By 1957 any relative lull in the mass struggle in South Africa had\ncompletely evaporated. This reflected itself partly in a rise of strike action,\nfrom the low point of the decade in 1953 to a high point in 1955-57. But the weakness of the workers’\norganisations meant that the movement flowed predominantly along other\nchannels.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n What provoked this movement were specific attacks by employers and\nthe government: fare increases, the introduction of passes for women, and the\nimposition of “Bantu Authorities” in the reserves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Economically, South African capitalism was entering a recession,\nand the ruling class sought to lay the burden on the workers. “It would\nseem,” stated the government’s Viljoen report on industry in 1958,\n“that the boom in secondary industry has for the present largely spent its\nforce.” In fact, between 1955-6 and 1959-60 only 5,397 new jobs were\ncreated for African workers. The capitalists held off wage concessions even for\nwhite workers in, e.g., building and engineering during this period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Early signs of resurgence of mass struggle were the launching of a\nbus boycott in Evaton in July 1955, and the burning of passes by women in\nWinburg in March 1956. In both cases militant and determined action under local\nleadership produced victories. As a result of the women’s action in Winburg,\nthe government stopped issuing passes to women for six months. In Evaton, after\na boycott for more than ten months, bitterly and violently contested, the fare\nincreases were withdrawn and a measure of control over the running of transport\nwas conceded to a locally-elected committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The demonstration of 20,000 women from all over South Africa at\nthe Union Buildings in August 1956 (called by the Federation of South African\nWomen) showed the enormous militant potential of working-class women. This was\nonly the beginning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From the end of 1956, when the government again started issuing\npasses to women – in country districts and small towns – a spontaneous struggle\nerupted, drawing in the men as well. During 1957 this escalated, involving\ngeneral strike action in some towns, and merging with resistance to Bantu\nAuthorities in a number of areas in the Transvaal. From April, for example,\nthere was an open mass revolt under way in the Marico district.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile the same was taking place in urban areas. On January 7,\n1957, a bus boycott began in Alexandra in protest against a decision by PUTCO\nto raise bus fares by 1d (one penny) to 5d. From the start it was a solid demonstration\nof working-class solidarity. The boycott spread immediately to Sophiatown and\nLady Selborne in Pretoria – and to Atteridgeville, Mooiplaats, Newclare in\nPretoria, as well as to Germiston and Edenvale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On January 13, workers from Moroka and Jabavu – 20,000 or so –\njoined in solidly, even\nthough fares had not been raised there.<\/strong> In February, solidarity\nboycotts began in other parts of the country: Randfontein, Port Elizabeth,\nUitenhage, Bloemfontein. In March an existing partial boycott in Brakpan was\nmade total. In April a bus boycott developed in Worcester.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The working-class atmosphere of the movement is captured in\ncontemporary accounts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n (F)or five or six hours every day endless streams of walkers filled the pavements. Over the rise that obscures Alexandra Township from the main road came the eruption of workers in the dawn hours when mists and brazier fires mingle indistinguishably together. End to end the road was filled with shadowy, hurrying figures. Then the forms thinned out as the younger men with the firmest, sprightly step drew away from the older people, the women, the lame.<\/p> “In the late afternoons and early evenings, the same crowds turned their backs on the city and again took to the roads. Down the hill the footsloggers found it easier (though by the tenth and eleventh weeks of the boycott many shoes were worn to pitiful remnants), the spindly-legged youngsters trotted now and then to keep up, the progress of the weary women was slower still, here a large Monday washing bundle carried on the head, there a paraffin tin, or the baby tied securely to the back.<\/p> (Ruth First, in Africa South<\/em>, July-September 1957.) <\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n “Not since the days of the Defiance Campaign,” she\ncontinued, “had Africans held so strategic a position\u2026Throughout the long\nweeks of the boycott, the political initiative in South Africa passed out of\nthe hands of the Government and the Cabinet and into the hands of the African\npeople.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Initiative<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n On the whole, the initiative lay with the working class. According\nto the then ANC activist, Tennyson Makiwane:<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The protest by the people which has soared to such inspiring success these few weeks has been achieved with the minimum of fuss and bother, no central coordination of the boycott and wholly local direction of the protest movement.”<\/p> (Fighting Talk<\/em>, February 1957.) <\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In Alexandra, the leadership of the boycott was in the hands of a\nPeople’s Transport Committee, responsible to mass meetings. Local ANC activists\nwere prominent on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, the Alexandra boycott broke through an increasing isolation of the\u00a0national<\/strong> ANC leadership from the mass mood. They had played no part in the earlier Evaton bus boycott, and when they had been approached by the women in Winburg for advice on how to respond to the government’s introduction of passes, they had advised the women not to burn them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Guidelines<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Guidelines issued to activists by the Congress National\nConsultative Committee on the women’s struggle over passes, in December 1956,\nshowed that one important conclusion on the implications of the struggle had\nbegun to dawn:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The pass system is the foundation of the whole cheap labour system in South Africa; the ruling class will not easily be forced to give it up. It follows, that victory in the struggle against the pass laws must not be looked for in every minor skirmish against the enemy\u2026Final victory for the people means the end of the cheap labour system in South Africa. It can only be achieved finally by the overthrow of the ruling class, and by the winning of the Freedom Charter as the ruling policy of South Africa.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n But from this fact, the document failed\nto draw any clear conclusions<\/strong>on\nhow to prepare and mobilise the working people for these revolutionary tasks.\nInstead, it concentrated on warning that acts of resistance and defiance could\nnot be expected to produce results. Instead of a clear lead, there was,\neffectively, no lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the one hand, stated the guidelines: “Nothing should be\nsaid or done which would discourage\u2026acts of defiance, passive resistance,”\nby the women. (Actually the women’s defiance was far from passive<\/strong>.) “But,” it\ncontinued,<\/p>\n\n\n\n this is not the only way to fight, nor even the best way. Even widespread acts of passive resistance alone cannot, in the long run, deter the government from its course, if it is determined to use all its force, authority and power to enforce its will\u2026We must not let our enthusiasm blind us to the prospects of overwhelming government force – mass deportations, sackings from jobs, evictions from homes, etc – which can be unleashed against passive resisters, to break their resistance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n What alternative was proposed to take the struggle forward? Only\ngeneralities so vague that no-one would be able to draw from them a direction\nfor any clear campaign:<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are other ways of struggle against the pass laws, each of which has its place. Pass laws can be fought by demonstrations and strikes, by petitions and meetings, by boycott and resistance and disobedience, by active struggle as well as passive. Which of these ways is best? This can only be conceived in the precise circumstances in which we find ourselves in each area at any one time. Sometimes one and sometimes another\u2026We must be ready to use any and every means of struggle which are appropriate and possible at any time and which advance us to our goal\u2026<\/p> The campaign must be conducted – as befits a long-drawn out war – with flexibility and skill, now using one weapon, now another\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In practice, the magnificent local resistance struggles of the\nwomen against passes were not built upon nationally, and became confined mainly\nto the organisation of meetings, petitions and demonstrations. The women’s\nactivity was not linked to the task of building and using the organised strength\nof the workers in production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the launching and spread of the bus boycott movement – at the\nsame time as the struggle of women against passes was taking off – the ANC and\nCP leadership faced an even more serious test. Though Congress had not initiated\nthe struggle, the working people were looking to it for a lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, the government itself threw down a challenge. The\nboycott, declared Minister of Transport Schoeman,<\/p>\n\n\n\n “was not an economic matter, but a political move in which the African National Congress was testing its strength\u2026If the Government capitulated to this political move I dare not think what the future would hold for us. But there will be no capitulation\u2026<\/p> “The boycott will be broken whether it continues for one month or six months. We are convinced that this is only a beginning. These plans have been plotted for a long time. This is merely the precipitating event and their leaders are preparing themselves for the struggle\u2026If they want a showdown they will get it.” [1]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Moreover, commented the Natal Daily\nNews<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr Schoeman did not say so in Parliament but there is good reason to believe that the Cabinet thinks if the boycott were to succeed over bus fares it would become the conventional and invariable weapon against all other increased charges levied on the Bantu, such as house rentals.<\/p> As such it would have become the effective political weapon for an unenfranchised majority in other fields as well and would eventually enable the Bantu to challenge the authority of the Government itself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n What was frightening the government – and the whole ruling class –\nwas that the African working class in struggle was beginning to sense its own\npower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Generalise\ndemands<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Once launched into action, the working class inevitably begins to\ngeneralise its demands beyond the issue which sparked matters off. If fare\nincreases could not be afforded, it was easy to conclude, the cause was\ninadequate wages. From the heart of the boycott movement the demand for \u00a31 a\nday emerged – and was pressed on the Congress leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At a week’s notice in the midst of the boycott, on February 10,\nSACTU convened a National Workers’ Conference. It was attended by over 300\ndelegates representing 24,000 organised workers, as well as unorganised workers\nfrom over 100 factories. The demand for \u00a31 a day national minimum wage was\nunanimously acclaimed, and the conference set a target of organising 20,000\nworkers on this basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like lightning, around the country, the slogan of the boycott,\n“Azikwelwa<\/em>” (“we will not ride”), was joined by the\nslogan, “Asinamali<\/em>” (“we have no money”).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The bus boycott was a painful enough weapon through which to press\ndemands for withdrawal of fare increases. It could not, of course, enforce\nwider demands, certainly not for \u00a31 a day. Among other reasons, it left the\nemployers in possession of the labour-power of the workers, while progressively\ntiring out the workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mobilisation at that time by the Congress leadership for a\ncountrywide 24-hour general strike<\/strong>,\nlinking the fares issue with the demand for \u00a31 a day national minimum wage, and\nraising the slogan of “one man one vote”, would have been the most\neffective way to consolidate the whole mass movement and carry forward the\noffensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It would have cemented the unity of the already-organised workers.\nIt could, around the \u00a31 a day demand, have drawn unorganised workers into the\nunions – probably in far greater numbers than SACTU’s 20,000 target. It could\nhave linked together the struggle over fares, wages, passes and all the\ndemocratic issues – and directed it consciously<\/strong>against the source of the cheap\nlabour system, the capitalists and their state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Durban strikes<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n According to activists of the early 1970s, the strike movement\nwhich erupted in Durban in 1973 against rising prices nearly began as a transport\nboycott. Who can doubt the impact on our history – in terms of the resurgence\nof the working-class movement – that resulted from the fact that it took the\nform of a strike<\/strong>movement, demonstrating the\nstrength of the working class at the point of production?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The movement in 1973, moreover, emerged out of the darkest ebb of\nthe 1960s, and in the absence of nationwide political or trade union\nleadership. In 1957 the mass movement was surging forward at a peak of\nconfidence, and looking in one direction – to Congress – for leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These were the very dangers feared by the ruling class. Between\nthe left and right wings of the capitalist class, there occurred a\n“division of labour”. While the government camp took its adamant\nstand against the boycott, the “progressive” capitalists scurried to\nfind other strategies to restore control over the masses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This latter section of the ruling class was perceptive enough to\nsee that the movement could not be halted without making some concessions. For\nthem, therefore, the first task was to restrict the issue to the minimum\nconcession which would be acceptable to leaders of the boycott and could be\n“sold” to the people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The problem for these liberals was that the committees controlling\nthe boycott were democratically responsible to mass meetings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Initial negotiations between PUTCO, the Johannesburg Chamber of\nCommerce and the Alexandra “Standholders Association” of petty\nbusinessmen could hardly impress the working class. It was necessary to\n“widen” the negotiations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A series of intermediaries stepped in, including members of the\nLiberal Party, Ambrose Reeves (Bishop of Johannesburg), and ex-ANC leaders. The\ndeparture point of these elements was an insistence that any settlement should\nnot (in the words of a Liberal Party memorandum on the subject) involve issues\n“beyond the preservation of pre-boycott fares.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Proposals for a settlement on these terms were cobbled together by\nthe end of February, and combined with the threat by PUTCO of a\n“permanent” withdrawal of buses from Alexandra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before mass meetings were held to discuss these proposals, the\npress was already announcing that a settlement had been agreed! On the day when\nthe mass meetings were to take place, the Mayor of Johannesburg issued a call\nto the boycotters to “preserve the goodwill and sympathy you have received\nfrom all quarters,” by returning to the buses. He reminded them that, in\naddition to the proposals for temporary<\/strong>reversion to pre-boycott fares,\nhe was promising to “request” the government to “investigate”\nwages of unskilled workers: “This may result in a wage increase.” (Rand\nDaily Mail<\/em>, March 1, 1957.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nevertheless, eight weeks into the boycott, the working people\nremained firm in rejecting these proposals. The\nmood was for broadening out the struggle.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A meeting in Western Native Township on March 1, for example,\ngreeted with “cheers and thumbs-up signs\u2026the statement by one woman that\npromises could not be trusted. ‘They say they will raise our wages in three\nmonth’s time\u2026Let them raise them now.'” (Rand Daily Mail<\/em>, March 2,\n1957.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The boycott continued for another month. By then, however, the\nruling class was able to impose the same settlement terms on a more exhausted –\nand by now divided<\/strong>– movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the end of March, the proposals were considered by three separate<\/strong>mass meetings in Alexandra. Two\nof these meetings accepted the settlement while the third, the largest,\nrejected it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This division was serious enough to break the movement in\nAlexandra, and the buses began to fill once again. Nevertheless, the solidarity<\/strong>boycotts in Moroka and Jabavu\ncontinued for a further two weeks. In Lady Selborne in Pretoria, which had not\nbeen included in the settlement, the boycott continued\nin isolation into 1958!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately, the Congress leadership had a role in producing\nthis dangerous division, which cannot be passed over in silence. From the start\nthey set themselves against any generalising of the movement, in its demands,\nits scale, or its methods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the Eastern Cape, they used their authority to call off the\nsolidarity boycotts that had erupted: in East London after two days, and in\nPort Elizabeth after two weeks. [2]<\/a> On the Rand they placed\ntheir weight with the liberals who were arguing that the settlement must be\nconfined to the initial issue, and on the Alexandra People’s Transport\nCommittee increasingly sided with the conservative Standholders Committee against<\/strong>those who were for extending\nthe scope of the struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Conformity<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In their fundamental approach to the struggle, there was complete\nconformity between the CP and ANC leaders. Indeed, as an ANC member of the APTC\nsubsequently related, it was on the advice of Kotane, general secretary of the\nCommunist Party, that “we gave the chairmanship (of the APTC) to S.\nMahlangu, chairman of the Standholders Association, to convince the people that\nit was they [!] who were in control, that the boycott was a matter for the\nwhole township, not just an affair of the ANC. He [Kotane] was always thinking\nabout involving wider and wider groups [!] of people in action.” [3]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n How did the Congress leadership justify their policies? “To\nput it briefly,” recorded Lutuli in his autobiography,<\/p>\n\n\n\n the Chamber of Commerce appeared willing to do what the adamant Government refused to do, which was to subsidise the company indirectly rather than place a new burden on poor folk. It was here that Congress leadership came in. The difficulty was that the boycott was such an unqualified success that many people wanted to extend it whether or not the boycotters’ demands were met. It seemed to us that if the declared objective could be attained, the boycott should cease. We were very much aware of the hardship of the rank-and-file boycotters, and aware, too, that if opinion became divided the whole boycott might fizzle out and the Government intention ultimately triumph. For these reasons we threw the weight of our argument in on the side of terminating the boycott if the initial demands of the people were met. There is an end to endurance. That is a reality which wise leadership must take into account. [4]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Leadership<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Most certainly there is <\/em>an end to endurance, and a wise\nleadership makes a level-headed appraisal of when that end is approaching – so\nas to use its authority to bring about a tactical turn and preserve the unity\nof its embattled forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only phrasemongers, barren of understanding or real alternatives\nto offer, elevate boycotts to a “principle” and seek to sustain them\nhopelessly beyond the point of exhaustion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the reluctance of many\nthousands<\/strong>in\nAlexandra and elsewhere to end the boycott (at a time when, taken alone, it\ncould plainly achieve little more) resulted from their readiness to carry\nforward their resistance in new forms, and their unrewarded thirst for the\nleadership, strategy and tactics with which to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was because the Congress and CP leaders would offer no concrete\nplans, no action programme, no unified conception of how to take the movement\nforward, that the Alexandra boycott ended in division, with a sterile argument\nbetween “die-hard” boycotters and the leadership who called the\nboycott off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More correctly, perhaps, it should be said that this was the\nresult because no strong Marxist tendency existed at the time, able to explain\nand rally support within Congress for a realistic alternative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus the CP was able to cover its own policy of retreat under a\nscreen of attacks against the die-hard boycotters. CP leader “Rusty”\nBernstein’s article in Fighting\nTalk <\/em>(May 1957) was an especially\nskilful evasion of the central issue of how precisely to carry the movement\nforward, and for that reason is worth quoting at some length:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Can this be victory, it is asked, when the people pay the old fare of 4d, but the denomination ‘5d’ appears printed on the ticket? Can this be victory, it is asked, when the duration of the settlement is dependent upon the Chamber of Commerce’s \u00a325,000 fund, with no guarantees for what happens thereafter? The debate can well be left to garrulous old men in wheel-chairs, for whom verbal exercise is all-important and the hard realities of life of no consequence.<\/p> The reality is that the people have returned to the buses, and still pay four pence\u2026The real issue now is how to use the breathing space provided by the settlement to prepare the people’s forces for the second round of struggle <\/em>which will come to full maturity when the Chamber of Commerce Fund runs out.<\/p> \u2026Only fools can seek to enter into these battles by destroying the people’s confidence in the gains with which they have just emerged, by raising their doubts as to whether it was worthwhile, and by raising their suspicions against those who led. Men who would be generals must understand that substantial gains have been won; and that the confidence in their own strength which the people draw from such gains is the stepping-stone to new and greater gains in the battles that lie ahead. Unity, determination, courage won the gains of yesterday; tomorrow’s battle, if it is to be won, must start from the pinnacles of self-confidence and high morale which can grow from such victories, but only if the initiative amongst the people can be taken from the disruptive critics, and returned to those who can understand that even partial, temporary victory becomes a weapon to advance new conquests.<\/p> \u2026In many areas ‘perfectionism’ damped the flavour of victory and in some the settlement was, at first, rejected ‘until a minimum wage of \u00a31 a day is achieved’. No doubt the leaders meant well. But they became giddy with their own success, imagining that a boycott could bring not just PUTCO but the whole national body of employers to its knees. Setting the sights this high and raising the people’s hopes so unrealistically could only make the settlement seem a let-down. There is a moral in this\u2026[that] political leaders can only lead successfully while their feet are planted firmly on the ground of reality; that a struggle cannot be dragged beyond the limits of the people’s strength, understanding and willingness to fight, no matter how radical and militant the slogans advanced by the leaders; that leadership consists not only in knowing how to go forward, but equally in knowing when and how to stop, or to retreat in good order and in unity.<\/em><\/p> There are times – and the thirteenth week of the boycott was surely one – when it is impossible to go forward any longer without a pause to regain lost breath or recover balance; times when one step back is an essential condition for taking two steps forward\u2026When that testing time came in Alexandra, the real leaders revealed their true mettle, while the adventurers cried ‘Forward!’ even when it was apparent that their bitter-end actions could only result in the whole struggle being frittered away and lost.<\/p> It was in this testing hour that the central leadership of the African National Congress showed its quality and its statesmanship. The adventurers now claim that the ANC ‘sold us out’. The barren formalists, even in the ranks of the ANC itself, claim that their leadership should not have intervened to win the people for the boycott settlement, because the boycott was the concern of the united-front People’s Transport Committee and not of the ANC\u2026No serious organisation can ever be bound, by the formality of a united-front committee’s existence, to sit idly by and watch that committee fritter away the substance of people’s victory, and fail to give leadership when leadership is needed\u2026<\/p> The first loyalty of the ANC leadership was to their people<\/em>, not to the Alexandra boycott committee. Only those on the inner leadership of the boycott will know the real, painstaking statesmanship which guided the ANC leadership during this period\u2026If there is credit attaching to the boycott committee for its determined and skilful handling of the boycott in all its earlier period, then much of that credit attaches to the ANC which guided and influenced its direction. And if, in the end, it appeared that the gains of the boycott would be lost by adventurous calls for greater sacrifices than the people were ready to make, it is to the credit of the ANC leadership that it reacted as people’s leaders should; that it pocketed its pride in order to recommend careful consideration and acceptance of the settlement.<\/p> \u2026And the leadership of the ANC, which intervened directly in the boycott at the eleventh hour, has been vindicated by the people, who considered the settlement offer, used their own good sense to weigh up the possibilities of further resistance, and then accepted it\u2026That the acceptance of the settlement was disorderly and ragged – first Alexandra, later Moroka, and with Pretoria left outside the area of the settlement – is the result not of the ANC intervention, but of the fatal divisions among the boycott leaders themselves, who failed to rise to the historic moment and seize the settlement and victory when both were there to be taken. [5]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n All this completely evaded the central issue involved. It was\nnecessary to look beyond the objections of the diehard boycotters, for the real\nquestion was not<\/strong>whether the boycott itself<\/strong> should be extended. In fact, in\nAlexandra itself, pressure was mounting as early as March for the transformation of the boycott into a\ngeneral strike.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n General strike<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n General strike action is a question of the utmost seriousness for\nthe working class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The generalised withdrawal of labour directly challenges the\n“right” of the ruling class to command the productive system. It\nposes the question: “which class rules society?” To this challenge\nthe ruling class will respond with whatever means it can muster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Therefore, no leadership calls for general strike action lightly.\nIt must be warranted by the objective situation, the mass mood must be ready\nfor it, and it must be organisationally prepared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time strike action – of which a general strike is the\nhighest form – is an indispensable weapon for the working class in building its\nclass understanding and confidence. As Trotsky, the great Russian Marxist, put\nit in the 1930s: “By means of the strike, various strata and groups of the\nproletariat announce themselves, signal to one another, verify their own\nstrength and the strength of their foe. One layer awakens and infects\nanother\u2026Only through these strikes, with all their mistakes, with all their\n‘excesses’ and ‘exaggerations’, does the proletariat rise to its feet, assemble\nitself as a unity, begin to feel and to conceive of itself as a class, as a\nliving historical force.” [6]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n An indefinite<\/strong>general strike puts the\nquestion of power itself at issue. Unless the regime or the bosses compromise\non the basic issue which has provoked the strike, it can lead only to one of\ntwo results for the workers: a tremendous political victory over the forces of\nthe enemy or, ultimately, a severe defeat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In South Africa, violent confrontation with murderous state forces\nis obviously inherent in such a situation. While an all-out general strike does\nnot necessarily lead to insurrection, such a strike poses the problems of\nrevolution starkly before the workers. It makes workers see the necessity of\ntaking over the control of the factories, mines, docks, farms, etc, and of\nestablishing their own democratic rule. The strike committees which spring up\nto organise the strike are themselves the local embryos of workers’ rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For all these reasons, a general strike requires thorough organisational\nand political preparation, for which a hardened and clear-headed leadership is\na paramount need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the other hand, a limited <\/strong>general\nstrike – called for 24 hours, for example, or longer – provides a means for the\nworking class and its leadership to test the balance of forces in action.\nProperly prepared and with the right timing, it gives the working class the\nopportunity to assess its state of readiness, and gives confidence to the\nunorganised and helps bring them into the organised movement. It can prepare\nthe way to push the ruling class further onto the retreat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A limited general strike is therefore a means of mobilising and preparing\nfor further action<\/strong>. It\nneeds to be explained to the workers in that light, and linked with a coherent\nstrategy by which the movement, as it gathers strength and disorganises the\nenemy forces, can move towards bigger-scale confrontations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By the same token, a limited general strike which reveals\nweaknesses of organisation, preparation and leadership in the working class can\nbe used to turn the attention of the activists in a concentrated way to\ncorrecting these in preparation for other mass mobilisations later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus the strike itself is no panacea: the crucial thing is how the\nstrike tactic is approached, understood and consciously used.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What is absolutely fatal is to repeatedly call 24-hour or other\nlimited general strikes without them leading anywhere, without them forming\npart of a clear strategic plan. This only frustrates workers, causes them to\nsee such strikes as useless, and so weakens the response to successive strike\ncalls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The practice of “stay-at-homes” which has developed over\nthe decades in South Africa has suffered from precisely this defect – because\nthese actions have been unconnected with any overall strategic plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, the lack of a coherent strategy had a lot to do with the reluctance<\/em>of Congress leaders in the\n1950s to take up the general strike weapon at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Held off<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Strike action was a weapon in the arsenal of the Programme of\nAction; yet despite the pressures from activists at times, the Congress\nleadership had held off from it since 1950-51. Moreover, the one-day strikes in\n1950-51 had been essentially regional<\/strong>in character – first on the\nRand, then in Natal and the Cape, then again in the Cape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But what existed in the early\nmonths of 1957<\/strong>was\na nationwide<\/strong>movement – symbolised in the\nresponse in Bloemfontein and the Eastern Cape to the Alexandra boycott. The\nupsurge was both in the major cities and because of the women’s anti-pass\ncampaign and resistance to Bantu Authorities – in the smaller towns and the\ncountryside as well. What was coming into being was the “generalised mass\naction” that the Planning Council had envisaged for the Defiance Campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But, because\nthey were under the pressure of the liberal capitalists on whom they counted\nfor support,<\/strong> the Congress leaders did not seize the opportunity. A\nhuge chance to consolidate and develop the struggle for democracy and workers’\npower was squandered. The consequences, as they set in, were to be profound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disappointment in the leadership produced division among the\nmasses, thus weakening the movement, and providing opportunities for the ruling\nclass to recover the initiative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is true that general strike action did take place under the\nbanner of Congress – for one day on 26 June 1957 and again during the election\nin April 1958. Despite massive mobilisation by the state machine and the bosses\nagainst them, these were massively supported by workers around the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But in neither case did this result from a clear and unambiguous\ncall by the leadership for strike action. 26 June 1957 was named by Congress as\na “Day of Protest, Prayer and Dedication” – in which each area was left to decide its\nown form of demonstration.<\/strong> In 1958, the original intention was – as\nsuggested by Lutuli in November 1957 – that “election day could very well\nbe a day of mass prayer and dedication to the freedom cause.” (New Age<\/em>,\nNovember 7, 1957.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n That these calls became transformed into mobilisation for strike\naction was the result of the pressure of the working class, which was responded\nto by worker-activists particularly in SACTU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More effective<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n How much more effective would have been a 24-hour strike call at\nthe height of the mass movement in early 1957? In September that year the\nsecretary of SACTU’s Milling Union, remarking how “our workers have come\nto look on the \u00a31 a day campaign to end their sufferings and hardships of their\nlow wages,” complained that, “they feel that work for the campaign is\nfar too slow.” (Workers’ Unity<\/em>, August-September, 1957.) Strike\naction at the height of the boycott mood could have transformed the \u00a31 a day campaign\novernight into an effective movement for mass unionisation – and put the\nemployers on the defensive, as did the Durban strikes in 1973.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As it was, even with the pressure of the boycott alone, the\n“adamant” government was forced to rush through Parliament the Native\nServices Levy Act which made employers pay a subsidy to transport, and to\ninstitute Wage Board enquiries (some of which resulted in wage increases). How\nmuch more would determined strike action have compelled the employers to make\ngood their “promises” immediately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n CP leader Bernstein argued, in the passage we have quoted, that\nthe real issue was “how to use the breathing space provided by the\n[Alexandra] settlement to prepare the people’s forces for the second round of\nstruggle.” But the failure to broaden action in January\/February meant\nthat the mood of the masses came off the boil – while the ruling class was\ngiven a breathing space. [7]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, how did the ANC and CP leadership use this\n“breathing space” to arm the working class politically and\norganisationally for renewed struggle? In May 1957, when 40,000 African workers\nstruck in Johannesburg against the pass laws and marched to the City Hall –\nthis action was opposed by senior ANC leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Appeal<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead the ANC sent an appeal to government and business leaders,\nputting forward the demand for \u00a31 a day. Regarding the role of the Mayor of\nJohannesburg and the President of the Chamber of Commerce in the bus boycott\nsettlement, this memorandum stated:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ANC wishes to place on record its deep appreciation of the\nuntiring and noble efforts of these two citizens of our country, who, under\ndifficult and trying circumstances, boldly pursued their object of finding some\ntemporary solution to the dispute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “To find a long-term solution to the problem of higher\nfares,” it continued, “is the concern and responsibility of all of\nus: the Government, the employers, the workers and the public generally.”\nBut how, when the Transvaal Chamber of Industries had already called the \u00a31 a day\ndemand “reckless and irresponsible”, could an amiable “long-term\nsolution” be arrived at, reconciling the workers with their exploiters?<\/p>\n\n\n\n By 1958, frustration at the lack of a clear lead to action was\nproducing increasing anger among Congress activists at the leadership, and\ndifferences surfaced between SACTU and the ANC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From late 1957 SACTU began to mobilise for a series of Workers’\nConferences in early 1958, around not only the \u00a31 a day campaign, but also\naround demands for ending job reservation, passes for women, deportations, and\nthe pass laws generally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Regional conferences in February were followed by a National\nWorkers’ Conference in March. Present were 1,637 delegates and 3,000 observers\nrepresenting, it was claimed, 46,000 workers directly and a further 128,000 indirectly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The mood at the conference was enthusiastic, determined and\nmilitant. During the session on the pass laws the entire meeting rose to its\nfeet and surrounded the Special Branch “observers” with passes\nbrandished in every hand. The warmest applause was given to those who attacked\nnot merely the NP government but the system of capitalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This conference resolved to organise – to begin two days before\nthe elections – “a week of National stay at home, protest and\ndemonstration” in support of demands for \u00a31 a day and the abolition of\npasses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Though the initiative for this conference, and for its decisions,\ncame from workers organised in SACTU, the middle-class ANC leadership took over\nfrom SACTU the responsibility for the campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite the Workers’ Conference decision, the ANC immediately\nshortened the call from a week-long to a 3-day stay-at-home. Then, shortly\nbefore it was due to start, Lutuli announced at a press conference on behalf of\nthe ANC that “there would not be a nationwide strike: the strike would be\ncalled only in those areas where success was feasible; in all other areas,\nlocal conditions would determine the nature of the demonstrations.” [8]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, despite the atmosphere at the Workers’ Conference\nagainst the bosses, Lutuli insisted that “the stoppages of work which form\npart of the demonstrations were not specifically directed against commerce and\nindustry”! (Rand Daily Mail<\/em>, April 7, 1958.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n But this did not pacify the bosses. As usual, they showed a far\nmore realistic appreciation of the class\nstruggle <\/strong>which was\ntaking place than the foggy-headed middle class. In 1957 the President of the\nTransvaal Chamber of Industries, in an “urgent confidential” memo to\nmembers, called the June 26 day of protest a “test of strength” to be\nmet by Industry with “resolute solidarity”, [9]<\/a>and employers\ncalled factory meetings to threaten with dismissal workers who intended\nstriking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The repression in 1958 was more severe still. Not only were there\nwarnings and threats from the government, from UP leader Graaff, and from employers.\nAll meetings of more than ten people were banned (the ANC was also banned in a\nnumber of rural areas). Police leave was cancelled, the army was put on\nreadiness, and convict labour was on call. On the first morning of the strike,\nsquads of police armed with sten guns entered the townships at 2 a.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Mayor of Johannesburg warned workers that an “illegal\nstoppage” would dissipate the “fast-growing evidence among employer\norganisations of goodwill and a willingness\u2026to develop proper means of consultation.”\n(Rand Daily Mail<\/em>, April 11, 1958.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Workers’\nresponse<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n But workers, on the whole, were neither intimidated by the\nrepression nor taken in by professions of “goodwill”. Shamefully,\nhowever, five non-SACTU African unions as well as right-wing “Africanists”\nin Congress openly opposed the stay-at-home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the first day, the strike was at least 50% effective in Port\nElizabeth. The mood there was reflected in a statement by one worker: “The\nbosses are dead scared only when we talk with one voice\u2026If they were not\nafraid, why bring in the army? Why do they beg us so to come to work if we\nshall be the ones to go hungry if we do not go to work?” (New Age<\/em>,\nApril 24, 1958.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Durban the strike was estimated to be 30% effective on the\nfirst day – with major participation from African workers there for the first\ntime in the decade. The Durban dockworkers were solid, and won wage increases\nas a result of their action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the Rand on the first day, the response was more disappointing.\nIn 1957 the stay-away in June had been estimated to be 70-80% effective in\nJohannesburg and Vereeniging, and 50% effective elsewhere on the Rand. Now,\nwhile Sophiatown and Newclare were solid, the stay-away elsewhere was estimated\nat no more than 10%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This low response was a reflection of an uncertainty setting in\namong many workers as a result of indecisive leadership, the opportunities\nmissed by Congress, and the divisions that were already opening up in the\nranks. Had the strike been sustained for three days according to plan, it would\nhave allowed the activists time to convince their fellow workers to follow the\nexample of the areas that had responded best on the first day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The low first-day response in much of the Rand was thus no reason\nwhatsoever for calling off the action. Yet this is what the ANC leadership did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Port Elizabeth and Durban, and on the Rand as well, SACTU\nactivists were furious. As Nimrod Sejake has recalled (Inqaba<\/em>, no. 12):<\/p>\n\n\n\n I remember buying a newspaper and seeing the headline: ‘General Secretary of the ANC, Oliver Tambo, calls off strike.’<\/em><\/p> I was furious. Because, at that time, we were on bail from the Treason Trial, and one of the conditions was that we did not attend meetings or organise in any way. But, nevertheless, we had risked organising the workers to make the strike a success.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Workers in Sophiatown and Newclare ignored the call-off, and, in\nbitter battles with the police, continued to strike for the full three days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Advantage<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The ruling class took full advantage of the decision to call off\nthe strike, seeing it as weakness. In contrast with 1957, punitive reprisals\nwere taken not only against known activists, but against ordinary workers who\nhad participated. In some areas trials were going on a year later. The\nsituation was starkly summed up in a report from the Food and Canning Union in\nPort Elizabeth to head office: “At one of the factories here one Employer\nscrawled on the Reference Book of one of his workers when he dismissed him for\nthe 14th April: ANC supporter<\/em>.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n SACTU’s official history, Organize\nor Starve!<\/em>, records (p. 354):<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whether or not the leadership should have taken the decision to end the protest after the first day became a much-debated issue within the Congress Alliance\u2026The Management Committee of SACTU reacted very strongly to this and the relationship between the ANC and SACTU suffered a temporary but serious strain. The question of SACTU’s equality with its partners in the alliance came to the fore, and SACTU leaders realized that many ANC members did not regard SACTU as an important force in the struggle. The decision also pointed to the need for SACTU to take a more independent stand on mat\u00adters directly affecting the working class\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Indeed, what matters affecting the Congress movement did not<\/strong>directly affect the working\nclass? The vital task for the working class was to put its own stamp upon the\nwhole of Congress policy. In this, the workers organised in SACTU could have\nplayed a decisive role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But there was no Marxist tendency in Congress, based in the trade\nunions and among the youth, which might have given a lead in this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, sad to say, the magnificent potential aroused in the working class, the fighting and self-sacrificing spirit of the mass of the people, was frustrated by the leadership – and was cut across by growing confusion, division, demoralisation and, eventually, serious defeat. [1]<\/a>\nRand Daily Mail<\/em>, January 25,\n1957; February 6, 1957.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [2]<\/a>\nIn Port Elizabeth, three days after the Congress leaders called\noff the solidarity boycott there, black dockworkers began a go-slow and were\njoined by railway workers. They decided to start work one hour later, stop one\nhour earlier, and not to work overtime or at weekends. The dockworkers were\ndemanding a wage increase from 11\/6 a day to 25\/-; the railway workers an\nincrease from \u00a34\/10\/0 a month to \u00a37.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This strike was the fruit of SACTU organising work; success would\nhave been a critical breakthrough in the tough transport sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Against the strikers not simply police but troops were brought in\nand placed on standby. To work on the weekend of 2-3 March, stevedores were\nshipped in from Cape Town and East London, having been told the lie that a\ntransport boycott in Port Elizabeth was preventing stevedores from getting to\nwork. At the same time the state placed convict labour on call, and began to\nrecruit “endorsed out” workers in the Ciskei and Transkei and place\nthem under guard in tents at the docks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Monday March 4, the Port Elizabeth dockworkers and railway\nworkers were told to drop their demands unconditionally, or be locked out. They\nrefused to budge, and were locked out and replaced by the convict labour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Immediate protest from the international labour movement forced\nthe government to withdraw the prison labour. Nevertheless the workers, fearing\nreplacement by the Transkei\/Ciskei labour, agreed to return to work on March 7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The railway workers who participated in the action were fired; the\nstevedores had their wages cut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the context of nationwide mobilisation for even a 24-hour\ngeneral strike, this defeat might well have been avoided. The state would not\nhave been able to concentrate its efforts and resources at this one site of\nstruggle, and would have found much more difficulty finding workers from other\nareas to break the strike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [3]<\/a>\nQuoted in Moses\nKotane<\/em>, p.231-2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [4]<\/a> Let My People Go<\/em>,Fontana\nedition, p. 157-8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [5]<\/a> Fighting Talk<\/em>, May 1957.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [6]<\/a> “The Role of Strikes in a\nRevolution”, in The Spanish\nRevolution (1931-39)<\/em>, Pathfinder Press, p. 159.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [7]<\/a>\nIn the months after the settlement of the Alexandra bus boycott,\nthe ruling class used the “breathing space” with which it had been\nprovided\u2026to launch attacks on the factory strongholds of SACTU’s largest\nunions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1957 bosses at Advance and Rand Steam Laundries, the Laundry\nUnion’s key Transvaal bases, withdrew stop-order facilities. These were\nemployers whom SACTU had regarded as “reasonably cordial”. (Organize\nor Starve!<\/em>, p. 216-7.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n In June 1957 workers struck at Philip Frame’s Consolidated Textile\nMills in Durban. Though they won their demands, Frame used the negotiations to\nwithdraw stop-order facilities from the union, and take the medical benefit\nfund out of its hands. Soon afterwards he began dismissing Textile Union\nactivists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1957, also, the Food and Canning Workers Union had stop-order\nfacilities cut off for its African section by the two biggest food-canning\nmonopolies, LKB and H. Jones. It also suffered a severe setback in losing a\nstrike at Spekenham in Cape Town, where it was attempting to break through from\nfruit-canning to other sections of canning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In February 1958 a strike at Amato Textiles in Benoni was\nviciously broken by the police. This had been the fortress of the Textile\nWorkers Union in the Transvaal. In the wake of the strike, not only were\nhundreds of workers dismissed, but they were black-listed from employment\nelsewhere in Benoni, and many were deported off the Rand. “Although the\nworkers’ militant spirit had not been crushed by these repressive measures, the\nmass strike action characteristic of Amato workers ceased to exist for some\ntime.” (Ibid.<\/em>, p. 287.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even SACTU’s biggest victory of the year later turned sour.\nWorkers in the Milling Union won 12.5% wage increases at six Johannesburg flour\nmills in November 1957 as a result of strike action. New Age <\/em>commented that it was\n“the most successful African strike for a long time”. But within a\nfew months, “Union officials had been arrested and shop stewards were\nbeing prevented from collecting subs from workers.” (Ibid.<\/em>, p.\n223-4.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The confidence with which the employers and the state conspired\ntogether to inflict these blows stemmed from their sense of the vacillation and\nuncertainty of the Congress leadership, and the division and confusion this was\nproducing among the working class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [8]<\/a> Stanley Uys, writing in Africa South<\/em>, July-September\n1958, p. 47.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\nContinue to Chapter Eight<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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