When the mass movement recovered at the end of the 1940s, the\nvacuum left by the failure of the Communist Party to build a mass workers’\npolitical organisation was being filled by the African National Congress.\nThough the CP leaders played a role in the 1950-51 general strike calls, it was\nalso leaders of the ANC (as well as the South African Indian Congress and other\norganisations) who made these calls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This represented a radical departure for the ANC. From its\nformation in 1912 until this time, the ANC had been little more than a\nmiddle-class pressure group, ap\u00adpealing to the ruling class for the removal of\nits own disabilities. Only for short periods, in one area or another, did the\npre-war ANC seek or find any mass sup\u00adport. The huge upsurges of struggle of\nthe working masses against the ruling class which took place between the 1920s\nand 1940s bypassed the ANC almost completely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During and after the Second World War a new genera\u00adtion of young\nAfrican intellectuals sought to orient the ANC towards mobilising mass action.\nThey were, on the one hand, disillusioned with the failure of the ruling class\nto respond to the old ANC methods of petition and deputation, and, on the other\nhand, impressed with the power of the wartime mass working-class movement. The\nANC Youth League, espousing these aims, was form\u00aded in 1943, in the wake of the\nWitwatersrand strike wave of 1942.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The brutal repression of the 1946 mine strike, follow\u00aded by the\n1948 NP victory, angered and radicalised broader layers of the black middle\nclass, especially the youth. It was in the wake of these events, in December\n1949, that the ANC adopted what was essentially the pro\u00adgramme of the Youth\nLeague – the Programme of Ac\u00adtion. It resolved to mobilise a struggle for\n“National freedom” and an end to white domination, by means of\n“immediate and active boycott, strike, civil disobedience, non-cooperation\nand such other means as may bring about the accomplishment and realisation of\nour aspirations.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the basis of this mandate the ANC leaders, many with\nconsiderable reluctance, participated in calling the successful one-day general\nstrikes in 1950-51.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hundreds of thousands of workers were looking for a political\nlead, and gave immediate support to these calls. Thus the ANC stepped into the\ngap left by the absence of a mass workers’ party, and became the focus for the\nnationwide movement of the black working people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The rise of mass support for the ANC was confirmed in the next\nmajor campaign which it launched: the De\u00adfiance Campaign of 1952. ANC\nmembership mounted from a few thousand to (some would claim) 100,000. But the\nturn by the working class to support an organisation that, despite\nradicalisation, remained under middle-class leadership, opened up huge\ncontradictions in the ANC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the National Executive itself stated in its December 1950\nreport, “the masses are marching far ahead of the leadership.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The approach of the old middle-class ANC leadership had been, and\nremained, to rely on a “change of heart” on the part of the white\npopulation. [1]<\/a> Because they did not experience life\nas black workers experienced it, at the sharp end of the system of\nexploitation, they could not see that the real material interests of the\ncapitalist class lay behind the national oppression of the African peo\u00adple,\nincluding themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They imagined that racism could be overcome by moral persuasion of\nwhites and by appeals to goodwill and com\u00admon humanity. Hence they looked\nnaturally towards white liberals – to the liberal wing of the capitalist\nclass<\/strong>, together with its intellectuals, clergymen, etc – as some\nsort of forerunners of an enlightened attitude that would (God willing) lead to\na change of heart by the majority of whites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More militant<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The younger generation of radical ANC leaders took a more militant\nline. The Programme of Action, stated Nelson Mandela later, “meant that\nthe ANC was not go\u00ading to rely on a change of heart. It was going to exert\npressure to compel the authorities to grant its demands.” [2]<\/a> The key to this was mass mobilisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even so, however, the lack of a class analysis and perspective\nmeant that the revolutionary implications of mobilising the working class were\nnot grasped. If moral persuasion had failed, perhaps it would be enough to\ntwist the government’s arm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was still believed that winning support from liberals and\n“democrats” among the upper-class whites constituted real\nbreakthroughs in the struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On this basis the old moderate and the young radical wings of the\nANC leadership were uneasily reconciled with each other in their support of the\nDefiance Cam\u00adpaign. But in the implementation of the campaign, in the actual\nmobilisation of the working class, the underlying divisions and uncertainty of\npurpose became manifest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Taken as a whole<\/strong>,<\/strong> the ANC leadership was not willing to carry out\nsuch a mobilisation fully and systematically. They were not willing to see the\ninitiative of the strug\u00adgle pass into the hands of the working class, or for\nthe workers’ class struggle to become the paramount drive and focus of the\nmovement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This fact largely explains the uneven character of the Defiance\nCampaign in different areas of the country and why it failed to develop\nnationwide momentum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nevertheless, like the one-day strikes of 1950-51, the Defiance\nCampaign confirmed that the working class was the real force in the struggle\nagainst the NP government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was initiated as a campaign of non-violent civil disobedience\nby selected volunteers against six unjust laws: the pass laws, stock\nlimitation, the Suppression of Communism Act, the Group Areas Act, the Bantu\nAuthorities Act, and the Voters Act of 1951. But it was most successful in the\nEastern Cape, where it rapidly took on a mass character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Strongly rooted<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In the Eastern Cape, particularly in Port Elizabeth, the ANC was\nmost strongly rooted in the trade unions and led by trade unionists. Defiance\nof the law by volunteers was backed up by organised strength. When employers\ntried to sack volunteers, workers struck to enforce their reinstatement.\nAgainst police violence in the townships, resistance was organised. When armed\npolice were in\u00adtroduced on the buses and a curfew imposed, a bus boycott was\nbegun and a general strike threatened: the municipality backed off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The lead given in Port Elizabeth drew into action fresh layers of\nworking people throughout the Eastern Cape countryside. Three-quarters of the\narrests of volunteers nationwide occurred in the Eastern Cape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Eastern Cape alone attempted to put into prac\u00adtice the full\nplan which had been envisaged by the Plan\u00adning Council for the campaign\nthroughout South Africa. This was conceived as a campaign in three stages: com\u00admencing\nwith civil disobedience by “selected and train\u00aded” volunteers in the\nmajor cities, continuing with in\u00adcreasing the number of volunteers and the\nnumber of cen\u00adtres, and in the third stage broadening out “on a country\u00adwide\nscale and assum[ing] a general mass character.”[3]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n But in all other areas the campaign was held back from passing\nbeyond even the first stage. Nationally, it was allowed to dwindle to a ragged\nhalt before the end of 1952.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This did not reflect any collapse of enthusiasm among ANC\nactivists and supporters. During the campaign thousands of volunteers had been\nturned away. In the early months of 1953 the ANC rank-and-file in the Transvaal\nand the Cape were pressing for a general strike call in support of the demands\nof the Campaign – despite the introduction by the government in January of new\nstiff penalties for civil disobedience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, however, Congress launched no further mass action\ncampaigns until 1955. And the action campaigns in 1955, too, became paralysed\nand petered out for want of a vigorous lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1955 the ANC committed itself to prevent the forc\u00aded removal of\nresidents from the Johannesburg Western Areas. This was identified as the key\npoint for implemen\u00adting a general “Resist Apartheid” call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The residents had been roused by the slogan “we will not\nmove”, and had been allowed to believe that secret plans had been drawn up\nto call a general strike if the police attempted removals, in order to disperse\nand paralyse the forces of the state. Yet, on the eve of the removals, the ANC\nPresident in the Transvaal said: “There can be no talk of defiance in this\nmatter.” [4]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n As the ANC Secretariat subsequently admitted, the ma\u00adjor weakness\nof the campaign<\/p>\n\n\n\n “would seem to be the failure of the leadership to tell the people precisely what form of resistance was to be of\u00adfered on the day of removal. This information was re\u00adquested time after time and at no stage was a clear and unequivocal answer given. The masses were given the im\u00adpression, however, that Congress had the answer and would give it at the appropriate time.” [5]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Similar vacillations paralysed the 1955 campaign against Bantu\nEducation. There was widespread hostili\u00adty, among parents, youth and teachers\nto the govern\u00adment’s plans. Many activists wanted to organise an in\u00addefinite\nboycott, and even an alternative schooling system. This was, of course,\nutopian. But the ANC leadership, unwilling to endorse this, but unable to offer\nan alternative plan of struggle, blew hot and cold – disappointing those who\nhad committed themselves to action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead of mobilising consistent “pressure to compel the\nauthorities to grant its demands,” the approach was to turn the pressure\non, and then try to turn it off again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course ebbs and flows in the mass movement were inevitable:\nmass action cannot be sustained indefinitely. But the task of leadership is to\nassess in advance what particular campaigns can achieve, and then carry them\nthrough to a conclusion – laying a firm basis from which the movement can once\nagain advance. Cutting off cam\u00adpaigns while they are still moving forward only\nconfuses and disorganises a mass movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Attitude\nreflected<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In reality, the wavering of the leadership reflected a\nmiddle-class attitude to mass mobilisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The middle class is oppressed by capitalism (especially in its\nmonopoly form) and, in South Africa particularly, by racialism – but at the\nsame time it is raised by petty privileges above the condition of the workers.\nIt neither controls the means of production nor produces the wealth of society:\nhence in the struggle between the main social antagonists – the working class and\nthe capitalist class – it has no independent<\/strong>role to play, and no\nindependent policy to offer. It therefore shows no consistency, but tends to\nbend according to the conflicting pressures on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Any determined mass\nstruggle<\/strong>inevitably\npolarises the capitalist class and the working class against each other.\nInitially such a movement accentuates divisions among the capitalists,\nresulting from conflicts over their different particular interests and from\nuncertainty over their strategy. But the liberal capitalists, too, move\nultimately into the camp of reaction when they face a challenge by the workers\nwhich cannot be warded off by tricks and smiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only by understanding how the liberal section of the capitalists\nwill behave once a serious revolutionary con\u00adfrontation develops can the\nworkers’ movement avoid be\u00ading deceived by the liberals in the earlier stages\nof its mobilisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Forced to\nchoose<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n When the main classes polarise against each other, this in turn\nforces the middle layers of society to choose bet\u00adween two starkly opposed\nforces, and ultimately two alternative “regimes”. Sharp and\napparently bewildering swings of the middle classes to left and to right have\nbeen a regular feature of revolutionary epochs in all countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In South Africa, the bulk of the white middle class has been drawn\nover a long period to the right, and with it has gone the privileged white\nworkers. Under the impact, however, of capitalist crisis and the rising\nchallenge of the black workers, sudden rifts and radical swings among these\nlayers will occur in the future – both to the extreme right and to the left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the other hand, the majority of the black middle class\nsympathises and identifies with the black workers’ movement, and can be drawn\nbehind it by a strong lead. At the same time, however, elements of this middle\nclass pass over into open alliance with the capitalists when they find they can\nno longer safely occupy middle ground. The first signs of this appear even in\nthe first stages of the polarisation of labour and capital. At the end of the\nDefiance Campaign, for instance, the Working Commit\u00adtee of the ANC (Cape) noted\nthe departure of<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cpleading, cowardly, and hamba-kahle leaders who were always ready to compromise after they had been flattered by taking tea with the rulers of the people. These leaders have now been isolated and are siding with their masters to justify oppression and exploitation\u2026” [6]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Today we see the parallel in the role of the Bantustan leaders,\nthe President’s Council collaborators, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the working class and the ruling class struggle more intensely\nagainst each other, as more and more of the old middle ground disappears, this\nprocess affects the upper layers of the middle class to an ever increasing\nextent (and can have the unexpected result of even previously respected leaders\nchanging sides).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Decisive\ninfluence<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The important thing to understand is that the shifts and swings in\nthe behaviour of the middle classes are decisively influenced by the\npolarisation and grinding action of the main forces of labour and capital\nagainst each other. The\nbulk of the oppressed middle class can be rescued from its dilemma only by a\ndetermined lead from the workers.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It is a characteristic blindness of middle-class leaders to seek\nthe impossible “middle way”, by “reconciling” labour and\ncapital – by first supporting and then trying to hold back the struggles of\nworkers, and by hoping to reconcile the capitalists to workers’ demands. These\nuto\u00adpian ideas often play a big role at the beginning of a revolutionary epoch,\nbefore they are overwhelmed by great events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In South Africa, especially in the early 1950s, the ANC leadership\nwas characterised by such illusions of recon\u00adciliation and compromise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus Chief Lutuli, in November 1952 (shortly before he was elected\nPresident of the ANC with the support of the Youth League) insisted that the\nDefiance Campaign was not subversive, “since it does not seek to overthrow\nthe form and machinery of the State but only urges for the inclusion of all\nsections of the community in a part\u00adnership in the government of the country on\nthe basis of equality.” The following year he spoke of “a democracy\nwhich shall provide for a partnership in the Government of the Union of South\nAfrican within the present framework of the Union.” [7]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n But the Programme of Action and the Defiance Cam\u00adpaign implied\nmore than this. They called on the people to take up a struggle for their own\nneeds by methods – civil disobedience, boycott and strike – which inevitably\nbrought them into confrontation with the “law and order” of the state\nand the authority of the ruling class over pro\u00adduction and society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Carried into action, they could only bring to light that the\nstruggle for democracy in South Africa involves a revolutionary struggle to\noverthrow the ruling capitalist class. They therefore struck at the very\nfoundations of the “present framework of the Union.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n To pretend otherwise would not deceive the ruling class, acutely\nconscious of its interests. To pretend other\u00adwise could only conceal from the\nmasses the understan\u00adding indispensable to their effective mobilisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hopes pinned<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Not having learned the necessary lessons from the ex\u00adperience\nunder the United Party and other capitalist governments up to 1948, an\ninfluential section of the ANC leadership at this time pinned hopes on a defeat\nof the Nationalist Party in the 1953 white elections. After the re-election of\nthe NP government (with an increased majority), there was more vocal criticism\nwithin the ANC of the “change of heart” conception. Among the critics\nwere the radical nationalists who later formed the core of the PAC split-off\nfrom the ANC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From this time, the ANC leadership spoke increasing\u00adly in terms of\nthe construction of a “multi-racial united democratic front” to\n“challenge the forces of reaction in this country.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The African working class – with its families, the ma\u00adjority in\nsociety – had every interest in the widest possi\u00adble unity in action of workers\nand all genuine strugglers. If powerfully organised, and armed with a clear\nunderstanding of its tasks, the working class could have rallied all sections\nof oppressed society to its side, giving a basis for workers to win over their\nnon-working class supporters to a revolutionary programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In that way, the movement could have been united in the struggle\nfor national liberation and democracy, con\u00adsciously linked to the need for\nworkers’ power and the socialist transformation of society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But this was not the kind of “united front” envisaged by\nthe middle-class ANC leadership. They hoped to find “democracy” while\nevading the question of workers’ power and the struggle against capitalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus, on the one hand, their approach was to construct the\n“Congress Alliance”, linking ethnically-based sister organisations\nled in each case by the\nmiddle class<\/strong>–\nthe Coloured People’s Congress, the Indian Congresses, the white Congress of\nDemocrats. On the other hand, they set out to woo the support of open\napologists for, and representatives of, the\ncapitalist class.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Under middle-class leadership, they hoped to bind together the\nopposing interests of the workers and the bosses into a Popular Front of all\nclasses against the NP government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Characteristic<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus a characteristic ANC document evaluating the Defiance\nCampaign for the National Action Committee (December 1952) welcomed as a\ndistinct mark of success the “range of white sympathy” which had been\ngenerated among “philosophers, liberals, university professors and other\nprominent people,” including church leaders. Against all the evidence of\ncontinued implacable resistance by employers and police to workers’ struggles\non the factory floor, they claimed that commerce and industry were\n“propagating liberal and more humane policy.” [8]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1954, to the ANC conference, Lutuli expressed\n“gratitude” not only for the formation of the Congress of Democrats,\nbut for the formation of the openly pro-capitalist Liberal Party, on a\nprogramme of qualified franchise. Between them and “ourselves”, he\nsaid, “there exists a warm sympathetic understanding.” And he\nreferred to the late J. H. Hofmeyr – Deputy Prime Minister at the time the 1946\nAfrican mineworkers’ strike was crushed – as a “great South African”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Certainly the force of the rising mass movement had deepened\ndivisions among the ruling class and its supporters. Under the more intense\npressures from below today, such divisions have opened up again on an even\ngreater scale. But these do not signify a “change of heart” by the\nruling class over the defence of its material interests. They are a sign of its\nweakening, and of its search for new methods of trickery and division to use\nagainst the working people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rather than bending and accommodating to the ruling class\n“progressives”, the task for the mass movement is to intensify its\npressure. But the right wing of the ANC leadership, particularly, shrank from\nthese class realities. Intimidated by the ruling class, they feared also the\nforces that would be unleashed by mass confrontation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Elevated above the condition of the workers, the black middle\nclass in Congress were susceptible to pressures from above – to the weight of\nthe capitalist class and its state. In the wake of the Defiance Campaign,\nrelated the Congress right-winger Jordan Ngubane, the Institute of Race\nRelations organised meetings involving leading liberals as well as Lutuli and\ntwo former ANC Presidents. “The majority on the white side,” he\nstated, “wanted us to pursue a course so moderate our people would\npromptly lynch all of us.” [9]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Clearly, the right wing could not afford to go so far.\nNevertheless, they insisted on the “non-subversive” character of the\nmass struggle, and were willing to use their authority and prestige to try to\nmaintain it within limits acceptable to the liberals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Congress leaders showed the heavy influence of the liberals in\nclinging still to the dream that South Africa could be changed by an opposition\nparty defeating the Nationalist Party in future white elections. Giving his\nPresidential address to the Cape ANC in June 1955, Professor Z. K. Matthews criticised\nthe UP opposition and argued that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Only a party with a policy diametrically opposed to that of the Nationalists’ party will ever remove them from office. No such party has yet emerged from among the people who enjoy the franchise in South Africa.<\/strong> Such a party when it eventually does emerge will probably be in the wilderness for some time, but it will be the only party with a future in South Africa and will constitute a genuine alternative government<\/strong>to that of the Nationalist Party. It is such a party and such a party alone which will be able to preserve South Africa not for white civilisation, but for civilisation as such.” (Our emphasis.) <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n All else aside, this represented a total misunderstanding of the psychology of the white electorate. In the 1950s, the NP government was offering to the white workers and middle class the best they could expect to get in the harsh and uncertain world of capitalism – economic concessions, and the reliable defence of their privilege. This was why the UP opposition refused to budge from the same ground. The liberal splinter parties which emerged in the 1950s might win support from individuals whose conscience was disturbed, but could never<\/strong> have a realistic appeal to the majority of whites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Organised power<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The only thing that could have begun to win respect from white\nworkers was the strongest possible display by black workers of their\ndetermination and organised power in fighting for their own rights and class\ninterests – and therefore for the complete transformation of society. While an\nappeal to the common interests of black and white workers in joining a struggle\nto overthrow capitalism would probably not have won much support from white\nworkers at that stage, it was the only serious basis on which a conscious revolutionary\nmovement of black workers could have been developed, having the prospect of\neventual success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In reality, the “reasonableness” of the Congress\nleadership towards the liberal capitalists only hardened the racism of white\nworkers and drove them further to the right. They saw in it a combination of\nthe blacks with the white bosses<\/strong>,\nand thus felt threatened by it in a way which they would not be threatened by a\nclass-conscious movement of black workers offering workers’ unity with a\nsocialist programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was precisely the danger of a “toenadering<\/em>” of\nthe capitalists and the blacks which was always pointed to in the “swart\ngevaar<\/em>“propaganda\nused by the NP demagogues to whip up fear among the lower class whites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Therefore the compromising policies of Congress leaders (and\nclass-compromise always has this effect) contributed to the opposite<\/strong>development to that which they\nintended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1948 the NP government had scraped into office. But it increased<\/strong>its majority in each subsequent\ntest: in the elections of 1953 and 1958, and in the referendum for a Republic\nin 1960.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Its support growing, the NP government grew more confident in\nrepression. Insistence on the “non-subversive” character of the\nstruggle did not save the Congress movement from intensified restrictions,\nbans, banishments – or from the arrest of 156 leaders in 1956 on charges of\nhigh treason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rethink<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Certainly, the state’s vicious response to the Defiance Campaign\ndid cause serious activists in Congress to rethink their earlier belief in the\nalmost magical power of unorganised mass actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus Nelson Mandela, who at the December 1951 ANC conference had\ncalled for apartheid to be “made unworkable” [10]<\/a> by means of the Defiance\nCampaign, drew sober and important conclusions in his well-known “No Easy\nWalk to Freedom” speech in September 1953:<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The Congresses realized that these [repressive] measures created a new situation which did not prevail when the campaign was launched in June 1952\u2026 <\/p> “Long speeches, the shaking of fists, the banging of tables, and strongly worded resolutions out of touch with conditions do not bring about mass action, and can do a great deal of harm to the organization and the struggles we serve. We understood that the masses had to be made ready for new forms of political struggle. We had to recuperate our strength and muster our forces for another and more powerful offensive against the enemy\u2026The Defiance Campaign, together with its thrills and adventures, has receded. The old methods of bringing about mass action through public mass meetings, press statements, and leaflets calling upon the people to go into action have become extremely dangerous and difficult to use effectively\u2026<\/p> “The general political level of the people has been considerably raised and they are now more conscious of their strength. Action has become the language of the day. The ties between the working people and the Congress have been greatly strengthened. This is a development of the highest importance because in a country such as ours a political organization that does not receive the support of the workers is paralysed on the very ground on which it has chosen to wage battle\u2026<\/p> “From now on the activity of the Congressites must not be confined to speeches and resolutions. Their activities must find expression in wide-scale work among the masses, work which will enable them to make the greatest possible contact with the working people. You must protect and defend your trade unions. If you are not allowed to have your meetings publicly, then you must hold them over your machines in the factories, on the trains and buses as you travel home. You must have them in your villages and shanty-towns. You must make every home and every shack and every mud structure where our people live a branch of the trade union movement, and you must never surrender .<\/p> “\u2026Here in South Africa, as in many parts of the world, a revolution is maturing: it is the profound desire, the determination and the urge of the overwhelming majori\u00adty of the country to destroy forever the shackles of oppression that condemn them to servitude and slavery.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The conclusions drawn by Mandela on the need for the organisation<\/strong>of the working class were quite\ncorrect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But to turn them into reality, something more was needed. That was\nan understanding of why<\/strong> the organisation\nof the working class was the key – and a conscious acceptance of the need to\ntransform Congress into an instrument of struggle in which the organised\nworkers predominated and gave clear class leadership to the entire movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To put the same point another way: what was needed was an\nunderstanding of the capitalist foundation on which the apartheid system rests,\nand a programme rousing the working class, linking the democratic and social\ndemands with the ideas of socialism, and imbuing the whole movement with a\nrevolutionary perspective and strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Without this conception – without a deliberate struggle<\/strong>to convince Congress activists\nand change the direction and leadership of the movement – there could be no\nfundamental break with the failed methods of the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus, in fact, neither the Western Areas anti-removals campaign\nnor the Bantu Education campaign was based on developing the organised strength\nof the working class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To move seriously in the direction in which Mandela’s speech had\npointed, it was not enough for trade union leaders to be elevated into some\nleading positions in Congress (as happened in the 1950s, and as we see again\ntoday in the UDF). Nor was it a question of the workers being organised as\n“one front” – even “the most important front” – in a\nstruggle of “many fronts” (a terminology current today).<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was a question then – as it still is today – of the working\nclass, its interests and its programme, ruling the policy of the Congress\nmovement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The awakening of the working class in the early 1950s, its\npressure upon Congress, and the search for new direction among the ANC\nactivists provided a fertile field in which an organised campaign to transform\nthe movement on these lines could rapidly have made headway. What would have\nbeen necessary to achieve this, however, was the formation of a conscious\nMarxist tendency within Congress, unashamedly putting forward its ideas and\nbuilding support systematically among the organised workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Communist\nParty?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Was this not a role which the Communist Party might have performed\nin the ANC? Was such a transformation of Congress not a means of bringing into\nbeing at last the mass workers’ party which the CP leaders had failed to build\nor even prepare before?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Again, tragically, the opportunity was missed. The CP had already degenerated to such a degree – its policies had already parted company to such an extent from the fundamental class ideas<\/strong> of Marxism – that when it turned its forces into Congress in the 1950s it merely propped up and gave a cover to the old mistaken policies and approach of the middle-class leaders. [1]<\/a> In his Presidential address to the December 1951 ANC Conference, Dr. J. S. Moroka stated: “I appeal to them [the white people of this country] to reconsider their attitude towards us. Give us democratic rights in this land of our birth.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n [2]<\/a>\nNo Easy Walk to Freedom<\/em>, p. 83.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [3]<\/a> Report of the Joint Planning Council of\nthe ANC and the South African Indian Congress, November 8, 1951.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite the success of the 1950-51 one-day strikes, the Planning\nCouncil was nervously ambiguous about the role that would be played in the\nDefiance Campaign by the exercise of workers’ industrial muscle:<\/p>\n\n\n\n “We\ncannot fail to recognise that industrial action is second to none, the best and\nmost important weapon in the struggle of the people for the repeal of the\nunjust Laws and that it is inevitable that this method of struggle has to be\nundertaken, at one time or another during the course of the struggle\u2026We are\nnevertheless of the opinion that in this next phase of our campaign lawful\nindustrial action should not be resorted to immediately, but that it should be\nresorted to at a later stage in the struggle. In this new phase of the campaign\na sustained form of mass action will be necessary which will gradually embrace\nlarger groups of people, permeate both the urban and the rural areas and make\nit possible for us to organise, discipline and lead the people in a planned\nmanner\u2026It should be noted, however, that our recommendations do not preclude\nthe use of lawful industrial action during the first stage provided that conditions\nmake its use possible on a local, regional, provincial or national scale.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n [4]<\/a>\nDrum<\/em>, February 1955, p. 17. (Quoted in Tom Lodge, Black Politics in South Africa\nSince 1945<\/em>, London, 1983, p. 105.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n [5]<\/a>\nQuoted in From\nProtest to Challenge, A Documentary History of African Politics in South\nAfrica, 1882-1964<\/em>, edited by Karis and Carter, Stanford, 1977, vol. 3, p.\n26-7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [6]<\/a>\nFrom “Circular Letter to All Congress Branches of the\nProvince”, December 1952.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [7]<\/a>\nThe Road to Freedom is Via the Cross<\/em>, published by the ANC, London (undated), p. 9 and p.17.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [8]<\/a>\nFrom Protest to Challenge<\/em>, vol. 2, p.\n426.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [9]<\/a>\nFrom Protest to Challenge<\/em>, vol. 3, p.\n298.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\nContinue to Chapter Four<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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