{"id":1762,"date":"2020-07-07T16:35:53","date_gmt":"2020-07-07T14:35:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marxistworkersparty.org.za\/?page_id=1762"},"modified":"2020-07-08T10:42:26","modified_gmt":"2020-07-08T08:42:26","slug":"foreward-august-1979","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/?page_id=1762","title":{"rendered":"Foreward (August 1979)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What is the way forward?<\/em> This is the question uppermost in the minds of all militant workers and students, and all who have shown their courage through the great events of the past months.<\/p>

To answer this question correctly is the task of all leaders at every level, in the factories, schools and organisations of the people. But to do so, we must grasp clearly what lies at the root of the struggle: What exactly are we struggling against? What are we struggling for<\/em>? What are the main forces<\/em> that can be relied on?<\/p>

From Soweto and Alexandra to Langa, Guguletu and Athlone, to Mamelodi and wherever the black people have risen up, they have begun by their actions to answer these questions in the plainest terms.<\/p>

Firstly, they are emphasising that the main battle-ground<\/em> in the struggle against apartheid lies in the big cities, in the industrial areas where the power-houses of production have been built-up.<\/p>

They are showing, secondly, that in this struggle nothing can take the place of the mass power of the oppressed people themselves<\/em>. Only when the toilers, young and old, rise to action in their tens and hundreds-of-thousands against all the forces and institutions of the state, is the racist regime seriously challenged and its authority shaken.<\/p>

Thirdly they are showing what apartheid really means<\/em> to the majority of black people \u2013 to the workers and working class youth. It means far more<\/em> than racism<\/em>, far more than discrimination on grounds of colour. It means far more than just the denial of democratic rights or the humiliation of inequality. To the working people, apartheid is part and parcel of the system which exploits them economically. It holds them in utter poverty, it controls their every movement through the pass laws and the contract labour system, and it yokes them as mere oxen of labour in the service of the capitalist class.<\/p>

Fourthly, they are showing that once the struggle against apartheid breaks out into the open, it rapidly becomes a social struggle<\/em> against the ruling class<\/em>. It becomes a struggle of the working people against the employers\u2026<\/p>

In South Africa today the working class<\/em>, growing in numbers and inner strength with every passing year, has become the driving force of the approaching revolution. The heroic action of the past months has brought to the fore the enormous power of the black industrial workers in South Africa…<\/p>

The task now is to build up the organised strength of the working class.<\/p>From Workers\u2019 Unity<\/em>, Issue No. 1, January 1977<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The documents published here bring out into the open a struggle which has been taking place, in exile, over the political direction of the South African Congress of Trade Unions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To publish this pamphlet, including material which was originally written for internal discussion within Sactu bodies, is not a decision which has been taken lightly. The documents themselves (all of which are published with the approval of their authors) give the background to this publication and explain why it cannot be avoided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The documents deal with issues which are of very great importance to the workers\u2019 struggle in South Africa, and vital to the future of Sactu. At the very least, these issues deserve to be thoroughly studied and seriously discussed. Sad to say, however, the present leadership of Sactu has been totally unwilling to do this. Instead it has acted, month after month, to stifle any discussion of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is happening at a time when, inside South Africa among the organised workers in the front rank of the struggle, there is a thirst for the ideas which can show the way forward to the overthrow of the apartheid regime and the capitalist system which it protects. It is hoped that this pamphlet will make a contribution towards answering some of the burning questions of the workers\u2019 movement in South Africa today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The central document published here<\/a> is concerned to analyse the character of the South African revolution and the tasks which flow from this for the workers\u2019 movement. It was originally submitted by the editor of Workers\u2019 Unity<\/em> to the National Executive Committee of Sactu as a memorandum for discussion at its meeting in April 1979. At this meeting, however, the NEC \u2013 refusing even to table the memorandum for discussion \u2013 dismissed the editor from his post and from the Editorial Board as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The political significance of this decision and the events leading up to it, are set out in the letter from the dismissed editor to the NEC<\/a> and other Sactu formations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The letter from members of the Technical Sub-Committee in London<\/a> deals with another side of the same political struggle within Sactu \u2013 the attempts by Sactu activists to raise the issues of the editor\u2019s dismissal, the Wiehahn Commission and the urgent tasks of Sactu at home, for full and democratic discussion through the available channels of the organisation in exile. All these attempts were rebuffed by the NEC, which eventually closed down the Technical Sub-Committee itself in order to prevent discussion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The facts recounted in these documents all point to one regrettable but unavoidable conclusion: The leadership of Sactu in exile seems determined to turn Sactu back from the revolutionary working class policies and the tasks which it proclaimed in the first fourteen issues of Workers\u2019 Unity<\/em> and in the pamphlet Looking Forward<\/em>, and which were foreshadowed in the declaration of principles in the Sactu Constitution itself. The serious consequences of this retreat both for Sactu and, in the long run, for the workers\u2019 movement as a whole \u2013 plus the closing of all avenues for debating these matters within Sactu bodies \u2013 have compelled us as a last resort to publish the facts, and to lay the arguments before the rank-and-file members and supporters of Sactu and the revolutionary workers as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most urgent question facing the workers\u2019 movement in South Africa today is how to fight the Wiehahn-Riekert strategy of the capitalists and their apartheid regime. Repeated requests for a discussion on this question with members of the Sactu NEC were consistently ignored. At the same time, neither in the NEC\u2019s statements on the Wiehahn Commission nor in the fifteenth issue of Workers\u2019 Unity<\/em> (which has appeared since the dismissal of the former editor) is any lead given to workers struggling in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this pamphlet we republish our own contribution to the discussion of the Wiehahn-Riekert attacks<\/a>, which is taking place among the organised workers at home. Because of the urgency of the issues, the contribution on Wiehahn-Riekert was originally circulated separately in South Africa early this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The documents published here reflect a political struggle which has been taking place within a trade union organisation: Sactu. The questions which they raise are raised within a trade union context. Yet these questions are just as important and just as relevant for the revolutionary movement as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As time passes, the political issues which have now come to a head within Sactu will more and more clearly pose themselves also within the African National Congress (with which Sactu has been allied since the 1950s) and within the South African Communist Party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the standpoint of the oppressed workers \u2013 the mass of the people of South Africa \u2013 it is possible to pose the basic issues of our liberation struggle in very stark and simple terms: Who will rule South Africa \u2013 the workers or the capitalists? Will our revolution against apartheid also bring an end to poverty and exploitation? Will our revolution be victorious like the Russian Revolution of October 1917, or will the workers be held back from power and suffer a bloody defeat as in Spain in the 1930s and Chile in 1973?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the political differences in our movement revolve round different attitudes to these fundamental questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many comrades in the workers\u2019 movement in South Africa are aware that different political tendencies contend within the organisations in exile, just as they do at home. At the root of all the political differences are class differences, and class interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many workers look to African Communist Party and its leadership to defend the interests of the working class against attempts by middle class nationalist elements (whether in or out of the Congress alliance) to subordinate the black workers to their own ends and hold the struggle back. Comrades who study the documents in this pamphlet may well ask: What was the role of the SA Communist Party and its leaders in the political struggle which has taken place in Sactu?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sactu is an organisation which, from its formation, has proclaimed itself a workers\u2019 organisation, based on the principle of working class independence. Within the ranks of Sactu, one might ask, can middle class nationalist elements exercise any significant influence? Yet Marxism has suffered a set-back in Sactu at the hands of a right-wing which is resolutely opposed to the mobilisation and organisation of the oppressed workers of South Africa for socialist aims. How can this set-back have occurred?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tragic fact is that the key role in forcing the present retreat by the Sactu NEC from the policies of the past period; the key role in securing the dismissal of the editor of Workers\u2019 Unity<\/em> and changing the paper\u2019s line; the key role in blocking democratic discussion of the crucial issues facing Sactu \u2013 has been played by individuals who are well-known members of the SA Communist Party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The leadership of the SACP has the undoubted capacity to prevent such right-wing and anti-working class activities by party members (activities which are surely a disgrace in any organisation claiming the traditions of Marx and Lenin). Why has the leadership of the SACP tolerated these activities by its members? Does the CP leadership endorse the right-turn on the part of Sactu away from revolutionary policies and tasks? What is the attitude of the CP to the standpoint put forward in the documents published here?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The political struggle in Sactu has boiled down to this: Will Sactu be developed to play its part in building a mass revolutionary working class movement against national oppression and capitalist exploitation? Regardless of the outcome of this struggle in Sactu, the tasks remain for every revolutionary to confront.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

August 1979<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Continue to Resisting the Wiehahn-Riekert Attacks<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is the way forward? This is the question uppermost in the minds of all militant workers and students, and all who have shown their […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":1753,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1762","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\/1762","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=1762"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1800,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1762\/revisions\/1800"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}