{"id":760,"date":"2019-09-18T15:52:49","date_gmt":"2019-09-18T13:52:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marxistworkersparty.org.za\/?page_id=760"},"modified":"2019-09-18T15:55:54","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T13:55:54","slug":"chapter-ten","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/?page_id=760","title":{"rendered":"Chapter Ten"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Struggle for Power             \n<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There is no country\nwhere\/the movement of the oppressed working people to transform society faces\nmore formidable obstacles, or a more vicious and entrenched enemy, than is the\ncase in South Africa. That the struggle for liberation has proceeded thus\nfar\u2014that the regime and the ruling class already face so serious a political\ncrisis at so early a stage in the decay of their system\u2014is testimony to a\nresilience, courage and fighting capacity of the workers and youth that can\nseldom have been equalled anywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The growth of the\nindependent unions, the efforts towards trade union unity, the drawing of the\nyouth towards the forces of organised labour, and the raising of the banner of\nthe ANC in the ranks of the mass movement, are all indications of the growing\nclarity of political consciousness and purpose among the oppressed. Also\nindicative is the overwhelming recognition, particularly by the younger\ngeneration, that armed force is an unavoidable necessity in the struggle to\noverthrow the regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The developing awareness in\nthe ranks of the workers and youth\u2014now ever more openly expressed\u2014that the\ncapitalist system lies at the root of oppression, marks an immense stride\nforward in the clarity of understanding of our revolutionary tasks. Yet this\nalso raises more sharply than ever in our movement the need to clarify a range\nof questions of programme and strategy in order that the forces of the struggle\nmay be united for the overthrow both of the racist regime and the system of\nexploitation which has created it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

The Struggle for Democracy<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The demand for a democratic\nsystem of government stands at the forefront of the struggle of all the\noppressed. It is written in the boldest letters on the banner of the black\nworking-class movement, and in any revolutionary programme must be first on the\norder of business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet it is not separate<\/strong>\nfrom the essential social tasks of the revolution. It does not stand apart from\nthe pressing urgency to end unemployment, low wages, poverty, hunger and\nhomelessness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As explained in previous\nchapters, a democratic society cannot arise and survive in South Africa on the\nfoundations of capitalism. There can be no genuinely democratic state in our\ncountry unless the state of the racist and capitalist dictatorship is\ndismantled, shattered, “smashed”\u2014to use the term of Marx\u2014and the\neconomic basis of society transformed. A ‘democratic state’ in SA can be none\nother than a state in transition to socialism\u2014a state of workers’ democracy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For all the efforts of\nmiddle-class theoreticians, the democratic aspirations of the working people\ncannot be accommodated in a separate historical ‘stage’ of ‘national\ndemocracy’, leaving the socialist tasks of the revolution unfulfilled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This reality of our\nstruggle is inescapable and does not depend on the willingness of political\nleaders to recognise it. It follows from the inner laws of the productive\nsystem\u2014capitalism in its epoch of senile decay. It rests on the class structure\nof our society and the relentless action of class forces upon each, other,\nwhich can no more be ordered to halt than the wind and tile waves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The general’ historical\nexplanation for this reality has been most brilliantly set Out, many years ago,\nin the Works of Trotsky on the, theory of permanent revolution. In these works\nhe expounded, not only the essential ideas and method of Marx, but also that of\nLenin in the Russian Revolution of 1917.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As explained in previous\nchapters, these ideas provide the key to all the processes of world history in\nthe modern epoch. They are an annihilating answer to the Menshevik and\nmodern-day Stalinist theory of revolutionary ‘stages’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the same Trotsky, in\nhis book The Permanent Revolution, stated that “every attempt to skip over\nreal, that is, objectively conditioned stages in the development of the masses,\nis political adventurism.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this there is no\ncontradiction. The mass of working people learn from the experience of life and\nstruggle. It is through struggle that all illusions in alternatives to the socialist\nrevolution are stripped away. It is through patient and persistent work in\nevery struggle of the workers and of all the oppressed that a revolutionary\ntendency can gain majority support for its ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, in the Russian\nRevolution of 1917, the central task set Out by Lenin for the cadres of\nBolshevism was to “patiently explain” to the working class in action\nthe need to prepare their forces for the seizure of state power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A democratic system of\ngovernment in Russia on the basis of capitalism was historically ruled Out, for\nthe reasons summarised in Chapter 2. Yet the masses did not enter the\nrevolution with this understanding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After February 1917 the\nreformist leaders\u2014the Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries\u2014hoped to\n“stabilise democracy” without the overthrow of the bourgeoisie. The\nmasses trusted these leaders; and the latter entered into coalition with the\ncapitalists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The struggle of the workers\nand peasants had begun a process of democratic revolution in Russia\u2014which would\nnot be successfully completed until the working class took power. By striving\nto halt this process at a ‘democratic stage’ the Menshevik and Social\nRevolutionary leaders in effect were willing to leave the fate of the\nrevolution at the mercy of a capitalist class that could in no way live with\ndemocracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bankrupt through and\nthrough, this policy could not halt the struggle of the classes or reconcile\ntheir conflicting interests. The illusions, and indeed treachery, of the\nMenshevik and SR leaders could not impose ‘stages’ on the revolution which were\nobjectively impossible. Yet their policies brought a crisis in the revolution\nitself\u2014to the extent that the masses had not yet passed beyond the\n“stage” of trusting them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bolsheviks<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Had it not been for the\nexistence of the Bolsheviks, their correct policies and tireless work, the poor\npeasants and working class of Russia would inevitably have suffered a bloody,\ncounter-revolutionary defeat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The patience of the\nBolsheviks had nothing in common with passivity. They did not tail behind the\nconsciousness of the masses; they did not suspend criticism of. the liberals\nand the reformists; they did not tamely wait for the illusions of the workers\nin the latter to ‘spontaneously’ disappear. They explored and exploited every\nopportunity, in action with the workers<\/strong>, to explain the tasks, to strip\naway illusions and expose the danger in every false idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus they succeeded in\narming the proletarian vanguard, and through it the wider masses of the people,\nwith a clarity of purpose, programme and strategy to save the revolution from\ndefeat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our movement in South\nAfrica, these same lessons are vital to absorb, if the ANC is to succeed in\nleading the people to victory in the struggle for the democratic transformation\nof our society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those who follow the\npolitical method of Menshevism\u2014such as the ‘Communist’ leaders today\u2014have never\naccepted these lessons of the Russian Revolution, and so fail to apply them to\nthe SA situation. Since the myth of “two stages” has been imposed as\na dogma of Stalinism, the inheritors of that tradition have found it impossible\nto discard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Underpinning the ‘stages’\napproach is the assumption that the black working class in South Africa cannot\nrise to class consciousness\u2014cannot comprehend the need to overthrow capitalism\u2014until\nafter <\/strong>racial oppression has been eliminated. In the literature of the SACP\nthis is seldom openly asserted\u2014but the real views of writers are often more\nplainly revealed in those moments when the pen ‘slips’ than in slicker\npassages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Can the black workers\nrealise their class aims, when the society rubs their faces so deeply in their\nnational oppression that their eyes are blinded?” writes the well-known\n‘Toussaint’ (The African Communist, No. 72, 1978, p30), and vigorously shakes\nhis head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His idea is false to the\nmarrow. It ignores the inseparable connection between racism and capitalism in\nour country. It displays quite a bit of contempt for the black working class\nand, if we may say so, a certain distance from the workers’ actual life which\nmay itself contribute to a certain … ‘blindness’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As even the bourgeois\nwriters are now forced to recognise, conditions in SA are irresistibly drawing\nblack workers and youth towards socialist ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the Johannesburg Star\n(4\/5\/79) laments:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The steady drift\ntowards communism\/Marxism\/socialism on the part of South Africa’s blacks is an\nominous one. In the long term it poses a greater threat to peace and prosperity\nin South Africa than does black nationalism, black consciousness or the black\nbattle for political and economic equality. This trend has been confirmed by\nthree major surveys which show that the majority of urban blacks prefer to call\nthemselves communists, Marxists or socialists rather than capitalists…”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, the maturing\nof class-consciousness among the masses is not something which can be left\ncomplacently to its spontaneous evolution. Consciousness is determined by\nconditions, by the experience of life\u2014but consciousness also lags behind\nexperience<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Engels emphasised that, in\na time of revolution, the working class learns more in the space of a few weeks\nthan in decades of ‘normal’ life. Yet this process of learning is uneven. The\nmost advanced layer of the class\u2014those active in the organised-,,- movement in\nprevious years\u2014enter the revolution with a more developed understanding of the\ntasks than the broader, more passive layers who are flung into action in a\nrevolutionary crisis for the first time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The consciousness of the\nformer may run ahead of the latter. At the same time the fresh contingents of\nthe workers, new to battle, may leap ahead of their more experienced comrades\nin boldness and vigour in the eat of action. In the turmoil of a revolution all\nthe forces in society shift and heave like volcanic lava in flux. A revolution\nis an extended process and sequence of engagements, clashes, tests of strength\nand tests of will between the opposing classes. But every process has its\nturning points, its moments on which the entire outcome may depend.          <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Clear conclusions<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The victory or defeat of a\nrevolution can depend\u2014and in the case of the SA revolution will undoubtedly\ndepend\u2014on the ability of the mass of oppressed working people to draw clear\nconclusions out of the experience of struggle, and unite their forces for the\noverthrow of the state and the tasks of transforming society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Precisely because of the\naccelerated pace of events; the inevitable turmoil and confusion; the\nunevenness of consciousness prevailing and its tendency to lag behind\nevents\u2014precisely for these reasons a correct leadership of the – whole movement\nwith clear and scientific policies, becomes the indispensable key to rallying\nthe forces of the struggle to carry through the revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In South Africa, where the\nenemy is so formidably fortified and entrenched, the entire outcome will turn\non the question of leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among our people there is a\nburning class hostility towards the capitalists. The daily struggle for\nsurvival; the conflict with the bosses in the factories, mines and on the\nfarms; the obvious dependence of the bosses on the state; the direction of\nstate repression more and more against the organisations of the workers; the\nstark gulf between rich and poor; the ostentation of the black business elite\n(whose wealth is no less conspicuous for being small); the growing awareness of\nrevolutions in other countries and the rise of the workers’ movement of West\nand East\u2014all these raise the consciousness of the SA working class of the need\nfor socialist revolution, and give confidence in the possibility of its victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mass of our people,\nincluding the overwhelming majority of workers, at the same time attach\nenormous importance to the struggle for the vote and other democratic rights,\nwhich have been gained in some form in many other capitalist countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not, as Stalinism\nasserts, because the workers cannot identify the capitalist enemy. The point is\nthat most workers believe that the attainment of democratic rights will make it\npossible both to end racist oppression and to get rid of the tyranny and exploitation\nof the bosses\u2014thus allowing the material conditions of life to be transformed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If trust is now placed in\ntoo abstract a conception of ‘democracy’; if it is not yet clearly seen that\nfor democracy to be made concrete the working class will have Co establish its\nown democratic state power\u2014this is because direct experience of bourgeois\ndemocracy has been denied to the majority in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Mensheviks\/Stalinists\nassert that the path to a revolutionary working-class consciousness requires\nthat the workers should first achieve bourgeois-democratic rights, in order to\ndiscover the inadequacy of these in fullness of time.            <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in South Africa the\nexperience of the working class in action will be that such rights cannot be\nsecured while the existing state remains undefeated, while the working class\nhas not yet established its own state power, and while the capitalist class\nremain the owners of production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Unavoidable<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is unavoidable that the\nworking class as a whole must pass through this experience of struggle in order\nto draw all the necessary conclusions. This process will be an\n“objectively conditioned stage in the development of the masses” (to\nuse Trotsky’s expression). It is in this sense, and this sense alone<\/strong>,\nthat our revolution will pass through ‘stages’\u2014as the consciousness of the\nworking class is clarified through the manifold experiences of battle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Precisely as consciousness\nand confidence advance, the mass movement will rally country-wide in the effort\nto remove the regime of white domination. All the tasks of the revolution will\nat first be tied together in this knot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nine-tenths of a\nrevolutionary consciousness is already provided in the experience of life of\nthe oppressed working people. The remaining one-tenth\u2014so far possessed by only fairly\nsmall forces of cadres in the movement\u2014is a clear grasp of the necessity to\ndismantle the entire machinery of the capitalist state and replace it with\ndemocratic organs of a workers’ state, resting on the power of an armed people.            <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This understanding will\nbecome generalised in the mass movement in the coming period of revolution,\nonly to the extent that it is systematically explained; to the extent that\nideas are combined with experience, and theory shown in practice to be correct<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Opposed<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the exponents of the\n‘two-stage’ theory of revolution stand resolutely opposed to such development.\nThey obscure with ‘theory’ the inescapable need for the working class to\nprepare for taking power in Order to secure a democratic society. Refusing to\naccept that democracy requires a workers’ state, they must lead the revolution\nup a’ blind alley if their ideas are followed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because the two-stage idea\nis put forward today in the name of ‘Communism’, it possesses an immense\npotential power to confuse and divide the working class. It inhibits the\nworkers’ learning from experience and distracts them from their goal. Therefore\nit must be resolutely opposed, criticised, and defeated within our movement, by\nexposing it for the danger it represents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, as Trotsky\nemphasised in his letter to South Africa back in 1935, nothing could be further\nfrom the policy of Marxism than to diminish the importance of the struggle for\ndemocracy, for national liberation and majority rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the very reason that\nthe capitalist class is compelled by its own needs to be the mortal enemy of\ndemocracy, of genuine liberation for the blacks, the mass struggle for\ndemocratic rights is charged with an explosive revolutionary force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carried consistently to its\nconclusion, clearly linked to the social demands of the working class and\nsustained in action by their organised power, it opens the bridge to the\noverthrow of the bourgeoisie and the carrying through of the socialist\nrevolution<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatever awakens the\nconsciousness of the working class, of their own power to change society is\nprogressive; whatever dulls that consciousness is reactionary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus the method of Marxism\nis not to posture, raising false hopes of liberation from above. Rather it is\nto strive among the working people in struggle for the taking of power into\ntheir own hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the struggle for\nsocialism, Marxism stands in the front rank of the democratic struggle. That is\nthe bedrock of all our policies, strategy and tactics<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Against the nationalist\nrhetoric ‘which serves to blind workers to their class aims and dulls their\nsense of class power, Marxism stands uncompromisingly for the\nclass-consciousness, class unity and internationalism of the proletariat. But\nit is only as the most resolute tendency struggling for national liberation and\ndemocracy that Marxism will defeat the influence of petty-bourgeois nationalism\nand Stalinism within our movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

The ‘Alliance of Democrats’<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

It follows that Marxists\ntake an approach to the building of the. forces of revolution which is\ndifferent from the approach of the exponents of the ‘two-stage’ theory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We must oppose any attempt\nto separate the struggle – for democracy from the struggle for workers’ power.\nIt is the task of the working class to unite all the oppressed around its own\norganised strength and action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is the task of all\ncomrades of the ANC, and of all revolutionaries in the ranks of the trade\nunions and the youth and community organisations, to work to build the forces\nof the working class as the conscious basis of the democratic movement against\nthe regime. The key question is working class leadership of the struggle, the\npower of its organisations, and the programme on which it carries on the,\nfight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are in favour of the\nbroadest possible alliance of all who are prepared to unite in action <\/strong>against\nthe state. If there existed a mass peasantry in SA, we would champion its\ndemands and support every effort to link its forces to the fullest extent to\nthe struggle of the working class. As it is, we strive to gather the black\nworking people of town and country together into a single movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Behind this movement must\nbe drawn all those elements of the black middle class, as well as all those\nwhites, who are willing to break decisively with the regime and with the\npressures and interests of the ruling class. “Unity in Action”, <\/strong>the\nslogan of the ANC for 1982, is a slogan which every revolutionary would fully\nsupport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To the above we would\nattach only one qualification by way of explanation. This is that the working\nclass must not be hamstrung in its alliances; not curbed in advancing its own\nclass interests and material demands; not held back from action for fear of\n“frightening away” the middle class; and not constrained by the\nleadership in the struggle against capitalism on the argument of observing\n“the limits” of the so-called “democratic stage”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘Democracy’ is a very wide\nterm, and a very large sack into which many conflicting interests can be\nstuffed. On the part of the working class the greatest vigilance is necessary, because\nbehind the cover of ‘democracy’ lurk cunning elements and agents of the\ncapitalist class, who seek to use a ‘broad democratic alliance’ as a means to\nfrustrate the struggle of the workers for democracy and socialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ‘alliance of\ndemocrats’, much discussed in Smith Africa over the past year, is presented as\na front of black workers, youth and middle class, together with\ndemocratic-minded whites. To such a combination of forces a number of workers’\norganisations have readily given support. But is it only these forces which\nhave been’ involved? It is necessary for all comrades to examine this front\ncritically, and to make a sober assessment of its composition, policies; and\ndirection of development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clearly its emergence has\nresulted from the crisis of the ruling class and the new. Mood of confidence\namong the oppressed masses, which has filtered through also to the middle\nclass. Above all, the rise of the black youth movement and the impressive gains\nof the independent unions have cleared the way for this phenomenon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, it is not\nworking-class organisations and leaders who predominate<\/strong> in the\n‘democratic alliance’, but leaders of the middle class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aided by platforms provided\nby the Church, the press, etc., they define the aims of the movement solely in\n‘democratic’ terms. They assert the possibility of a negotiated settlement of\nthe conflict in South Africa, and call for the support of the people solely to\nthis end. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As long ago as 1852,\nwriting on the defeated revolution in France at that time, Marx dealt with the\ncharacter of the ‘democrats’ of that period. The sharpness of his language\nreflected the danger which their false approach represented to the workers’\nstruggle, and the vigour with which it needed to be exposed. It will be apparent\nthat these remarks retain a considerable relevance to our situation today:   –<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…because the democrat represents the petty bourgeoisie, a transitional class in which the interests of two classes meet and become blurred, he imagines he is elevated above class antagonisms generally. The democrats admit that they are confronted with a privileged class, but assert that they, along with all the rest of the nation, form the people<\/em>. What they represent is the right of the people<\/em>; what interests them is the interest of the people<\/em>. Therefore, when a struggle approaches, they do not need to examine the interests and positions of the various classes. They do not need to weigh up the means at their disposal too critically. They have only to give the signal for the people, with all its inexhaustible resources, to fall upon the oppressors.<\/p>

If in the sequel their interests turn out to be uninteresting and their power turns Out to be impotence, either this is the fault of dangerous sophists, who split the indivisible people<\/em> into different hostile camps, or the army was too brutalised and deluded to understand that the pure goals of democracy were best for it too, or a mistake in one detail of implementation has wrecked the whole plan, or indeed an unforeseen accident has frustrated the game this time.<\/p>

In each case the democrat emerges as spotless from the most shameful defeat as he was innocent when lie went into it, fresh in his conviction that he must inevitably be victorious, taking the view that conditions must ripen to meet his requirements, rather than that he and his party must abandon their old standpoint.”<\/p>from The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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

Goals<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The “pure goals of\ndemocracy”, in Marx’s ironical phrase, are the very goals today espoused\nby the black middle-class leaders in the alliance of democrats in SA. Hoping in\nthe name of “the people” to elevate these goals “above class\nantagonisms generally”, our democrats conjure with phrases and hope to\nevade the actual struggle of the classes which is sharpening all the time in\nthe body of society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than “weigh up\nthe means at their disposal too critically”, rather than confront the\nproblem of how to shatter the extremely brutalised<\/strong> armed power in the\nhands of the oppressor class, they rest ‘their case on a general appeal to\n‘principle’, and trust that the necessary conditions will ripen, that ‘reason\nwill someday prevail’ in South Africa, to bring a non-racial and democratic\nsociety about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The futility of these\nideas, and the impotence of those who advance them, will be more and more\nrevealed to the mass of the people who move into action and confront the forces\nof the state in the coming years. However, it would be a mistake to\nunder-estimate the damage which these elements can do to the movement\u2014especially\nas they are reinforced on the one hand by the uncritical endorsement of the\nStalinists, and, on the other hand, by the assistance of  the liberal bourgeoisie<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The utopian ideas of the\nmiddle-class democrats cannot liberate the workers, nor can they liberate the\nblack middle class itself. They can only serve as a vehicle for transmitting\nthe interests and the influence of capitalism into the ranks of the movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No matter how hard, or how\nsincerely, the middle-class leaders strive to present their ‘independence’ from\nthe class antagonisms in society, in practice they cannot escape the class\ndivide. Unwilling to break decisively with capitalism, they cannot avoid\nexpressing the standpoint of the liberal bourgeoisie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In so doing, they\nunavoidably, violate also the very democratic* principles which they proclaim.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So it is, for example, that\nBishop’ Tutu, one of the foremost spokesmen of the ‘democrats’, has already\nhastened to assure the capitalists that it would be quite acceptable to merely,\n“phase out” the pass laws, in order to “avoid chaos”!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, the\nworking-class black majority must agree to submit itself to continued dompas\ninspections arrests, endorsement put, etc., for the sake of the stability and\npeace of mind of the bosses! One may ask which of “the people” gave\nBishop Tutu the democratic mandate to make such a compromise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is only an early\nexample of a trend that will become-much more pronounced later\u2014the ‘readiness\nof the middle-class leaders- of this type to compromise the democratic\nstruggle<\/strong> in order to satisfy the demands and pressures of the capitalist\nclass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Attack<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

TO take another\nexample\u2014that of Dr. Motlana: a man who himself has endured detention and\nbanning as a result of his radical views. While proclaiming the unity of the\npeople in the struggle for democracy, Motlana has not hesistated to use the\nplatform of the bourgeois press to make a blatant attack on the aspirations of\nthe working class for equality and socialism. (See Sunday Express<\/em>, 5\/10\/80)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Our blackness,”\nhe correctly observed, “will not create housing, or efficiency. It will\nnot answer the problems of food and jobs, or the needs of progress.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer, he maintained,\nis for blacks to work harder within the capitalist system! The problem,\napparently, is not capitalism itself, but too little of it; not competition,\nbut merely unequal competition. “…For God’s sake, let there be real\ncompetition,” declares Motlana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Let those who have\nambition”\u2014individual, private, capitalist ambition\u2014”work to fulfil it\nand not hold back because they do not want to wander top far ahead of the\npack.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“…In the cities the\nman who becomes a manager is jeered at,” complains the good Doctor.\n“…lt is false to opt out of the quest for personal improvement\u2014in\nschool, in university,- in the workplace–because this personal improvement\nmeans becoming part of the so-called unacceptable middle class.” (!!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“…There are people\nwho are waiting for a socialist regime to lead them to the land of milk and\nhoney. To these people I say: You are idiots… .Too many of our people are\nsimply bone lazy. Too often we blame the system for our own failures.-..”\nAnd so on and so forth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Privilege<\/strong>              <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Motlana’s complaint\nagainst the system in South Africa is essentially this: it bars, through race\ndiscrimination, the-advance of the individual black to levels of privilege,\nstatus and income equal. with the white establishment. One of his specific\ncomplaints, most often voiced, is that his children could not attend the best\n(white) private schools, nor his family take a house in the most opulent\n(white) suburbs, as would befit their -wealth and prestige.      .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course racial\ndiscrimination’ of every kind is abominable. And if society is to be structured\non privilege, privilege should at least, be ‘equal’!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the whole point, for\nthe working class, is not to abolish the present Inequalities of privilege only\nto reconstitute privilege on new foundations. It is to end the system of\nprivilege entirely!<\/strong>        <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How far will the Doctor\nally himself with the working class\u2014with the black majority<\/strong>\u2014in this\ndemocratic struggle?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We would not expect Dr.\nMotlana to forego his democratic right to express his own ideas, or articulate\nhis own private interest\u2014”uninteresting” as this undoubtedly is to\nthe mass of the people. But nor should Dr. Motlana expect, in the name of a\n‘broad democratic alliance’ that the working class must subordinate its\ninterests,. its ideas, its demands, and its independent organisations to his\nheartfelt desire- to maintain the capitalist system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the majority of the\nblack middle class, there is less and less room with every passing year for\nthis kind of self-delusion with capitalist ideas. The majority, indeed, have\nbecome barely separable in salary, social position and social outlook from the\nproletariat itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For black teachers, nurses,\nsocial workers, university students, even small shopkeepers and many from the\nupper layers of the middle class as well, it-will become increasingly clear\nthat there is no way out of their oppression on the basis of capitalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The assumption of the\nStalinists\u2014which, oddly enough, they share with the ultra-left\u2014that the middle\nclass cannot be won to a struggle for socialism, is false through and through.\nIt is up to the working-class movement, to the workers’ organisations\nspecifically, to champion the interests of all the oppressed classes and\nundertake their defence against the regime and the ruling class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unity in the struggle is\nnot created by ‘agreements’, words, formal assurances, etc. It is created by\nthe power and dynamism of forces in action. The workers’ movement, industrial\nand political, is the only force that can show the way forward in action to\nanew society free of racism and exploitation. The middle class can be won to\nthe programme of proletarian revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the key condition for\nthis is the rise of the workers’ movement to its full potential, the building\nof the workers’ organisations, and a clear and conscious programme linking the\nstruggle for democracy to the socialist transformation of society<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The struggle for democracy\nis at root a struggle for workers’ organisation and for workers’ power. This\nroad offers the only real way forward for all those in the ‘alliance of\ndemocrats’ who are entirely genuine and prepared to wage a consistent struggle\nfor democratic aims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

The Trade Unions<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 <\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In the years of dark\nreaction in the 1960s, state repression destroyed most of the unions of black\nworkers and reduced the remainder to little more than benefit societies for\ntheir members. Yet this victory of the state was short-lived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the early 1970s, the\nrenewed upsurge of the workers’ movement has led to a vigorous re-emergence and\nexpansion of independent non-racial unions. More than any other single factor,\nthis has changed the political situation in SA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the development of every\ncapitalist society, the self-organisation of the working class marks an\nhistoric turning-point. It provides the basis for ending the manipulation of\nthe working class by other classes, and opens the way for the workers to assert\ntheir social power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For this reason trade\nunions \u2013 which are the most fundamental form of working-class organisation,\nbased at the point of production\u2014have also a long-term political significance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They are the ultimate line\nof defence of the working people against the forces of bourgeois reaction. They\nare an important guarantor of every democratic advance. Their part in the\nrevolutionary transformation of society is indispensable. In the future society\nfreed from bourgeois ownership and control, they form the basic instruments of\ndemocratic workers’ control and management of the economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In building the independent\nunions, the working class in South Africa has begun to rise up as a “class\nfor itself” (as Marx put it); a class aware of itself as a class, and asserting\nthrough its own class organisations its own interests and demands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Already in SA the rise of\nthe independent workers’ movement has produced an underlying change in the\ninter-relationship of all the classes. Let us take one small but significant\nfact to illustrate this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only a few years ago, it\nwas the practice of middle-class nationalist leaders among the blacks to\ndismiss the idea that the working class constituted a social force in its own\nright. Essentially, they asserted, “the workers are blacks<\/strong>.”\nBut today the AZAPO leaders, for example, find it necessary to turn the thing\nupside down. “All blacks are workers!” they exclaim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Social force<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is not necessary here to\ngo into the accuracy of (o), or the purpose behind it. The point is that an\nhistoric change has come about in class relations when the middle class demand\nto be included in the definition of a worker. Even unconsciously they are\nindicating that they have no future apart from the workers’ movement; that the\nworking class is the social force of the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rise of the workers’\nmovement has meant a dramatic change in the situation confronting the regime\nand the ruling class. The inability of the state to control the workers by the\nestablished methods of repression alone has been the most important factor in\nprecipitating the political crisis of the system. The turmoil in the policy of\nthe government is most clearly shown in its repeated, fruitless efforts to find\nalternative means of curbing the unions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without the independence<\/strong>\nof the trade unions, they would be unable to sustain their resistance to the\nvicious pressures of the regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many who are unfamiliar\nwith trade unionism ask: what is this ‘independence’ which the non-racial\nunions claim? By independence is meant that the workers organise themselves as\na definite class to fight for their own interests, and exclude from their ranks\nas far as possible the forces, influences, ideas and agents of all other\nclasses. By these means they do not free themselves from external<\/strong>\npressures of the bourgeoisie and the state\u2014but they insulate themselves\ninternally to a considerable extent from alien class pressures which’ may\ndivide their ranks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is precisely because of\nthe new unions’ insistence on independence<\/strong>, that the ruling class has\nfound it so difficult to obstruct their progress and ensnare them into policies\nof barren compromise with the regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The central strategy of the\nregime in dealing with the unions\u2014shown in the successive schemes devised by\nthe Wiehahn Commission after careful discussions with the bosses\u2014is to\nundermine the independence of the unions by squeezing them into the\nstraightjacket of state regulation and control. The aim of the new Labour\nRelations legislation is to exert upon the union leaders a relentless,\ninsidious pressure in opposition to the democratic pressure exerted by their\nworker rank-and file.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In order to resist\nmanipulation by the state, in order to defend the independence and democracy of\nthe unions, the most courageous and far-sighted of the workers’ leaders have\nmaintained a vigorous opposition to the registration system and have conducted\ncampaigns of education on1e issues among the membership at large.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in many of the unions\nthe strategy of the ruling class has been unwittingly aided by mistaken policies\nand reformist ideas on the part of the leaders. These ideas weaken the unions’\nresistance to the state and can lead them into dangerous traps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is of the utmost\nimportance for the whole trade union movement to base its policies on a clear\nperspective of the revolutionary crisis now beginning to unfold<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is characteristic of\nreformist trade unionists that they conceive of union strength as a means of\nstriking some sort of harmonious balance between the workers and the\nemployers\u2014of accommodating the workers’ movement within the capitalist system.\nThey seek cautiously to limit the aims, demands and tactics of their\norganisations within these bounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this approach is very\nshort-sighted, is based on an illusion, and will ultimately show itself to be\nbankrupt. If the ruling class now lacks the means to crush the unions, that\ndoes not mean at all that it can come to terms with the existence of an\nindependent trade union movement in the longer run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those in the unions who\nhave advocated compromise with the state’s industrial relations system on the\nargument that this will help to consolidate and secure the trade unions as\npermanent institutions, protected by law, have been making a fundamental\nmistake. They are likewise mistaken when they draw parallels with the\nhistorical rise and gradual strengthening of the trade unions in the advanced\nindustrialised countries of imperialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The working class in\nWestern Europe, North America, etc., was able to consolidate its unions and\ngain a steady series of social reforms particularly in the post-war period\u2014a\nperiod of economic advance of capitalism which now, in those very countries,\nhas come to an end. It is for this reason exactly that social democratic\nreformist ideas are being broken down throughout the capitalist world under the\nimpact of economic crisis and the grinding struggle of the classes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Reformism<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of the strength of\nthe working class in the industrialised West, and the accumulated ‘fat’ of\ncapitalism, this situation of social decay and class polarisation will be long\nextended. But ultimately, the working class will be able to defend its trade\nunion rights only by successfully carrying through the socialist revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How much the more is this\nthe case in South Africa! <\/strong>Here,\nno basis has ever existed for social-democratic reformism as far as the black\nmajority of workers are concerned, and no basis for it can ever come into\nexistence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reformist illusions\nwhich exist among some officials within the non-racial independent unions have\nno material basis in fact. Their reformism stands on a most fragile footing,\nand will not survive the mounting pressures of the struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The state itself has not\ndelayed in issuing the first warning to the workers of what is to come. The\nrecent arrest of hundreds of union activists, and the government’s threat of\npolitical show trials for union leaders, has spelled out a vitally important\nlesson for all who have eyes to see and ears to hear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course the government\nhas been skilful in beginning with selective<\/strong> attacks; in seeking to\ndivide the union movement by picking first on some of the more militant\nleaders. (Almost the entire leadership of SAAWU, for instance, has been\nimprisoned.) As a result, some officials in other unions could make the grave\nmistake of believing that more timid and conservative policies will enable them\nin the long run to remain unscathed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the essential point to\nstress is that the stepping up of state repression against the unions is the\ninevitable result of the impasse of the economic and political system in South\nAfrica\u2014of the inability of the ruling class to exist side by side with a\nvigorous, flourishing, independent trade union movement of the mass of the\nblack workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

United<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ranks of all the\nindependent unions must be united in the struggle to defend the victims of the\nrenewed crack-down by the regime. The leaders of every union ought to\nwhole-heartedly commit themselves to mobilising the maximum forces of the\nworking class (rallying to its side also all classes of the oppressed and all\ndemocrats) in an active campaign on this fundamental question of union rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is no answer to seek\nrefuge in an attempt to steer the trade unions clear of “politics”.\nThat was the argument reflected quite recently in statements, for example, by some\nFOSATU leaders. But as the FOSATU unions have found, they themselves cannot be\ndefended by such means\u2014 especially if they are to continue to advance in\nnumbers and fighting strength.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decision of the\nleadership of all the main independent unions to join in the call for a\nhalf-hour general strike after the murder of Neil Aggett is a sign of what will\nhopefully be a continued recognition that the fate of the unions cannot be\nseparated from the political struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As more and more in the\nnon-racial unions are openly acknowledging, the trade unions will be able to\nfulfil their tasks as trade unions <\/strong>only by joining forces in the entire\nstruggle of the working people to transform society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the rise of the\norganised workers’ movement, the ruling class has experienced the early tremors\nof an approaching earthquake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite magnificent gains\nin numbers, especially during the past two years, only about 7016 or 8% of\nAfrican industrial workers are so far in the unions. Yet what an effect this\nhas produced! Even the mighty industrial struggles of the recent period have\nresulted in only about one-tenth the loss of production per thousand workers as\ncompared, for example, with Britain and the USA in the same years. Yet this\nalready sends shivers of fear down the spine of the ruling class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have only to contemplate\nthe organisation of the majority of the black workers into the trade unions to\nsee the perspective lying ahead of this movement, and to define its tasks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lenin’s old prognosis that,\nif more than a minority of workers were unionised, a revolutionary conflict\nwith capitalism would inevitably open, will be fully borne out in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The way forward for the\nindependent unions is indicated in the efforts already under way by the leaders\nof most of these unions to form a united front\u2014notably at the Cape Town\nconference in August 1981. This unity will be carried forward successfully in\naction to the extent that all its participating unions engage in vigorous\nefforts to organise the unorganised and join in common campaigns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the trade union\nstruggle, as in every struggle, the only real unity is unity in action. This\nrequires the fullest combination and co-operation of the ranks of all the\nindependent unions, not only at the top, but also at the local, regional and\nindustrial levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Above all it is the migrant\nworkers\u2014the hard core of the industrial working class\u2014who are pouring fresh\nforces into the organised labour movement. To an extent unknown in SA history,\nmigrant workers are vigorously demanding trade union organisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the existing social\nnetworks of the migrant workers, connecting the cities to the reserves and the\nreserves to the capitalist mines and farms, lie the means through which a\nmighty, militant trade union movement can continue to be built in the coming\nyears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By decisively turning to\nthe task of organising migrant workers in their tens and hundreds of thousands,\nthe existing independent unions cart muster the power to defend themselves\nagainst the ruthless pressures of the state. The rapid rise of SAAWU,\nespecially in the Eastern Cape, and the advance of the GWU and other unions,\nhas not been unconnected with their success in organising migrant workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is not accidental, at\nthe same time, that in unions where the reformist current is notable, there has\nbeen a tendency to turn their back on the organisation of migrant workers. But,\ngiven the opportunity, migrant workers will flood into all the unions, and will\nin any event continue impatiently to demand to be organised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Strains<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new period of economic\ndownturn in South Africa has already begun to place new strains on the trade\nunions, and heavy obstacles before them. In a period of rising unemployment,\nlay-offs and redundancies, industrial struggles are exceptionally difficult to mount,\nand may tend to decline. In such a period, also, the employers seize the\nopportunity\u2014with the vigorous aid of the state\u2014to attack the previous gains of\nthe unions and mount waves of repression to take advantage of any weakening in\nthe workers’ organisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For this reason there\ncannot be any smooth, even, steady advance of the independent unions. But, at\nthe same time, so vast is the untapped potential for organised labour, that it\nshould be quite possible for these unions together to set themselves the target\nof one million members <\/strong>in the course of the next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Defence of the unions\nagainst victimisation and repressive laws; the demand for a national minimum\nwage of R100 for all workers\u2014united campaigns on issues such as these can\nprovide a rallying point for hundreds of thousands of yet unorganised workers\nat this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No matter how savage the\nstate reaction in this period of economic downturn may become, it will not have\nthe consequences of the 1960s. It will not shatter the union movement. Then the\nruling class and the state were able to consolidate their position on the basis\nof a political defeat of the mass movement, followed by a sustained period of\neconomic growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now the camp of the ruling\nclass is itself in chaos; the economic perspective for capitalism is gloomy;\nthe nightmare of poverty, hunger, joblessness and homelessness will mount. The\nenormous confidence and resilience of the masses would take a whole series of\nmajor defeats to crush. That is not the perspective for the period ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Upturn<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatever the difficulties\nof the coming two or three years, at the first upturn of the economy there will\nbe a renewed flood of industrial action and a pouring of thousands upon\nthousands of fresh workers into the unions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, it is absolutely\ncorrect for all activists in the unions to give the most careful attention in\nthis period to the necessary means for the defence of their organisations. The\nsolution does not lie in retreat. It lies in sustaining the efforts both to\nbuild the workers’ organisations and to consolidate their foundations at the\nbase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Organisations made up only\nby a dynamic central leadership and a mass following can readily decapitated by\nthe state, as repeated experience in South Africa has shown. Precisely those\norganisations which have had the most spectacular growth would have to give the\ngreatest attention to consolidating their foundations through meticulous\norganisation and training of leadership in the factories themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, in every\nfactory and other workplace, the workers’ organisations need to lay down firm\nunderground foundations. A mighty tree stands because of the depth and breadth\nof its roots beneath the soil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Underground organisation is\noften taken to mean the conspiratorial activities of small groups. Techniques\nof secrecy are, of course, vital. But the effectiveness of underground work\ndepends on its ability to become mass work\u2014through the conscious activity of\nthe workers in organising themselves not only openly, but also secretly from the\nbosses and the police. In this way the open work in the unions can be\nsustained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The defence of the trade\nunions in these times, and their preparation for future advance, depends to a\ngreat degree on the carrying out of these tasks, combining Iegal and illegal\nwork. It is to these tasks also that comrades of SACTU ought to devote their\nattention. It is through these means that the forces of the independent unions\nwill be most effectively combined in time with the political movement of the\nworking people, as it gathers under the banner of the ANC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So too the organised\nworkers can begin more effectively to fulfil their task of spearheading the\nforces of liberation, in drawing all the oppressed to their side\u2014as they have\nalready begun to draw the militant black youth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

The Youth Movement<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the struggles of\nthe past decade, the black youth has marched in parallel with the upsurge of\nworkers. The younger generation, fresh and full of vitality, untouched by the\ndefeats of the 1960s, has acted as a constant spur to the movement as a whole.\nFor the black youth, struggle is the only alternative to the gloom that\nobscures their future. The system can offer them no better prospect than racist\noppression, miserable and inferior education; unemployment; lack of housing,\ntransport and recreational facilities; poverty, crime and social decay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through the events of 1976\nand subsequently, the black youth have gained tremendously in experience.\nTeenagers have learned more in months of struggle than adults double their\nyears who had not been involved in action. Children barely six and seven years\nold have confronted police dogs and bullets, the harsh realities of life\nalready shaped in steel in their young minds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The central focus in the\nawakening movement of the youth has been the struggle in the schools. The fight\nagainst Bantu Education has been a fight against education-for-enslavement \u2013\nagainst an education designed for no other purpose than to perpetuate the cheap\nlabour system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In mounting the struggle\nover education, the black youth have been brought face to face with the\nrealities of the entire structure of SA society, the murderous power of the\nstate, and the capitalist system which it defends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through the experience of\nstruggle, the youth quickly realised that, while they have special concerns and\ninterests, they are not a separate class in society. For the majority, who are\nin any case the children of working parents, their problems are bound up with\nthose of the whole black working class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, because youth\nlacks a vital role in production, its explosive anger can easily be\ndissipated\u2014like steam escaping into thin air. They need the, piston engine of\nthe workers’ movement to concentrate their struggle and give it a material\nforce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Already during the struggles\nof 1976 the youth were confronted with their inability to change society by\ntheir own efforts alone. Instinctively they turned towards the workers. In the\ndesperate situation, they tried at first to order and bully workers into\naction. This led to in evitable friction and clashes which were, of course,\nfully exploited by the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But no movement progresses\nwithout mistakes, which new situations and untested tactics make unavoidable.\nIn South Africa the dynamism and determination of the black youth enabled them\nto learn and correct their method with amazing speed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The political general\nstrikes of August and September 1976 succeeded because the youth turned to\nexplaining their case to the workers in a serious and disciplined way. In 1980,\nfrom the start of the renewed schools boycott, the students struggled side by\nside with the older generation of the working class. Student-parent committees\nwere formed to discuss and co-ordinate tactics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, then and\nsince, school and university students have involved themselves actively in\nsupporting the strikes and boycott actions launched by the workers. They have\nhelped to organise bus boycotts and rent struggles, and have taken the lead in\ncommunity work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this way the stature of\nthe youth movement has been raised immeasurably in the workers’ eyes. An\nhistoric gain has been made; the basis has been prepared for the youth movement\nand the workers’ movement to unite their forces in action<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the youth movement has\ngrown, learned and changed in action, so too the outward expression of its\npolitical ideas has changed. In the late 1960s and most of the 1970s, the anger\nand militancy of the youth was expressed in the ideas of Black Consciousness.\nIn fact, until fairly recently, the youth movement itself went under the title\nof the Black Consciousness Movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contained within the BCM\nwas the immensely progressive force of a new generation searching for a\nrevolutionary road. In the high ideals of its activists, in heroism and\nself-sacrifice, it has known no equal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet the weaknesses of\nmethod, perspective and programme also contained within the BCM from the\nbeginning, brought it within the space of a decade to a situation of stalemate,\nconfusion and disintegration.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Self-reliance<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Initially, the attention of\nthe youth was concentrated on denouncing the bankruptcy of liberal reformism\nand the blatant collaboration of the Bantustan servants of the state. The youth\nargued the need for action, unity and self-reliance on the part of the black\npeople. In this period, Black Consciousness was at its height.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many high hopes were placed\nin the ability of Black Consciousness to embrace the aspirations of all the\nblack people in one nationalist movement, and cut across sterile divisions\nwhich had bedevilled political organisation in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet the wider the youth\nmovement extended, the more it moved into action, the more it sought the\npractical means of expressing its revolutionary aims\u2014the more inadequate the\nideas of Black Consciousness became on the central question of the SA\nrevolution\u2014the link between the struggle for national liberation and the need\nto overthrow capitalism\u2014the BCM as a whole proved unable to reach a consistent\nstand.. All the conflicts that developed within it had this issue at the root.\nLacking a scientific grounding and a conscious working-class base, the main\nBlack Consciousness organisations remained under the influence of middle-class\nideology, which bolstered the standing of middle-class leadership within their\nranks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under this leadership and ideology,\nthe Black Consciousness Movement could powerfully voice the general mood of\nblack frustration and anger. But it could not develop a coherent programme,\nbuild a unified organisation, or link itself organically to the movement of the\nworkers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The inability of the Black\nConsciousness Movement in general to recover from the bannings of October 1977\nindicated essentially that it had been superseded by events, and that the mass\nmovement had outstripped its limitations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Significantly those new or\nsurviving ‘Black Consciousness’ organisations which remain under middleclass\nleadership, and within the confines of nationalism, have been unable to develop\nas a national force and have ‘remained riven with internal political\ndifferences and confusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has been particularly\namong the high-school youth\u2014those rooted in the life and outlook of the working\nclass\u2014that the inadequacies of Black Consciousness ideas have been most rapidly\ndiscovered. In their case, the slogan of “black power” represented from\nthe outset an undeveloped and imprecise striving towards workers’ power<\/strong>.\nTheir nationalism (to quote a phrase of Trotsky’s from another context) was the\n“outer shell of’ an immature Bolshevism”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In linking their action and\ntheir future more and more consciously to the rising movement of the adult\nworkers, they also began breaking through the limitations of this political,\nshell. The direction taken by AZASO, for instance, at its July 1981 conference,\nis an outstanding confirmation of the ability of working-class youth to rapidly\ndraw conclusions from the experience of struggle, and cast a beam of light\nahead of the entire movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Linking<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nonetheless, the youth\nstill face formidable difficulties in carrying their movement forward in the\nperiod ahead. It has proved- exceptionally difficult to build a single national\nyouth organisation linking all parts of the country together. This is not only\nbecause of the savagery of the repression; it is also because the building of\nthe workers’ movement is still at a relatively early stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is very important for\nthe youth, in approaching their own tasks, to assess the stage that the\nstruggle is passing through, its direction of development and its future\nperspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will be possible to\nbuild a mass revolutionary youth movement in South Africa only by linking this\neffectively to the workers’ movement, as the youth arm of the latter<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the organised workers’\nmovement is still at a relatively early stage of development. Only its\nfoundations are being laid\u2014in the building of the independent unions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the tasks of the\nyouth is to link their efforts as closely as possible to the progress of the\nunions, and to actively work to encourage trade union unity in action\nnation-wide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet the youth need more\nthan this\u2014they need unified political<\/strong> organisation to express their\ndemands and concentrate their energies. Having moved beyond Black\nConsciousness, having found their class roots in common struggle with the\nworkers, black working-class youth have also sensed the political direction\nwhich the class as a whole must inevitably take.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore they are\ngravitating more and more openly to the ANC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, without concrete\nworkers’ organisation in the, political field the youth still face formidable\ndifficulties in giving their movement an organised coherent and firm base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Eager<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is in the nature of\nyouth to be impatient with obstacles and to eagerly leap ahead of the sometimes\nlumbering labour movement. There will be a continuing elastic relationship\nbetween the progress of the youth movement and the development of unified\nworkers’ struggle. It is particularly in a period of economic downturn, when\nheavy pressures weigh down on workers’ action, that the youth may spring\nprominently to the forefront of struggle. 1976 was just such a period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But again and again they\nwill experience the need to link their action with that of the organised\nworkers. In the political struggle these two sides of the working-class\nmovement\u2014the younger and older generations\u2014will fully combine only as the workers\nand their chiildren work together-to build and transform the ANC as a mass\norganisation above all of their own class, its fighting spirit and fighting\ndemands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The high-school youth of\nthe 1970s and today is really the first generation of the workers’ children to\nhave gained a high-school education in any form. The opportunity of the youth\nto read and study ideas, particularly the ideas of Marxism, is a precious\nadvantage which must be put at the disposal of the whole movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the necessary willingness\nto learn from the adult workers, the youth at the same time can play a vital\nrole in carrying revolutionary ideas the length and breadth of South\nAfrica\u2014into the unions, into the factories, mines and onto the farms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The youth movement can\ntackle, together with the independent unions, the task of organising the\nunemployed. This is an absolute necessity both to defend the trade unions and\nto prepare the necessary forces for the coming revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, it has now become\npossible for the black youth to turn towards white school and university\nstudents, and open the way to their involvement in common action. It is one of\nthe gains of the Black Consciousness period that black working-class youth will\nconfidently be able to assert their own predominance, leadership and demands,\nand require the co-operation of the white youth on their terms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is an unremitting\nferment on the white campuses, while for white school-leavers too the future\nhas become very insecure, clouded by military conscription and the knowledge\nthat the storm of revolution is brewing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the late 1960s and\n1970s, the opposition of the black youth to the involvement of whites\u2014one of\nthe fundamentals of Black Consciousness\u2014was an expression of the revolutionary\ndetermination of the youth. Although in an unclear way, they wanted to break\nall channels which served to dilute their militancy; which communicated\ncompromise with the oppressor and concessions to the ruling class. In moving\nbeyond Black Consciousness, the black working-class youth has not dropped its\nvigilance. But now that can only find scientific expression in the ideas of\nMarxism, and be maintained by the assertiveness and power of working-class\norganisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In carrying out their tasks\nin the coming period the black youth will need that revolutionary determination\nand vigilance all the more\u2014to prevent any dilution of the fighting capacities\nof the movement and the frustration of its democratic and socialist aims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Building the ANC<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The central strategic and\npolitical task before us is summed up in the slogan advanced by Inqaba ya Basebenzi<\/em>: “Build a\nmass ANC on a socialist programme<\/strong>!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is only as a mass\norganisation, above all as an organisation of the black working class, that the\nANC will be able to marshal the forces for the eventual armed overthrow of the\nracist and capitalist state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

it is only on a clear\nsocialist programme that the ANC will be able to maintain the unity of the\nworking class and all the oppressed in action, and carry through the\ntransformation of society on which our liberation depends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In SA today there is a huge\ngravitation of popular support among the oppressed towards the ANC. Its flag is\nraised at mass meetings and funerals; its imprisoned and exiled leadership is\npublicly honoured; its programme is openly quoted and extolled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To understand the basis of\nthis support, and to translate it into concrete organisation, we have first to\nconfront an historical paradox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the re-awakening of the\npolitical movement of the 1970s, which was spear-headed by the youth, the ANC\nwas not to the fore. In fact the youth were distinctly critical of the ANC at\nthat time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They pointed to its origins\nas an organisation of conservative, middle-class Africans which devoted itself\nto petitioning for equal rights. Although the ANC had gained a mass following\nby the 1950s, the youth looked back on the decades of previous struggles and\nassociated the ANC with the defeats suffered in those days. They also noted the\nabsence of effective underground ANC organisation from the country since the\nmid-1960s. And when, in 1976, they marched into the teeth of gunfire from the\npolice, they asked why the ANC, after 15 years of preparing armed struggle, was\nnot able to provide arms for the defence of the movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, in the course of the\nlast five years, while the curve of the Black Consciousness movement has\nplummeted, the popular following of the ANC has shown a meteoric rise. While\nthe inadequacies of all the middle-class leaders active within the movement in\nSouth Africa have been increasingly exposed in the mounting waves of mass\naction, the acclaiffi for-leaders jailed and exiled by the regime has risen\nsteadily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are a number of\nfactors combining to produce support for the ANC. But at the root of it all is\nan historical law which is working itself out also in most, if not all,\ncapitalist countries. This is that, when the mass of the workers turn to\nstruggle, they turn first to the established, traditional organisations\nassociated with their struggle in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main reason for this is\nthe need for the means of uniting their forces in action. In South Africa as\nmuch as anywhere, the workers understand that without unity they cannot\nconquer. The working people have need of one political organisation <\/strong>in\nwhich their forces may combine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is not a sentimental but\na practical matter. The black working people of SA have no alternative but to\ngo to the ANC and make it their rallying point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ANC is chosen precisely\nbecause of its long history and because of the mass following it gained in the\n1950s and early 1960s. It is chosen because, in the years since, in comparison\nwith its rivals, it has maintained its cohesion and political continuity. It is\nchosen for the very reason that its leaders are jailed and exiled; that it is\npersecuted by the enemy; and that it has been seen to make no compromise with\nthe oppressor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it is chosen as the\nforemost of the organisations which have recognised the need to prepare armed\nforce for the struggle against the regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Vehicle<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the ANC the workers invest\ntheir hopes of overthrowing not only white supremacy, but also the power of the\ncapitalists and the problems of poverty and exploitation. Thus, at least\nimplicitly, the working class turns to the ANC to find a vehicle for social revolution<\/strong>. Its confidence in\nthis regard is mightily reinforced by the long-standing involvement, and\npresent predominance, of the SA Communist Party within the ANC leadership in\nexile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The force of the working\nclass will pass through the ANC. It will take the flag of the ANC and march\nwith it down the road of revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And where the workers go,\nthere too go the youth. That too has now acquired the force of a social law in\nthe SA revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the mass movement swells\nin the coming years, as every part of the country is drawn into action, there\nwill be a flood-tide of mass support for the ANC. Already sensing this, black\nmiddle-class leaders of every stripe are painting their boats in black, green\nand gold in the hope of riding at the head of the tide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But exactly as the working\nclass takes the ANC and makes it its own, so it will exert within the ANC its\nown insistent pressure and revolutionary demands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will not flock to the\nANC\u2014as some imagine\u2014like sheep. Rather it will carry into the ANC its\nclass-consciousness, knowledge of organisation, confidence and assertiveness\nwon through its independent struggles in the trade union field especially.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The task of conscious\nrevolutionaries is to work to ensure that the ANC is indeed built as an\neffective vehicle of working-class struggle, in which working-class demands\npredominate, which is democratically controlled by the working people, and\nwhich is capable ultimately of leading their revolution to triumph.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We must prepare now with\nthe greatest urgency for the hundreds of thousands, and indeed millions, who\nwill pour into the ranks of the ANC in South Africa as a revolutionary\nsituation matures. Therefore it is necessary now to press ahead with the\nformation of ANC committees in every workplace and locality, in every mine\ncompound, on every farm, in every village, at every university and high school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such committees are\nessential if the ANC slogan of “unity in action” is to be made\nconcrete in the period ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In and through such\ncommittees the work of political education can more effectively be carried on;\npolicy issues democratically discussed; leadership at various levels developed\nand tested; and the tactics of the movement co-ordinated and critically\nassessed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the one hand these\ncommittees would form underground links with the trade unions, and the youth\nand community organisations. On the other hand, linked together and centrally\nco-ordinated, they would provide the means of transmitting, testing and\ndemocratically correcting policies of the central leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the last analysis,\nnevertheless, it is the perspective, policy and programme of the leadership,\nfor the guidance in action of the whole movement, which will prove decisive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The test of a scientific\npolicy is whether it comes to grips with the forces and obstacles which our\nmovement will confront as the revolutionary crisis in South Africa unfolds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Bonapartist Dictatorship<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In the previous chapter,\ndealing with the crisis of the system, we pointed to the increasingly bonapartist<\/strong>\ncharacter of the regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of the rising\nintensity of the struggle of the oppressed, especially of the black workers;\nbecause of the divisions and disintegration setting in in the camp of the\nwhites; because of the impasse of capitalism and the divisions and confusion in\nthe ranks of the ruling class\u2014the executive power of the government has become\nmore and more elevated into a monstrous dictatorial power standing over\nsociety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the factors which have\nproduced this development will be dramatically accentuated as South Africa\npasses further into revolutionary crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An important element in our\nperspective must be the analysis of this development and its implications for\nthe struggle<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The outward appearance of a\nbonapartist regime is one of strength. It is headed by a ‘strongman’. It\npresents itself to the population as a Goliath whose power is ‘invincible’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, for all that, a\nbonapartist regime is basically a regime of crisis<\/strong>. It stands on brittle\nfeet. The more the ground shakes beneath it, the more it may ‘perfect’ its\ndictatorship\u2014but the more its own downfall is prepared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dictatorship in SA has,\nof course, important features which distinguish it from bonapartist regimes in\nother capitalist countries. By comparison, it has today a relatively firm\nfoothold, based on a substantial section of the population\u2014the whites.\nGenerations of racism, white domination and entrenched privilege mean that the\nprocess of political disintegration among the whites will be long drawn-out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Overthrow<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, the\ndictatorship is weakened by its almost total lack of social support among the\nblacks, even in the uppermost layers of the middle class. Its weight presses on\nthe black people with the point of a sword.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To overthrow it, the\noppressed working people have a two-fold task: On the one hand, we have to\ncrack and tear away its political foundations among the whites. On the other\nhand, we have to organise our own forces to break the ‘sword’\u2014to shatter the\nmilitary and police power of the state<\/strong>. In this the strategy of the\nrevolutionary struggle can be summed up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is one of the\ncharacteristics of the dictatorship in SA that its bonapartism has become\naccentuated precisely as the ruling class has found it necessary to attempt to\nmove in the direction of ‘reforms’. The more the government has proclaimed its\neagerness to ‘adapt’ the system and to ‘remedy the grievances’ of the people,\nthe more the people have felt the whip and jackboot of repression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is symptomatic of the\ncrisis of the ruling class that its promises of change must become ever more hollow\nand infuriating to the oppressed, while the methods of repression which it has\nalready found inadequate become ever more brutal and brazen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The point is not simply\nthat the regime is cynically dishonest in its promises of reform; the essential\npoint is that its inability<\/strong> to reform fundamentally makes such cynicism\nunavoidable. It is quite an irony that the government of Vorster was presented\nat first as a move away from the diehard baasskap of his predecessors. To this\nday, ultra-right wing whites continue to regard Vorster as the arch-betrayer of\nAfrikanerdom!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is characteristic of a\nbonapartist regime that it appears at first to be ‘all things to all men’\u2014in\nthe case of SA, all things to all whites. In fact its prestige and popularity\ninitially rise the higher, the more acute are the tensions between the very\nforces on whom it contrives to balance. Conflicting hopes are all invested in\nthe same figure. This was the basis of the exaggerated popularity which Vorster\nat one time enjoyed among the whites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it is equally the case\nthat bonapartist rulers, as they prove their inability to satisfy anyone<\/strong>,\ncan swiftly fall into unpopularity and contempt among their former admirers. In\nthe case of the SA regime, we have seen the beginning of what will probably be\na sequence of changes of personnel as government leaders disappoint their\nfollowers and fall from grace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first years of his\nrule, Vorster contrived to balance between the opposing class pressures and\ntendencies within the camp of the whites, leaning this way and that in his\nefforts to reconcile the increasingly irreconcilable. Under the mounting\npressures there and in society at large, the regime was reduced to\nnear-paralysis. Unpopular on all sides, Vorster lost his grip as the big\nbourgeoisie and their press orchestrated the ‘Information Scandal’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In place of Vorster, Botha\ncame to power, elected as a ‘strong, dynamic leader’, supposedly capable of\nunifying the NP and the regime. But, even more rapidly than Vorster, the\n‘reformer’ Botha found himself balancing uneasily between the same conflicting\npressures; lurching from crisis to crisis, from reformist rhetoric to\nparalysis; and stepping up the most vicious police repression of the black\nworkers and youth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Botha has been more shrewd\nthan his predecessor in basing his personal position directly on the commanding\nstratum of the military. He’ accurately foresaw that direct involvement of the\nmilitary would more and more become the feature of the SA capitalist regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, while this trend\nwill continue, it is probable that the conflict and polarisation of society\nwill exhaust the capacities of each individual leader that rises to prominence,\nso that he too finds himself discarded like a squeezed lemon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Pressure<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Various, usually unpredictable,\nincidents and circumstances may precipitate the succession in each case. But it\nis the relentless pressure of the class forces upon each other which is the\nunderlying cause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, the\ngeneral tendency will inevitably be towards a more and more extreme\ndictatorship, a regime of a more and, more openly bonapartist character,\nattempting to maintain its grip to an ever-increasing extent by military and\npolice means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The paradox is that the\nheads of the government, while tightening the screws of repression, will at the\nsame time privately harbour the desire to seek a ‘negotiated settlement’ even\nwith the ANC. They are drawn towards this both by the incapacity of their\nrepressive measures to crush the mass movement, and by the political pressures\nexerted on them by the big bourgeoisie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The desperate hope of the\nlatter is that they may somehow ensnare the ANC leadership into participation\nin government on the basis of an agreement which allows capitalism to\nsurvive<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not daring to express this\nopenly, Botha has allowed his mouthpiece, Beeld, to say it for him. In August\n1981, the editor of that paper stated that the SA government should prepare for\neventual negotiations with the ANC. He regarded these as “unnecessary at\npresent”, but argued that eventual talks must be built into the\ngovernment’s political strategy. “It must be said outright that a day will\ncome when a South African government will sit at the negotiating table with the\nANC.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Referring to the horror of\nmost of the white electorate at such a prospect, he resorted to a Biblical\nquotation: “I still have many things to tell you but you cannot bear it\nnow\u201d!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

‘Verligtes’<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is one of the delusions\nof the ‘verligtes’ and the big capitalists whose interests they represent, to\nbelieve that the essential obstacle to change is the attitude of right-wing\nwhites. It is as a means of dealing with the problem of the right wing that the\nbourgeoisie is more and more openly raising the idea of a ‘verligte\ndictatorship’ as the supposed means of ushering in a programme of fundamental\nreforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In general the capitalist\nclass prefers a parliamentary form of government if that is capable of securing\nand defending its class interests. Through parliament the bourgeoisie can\nimpose checks and balances upon the executive, while at the same time exerting\nits economic and political influence directly behind the scenes. The power of\nthe state is something which the bourgeoisie both needs and fears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the working class\ncannot be ruled by any other means, the bourgeoisie is prepared for the most\nruthless measures of blood and iron, for which an openly military dictatorship\nmay be necessary. But the bourgeoisie has many experiences of burning its\nfingers with military dictatorships, because the elevation of the state apparatus\nin this way adds to the relative autonomy of the latter, and makes its more\ndifficult to subject directly to the capitalists’ own control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, in the SA bourgeois\npress today, the idea of a ‘verligte dictatorship’ put forward by some academic\nwriters is still met with official editorial disapproval. But the idea\nexpresses the ‘logic’ of the situation in which the bourgeoisie itself is\ntrapped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It feels the need, and will\nfeel it increasingly, for a more effective dictatorship intended both to curb\nthe rebellious ultra-right and to hold down the black working class. From this\nposition of ‘strength’ they would hope eventually to negotiate a ‘new\ndispensation’ with the ANC leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the development in the\ndirection of a more and more openly military dictatorship will itself not free\nSA capitalism from its growing contradictions<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How is a ‘verligte’\ndictatorship to introduce reforms which fundamentally capitalism cannot afford\nto sustain? Its incapacity in this regard will only the more clearly reveal\nthat the bourgeoisie itself is the main barrier to change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the army and police\nofficers would have serious difficulties in using the military force at their\ndisposal against whites<\/strong>, when the very whites whom they must seek to\ncurb make up the ranks of the police and army!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the event of a serious\nreactionary revolt headed, for example, by the HNP or AWB, the state apparatus\ncould well prove incapable of effectively dealing with it. Instead, the state\napparatus could begin to fall apart in the hands of the government if they\nattempted to use military force against whites. Indeed, to forestall such a\ndevelopment, the very ‘verligte’ dictatorship would be likely to compromise and\nlurch to the right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The more the revolutionary\ncrisis in SA deepens, the more the tendency of the regime to zig-zag will\nbecome pronounced. The very same incompetence empty rhetoric of reform,\nparalysis and unredeemed repression of the blacks <\/strong>now characteristic of\nBotha’s regime will repeatedly be carried to greater and more intolerable\nheights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is possible that out of\nthis situation in the coming years Treurnicht might find himself in a position\nto form a government. But then, thrust into the role of defending capitalism,\nhe would find himself subjected to essentially the same pressures as the regime\nbefore him had faced. He too would be compelled to balance between the needs of\nbig business and the rabid white racism whose appetites he has done so much to\narouse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in the longer run the\nmost likely perspective will be the development of a military or semi-military\nregime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rise of this\ndictatorship will be like the horrible pus-head of a boil, squeezed up by the\ninflamed tensions in the body of society. All the pressures will become\nconcentrated on one point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While it is conceivable\nthat both the bourgeoisie and the ultra-right might conditionally support the\ndevelopment of a military dictatorship initially for their own conflicting\nends, neither would be satisfied by it. And the seething struggle of the black\nmasses would continue to mount, driven on in repeated waves by their unbearable\nconditions and determination to resist oppression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such a dictatorship, by\nconcentrating all the evils of the system in itself, will also concentrate the\ntask of the revolutionary struggle and direct all forces of the oppressed\ntowards its overthrow. The ultimate weakening of this regime, the\ndisintegration of its social base, the increasing turmoil among the whites, and\nthe determined rallying of the forces of the struggle against it will open\nthe revolutionary situation in South Africa.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is the most likely\nperspective of development in South Africa over the next five, ten, or possibly\nmore years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Workers’ Revolution or Bloody Reaction<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The coming revolution in\nSouth Africa will draw millions\u2014primarily millions of workers\u2014into the crucible\nof struggle. It will subject to a decisive test every class, every\norganisation, every programme and every leadership. In its fires all but the\nfinest metal will be consumed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A revolutionary situation will\nbe the time not only of the greatest opportunity for the working people, but\nalso the time of the greatest danger. It will unerringly expose, and ultimately\nthreaten to punish with ferocious counter-revolution, any confusion, false\npolicy, vacillation or half-measures within the camp and among the leadership\nof the oppressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A clear and correct\npolitical strategy\u2014and, flowing from this, a correct military policy\u2014will be\nessential for the victory of our movement. The cornerstone of a correct\nstrategy is a clear grasp of the social transformation to which a victorious\nrevolution must consciously lead. What kind of society awaits us in SA? To this\nquestion some ‘leaders’ answer lightly: “Just fight for democracy, and\nthen the people will decide.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Truly, the people will<\/strong>\ndecide. But their decision (will) not be made in the manner of a free\nselection. Social systems are not chosen and discarded as one picks shoes in a\nshop. The decision will be made in the heat of struggle, in the remorseless\nclash of contending classes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The forces of the freedom\nstruggle need to enter the battle with as conscious a conception of the victory\nwe are fighting to achieve as the conception that our enemies have of the\ndefeat that they are trying to inflict. This cannot be left to the final hour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Vital<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the trade unions, in the\nyouth and community organisations, in the ANC\u2014a meticulous and critical\nattention by all comrades to questions of policy, strategy and tactics is vital\nfor the success of the struggle. Similarly in the case of the young comrades\nwho (particularly in exile) have gone into the ranks of the Communist Party in\nthe hope of finding there a vehicle for socialist revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once the revolutionary\ntasks are understood, it is a matter of elementary loyalty to the struggle to\nstrive where necessary to correct the policies of the leadership in order to\nprepare the movement for the work it has to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A careful consideration of\nthe policies put forward by the ANC leadership indicates that they have not\nadequately come to grips with the objective character of the South African\nrevolution, and do not put forward the task of overthrowing the bourgeoisie. A\nmajor influence in this regard has been the erroneous approach ‘of the\nleadership of the SACP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The programme of the Communist\nParty, adopted in 1962 and still its programme today, shows how deeply rooted\nthe CP leadership has remained in the ideas of ‘two stages’, despite all\nexperience:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The immediate and imperative interests of all sections of the South African people demand the carrying out of … a national democratic revolution which will overthrow the colonialist state of White supremacy and establish an independent state of National Democracy in South Africa. The main content of this revolution is the national liberation of the African people\u2026<\/p>

It is in this situation that the Communist Party advances its immediate proposals before the workers and democratic people of South Africa. They are not proposals for a socialist state. They are proposals for the building of a national democratic state.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Nonetheless, the CP and ANC\nleadership have been compelled to recognise that the goal of national\nliberation is incompatible with the maintenance of the present economic system.\nSo far, however, this recognition has been hedged about with ambiguity and\nqualification because of the unwillingness of the leadership to confront the\nfact that a workers’ state <\/strong>is the necessary condition for liberation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The “complete\npolitical and economic emancipation of all our people” is declared to be\nthe goal of the struggle, in the document Strategy\nand Tactics of the ANC<\/em> adopted at Morogoro in 1959. There the point is\nmade:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To allow the existing economic forces to retain their interests intact is to feed the root of racial supremacy and does not represent even the shadow of liberation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Quite so\u2014although there is\na curious vagueness here in failing to identify “the existing economic\nforces” as the capitalist class and\nthe capitalist system<\/strong>; and a no less curious qualifying word,\n“intact”, which serves to blunt any implication that the task of the\nmovement is to overthrow and expropriate the bourgeoisie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further on in Strategy and Tactics<\/em> we get the\nclearer\u2014but yet not so clear\u2014statement of what will be necessary if a\n“people’s government” is to meet the economic’ needs of the mass of\nthe oppressed:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…in our land this cannot be effectively tackled unless the basic wealth and the basic resources are at the disposal of the people as a whole and are not manipulated by sections or individuals be they White or Black.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Certainly\u2014but is the capitalist\nsystem <\/strong>to be ended? Is private ownership<\/strong> of these resources to be\nabolished? Is a planned economy <\/strong>to be instituted on the basis of\nnationalisation of the main productive forces? The document is silent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How<\/strong> can the “economic emancipation” be accomplished? We say: by\na revolution led by the working class and resulting in the creation of a\nworkers’ state.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Formula<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strategy and Tactics\nconcedes only a “special role” to the working class as a\n“reinforcing layer”, and leaves us merely with the following formula\nto comfort our concern:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This perspective of a speedy progression from formal liberation (what is that?) to lasting emancipation is made more real (!!) by the existence in our country of a large and growing working class whose class consciousness complements national consciousness.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

That is all there is to it!\nThus, in the end, one is still left wandering about in the fog of the two-stage\napproach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In later writings,\nparticularly by the more left-leaning of the CP leaders, we find formulations\nwhich on the surface may seem indistinguishable from the ideas of permanent\nrevolution. Most influential of these writers has been Joe Slovo, whose\napproach is echoed from time to time in the pages of The African Communist.<\/em>\nIn his well-known article on the question, “South Africa’ No Middle\nRoad” (published by Penguin in 1976), he comes to the conclusion:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If … the liberation struggle should bring to power a revolutionary democratic alliance dominated by the proletariat and the peasantry (which is on the agenda in South Africa), the post-revolutionary phase can surely become the first stage in a continuous process along the road to socialism: a road which ultimately can only be charted by the proletariat and its natural allies.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Apart from the question of\nthe peasantry in South Africa, already dealt with, this formulation has a\nbroadly attractive sound, and has been eagerly seized on as proof that the CP\nleadership is consciously preparing a struggle for socialism. But what is\nnotable about comrade Slovo’s article is that he refuses to put forward the\nconcept of a workers’ state <\/strong>and is not prepared to abandon the\n“national democratic state” formulation of the CF programme and other\ntexts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Deceptive<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

His only reservation about\nthe term ‘national democratic state’ is that it “can” become a source\nof theoretical ambiguity “if used abstractly”. But surely, since the\nterm fails to specify the class basis of the state, it is inherently\nabstract and deceptive<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the point is to avoid\nambiguity, why not call things’ by their proper name,, and advance a programme\nof struggle for a state of workers’ democracy?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lenin was even more\nl3lun\u2014he called it the dictatorship of the proletariat <\/strong>over the\nbourgeoisie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reason Lenin was so\nmeticulous in correcting formulations, and so ruthlessly intolerant of\nambiguity, was because he knew what a multitude of practical errors can be\nhidden behind superficially attractive words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the last analysis it is\nnot the words which are decisive, but the clarity of purpose with ‘which the\nworking class organises and guides its practical struggle. Political\nterminology should be used not to cloud difficult questions, but to cast on\nthem a glaring light. A political approach which does not break with the two-stage\ntheory remains imprisoned within it, no matter how its boundaries may verbally\nbe stretched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Comrades in the SACP ought\nto draw these questions to the attention of their fellows, and insist on\nclarification from the Party leadership. So far the leadership has shown itself\ncompletely unwilling to break with the two-stage theory and all its\nimplications, because they have remained cemented within the international\ntradition of Stalinism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a problem which the\nrank-and-file of the SACP will find themselves increasingly having to\nconfront.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any political approach\nwhich fails to come to terms with the need for workers’ power unavoidably\nleaves a cover for attempts to compromise with the bourgeoisie. The acute\ndanger of this, especially in a country like South Africa, is that compromise\nwith the bourgeoisie will also mean compromise with the bourgeois state\nmachinery, and will leave the most dangerous forces of reaction undistorted<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is essential that the\nANC conducts the fight on the basis of a policy and programme for consciously\ncarrying the revolution to its decisive conclusion Victory can only be decisive\nonce the bourgeoisie has been completely overthrown and its state machinery\nutterly destroyed. We-must therefore combat all ambiguity on this question, and\nensure that the central questions of policy are settled in our movement before<\/strong>\nthe crucial battles against the enemy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The state which we are up\nagainst is a formidable machine, armed to the teeth with almost every\nconceivable instrument for the mass destruction of human life. The professional\nstaff of the military, police, prisons, courts, Bantu Administration, etc., are\nschooled in brutality and hardened in the practice of it day by day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The task is to-shatter this\nmachine. How is that to be done?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

State<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The commanding stratum of\nthe state, its brains and its backbone, are not sufficient to run the apparatus\nof repression and hold down the majority of the people. The state needs flesh\nand blood, muscles and sinew\u2014a social force of hundreds of thousands to obey\nthe orders of the rulers and carry out their bloody will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus in a revolution\u2014and no\nless in our revolution\u2014the problem of shattering the bourgeois state apparatus\nis 90% a political problem and only 10076 military That is not to neglect the\nmilitary side of the question, and we shall return to the matter below. But the\nessential point is to so divide, demoralise and weaken the human forces <\/strong>on\nwhich the bourgeois state relies that its weapons of destruction cannot be\neffectively used to crush the working people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those who view the state\nsimply as a state of white supremacy, might pose the strategic task in this\nway: unite the blacks and divide the whites. However, once we identify the\nclass character of the state, and see it fundamentally as the instrument of the\ncapitalist dictatorship, then we can also pose the strategic task more\nscientifically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The task, on the one hand,\nis to unite all the oppressed in action round the organised workers’ movement,\nin a struggle for workers’ power. On the other hand, it is to ‘strip the\nbourgeois naked,’ to deprive it of its social armour, to divide the whites on\nclass lines, and to neutralise or draw over to the side of the revolution\nsubstantial numbers of the white workers and middle class<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It solves nothing to set\nour sights merely on winning over ‘democratic’ or ‘freedom-loving’ whites. Revolutions\nare not fought out on the basis of individuals and their ideas, but on the\nbasis of class forces. <\/strong>Unless we can break the ability of the state to rely\non the support of the white workers and middle class we shall leave a monstrous\napparatus of repression in the hands of the ruling class, ready and able to\nwreak savage destruction upon our people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We dealt in the previous\nchapter with the rise of the forces of ultra-right reaction, based on the blind\ndiscontent of the white workers and lower middle class. We cannot politically\ndefeat those forces by an appeal merely to ‘democratic’ principles. We shall\nneed armed force to defeat them, certainly, just as we shall need it to defeat\nthe state. But politically, we shall need to present to the majority of white\nsociety an alternative pole of attraction\u2014in the form of a mighty,\norganised, class-conscious fighting force of the black working people, showing\nthe way to a new order of economy and society<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rampant as the forces of\nwhite racist reaction may become, they are affected by an inherent weakness and\ninstability. The ultra-right dreams of restoring an age whose basis has been\neroded away by the river of history. They can have no confident perspective for\nthe maintenance of their privileges or the triumph of their ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Internationally, the forces\nof fascism are hopelessly weak and in pathetic decay. The workers’ movement is\noverwhelmingly powerful, and rising. The decade of advance of the colonial\nrevolution; the awakening of all Africa to struggle; the victories, however\nlimited, in the revolutions to the north of us; the fiery courage of the black\nyouth in SA, the rising strength of the black workers’ movement and the\ndeepening crisis of the apartheid system\u2014all these pound out the message that\nthe old order is doomed. Even through the thickest of white skins, this fact is\nbeginning to be felt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fanaticism of the\nultra-right feeds on blind desperation. But it can offer no real solutions to\nthe white workers, middle class and youth whom, for a time, it may attract to\nits banner. If we approach the question correctly, we can divide and shatter\nthese forces of reaction, and in so doing also crack the racist foundations of\nthe state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To many in our movement it\nmay today seem a simper or shorter route to call merely for the support of\nwhite democrats and to eagerly welcome the soothing assurances of the liberal\nbourgeoisie of their own ‘democratic’ intentions. But we know these\n‘intentions’ to be in contradiction to the essential class interest of the\nbourgeois. We know we can expect only treachery from the liberals. But, worst\nof all, we shall be failing to tackle the essential task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

False<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a false policy to\nseek to ally our movement with the liberal bourgeoisie as a means of dealing\nwith the problem of reactionary whites. If we take that approach, we shall get\nnothing but deception from the bourgeoisie\u2014and we shall all the more surely\ncement the white workers into the camp of reaction, thus leaving the state\napparatus intact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is simply not possible\nto win the majority of whites to a ‘democratic’ programme which remains in\nthe blind alley of capitalism.<\/strong> It is only by showing the way to a socialist\n<\/strong>democracy which can offer a convincing perspective of security and\nadvancement for all people, that we have any prospect of breaking the hold of\nreaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It may be argued that that\nwill be a very difficult thing to do. The point is conceded. Our revolution\nwill not be short of difficulties. But the opposite strategy, the plausible\nidea of a ‘democratic coalition’ on the basis of capitalism\u2014is an utterly\nimpotent policy which can lead only to disaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course it would be\nutopian to imagine that the mere proclamation of a socialist programme could\nlead to any, significant number of white workers crossing to the side of the\nblack workers and social revolution. It\nis the organisation of the black workers as the decisive, conscious force of\nrevolution, the arming of the mass movement and its adoption of a socialist\nprogramme, which alone can draw the white working class and middle class in any\nsignificant numbers to our side.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much has been written on\nthe theoretical ‘impossibility’ of winning over white workers. It would take a\nbook to go into those writings and show where they go wrong. But what may be\nnoted here is the calm complacency with which especially the academics draw\nsuch conclusions., That is not an attitude shared by the black workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Approach<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Year in and year out\ndiscussions continue in factory meetings, in workers’ committees, in\ndiscussions in the trade unions over the correct approach to take towards the\nwhite workers. For black workers this is from beginning to end a practical\nquestion of struggle. The point is how\nto deprive the bosses of their social support.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time the black\nworkers have no naivety in respect of the problem. The rise of the independent\nunions as organisations of black workers<\/strong>\nshows that the mass of the proletariat will have no truck with white privilege\nor the domination of their organisations by those with interests counterposed\nto the mass. But the determination of almost all the independent unions to\nassert their character as non-racial\nunions<\/strong> is a brilliant testimony to the level of understanding and of\nclass-consciousness prevailing in their ranks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, the recent success\nof NAAWU (a FOSATU union) in winning over white members at Volkswagen from the extreme right-wing Yster en Staal<\/strong>\nis a small but powerful example of what can be done. Even the ones and twos,\nlet alone the fives, tens and twenties of white workers who can be persuaded\nnow to join in common organisations of struggle with their black fellow\nworkers, begin the process of undermining the social foundations of the\nbourgeoisie and lead towards the eventual disintegration and smashing of the\nforces of reaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The entire ruling class must look upon the\ndevelopment of workers’ unity between black and white with the utmost horror.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Undoubtedly immense\ndifficulties are involved in translating this method into practice in the\npolitical field in a programme capable of winning over significant numbers of\nwhites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While always upholding the\nneed for unity of workers of all races and all countries, Trotsky warned in his\nletter to South Africa that “the worst crime on the part of the\nrevolutionaries would be to give the smallest concessions to the privileges and\nprejudices of the whites. Whoever gives his little finger to the devil of\nchauvinism is lost.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The unswerving stand of\nMarxism for workers’ unity in South Africa\u2014for the unity of the workers of all races<\/strong> in struggle against the\nbourgeoisie\u2014contains no grain of compromise with white arrogance, paternalism\nor privilege. Workers’ unity in South Africa will be a revolutionary<\/strong> unity\u2014or it will prove to be no unity at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our movement’s task is to\nmount its attack against white domination, racism and discrimination without\nfalling into the snare either of black nationalism or fatal policies of\ncompromise with the liberal bourgeoisie. Put the other way round, the task is\ntQ develop the struggle against the capitalist class, for policies of workers’\nunity, workers’ power and the socialist revolution without diluting in the\nslightest the demands of national liberation of the black people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a difficult course\nto steer. But if we run aground on the rocks awaiting us on either hand, the\nconsequences for our movement and for our people will be appalling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we do not deprive the\nruling class and the state of the social forces on which their murderous power\ndepends, then\u2014even if eventually we were to succeed in overthrowing them\u2014it\nwould be at the cost of millions of corpses (mainly black corpses) and rivers\nof blood. It would be at the cost of laying waste the human and material\nproductive forces on which the progress of our society depends. What sort of\nliberation would that be?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we have harped so much\nin this document on a single theme\u2014on explaining the errors of the ‘two-stage’\napproach\u2014it is because in the end all questions of policy, strategy and tactics\nturn on this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The, danger of illusions in\nthe idea of a ‘national democratic state’, of attempting to constitute\ndemocracy on the foundations of capitalism, of remaining open to the thought of\ncompromise with the liberal bourgeoisie\u2014is that it leaves the menace of\nreaction undestroyed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Counter-revolution<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the black workers’\nmovement is held back in South Africa by mistaken policies of limiting itself\nto a ‘national democratic stage’; if it is prevented from forcibly expropriating\nthe bourgeoisie and bringing the main productive forces into common ownership;\nif it is obstructed by its leaders from arming itself, smashing the existing\nstate, and constituting its own organs of workers’ democracy in their\nplace\u2014then the ground will be prepared for counter-revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the Chilean revolution\nshowed, even in the most favourable circumstances, when reaction was paralysed\nby the force of the workers’ and peasants’ struggle, and government passed into the hands of the workers’ leaders<\/strong>, a\nbloody counter-revolutionary defeat was nevertheless suffered. This was because\nthe Socialist and Communist leaders accepted assurances from the military and\nother officers of the capitalist state that they would ‘respect democracy’\u2014i.e.\nduring the time when they could do nothing else but ‘respect’ it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The working class was constrained by its own\nleadership from arming and taking state power into its own hands.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inevitably, confusion and\nfrustration of the revolutionary movement resulted. As economic chaos followed\nthe attempts of the new regime to carry through social reforms without\ndecisively smashing capitalism, as the middle class in frustration swung away\nfrom the government, so the way was prepared for the forces of\ncounter-revolution, headed by the ‘democratic’ generals, to strike. Fifty to a\nhundred thousand of the flower of the Chilean proletariat were slaughtered in\nthe result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How much the more\ndangerous, and how much the more bloody in its consequences, would be a similar\ndevelopment in South Africa!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore the questions of\ntheory and perspective which we are discussing here are not abstract questions,\nnot questions of phrases, but issues on which the very fate of the people will\ndepend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The capitalists and their\nsystem are stricken with an incurable illness. But no ruling class passes into\noblivion without a desperate fight. The historical persistence of the\nbourgeoisie has been colossal. World-wide, human society is passing through the\nepoch of transition from capitalism to socialism. Time after time, in many\ncountries, capitalism has been driven by the working class to the edge of\nextinction. But time after time, when it has been permitted to recover for a\nperiod, it has wreaked new havoc on the working people, reinvigorating its system\nOut of mass privation, brute, dictatorship and war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In South Africa, the\nrecovery of the bourgeoisie from a revolutionary crisis would necessitate the\ndestruction of the mass organisations, in particular of the working class,\nwhich had arisen to threaten its survival and its power. The existing division\nof society along racial lines would complicate this reality of the class\nstruggle, would render it all the more vicious, but would not essentially\nchange it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Revolution and\ncounter-revolution follow similar laws, working in opposite directions. The\nfailure of the revolution to complete its work\u2014the consequent stalling,\ndemoralisation and disarming of the revolutionary mass movement\u2014would open\nbefore the oppressed in the whole of Southern Africa the danger of a\nbloodthirsty reaction capable of devouring hundreds of thousands of lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are the stakes which\nwill be cast in issue by the coming struggles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Arming the Movement<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

From a correct perspective\nand policy towards the revolutionary tasks which lie ahead, a clearer policy on\nthe question of armed struggle is also possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this document we can\ndeal with the question Only in very general terms, in order to show its\nrelation to the issues discussed so far. Further detailed material will be\nnecessary to go into the military problems of the revolution more fully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is overwhelmingly\nrecognised by the black working class, above all by the youth, that armed force\nwill be necessary to overthrow the regime. It is this recognition which has\nbrought thousands of recruits into the ranks of MK, and given considerable\npopularity to the guerrilla attacks launched by the ANC in the recent period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet the method of guerrilla\nstruggle does not offer a means for overthrowing the SA state. In South Africa,\nnothing short of an armed mass insurrection of the oppressed working people\nwill be sufficient to finally destroy the armed power of the ruling class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This follows from both the\nmilitary and the political realities confronting us. Once we understand that\nour liberation struggle can only be carried through by bringing to power a\nregime of workers’ democracy defended by an armed people, the inadequacy of\nguerrilla strategy becomes apparent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the ANC leadership\nturned to policies of ‘armed struggle’ in the early 1960s, the models on which\nthey relied were the Cuban and Algerian revolutions of the previous few years.\nThe success of the guerrilla w China, of course, also strongly reinforced the\nbelief that this method of struggle might succeed in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Unwilling<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, a rigorous\nanalysis of the class questions<\/strong> and class forces<\/strong> involved in developing\nrevolutionary strategy and tactics was not made. Because the ANC and CP leaders\nhave been unwilling to contemplate a workers’\nrevolution<\/strong> in South Africa, they fell too easily into the mistake of\ntransposing to our situation methods which have had partial success in\nunderdeveloped countries of the colonial world, where the working class has\nplayed either a secondary role or hardly any role at all in the struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Classically, guerrilla war\nis the method of the peasantry, suited to their social conditions and the,\nenemy which they confront. Usually this enemy has beer ‘ e landlords, often\ncombined with a foreign conqueror. oppressor. Even then, as the experience of\nthe colonial revolution has shown, guerrilla war has proved capable of\noverthrowing only those regimes and ruling classes which have lacked a powerful\nsocial base in the population and which have been unable to reinforce\nthemselves adequately with the aid of foreign powers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other cases, guerrilla\nwar has led to the leaders of the guerrilla forces reaching a compromise with\nthe ruling class in the towns, and to the frustration of the aims for which the\npeasants have sacrificed themselves in struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we explained in regard\nto Mozambique and Angola, the method of guerrilla war led there to the\nrevolutionary overthrow of capitalism because\nof the weakness of the bourgeoisie and the complete collapse of the colonial\nstate under the combined impact of the guerrilla war and the revolutionary\nmovement of the Portuguese working class. The ‘model’ of Angola and Mozambique\ncannot in any respect be applied to South Africa.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast to these\ncountries, we have the case of Zimbabwe, where the method of guerrilla war\nproved incapable of overthrowing capitalism, but led instead to compromise with\nthe ruling class and with imperialism. (This was similar to the outcome in\nAlgeria.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Zimbabwe the end of the\nSmith\/Muzorewa government represented, as we have emphasised, a great step\nforward\u2014but has left the fundamental\ntasks of the revolution unfulfilled.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was only because of the\npassivity of the working class virtually throughout the process that any room\nexisted in Zimbabwe for even temporarily ‘halting’ the class struggle, and for\nthe guerrilla leadership to reach a ‘settlement’ with the bourgeoisie. Again, the case of South Africa bears no\ncomparison.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is in SA no basis for\npeasant war. Here the working class itself will make the revolution. It will be\nthe mass activity of the working class, its organisations and its social\nstrength which batters down the resistance of the ruling class and the regime. Moreover, any attempt on the part of the\nleadership to compromise with “‘e class enemy\u2014far from achieving any form\nof liberation’\u2014would only open the way to a bloody counter-revolution against\nthe working people.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\u2014a further contrast\nwith the situation in Zimbabwe\u2014follows inevitably from the mighty class forces\nin SA  which already are grinding against\neach other in action\u2014and which can be ‘settled’ one way or the other only by\nrevolutionary or counter-revolutionary means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Power<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lacking any basis for a\npeasant war, guerrilla struggle in our country can only take the form of urban<\/strong> guerrilla action\u2014which cannot overthrow\nthe regime. It is, quite simply, not a\nstrategy for power.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marxists are not the\nwild-eyed cut-throats portrayed in the propaganda of the ruling class. But nor\nare Marxists pacifists. We shrink from no methods and no tactics which are\nnecessary to bring the working class to its goals. Our disagreement with the method of guerilaism in South Africa is that\nit cannot secure these goals.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no force which can\nmake the revolution for the SA workers. The revolution will be a workers’\nrevolution or it will be no revolution at all. If the approach of our movement\nto armed struggle is to confine it within the limits of armed action by\nguerrilla detachments, this will prove totally insufficient to bring down the\nregime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the heroism and\nself-sacrifice of the comrades in the ranks of MK, this will not be sufficient\nto produce the result for which they are prepared to die. Unless armed struggle\nis developed as the struggle of the working masses, as an expression and\nextension of their organised strength, their social aims, and their need to\nchange society, it will not rise above an impotent method of exerting\n‘pressure’ on the ruling class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We should not be misled by\nthe exaggerated importance attached to guerrilla actions in the propaganda of\nthe regime. The reason why, for example, Magnus Malan stresses it in his\npresentation of a ‘total onslaught on South Africa’, is in order to rally the support of the whites to the regime.<\/strong> It is\nalso used to ‘justify’ the creation at vast cost of an immense juggernaut of\nmilitary weapons and personnel intended fundamentally for use against the mass movement of the oppressed.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the key disabilities\nof the guerrilla method is that it does not contain the means of stripping\nsocial support from the ruling class. Once armed action is undertaken by the\nmass movement itself, it will have a completely different effect within the\ncamp of the enemy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contrary to the prevailing myth, guerrilla\naction does not demoralise the whites\u2014on the contrary, it usually tends to harden\nreaction. But when the mass movement has gained the capacity to use armed\nforce, its effects will be profoundly demoralising upon all the forces of\nreaction.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, the method of\nstruggle carries within itself the shape of the future regime. In countries\nwhere guerrilla war has been victorious, the result has been at best a\ndistorted revolution, giving rise to a new form of dictatorship over the\nworkers, despite its relatively progressive role. In contrast, only in the\norganising and arming of the working class, and in the carrying through of an\narmed insurrection, can the basis for a regime of workers’ democracy be laid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The basis of our military\npolicy in SA must be to prepare the forces for the future armed insurrection\nagainst the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This would not imply\nreckless and adventurist policies in the mass movement, immediately provoking\nmassive military retaliation against the black working class and youth, still\nin a relatively early stage of mobilising their forces. The point is to prepare<\/strong>\u2014with the eventual aim of insurrection in\nmind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Undoubtedly, it has been\nnecessary for our movement to give attention to training comrades in military\nskills, and the use of various weapons. But so long as this training is carried\non under the influence of the ideas of guerrillaism\u2014of the unscientific\napplication of ‘models’ of revolution which do not fit our situation\u2014it must\nfail to address the essential tasks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Preparation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within the ANC we must urge\na turn towards the preparation of methods and tactics in the realm of armed\nstruggle which will lead to the eventual armed insurrection of the mass of\nworking people against the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Effective preparations are\nneeded for the arming of the workers and youth; importing and stock-piling the\nnecessary arms as well as acquiring and making arms from all possible sources\nwithin the country; carrying on military training in SA in conjunction with the\nbuilding of the underground political networks of the ANC; and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The foremost teachers of\nMarxism always gave great attention to the matter of armed struggle in\nrevolution. Engels was well known for his extensive study of military\nquestions. Lenin spent years studying techniques of street fighting and\ninsurrection in the experience of other revolutions. Trotsky’s military writings\nrun to several volumes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These works, together with\nthe political lessons of all workers’ revolutions in industrialised countries\nought to be the subject of thorough study and discussion in our movement’s\nranks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the course of the\ndevelopment of a revolutionary situation in SA, there will be occasions for the\neffective use of arms in and through the mass struggle, leading to an advance\nof the movement as a whole. To begin with, this would occur mainly in defending\nmeetings, demonstrations, strikes, communities faced with forced removal, etc.,\nagainst the armed attacks of the enemy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What would be involved in\nthis whole development would be the preparation, underground, of the nuclei of\na trained workers’ militia<\/strong> and the\ncaching of arms. These bodies, democratically controlled, would take on an open\nand in due course mass character, engaging in defence of the mass movement as\nthe revolutionary situation matures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From this basis, the\nmovement would in time pass over to co-ordinated offensive actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matters of tactics\u2014always\nthe most difficult questions needing precise attention to circumstance and\ndetail\u2014are not the province of this document. Our point here is the direction,\npolicy and strategy which the movement needs to take up in order to gear its capacities\nfor armed struggle to the real needs of the revolution now impending in SA\u2014and to lead this revolution to victory\nunder the guidance of a clear programme for workers” power.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

The Freedom Charter<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

As the movement gathers\nunder the banner of the ANC, so too the Freedom Charter, the programme of\nCongress for over 26 years, is more and more openly proclaimed and quoted Undoubtedly\nthe Freedom Charter is the most far-reaching programme for change ever put\nforward by a mass political organisation in South Africa. This gives it an\nenormous popular appeal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But is the Charter an\nadequate programme for abolishing white supremacy and national oppression; for\nfully democratising society; for eliminating poverty; for ending all oppression\nand exploitation?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As this document has\nattempted to show, these tasks can only be accomplished by a revolution which\nbrings the working class to power and carries through the overthrow of the\ncapitalist system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is clear that the\nFreedom Charter is not a programme of socialist revolution. Nevertheless, its\nradical democratic demands and the immense reforms which it spells out in the\nfields of housing, transport, education, wages, working conditions and welfare\nare impossible for the capitalist system to afford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The capitalist class, when\ndriven into a corner, could use its accumulated wealth to make temporary\nconcessions as a means of buying time. But it will inevitably use the first\nopportunity to fight viciously to reverse them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The point is that, because of the economic constraints on\ncapitalism in South Africa<\/strong>, any serious concessions in the sphere of\ndemocratic rights or material gains would quickly overstretch<\/strong> the limits of the capitalist system. For this reason\nsuch reforms could survive only transiently, for an unstable moment, awaiting a\nresolution either in the capture of power by the working class\u2014or in the\nreassertion of capitalist power in bloody counter-revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus the changes demanded\nby the Freedom Charter could be secured only if the private ownership of the main\nmeans of production were ended, and the stranglehold of the capitalist system\nbroken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Freedom Charter itself\ncontains an important element for the solution of this. In fact its cornerstone\nis the promise to nationalise the banks, mines and monopoly in components of a\nprogramme for transition to socialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Weakness<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the great weakness of\nthe Freedom Charter is its failure to explain that these demands could not be\ncarried into effect without overthrowing the state power on which the bosses\ndepend In the last analysis the capitalist state machine is the instrument for\nmaintaining private ownership of the factories, banks, mines and land against\nthe demands of the working people to own these productive forces in common.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The revolutionary overthrow\nof the capitalist state will be the only means of implementing the demands in\nthe Freedom Charter\u2014but at the same time will open the way to far exceeding\nthem in practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as long as the Freedom\nCharter is not presented in the context of a clear programme and strategy for\nthe revolutionary overthrow, of the capitalist state and capitalist system, the\nweaknesses in the Charter leave room for dangerous ambiguities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is clear, for example,\nthat the Freedom Charter was given a different interpretation by the ANC\nleadership after the Congress of the People, than the interpretation presented\nto the delegations of the working people at the Congress itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There the mover of the\nclause, “The people shall share in the country’s wealth”, explained\nit to the delegates in these words:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It (the Charter) says ownership of the mines will be transferred to the ownership of the people. It says wherever there is a gold mine there will no longer be a compound boss. There will be a committee of the workers to run the gold mines. Friends, we also say that wherever there is a factory and where there are workers who are exploited, we say that the workers will take over and run the factories. In other words, the ownership of the factories will come into the hands of the people.<\/p>

… Let the banks come back to the people, let us have a people’s committee to run the banks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The next speaker,\nrepresenting trade unions in Natal, spelled out with complete clarity the\nmeaning that workers attached to the clause:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now comrades, the biggest difficulty we ate facing in South Africa is that one of capitalism in all its oppressive measures versus the ordinary people\u2014the ordinary workers in the country. We find in this country, as the mover of the resolution pointed out, the means of production. The factories, the lands, the industries and everything possible is owned by a small group of people who are the capitalists in this country. They skin the people, they live on the fat of the workers and make them work, as a matter of fact in exploitation. They oppress in order to keep them as slaves in the land of their birth.<\/p>

Now friends, this is a very important demand in the Freedom Charter. Now we would like to see a South Africa where the industries, the lands, the big businesses and the mines, and everything that is owned by a small group of people in this country, must be owned by all the people in this country. That is what we demand, this is what we fight for and until we have achieved that we must not rest.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Nothing was said to\ncontradict this view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Reforming<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Afterwards, however, the\nANC leadership took pains deny that the Charter implied the overthrow of\ncapitalism. In fact, it was positively interpreted as a programme of reforming\ncapitalism! Thus Nelson Mandela gave the following explanation in 1956 in order\nto clarify the leadership’s interpretation of the nationalisation clause:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whilst the Charter proclaims democratic changes of a far-reaching nature it is by no means a blueprint for a socialist state but a programme for the unification of various classes and groupings amongst the people on a democratic basis. Under socialism the workers hold state power. They and the peasants own the means of production, the land; the factories and the mills. All production is for use and not for profit. The Charter does not contemplate such profound economic and political changes. Its declaration ‘The People Shall Govern!’ visualises the transfer of power not to any single social class but to all the people of this country be they workers, peasants, professional men or petty bourgeoisie.<\/p>

It is true that in demanding the nationalisation of the banks, the gold mines and the land the Charter strikes a fatal blow at the financial and gold-mining monopolies and fartiiing interests that have for centuries plundered the country and condemned its people to servitude. But such a step is absolutely imperative and necessary because the realisation of the Charter is inconceivable, in fact impossible, unless and until these monopolies are first smashed up and the national wealth of the country turned over to the people. The breaking up and democratisation of these monopolies will open up fresh fields for the development of a prosperous non-European bourgeois class. For the first time in the history of this country the non-European bourgeoisie will have the opportunity to own in their own name and right mines and factories, and trade and private enterprise will boom and flourish as never before.<\/strong> (Our emphasis)<\/p> From his article, “In Our Lifetime”, published in Liberation, June 1956)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

To the reader who has\ntravelled with us this far, it should not be necessary to point out that such\nan approach could solve none of the problems of the working people. Nor would\nit be workable even within its own framework. It forgets that we are in the\nepoch of imperialism where no economy which remains on a capitalist basis can\nbreak free of the stranglehold of the 157 monopolies and the pressures of the\nworld market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It dreams of the\nreinvigoration in one corner of the world of a system which is in its epoch of\nsenility on an international scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of all it forgets,\nthat to conquer the existing, white capitalist class necessitates the conquest\nof its state power. For that only a workers’ revolution will be sufficient\u2014and\nthe triumphant black working class would not peacefully surrender its gains and\nits interests to a ‘non-European bourgeoisie’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These realities will\nstarkly face our movement at the time when Comrade Mandela is eventually freed\nfrom the clutches of the enemy and is able to take his place in the active\nleadership of the ANC. It will be vital for him, as it is vital for all the ANC\nleaders, to openly proclaim a programme\nof proletarian revolution as the only basis on which the demands in the Freedom\nCharter can be carried through.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In South Africa today, such\nis the intensity of the class struggle, and such the impasse of the ruling\ncapitalist system, that all those who shrink from a struggle for its total\noverthrow are obliged also to water down their democratic demands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As though anticipating that\nthe Freedom Charter would require a workers’ revolution to implement, many of\nthe middle-class politicians in SA today who proclaim the Freedom Charter are\nadvocating only its “principles” while failing to publicist its concrete\ndemocratic and social demands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus the Declaration of\n‘South African Democrats’ adopted at the National Anti-SAIC Conference in\nDurban in October last year, claims to be based on the Freedom Charter\u2014while\nsystematically revising it and obscuring its revolutionary content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The demand for common\nownership of the mines, banks and monopoly industries is dropped. Nor is there\nany mention of the Freedom Charter’s demands for a 40-hour working week, for a\nnational minimum wage, for paid annual leave and sick leave for all workers,\nfor maternity leave on full pay for all working mothers, for full unemployment\nbenefits…. Even the demand for an end to the pass laws has been abandoned!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Hopes<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is not such a ‘Freedom\nCharter’ on which the working people place their hopes. Those whose life is\npoverty, degradation and unrelieved toil turn to the Charter precisely for the\nconcrete improvements of life which it promises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nowhere has this been more\nclearly illustrated than by one of the speakers at a rally in Wynberg which was\ncalled to support SAAWU in the Wilson-Rowntree dispute. Here is how the Cape Times<\/em> (7\/9\/81) reported her words:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“A spokesman for the\nNyanga squatters said: ‘If you ask me to speak about the squatters, you are\nasking me to relate my life history, because I have been a squatter from\nbirth.’ She said squatters do not come out of the blue, but are created by the\ngovernment and its laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Citing sections of the Freedom Charter<\/em> she said South Africa\nmust prepare for a situation where the\nworkers will govern and there will be houses and security for all.<\/strong>”\n(Our emphasis)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is expressed the task\nlying ahead of our movement. Let us take the demands of the Freedom Charter\nwhich offer a way forward in struggle for the working people\u2014and let us cast\nthem in the context of a clear programme and strategy for workers’ power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that way we will rally\nthe colossal reserves of support now latent in the broad masses of the working\npeople who have not yet risen to struggle. We shall unite the industrial\nworkers with the workers on the land; we shall link the mineworkers to the\nstruggles in the urban centres; we shall mobilise the unemployed; we shall draw\ntogether the youth movement with the trade unions, and both with the community\nat large; we shall link in common struggle those in the reserves, the\nsquatters, the deported arid the dispossessed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in so doing we will\nopen the road to power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

International Revolution<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

This is the epoch of world\nrevolution. In every sector of the globe\u2014in the advanced capitalist countries,\nin the ex-colonial world still in the grip of capitalism, and in the deformed\nworkers’ states of Stalinism\u2014the great bulk of the population are moving or\nbeginning to move on the road of revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the epoch of\ntransition from capitalism to socialism on a world scale, holding the prospect\nof the greatest advances in human history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our revolution in South\nAfrica is part and parcel of this wider process. In the struggles of the\nworking class internationally there are immense forces which we can link to our\nown. But we must know who our enemies are, and who are our real friends. We\nmust not build our hopes or place our trust upon false friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this document we have\ntried to sum up the historical experience of the working class internationally,\nand to draw on its lessons for our struggle. We have examined the obstacle that\na reformist leadership places in the path of the working class\u2014and we have\nshown the changing material conditions which now prepare the way for the defeat\nof reformism in the working-class movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have analysed the rise\nof Stalinist bureaucracies of the East and explained why they have become a\nfetter upon the development of the productive forces, an oppressive burden to\nthe working people under their rule, and an absolute impediment to the progress\nof mankind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have shown why,\ninevitably, these bureaucracies will be overthrown in political revolutions,\nleading to the establishment of regimes of workers’ democracy and genuine\nsocialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In reaching out\ninternationally to form bonds of common interest and common struggle, we must\ntake these realities into account. The leadership of our movement must not seek\nto base international support either upon links with the Stalinist\nbureaucracies nor the bureaucracies of social-democratic reformism. Our ties\nmust be built with the working people of East and West whose essential\ninterests are the same as ours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course we must gather\nmaterial aid, money, arms, etc., from every quarter\u2014but not by that become\nbeholden politically to forces which stand in opposition to the revolutionary\nstruggle of the working class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some think that\n‘internationalism’ means giving endorsement to the policies and crimes of the\nStalinist bureaucracies (either of the Moscow or Peking variety). That is an\nabsolute travesty, and would put us at odds with our class brothers and\nsisters\u2014the living movement of the international working class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, we have to face\nthe fact that the regimes of the Stalinist states, with their own bureaucratic\nnational self-interest to defend, cannot support us in what will ultimately\nprove to be a struggle for workers’ democracy in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is because our victory\nin that struggle would transform the situation throughout Africa, would change\nthe balance of class forces internationally, and would have incalculable\neffects on the continuation of ‘detente’ between imperialism and Stalinism.\nTherefore, the Stalinist bureaucracies will, in time to come, be pressurising\nthe leadership of our movement to seek a negotiated settlement with capitalism\nin SA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our sights must be set on\nhelping to advance the revolutionary struggle in every sector of the world,\nmost crucially of all in the industrialised countries. The rise of a\nrevolutionary regime of workers’ democracy in any important industrialised\ncountry would deal a devastating blow to imperialism and Stalinism\nsimultaneously.        <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would provide an immense\nboost to the South African revolution, weakening the power of the state,\nundermining the cohesion of the forces of reaction, precipitating the ruling\nclass into desperate economic and political crisis, and advancing the\nrevolutionary class-consciousness of the working people by giant strides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Decisive<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If, on the other hand, we\nface our decisive confrontations with the state and the ruling class before\nworkers’ revolutions in other major countries have come to our assistance, then\nit will likewise be our vital task to promote the development of the\ninternational socialist revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After our victory we will\nface immense problems of reconstruction and the development of society towards\nsocialism. The survival of workers’ democracy and the transition to socialism\ncannot be sustained within the borders of South Africa alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our situation will depend\non, and be transformed by, the progress of the world revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our task, of course, is not\nto wait, but to consciously link our own activities now to the struggles of the\nworkers in other countries. Solidarity is not a one-way process\u2014we must take an\nactive interest in and give active support to the struggle for workers’ power\nin every country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Already the progress of the\nmovement in SA is a beacon of inspiration to working people around the world.\nArmed with a socialist programme and strategy for revolution, our movement in\nSA can make an immense contribution to the liberation of the whole of humanity\nfrom oppression, exploitation and want, and so advance all the people of the\nearth towards the socialist and communist future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us rise consciously to\nthe tasks posed by history, and with all our energies prepare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyone who has read Marx and failed to understand that in capitalist society, at every acute moment, in every serious class conflict, the alternative is either the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie or the dictatorship of the proletariat, has understood nothing of either the economic or the political doctrines of Marx.<\/p>Lenin, April 1919 (from The Third International and Its Place in History<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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