{"id":752,"date":"2019-09-18T15:25:26","date_gmt":"2019-09-18T13:25:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marxistworkersparty.org.za\/?page_id=752"},"modified":"2019-09-18T15:32:25","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T13:32:25","slug":"chapter-eight","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/?page_id=752","title":{"rendered":"Chapter Eight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Nature and Tasks of the Revolution<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In South Africa,\nthe industrial powerhouse of the sub-continent and bastion of white privilege,\nthe ruling class is faced with a rising tide of revolt. More and more it\novershadows even the greatest struggles in the neighbouring countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The working\nclass has recovered from the wounds of old defeats, helped by the rise of a\nfresh generation hardened from birth under the hammer of state repression. The\nnew spirit of determination and confidence which characterised the class in the\n1970s was shown first in the Durban dock strike of 1969. This encouraged a\nnational upsurge of strike action which reached its peak in the Natal strikes\nof 1973 and spread among the migrant mine workers in 1974 and 1975.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The movement of\nthe workers stimulated the youth, who in return re-invigorated the older\ngeneration. Sullen resignation gave way to a new defiance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the\nworkers, demands for wage increases were linked to the demand for trade union\nrights and recognition as a safeguard for the future. Black trade union\nmembership doubled and trebled. In parallel, there developed an increasingly\nmilitant and widespread movement of the youth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1976 it was\nthe high school youth \u2013 the first generation of workers\u2019 children at the high\nschools \u2013 who seized the initiative and hurled themselves against the forces of\nthe state with a burning anger unsurpassed in the history of mass struggle\nanywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Soweto\nuprising confirmed the central role of the working class in South African\nsociety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The actions of\nthe youth were the spark that set off political general strikes involving up to\na million workers \u2013 the greatest mobilisation ever achieved so far in the\nstruggle for liberation in South Africa. Aimed not simply against the apartheid\nregime, but at the capitalist class sheltering behind it, these actions by the\nworkers shocked South Africa\u2019s rulers more than anything that had gone before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The murderous\nresponse of the state in 1976 \u2013 at least a thousand people were massacred by\nthe police in that year alone \u2013 completely failed to break or tame the\nmovement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the relative\nlull that followed the mighty battles of 1976 \u2013 as is always the case after\ngreat but inconclusive efforts \u2013 the workers and the youth paused to assess and\ndigest their experience, before moving forward again on a wide front. The trade\nunions were taken up and expanded as a partial weapon; political leaderships\nand organisations were cautiously tested; new methods of struggle were forged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1979 and\n1980, with a temporary upturn in the economy, the workers once again advance\nconfidently on a mass scale in one area after another. New heights of tactical\nskill and maturity were revealed; a greater sophistication of the workers\u2019\nunderground networks became clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet the movement\nwas still characterised chiefly by its spontaneous aspects; by rapid changes in\nthe form and focus of the struggle; by a succession of explosive but\nuncoordinated movements, each attracting briefly the spotlight of national\nattention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In some places\nsmall strikes in strategically weak sectors have taken on a protracted\ncharacter, showing the enormous determination and self-sacrifice of the workers\neven against overpowering odds. In other places the strike movement has\nembraced whole sectors of towns, drawing from the bosses and state officials a\nconfusing combination of conciliatory and vicious responses, and testing to the\nfull the abilities of the workers\u2019 leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The centre of\nactivity has shifted rapidly from one part of the country to another; it has\nturned from factory struggles over wages and trade union rights to struggles in\nthe townships against rent and fare increases \u2013 and then back again to the\nfactory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Resurgence<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1980 saw the\nmass resurgence of the youth movement, centred on the boycott of the schools,\nbut intermeshing on all sides with the rising struggles of the workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1979 there\nhad been 101 strikes officially recorded, costing the employers 67,000\nworker-days in lost production. In 1980 the figure rose to 207 strikes and 175,000\ndays. In 1981 there was an average of about one strike a day, with nearly 100,000\nworkers involved in strike action. In October alone, 20,000 workers were on\nstrike in 40 firms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1979-81 marked a\nqualitative step forward also in worker organisation. The independent unions\nswelled dramatically in numbers, more than trebling again to 200,000 members.\nAs whole sections of migrant workers and other hitherto unorganised workers\njoined the unions, the more bold and militant of these organisations sprang to\nthe forefront, attracting national attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The non-racial\ncharacter of these unions has been emphasised as coloured and Indian workers have\nbeen drawn towards the strength in action of their African brothers and\nsisters. Some unions have also experienced a small influx of white members for\nthe first time since the 1930s and 1940s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the class\nissues and the class power of the workers strongly to the fore, this in turn\nhas had a profound influence on the youth and students, searching for a\nrevolutionary way forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Increasingly,\nthe black youth have looked beyond the limits of \u2018black consciousness\u2019 ideas,\nemphasised the working-class character of their movement, and sought to cement\nlinks with the workers\u2019 organisations. Radicalism among sections of white\nstudents has itself been expressed in a turning towards the power of organised\nlabour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The growing\nawareness that capitalism lies at the root of racist oppression, and that the\nworkers\u2019 movement possesses the decisive power to change society, is now the\ncommon language of discussion among the politically active youth and workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further\nemboldened by all these developments, the rank and file of the independent\nunions have raised a constant pressure for trade union unity across the\ncountry. The Cape Town conference of unions in August 1981 marked a very\nimportant advance which needs to be carried far further in action in the period\nahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the workers\u2019\nmovement mushrooms again and again in the coming years, it will prove to be the\ndecisive rallying point for the struggles of all the oppressed against\ncapitalist exploitation, white domination and dictatorship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greater and\ngreater explosions of the mass movement in confrontation with the bosses and\ntheir state lie ahead. The experience of these struggles will emphasise the\nneed for clarity of ideas, strategy and tactics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As South Africa\n\u2013 and with it, Southern Africa as a whole, passes further into the throes of a\nrevolutionary crisis, the task will be to link up all the particular struggles\nof the workers and the youth, in town and countryside, in mine and factory,\nfarm, school and township, into one combined movement with a central direction\nand programme of action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The underground organisation, co-ordination and\nleadership, which will be vital in the next period, needs to be built on the\nfirm foundations of a scientific understanding \u2013 about the nature of the enemy;\nabout the system\u2019s strengths and weaknesses; about the class forces that can be\ndrawn to our side; above all, about the nature and central tasks of the\nrevolution which confronts us.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Capitalism Has Shaped South Africa<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

To an extent\nunknown elsewhere in Africa, the South African economy is based on large-scale\nindustry and mining, and on agriculture which is itself capitalist in\ncharacter. In a world where manufacturing industry has become the main source\nof wealth in society, South Africa has developed over the last hundred years out\nof rural backwardness to enter the second rank of industrialised countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1980 South\nAfrica\u2019s production (GDP) totalled R62,400 million, comparable to that, for\nexample, of Yugoslavia or Argentina (which have similar-sized populations).\nAlready in 1965, manufacturing industry accounted for nearly a quarter of GDP \u2013\nmore than mining and agriculture combined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the context\nof under-developed Africa, South Africa is a giant industrial power. With only\n6% of the continent\u2019s population, it produces 42% of the motor vehicles; 50% of\nthe electricity; 74% of the railway trucks; and 94% of the books and\nnewspapers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Working\nclass<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This powerful\ndevelopment of the forces of production has meant the corresponding growth of\nthe working class. What Marx anticipated as the result of capitalist\ndevelopment generally, is amply borne out in South Africa. Society is\nincreasingly polarised between two classes \u2013 the capitalist class and the\nworking class. It is the working class that now forms the backbone of the\nentire population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a\npopulation of 29 million people, South Africa has approximately 9 million\nwage-workers. In addition, an estimated 2 million workers are unemployed. Workers and their families form the\nabsolute majority of the population. The black working class is the\noverwhelming majority of the oppressed.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Up to a million\nworkers from surrounding countries are drawn to the mines and farms of South\nAfrica as migrant workers, giving the working class a tremendous social weight\nin the whole Southern African continent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the 1930s\nto the early 1970s, fuelled by the long post-war boom in the major capitalist\ncountries, the South African economy grew steadily, with only short-lived\ndownswings. Production increased seven-and-a-half times, while population\nincreased three-and-a-half times. In the 1960s, the growth rate rose as high as\n8% a year. Yet from this whole period of development, the black workers derived\nfew gains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wealth was\nconcentrated steadily in fewer and fewer hands. By the 1970s the richest 10% of\nSouth Africa\u2019s population was receiving an estimated 58% of total national\nincome \u2013 compared with 27% in the USA!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luxury mansions,\nprivate swimming pools, teams of servants, lavish consumption and\nentertainments, chauffeured limousines and even private airplanes for the\n\u2018cream\u2019 of the business establishment became the conspicuous symbol of\ncapitalist success. At the same time the wage gap between white and black,\nbetween skilled and unskilled workers widened enormously. The standard of\nliving of the average white worker rose to levels as high as those achieved by\nany section of the working class in the advanced capitalist countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same\ntime, the lot of the black workers throughout these decades was unrelieved\npoverty. According to the figures supplied by the Prime Minister himself in\nparliament in 1972, the average real wage of an African factory worker only\nincreased from R254 a year to R276 between 1948 and 1970. And factory workers\nfared better than others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the mining\nindustry, real wages for African workers in 1971 were no higher than they had\nbeen in 1911 \u2013 and roughly 25% lower\nthan they had been in 1890!<\/strong> Moreover, in 1969, after years of boom, and in\na year when the growth rate reached 7%, more than a million Africans could find\nno work at all. These were the grim conditions prevailing at the outset of the\ncapitalist crisis of the 1970s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We shall return\nbelow to the features, and the consequences for the working people, of the new\nperiod of economic decay of capitalism. Here the point is that even under the most favourable\ncircumstances<\/strong> for this system, it could offer only growing inequality,\ngeneralised hardship and degradation for the masses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Industrialisation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Had the\nsocialist revolution been carried through in the major capitalist countries\nafter the First World War and then spread world-wide, Southern Africa\u2019s\nindustrialisation \u2013 along with the colonial world as a whole \u2013 would have been\naccomplished on the basis of an integrated world plan of development, through\nthe harmonious co-operation of democratic workers\u2019 states. On this socialist\nbasis, the advancement of technology and the production of goods and services\nto meet the needs of the people would speedily have surpassed even the most\nspectacular heights that the capitalist economies have anywhere attained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, the\npeople of Southern Africa have lived and laboured through the modern epoch\nunder capitalist rule. The extent to which the industrial economy in South\nAfrica has grown in the epoch of imperialism has been exceptional when compared\nwith the colonial countries in general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This growth had\nits material foundation in the vast reserves of gold and other minerals which\nallowed for the rapid accumulation of capital and provided the bourgeoisie with\na launching pad for the rise of manufacturing industry, commerce and capitalist\nagriculture. But the necessary social foundation for the development of capitalism\nin South Africa has always been the extreme exploitation of the working class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Depending\nabsolutely on cheap labour in order to generate profits, the capitalists and\ntheir state were able to find and form the means of compelling and controlling\nlabour. They have constructed a system of oppression so ruthless in its\nefficiency that South Africa is scarcely equalled today as a chamber of horrors\nof the capitalist world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Understanding the process by which capitalism, in the\nentire course of its development, has shaped the development of society in\nSouthern Africa, provides the key to understanding all the tasks of the coming\nrevolution.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the African\nscale, the South African capitalist class has become a giant. But measured on a\nworld scale, it came to life belatedly and has remained a dwarf. In contrast\nwith the bourgeoisie in the epoch of capitalism\u2019s rise, the bourgeoisie in\nSouth Africa could develop the forces of production only by stunting and\nwarping the development of society as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this lie the material roots of the apartheid\nsystem, and of all the grotesque features which characterise South African\nlife. <\/strong>From this stem the contradictions of\ndesperate poverty side by side with dazzling wealth; the brutality of the\ncapitalist dictatorship resting on white supremacy and the national oppression\nof the blacks; the tyranny of the migrant labour system and the pass laws; the\nlandlessness and ruin of the rural people; and the general lack of democratic\nrights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

South Africa\u2019s Growth Under Imperialism<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

South African\ncapitalism has never been able to provide for the basic needs of the working\npeople. By the time that the bourgeoisie had established itself in South\nAfrica, capitalism already existed as a world\nsystem<\/strong> and was already entering its highest, convulsive stage of wars and\nrevolutions: the epoch of imperialism. The world market was already under the\ndomination of monopoly capital, and was in the process of being carved up and\nrecarved in the competition between the imperialist powers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then and since,\nthere has been no possibility in South Africa of the development of an\nautonomous \u2018national economy\u2019. This is true of all<\/strong> capitalist countries in the epoch of imperialism. With the\ndevelopment of monopoly capitalism, the whole world economy fell under the\ndomination of the main industrial powers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To accumulate\nwealth, the SA capitalist class has always been compelled to buy, produce and\nsell commodities on the terms laid down in the world market \u2013 terms over which\nit could have little influence. The possibilities for the development of\ncapitalism in South Africa have been shaped within these limits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The capitalists\nwere fortunate that South Africa possessed natural resources \u2013 gold and\ndiamonds \u2013 which have given them special access to the world market. But the\nmining of gold and diamonds could create only a limited base for capitalist\ndevelopment. More and more in the modern world, economic progress has come to\nrest on diversified industrial production, on the manufacture of an increasing\nrange and volume of commodities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each section of\nthe capitalist class internationally must compete<\/strong>\non the world market in order to increase, or even maintain, its sale of\nmanufactured products. To compete effectively on the world market has\nincreasingly required economies of scale<\/strong>\n\u2013 that is to say, huge concentrations of investment, using the most advanced\nmachinery and technique, to produce goods as cheaply as possible for mass\nmarkets. On this basis, the giant monopolies of the imperialist countries have\ncome to dominate not just their own home markets, but the world market as a\nwhole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The present-day\nsociety in South Africa has developed entirely in the shadow of international\nmonopoly capitalism. South Africa\u2019s dependence on the world market is shown in\nthe fact that its foreign trade (which is largely with the major capitalist\ncountries) has for several decades amounted to one-third or more of total\nproduction \u2013 among the highest ratios in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While South\nAfrica is today an industrialised country, in its relations with world\ncapitalism it retains many of the features of the under-developed countries.\nOverwhelmingly, its imports<\/strong> consist\nof industrial products, in particular machinery and other capital goods. Exports<\/strong>, on the other hand, consist\noverwhelmingly of mineral or agricultural products \u2013 raw materials or\nsemi-processed materials. Throughout the 1970s, gold alone has contributed more\nthan a third of the value of export sales. In 1980, all minerals and mineral\nproducts accounted for roughly three-quarters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa\u2019s\nindustrial development has only been accomplished by the bourgeoisie on the\ntwin pillars of cheap labour and state intervention in the economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like all the\nweaker sections of the capitalist class internationally, the SA bourgeoisie has\nbeen unable to achieve the economies of scale needed to compete with the\nimperialist monopolies in manufacturing. To establish even a foothold in the\nmarket for manufactured products, they have had to seek other means of cutting\ntheir costs. In particular, wherever possible, they have savagely held down the\nwages of the workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even to develop\ngold-mining on a profitable basis, the capitalists in SA from the start\ncondemned the majority of mineworkers \u2013 the blacks \u2013 to conditions of poverty\nand inhuman exploitation. It took the mighty struggles of the mineworkers and\nlarge-scale withdrawals of labour in 1974-1975 to achieve any appreciable\nincrease in real wages \u2013 and then against the background of a sharp rise in the\nworld price of gold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similar pressures\non profitability have governed the development of manufacturing industry, with\nthe capitalists holding the wages of the workers to bare survival. Despite the\nRiekert Commission\u2019s claim of a 53% increase of real African wages from 1970 to\n1976 (almost all of this the product of the strike wave of 1973-74), average\nblack wages have remained well below even the miserly estimates made by\nbourgeois economists of what it takes a family to live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Protection<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From an early\nstage the state intervened to protect the development of capitalist industry.\nBy imposing tariffs against some cheap imported commodities, it has assisted\nthe local bourgeoisie to sell their higher-priced products on the domestic\nmarket. Light industry, in particular the consumer goods industry (e.g.\ntextiles) has been protected in this way since the 1920s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capitalist\nfarming, too, has been developed on the basis of state protection, especially\nby means of subsidies, price fixing and negotiated export markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In areas vital\nto the growth of industry, such as electricity and iron and steel, the enormous\noutlays required made it impossible for the capitalists themselves to undertake\nthe necessary investment. Already private ownership and private profit stood in\ncontradiction to economic progress. Thus the capitalist state intervened to\nbuild the transportation network and to construct ESCOM and ISCOR, and later\nSASOL (for oil-from-coal), FOSCOR (for chemical production) and ARMSCOR (for\nmilitary hardware and munitions). Today\nthe state is the largest single investor and employer. 57% of plant and\nmachinery etc is under its control.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On these\nfoundations of cheap labour and state intervention, capitalist production has\nundergone enormous expansion. But far from freeing South Africa from\nimperialism, this very development has locked the SA capitalist class all the\nmore tightly into the imperialist network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Integration<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite all the\nendeavours of the South African bourgeoisie to establish their \u2018economic\nindependence\u2019 (one of the principal goals of Afrikaner nationalism in the\npast), economic growth in fact has resulted only in the closer integration of the national economy with the world economy,<\/strong>\nsubjecting it all the more directly to the upswings and downswings of world\ncapitalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Industrial\ngrowth in South Africa \u2013 as in all the younger and weaker countries \u2013 has\nrequired the importation of ever-larger volumes of sophisticated machinery.\nSouth Africa imports 90% of the machinery needed for production. But these\nimports, of course, must be paid for or financed. Relative to imports, South\nAfrica\u2019s exports have generally grown more slowly. At the same time the prices\nof raw materials have tended to lag behind those of manufactured goods,\nsubjecting South Africa to similar inequalities in the terms of trade to those\nexperienced by the whole of the ex-colonial world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, while\nSouth Africa\u2019s exports increased four times in value in the boom period between\n1960 and 1975, imports increase six\ntimes<\/strong> over the same period. To compensate for the imbalance, the economy\nhas fallen chronically into debt to the major imperialist countries. South\nAfrica\u2019s total foreign debt amounted to R11,180 million, or 23% of annual\nproduction, at the end of 1979. Just the interest<\/strong>\npayments on foreign loans increased from R28 million in 1966 to R759 million in\n1979.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dramatic\nincrease in the price of gold (notably in December 1979-January 1980, when it\npeaked at $850 an ounce) temporarily eased South Africa\u2019s balance of payments\ndifficulties and the pressures towards adverse terms of trade. But, for reasons\nwhich we shall explain further on, SA\u2019s gold wealth cannot alter the\nfundamental and chronic ailments built into the capitalist economy. Least of\nall can it overcome the dependence of manufacturing industry on imported capital\ngoods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The expansion of\nproduction in South Africa has gone hand in hand with the growth of an\ninterlocking partnership in the ownership of the means of production between\nthe imperialist investors and the SA bourgeoisie \u2013 English speaking and, to an increasing\nextent, Afrikaans-speaking as well. The concentration of capital into fewer and\nfewer hands has proceeded apace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost from the\noutset, mining fell under the control of huge monopolies, especially the De\nBeers company and, later, the Anglo-American Corporation (which later merged\ntogether). In time, with the development of manufacturing, the monopolies moved\nin there as well to take control of the most profitable opportunities. So today\nin South Africa, for example, around 90% of all sheet and plate glass,\nbreakfast foods, engines and turbines are produced by the three largest firms\nin each industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of the top 100\nindustrial and commercial companies, one-third are controlled by only six\nmonopoly groups. The Anglo-American Corporation alone controls over 600\ncompanies involved in virtually every sector of production, and commands assets\nof more than R14,000 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Multi-nationals<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Especially since\nthe 1960s foreign investment has poured into the country, its total rising from\nR3,109 million in 1964 to R22,886 million in 1979. Aided by the banks and\nfinance houses, bigger SA companies gobble up their smaller rivals and enter\npartnerships with foreign investors. Even agriculture falls increasingly under\nthe domination of big corporations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More and more,\nthe biggest SA monopolies \u2013 Anglo-American, Barlow-Rand, Rembrandt, for example\n\u2013 take on the character of multi-nationals, venturing out from their base in\nthe SA nation-state to seek profitable avenues for exploitation around the\nworld.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tendency\ntowards greater concentration and greater integration of the productive forces\nwithin each country and beyond national borders is inherent in economic development itself.<\/strong> It is because of the\ncapitalist basis of the system that development turns into a crushing burden on\nthe backs of the working people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unless capitalism is overthrown, there can be no\nescape from the stranglehold of imperialism and monopoly capitalism.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The very growth\nof capitalism has stored up huge contradictions in the economy, which are now\nbecoming acute. The need of the bourgeoisie to maintain the system of cheap\nlabour has placed narrow limits on the home market for products which the\nbourgeoisie needs to sell. What workers are not paid they cannot spend! The\nexpansion of production thus runs up all the more quickly against the confines\nof the nation-state, and adds to the importance of the export market for the\ncapitalists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The regime\u2019s\npolicy of \u2018import substitution\u2019 has largely exhausted its effectiveness. This\nhas been an attempt to stimulate SA industry by barring the import of certain\nconsumer goods and light component parts, and requiring a rising proportion of\n\u2018local content\u2019 in manufacturing. This has had some effect, particularly in\ndeveloping motor vehicle production. But the SA market has proved too limited\nfor import substitution to be carried forward profitably in crucial spheres of\nmachine production, electronics and other sophisticated goods which are of\ngrowing importance for economic development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The economies of\nscale necessary to make production even remotely competitive in these fields,\nrequire a vast and expanding market \u2013 something which neither South Africa nor\nthe impoverished Southern African region as a whole possesses. Thus even the\nrise of South Africa as a minor imperialist power, dominating the\nsub-continent, has not released the SA bourgeoisie from the pressures of world\ncapitalism. They are forced to scramble out beyond their so-called \u2018natural\nmarket\u2019 in Southern Africa \u2013 where they also face growing competition from\nstronger imperialists \u2013 and swim for their lives in the shark-infested waters\nof the world market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even during the\nperiod of the post-war boom, when the world market was expanding rapidly, the\nSA capitalists could succeed in gaining only a limited foothold for their\nmanufacturing exports. Now, as the world market stagnates in the developing\ncrisis of capitalism, and as competition intensifies between the major powers,\nthe future prospects for the development of SA industry on a capitalist basis\ngrow dim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This will be the\ncase under and government in future \u2013 white or black \u2013 that remains on a\ncapitalist basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The incapacity\nof the capitalist system to provide for the needs of the people will be more\nstarkly revealed in the years ahead. As surely as night follows day, the decay\nof world capitalism, inevitably infecting also the SA economy, will be\ntranslated into catastrophic conditions for the masses \u2013 if we allow ourselves to remain at the mercy of this system.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

The Revolution on the Land<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The need to\noverthrow capitalism lies at the heart of all the specific tasks facing the\nworking people in the revolutionary struggle in South Africa. All the\naccumulated historical burdens which the people bear, all the inherited residue\nof colonial conquest \u2013 in the landlessness and poverty of the masses and the\nnational oppression of the blacks \u2013 all these are drawn together by capitalism\nand tied with a single knot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every tendency\nopposed to Marxism poses the land question as something distinct from the\nquestion of capitalism \u2013 and hopes to solve it by some means other than the\nsocialist revolution. This is characteristic of the various black nationalist\ngroupings, the Communist Party and the so-called \u2018Trotskyists\u2019 of the Unity\nMovement alike. Marxism, in contrast, explains that there is no solution to the\nland question in South Africa apart from the overthrow of capitalism. This\nflows inescapably from the whole development of the economy and the class\nforces at work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nindustrialisation of South Africa has led to the carrying through of a capitalist transformation on the land. <\/strong>The\neffect has been to complete the destruction of independent tribal and peasant\nagriculture, and to limit increasingly the scope for small-scale farming in\ngeneral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, as a result, the overwhelming bulk of\nagricultural production is carried out on the basis of large-scale mechanised\nfarming under the control of capitalist landowners, companies and even\nmulti-national corporations.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wherever modern\nindustry has been developed on a capitalist basis, the mass of the population\nhave been robbed of the land and forced as wage-workers to the cities, the\ncentres of industrial production. For a long time in South Africa the nature<\/strong> of the capitalist transformation\nwhich was taking place on the land was overshadowed by the monstrous form<\/strong> in which it was imposed. Yet, as\nMarx explained in relation to the dispossession of the peasantry in Britain in\nthe 18th<\/sup> century, the capitalist takeover of the land is always and\neverywhere accomplished by the most brutal methods of armed force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In South Africa,\nthe process began with colonial conquest \u2013 with the outright dispossession of\nthe tribes from their grazing and agricultural land by the combined forces of\nthe colonial settlers and invading armies. But the process did not stop there. It\nhas been carried to completion through the development of capitalist\nagriculture \u2013 aided by the forcible mass deportation of millions from their\nland under military and police supervision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using as its\nbasis the system of \u2018reserves\u2019 created during the period of conquest, the\nruling class set aside for white ownership no less than 87% of the land area of\nthe country. Particularly in the first half of this century, the capitalist\nstate propped up and subsidised on this land a class of white farmers who\ndistinguished themselves by their massive, gross and brutal exploitation of\nblack labour. The original African possessors of the land \u2013 now prohibited from\nowning it \u2013 were subjugated under the heel of the white farmers in serf- and\nslave-like relationships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The direction of development<\/strong>, however, was\ntowards fully-fledged wage labour \u2013 towards the transformation of the rural\npopulation in the white-owned areas, passing through various forms of\n\u2018squatting\u2019 and \u2018labour-tenancy\u2019, into a modern agricultural proletariat. This\ndevelopment ran in step with the rise of large-scale capitalist farming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Mechanisation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This process,\nalready well under way in the 19th century, has become increasingly clear in\nrecent decades. Greater mechanisation of agriculture, greater concentration of\nland-holding in fewer and fewer hands, and greater proletarianisation of the\nrural population have been its simultaneous features.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The average\ninvestment of R43,500 per farm in 1959 rose to R317,000 in 1979, while over\n100,000 jobs in agriculture were destroyed over the same period. Between 1937\nand 1976, for example, the number of tractors in use on white-owned farms\nincreased from 6,000 to 174,000 \u2013 a graphic indicator of mechanisation. South\nAfrica has 40% more tractors than the rest of Africa put together and three\ntimes as many as India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nconcentration of land-holding has taken place particularly over the past three\ndecades, with the total number of (white owned) farms dropping from a peak of\n120,000 in 1952 to little over 70,000 by 1981.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the\ndevelopment of industry, the ruling class has turned increasingly towards\ninvestment in agriculture also. The demand for cheap labour in industry\nproduced a clamour from employers for a relative cheapening of food, and the\nstate began to edge away from subsidising uncompetitive white farmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the early\n1970s, 70% of total agricultural production was coming from 11% of the farms.\nMeanwhile, the smaller white farmers have slid increasingly into debt, falling\nprey to the bankers and the industrial capitalist class. The total indebtedness\nof white farmers has almost doubled from R15,216 million in December 1972 to\nR29,941 million in June 1979. As more and more fall into bankruptcy, greater\nand greater areas of land are concentrated in the hands of the financiers and\nmonopolists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Misery<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the workers,\nthis means only that their generations-old enslavement to the barbarity of the\nsmall white farmers gives way to new forms of misery at the hands of the big\nagricultural capitalists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Farm wages\nremain an abomination. In the Western Cape (one of the \u2018better paid\u2019 areas),\nfor instance, the average farm worker gets R18 per month<\/strong> plus a bag of mealie-meal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As farming\nbecomes more and more mechanised and concentrated, more and more of the black\nworkers are rendered \u2018redundant\u2019, forcibly removed from the farms and\n\u2018resettled\u2019 in utter destitution in the dumping grounds of the reserves. The\ncurrent \u2018Economic Development Programme\u2019 projects a further shedding of over\n200,000 farm workers\u2019 jobs by 1987.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within the\nreserves \u2013 the \u2018Bantustans\u2019 or \u2018homelands\u2019, as the bourgeois plunderers\nmockingly call them \u2013 the population suffers in poverty, without a plot to\ntill, without water or implements, without social amenities and, worst of all,\nwith no hope of a job. Vast rural slums serve as concentration camps for the\nunemployed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between 1960 and\n1980, the regime carried out the forced removal of over a million black people\nfrom so-called \u2018white\u2019 land. At least another 750,000 still face removal to the\nreserves under the \u2018Bantustan consolidation\u2019 schemes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The basis of an\nindependent peasantry, which only ever existed on the most slender foundations\nin the reserves, has been further eroded by the heaping up of \u2018surplus\u2019\npopulation, deported and dumped there by the ruling class, and imprisoned there\nby the pass laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Small-scale\nproduction on the land has been almost completely ruined and eliminated in the\nreserves. The eroded lands and poor herds can maintain only a tiny minority of\nthe people at the level of bare subsistence. The use of the term \u2018peasantry\u2019 to\ndescribe the mass of the population in these areas simply empties that term of\nall scientific content. The overwhelming\nmajority of the inhabitants of the reserves are now part of the urban\nproletariat \u2013 the families of urban workers and the unemployed.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capitalism has\nsqueezed the peasantry virtually out of existence. The significant exception to\nthis process is the tiny minority of land-grabbers who are the new Bantustan\nelite \u2013 parasites willing and able to enrich themselves within the confines of\nthe reserves while serving as the eager lackeys of the SA ruling class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The task of the revolution in South Africa is both to\nliberate the land for the people, and to liberate the people from those\nshackles which tie them to the land.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The land\nquestion is bound together with both the national-democratic and the socialist tasks\nof the revolution. On the one hand, the land question, in the consciousness of\nthe masses, is inseparable from the issue of national oppression, of colonial\nconquest and dispossession by the whites. On the other hand, the development of\nlarge-scale capitalist agriculture firmly links the land question to the need\nfor a planned economy \u2013 the need to free all the essential branches of\nproduction and distribution from the anarchy of private ownership and profit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nrevolutionary programme for the land must embrace both these sides of the\nquestion in order to give scientific expression to the struggle to \u2018take back\nthe land\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The agricultural\nsector of the economy produces the food on which the survival of the whole\npopulation depends. With the massive concentration of the population in\nindustrial production in urban areas, only large-scale, mechanised farming\nguarantees the necessary food supplies to the towns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Especially to\nthe workers on the big farms it is clear that combined labour in large-scale\nproduction increases output. Those who work every day with tractors, combine\nharvesters, irrigation schemes, crop spraying and the numerous other\napplications of modern science and technique will not want to abandon these\nadvances. In the course of struggle, experience will more and more show the\nneed to seize the land from its current capitalist owners and to reorganise\nagriculture collectively under workers\u2019 control and management. A revolutionary\norganisation would foster that consciousness of the workers and help give it\nfirm and clear expression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Rural\npoor<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless,\nthere will be among some sections of the rural population a hankering after\nland \u2013 a belief that through access of the family to direct production from the\nland a way can be found out of poverty and exploitation. A demand for land\namong the rural poor in the course of the revolution can be satisfied through\nthe distribution of small-holdings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This would have\nto be decided democratically by committees of the working people in the local\nareas. In that way land-grabbing by the better off can be prevented, while the\nbig farms in the main crop-producing areas are taken under workers\u2019 control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the majority\nof the population of the reserves, in fact, the crux of the social issue is no\nlonger land<\/strong> \u2013 for they can see the\nruin of the petty producer all around them. For them it is now a question of\nthe right to work \u2013 of a secure job and\nhome in the town and the right to live there in freedom with their families.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The solution of\nthe land question \u2013 the future of the rural population \u2013 is thus bound together\nwith the need to smash the Bantustan system, to end the pass laws and migrant\nlabour, and to solve the problem of unemployment. Only the socialist revolution, consciously led and organised by the working\nclass, can carry through these tasks.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The victory of\nthe revolution would lead rapidly to the depopulation of the reserves, with the\nworkers and their families able for the first time to build a settled life\ntogether in the towns. Thus, paradoxically, the socialist revolution would open\nthe way to the emergence for a period of small peasant farming mainly in the\narea of the present-day reserves \u2013 where capitalism and national oppression\nhave now effectively wiped the peasantry out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nationalisation of the land under democratic control\nis the cornerstone of a revolutionary programme on the land question in South\nAfrica.<\/strong> This would provide the basis for a\ncombination of large-scale state farming under the direct control of the\nworkers; for some redistribution of land for small-scale production; and for\ninducements towards collective farming on this land, with state assistance in\nthe provision of tractors, implements, fertilisers, irrigation, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The key to this whole programme is the overthrow of\nthe bourgeoisie and the seizure of state power by the working class.<\/strong> The petty-bourgeois nationalist demand simply for \u2018redivision\u2019,\nwith which the CP also concurs, is incapable of resolving the land question.\nAnd in fact there is no way in which redivision could be carried out without\nnationalisation of the land, and thus expropriating the capitalist class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The historical\ntradition of the African people\u2019s resistance to conquest in South Africa has\nbeen carried forward from the land to the city. It does not belong, however, to\nthe middle-class nationalists who claim it for themselves. Rather, the heroic\ntraditions of Isandhlwana, and the other great battles of the past, are carried\nforward today in the mass movement of the dispossessed \u2013 in the resistance\nagainst forced removals, against the enforcement of the pass laws, and against\nthe bulldozing of the \u2018squatter\u2019 camps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The modern proletariat of town and country is the true\ninheritor of the resistance struggles of the past.<\/strong>\nThose struggles will find their modern expression \u2013 and their real fruition \u2013\nin the years to come, in the struggles of the toilers to regain the mastery of\ntheir country and all its productive forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

The Migrant Labour System \u2013 Bedrock of Capitalism<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

From the\nbeginnings of capitalist development in South Africa to the present, the\nmigrant labour system has been the bedrock of wage slavery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This system came\ninto existence in the course of colonial conquest, and was based on the \u2018native\nreserves\u2019 into which the remnants of the dispossessed tribes were driven and\nconfined. The colonial rulers had shattered the foundations of the tribal\neconomy, but discovered they still needed the institutions of the tribe in\norder to perpetuate their social control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An army of\noccupation is too expensive a means for a ruling class to maintain its power in\nthe longer term. Yet the white settler population alone, still raw, unruly and\ndivided within itself on class and national lines, provided at first too weak\nan instrument for the sure dictatorship of capital over the indigenous people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the\nmine-owners looked to the countryside to find a pillar for their rule. Having\nstarted to separate the African people from their land \u2013 thus creating a\npotential proletariat of mass proportions \u2013 the bourgeoisie did not want a\nlarge-scale immigration to the new towns. Instead, they wanted a system of\ndrawing black labour to the centres (primarily to the mines) under the\nstrictest regulation. This was the origin of the present migrant labour system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Originally the\nmigrant labour system was useful to the capitalists also for economic reasons \u2013\nas a means of compelling the family of the worker to toil on the land in order\nto supplement sub-starvation wages. But above all its purpose had been\npolitical \u2013 as a method of social control; as a mechanism for maintaining the\n\u2018tribe\u2019 which could not, of course, be maintained in the township.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reserve\nsystem was not devised by the ruling class as a means of livelihood for the\nAfrican people \u2013 of that matter they have always show the most callous\ndisregard. The purpose of the reserves has been to house labour, and to govern\nit under a \u2018tribal\u2019 structure dictated and financed by Pretoria. The so-called\n\u2018tribal\u2019 populations of the reserves have survived not by tribal production but\nby the wages of migrant labour<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Willy-nilly,\nhowever, capitalist development concentrates the working class in large-scale\nproduction in the towns. Capitalism in South Africa has proved to be no\nexception.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Doubled<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Official\nstatistics concede that the percentage of Africans living in the towns doubled\nfrom 17% in 1936 to 33% in 1970. Despite 12,5 million pass arrests in the last\n30 years, and all the other vicious measures of the regime to halt African\nurbanisation and confine workers\u2019 families to the reserves, researchers\nestimate that about 50% are now living in the urban areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the process\nof growth, capitalism has sucked into the cities workers from all over Southern\nAfrica \u2013 at one time from as far afield as Tanzania and Angola.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vast\nconcentrations of workers are congregated in the main industrial centres of the\nWitwatersrand, Durban-Pinetown, Port Elizabeth, East London and Cape Town. Thus\ncapitalism has brought into being the grave-digger of the system, which the\nbourgeoisie has always feared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless,\nthe migrant labour system continues to serve the capitalist as their most vital\ninstrument in the oppression of the African working class. From the pass laws\nwritten by the Chamber of Mines for the Kruger government in 1894, to the\n\u2018Wiehahn-Riekert\u2019 strategy of the regime today, the method of the ruling class\nhas not altered in its essentials: the mass of the black workers in the cities\nmust remain \u2018temporary sojourners\u2019, present only so long as they are needed to\nsupply their labour power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A working class\nentrenched in the cities can more easily create the stable organisations \u2013\ntrade union and political \u2013 needed to struggle against its exploitation and\noppression. The mass of the African workers in South Africa have to build their\norganisations against the enormous obstacles of the pass laws and migrant\nlabour. Militant workers\u2019 leaders are regularly banished to remote country\ndistricts; workers on strike are \u2018endorsed out\u2019 of the towns and forcibly\ndeported to the reserves in their thousands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Separation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The separation\nof the worker from the family, and the confinement of the latter in the\nreserves, reduces the pressure on the capitalist class to concede housing,\namenities and welfare for the aged, the sick and the unemployed. Barrack\naccommodation and compounds, long hours of overtime work, hazardous conditions\nof health and safety, and perpetual insecurity of employment \u2013 these are the\nconsequences of the system for the migrant workers themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same\ntime, the extreme exploitation and oppression of migrant labour undermines the\norganising power and the bargaining power of the whole of the black working\nclass. It provides the basis for cheap labour in the entire economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The migrant labour system is the central pillar in the\nnational oppression of the black people, enormously strengthening the hand of\nthe ruling class against the struggle of the masses for industrial and\npolitical rights.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The migrant\nlabour system is indispensable to capitalist rule and capitalist profitability.\nNo section of the capitalist class, and none of its political defenders, is\nprepared to break unequivocally with this system. The Progressive Federal\nParty, for example, while weeping crocodile tears over the evils of the pass\nlaws, defends the idea of influx control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the \u2018federal\nsolutions\u2019 which the bourgeois politicians devise for South Africa have as\ntheir unspoken purpose the maintenance of the migrant labour system, and the\ndefence of direct bourgeois control over the urban industrial centres of power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So important is migrant labour to capitalism in South\nAfrica that every political tendency which makes a compromise with capitalism\nmust inevitably compromise on the issue of migrant labour as well.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There will only\nbe one guarantee in the battles to come that this system, the foundation stone\nof national oppression and capitalism in South Africa, will be thoroughly\ndestroyed. That is for the working class of town and country to take power into\ntheir own hands, root out capitalism and organise the new society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is to this\nend that the struggles of the oppressed against the pass laws, forced removals,\nconfinement in the compounds and all the related features of the migrant labour\nsystem must be consciously directed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Migrant workers\nare the most oppressed and exploited section of the South African \u2013 and\nSouthern African \u2013 working class. From the turn of the century the migrant\nworkers have proved over and over again their militancy and huge potential\npower. The development of capitalist industry has integrated the migrant\nworkers more and more closely with the life of the other workers in the towns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Peasants<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The struggles of\nthe migrant workers have long disproved the claims that they are \u2018peasants\u2019 or\n\u2018peasant-workers\u2019. Yet these terms remain the intellectual currency of the ANC\nand CP leadership (and also of the Unity Movement fragments which falsely claim\nthe heritage of Trotsky).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This shows a\nfailure to understand that the basis of tribal and peasant agriculture has been\ndestroyed in South Africa and can never be restored. Consciousness has a\ncertain life of its own and can linger long after its objective basis has been\nremoved. But the consciousness of the migrant workers has been melted and\nrecast over and over again in the course of the most militant class struggles,\nin which the classic weapon of the working class \u2013 strike action \u2013 has been\nprominently to the fore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same\ntime, on the land, within the confines of the reserves, the institutions of\n\u2018tribal\u2019 government have been thoroughly exposed as part and parcel of the\nsystem of national oppression. With the chiefs transformed from leaders,\nadvisors and representatives of the rural communities into paid puppets and\npolice agents of the oppressor, the people have turned massively to outright\nopposition to their authority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the 1940s\nonwards, the general struggle of the people against the chiefs signalled the\nhistoric change which had come about in the consciousness of the population in\nthe reserves. The Pondoland uprising at the outset of the 1960s marked not the\nbeginning but a dramatic climax of this struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nself-organisation of the people separately from the \u2018tribal\u2019 councils, and the\ndecision systematically to eliminate the chiefs, showed that the tribal shell\ncould never again be filled with living content. The task, as the emerging\nrural proletariat recognised, was to unite with the workers\u2019 movement in the\ntowns. Common organisations<\/strong> of the\nsettled and migrant workers were \u2013 and are \u2013 essential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, in 1963,\nCongress leaders were still mistakenly calling for the formation of separate \u2018peasant committees of migrant workers in\nthe towns\u2019<\/strong>! Unfortunately, despite all the development that has taken place\nsince then, this approach has never been corrected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead the\nconception of a mass \u2018peasantry\u2019 is defended, especially by the CP leaders, in\nan attempt to justify a \u2018two stages\u2019 approach to the South African revolution.\nBut in fact, as explained in previous chapters, even the existence of a large\npeasantry would in no way justify the theory of stages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today the mass\nstruggle itself is undercutting these false ideas. The reserves are bursting at\nthe seams and have begun to seethe again with open resistance. Defying arrest,\nimprisonment and deportation, the unemployed return again and again to the\ncities, seeking work and demanding the right for their families to reside with\nthem. In the growing \u2018squatter\u2019 settlements of the Cape and Natal, a stubborn\nand increasingly organised resistance is maintained against the assaults of\nbulldozers, pass inspectors and the police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the efforts\nof the ruling class to divide the people along \u2018tribal\u2019 lines, between \u2018urban\u2019\nand \u2018rural\u2019, \u2018settled\u2019 and \u2018migrant\u2019 are collapsing in the face of the laws of\ncapitalist development and the rising consciousness of the mass of the working\nclass. In the coming struggles, the migrant workers will more and more come to\nplay a central role in the movement of the whole working class. And in the coming revolution, the\nliberation of the migrant workers will provide the surest measure of the\nliberation of the whole society.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Capitalist Power and \u2018White Minority Rule\u2019<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Full equality\nand an end to all race discrimination, freedom of movement, the right to meet\nand organise freely in trade unions, the right to elect the government \u2013 these\nare the immediate democratic aims for which the oppressed people are fighting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the working\npeople, these rights are not ends in themselves but means<\/strong> for defending and advancing their material conditions of\nlife. In capitalist society a democratic system of government can endure while\nthe capitalist class is able to stabilise its rule by conceding tolerable\nliving conditions and material improvements to the working class. When the\nworkers\u2019 basic demands cannot be met, even previously \u2018democratic\u2019 capitalists\nreveal themselves as hostile to democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In South Africa,\nas we have shown, capitalism depends of necessity on the system of cheap\nlabour. The inability of the capitalist class in South Africa to concede\nmaterial improvements to the workers beyond the most narrow limits has meant,\ncorrespondingly, the inability of capitalism to afford concessions in the\nsphere of democratic reforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus every\nstruggle of the ever-growing working class, even for the smallest advances, has\nbrought it directly up against the repressive machinery of the state \u2013 against\nthe police, the state officials and the army. The reliance of the bosses on\nnaked dictatorship against the workers is brought home daily in the class\nstruggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the\ndecades, the preservation of capitalist profits and capitalist rule has\nrequired the constant strengthening, refining and expansion of the repressive\nmachinery of the state. The rapid development of the economy during the 1960s\nwhich brought with it the massive growth of the working class, found its\nnecessary counterpart in the cancerous growth of bureaucratic and police\ntyranny, and in the new barbaric nightmares devised by the Special Branch in\nthe torture chambers of the prisons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over generations capitalism has proved to be the enemy\nof democracy in South Africa, and remains so.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All along, the\nbourgeoisie in South Africa has been too weak to maintain its dictatorship by\nits own resources alone. Indeed, without the armed assistance of imperialism,\nthe SA bourgeoisie would have been unable even to create a unified state for\nitself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Dependent<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Union of\nSouth Africa, which it inherited in 1910, was a state largely fashioned by\nBritish imperialism, and resting on imperialist support. Despite all the\nbeatings of the drums of \u2018national independence\u2019 by sections of the SA\nbourgeoisie, their state remains today dependent in critical respects on\nreinforcement by world capitalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even today, the\nclaims of the ruling class to \u2018independent\u2019 arms production or to the\n\u2018independent\u2019 development of nuclear power fail to conceal its continuing\nmilitary and technical reliance on the major Western powers. And equally\napparent is the continuing political support which imperialist governments\nprovide for the South African capitalist state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, in contrast\nwith those colonies where there was very little economic development, support\nfrom beyond the borders of South Africa has been an insufficient basis for the\nruling class to construct and stabilise its dictatorship over the rising\nworking class. Capitalism has been compelled to seek a social footrest within\nthe population of South Africa itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the\ngenerations, the bourgeoisie has cultivated the support of the white middle\nclass and the white labour aristocracy against the black workers, setting the\nwhites apart and granting them privileges and an elevated status over the black\npeople. In this way the capitalist\ndictatorship in South Africa became consolidated as the system of apartheid \u2013\nof national oppression and white privilege.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The raw material\nfor the system of national oppression lay in the old colonial situation itself\n\u2013 in the conquest of the indigenous people; in the existence of a white settler\ncommunity on the land and in the towns; in differences of culture and language;\nin the importation of skilled whites earning wages many times the wages of the\nunskilled blacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this raw\nmaterial of prejudice and privilege was systematically moulded and developed by\nthe capitalist class and its successive governments. The divisions within\nsociety were deliberately hardened and deepened so as to bring into being the\nmodern apartheid system with all its savage refinements. In the process the\nemerging black middle class also was subjected to many of the burdens and\nhumiliations that are the lot of the black working class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both the\nstrength and the weakness of the capitalist class in South Africa is revealed\nin the character of its social base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the one hand,\nthe support of the white middle class and the white aristocracy of labour has\ngiven the SA capitalist class generations of political stability \u2013 and even a\ncertain room to manoeuvre within the domination of imperialism. Out of these\nwhite layers the army, the police force and the state bureaucracy have chiefly\nbeen filled, and factory foremen and supervisors drawn. Stampeded behind\nbarriers of racial privilege they have formed a bastion of reaction, millions\nstrong, against the mass of the working class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same\ntime, the racist character of capitalist rule \u2013 directed of necessity against\nthe entire black population \u2013 reflects the weak position of the South African\nbourgeoisie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the older\ncapitalist countries of Europe, where capitalism arose out of petty production\nover a long period of time, broad layers of the middle class provided the\ninitial buffer for the bourgeoisie against the emerging proletariat. Only with\nthe transition to imperialism did the capitalist class begin to extend the base\nof its support among the upper layers of the working class. We have explained\nalready the conditions in Europe which made this process necessary, and\npossible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In South Africa,\non the other hand, the late but meteoric development of capitalism rapidly\npolarised society between the monopoly capitalists on the one hand, and the\nmass of the working people on the other. From the start, the middle layers of\nsociety were relatively insignificant. No room existed for a middle class to\ndevelop a substantial role in production. This was especially true of the black\nmiddle class which, from the beginning, was stunted in its development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The social\nweakness of the middle class ruled out the possibility for the bourgeoisie to\nrest its rule simply on this layer. The bourgeoisie turned increasingly towards\nthe development of its dictatorship on the basis of divisions of race, with the\ncultivation of a white aristocracy of labour to supplement the white petty\nbourgeoisie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wherever it\nexists, capitalism engenders lines of competition and division among workers\nwhich cannot be overcome by purely spontaneous struggles. It is precisely the\ndevelopment of class-conscious leadership within the ranks of the workers\u2019\nmovement which is needed in the struggle to bring about the unity of the\nworking class. The weakness of the forces of Marxism in South Africa and internationally\nleft scope for the bourgeoisie to carry out its policies of divide-and-rule\nwith deadly effect upon the working class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet the creation\nof a privileged section of the working class \u2013 the whites \u2013 did not take place\nwithout conflict. At every stage the bourgeoisie was obliged to balance its\nneed for a stable basis of support among the whites against the imperatives of\nprofit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Racial\nprotection of jobs, access to collective bargaining mechanisms, increased\nmaterial welfare, have only been extended to the white workers with reluctance.\nThis has only been done \u2013 as is clearly shown by events from the 1890s to 1922\nand from the 1930s to the 1950s \u2013 to\nward off greater dangers from the mass of the workers (the blacks), only in\nconditions of economic advance for capitalism, and only on the terms laid down\nby the ruling class itself.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The privileges\ngranted to the white workers were preceded by the repression of their sectional\nclass action (most decisively the crushing of the 1922 Rand Revolt).\nConversely, those layers of the white working class who were denied special\ntreatment by the ruling class \u2013 such as the women garment workers during the\n1930s \u2013 remained open to a programme of struggle on the basis of working-class\nunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A crucial role\nin this system of rule has been played by the reactionary leadership of the\nwhite workers\u2019 organisations. From the treacherous, vacillating \u2018liberals\u2019 such\nas Anna Scheepers to avowed reactionaries such as the racist Arrie Paulus,\nthese leaders have consistently collaborated with the capitalist class in\nmaintaining the divisions of colour and privilege within the working class and\nin supporting the regulation of trade unions by the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is the elaborate structure of class collaboration\nthat forms the foundation of what appears as \u2018white minority rule\u2019.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Capitalism and National Division<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

As the forces of\nproduction have developed, as the strength and militancy of the black majority\nof the workers have increased, the ruling class has been forced, at greater and\ngreater cost, to try to strengthen its base of support and deepen the divisions\nwithin the proletariat. In this process, white racial privilege and the acute\nnational oppression of the African majority have been only the most extreme\npoles in the general capitalist policy of divide-and-rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the\noppressed, Indian has been separated from Coloured, and both from the African\nmasses. Among the Africans themselves, divisions have been created or\nreinforced between previously existing \u2018tribes\u2019; and wedges driven in an\nincreasingly systematic way in an effort to separate the migrant workers from\nthe settled urban population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same\ntime, to prevent any<\/strong> form of\nleadership from emerging that might serve as a rallying point for broader\nmasses of the workers, the ruling class has attempted likewise to fragment the\nblack middle class into the same ethnic and \u2018tribal\u2019 categories that have been\ndevised for the fragmentation of the working class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To permit the\nbreaching of sectional barriers at any level of society would be to expose them\nin the eyes of the workers and render them useless as instruments of division.\nLikewise, if political freedom were extended to even a privileged minority of\nblacks, this would inevitable sharpen the demand of black workers for the same.\nBlack middle-class politicians would come under pressure from the workers to\nvoice radical demands within the bosses\u2019 parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the early\ncolonial period, the geographical fragmentation of South Africa and the\ncreation of the African reserves has been a central component in the system of\ndivision and oppression. While the development of the South African economy has\nbrought about greater and greater integration and inter-dependence of all parts\nof the country and all sections of the population, the South African ruling\nclass had to double and treble its efforts to separate and fragment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the tide of\nhistory cannot be rolled back. Bantustan \u2018independence\u2019 and the stripping of\nthe African people of their legal status as South African citizens is only the\nlatest, extreme measure of the ruling class to shore up an apartheid system\nwhose foundations are cracking. These new \u2018states\u2019 are a fiction, having no\neconomic viability, no basis of allegiance among the people, and totally\ndependent on the South African state for survival. They will be swept away in\nthe revolution to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

National Liberation and Workers\u2019 Power<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Grinding poverty\nside by side with astronomical wealth, the destitution of the rural masses, the\nmigrant labour system, the grip of imperialism on the country\u2019s economic and\npolitical life, brute dictatorship, national oppression, white privilege, the\nfragmentation of society; all these are the fruits of the present economic and\nclass system in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The struggle to\nremove these burdens is inseparable from the struggle of the black working\npeople for democratic control over their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marxists join\nuncompromisingly in every fight for national liberation, equal rights, majority\nrule, and all the democratic demands raised by the oppressed in struggle. At\nthe same time Marxism brings to the struggle the understanding that, to carry\nthrough the democratic transformation of society, capitalism must be\noverthrown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because national\noppression is fundamental to capitalist rule in South Africa, the struggle of\nthe oppressed people for national liberation strikes at capitalism\u2019s very\nroots. The demand of the black people to\ngovern themselves comes in conflict not only with \u2018white minority rule\u2019, but\nwith the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. This determines the character of the\nSouth African revolution.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forty-seven\nyears ago Leon Trotsky, while exiled in France, wrote a letter in answer to\nquestions addressed to him by a group of supporters in South Africa. He pointed\nout that he was only slightly acquainted with South African conditions, and in\nrelation to some issues he had been misinformed. But his central passage on the\nstandpoint of Marxism in the national liberation struggle in South Africa would\nrequire only changes of terminology and detail to bring it fully up to date:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three-quarters of the population of South Africa (almost six million of the almost eight million total) is composed of non-Europeans. A victorious revolution is unthinkable without the awakening of the native masses. In its turn, that will give them what they are so lacking today \u2013 confidence in their strength, a heightened personal consciousness, a cultural growth.<\/p>

Under these conditions, the South African republic will emerge first of all as a \u2018black\u2019 republic; this does not exclude, of course, either full equality for the whites or brotherly relations between the two races \u2013 depending mainly on the conduct of the whites. But it is entirely obvious that the predominant majority of the population, liberated from slavish dependence, will put a certain imprint on the state.<\/p>

Insofar as a victorious revolution will radically change the relation not only between the classes but also between the races and will assure to the blacks that place in the state that corresponds to their numbers, thus far will the social<\/strong> revolution in South Africa also have a national<\/strong> character.<\/p>

We have not the slightest reason to close our eyes to this side of the question or to diminish its significance. On the contrary, the proletarian party should in words and deeds openly and boldly take the solution of the national (racial) problem in its hands.<\/p>

Nevertheless, the proletarian party can and must solve the national (racial) problem by its own<\/strong> methods.<\/p>

The historical weapon of national liberation can be only the class struggle<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

These\nlong-neglected words are more relevant than ever to our movement today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The struggle for\nworkers\u2019 power holds the key to the national liberation of the black people. Marxism stands for the carrying to\ncompletion of the most thorough-going revolutionary struggle for national\nliberation, consciously linking it to the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the\ncreation of a democratic workers\u2019 state. Only by these means can the national\nand democratic aims of the masses \u2013 including the aims of the majority of the\nblack middle class \u2013 be achieved.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is through\nthe overthrow of capitalism that the root causes of racial domination, division\nand privilege can be eliminated. Thus, too, the way will be cleared, within an\nundivided South Africa, for the unity of all the South African people as a\nsingle nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same\ntime, in a democratic workers\u2019 state, all minorities and national groups would\nhave the right to their own languages and cultures, without discrimination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The victory of\nthe workers\u2019 revolution will both carry to completion all the national and\ndemocratic tasks and begin the process of transition to socialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet the\nrevolution in South Africa will not stop at the Limpopo River. All the\ncountries of Southern Africa, by one means or another, will be embroiled in the\nconflict in South Africa. Likewise the defeat of the South African apartheid\nstate and the South African bourgeoisie, under the combined weight of the\nSouthern African working people, will shake all these countries from top to\nbottom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The socialist\nrevolution will extend throughout Southern Africa, and will spur on the\nstruggle of the masses against the decaying capitalist regimes throughout the\ncontinent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the people\nof Southern Africa it will mean the end of imperialist domination. For the\ncountries of the region now under capitalist rule, it will mean the end of\nwage-slavery and the rise of democratic workers\u2019 states. For the people of the\nworkers\u2019 states of Mozambique and Angola, it will mean the end of their extreme\nisolation and a way forward out of poverty and bureaucratic rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Marxist\nprogramme defends the right of the people of the various countries of Southern\nAfrica to independent states of their own. This right will not be diminished by\nthe Southern African character of the socialist revolution which impends. But\nat the same time it will be the revolutionary duty of the South African working\nclass, in the course of the struggle and once in power, to offer to their\nneighbours a union of Southern African workers\u2019 states, in which the resources\nand industrial power of the whole sub-continent may be shared for the common\nprogress of all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That unity,\nattainable only between workers\u2019 democracies, would be a giant stride for all\nthe peoples. Together with the advance of the workers\u2019 revolution in the\nindustrialised capitalist and Stalinist countries it would open the way to a\nsocialist federation of all Africa and advance all humanity towards a socialist\nworld.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are the revolutionary possibilities and tasks with which the struggle in South Africa today is pregnant. By these means and these alone will our struggle end capitalism, achieve the national emancipation of the South African people, and transcend the antiquated barrier of the bourgeois nation-state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue to Chapter Nine<\/a><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Nature and Tasks of the Revolution In South Africa, the industrial powerhouse of the sub-continent and bastion of white privilege, the ruling class is […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":709,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-752","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"acf":[],"_hostinger_reach_plugin_has_subscription_block":false,"_hostinger_reach_plugin_is_elementor":false,"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=752"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":758,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/752\/revisions\/758"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}