For a decade the mass movement against racist baasskap and\ncapitalist exploitation has been reawakening. From the early 1970s, wave after\nwave of struggle has battered against the fortress of the bosses’ power. The\nworkers’ strikes of 1973-74; the youth uprising of 1976-77; the militant trade\nunion struggles of the past two years\u2014these have been the high points in a\ngeneral tide of resistance which continues to sweep over the factories, schools\nand universities, townships and reserves across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now we face a still stormier decade as the clash between the\nclasses\u2014between ruler and ruled, exploiter and exploited, oppressor and\noppressed\u2014moves towards a revolutionary conclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Within the ANC and in every other organisation active in the\nstruggle, there is an unprecedented thirst for ideas and eagerness to discuss\npolicy, strategy and tactics which can show the way forward. In contrast to the\nspeculation of intellectuals on the sidelines of the movement, the militant\nyouth and workers turn to theory as a guide to action, seeking practical\nanswers to the practical problems posed in battle itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How can our forces be fully mobilised, strengthened and\nunited? How can the blood-soaked grip of the enemy be weakened and finally\nbroken?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How do we link the particular struggles for higher wages,\nagainst rent and fare rises, for equal education, against passes, forced\nremovals, etc., to the general movement for the overthrow of the regime and the\ntransformation of society? How do we ensure that the struggle to destroy\napartheid will also free our people from poverty, homelessness and\nunemployment?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More and more among the activists in our movement the\nunderstanding is taking root that the struggle against white domination cannot\nbe separated from the struggle against capitalism, but is bound up with it.\nThis realisation has come from the actual confrontation of the workers and\nyouth against the bosses and their police state, in the course especially of\nthe last six to eight years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The open declaration of this understanding by the AZASO\nconference in July 1981, for example, reflects the searching of the oppressed,\nespecially of the working class, towards Marxist ideas. It is the active\nyouth’s anticipation of a basic conclusion which the entire mass movement will\nbe preparing to draw consciously even in the space of the next few years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All this reflects the ripeness of South Africa for the ideas\nof socialism and for a socialist revolution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lenin explained that an ounce of experience is worth a ton\nof theory as far as the broad masses are concerned. At the same time, out of\nhard and bitter experience the working people are driven to clarify ideas and\ndraw conclusions on the course to take.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An idea isolated from the mass movement is impotent. But\nonce an idea is taken up by the working people as the expression of their own\nneeds and will to change society, it becomes the most powerful force on earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The growing consciousness of the activists of the need to\noverthrow capitalism prepares the way for a number of questions to be clarified\nwithin our movement\u2014questions of strategy, tactics, and programme. That is a\nprocess vitally necessary to equip the movement fully for the greater battles\nwhich impend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the quarterly journal,\nInqaba ya Basebenzi<\/em>, a number of the central questions of our struggle have\nalready been taken up: the independent trade unions and their significance as a\nforce for revolution; the way forward for the youth in combination with the\nworkers; the question of guerilla warfare and why it cannot be the way to\npower; the capitalist state, what it is and why workers’ power is required to\noverthrow it; the falseness of the theory of separate revolutionary `stages’;\nand many other questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In future issues of the journal, both in articles and the\ntheoretical supplement, we will continue to address these and other matters,\nanalysing them not only from the facts of the contemporary situation in South\nAfrica, but also in the light of the history of the workers’ struggle\ninternationally and the conditions developing in other countries today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This document is intended as a further contribution to the\ndiscussion among comrades, and as an aid in absorbing and applying the method\nof Marxism through a broader framework or perspective on the development of\nevents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Marxism <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Marxism is not, as many imagine, a list of dogmas to be\nlearned by heart and ritually repeated by the faithful. Nor is it a set of key\nformulas whose mechanical application unlocks the secrets of the universe. Such\nan approach proves incapable of solving real problems. It serves to discredit\nthe ideas of Marxism and could help to inculcate a distrust of theory among the\nworkers as being ‘impractical’ and something best left to middle-class\nintellectuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Certainly Marxism has its fundamental ideas, its ABC, which\nprovide the starting-point for a scientific analysis of society. Yet, as\nTrotsky emphasised, there are also the other letters of the alphabet, which an\nintelligible language must combine to make words, sentences, paragraphs, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Marxism as a living science stands in a similar relation to\nits most basic concepts as, say, a work of literature stands to the letters of\nthe alphabet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trotsky, in fact, defined Marxism as the science of\nperspectives. A perspective requires the combination and application of\nscientific ideas to the movement of human history. Its purpose is to enable\nrevolutionaries to anticipate the general course of events, to avoid\nbewildering surprises, and to gear their activities to the real processes and\nchanges taking place in the working class and in society as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is from the understanding of perspectives that correct\npolicy, strategy and tactics flow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A perspective, of course, is not a fixed map, because the\nsocial conditions which it charts are in flux, developing along foreseeable\nlines, but constantly changing in vital details. A perspective is not a\nblue-print, marking out angles or filling in schedules with mathematical\nprecision. A perspective must embrace the living movement of millions, who\nthemselves make history with their own brains and hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only by an analysis of the past and its lessons can we\npenetrate the mists of the future. A perspective is thus above all historical\nin its approach to what is to come. And, as history unfolds, a perspective must\nbe checked, its errors rectified and renewed prognoses carefully advanced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A Marxist perspective is based not simply on the history and\ncircumstances of one country, but on the world situation as a whole. Our\nstarting point is the reality that the development of the productive forces of\nmodern society has brought into being a world economy, from which no country,\nhowever large or powerful, can ultimately separate itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not only in Southern Africa but in every part of the world,\nnational developments reveal themselves as part of developments on a broader,\ninternational scale. Countries and continents have been linked together\neconomically and politically; no part of the world today exists outside these\ninternational relations; everywhere national struggles are influenced and\ndetermined by forces of an international nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What effect does this have on conditions in our country, and\non the influences at work in our struggle?<\/p>\n\n\n\n International questions are placed with immediate urgency\nbefore our movement in South Africa. It is clear to every worker, especially to\nthose employed by foreign companies, that the forces of our oppression are not\nconfined within the white population, or to the state, or the capitalist class\nin South Africa itself. The SA state is propped up by Western capitalist states\nand the forces of imperialism internationally. It is closely integrated with\nthe world-wide network of capitalist interests. The basis of its power\nstretches far beyond South Africa. How is this power to be defeated?<\/p>\n\n\n\n South Africa, the mightiest industrial power on the\ncontinent, exerts an overwhelming domination economically over the whole of\nSouthern Africa. The economies of the neighbouring states, as well as several\nfurther to the north, are tightly bound up with the productive system in South\nAfrica. What are the political consequences of this fact?<\/p>\n\n\n\n How is the future of these countries linked to the progress\nof the revolution in South Africa? How is the struggle in South Africa affected\nby developments to the north? Can the workers and peasants of the rest of Southern\nAfrica liberate themselves fully from oppression, poverty and exploitation\nwithout uniting their struggle with that of the working people of South Africa\nitself?<\/p>\n\n\n\n How is Southern Africa linked to the progress of the\nsocialist revolution around the world? What are the policies of imperialism in\nSouthern Africa, and why? What is the character of the Soviet Union and of\nChina? <\/p>\n\n\n\n What motivates the policies of their rulers, both\ndomestically and on the world stage? With what forces internationally can the\nworkers and oppressed people of Southern Africa forge reliable links of mutual\nsolidarity in struggle? To all these issues, and many more, a Marxist\nperspective must address itself. They are deep issues, and not a matter of a\nfew glib pages to resolve. We have found it unavoidable here to set out facts\nand ideas at some length in order to explain them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Knowledge<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n For generations past, the rulers of Southern Africa have\ndone their utmost to isolate the working people from knowledge of the outside\nworld. They hope to prevent our conscious unity with our class brothers and\nsisters internationally. But workers have a thirst for learning, well\nappreciating that knowledge is the key to power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Especially for those workers whom the system has deprived of\nformal schooling, the study of this document may at first appear an\nintimidating task. Yet, with the help perhaps of other comrades, we hope it\nwill prove a task well worth tackling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We believe it will show that the essential ideas of\nMarxism\u2014which are really the experience of the working class, generalised and\nexplained\u2014can be readily grasped and put forward by every working person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time this document can be no more than a very\ngeneral introduction to Marxist ideas and their relevance to the present day.\nThe aim is to make it easier for comrades to undertake their own further study,\nin particular of the writings of the greatest teachers in the history of the\ninternational working-class movement\u2014Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky\u2014and to\ngrasp their vital significance for our struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although these writings are today accessible to only a small\nhandful of activists, through the theoretical supplement to Inqaba<\/em> we are trying to make more of the\nbasic documents of Marxism available to comrades. But in future, as the growing\npower of the workers’ movement increasingly paralyses the regime and its power\nof censorship, broader layers of workers and youth will find it possible to get\nhold of Marxist writings and explore the rich treasure-house of revolutionary\ntheory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As our movement prepares for decisive confrontations with\nthe regime and the ruling class in the years ahead, the importance of comrades\nthoroughly trained in the ideas and method of Marxism will become increasingly\nclear. Immersed in the daily life and struggles of the working people, the\nconscious work and patient explanation by such a cadre as it develops will\nprovide a yeast for the rapid fermentation of consciousness among the masses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That will enormously shorten the process of uniting the oppressed round a revolutionary programme for the complete overthrow of national oppression and capitalism. It will speed the building and the transformation of the ANC as a mass organisation, above all of the working class, capable of leading the way to the socialist transformation of society.<\/p>\n\n\n\nContinue to Chapter One<\/a><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"