{"id":791,"date":"2019-09-25T14:38:10","date_gmt":"2019-09-25T12:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marxistworkersparty.org.za\/?page_id=791"},"modified":"2020-07-02T14:03:48","modified_gmt":"2020-07-02T12:03:48","slug":"arming-the-workers-movement-a-reply-to-comrade-tambo","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/?page_id=791","title":{"rendered":"Arming the Workers’ Movement \u2013 a Reply to Comrade Tambo"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Originally published in Inqaba Ya Basebenzi No. 11 (August-October 1983)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

by P. Qubulashe<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the\nPretoria car bomb blast in May a rare interview with Comrade Oliver Tambo\nappeared in the British press. In a large centre-page article in The Guardian<\/em> (6\/8\/83), he explained the\nstrategy of armed struggle put forward by the ANC leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the course of\nthis, Comrade Tambo was asked by his interviewer, South African Stanley Uys:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do you answer the charge by the breakaway (??) Marxist Workers’ Tendency that you cannot win an armed struggle against such a powerful white state \u2013 that the black workers alone can achieve this?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

To this Comrade\nTambo replied as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To give up the sabotage campaign would be a disastrous mistake. The workers are potentially decisive, but it is not sufficient to rely solely on them. You are not going to win the vote simply by organising yourselves for higher wages.<\/p>

In the 1950s we called a strike almost every year, but it was not sufficient. If we remove the armed component from our struggle, we will be back to square one. No change. We must not have exaggerated notions of what workers as workers can achieve. Power is not achieved without armed struggle when you have a regime which is prepared to shoot and kill to defend its position.<\/p>

It would be equally disastrous to say the armed struggle has no need of any other form of struggle. Organisation of the workers is most important. They are a very powerful component of total struggle.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

As pointed out\nin a letter written to The Guardian<\/em>\n(which it did not publish but which is printed here), Mr. Uys’s question\ndiverts Comrade Tambo from addressing the actual position put forward by Inqaba ya Basebenzi<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is not at all\na question of “removing the armed component from our struggle.”\nAgainst the vicious state force is obviously needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The real questions\nwhich we invite Comrade Tambo to answer are: whose force, by what method, used\nwhen and where \u2013 can achieve the goals to which our movement stands committed?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It goes without\nsaying that the workers, unarmed<\/strong>,\ncannot triumph against the barbaric SA regime \u2013 “a regime which is\nprepared to shoot and kill to defend its position”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But does it\ntherefore follow, as Comrade Tambo states, that “it is not sufficient to\nrely solely on” the workers for victory? Does it follow that there is a\nneed for armed actions organised separately<\/strong>\nfrom the movement of the workers? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To: The Editor,<\/strong><\/p>

The Guardian,<\/strong><\/p>

London, United Kingdom <\/strong><\/p>

9 August 1983 <\/strong><\/p>

Dear Sir,<\/p>

In his interview with AIM President Oliver Tambo (‘Guardian’, 6 August 1983), Stanley Uys asks: “How do you answer the charge by the breakaway Marxist Workers Tendency that you cannot win an armed struggle against such a powerful white state \u2013 that the black workers alone can achieve this?\u201d<\/p>

There are two errors here. Firstly, as Mr Uys should know from his regular reading of \u2018Inqaba ya Basebenzi\u2019, the Marxist Workers Tendency is part and parcel of the African National Congress under whose banner the mass of oppressed South Africans must unite.<\/p>

Secondly, and more seriously by mis-stating the position of the Marxist Workers Tendency on armed struggle, Mr Uys fails to pose to Comrade Tambo the crux of the issue facing the liberation movement. Instead of answering our position, Comrade Tambo is given \u2013 and knocks down \u2013 the “straw man” of pacifism<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>

In South Africa it is not a question of posing the struggle of the workers or<\/em><\/strong> the armed struggle. Against the vicious state, force is obviously needed.<\/p>

Our argument is that the guerrilla method<\/em><\/strong> cannot provide the force to overthrow the regime. Only the black workers organised in their millions and leading all the oppressed in struggle for the democratic and socialist transformation of society, can generate the necessary force.<\/p>

To achieve victory, this movement will have to arm itself. But it will take up arms as a mass movement, when it has gained the strength to carry the struggle forward by these means.<\/p>

Guerrilla struggle, on the other hand \u2013 pitting small groups, necessarily separated from the organised workers, against a powerful industrial state \u2013 will produce the opposite of what it intends. Among other things, carried on in the urban areas, it can only drive working whites in to more frenzied support for racist dictatorship.<\/p>

Comrade Tambo misses the whole point in treating the workers’ movement purely as an economic strike movement. The organised workers, when raised lo their full power, can offer the prospect of democratic rule by the working class, opening the way to security, freedom and prosperity for all. Such a movement rousing the full energies of the oppressed people, could also win support from white workers, and so fatally weaken the basis of the regime.<\/p>

This is the movement which the ANC must lead, and this is the one which the leadership will be unable to avoid.<\/p>

For Mr Uys to have posed our position on armed struggle in this way would have made more meticulous \u2013 and more penetrating \u2013 political journalism.<\/p>

P. Qubulashe<\/strong><\/p>

for Editors,<\/strong><\/p>

Inqaba Ya Basebenzi.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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

“Potentially decisive”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Comrade Tambo\nhimself concedes that the working class \u201care a very powerful component of our\nstruggle \u2026 potentially decisive\u201d. In another recent interview, distributed by\nthe Mozambique Information Agency (AIM) in July 1983 he has made more or less\nthe same points: “the workers \u2026 constitute the most powerful contingent in\nour struggle \u2026 And it is clear to us, as it is to the enemy, that the workers,\nthe black workers especially, constitute a force that could pose a serious\nthreat to the regime.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the AIM\ninterview, in fact, he is even more explicit: “Our country is highly industrialised. The oppressed population is the\nproletariat, the working people … The struggle for liberation is a struggle\nof the workers who constitute the proletariat.<\/strong>“<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But at the same\ntime that Comrade Tambo states that \u201cthe struggle for liberation is a struggle\nof the workers\u201d and recognises the decisive\npotential<\/strong> of the workers’ movement, he cautions against \u201cexaggerated\nnotions of what workers as workers can achieve.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If all he means\nis that an economic strike movement cannot overthrow the regime, then who could\ndisagree with him?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he goes on\nto make a very different<\/strong> point. In\nthe interview with AIM, he states, “\u2026we operate on three fronts: the\nlabour front, the front of mass popular actions, as we’ll as the front of armed\nactions.” But what, in the development of the actual struggle itself, does\nit mean to talk of a separation of these “fronts”?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neither in the\nrecent period, nor in the 1950s, has the workers’ movement been confined only\nwithin the trade union movement, or limited to “organising … for higher\nwages”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In every\n“mass popular action” \u2013 whether in the factories or the townships; in\nthe cities or the countryside \u2013 it is inevitably working people and their\nfamilies who are the “mass” driving force. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the\ncase, for example, in the current bus boycott in the Ciskei, as it has been in\nevery serious community struggle of the 1950s or the last decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, many\nsuch actions draw in also the oppressed middle-class, white radicals, etc, but\ntheir insignificant social weight gives them no independent leverage for change.\nWithout the mass force of the workers, “the front of mass popular\nactions” is a mere phantom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In reality there\ncan only be one<\/strong> mass movement in the\ncountry, with the working class inevitably constituting its overwhelming\nfighting detachments. In the struggle for liberation the workers’ movement is not\njust an economic strike movement, not a “very powerful” or even the\n“most powerful\u201d but the only force\nwith the potential political power to defeat the apartheid state end the\ncapitalist class it defends.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Lead<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Limits are set\non the workers’ movement only by the limited scope and scale of its\norganisation. Surely it is the task of the ANC to develop and lead this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Should the case\nbe any different in preparing the armed overthrow of the state? The ANC\nleadership has stated that military<\/strong>\ntasks flow from political<\/strong> tasks. What\ndoes that mean in practice?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the present\nstage of the movement, the workers are compelled to suffer daily indignities\nand barbarities from the forces of the state, lacking as yet the organised\nmeans of stopping them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance, at\nCrossroads, working people are confronted at dawn every day by armoured police\nvehicles and armed police who tear down and burn any meagre shelters of\nbrushwood and plastic that they find. These people are thus forced to dismantle\nand bury the only shelter they can call home each morning before dawn, and\nre-erect it every evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Virtually every\nstruggler who has experienced or witnessed such events burns with an angry\ndesire to resist by force and \u2013 yes, indeed \u2013 shoot down<\/strong> the barbarous police and officials who carry out these atrocities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it would\ntake a lunatic to suggest that either the people themselves (if they had arms),\nor units of MK, should fire on the police at\nthe present time<\/strong> at Crossroads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why? Because,\ngiven the present early stage in the development of the mass movement<\/strong>, and the still early stage in the weakening and\ndisintegration of the state under mass\npressure<\/strong>, the resulting police retaliation and slaughter of the people\nwould set back<\/strong> the revolutionary movement,\nnot advance it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a later stage<\/strong>, as revolutionary crisis\ndevelops, the same action<\/strong> would have\nthe opposite, necessary and advantageous<\/strong>\neffect \u2013 despite vicious retaliation \u2013 of advancing<\/strong>\nthe entire mass movement to a higher level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the present\ntime, indeed, as the case of Crossroads shows, it would be wrong to have\nexaggerated notions of what workers as workers can achieve” in the sphere\nof armed confrontation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless,\ncontained within the movement that is developing is not only unlimited\npolitical potential, but, with it, military potential. The kind of barbarities\noccurring at Crossroads, inflicted on the oppressed for generations, are\nkindling the anger and the determination among the masses to bring to an end\nthe vicious system of oppression and exploitation \u2013 by whatever means are\nnecessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the occasion\nis ripe, the workers will be prepared to \u2018storm heaven\u2019, as Marx put it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Militarily, as\nwell as politically, the workers’ movement requires organisation to bring its\npotential to fruition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is why we\nargue, in our document SA\u2019s Impending\nSocialist Revolution<\/em> (p.155), that “the basis of our military policy\nin SA must be to prepare the forces for the future armed insurrection against\nthe state” and urge the ANC leadership to “turn towards the\npreparation of methods and tactics which will lead to” this eventual mass\narmed insurrection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Keystone<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is militarily\nthe case, because it is politically the\ncase<\/strong>, that the workers’ movement is the only force with the potential to\ndefeat the SA state which is the keystone of apartheid and capitalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ironically,\nwhile Stanley Uys implicitly pins a pacifist label on the Marxist Workers’\nTendency, the editors of SACTU\u2019s journal Workers’\nUnity<\/em> (April, 1983), wrongly accuse our document of advocating “suicidal\nmissions based on a \u2018trained workers\u2019 militia\u2019\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately it\nappears that these comrades have read our document with insufficient care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is there\nclearly stated (p.155) that preparation “would not imply reckless and adventurist\npolicies in the mass movement, immediately provoking massive military\nretaliation against the black working class and youth, still in a relatively\nearly stage of mobilising their forces. The\npoint is to prepare<\/strong> \u2013 with the eventual aim of insurrection in mind.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The point which the ANC leaders should answer is this:\nif the mass movement presently has limits, can any other force, however well-armed,\nsubstitute itself for the development of the mass movement?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since MK units\ncannot defend the people of Crossroads \u2013 who,\nwhen the time is right must be able to defend themselves<\/strong> \u2013 then what is the\npresent function of MK actions, of the separate<\/strong>\nso-called “front of armed action”?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Purely\ndemonstrations of ‘strength’?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MK can carry out\noccasional spectacular explosions, but it cannot substitute itself for the\nworkers’ need for self-defence. And when the workers’ movement is able to take\nthis task of armed self-defence upon itself, armed groups which are separated<\/strong> from it will give no\nadditional muscle-power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In reality\nhistory shows that energy expended on armed actions isolated from the\ndevelopment of the mass movement serves as\na diversion from the task of the organisation of the working masses.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In its pre-1917\ndevelopment, the Russian workers’ movement had also to address the question of\nisolated armed actions \u2013 in that case assassinations carried out by members of\nthe Social-Revolutionary party, who argued that these actions advanced and\nassisted the mass movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lenin, Bolshevik\nleader, was quite unequivocal in dismissing their arguments \u2013 as his article on\nthe subject republished here<\/a>\nmakes clear. Since it was the methods of the Bolsheviks \u2013 of Marxism \u2013 which\nled the working class to the armed insurrection which overthrew capitalist\ndictatorship and established workers’ democratic rule in 1917, Lenin’s views\nare surely worth taking seriously! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

No short cuts<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In reality, no attempted military short-cuts can\nsubstitute for the central task, posed before the ANC leadership, of developing\nand organising the unlimited power contained in the workers’ movement itself.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, as is\nalso said in our document, “in the course of the development of a\nrevolutionary situation in SA, there will be occasions for the effective use of\narms in and through the mass struggle, leading to the advance of the movement\nas a whole.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“What would\nbe involved in this whole development” states our document, “would be\nthe preparation, underground, of the nuclei of a trained workers’ militia<\/strong> and the caching of arms.” These\nbodies, it continues, would be “democratically controlled.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our differences\nwith Comrade Tambo, then concern not the necessity of the use of arms, but the\nmethod by which the liberation struggle can employ arms in order to achieve its\naims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A caption to a photograph accompanying the interview with Comrade Tambo in The Guardian<\/em> correctly states that “Nothing short of the armed seizure of state political power is going to satisfy the oppressed.” The ANC leadership ought to concentrate their attention on preparing the working class for this task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue to Part Five<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally published in Inqaba Ya Basebenzi No. 11 (August-October 1983) by P. Qubulashe After the Pretoria car bomb blast in May a rare interview with […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":780,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-791","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"acf":[],"_hostinger_reach_plugin_has_subscription_block":false,"_hostinger_reach_plugin_is_elementor":false,"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=791"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1745,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/791\/revisions\/1745"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}