{"id":326,"date":"2019-08-28T07:49:29","date_gmt":"2019-08-28T05:49:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marxistworkersparty.org.za\/?page_id=326"},"modified":"2019-09-03T09:45:08","modified_gmt":"2019-09-03T07:45:08","slug":"chapter-one","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/?page_id=326","title":{"rendered":"Chapter One"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Victory of the Nationalist Party in 1948<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The\nAfrican National Congress (ANC) arose as a mass organisation in the 1950s as\nthe black working class struggled to defend itself against attacks by the\nruling class and the Nationalist Party (NP) government, elected in 1948.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nvictory of the NP in 1948 was a victory for the most reactionary wing of the\ncapitalist class, mobilising white middle-class and working-class support on\nthe basis of naked racism. The NP government embarked on a determined programme\nto attack the living standards of black working people, to tighten the chains\nof the migrant labour system, and to divide and crush trade union and political\norganisation of the majority. New racial measures were instituted also against\nthe African middle class and against Indians and coloureds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nNP policy of apartheid grew out of the policies of national oppression and\nwhite domination consciously pursued by the ruling class since before the turn\nof the century. These policies were necessary to create and maintain the\nAfrican cheap labour on which South African capitalism has always depended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South\nAfrican capitalism developed late, in a world already dominated by big\ncapitalist monopolies. Against their competition, it could make profits only by\nbleeding the working class dry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At\nthe same time, NP rule involved the more rigid, ruthless and centralised\nimplementation of these policies by the methods of a police state. This was not\nsimply because Malan, Strijdom, Verwoerd and their henchmen were more racially\nbigoted than their predecessors. Strengthened racial dictatorship was needed so\nthat the capitalist class could expand its productive base and its wealth – and\ndo so despite the rising strength of the impoverished black working class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ninitial growth of capitalism in South Africa was based on the exploitation of\nthe workers on the mines and on the farms – where they were ruthlessly\ncontrolled and enslaved by labour-tenancy, compounds, migrant labour, etc. But\nfrom 1933 onwards manufacturing industry began to expand rapidly, overtaking\nmining as the biggest single contributor to national production during the\nsecond world war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ngrowth of manufacturing swelled the size of the African working class, in areas\nfar less easy for the bosses to control than mining and farming. Between 1932-3\nand 1944-5 the number of African workers in manufacturing more than tripled,\nfrom 76,000 to 249,000. Moreover, in the second world war, because of whites\nbeing called up, many Africans were moved into semi-skilled work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Time\nand again the ruling class made clear that its greatest fear was the potential\npower of this class force<\/strong>to\nstruggle against racial oppression, poverty, and the repressive state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\n1936 the government’s Native Affairs Commission stated that: “Turning the\nNative into a lower class of the population must result not only in the\nengulfing of the ethos of the Bantu race in a black proletariat\u2026but also, and\ninevitably, it will result in class war.” The Board of Trade and Industry,\nin 1945, warned of the dangers of a “homogeneous native proletariat”:\n“No government can view with equanimity the detribalisation of large\nnumbers of natives congregated in amorphous masses in large industrial\ncentres.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

African\nworkers began to sense, and exercise, their increasing industrial muscle during\nthe second world war. In the 14 years prior to the war there had been 197\nofficially-recorded strikes, mainly of non-African workers. Between 1939 and\n1945 there were 304 strikes mainly of African workers, migrant as well as\nnon-migrant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This period saw the first major development of industrial unions among African workers. By 1945 the Council of Non-European Trade Unions claimed 158,000 members. [1]<\/a>
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> This figure exceeded the 100,000\nmembers claimed by the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union at its peak in\n1927 – and the ICU was a general union which never organised along industrial\nlines. The CNETU figure, if correct, would have represented 40% of the 390,000\nAfrican workers in commerce and manufacturing at the time. However, in contrast\nto independent trade unions in South Africa today, these membership claims do\nnot reflect the same degree of organisation<\/em>, of firmly-rooted factory\ncommittees, democratic structures, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nneed for uninterrupted production during the war compelled the employers and\nSmuts’ United Party (UP) government to make some temporary concessions to\nAfrican workers: real wages actually increased. But, as these concessions\nspurred further demands, and as the tide of war turned in favour of the Allies,\nthe ruling class began to clamp down again on the black working class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless,\nthe pressure from the working class widened divisions in the ruling class. The\ncapitalist coalition which the UP had held together since 1933-4 began to\ncrack, on a number of issues; central among them being what (if any)\nconcessions could be afforded on the migrant labour system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Division<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among\nthe capitalists, the farming interest swung massively towards the hard-line NP,\nwhile representatives of the new manufacturing and commercial interests\nquestioned whether industry could develop on the basis of the pre-war labour\nsystem. Did not manufacturing industry require more skilled African labour, and\ndid this not mean stabilised urban labour? Would it not lead to an expansion of\nthe home market for the products of manufacturing industry if workers were paid\nhigher wages?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These\narguments, first voiced seriously in the 1940s, continued to be made by\nsections of the ruling class and by liberal academics in the 1950s – and they\nare heard again today. What they ignore is that the South African economy is\nnot a self-contained entity, but inseparably integrated in a world<\/strong> capitalist economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For\nits expansion, South African capitalism has continued to de\u00adpend on the import\nof capital goods (machinery, etc.) from the advanced capitalist countries,\nproducing on a bigger scale and more cheaply than South Africa could hope to\nmatch. To pay for such goods, South African capitalism has had to rely first\nand foremost on raw materials exports – the products of mining and farming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nexpansion of “modern” manufacturing industry under capitalism in\nSouth Africa has thus been bound – and re\u00admains bound – by a thousand threads\nto the economic forces governing mining and farming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While\ngold mining operated within a fixed world price for gold, other mineral and\nfarming products had to com\u00adpete on world markets with other cheap-labour\neconomies in the grip of monopoly capitalism. Thus the primary sec\u00adtor of the\nSouth African economy – to maintain profitability, sus\u00adtain its key\ncontribution to state revenues and provide a basis for secondary industry – has\nalways depended acutely on holding down the wages of the workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover,\nmanufacturing industry in South Africa has always faced the competitive\npressure of the cheaper pro\u00adducts of more advanced economies, available for\nimport. Even to develop and retain a base in its home market, South African\nmanufacturing industry has had to be protected and subsidised by the state –\nultimately from the profits of mining. And even then, against the advanced\nproduction methods of the multinationals, it has had to rely on the\ncost-cutting of cheap labour methods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Real constraints<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

These\nhave been – and remain today, in the conditions of economic crisis – the real\nconstraints upon the develop\u00adment of South African capitalism towards liberal\nreform. Only the struggle of the working class, and not the pious rhetoric of\n“progressive” capitalists, has proved able to improve conditions (and\neven then only for temporary periods) against these constraints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n“progressives” argued that better wages, permanent urbanisation,\ntrade union rights, etc, could be introduced selectively and gradually from the\n“upper layers” of African workers downwards. But the problem for the\nrul\u00ading class was that, once begun, such concessions would inevitably be\ndemanded by all African workers, with ultimately explosive effects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To\nbegin along this slippery slope threatened to under\u00admine the cheap labour\nsystem as a whole. It would also create anxiety among the white workers (on\nwhom the ruling class relied for support) that their security as a privileged\nminority would be undermined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All\nthese factors paralysed any real reform of the system. For all these reasons,\nonly a strong and resolute movement of the African workers could force the\nruling class even temporarily to make concessions. What is, more obviously, the\ncase today was equally the reality of the situation in the 1940s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fearing\nthat the existing system of white rule could not adequately contain the rising\npower of the African work\u00ading class, sections of the United Party leadership\nbegan, during and after the war, to explore policies of limited reform,\nintended to ease the oppression of upper layers of the African population,\nincluding a small section of the urban workers, and give them a\n“stake” in the stabili\u00adty of capitalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\nbecause of the long-term dangerous implications of such a turn – dangerous for\ncapitalism, that is – these tentative policies carried no real conviction.\nInstead they conveyed irresolution, deepened divisions among the capitalists,\nand opened the way to the “hard” men of the Nationalist Party to\ngather increasing white support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Limits exposed<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed,\nthe limits of UP “reform” – and the real con\u00adstraints on South\nAfrican capitalism – were exposed in August 1946 when 76,000 African migrant\nmineworkers struck for higher wages. The Smuts government, increasingly\nparalysed on other issues, moved swiftly and ruthlessly in defence of the\nChamber of Mines – pivot of the capitalist economy. Police were sent in to beat\nworkers out of the compounds, and out of the stopes where they were staging\nsit-in strikes. At least 12 African workers lost their lives, and 1,248 were\ninjured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While\nthe strike ended in defeat within a week, it was a milestone in the history of\nthe class struggle in South Africa. By their vigorous action the migrant\nmine-workers had plainly signalled the arrival of a new stage in the rise of\nthe black working class – and the capitalist state had no answer but brute\nforce with which to meet it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ndefeat of the strike helped prepare the way for the Nationalist Party victory\nin 1948. For the Chamber of Mines, the repression of the strike by the United\nParty government did not lessen their fears of its division and weakness. Along\nwith many other capitalists, some of the mine bosses swung their support in\n1948 behind the NP, with its granite counter-reformist apartheid programme.\nThis rightward movement by a significant section of the ruling class drew in\nits wake sections of the white middle class and workers who had not previously\nsupported the Nationalists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whereas\na strong forward movement by the black workers, such as existed during the\nsecond world war and exists again today, exerts a restraining influence on\nwhite reaction, defeats give the reaction greater con\u00adfidence. With the defeat\nof the 1946 strike, white workers looked for a strong government that would\nprotect their sectional interests. Swings to the NP in a few key mining\nconstituencies were crucial to its victory in 1948.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nvictory was not “inevitable” (and, in fact, in 1948, the Nationalist\nmajority in Parliament was gained on the basis still of a minority<\/strong>of\nthe white electorate). Never\u00adtheless, in the conditions which developed after\nthe war, the programme of the NP represented at that time the most secure\ndefence of the capitalist system and hence of the interests of the whole of the\ncapitalist class. As this fact was realised, ruling class support and electoral\nsupport for the Nationalists grew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nthe 1950s, world capitalist production and trade grew enormously, creating\nconditions in which the bosses could make concessions to the workers in the\nadvanced capitalist countries. Yet, even in these boom conditions, South\nAfrican capitalism could allow no relaxation in its relentless enslavement of\nthe African working class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dependence\non cheap labour has not been unique to South Africa, but in fact common to the\nwhole of the under-developed world under the pressure of the world capitalist\nmarket. South Africa’s peculiarity lies not in the harsh oppression of its\nworking class for the purpose of exploitation, but in the particular method by\nwhich this has been accomplished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Advantage<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

South\nAfrican capitalism’s advantage in relation to the rest of the under-developed\nworld has lain in its mineral wealth (the basis for industrialisation) plus the\nsolidity of its state machine, resting on racial division and the privilege of\nthe substantial white minority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ntask confronting the NP government was to rein\u00adforce the cheap labour system –\nagainst a movement of the oppressed working class that had suffered defeats,\nbut was still rising. The government’s method was, on the one hand, to try to\nsuppress the trade union and political organisation of the black working class,\nand on the other, by increasing white worker and middle-class privilege, to\nmaintain their loyalty to the enforcement of police rule over the mass of the\npeople.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\npersistent myth peddled by liberals is that repression of the African working\nclass in South Africa has been an evil peculiar to the Nationalist government.\nThe reality is different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Already, after the 1946 mine strike, the UP govern\u00adment was preparing legislation on the trade unions. African unions, stated Smuts, would “fall under the in\u00adfluence of the wrong people” unless they were brought under state control “on a basis of apartheid”. [2]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nUP government appointed an Industrial Legisla\u00adtion Commission, which was kept\nin being by the new NP government, and reported in 1951.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“A\nstrong body of responsible opinion,” it stated – i.e. the majority of the\nruling class – “stressed the serious danger which faced the country if\nNative trade unions were allowed to continue uncontrolled or unguided as at\npresent.” It argued that even to allow African workers access to the\nexisting state regulated collective bargain\u00ading system would have placed\nunbearable costs on South African’s capitalist economy and system of white\nminority rule: the “logical result”, it stated, would be\n“solidarity of labour irrespective of race” and in the longer run\n“complete social and political equality of all races.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If\nAfrican workers “should become well organized,” NP Labour Minister\nSchoeman explained in 1951, “and – again bearing in mind that there are\nalmost 1,000,000 native workers in industry and commerce today – they can use\ntheir trade unions as a political weapon and they can create chaos in South\nAfrica at any time.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Industrial\nlegislation in 1953 and 1956 (entrenching the UP government’s “War\nMeasures”) denied African workers the right to strike legally, excluded\nthem from established collective bargaining machinery, and essen\u00adtially\nprohibited multi-racial unionism. “Job reservation” provisions were a\nstatutory protection for white workers, underpinning the conventional colour\nbar in industry. In the meantime the Suppression of Communism Act, passed in\n1950, was basically being used against trade union activists – 56 were driven\nfrom their positions by 1956, and this was only the beginning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All\nthis was accompanied by measures tightening the chains of the passbook and\nracial laws around the black majority, and by an assault on living standards.\nNew restrictions on the black middle class came as part and parcel of these\nmeasures directed essentially against the working class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though\nextremely reactionary, the NP government was not a fascist<\/strong> government. Fascism bases itself on the despair of the\nmiddle class driven to a frenzy by condi\u00adtions of economic crisis and turned to\nthe service of the ruling capitalist class when the working-class movement has\nlost the initiative and shown itself unable to change society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nSouth African ruling class in the post-war period secured white middle and\nworking class support, not from their despair, but by its ability to provide\nthem with security and privilege. Instead of the gangster mobilisa\u00adtion of mobs\ncharacteristic of the rise of fascism, the capitalists’ white supporters became\nincreasingly demobilised and passive as their bellies grew fatter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What the Nationalist government set out to develop was a bureaucratic-police dictatorship over the black working class. [3]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though\nthe South African economy grew rapidly between 1947 and 1954, this was on the\nbasis of a decline in African workers’ living standards. With the onset of\nrecession after 1954, they were increasingly hard-hit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Industrial\nCouncil agreements ignored the conditions of the African workers, and new\ngovernment Wage Board agreements (to replace those concluded during the war)\nwere virtually non-existent. Cost-of-living allowances and other meagre social\nbenefits for African workers were slashed by the NP government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\nSACTU survey of four representative industries in 1957 showed that real wage\nlevels had dropped by bet\u00adween 20% and 40% since 1948. In the same year there\nwere estimates that average African wages nationally were \u00a391 a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Liberal\n“poverty line” surveys stated that in 1952, 69% of African families\nin Johannesburg were earning less than this virtual starvation level – and that\nin 1957, the number had grown to 87%!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Conspiracy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout\nthe 1950s virtually every industrial strike involving African workers, for the\nsmallest gain, was met with a conspiracy of the bosses, the Labour Department\nand the police. Mass victimisation, prosecutions, depor\u00adtations were the order\nof the day. “Lorry loads of police armed with batons, step-guns and\ntear-gas bombs arrive in great pickup vans and all the strikers are\narrested,” wrote a trade union leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite\ndifferences in the ruling class, the Nationalist Party and United Party leaders\nwere fundamentally united in support of measures to control and suppress the\nworkers. At times the “Official Opposition” tried to recover lost\nground by “out-Nating the Nats”. In 1950 Strauss, the new UP leader,\ndemanded that the Suppres\u00adsion of Communism Act be strengthened by introducing\nthe death penalty for “Communists”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout\nthe 1950s employers supported to the hilt the repression by the police of\ncampaigns of resistance by working people – and added their own threats of vic\u00adtimisation\nand dismissal of activists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet,\nthroughout the decade, black working people fought back – in the factories and\nmines, in the townships, on the farms, in the reserves. The crushing of the\n1946 mineworkers’ strike had been experienced as a severe setback especially by\norganised workers. The membership of the CNETU fell, largely as a result of\nthis, from 158,000 in 1945 to less than 40,000 by 1950. Never\u00adtheless, because\nof the worsening conditions of life, because of the new attacks by both\nemployers and the NP government, working people rallied and moved again into\nstruggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nrecovery of the movement, and the determined mood, was already evident by\n1950-1. In different areas of the country, there was a strong response to three\none\u00ad-day general strike calls in that period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On\nMay Day in 1950, 80% of the workforce on the Rand struck, demanding higher\nwages, the vote, and a halt to repression. Police shot and killed at least 20\nworkers that day. In protest at the shootings, and at the Suppression of\nCommunism Act, a further one-day strike was called for June 26. Though less\nwell supported on the Rand (the CNETU leaders stated that the renewed call was\n“premature”), this call got a massive response in Port Elizabeth and\nCape Town, and among Indian workers in Durban. On April 6, 1951 a one-day\nstrike in defence of the coloured vote was well-supported in the Western Cape\nand Port Elizabeth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nwas only the beginning of a decade of organisa\u00adtion and struggle – of mass\ndemonstrations, boycotts, de\u00adfiance, strikes and near-uprisings – against\npoverty wages, the pass laws, price and fare rises, Bantu education, “Ban\u00adtu\nAuthorities”, “cattle-culling”, police repression, and all the\nother burdens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nwaves of resistance rippled from the city heartlands to the remotest parts of\nthe countryside. By the end of the decade it was drawing in even the weakest\nand most isolated sections of the masses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Writing\nin March 1961, Nelson Mandela described a village delegate to a national\nconference that year. Wear\u00ading riding breeches, a khaki shirt, an old jacket,\nand bare\u00adfooted, this delegate related how he “was elected at a secret\nmeeting held in the bushes far away from our kraals – simply because in our\nvillage it is now a crime for us to hold meetings. I have listened most\ncarefully to speeches made here and they have given me strength and courage. I\nnow realise that we are not alone.” [4]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\ngreat mass movement did not march forward in one straight line. Over the years\nthe focus of struggle shifted from issue to issue; now one area took the lead,\nnow another. As a whole, the movement went forward, halted, and then drove\nforward again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From\n1950 until the end of 1952 was a period of for\u00adward movement, followed by a\nlull until 1955-6, and then again a huge forward movement in 1956-7, the momen\u00adtum\nof which was still not completely broken in 1961.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nmovement grew out of struggles against all man\u00adner of daily burdens heaped on\nworking people. Increas\u00adingly the central demand which it raised – as also in\nour movement today – was for a democratically elected government, for “one\nman one vote”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For\nthe oppressed working people, majority rule – a government of their\n“own” – was demanded as the means to secure decent wages, homes,\njobs, education, an end to the pass laws, racial oppression and humiliation,\nand all the other burdens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taken\nup in action by the masses, the demand for ma\u00adjority rule posed a revolutionary<\/strong>challenge\nin South Africa – not simply to the NP government and its sup\u00adporters, not\nsimply to the existing constitution of “white minority rule”, but\nto the system of capitalism itself.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Barriers<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\nwas inevitable that any government coming into of\u00adfice on the basis of\none-person-one-vote in an undivided South Africa, and therefore under pressure\nto solve the problems of working people, would come up against the barriers of\na capitalist class dependent on the cheap labour system, and a state machine\nconstructed to defend and maintain that system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nwould pose before the aroused working class the necessity of carrying the\nrevolution through to a conclusion – by establishing its own state power and\nover\u00adthrowing capitalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\nthe same logic inherent in the situation in South Africa, the very struggle to\nachieve a democratic govern\u00adment would meet the implacable opposition, not\nsimply of the NP government, but ultimately of the whole rul\u00ading class by all\nmeans at its disposal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Black\nworking people in the 1950s showed their readiness to take up this battle, despite\nthe costs and sacrifices involved. What they were looking for was the way to\nbuild the mass force to take this struggle forward effectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\nthis required above all was nationwide trade union and political organisation\nof the working class, firmly rooted in the strongholds of the factories, the\nmines, the docks and the big farms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\nthe working class, to build its organisations to their full potential and give\na clear lead to the whole move\u00adment, needed to be guided – through its most\nadvanced and conscious element – by a clear understanding of the revolutionary\ntasks and the class nature of the enemy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Workers\nneeded a clear programme, linking all the dai\u00adly issues of the struggle, all\nthe democratic demands, to the need to overthrow the capitalist class, the\ncapitalist state and the profit system it defended. Together with such a\nprogramme, workers needed a clear revolutionary strategy – a strategy leading\nthe way to workers’ power and the socialist transformation of society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An\nunderstanding of revolutionary strategy and programme are just as vital in\nperiods when conditions do not yet exist for the working class to take power –\nfor without them the movement can never raise itself to its full potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lack of such a programme and strategy, as we shall go on to show, played a major part in holding back the mass movement in the 1950s, and in its eventual defeat.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue to Chapter Two<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> This figure exceeded the 100,000\nmembers claimed by the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union at its peak in\n1927 – and the ICU was a general union which never organised along industrial\nlines. The CNETU figure, if correct, would have represented 40% of the 390,000\nAfrican workers in commerce and manufacturing at the time. However, in contrast\nto independent trade unions in South Africa today, these membership claims do\nnot reflect the same degree of organisation<\/em>, of firmly-rooted factory\ncommittees, democratic structures, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a> Hansard<\/em>, April 14, 1947, c. 2664.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/a> In common with other police (and\nmilitary-police) dictatorships, the NP regime did resort increasingly to\nfascist methods. But this did not involve organisation of private gangs of\nstorm-troopers or “death squads”; rather the use of these methods\nagainst the black working class through the state machine itself. Those who\ngreeted each new repressive measure of the NP government in the 1950s with the\ncry that “Fascism has arrived” were wrong. Before the methods of\nfascism could be used by the state unchecked, it was first necessary for the\nworking-class movement to be politically defeated. Only from the 1960s, with\nthe systematic use of torture, with mass removals at gunpoint, did these\nmethods flourish unchecked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/a> Nelson Mandela, No<\/em> Easy Walk to Freedom<\/em>, New York, 1965, p. 90.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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