In the early months of 1960 the PAC leadership launched a campaign\nagainst the pass laws. The aim was for a mass turning-in of passes at police\nstations, beginning on 21 March, to be supported by a stay-at-home, until the\npass laws were abolished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The campaign was hastily called, ill-organised, and was probably\nintended to forestall an ANC “Anti-pass Day” (involving no definite\naction programme) set for 31 March. [1]<\/a> Nevertheless the desperate\nthirst of black working people for a lead in action produced a response – at\nleast in the Vereeniging and Cape Town townships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The state responded with the most brutal repression of the decade.\n69 demonstrators were shot dead at Sharpeville, and 2 in Langa on 21 March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The state response sparked off the most determined demonstration\nof workers’ power in the decade. In Cape Town African workers launched, in the\nface of massive police action, a general strike from 21 March to 10 April –\nwhich remained solid for over two weeks. Heavy industry in Vereeniging was\nbrought to a halt from 21-31 March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rather than merely “staying at home”, workers moved on\nthe city centres. On 25 March some 5,000 Africans demonstrated at Caledon\nSquare police headquarters in Cape Town, and on 30 March 30,000 marched from\nthe Cape Town townships to the police headquarters. On the following two days\nthere were similar marches in Durban from Cato Manor to the city centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This display of working-class militancy shook the ruling class. On\n25 March, the government suspended\npass arrests<\/strong>. Leading capitalists, including NP supporters such as\nAnton Rupert and the Chairman of the Wool Board, called on the government to\namend its policies. Open division became manifest even within the Cabinet\nitself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brian Bunting of the CP subsequently analysed the situation in\nthis way:<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Once again it had been demonstrated that the intensifica\u00adtion of black resistance, far from strengthening the uni\u00adty of the white supremacists, on the contrary immediate\u00adly led to division in their ranks as the more enlightened groups sought to reach accommodation with black power. It had happened after the Defiance Campaign of 1952, which led to the birth of the Liberal Party. It happened again at the time of the bus boycotts, the treason trial and the agitation over the destruction of the Coloured vote, when the Progressives broke away from the United Party. It happened again in the 1960 emergency.” [2]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n But this was only one side of the situation. In the meantime the\ngovernment also introduced into parliament new legislation to enable it to ban\nthe ANC and PAC. After days of hesitation it declared a state of emergency and\nbegan to prepare for decisive action to immobilise the leadership and crush the\nupsurge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The course of events now depended on the organised power which could be\nmobilised by the leadership of the mass movement.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A SACTU statement during the emergency correctly said: “We\nmust constantly guard against the danger of getting small reforms for the price\nof our freedom. And, on the other hand, we\nnow have the opportunity of taking advantage of the fight among the bosses to\ndrive home our demands.<\/strong>” [3]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The ANC leadership was now under tremendous pressure to respond to\nthe mass mood, or be bypassed entirely. On 23 March Lutuli called for a one day\nstay-at-home in mourning for the dead at Sharpeville and Langa. On Saturday 26\nMarch he publicly burnt his pass. Mass support swung once again behind\nCongress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Monday stay-at-home was overwhelmingly successful. Workers on\nmost of the Rand, in Port Elizabeth, in Durban, in the smaller Cape towns,\njoined those already striking in Cape Town and Vereeniging. The time was ripe\nfor stepping up the pressure nation-wide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On April 1 an Emergency Committee of the ANC issued a leaflet\ncalling for an end to the state of emergency, release of imprisoned leaders,\nabolition of the pass laws, a national minimum wage of \u00a31 a day, and the repeal\nof repressive legislation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While reaffirming the demand for full citizenship, the leaflet\nalso stated that: “The first essential towards resolving the crisis is\nthat the Verwoerd administration must make way for one less completely\nunacceptable to the people of all races, for a Government which sets out to\ntake the path, rejected by Verwoerd, of conciliation, concessions and\nnegotiation.” It called for “a new National Convention, representing\nall the people on a fully democratic basis\u2026to lay the foundations of\na\u2026non-racial democracy.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n This was issued two days after police had entered Langa for the\nfirst time to try to beat workers back to work, and two days after a round-up\nof the Congress leadership by the police had begun. It was these police actions\nwhich had provoked the march of 30,000 Africans to Cape Town police\nheadquarters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Strike called?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n An activist in Congress at the time recalls that on that day –\nWednesday 30 March – hearing of the march and impending arrests, he rushed to\nthe SACTU offices to hear if a national strike was to be called. Leaflets had\nbeen printed, he was told, but the authorisation of the Congress leadership was\nrequired before they were issued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the authorisation never came, and the April 1 leaflet made no\ndefinite strike call. Yet, on the morning of Thursday 31 March, workers in the\nJohannesburg townships waited at the bus and train stations, expecting a call\nto strike action. Only when they heard nothing did they proceed to work. In\nDurban the workers were waiting impatiently to follow a strike lead from\nworkers on the Rand. (As it was, SACTU activists in Natal still attempted to\norganise a 10-day strike from April 1 onwards.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus the ruling class was able to step up its repression\nunchallenged by the escalation of working-class action. Raids and arrests of\nleaders continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Armed cordon<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n By 2 a.m. on Thursday 31 March, troops flown from Pretoria had\ndrawn an armed cordon around Langa. On Friday all commandos, the Permanent\nForce Reserve, the Citizen Force Reserve and the Reserve of Officers were\nmobilised “for service in the prevention or suppression of internal\ndisorder in the Union.” On Saturday troops were flown from the Rand to\nDurban. On Sunday, Nyanga in Cape Town was sealed off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The inaction of the Congress leadership made it easier for the\nstate to regain the initiative, and deploy its forces to isolate and crush the\nremaining centres of resistance. On 8 April the ANC and PAC were banned under\nthe new legislation, and by the following day the strike had been crushed in\nNyanga as well as Langa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (A)ll the signs were,” reflected Bunting subsequently, “that, had the internal and external pressures been stronger, the whole apartheid edifice might have been brought crashing to the ground, or at least irreparably fractured\u2026But black pressure could not be maintained; Verwoerd from his sick bed, where he was recovering from an assassination attempt, issued a rallying call to the volk; the ranks of the faithful closed again – and the emergency was over. [4]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n But where lay the authority in the eyes of the masses to maintain\nand intensify “black pressure” if not with the Congress leadership?\nAnd how else than through the revolutionary pressure of the black working class\ncan the “closing of the ranks” of the whites be prevented and the\n“rallying calls” of NP leaders be rendered ineffective?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The fact is that neither then nor since have the ANC or CP leaders\nbeen willing to make a serious analysis of how their own policies had prepared\nthe way for this defeat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, the PAC leadership were equally responsible for\nit. They too were blind to the class realities of the struggle. Confronting\nthese class realities in practice, the Congress leadership had backed off from\nmass mobilisation, and appealed to the “enlightenment” of sections of\nthe ruling class. In reaction to this, the PAC leadership issued calls to\nmilitant action – but with no clear strategy and with mindless disregard of the\nconsequences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For the PAC leadership, the problem with Congress had been its\nfailure to consistently implement the 1949 Programme of Action. “The Nats\nare carrying out their programme and if we are going to do nothing but oppose,\nwe will never get anywhere,” wrote Leballo in 1957,<\/p>\n\n\n\n for every year will bring forth, as every year has brought forth, new oppressive laws, on top of the ones we are op\u00adposing. Thus while we are fighting Bantu Education, Passes for Women come along. While we are organising against that, Universities and Nurses Apartheid come along. Our sacred duty is to carry out OUR PROGRAMME, irrespective of what Verwoerd is doing. Let us take the offensive and pursue the Nation-Building Programme of 1949, relentlessly and honestly. And white domination will collapse. Whenever any item of that Programme has been implemented, no matter how emasculated, it has drawn overwhelming and enthusiastic support from the masses and has sent the conqueror shaking in his boots. I am thinking particularly of the Defiance Campaign, the One Day Stoppage of Work, the Economic and Bus Boycotts. If these had been honestly and relentlessly pursued in the spirit of true African Nationalism, we would be discussing PRODUCTION today and not oppression. [5]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In the campaign launched in March 1960, the call was “NOBODY\nGOES TO WORK” until\nthe pass laws were abolished! <\/strong>“And,”\nsaid the “instructions” issued by Sobukwe, “once we score that\nvictory, there will be nothing else we will not be able to tackle. But we must\nknow quite clearly, NOW, that our struggle is an unfolding one, one campaign\nleading to another in a NEVER-ENDING STREAM – until independence is won.” [6]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The response of a Johannesburg PAC leader to the ANC’s one-day\nstay-at-home call for March 28 was: “We are not opposed to Lutuli’s strike\ncall. We go further. We say the people must stay away for ever.” [7]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n PAC leaders talked of the Programme of Action in complete\nabstraction, as if it could be organised for in complete disregard of the\nactual struggle that was proceeding between black working people on the one\nhand and their employers and the state on the other. The enthusiastic response\nto campaigns based around the Programme of Action – and the upsurge of mass\nstruggle even when there were no campaigning calls from the leadership – showed\nthe vital need to concentrate all energies and resources on systematically\nbuilding working-class organisation<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If each year was bringing forth new oppressive laws, this was\nbecause the workers, and the mass movement as a whole, were not yet\nsufficiently organised to turn the tide in the other direction. But the\nrecovery of the initiative by the masses was not going to be achieved by\ndemagogic rhetoric, nor by calls to impossible forms of action-like\n“staying away for ever”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Short cut<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The PAC leaders hoped by a short-cut to avoid the necessary and\narduous work of organising the working class, developing its self-confidence\nfirst in those limited struggles it had the capacity to tackle, preparing it\nfor the eventual struggle for power and the establishment of workers’\ndemocracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Calling for a general strike until the pass laws were abolished in\n1960, the PAC leaders were encouraging the African working class to embark on a\ntest of strength with the state which the class was not yet strong enough to\ncarry through to the end. With the working class weakly organised, even in the\ntrade unions, with the Congress leaders retaining the allegiance of the\nmajority of workers, it was a divisive move which courted a big defeat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, faced with real tests of leadership in action, without a\nscientific theory or strategy, PAC leaders themselves buckled under the\npressures. Indeed, being less experienced than the Congress leadership, they\nbuckled more dramatically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite\nrhetoric<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In Cape Town, the leadership of the strike had come into the hands\nof the young PAC activist Philip Kgosana. Despite the vehement rhetoric against\nthe moderating role of “white liberalism” which was a\nfoundation-stone of Africanist and PAC policy, Kgosana turned for his prin\u00adcipal\nadvice to\u2026Patrick Duncan and other white members of the Liberal Party!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even an academic historian, Tom Lodge, in a recent study, has\npointed out clearly the role which these elements played:<\/p>\n\n\n\n It could be argued that although the Contact <\/em>group wanted the PAC strong, and that some of their actions helped towards strengthening it (the food deliveries, Dun\u00adcan’s part in persuading Terblanche to suspend pass laws), their advice lost the strong negotiating position which the Cape Town PAC had temporarily won\u2026Liberals had, by contributing to the creation of an ‘understanding’ bet\u00adween the PAC leaders and the police chief, strengthened the impression that the police were to be trusted, and that Terblanche would act in good faith. All along they had sought to eliminate tension, to remove any possibility of violence. Duncan was even prepared to defend the forces of law and order:<\/p> ‘Today [he wrote in his diary – Editor<\/em>] a State of Emergency was declared. In my view the Government was compelled to do this, and I defended their moderation (up to date) in dealing with the Cape Town situation.’<\/p> Moreover the Contact <\/em>group had contributed to Kgosana’s isolation from his followers. They had seen him as the key man; as the young messiah. Kgosana did have a hold on his followers, but, when he should have been with them, sharing their feelings, assessing their strength, working out a strategy of resistance, sensing the extent of their will to resist, he was elsewhere being in\u00adterviewed and advised by well-intentioned whites. [8]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n On March 30, Kgosana was recognised leader of the march of 30,000\nto the Cape Town police headquarters. He agreed with the police to send the\nmarchers home, provided a later appointment was arranged for him with the\nMinister of Justice. When he subsequently turned up for the appointment without\nhis mass support, he was promptly arrested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The banning of the PAC, and the almost total crushing of the mass\nmovement by the mid-1960s, meant that the ideas and policies of radical\nnationalism were never ful\u00adly tested in the practical class struggle, or their\ncontradictions fully exposed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus as the working class recovered from the defeat, and the mass\nmovement revived in the 1970s, it was these ideas which came first to the fore\nagain among students and youth in the Black Consciousness Movement, as they\nsearched for a revolutionary road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More decisively than the 1950s, however, the last ten years have\nshown that the real power to take on the regime and the bosses lies in the\nhands of the working class. Under the banner of Black Consciousness the youth –\nworking-class youth in the main – launched into heroic struggles in 1976. The\npractical lesson of these bat\u00adtles also was that the movement, to go forward,\nmust be clearly based on the social struggle between the work\u00ading class and its\nexploiters. The struggle for national liberation and the struggle to overthrow\ncapitalism must be bound together in a class-conscious movement led by the\norganised workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In action, in the working-class movement, radical na\u00adtionalism has\nnow had more opportunity to show its limitations. At least for the present, it\nhas been over\u00adshadowed by a struggle for workers’ organisation and unity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tendency\nremains<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet radical black nationalism remains present as a tendency among\nsections especially of the middle class and youth, but also some workers. It\nwaits, as it were, in the wings – to capitalise on any setbacks suffered by the\nmass movement as a result of reformist policies of Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Attacking the PAC in the late 1950s, Walter Sisulu wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are men and women among them who genuinely believe that the salvation of our people lies in a fanatical African racialism and denunciation of everything that is not African. And such a policy is not without its poten\u00adtial mass appeal.<\/p> It would be unrealistic to pretend that a policy of ex\u00adtreme nationalism must, in the nature of things, always be unpopular. The people are quick to detect the insinceri\u00adty of the mere demagogue, and they have confidence in the courage and wisdom of their tried and trusted leaders. But in a country like South Africa, where the Whites dominate everything, and where ruthless laws are ruthless\u00adly administered and enforced, the natural tendency is one of growing hostility towards Europeans.<\/p> In certain circumstances, an emotional mass-appeal to destructive and exclusive nationalism can be a dynamic and irresistible force in history. [9]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In fact, this became a “natural tendency” in the late 1950s only because of the lack of strong working-class leadership in Congress, in the struggle against national oppression. The answer to this lay not (as Sisulu believ\u00aded) in the “broad non-racial humanism” put forward by Congress, but in the active quest of the black working class for non-racial workers’ unity<\/strong> and workers’ power<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [1]<\/a> The Report of the ANC NEC, December 1959,\nsaid: “After many years of bitter struggle against the pass laws it has\nbecome necessary to choose a particular day historically linked with the\nanti-pass struggle, such day to be known as Anti-pass day. The 31st of March\nstands out as the most suitable date to commemorate the anti-pass struggle for\nit was on that date in 1919 that the ANC made a serious attempt to stage a\nsystematic demonstration when thousands of passes were collected in\nJohannesburg and taken to the pass office.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n [2]<\/a> Moses Kotane<\/em>, p. 257.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [3]<\/a> Quoted in Organize or Starve!<\/em>, p. 438.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [4]<\/a> Moses Kotane<\/em>, p. 257.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [5]<\/a> The Africanist<\/em>, December 1957.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [6]<\/a> See From\nProtest to Challenge<\/em>, vol. 3, p. 570.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [7]<\/a> Quoted in New Age<\/em>, March 31, 1960.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [8]<\/a> Black Politics in South Africa since 1945<\/em>, p. 222-3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [9]<\/a> Africa South<\/em>, July-September 1959.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Continue to Chapter Eleven
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