalism was only rescued, and the masses\ndisarmed, by the combined intervention of the Communist Party leaders (carrying\nout Stalin\u2019s policy of agreement with imperialism to maintain capitalism in Western\nEurope) and the reformist leaders of the old Social Democratic mass parties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This, together with the ensuing\nlong post-War economic upswing, is what stabilised capitalism in the West for a\nwhole historical period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, as the advanced capitalist\ncountries enter a new epoch of crisis, the proletariat there has such an overwhelming\nweight in society that even the peaceful<\/strong>\nconquest of power and transformation of society would in theory<\/strong> be entirely possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But again, the hold of reformism\nand Stalinism in the bureaucracy of the labour movement means that the\nawakening working class, as it moves beyond reformism, first has to clear out\nof its path these entrenched and complicated obstacles before it can unite its\nforces for the socialist revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In order to transform society, the working class first has to transform\nits own organisations into conscious instruments of revolutionary struggle.<\/strong>\nThus the process of the revolution will inevitably be long drawn-out and\nconfused, and therefore it will inevitably be bloody. The bourgeoisie in the advanced\n\u2018democratic\u2019 capitalist countries will have the opportunity to, and will,\nresort to methods of civil war against the working class in years to come\ndespite the enormous risks for capitalism in doing so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In these countries, as much as\nanywhere, the proletariat can come to power only when it succeeds, by virtue of\nits social power, unity in action, and conscious socialist leadership and\nprogramme, in winning over the bulk of the armed forces and police to the side\nof the revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without such leadership and\nprogramme, victorious insurrection will prove to be the exception rather than\nthe rule in any of the more or less industrialised countries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Insurrection in Iran<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A brilliant \u2013 though quite exceptional<\/strong> \u2013 example of a\nvictorious insurrection in recent years was Iran, with the overthrow of the\nShah in 1979. Let us remember that the Shah\u2019s army was the fourth most powerful\nmilitary machine in the world. Yet, the Shah, a stooge of imperialism, who\nattempting to \u2018modernise\u2019 Iran on the basis of a diseased capitalist system and\nunder a degenerate and viciously repressive dictatorship, succeeded in\nalienating completely not only the working class and the urban middle class,\nbut the mass of the peasants as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually, through tremendously\nheroic, sustained urban uprisings, in which the masses endured massacres from\nground troops and from helicopter gun-ships again and again but refused to give\nway, conditions were prepared for the collapse of the state itself. The army\nfinally disintegrated and the troops went over to the revolution when the workers\nthemselves moved decisively, notably with the strike of the oil workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once the army broke in the Shah\u2019s\nhands, his entire regime collapsed like a house of cards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, tragically, because of\nthe perfidious role played by the Iranian Communist (Tudeh) Party (which on the\ndictates of Moscow had given only formal opposition to the Shah), the mullahs\nwere able to place themselves at the head of the revolution and mix, in the\nminds of the masses, anti-imperialist revolutionary sentiments with the\nintoxicating fumes of reactionary Islamic fundamentalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus the lack of Marxist\nleadership has led the revolution into the dreadful impasse of the last five\nyears. (Now, at last, there are signs of the Iranian proletariat beginning to\nmove again onto the road of struggle.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would be completely incorrect\nto take the Iranian insurrection without further ado as a simple \u2018model\u2019 for\nthe coming revolution and insurrection in South Africa. The Iranian workers,\nyouth and peasants had the difficult enough task of winning over troops who\ncould at least identify with them in class and national terms. In SA the\nproblem is obviously a hundred-times more difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The SA armed state apparatus is\nso formidable because it is rigidly cemented together on a foundation of racial\nprivilege. Resting on a substantial one-sixth of the population \u2013 the five\nmillion whites totally separated in material life and conscious identity from\nthe revolutionary black masses \u2013 it cannot be cracked easily or taken by mere\nfrontal assault.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The more stretched the state\nforces become, and the more successful the masses are in arming themselves, the\nmore viciously unrestrained the army and police will become. Moreover \u2013 to the\nextent that the armed masses succeed in rendering the state, albeit partially\nand for brief periods, impotent \u2013 the more open and ugly will become the armed\nmobilisation of the white civil reaction, with features of inter-racial\ncommunal fighting and barbarities entering into the picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if power cannot be taken simply by frontal attack, in one or a few\ntitanic blows, there are also immense barriers in SA in the way of a long\ndrawn-out semi-peaceful \u2018war of position\u2019 and of slow accumulation of organised\nstrength on the part of the working class.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The situation which has existed\nfor the rising trade union movement over the past decade cannot continue\nindefinitely into the future, as the system is convulsed by crisis and as the\nroom for capitalist reforms is narrowed or turned into its opposite with ever more\nsavage attacks on the working class. This is the essential predicament facing\nthe trade unions, and goes against the unspoken long-term strategy which has\nguided many of the union leaders. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Social-democratic Misconception<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within many of the biggest\nindependent unions there has been the misconception that it would be possible\nin South Africa indefinitely to construct the union movement on similar lines\nto Western European Social Democracy in the past, with a stable official apparatus,\na long and largely peaceful struggle for step-by-step reforms, in the hope of\nsolving the workers\u2019 problems without a decisive struggle for state power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even in the advanced capitalist\ncountries the steady advance in the position of the working class was sustained\nonly by the peculiar interlude of the twenty-five year post-war upswing of\ncapitalism. Now the basis for it is crumbling away, with the sustained attacks\non living standards and trade union rights, and the big movements of the proletariat\nwhich have begun in Western Europe. These movements enter at once into bitter\nconflict with the reformist bureaucrats who have become entrenched at the head\nof the labour movement over the past decades of compromise with capitalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Far from modelling themselves in\nany way whatever on the labour bureaucracy<\/strong>\nof the West, all leaders of democratic unions in SA should be vigorously\npursuing direct links of solidarity with the militant ranks<\/strong> of the international labour movement as they enter into struggle\nagainst capitalism and reformism. They should be carrying out a concerted\ncampaign among SA workers to expose the role the Social-Democratic and\nStalinist leaders have played in the defeats of the working class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also mistaken in South Africa has\nbeen the idea that the unions could limit<\/strong>\nthemselves to maintaining organisational independence from the liberation\nmovement in the hope of protecting the position of the workers \u2018under a future\nblack government\u2019. The reality is that\nthe black majority will not be able to elect a government in SA until the\nworking class succeeds in taking power.<\/strong> That process will necessitate the\nunions moving into the front ranks of the liberation struggle, and being\nconsciously developed into effective instruments, not only of \u2018economic\u2019\nstruggle, but of the workers\u2019 revolutionary struggle for power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The struggle for the political\nindependence of the working class can be won only by the working class taking\nthe lead of the whole movement in an organised and conscious way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In South Africa we have entered\ninescapably into a period of revolution and counter-revolution, of enormous\nbattles, shocks, advances and setbacks, in which all the best-laid plans for \u2018peaceful\u2019\nadvance will be ruined. This despite the fact that there will be semi-peaceful\ninterludes and contradictory phases when the tendency of events appears to be\nin the opposite direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, the harsh process\nof the struggle itself will inevitably sort out within the trade unions the\nrevolutionaries from the reformists, with many of the latter going into early\nretirement or, finding employment elsewhere, rather than face up to the tasks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gains of the independent\nunions over the past twelve years can be defended and consolidated only by\npreparing them consciously for revolution, and not for any length of time by\nadapting them or containing them within bounds presently \u2018tolerable\u2019 to even\nthe most \u2018liberal\u2019 section of the capitalists. That would lead only to eventual\ndefeat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is only through a\nrevolutionary-strategic conception of trade union work that these vital organs\nof the SA proletariat \u2013 embryonic organs of a future workers\u2019 democracy in fact\n\u2013 will be able to survive and surmount the inevitable attacks of the state and\nthe bourgeoisie in the coming years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In saying this, we fully\nrecognise that trade unions are inherently conceived as organisations for the\neconomic struggle, for improvements of the workers\u2019 material conditions under\ncapitalism; that they are by nature organs suited to a long drawn-out \u2018war of\nposition\u2019 and gradual accumulation of strength. Many thousands, perhaps the\nmajority, of the rank-and-file naturally still see them in that light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sober-minded workers can also\nsee that there is no quick victory\npossible against the state<\/strong>. Therefore, they are usually reluctant to commit\ntheir organisations to what may turn-out to be costly adventures, perhaps\ndestroying the gains so painstakingly made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is one of the most important\nfactors which has operated to keep major unions out of the UDF, reinforcing the\nposition of union leaders who have failed to give a clear political lead on\nthis issue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Unions have to Struggle Politically<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, revolution in SA is not\na matter of choice for these or any other workers. Workers who have built a\nbasis of power in the mines and factories, and through the unions, inevitably\nhave to use these organisations to struggle politically, to meet the attacks\nand provocations of the state. Thus there are repeated convulsive movements in\nwhich the trade union activists, responding to the pressures of the\nrank-and-file, try to work-out ways of steering their organisations into the forefront\nof political struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the one hand, therefore, the\norganised workers come up against the limitations of a slow \u2018war of position\u2019,\nand of unions simply as trade unions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, the youth\nmovement, volatile, impatient, and ready for the most heroic actions, comes up\nagainst the limitations of the spontaneous and \u2018unprepared onslaughts\u2019 of the\npast period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As illusions in the possibility of\na quick victory against the regime have been dashed, the youth have turned to\nseek a stable organisational basis by linking up with the big battalions of the\nmovement \u2013 the organisations constructed in the factories, the mines, etc. \u2013 the\nunions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Passing into the UDF, the youth\nfind the big unions have no organised presence and are providing no leadership\nthere, while the present middle class leaders offer no coherent action\nprogramme or strategy for power. Those sections of the youth who have been\nrepelled by this and drawn instead to the radical \u2018socialist\u2019 rhetoric of the\nNational Forum and Azapo, find there some well-developed vocal chords but no\nbones, muscles or sinews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the way out of this\npredicament, which increasingly tears the movement with sterile splits and even\ndisgraceful physical fighting between the contending factions and\norganisations?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is impossible, by constructing\n\u2018ideological\u2019 models and trying to impose them on the living movement, to\ndevelop a coherent revolutionary strategy. Strategy consists in drawing out the\napparently contradictory threads of the real processes going on in the movement of the masses themselves<\/strong>,\nand weaving these together into a scientific conception. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Objective Basis of Strategy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have in SA a rising black\nworkers\u2019 movement which must inevitably flow through the channels provided by\nthe unions, and which must take those organisations and turn them onto the road\nof revolutionary political struggle. And on the other hand we have a\nrevolutionary movement of the black working class youth which, for effectiveness,\nmust find a way of fighting in harness together with the power of labour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These objective tendencies and\nneeds found their clearest expression so far in the organisation of the\nTransvaal general strike last November. There the youth organisations, wishing\nto initiate action, came together with the most advanced trade union militants\nof different sections, drawing in outstanding community leaders together with\nthem. The UDF leaders followed and endorsed the action. The Azapo leaders, for\ntheir part, denounced it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What gave the strike its\ntremendous force was precisely this combined action of the youth and the\nworkers, in which the power of the big organisations of labour was supplemented\nby the energy, drive and organising initiatives of the young militants\nthemselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the ultimate test of the\nsuccess of actions of this kind is the role they play in building the movement\nin conscious preparation for the struggle for power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The best way of moving forward\nfrom that strike would have been to prepare, vigorously but carefully, a subsequent\ntwo-day national general strike, as we have argued in other material. However,\nneither the trade union nor youth leaders approached the problem with a\nsufficiently clearly worked out strategic framework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The conservatives among the union\nofficials quickly manoeuvred to obstruct any tendency towards further general\nstrike action at that time. The rank-and-file, they said, were \u2018not willing\u2019 to\nrepeat the Transvaal general strike. Of course they were not willing to do\nthat! \u2013 what would have been the point? Similarly, an unlimited<\/strong> general strike would have been an adventure, leading to a\nbig defeat at that stage. The workers could sense that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But had there been a clearly\nexplained and well-organised plan to extend the movement nationally<\/strong> by means of a two-day strike, maintaining the momentum\nalready built-up, bringing in the mineworkers (who were by then ready to move),\nfighting on a clear issue (such as Sasol), using the full authority of the\nunions and the UDF, and the energies of the youth organisations, to raise the\nconflict with the state to a higher step, a tremendous response would have been\nforthcoming from the proletariat \u2013 in the Transvaal, in the Eastern Cape, and\nthroughout the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sensing the danger in the\nsituation, the regime moved quickly to arrest the participants in the organising\ncommittee of the Transvaal general strike, and made it clear that in any\nsimilar action that might be organised in future, the leadership would be\narrested before, not after, the event. This has highlighted the necessity for\nthe militant leadership of the workers\u2019 and youth movement to develop more\neffective underground methods of work, together with open organisation, in the\nstruggle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Revolutionary Workers\u2019 Party<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But above all, these circumstances bring out clearly the need for a\nrevolutionary workers\u2019 party if the struggle is to be led in a clear and\ndecisive manner.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, how is such a thing to\narise? The situation in South Africa will prove merciless to half-baked\norganisational as well as political conceptions. The idea that the unions themselves,\nthrough some kind of conference decision in future, can simply launch a workers\u2019\nparty in SA is naive wishful thinking, as we have explained in Inqaba<\/em> (e.g. No. 11) before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first place, a\nrevolutionary workers\u2019 party (if it was genuinely that) would be illegal from\nthe beginning. That has to be acknowledged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secondly, the mass of the workers\nalready look to the ANC. They obviously do not have need of a reformist<\/strong> party. A viable alternative<\/strong> to the ANC would have to\ngrip the imagination of the mass of the workers as being a more effective instrument for the revolutionary achievement of\nnational liberation and workers\u2019 power<\/strong> than they have already.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even assuming that a majority of\ntrade union members would agree to launch a \u2018workers\u2019 party\u2019 in competition\nwith the ANC, how would it go about establishing its credibility among the\nunorganised masses and among the youth who look to Congress? How would it avoid\nmerely causing further confusion and splits of the movement at this stage? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The closer loom the revolutionary\ntasks, the less can the awakening mass of the workers afford to abandon the traditional mass political\norganisation of the past, which signifies to them unity of the oppressed people\nin the struggle for power<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is enough to pose the question\nin this way for the general outlines of a solution to the problem to appear. The revolutionary workers\u2019 party and\nworkers\u2019 leadership which is needed in South Africa can be created successfully\nin a struggle of organised workers and youth to build and transform for their\npurpose the ANC itself.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Understanding this task and how to carry it out constitutes the core of\na revolutionary strategy in South Africa. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Rooted in Working Class Organisations<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clearly, there can be no\neffective revolutionary leadership of the struggle which is not rooted in the\nexisting organisations in the factories, mines, etc., and the grassroots\norganisations of the working class youth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first step in a battle for a\nclear strategy, programme and leadership of revolution is to win the support of\nthe advanced workers and youth for Marxist ideas. This must take place with the\nutmost urgency, by the method of honest fraternal discussion, with the weapons\nof facts, figures and reasoned argument, within the trade unions, the factory-\nand shop-stewards\u2019 committees, and the youth and community organisations of the\nblack working class throughout South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every committed socialist is urged to join with Inqaba<\/em> and the Marxist Workers Tendency of the ANC in this task.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the advanced workers and\nyouth to carry clear revolutionary ideas to the masses \u2013 and also learn from\nthe masses at the same time \u2013 it is necessary to put aside all sectarian\nnotions. Marxists must go where the mass movement goes as it arises and in its\nmillions moves into action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These millions will inevitably\nmove, on the one hand, towards the new union federation, where industrial\norganisation and struggle is concerned, and on the other hand, towards the\nbanner of the ANC (in all its forms) for the struggle to overthrow the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore all revolutionary\nactivists have as their duty to orient, on the one hand to the new federation,\nand on the other to the ANC banner in order to reach the ear and understanding\nof the masses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is the basis of our whole\norientation as the Marxist Workers Tendency of the ANC. That has been the foundation\nalso of our policy of urging the unions to make a conscious, organised turn\ninto the UDF on a clear programme of action, so that the working class can\nrapidly take the leadership of the whole political struggle into its hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By systematic activity within the\nmass<\/strong> organisations it would be\npossible \u2013 without in any way endangering the unity of the mass struggle itself\n\u2013 for Marxists to win overwhelming support for their ideas and policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We denounce all sectarian\nsplitting of the mass organisations. The struggle is to build and (whenever necessary)\ntransform<\/strong> these organisations\nthrough bringing them under the democratic control of their working class ranks\nand winning the argument for Marxist ideas and policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The movement has need both of\nunity and clarity; the one cannot be achieved by destroying the other. The rise\nto revolutionary struggle of millions of workers and youth provides the path to\nunify the movement under the leadership of Marxism in the coming years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once the new trade union\nfederation is launched, combining the strength of some three-hundred thousand\nunion members, and including the big battalions of mining and industry,\nhundreds of thousands of so far unorganised workers will rally to it. Within\nthe federation inevitably a struggle of ideas and tendencies will take place.\nThe organised workers will be looking for political answers from the federation\nleaders, even while looking to the ANC at the same time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Question of UDF<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question of the unions\u2019\ninvolvement in the UDF, and ultimately in the movement headed openly by the ANC\nitself, will not go away but will more and more become a focus of debate and\nabsorb the attention of the union militants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is of key importance is that\nthe matter should not be argued out in abstract or purely \u2018organisational\u2019\nterms. The need is for the union militants to agree on a comprehensive action\nprogramme around specific demands, on the basis of which organised as well as\nunorganised workers, women and youth can be mobilised in united action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, once there is a clear plan\nof campaign and support has been won for this within the unions, it will make\npractical sense to draw the organisations of the UDF round the organised\nworkers. The need for a concerted turn by the unions into the UDF to bring it\nunder workers\u2019 control would then follow logically and would be seen as quite\nsimple to achieve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The development within the new\nfederation of a more or less distinct ANC current, committed to the present\nANC, Sactu and SACP leadership, seems inevitable in the next period \u2013 even\nthough some of the most prominently identified pro-Congress union leaders are\nlikely to keep their organisations out of the federation, at least initially.\nThe policies and arguments of the Stalinists will thus need to be answered\nclearly and systematically by Marxists within the federation if tremendous\nconfusion of the political issues is to be avoided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Probably, inside the new\nfederation, a black consciousness current will also take shape. This is likely\nto gain an echo among the workers only to the extent that the policy of\nnon-racialism appears to provide a screen for conservatism in the leadership\n(especially where this is manifested in white officials) and a tendency to draw\nback from politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, attempts to\ndraw workers in any significant numbers towards the National Forum and Azapo\nwill fail, or fairly quickly rebound, even as these essentially petty-bourgeois\nbodies will tend to repel in time the youth who have gravitated towards them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Black consciousness played an\nenormously progressive role in the revolutionary awakening of the black youth\nin South Africa. But things can turn into their opposites. Unclear thinking\nbecomes a terrible barrier on the road to revolution. It is necessary for the\nwhole of the youth movement to move beyond black consciousness to a fully-formed\nclass consciousness \u2013 to Marxist ideas. By dressing up nationalist ideas in\npseudo-Marxist phraseology, the National Forum and Azapo intellectual leaders\nconfuse and retard<\/strong> this process on\nthe part of the working class youth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have to say frankly that, for\nall the radical \u2018socialist\u2019 rhetoric of these black consciousness leaders (put\nforward to outflank the ANC), they seem to us to be play-acting at revolution.\nThat is shown above all in their sweeping dismissal of the white working class\nas inevitably part of the enemy camp. This may look very \u2018r-r-r-revolutionary\u2019\n(to borrow Lenin\u2019s term). But it shows that they entirely lack a serious attitude to the problem of overthrowing the\nstate<\/strong>. For that, the winning over of the white troops will be absolutely\nindispensable. What is their policy for accomplishing that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In their intellectual attack on \u2018non-racialism\u2019\nthey hopelessly muddle up liberal or petty-bourgeois \u2018non-racialism\u2019 with\nsomething completely different: an uncompromising revolutionary class approach<\/strong> on the part of the black workers to\nthe white workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Black workers in the unions, who\nexperience the racist insults and kicks of the white workers every day, show a\nthousand-times more revolutionary intelligence than the black consciousness intellectuals,\nwhen they strive might and main to win white workers into the non-racial\nunions. They correctly persist in these efforts even when those few white\nworkers who have joined, after a while leave these unions again under the\npressure of white society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is not a trace of\nsentimentality or liberalism \u2013 or even class brotherhood in the naive<\/strong> sense \u2013 in these black workers\u2019\napproach to the white workers. They are\nsimply preparing the ground for later smashing the state and overthrowing their\nclass enemy: the bourgeoisie.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Must Persist<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let the black workers who have\nembarked on a conscious non-racial policy not be diverted from it even by the\ngoing-over of white workers to the most vicious right-wing reactionary parties\n\u2013 which is inevitable as a stage during the maturing of the revolutionary\ncrisis. It is precisely these whites, stirred into a half-blind, semi-class\nrevolt, rather than the ones who tail tamely after Botha, who can later be won\ndirectly to the workers\u2019 revolution when all reactionary ways out of their\nnightmare have proved useless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us not be deterred even by\nthe horrors and atrocities committed by the whites in the course of racial\ncivil war \u2013 for there is no basis but a class basis, class independence,\nuncompromising class strength and an ultimate class appeal to the interests of\nwhite workers, youth and petty-bourgeois against\ncapitalism<\/strong> if the black workers\u2019 revolution is to triumph. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can take a leaf from the book\nof Thami Mali and Siphiwe Thusi in this respect. They amazed their Sunday Express<\/em> interviewer (quoted\nearlier) when <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not once during the interview did either man use the word \u2018whites\u2019. The enemy, they said when asked why, was \u2018the state\u2019. When last inside, Mr Thusi tried to persuade his interrogators that they were oppressed. \u2018I asked them if they owned any means of production, any land,\u2019 he said. \u2018I asked them who were they defending. They were also members of the working class. They owned nothing. I am also fighting to liberate them.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Here is expressed, in language\nwhich no theory could better, an elemental strategic class sense as to what is\ninvolved in the coming workers\u2019 revolution in SA. Yes, even this barbarous\nwhite racist state machine can be shattered by the political action of the\nblack working class once it rises fully to its feet and marches forward with\ncomplete clarity as to the revolutionary tasks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the understanding which\nMarxists must work to generalise throughout the workers\u2019 movement and among the\nyouth, helping to cement it with theory and perspectives into a firm and clear\nconception of the road to power. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Black Middle Class<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor will there be any difficulty\nin drawing the weak black middle class \u2013 with exceptions, of course, but in the\nmain \u2013 behind the workers and working class youth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Communist Party and ANC\nleaders have argued that it is wrong to put forward ideas of socialism and\nworkers\u2019 power in South Africa because this \u2018frightens away the middle class\u2019.\nAbsolute nonsense! It is when a muddled, non-class, so-called \u2018democratic\u2019 revolution\nor rather compromise<\/strong> is put forward\nthat the movement splits, the middle class wavers, and the ruling class is able\nto deal effective blows against the masses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This lesson is written in the\nblood of many defeated revolutions in which the movement was led \u2013 or rather\nmisled \u2013 on the basis of such false ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reality of the situation for\nthe black middle class is summed up in an interview which Ellen Kuzwayo, who\ncomes from an ex-landowning family, gave to the London Observer<\/em>:[1]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe days are gone when I could sit down and counsel anybody \u2013 even the twelve-year-olds. I worked with the black children of Soweto for years as a social worker \u2013 in youth clubs, weekend camps, discussion groups \u2013 and I was sure I knew them. But in 1976, in forty-eight hours, they were not the children I knew.<\/p>

\u201cThey had become angry: and that angered me; and this has happened all over South Africa. I know that one side has more evil than the other, but when people are very angry they find themselves doing things they would never normally do. So you have a situation which is explosive on both sides: and it compels us to go with it, whether we like it or not<\/strong>.\u201d (Our emphasis.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Whether they like it or not, the\noppressed middle class will follow the working class when it gives a decisive revolutionary lead<\/strong>. This is a fact which\nmust be grasped by all the loyal young militants of the ANC and UDF so that\nthey can sooner and more decisively break with the ideas of class-compromise\nwhich have been inculcated into the movement for so many years by the\nStalinists. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Sectarianism<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sectarians, on the other hand,\nstand aside from the ANC and UDF because the leaders<\/strong> of these organisations do not put forward \u2018socialism\u2019. As\nif that were the criterion! As if it were superfluous to undertake a systematic\nstruggle for socialist ideas in the\nranks of the working class movement<\/strong>! We must go where the masses go,\nregardless of the policies of the leaders and regardless of the stage in\nconsciousness which the masses are passing through. That is the only way to\nwork. For a Marxist, it is ABC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sectarians stand aside from the\nnew trade union federation on grounds that its leadership will not be\nsufficiently revolutionary and its structures too \u2018bureaucratic\u2019, open to \u2018manipulation\u2019,\netc. If that were true, it would not provide a shred of an excuse for staying\nout! What about the hundreds-of-thousands of union members who will be working\nday and night to build the new federation and turn it into an effective\ninstrument for workers\u2019 power?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The May Day meeting at Khotso House\n(and there were other similar meetings elsewhere) showed the ripeness of the\nwhole organised workers\u2019 movement for revolutionary socialist ideas. Most of\nthe speeches brimmed over with ideas of revolutionary class struggle against\ncapitalism \u2013 as even the SA capitalist press had to reflect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A speaker from the Azanian\nConfederation of Trade Unions said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are fighting against the forces of capitalism. We are not fighting to remove whites and replace them with blacks. We are fighting for a complete change in the political and economic spheres. We are fighting for the end of the system of exploitation based on capitalism.<\/p>

\u201cWorkers have been divided by the different views of the union leadership, but workers\u2019 demands and sentiments are the same and we must help formulate structures for the revolutionary change.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Splendid! But what on earth is the\n\u2018Azanian Confederation of Trade Unions\u2019?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We must say frankly to all\ncommitted socialists: you will \u201chelp formulate structures for the revolutionary\nchange\u201d only inside<\/strong> the new\nfederation and inside<\/strong> the mass\nmovement broadly gathering under the ANC banner. Inside you can build a real\nmass base for the ideas of Marxism, provided you yourselves have mastered these\nideas. Outside you can only serve as a sterile, divisive irritant and frustrate\nthe fulfilment of the very revolution which you proclaim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor should you rest on the\nillusion that the workers, once they fail to find socialist leadership in the\nANC, will swing over to following \u2018you\u2019. The history of revolutionary movements\nin all the industrialised countries shows that the main body of the proletariat\nreturns again and again to its traditional organisations, despite even the\nworst defeats and betrayals by its leaders in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the case of the ANC, particularly\nthe imprisoned and exiled leaders have an enormous accumulated capital of\nconfidence among the workers based on decades of courageous endurance and\ndedication to the liberation struggle. This is enhanced by all those who have\nsacrificed their lives in the name of the ANC. It entirely over-shadows as far\nas the masses are concerned the leadership\u2019s failings in policy and strategy\nwhich have, in any event, not yet been fully brought to light in action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again and again in the years ahead the workers will try to solve the\nproblems of revolutionary leadership, strategy, action programme, etc., in and\nthrough the ANC. If they, together with the working class youth, fail despite\nall efforts to establish clear socialist leadership in the ANC, what will\nhappen will be the terrible disintegration and demoralisation of the movement,\nand the smashing of the revolution by the armed forces of reaction.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In any event, the ANC leadership\nwill inevitably tack to the left in the coming period under the pressure of\nevents and of the masses. At a certain point they will even put forward \u2018socialism\u2019\nin words, thus taking the \u2018left\u2019 sectarians\u2019 clothes away from them. It would\nnot be the first time such a thing happened in world history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Communist Party\u2019s \u2018Left\u2019 Turn<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Already there are signs of it in\nthe air. The SA Communist Party, which directs the policy of the ANC, is currently\ngoing through a \u2018left\u2019 phase. Obviously the ranks of the CP in exile are responding\nto the revolutionary ferment among the working class at home and in turn\nputting pressure on the party leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The January 1985 statement by the\nCP central committee is full of left phraseology about the crisis of\ncapitalism, about the SA state being an organ \u201cfor the defence of bourgeois\nrule\u201d, about the need to \u201cdestroy\u201d or \u201crender ineffective\u201d the army and police\nin order \u201cdefeat the bourgeoisie\u201d, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It quotes Lenin\u2019s dictum that the\nproletariat is the only class \u201ccapable of being revolutionary to the very end\u201d.\nIt says: \u201cTo be revolutionary to the very end means to fight for the victory of\nthe socialist revolution, for the defeat of the bourgeoisie as a class, for the\npassing of power into the hands of the proletariat so that it becomes the\nruling class. This is an historic task which faces the working class of our country,\nas it confronts the proletariat of all capitalist countries.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, as is typical of\nStalinism, for every step they manage to take onto firm ground theoretically,\nthey feel obliged to take at least one step back into the marsh. Instead of acknowledging\nthat South Africa\u2019s revolution is a proletarian socialist revolution which has,\nfirst and foremost, to carry-out national-democratic tasks, they try to cling on\nto the old false conceptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They still insist on the idea of two distinct revolutions<\/strong>: one \u2018national-democratic\u2019,\nthe other \u2018socialist\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor is this a matter of semantics.\nFor the \u2018first\u2019 revolution, a regime of \u201cpopular democracy\u201d and not<\/strong> workers\u2019 power is required. Only in\nthe \u2018second\u2019 revolution are we to expect \u201cproletarian rule\u201d. Instead of the \u201cdemocratic\nrevolution\u201d necessitating the overthrow of capitalism, it must merely \u201cgo as\nfar as possible in undermining [!] the positions of the monopoly bourgeoisie\u201d \u2013\nthe Freedom Charter itself goes further than that by proclaiming expropriation!\n\u2013 \u201cand bringing the maximum benefits to the working class and the oppressed and\nexploited rural masses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus they are in reality still in\na complete fog. And the matter is not helped by the statement that the working\nclass \u2013 the overwhelming majority of society (and the only consistently\nrevolutionary class, don\u2019t forget!) \u2013 should make its \u201cimprint\u201d (merely its\nimprint!) upon the democratic revolution and \u201cprepare the conditions for an\nuninterrupted advance from popular democracy to proletarian rule.\u201d The \u201cconditions\u201d,\nneedless to say, are not spelled-out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This piously expressed hope of \u201cuninterrupted\nadvance\u201d is merely the CP leaders\u2019 attempt to have it both ways. In practice,\nwhile even a membrane separates their \u2018national-democratic\u2019 from their \u2018socialist\u2019\nrevolutions, this serves as a screen for the ideas of class-compromise with\ncapitalism. It gives them a pretext for continuing to put-off the fundamental\ntasks facing the working class, and continuing to seek a settlement with the\nbourgeoisie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is not accidental that,\ncoinciding with this verbal \u2018left\u2019 turn, the ANC leadership has stated that the\nquestion of nationalisation in South Africa will only be considered after<\/strong> the election of a \u2018democratic\ngovernment\u2019. Thus, under the influence of \u2018democratic\u2019 petty-bourgeois and\nStalinist illusions in class-compromise, they casually abandon a fundamental\npillar of the Freedom Charter which is absolutely\nessential to mobilise the working class effectively and give clear direction in\nthe struggle for power<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Significantly, not a peep of\nprotest is uttered by the South African \u2018Communist\u2019 Party leaders. Far from\nopposing such a retreat from the revolutionary content of the Freedom Charter,\nthey are fully behind the revision and \u2018inspire\u2019 it theoretically. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Tailing Behind Events<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such ideas and such leadership\nplace the success of our struggle in great danger. The CP leaders\u2019 policy is to\ntail behind events and adapt their formal position, when necessary,\nsufficiently to the \u2018left\u2019 to prevent their rank-and-file revolting against the\nleadership, while at the same time not departing in essence from the old\nStalinist class-collaboration policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us not forget that after the\nSoweto uprising of 1976, the CP leadership also began to toy with left-wing formulas.\nBut when the movement cooled temporarily and a lull set in, they quickly swung\nback again to the old bald two-stage dogma. In 1979 they were organising the\npermanent \u2018suspension\u2019 of Marxists from the ANC for the crime of putting\nforward the idea of workers\u2019 revolution in SA!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In periods when the working class\nis establishing its dominance in action at the forefront of the whole movement,\nthen all the catchphrases about the \u2018leading role\u2019 of the working class are\ndusted-off and wheeled out for ceremonial purposes by the CP. But as soon as\nthe working class lapses into passivity, or suffers defeats \u2013 or, on the other\nhand, as we shall see when the task of taking power is posed before the working\nclass in practice \u2013 the CP leaders will rediscover all the points about the\nnecessary \u2018broadness\u2019 of the democratic struggle including all classes, about\nhow the workers should not \u2018frighten off\u2019 the middle class by trying to go too\nfar, etc., etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The policy of the SACP is\nfundamentally determined by the line of the bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, on\nwhich it depends. Far from this representing a threat to capitalism in SA \u2013 far\nfrom there being any basis for Botha\u2019s hysterics about \u2018Soviet intervention\u2019\nendangering capitalism in Southern Africa as a whole \u2013 the policy of the\nKremlin is to try to reach a compromise with imperialism over this explosive\nregion, and particularly over South Africa itself. Promoting workers\u2019 power is absolutely against their interests.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is what prevents the SACP\nfrom correcting its false policy and going-over genuinely to a position of\nworkers\u2019 revolution. The CP\u2019s \u2018mistakes\u2019 are therefore not essentially\ntheoretical, but derive from the material self-interest of the Stalinist\nbureaucracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The CP has never been able to\nsustain a consistent position on perspectives, strategy or tasks of the SA\nrevolution. In 1959, as we pointed out before, they insisted that the\ndemocratic transformation of SA could be peaceful. Then, reeling from\nSharpeville and the subsequent state crackdown, they swung over to the idea of\nthe \u2018South African Reich\u2019, a fascist dictatorship under which nothing could be\ndone. (Inqaba<\/em> No. 3 dealt with the\nfallacies in their theory of SA \u2018fascism\u2019, so we need not repeat the arguments\nhere.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without thinking the problem\nthrough, the CP leaders jumped over to the ideas of \u2018armed struggle\u2019 and peddled\nfor twenty years a barren strategy of guerrilla warfare against the SA regime.\nWith this, they continued to combine hopes of a \u2018democratic\u2019 compromise with\nthe big bourgeoisie, thus showing that guerrillaism was in reality always seen\nby the leadership as a way of exercising \u2018pressure\u2019 and never as a way of\noverthrowing the regime. In fact it could do neither.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now they are swinging over\nempirically again, under the impact of events, to pay respects to the ideas of\nthe mass movement and of armed insurrection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

New Errors<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In doing so, however, they merely manage to move from one set of\nmistakes to another, or to combine old mistakes in a new way.<\/strong> Before\nexamining these, it is necessary to set out some details of the recent public\npolicy shift by the ANC on the question of insurrection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In two NEC statements (which we\nhave already cited) issued in Lusaka on 25 April and 9 May, the ANC leadership\nmakes plain its view that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026the conditions for a revolutionary leap forward are beginning to mature.<\/p>

The oppressed and exploited people of our country are thus placed, more now than ever before, in a favourable position as revolutionary conditions mature to deliver the final death blow on the apartheid regime.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

We have already explained that a\ndrawn-out period of years of intense revolutionary struggles in SA will be\nnecessary before the conditions will\nhave been prepared for the overthrow of the regime<\/strong>. Just how \u201cmature\u201d are\nthe revolutionary conditions now, in the eyes of the ANC leadership? Just how\nimminent is the \u201cfinal death blow\u201d believed to be? In questions such as this \u2013 the\nactual tactics of revolution and their timing \u2013 the whole test of a\nrevolutionary leadership is concentrated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thinking of the ANC\nleadership is revealed in a report on these public statements written for the\nLondon Guardian<\/em>[3]<\/a>\nby David Rabkin (the former political prisoner jailed by the Pretoria regime\nfor ANC activities). He writes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new \u2018call to the nation\u2019 by the exiled nationalist movement represents an important shift of tactics towards a popular Iran-type insurrection rather than a protracted people\u2019s war.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

He makes clear that this turn in\nthe ANC\u2019s policy is primarily a response to the power of the mass revolt within\nSA over the past few months, but that it is also an acknowledgement that the guerrilla strategy pursued by the ANC in the\npast has failed<\/strong>. Let us take-up this latter point first. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Marxist Policy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1979, Marxists were \u2018suspended\u2019\nfrom the ANC for arguing against the leadership\u2019s guerrilla strategy and in\nfavour of a strategy based on preparing for armed insurrection by the mass of\nthe black working class. Since its inception in 1980, Inqaba<\/em> has consistently put forward the same ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without acknowledging this, and\nunfortunately in a mangled way, the new turn by the ANC leadership nevertheless\nvindicates, rather belatedly, this criticism of its policy which the Marxist\nWorkers Tendency of the ANC alone has put forward within the movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Summing up our position on armed\nstruggle in South Africa\u2019s Impending\nSocialist Revolution<\/a><\/em> (March 1982), we wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lacking any basis for a peasant war, guerrilla struggle in our country can only take the form of urban guerrilla action \u2013 which cannot overthrow the regime. It is, quite simply, not a strategy for power…<\/p>

There is no force which can make the revolution for the SA workers. The revolution will be a workers\u2019 revolution or it will be no revolution at all. If the approach of our movement to armed struggle is to confine it within the limits of armed action by guerrilla detachments, this will prove totally insufficient to bring down the regime.<\/p>

Despite the heroism and self-sacrifice of the comrades in the ranks of MK, this will not be sufficient to produce the result for which they are prepared to die. Unless armed struggle is developed as the struggle of the working masses, as an expression and extension of their organised strength, their social aims, and their need to change society, it will not rise above an impotent method of exerting \u2018pressure\u2019 on the ruling class…<\/p>

Contrary to the popular myth, guerrilla action does not demoralise the whites \u2013 on the contrary, it usually tends to harden reaction. But when the mass movement has gained the capacity to use armed force, its effects will be profoundly demoralising upon all the forces of reaction…<\/p>

The basis of our military policy in SA must be to prepare the forces for the future armed insurrection against the state.<\/p>

This would not imply reckless and adventurist policies in the mass movement, immediately provoking massive military retaliation against the black working class and youth, still in a relatively early stage of mobilising their forces. The point is to prepare with the eventual aim of insurrection in mind…<\/p>

Within the ANC we must urge a turn towards the preparation of methods and tactics in the realm of armed struggle which will lead to the eventual armed insurrection of the mass of working people against the state.<\/p>

Effective preparations are needed for the arming of the workers and youth; importing and stock-piling the necessary arms as well as acquiring and making arms from all possible sources within the country; carrying on military training in SA in conjunction with the building of the underground political networks of the ANC; and so on.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

These ideas were further\ndeveloped, for example, in Arming the Workers\u2019 Movement\n\u2013 a Reply to Comrade Tambo<\/a><\/em> (Inqaba<\/em>\nNo. 11, August-October 1983). There we also specifically answered the false\ncharge of the Stalinists that we were advocating \u201csuicidal missions based on a \u2018trained\nworkers\u2019 militia\u2019.\u201d They scoffed that our material would lie unread in damp or\ndusty cellars. Now it is amusing to see ideas of Inqaba<\/em> surfacing unacknowledged in official policy statements of\nthe CP and ANC \u2013 or rather, it would be amusing if these were not distorted and\nturned into a new source of error for the movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, a leadership which\nfails to carry-out an open and honest examination of why<\/strong> its previous policy was incorrect, cannot arrive at a clear and\ncorrect new policy either. Rabkin\u2019s interview in the Guardian<\/em> with a leading member of the ANC\u2019s Political Military\nCouncil shows that they have not fundamentally understood the reasons for the\nfailure of guerrillaism. They attribute it entirely<\/strong>\nto the lack of bases (something which, incidentally, a few months ago, they\nclaimed would make no real difference because all the necessary bases were \u2018inside\u2019\nSouth Africa!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now the PMC spokesman says:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have been trying to engage in armed activities under conditions which are unique in Africa. We are at a terrible disadvantage because we don\u2019t have and never will have the kind of rear base that others have \u2013 a neighbouring country with enough strength and power to accept it being used in the way Tanzania was used by Frelimo.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Thus the leadership still does\nnot see, or will not admit, that the main barrier to successful guerrilla war\nis the fact that SA is an industrialised country, with no peasantry, and\ntherefore entirely, inappropriate to guerrilla war. It is the methods of\nproletarian class struggle which alone can lead to a victorious insurrection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Victory Not Possible Yet<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But a victorious insurrection is\nnot possible immediately or even in the relatively short term. To conceive of\nseizing power in South Africa by \u2018Iran-type\u2019 tactics of mere frontal assault\nagainst this formidable apartheid military machine is, as we have pointed out,\ndangerously mistaken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The youth especially are quite\ncapable of taking this idea of an \u201cIran-type insurrection\u201d seriously, at face\nvalue, and launching an heroic adventure in which they would certainly break\ntheir necks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If that occurs the whole movement\nmay be set back for a temporary period, before it recovers again. In that\nevent, ANC policy would probably once again swing to the right. If such a defeat is suffered, no-one\nshould blame the youth for their confusion. The confusion lies at the top.<\/strong>\nIt is demonstrated in this passage in the interview with the ANC\u2019s PMC\nspokesman:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It remains true that the idea of a general insurrection as an immediate way forward cannot replace the long-term perspective we have of protracted people\u2019s war. But we know that history sometimes has a funny way of departing from blueprints. We should certainly keep the lines open to other possibilities which the situation is opening up…<\/p>

I believe the possibility of bringing about the collapse of the existing set-up in South Africa through the build-up of insurrectionary factors has never been as great as it is today.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Here we have every possible\nconfusion rolled into one. Insurrection is \u201can immediate way forward\u201d (which it\nis not<\/strong>). Nevertheless it \u201ccannot\nreplace\u201d in the \u201clong term\u201d the old idea of a guerrilla war (which is what they\nmean by \u201cprotracted people\u2019s war\u201d) \u2013 although this has just been confessed a\nfailure, for lack of bases or what-have-you. And if neither of these strategies\nwork, then we should \u201ccertainly\u201d be \u201copen to other possibilities\u201d!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What this means is that the\nleadership has no conception<\/strong> of the\nstage the movement is passing through or the real tasks involved in preparing\nfor power. It is incapable, as Marx put it, of telling the first or third month\nof pregnancy from the ninth \u2013 and consequently will produce an abortion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is jumping about empirically\nfrom one superficial idea to another, reacting to events without systematically\nthinking anything through. Thus guerrilla bombings by Umkhonto we Sizwe are\ncontinuing even while these are (half) conceded to reflect an unworkable\nstrategy. The plan now, it seems, is to combine<\/strong>\nimpotent guerrillaism with unprepared and premature insurrection! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Organs of Popular Power<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NEC statement of 9 May says: \u201cThe\nroad now lies open for people to seize the initiative and build their own\norgans of popular power which must be the only authority in the townships,\ndirectly accountable to the people.\u201d Rabkin, from his discussions with the ANC\nleadership, interprets this as follows: \u201cThe statement calls for people\u2019s\ncommittees to be set up as alternative administration in black townships.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The formation of \u2018peoples\u2019\ncommittees\u2019 as organising nuclei of revolutionary leadership in the townships\nis absolutely correct. But, at this stage, these would have to be based<\/strong> on relatively small areas or\nblocks within the townships, or on factories, compounds, schools, etc., kept\nlargely secret, and only emerging as a combined body to give open leadership at\ntownship or regional level for temporary periods, and in ways which prevent\ntheir easy arrest and crushing by the regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is simply ludicrous to suggest that \u2018people\u2019s committees\u2019 can take\nover \u201cadministration in black townships\u201d at this stage.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ANC\u2019s statement distinctly\nimplies that the situation is ripe for the public emergence of popular organs\nof power within the townships \u2013 along the lines of soviets (workers\u2019 and\nsoldiers\u2019 councils) in the Russian Revolution. But the emergence of such bodies\non a sustainable basis will be possible only as real conditions of dual power<\/strong> emerge in SA \u2013 when the state can no\nlonger enter the black areas safely even with huge police and troop contingents,\nwhen its own forces are in disarray, and when an armed mass movement is moving\ntowards a direct fight for power. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Wrong View of General Strike<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NEC statement of April is\nlikewise entirely misconceived in its call for all-out general strike action at\nthe present time. \u201cA long-lasting national work stoppage, backed by our\noppressed communities and supported by armed activity, can break the backbone\nof the apartheid system and bring the regime to its knees.\u201d That light-minded\nformula is nothing short of a recipe for a severe defeat. It shows no\ncomprehension of the immense forces and scale of the fighting which will be\ninvolved in \u201cbringing the regime to its knees,\u201d let alone overthrowing it. A\nnational work stoppage \u201csupported by armed activity\u201d \u2013 apparently intended to\nmean isolated guerrilla activity and hastily armed groups of youth \u2013 can\nachieve nothing of the kind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of tossing around\nhalf-baked conceptions of this kind, it is necessary to think through seriously\nto a conclusion the problems of general strike action on the one hand, and\narmed mass insurrection on the other \u2013 and to work out a properly prepared\nstrategy for both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An effective general strike which\nparalyses the country inevitably poses the question of power \u2013 of who rules\nsociety \u2013 but it cannot resolve that question. To resolve the question of\npower, it will not be enough to render the country \u201cungovernable\u201d, whether \u201csupported\nby armed activity\u201d or not \u2013 it will be necessary to establish new organs of\nrevolutionary state power in the place of the old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question of power can thus be resolved only by an armed\ninsurrection establishing the rule of the working class. If the conditions for\nsuccessful insurrection are not present, a \u201clong-lasting national work stoppage\u201d\ncalled under illusions of easy victory can only end in demoralising defeat.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

General strike action requires\ngreat skill and foresight as a tactic, if the movement is to be taken forward\nand not subjected to unnecessary setbacks. An all-out indefinite general strike<\/strong> should not usually be resorted to\non a major political issue which the regime cannot easily concede unless the preparations have been made to\ntransform the general strike into an armed insurrection and all-out struggle\nfor state power. Those preparations have hardly begun as yet in South Africa.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The way to proceed towards this\ngoal is through the careful use of limited general strikes \u2013 which themselves\ncannot be successful if they are too frequently and lightly called, or ill\nprepared \u2013 and from these build towards the full mobilisation of the workers\nand youth country-wide. It will take an extended development to prepare the\neffective use of arms by the masses<\/strong>\nin conjunction with general strike action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, however, the\nyouth have been pioneering essentially correct tactics in fighting to drive-out\nfrom the black communities all elements of collaboration with the state \u2013 the\ncouncillors, black police who refuse to resign, etc. This is necessary not only\nfor the purpose of uniting the blacks on the clear understanding that no\ncompromise with the regime is possible. It is necessary also to give the whites\na sense of their profound isolation, thus preparing the way for their future\nsplitting and the winning-over of sections to the idea of a workers\u2019 state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, without a clear\nstrategic framework \u2013 guided, on the contrary, by a confused adventurist\nperspective now made into official policy by the ANC \u2013 these efforts of the\nyouth in the townships will come up against their inherent limits and open the\npossibility of serious setbacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Undoubtedly, very violent and\neven grisly methods have been and are being used by the youth in the struggle\nagainst the collaborators. We have no intention of pedantically \u2018criticising\u2019\nthese methods, which are used in a situation where the councillors and black\npolice are armed to kill; where they are backed-up by white riot police and\ntroops who are shooting down the black youth like flies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, revolution (as Trotsky\nput it) is not performed \u2018under a conductor\u2019s baton\u2019. Excesses are in the\nnature of revolution, and are absolutely unavoidable at times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that is no justification for\na failure of leadership, theory, perspectives, strategy and tactics necessary\nto guide the movement. It is not solely on the two quoted ANC statements that\nwe base this criticism. Those statements are typical of the confusion now\nreigning in the leading circles of the CP and ANC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Attempt to Launch Insurrection<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 22 February, the ANC broadcast\nfrom Addis Ababa a call to the black masses in South Africa to take-up arms and\nuse them against the state \u2013 a call which, in its totality, amounted to an\nattempt to launch insurrectionary action without preparation, without plan,\nwithout timing, without a mass political action programme to lay the basis\nfirst. Faith is placed totally in arms and immediate undirected armed action to\nsmash the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The broadcast said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And where are these arms? Where are the weapons to destroy this regime? They cannot be found anywhere else countrymen. They can only be found in our country itself. The weapons are there in front of you. They are in the hands of the policemen themselves. Some of these policemen are coming back to sleep within our midst in the townships. We know where they live. Let us break in their houses and take those guns that the apartheid regime gives them to kill us and turn those guns against them. Let us break into their barracks and take those guns and machine-guns.<\/p>

We are now at war, countrymen, against a very vicious enemy and we have to use all methods to destroy it. We have not only to depend on the weapons of Umkhonto we Sizwe. As this is a people\u2019s war we the people must now be armed. We should not only expect Umkhonto we Sizwe combatants to arm us…<\/p>

We too [?] must eliminate their puppets who are roaming amongst us within. We should attack the police station and the army barracks and capture those weapons. [Words indistinct].<\/p>

…This regime must find itself surrounded by a heavily armed nation out to engulf it and smash it to ruins… Now is the time to act. Now is the time to attack… Tens and thousands of fighting militants armed to the teeth must rise up.[4]<\/a> <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Here we have a few correct\nstatements concerning the need to obtain arms from local sources; but instead\nof calling for their concealment and for systematic preparations, the broadcast\nshows the same light-mindedness over the formidably\ndifficult task <\/strong>of overthrowing the SA regime by insurrection as was\npreviously shown over the question of guerrilla war. Bravado, comrades of the\nANC leadership in exile, is no substitute for intelligent strategy and tactics.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Courage Not Enough<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The courageous black youth have\nshown in many incidents that they are ready to go to the end in this struggle.\nTake the example of Silvertown, near Brakpan, where, after the demolition of \u2018squatter\u2019\nshacks by the authorities in February, 300 young people attacked and stoned the\nlocal police barracks. Similar examples are legion all over the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this courage of the\nrevolutionary youth must be consciously organised, and directed within the\nframework of a scientific perspective, and clear strategic and tactical\nplanning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If wild and undirected fighting,\narmed or unarmed, begins to characterise<\/strong>\nthe struggle, if political ideas become subordinated to petrol fires, and\norganisation to mere mass frenzy, this will eventually lead to a revulsion and\nreaction also within the black proletarian communities themselves \u2013 and so lead\nto splits and open the way to serious defeats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is organised political mass action which must characterise the\nmovement<\/strong>, in the eyes of the blacks and in the eyes of the whites \u2013 and\nthat depends upon the big organisations of the working class, the trade unions,\nthe youth organisations, community organisations, the UDF, coming together on a\nclear action programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But to make an action programme\neffective, organised class action<\/strong>\nmust be to the forefront. Socialist ideas are necessary to mobilise the full\nforce of the black working class. Non-racial ideas are necessary in order to\nmake the class character of the movement clear. Non-racial and socialist ideas\nare necessary eventually to win over the white workers and middle class youth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The movement has to prepare\ndeliberately for armed insurrection. Weapons must be gathered and stored;\ntactics worked out; training accumulated and shared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Initially, however, it will be\nthrough defensive<\/strong> tactics \u2013 using\narms to defend townships, meetings, strikes, etc. \u2013 that the basis will be laid\nfor passing-over to the offensive. Guerrilla-type actions by small armed bands\nof youth, etc., have a role to play, provided these are subordinated to an\noverall conception, political strategy, and finally an organised plan centred\naround the mobilisation of the big battalions of the organised workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Marxist Ideas Vital<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To give the necessary political\nleadership to this struggle, the ANC needs above all to be freed of the\nhopelessly bankrupt Stalinist ideas which presently guide its leadership. Only\non the basis of authentic Marxist ideas will it be possible to find the way\nforward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus the essence of the struggle\nfor political clarity in the movement in the coming period will be the struggle\nbetween Stalinism and Marxism, between middle class and working class\nleadership, in the ANC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through long drawn-out and bitter\nbattles, the conditions necessary for revolution and insurrection will develop.\nIn manifold forms the organised strength and confidence of the black\nproletariat will grow. It will gain the means, knowledge and experience to use\narms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The viciousness of the conflict\nwith the whites will intensify, but in the camp of the whites and of bourgeois\nsociety, there will set in decay, demoralisation and tendencies towards\ndisintegration and collapse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The road to power will be opened\nto the degree that the organised black proletariat establishes its leadership\nin action and gives decisive direction to events with a clear democratic and\nsocialist policy for workers\u2019 power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The titanic movement of the black\nproletariat in South Africa will awaken the whole of Africa to revolution. This\nis a continent crying-out for the leadership of the working class. It is a\ncontinent where annual production is now less than it was fifteen years ago;\nwhere one-fifth of the population are living on the edge of extinction, and\nwhere that proportion could rise to four-fifths by 1995.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The South African revolution is\nthe key to the future salvation of Africa \u2013 to the socialist transformation of\nthe continent. At the same time, advances in the world revolution, in Europe in\nparticular, will immensely facilitate and clear the path for the revolutionary\nstruggle in SA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A regime of workers\u2019 democracy in\nan important country anywhere in the world would provide a beacon which would enable\nMarxism to win not only the black people as a whole but the white workers and\nmiddle class as well to the idea of an alternative society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In turn the SA revolution will\nhave a worldwide impact. It will be fought out also on the television screens\nand on the front pages of the newspapers of the world. It will have an immense\nimpact throughout the ex-colonial world, in the Middle East, among the blacks\nin America, and indeed upon the proletariat everywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The South African revolution has\nall the grandeur and heroism of the greatest slave revolts in history. It has\nall the historic inevitability of the struggles for colonial liberation this\ncentury. And \u2013 provided the ideas of Marxism prevail within the movement \u2013 it\nwill have all the power, direction and promise for a new society which the\nproletariat carries in its hands. Armed in this way, it will conquer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

May 1985<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a9 Transcribed from the original by the Marxist Workers Party (2020).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> 14 April 1985<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a>  The\nStar<\/em>, 2 May 1985<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/a> 10 May 1985<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/a>  Quoted from Facts and Reports<\/em>, vol. 15, No. F<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Strategy and Tasks In a sense, the South African revolution has begun. We have now entered upon (in Trotsky\u2019s words) \u201ca series of battles, disturbances, […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":1186,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1207","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"acf":[],"_hostinger_reach_plugin_has_subscription_block":false,"_hostinger_reach_plugin_is_elementor":false,"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1207"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1278,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1207\/revisions\/1278"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}