South Africa

page 22

SOUTH AFRICA

THE FORCES IN STRUGGLE

The following is an extract from the resolution ‘Black revolt in South Africa’ passed by a majority at the Febuary meeting of ‘the International Executive committee of the Fourth International. It concentrates on the liberation movement, particularly the ANC and COSATU, and on _ the ‘Freedom Charter’ advanced by the ANC and supported by: the UDF. This should not be confused with PD’s own call for a Freedom charter and a number of criticisms of the ANC programme are advanced in the resolution.

Nevertheless the role of the charter in South Africa and the lessons of the liberation struggle deserve wide discussion in Ireland and many of the problems facing the South African struggle also face revolutionaries in Ireland.

; The ANC is today the principle political organisation inside the national liberation movement. Its influence is particularly strong inside the African townships. It has considerable influence over the UDF as such and also over a large number of its member organisations. It is also seen by democratic white layers as the key organisation to relate to. The continued incarceration of leaders like Nelson Mandela symbolises in the eves of the masses the continuity and tenacity of a movement whose foundation goes back to 1912. This functions to give it a sort of legitimacy in the eves of broad sectors of the masses. .

Atthe beginning the ANC was set up as a nationalist, reformist grouping whose objectives were to put pressure on the regime in order to obtain real democratic rights for the Africans. After the Second World War a new generation of activists began to bring about a shift in the practice of the ANC. This radicalisation was due to several factors; the influence of liberation struggles throughout the world. the social evolution of South Africa which favoured new forms of struggle. the coming to power of the National Party and the installation of the apartheid system, contacts with the Communist Party and the possibility of benefiting from new nationalist developments in Black Africa. But up to the end of the 1950s the ANC saw itself as an African movement, remaining attached to its idea of a democratised South Africa, but ready to compromise on a federal-style organisation in function of the ‘existence’ of several ‘races’ or ‘nations’.

This was the thinking on the national question which lay behind the launching of the Congress of the People which ratified in 1955 the Freedom Charter. This Congress included the ANC, the South African Indian Congress. the Coloured People’s Congress. the Congress of Democrats and the SACTU trade union organisation. Throughout all this period the ANC maintained a vacillatory position between support for the mass movement and support for white liberals. It was the time when it was in favour of a great national negotiation bringing together the different peoples of South Africa. Many of its leaders still thought change could come peacefully. But continued developments and the internal debate meant things did not remain static. One of the ‘hot’ internal questions was around the question of the entry of whites into the ANC, which was also linked to relations with the Communist Party and the membership of certain of its cadres. These were the problems behind the split by the current refusing to break with the African nationalist tradition of the movement and the formation of the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) in 1958. In the same period the political situation began to deteriorate. The mass movement was seeking new forms of struggle but did not succeed in forcing the regime to retreat when it began setting up the apartheid regulations and repressive framework. After 1957 strikes declined both in number and in terms of workers’ involvement. The mass movement was divided. hardly politicised and little structured. In 1960 rallies took place in Sharpeville and Langa in response to calls made by the PAC. The rallies were organised to carry out mass burnings of the internal passports Blacks had to carry. The police fired on the masses and there were dozens of deaths. The ANC and the PAC were banned. The defeat was confirmed in 1963 with the arrest of key leaders.

The ANC then opted for the armed struggle. This choice was made not just as a result of a political change in line-due to the new relationship of force and the violence of the regime. The ANC also corrected its understanding of South African society and integrated foreign experiences, beginning with that of the Algerian revolution. The choice of armed struggle was also made in relation to the armed revolts that had occurred in the reserves -throughout the 1950s and up to 1963. The ANC consequently opted for what it called rural armed struggle—a line it seems to have stuck to up to the Soweto events of 1976. However South Africa was a country whose social and economic structures were changing rapidly and where the feasibility of effectively carrying out such a strategy was clearly seen to be more and more illusory. , But most of the ANC leadership was then in exile. a part in the African countries of the region to organise armed actions, and a part in Europe to set up an apparatus representing the ANC overseas. When the mass movement re-emerged in 1973 the ANC was to pay a price for its strategic eclec- ticism and its leadership weakness inside South Africa—it found itself marginalised from events. The political life of the movement only took place in exile and the armed struggle project was limited to armed propaganda.

although the latter had its uses. for the ANC still today maintains a certain credit in the eyes of the masses for such activity. Nevertheless this policy did not provide it with a line for intervening in the mass movement as it re-emerged. Moreover the ANC did not correct this line after the Durban strike in 1973 which pointed to a new era. It seemed to make the change.

and then with some delay. only after the Soweto struggles of 1976. The effects of the 1960-1963 defeat had only lasted a dozen years and the 1976 youth movement confirmed this. But once again another current than the ANC was to be prominent in these events—the Black consciousness movement championed by a new generation of activists.

The ANC was later to win a sector of these activists, particularly those who fled the country. without a political solution, and ended up in refugee camps in neighbouring countries where the ANC was influential and could offer the perspective of armed struggle. This was the period when the movement turned to spectacular actions in the urban areas with the specific hope of economically disrupting the country.

The ANC was to make up its lost ground by seeking to link up with the new wave of radicalisation after 1981. It was able to do this despite the, lack of a clear strategy during the whole previous period and despite being relatively outside of the recomposition going on inside the country, because it paid great attention to the questions or organisation and particularly” underground networks of activists and cadres. The ANC managed to educate certain of its activists who became capable of boldly and courageously taking considerable risks in underground work. It was right to want to use and capitalise on the radical democratic sentiments existing among a fringe layer of young whites, the petty-bourgeois origin of these people not being.

an obstacle preventing using this current and even winning a sector of it to the struggle. The ANC has also been able to take tactical initiatives and exploit certain openings, the main one being the launching of the UDF. At this stage of the struggle. when the mass movement has not worked out a whole series of tactical and organisational questions, the ANC has at least built up a solid influence among a majority of the civic associations.

The ANC’s strategic position is now that of a democratic revolution assuring the national liberation of the oppressed. Although it now insists on the particular role of the workers in this revolution it does not define precisely what the social content of this new state power should be. Given the influence of the ANC and its militants this does have some consequences on the actions and forms or organisation adopted today in the mass movement.

It can also have an effect on how the UDF approaches its relations with the liberals. The ANC has gradually modified its line over the last years. It seems to have abandoned the pluri-national conception of the democratic struggle. The emergence of independent trade unions declaring their non-racial character (i.e. in other terms than multi-racial) has been a factor in this change. The ANC has also said along the same lines that it was no longer a supporter of a national convention, implying a federalist solution.

For several months it has chosen to demonstrate more clearly than previously its relations with the CP. Its press has brought out the programmatic similarities with the CP. Elections to the Executive Committee of the ANC at its June 1985 congress confirmed this with the official integration of well-known CP leaders. For 25 years relations with the CP have been an important political problem inside the ANC. The PAC split was partially linked to that. The setting up of the military wing, Umkonto we Sizwe (The Spear of the Nation), enabled the CP to reinforce its collaboration and influence. The period around the Morogoro conference of 1969, the last congress before the 1985 one, was also an occasion for this debate.

The ANC has always denounced the amalgam made between itself and the CP since the Pretoria regime uses this argument to justify repression. But recently the ANC’s press has begun to praise the CP as the party of the working class and has published articles signed by well known leaders of the CP. The SACP is systematically presented as the permanent ally of the movement. The Communist Party press openly displays its relationship to the ANC. The CP. whose leadership is also in exile, held its 6th Congress ‘white’ area. Locked up for being black in a page 23 some weeks before that of the ANC and confirmed in its new platform that it aimed *. . . to participate in and strengthen the liberation alliance of all classes and strata whose interests are served by immediate aims of the national democratic revolution. This alliance is expressed through the liberation front headed by the African National Congress’.

The Communist Party, which presents itself as the expression of the proletarian vanguard, defends the idea of revolution directly derived from Stalinist tradition. Its press continually denounces what it calls the ultraleftists, the ‘new South African Marxists’ and certain trade union leaders who do not identify with the ANC. The CP at one and the same time has an exaggeratedly optimistic analysis of the situation, sectarian attitudes to other currents and a mechanical splitting up of the revolutionary process, it states for example: . . . It is from the depth of their tragedy and suffering that the overwhelming majority of the people of South Africa, white as well as Black, now look to the Freedom Charter for inspiration in their struggle to escape from the nightmare of their present existence. True, there may be some opponents of the regime who still fight for the Charter because they are reluctant to identify themselves with the ANC or the SACP whom they regard as its authors and principal sponsors. Nevertheless, outside the ranks of racists and a handful of the ultra-leftists, few can be found to repudiate any of the ‘asic principles expounded in the Charter, which today unites Congressists and non-Congressists. Communists and non- Communists, freed6m fighters and pacifists, in a broad front pledged to overturn apartheid and complete the first stage of the national democratic revolution.

At the present time the ANC combines its nationalist tradition with a strategic conception derived from the Communist Party. This synthesis has greatly helped the ANC evolve over the last twenty years. It brought it to a new analysis of society and classes in South Africa. The ability to build an apparatus, to form a tight network of international support, to tactically | manoeuvre in a way the ANC never could have, is due to the relations developed with the SACP. All this gave it a capacity to intervene enabling it to partially capitalise on movements which it did not instigate. The symbolic use of Mandela and of the Freedom Charter allows it to put itself forward pedagogically to the masses as the natural and logical political outcome to their mobilisations. The Freedom Charter is used as an elementary democratic programme. Written in 1954 the Charter, even interpreted as a simple platform of agitation, is marked by the social situation of that period and the positions the ANC then had on the national question. It was the product of a given historical conjuncture. Furthermore the Charter's formulation on the nationalisation of the monopolies could prove to be contradictory with a line of compromise with the white opposition. All these problems are reflected in the way the ANC uses the Charter. Sometimes it is presented as the present programme both of the struggle and as the finished expression of the national democratic revolution. On other occasions it is used as a symbol, a rallying point aiming to recall the historic continuity of the ANC and its project of a broad front, from the 1955 Congress of the People up to the UDF today.

One of the main problems facing the ANC leadership today is the trade union movement and COSATU. The Chartist current was shown to be weak and in a minority during the four-year long debate on the trade union unification. This confirmed the delay taken by this current to come to terms with.

the changes in South African society, but also the fact that in the mass political movement there is a several-decades-old debate on questions as, important as the role of the working class, the social objectives of the liberation struggle, class alliances and mass democracy.

The liberals have started to openly organise discussion between the white opposition and the ANC. On September 13 1985 a delegation of businessmen went to Zambia to meet the ANC leadership. It was made up of representatives of the main capitalist groups and institutions in the country. On October 12 it was the turn of the PFP leadership to go to Zambia to meet the ANC. Since then the Methodist Churches and the Afrikaner student circles have made the trip. The protagonists have all publicly recognised that the .

discussions dealt with the ANC’s project for society, the way to dismantle apartheid and on the liberal project of a ‘national convention’. No agreement has been mentioned but all parties have insisted that it is absolutely necessary to integrate the ANC into any negotiating, process. A certain number of declarations, indeed actions, regularly made by them show that the bourgeois opposition is seriously intending to go down that road. By calling now on the regime to negotiate with Black leaders, beginning with’ the ANC, the liberals are looking for a third way out of the present crisis of South African society. But the contradictions are such that this solution would mean a leadership like the ANC willing to commit itself to limiting the mass movement and bringing it to a moderate approach in a lasting way.

For the time being it has used the Zambian discussions to project itself as the main interlocutor both nationally and internationally. It rejected the proposal of a ‘national convention’ which had been one of its demands in the 1950s. ;

page 24 Nelson Mandela Ces. 3 It is far too soon to evaluate the possibilities of some sort of agreement between these parties. Its contacts with the liberals do not date from yesterday and the rise of the mass movement works in its favour in the present discussions. At this stage of the discussions:the Black masses see relations with the liberals as a tactical necessity accentuating the isolation of Botha, deepening the government crisis and holding back the repressive capacity of the regime. These discussions cannot be condemned as such, even if it is legitimate that there is debate in the mass movemenmt on the long term objectives of such discussions. It is correct to use divisions inside the ruling class. It is possible to draw an advantage from the crisis of bourgeois leadership but that must not be done by mortgaging the independence of the popular movement and its revolutionary dynamic. It is certain that any progress in the ‘semi-official’ negotiations or discussions will speed up political and strategic debate inside the oppressed people’s movement. If it was no longer simply a case of tacitly using divisions inside the ruling class but of negotiating. the debate would consequently focus on the question of compromise. In that instance the whole of the perspectives of the South African revolution and needs of the masses would be discussed with respect to the ANC’s policies.

Once these discussions between the liberals and the ANC were made public the latter raised among its prime demands the lifting of its own banning. It is trying to push home as far as possible the advantages it has gained through these meetings. If big capital and the liberals want to consider it as their main interlocutor, as the necessary intermediary between . themselves and the mass movement, then in exchange the ANC is demanding legality. If such an event did take place as a result of a government crisis and a political reshuffle at the summit of the state, it is certain that the ANC would become a party with massive organised support and a new political situation would open up. While the ANC occasionally presents itself as a’ broad national front where everybody can find their place, other political forces on the contrary see it as a well defined political current, particularly so given its links with the Communist Party. But the legalisation of the ANC or, even short of that, the extension of its real representation in the popular movement, would accentuate its difficulty of wanting to be at one and the same time a national mass movement and a very ideologically defined political current. If the ANC could under one form or another legally or semi-legally operate .inside the country it would mean that the general conditions for political action would have profoundly changed. All political forces would then have the possibility of publicly existing and defending their positions. Such conditions would also therefore raise the possibility of a political organisation _ expressing the interests of the working class, that is, a workers’ party.

kKkekkkke Other political currents apart from the ANC are today struggling in South Africa. The best known of these is the Black Consciousness current which emerged at the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, This current was prominent in the youth mobilisations of the Transvaal in 1976. But it rapidly fragmented afterwards. Its nationalist ideology fostered certain sectarian attitudes which has added to its organisational difficulties.

All the same, a sector of this current built or influenced the growth of an important wing of the independent trade union movement (CUSA and AZACTU). It was this trade union sector, with the exception of the miners union, the NUM, which has refused for the moment to join COSATU on the pretext of the presence of white activists in its leadership. If this position is not changed the two trade unions could find themselves marginalised in the future and even facing a serious crisis. The forces that have come out of it today range from rather rightist Black nationalist positions to currents which have gradually taken a Marxist approach to society. One sector now defines the Black proletariat as the social vanguard of the popular movement and says it is in favour of a Black workers’ party.

The Azanian National People’s Organisation (AZAPO) also reflects this evolution. But it is still heterogeneous. However it is the only organisation with a national implantation which is not attached to the Chartist current.- AZAPO is facing problems of political line such as the united front tactic, unitary relations with UDF organisations and the analysis of non-racial trade unionism. Its ambiguous position at the time of the Transvaal strike in November 1984 revealed these political difficulties. As one of the key members of the National Forum AZAPO sought to set up an alternative pole to the Chartist current. But this aim has not been achieved.

The Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) no longer seems to have any real, centralised forces inside South Africa. This does not rule out the possibility of some activists intervening in other movements still identifying with this current. The PAC has kept up a small network outside the country allowing it to intervene occasionally in the solidarity movement.

On the other hand there is a certain number of organisations, associations, and groupings which aim to develop another line from that of the - ANC and the Black Consciousness current through propaganda on the role of the working class vanguard, the socialist perspective and the rejection of alliances with the liberal bourgeois current. Certain of these groups, from a long way back, have defended the position of ‘non-racialism’, calling traditionally for a struggle for a single nation as opposed to the previous plurinational ANC position. This current is however very weak and dispersed, often reduced to propagandistic and ideological activity. Among its best known organisations are the Cape Action League (member of the National Forum) and the New Unity Movement. In 1983 a sector of these organisations tried to set up a broad united front against the constitutional reform projects of the regime. That was how the Disorderly Bill Action Committee of the Cape (DBAC) was born. But friction grew very quickly with the Chartist organisations over the functioning of the DBAC and the alliances question and it led to a break-up of the committee.

This current is today facing two main problems which limit its impact: on the one hand its divisions which means it has to unify its forces if its resources and audience are to grow and on the other hand, the need to work out more precisely a concrete line of intervention and not limit itself to defending ‘principled’ positions. To achieve this it will have to take up tactical and agitational questions with much more flexibility and subtlety in the mass ‘movement. Its criticism of the UDF for instance mainly focused on the alliance with the liberals. However the masses learn first of all through their own daily experiences and this denunciation of the UDF cannot be. really grasped at that level. An organisation can only win a certain credibility in the movement through its own ability to take initiatives and carry out activist interventions. Despite ts difficulties this current benefits for the moment from the existence in the trade union movement of certain leaderships which have asserted their independence from the UDF and Chartism. The high degree of organisation of these trade unions and their objective weight legitimises radical positions on the role of the working class. But that cannot be eternally used as a justification and counterweight to the influence of the UDF and the ANC. This current cannot develop its influence only by counting on its programmatic profile. On the basis of its own ability to take initiatives and to actively intervene it could develop a dialogue with other forces on Strategic questions placed on the agenda by the powerful upsurge of the mass movement and the emergence of the trade union movement.

One of the most striking events of the last years has been the development of the independent trade unions and the setting up on November 30 1985 of a united confederation regrouping a number of them. Despite the fact that a sector of trade unions close to the Black Consciousness theses refused to join COSATU, it represents a considerable step forward for the working class and an important victory for all the oppressed of the country. This stage was not reached without going through great adversity. A great number of trade unionists paid with their lives in this effort to build a real organisation for Black workers. The development of the miners’ union (NUM) in 1984 was a very important event encouraging moves towards the unity of different dispersed sectors of the South African working class.

This advance of class trade unionism also facilitated political reflection and debates on the demands and objectives of trade union struggle. The resolutions from the founding congress of COSATU reflect this gain, some of which are openly anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist, particularly when they deal with denouncing the multinationals.

page 25 Independent and non-racial trade unionism, which has unified in COSATU. developed on the basis of the economic evaluation of the country and the growth of the Black proletariat in big industry which opened the way to the emergence of a new generation of worker activists.

After the 1960-63 defeat of the Black masses, South Africa went through considerable industrial growth. Both the re-investment of profits made by the big mining companies and the massive inflow of imperialist capital played a part in this. The return of some South African capital which had been placed abroad during the previous period of recession also contributed. This industrial growth benefited from state incentives and the setting up of a local financial market. South African industry had become the main component of GNP in 1946, but it was necessary to wait until the 1970s for the country to become an industrialised country properly speaking. In the 1950s the majority of companies were small. In 1954 for instance 65% of workplaces only employed nine workers and 92% less than 49.

Nevertheless this has all produced a Black working class which, while not necessarily concentrated in big workplaces, is grouped in huge ghettos within the four or five main industrial zones of the country. For all this period the bosses needed to stabilise this labour and give it some training.

A sector of the employers went around the laws and sought to hire a layer of semi-skilled Black workers. That favoured stable employment and residence for a substantial layer af workers in Spite of the migrant labour Status imposed on Black workers. There are now ten million Blacks living in urban areas outside the Bantustans. At the same time the Indian and Col.

oured working class grew, bringing about the coming together on the factory floor of communities kept apart in all other domains of society.

From 1960 to 1970 the number of wage earners in manufacturing industry increased by 65%, going up from 658,026 workers to 1,070,033. The volume of production increased on average by 8.4% between 1963 and 1968.

Private industry alone increased its production by 157.6% during the 1960s.

Manufacturing and the construction industry’s proportion of GNP was 28.2% in 1970 compared to 10.5% for the mining sector. Reflecting the extension of the proletariat, the proportion of women in the working class increased throughout the last twenty years. From 1973 to 1981 the percentage of women workers in the Black working class went up by 23.9% in the shoe industry, 15.2% in commerce and 12% in the textile industry.

This social development was also reflected in socio-economic movements from as early as 1972. But it was above all the Natal strikes of 1973 which Anti-apartheid march by supporters of mass-based United Democratic Front.

S din sajyonbs uwtosf uaspfiy) 3 < a) a \o 12 13 13 NS c > 7 marked the turning point in the development of a new workers’ movement.

Official statistics show a leap from 71 strikes in 1972 involving 8,814 workers to 370 strikes with 98,029 workers involved in 1973. These struggles were essentially about wage increases but they clearly expressed the emergence of a new form of social challenge to apartheid, some sectors demanding increases varying from 50% to 300%. In 1969 there were only 13 African trade unions with not more than 16,000 members. After 1973 a new type of trade unionism was born—in particular out of the Trade Union Advisory and Co-ordinating Council (TUACC). These trade unions were built outside TUCSA, a corporatist federation controlled by white trade unions. Along with the creation of other unions around this time the Federation of. South African Trade Unions (FOSATU) was formed as a national federation in 1979 organising single trade unions for each industry. At the same time a certain number of what were called ‘general trade unions’ like the Western Province General Workers’ Union (the future GWU) or the South African Allied Workers’ Union (SAAWU) were formed.

During this period the number of trade unionists in these independent trade unions went up from 70,000 in 1979 to 200,000 in 1982 and to more than 400,000 in 1983. The number of Black workers in trade unions, including in the TUCSA trade unions, due to their recognition and closedshop system. rose from 223.661 in 1980 tc 741,194 in 1983.

Black workers’ industrial struggles, which went into a lull after 1973-74, took off again at the end of the 1970s. From 90 disputes in 1977 involving 15.09] strikers there was a rise to 394 disputes with 141,571 strikers in 1982. In 1984. according to official figures there were 469 strikes mobilising 181.942 workers of whom 174,897 were Africans. The number of strikedays lost were 379.712 and the disputes were mainly about wages, union recognition and redundancies. Finally. the new trade unions proved their influence and growing implantation in these movements.

The new laws that came out of the Wichahn Commission (1979 to 1981) tried to modify the labour market a little while at the same time trying to limit the growth of the new trade unions. They ended up providing a new space for the existence and then the legal recogniion of non-racial unions.

It had been possible because leaderships within this movement knew how to use the different policies of the regime and of the bosses (particularly the multinationals). The concern of certain trade Unions to build up first of all at factory level, at the base of the working class, and to stabilise their existence through partial struggles which were often victorious, represented a very constructive approach. Non-racial trade unionism was thus abic to impose itself on the situation even against the tribunals.

However these tactical questions divided the trade union movement when discussions about unification got off the ground. While all the independent trade unions denounced the existing regulations, some accepted to be registered officially and to sit in the industrial councils for tactical reasons.

The other trade unions denounced this practice as being more or less collaborationist. It was generally the trade unions which were members of FOSATU and the Council of Unions of South Africa (CUSA) which adopted the first position. The second position was supported at the beginning by certain trade unions that had come out of the Black Consciousness tradition, the Chartist influenced unions and some others like the GWU.- Another discussion related to the type of trade unions to build, that is.

whether to build up trade unions divided in industrial sectors or general unions. The distinct options naturally led to different ways of structuring the base of the unions. Some unions justified the general union option by the need to intervene in the communities. In practice this question combined two problems: how the trade unions were to intervene in the political mass movement and then the problem of the less stable Black labour, the “commuters” (migrants having to return each day or frequently to their Bantustan) often having precarious employment particularly in the service sector. A trade union like SAAWU tried to prioritise this type of trade unionism by building itself as a general union, intervening in the communities, joining the UDF and trying to mobilise the workers from the Ciskei Bantustan.

SAAWU had great difficulties resulting from its very weak intervention in the workplaces and the repression that the white regime and the Ciskei administration meted out fo it.

The third great debate produced differences between those who wanted non-racial trade unionism and those who called for Black trade unionism, thus prohibiting whites from taking leading positions. The latter position is still held today by CUSA and AZACTU which have refused to join COSATU and retain their faith in ‘Black consciousness’ ideology.

In all these discussions, where the trade unions lined up in different groups, FOSATU emerged as the organisation in relation to which the other organisations took positions. It was FOSATU and some other trade unions (General Workers Union, Food and Canning Workers Union, Cape Town Municipal Workers Association, joined in the end by the National Union of Mineworkers) which played a major role in the unification talks.

FOSATU held this role as a result of its real influence in struggles. In 1982 FOSATU trade unions led 103 disputes involving 87,226 strikers. In the same year for instance another federation, CUSA, led 10 strikes involving 3,675 workers and the SAAWU six strikes with 2.671 workers.

These problems of orientation led up in 1983 to the question of the affiliation of the trade unions to the political fronts, to the UDF or to the National Forum. The main trade unions decided against affiliating to either front. Contrary to the criticism of them by those trade unions who had affiliated to the UDF the problem was never that of denying the necessity for the trade union movement to get involved in the general political struggle. The problem was, and remains, the pace and form this political activity of the trade union movement should take given its recent formation and lack of consolidation. Also each of the unions were being obliged to place themselves in relation to the political currents which are the prime movers behind these fronts. The question of workers’ democracy at the base. the specific representation of the trade unions or of relations with the liberals (who are occasionally the bosses of trade unionists) are logically connected to this political debate. It is highly significant that the trade unions which played the central role in the process of unification are precisely the ones which refused to affiliate to the UDF or the National Forum. So two sets of ideas about building the workers’ movement were more or less explicit- !y counterposed during this period. In 1982 the general secretary of the FOSATU, Joe Foster, emphasised the ‘need for a working class movement’ pointing out that workers ‘must strive to build their own powerful and effective organisation even whilst they are part of a wider popular struggle’.

This was indeed opposed to the line proposed by trade unions which affiliated to the UDF, for example by Sidney Mufamadi, from the GAWU, who declared: ‘Some want to perceive the working class as only found on the factory floor. Our view is that even those people who are not behind machines . . . can be said to be waging a working class struggle if the issues they take up in their various sites of struggle . . . serve to undermine the class relations upon which the present society is built’.

This debate reflects the contradictions in the mass movement today.

A large sector of the population socially marginalised in the Bantustans, townships and poor neighbourhoods can only organise through the civic associations. Another sector of the Black population, a minority, but nevertheless comprising several million people who have a more or less stable job in industry, the mines or in certain service industries, find a new form of organisation in the trade union movement. The relationship between these two complementary forms of organisation cannot be simply established in terms of their respective numerical representation. Certainly there is the question of the unity in general of all the mass organisations which the UDF and the National Forum have tried to respond to. But there is also the question of the weight the working class should have in a movement that is highly heterogeneous from the point of view of its experiences of struggle, its forms of organisation and occasionally its social composition. This provides the basis for political and organisational differentiations. While everybody agrees that the unity of this immense movement must be improved and guaranteed, big differences subsist over the content of this unity, notably with regard to the role the newly emerged workers’ movement should have as well as the rhythm of development and form its independent political expression should take. This is the debate that has separated a certain number of trade union leaderships over the past few years from the Chartist current. Whereas the former want to assert the autonomy of their projects, the latter have tried to set themselves up as an alternative leadership in the trade union movement: @ the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU), an organisation in exile linked to the ANC, falsely claimed that it was a sort of ‘underground trade union centre’, more or less presiding over unfolding developments in the trade union movement, calling on the latter to rally behind the ANC banner.

@ the Communist Party violently attacked the FOSATU leadership, sometimes criticising it for not recognising the CP’s role as the proletarian vanguard and for wanting to replace the CP in that position and sometimes reproaching it for reducing the struggle to economism. In 1979 at a decisive moment for trade union development the party’s central committee declared that it wanted to primarily encourage Black unions which had refused to register. @ the Chartist current inside the trade unions, particularly SAAWU, took a rigid position against registration and participation in the Industrial Councils. It also denounced what it concluded was a refusal to intervene on the political terrain when the most important trade unions refused to affiliate to the UDF. There is no doubt that in this discussion the Chartist current put forward sectarian positions for a period. Reality has been the test: the line it denounced did not lead to betrayal or integration. The criticised trade unions perhaps have not solved all their problems, but they have established solid structures. Finally the moves to trade union unity have been primarily their responsibilty. Once the process towards the founding of a united trade union confederation was confirmed the Chartist current gradua'ly rectified their line. But other problems came up: whereas outside the country SACTU said it supported one union per industry, inside the country organisations like SAAWU seemed to delay a great deal their transformation from a page 27 general union to industrial unions which resulted in them being considered for a period as ‘observers’ by the union most involved in the unification process. But on the other side of the coin, those ‘unitary trade unions’, as they have been dubbed, which are seeking to project themselves as a specific and independent force, must overcome an important problem, that of intervening outside the workplaces, in the neighbourhoods and the townships.

Since they want to put themselves forward as a proletarian pole they must not merely stabilise trade union organisation in the factories. They need to extend their field of intervention gradually to other mass sectors. There has been a considerable de-synchronisation between the level of implementation of the first task compared to the second. The active propaganda undertaken by certain trade unions in favour of the boycott of the ‘Indian’ and ‘Coloured’ elections in 1984, their decisive presence in the Transvaal general strike in November 1984 and then in the organisation of certain consumer boycotts of white businesses, has paved the way for the first significant presence of these organisations on this terrain. But it is probable that the ground to be made up is still significant.

The question of the unemployed—the mass of the marginalised population—is also an important question for the trade union movement.

The COSATU congress decided to undertake an organisation of these workers. Any progress in this direction will open up an intervention and organising activity by the trade unions in the residential areas. The question of the trade unionisation of the unemployed is therefore connected to the problem of the autonomous political expression of the trade unions in the townships and communities. All these problems will now be debated inside COSATU. The new confederation will have internal discussions of decisive importance for the future of the struggle of the South African oppressed and for the future of this working class. At a time when there is so much talk of ‘reforms’ and where the bosses of the biggest companies speak of ‘democracy’ it is vital that the industrial working class can intervene in an independent way and impose its own demands.

The new level of struggles raises new problems. In the present phase the question of convergence between the mass mobilisations (school boycotts, boycotts of white businesses, boycotts of transport) and the organ- ised movement of the working class is urgently posed. Without such convergence difficulties will arise as during the 1985 boycott movements. This question can begin to be resolved thanks to the foundation of COSATU. But the trade unions on their own cannot solve all these problems. Up to the founding of the unitary confederation each trade union or federation was built on a precise line and project. Today every worker, or nearly every worker, is in COSATU, which changes the form of the debate about orientation which is going to continue.

The second problem is mass self-defence and initiatives taken on this ter- Tain so that a new offensive can develop. Up to the present there has been little or no response at this level. Probably the ANC is looking for an eventual answer to this problem, but the armed propaganda that it has carried out up to now will not provide a solution. Eurthermore in South Africa it is not possible to count on a process of disintegration inside the army.

There is no short term answer to this question but any organisation aspiring to lead the revolutionary process must begin to go forward in this field.

All the main important political and organisational questions are dependent on the strategic objectives one sets for the South African revolution.

To be more precise. the dynamic and content of the various democratic and national demands depends on the class character of the state which emerges from the overthrow of the apartheid regime and which will begin to respond to them. Depending on whether one fixes as an objective a “democratic state’ that is not defined socially or a state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, all the problems are not dealt with in the same way.

The need for a proletarian leadership flows logically from our analysis of the South African revolutionary process. The existence of such a leadership is not assessed only by the degree of contro! such an organisation has over the mass movement, but is also gauged by its programme and its practice. The struggle for the effective accomplishment of the democratic tasks in any case requires that the working class is placed at the centre of the mobilisations. However, this objective is still far from being reached today in South Africa. Strengthening the workers’ movement and forming a recognised working class leadership are tasks that are necessary to prevent the present struggles ending in a dead-end, without even being able to resolve the main democratic demands.

Nobody today, apart from the Communist Party, claims to be this leadership. The ANC presents itself as the leadership of the national liberation movement grouping all classes, but in no way as a revolutionary workers’ party—a role it implicitly leaves to the CP.

page 28 It is scarcely possible to envisage the revolutionary victory of the masses with such a de-synchronisation between the rise of the mass struggle and the building of the revolutionary party—unless one believes in a democratic revolution without the organised hegemony of the working masses. On the other hand it would be wrong to deduce that the South African social formation produces a sort of spontaneous. automatic popular hegemony without a leadership intervening with its programme and action to organise and defend it. The question of the workers’ party has been taken up in relation to the trade union question. Joe Foster, general secretary of FOSATU, had evoked the necessity of such a party in 1981. His speech sparked off significant speculation about the real possibility of a workers’ party emerging based on the trade union movement. Joe Foster’s references to an eventual “workers” party’ earned him very sharp attacks from the Communist Party. However. since this date nobody has given a more precise, concrete position on the possibility floated by the trade union leader. Obviously it is not a simple problem given the influence of the ANC on one side and heterogeneity of the trade union movement on the other. The growth of a workers’ party based on the trade unions would be very likely in present circumstances to bring repression down against the trade unions—which raises the important probiem of the defence of the gains represented by the trade unions. The potential emergence of a party on the basis of the gains of the trade unions would in any event depend on a combination of diverse initiatives both inside the trade union movement itself, on its periphery and in the political movement. Through unitary collaboration in practice and common political reflection, a convergence of perspective and mutual confidence between activists intervening on diferent fronts, but ready to build a common political organisation, could develop over the long term. But this necessary convergence on such an ambitious project could only be achieved by starting from the mass base already acquired in the trade unions.

It is imposible to say precisely today what is the way forward for the building of a working class and revolutionary political leadership or when ~~ sQX Brae AREA Etienne veel ees ‘ ‘ ¢ 4 ié 4 4 4 "2 ‘% and how long this will take. We cannot forecast the internal political recompositions of the mass movement that achieving such an objective will require. However it appears that the political debates and conflicts involved in the contest for hegemony over the mass movement are underway. The development of the ANC on the one hand and the formation of COSATU on the other are elements in this process.

The upsurge of popular mobilisations in South Africa and the repressive response of the white regime requires the broadest possible support and active solidarity throughout the country. The Fourth International calls on all its sections to give great priority to this work, helping to organise huge unitary actions against the South African racist regime, for the release of Nelson Mandela and all the political and trade union prisoners and against the complicity of imperialist governments and multinationals with the apartheid regime.

Certain imperialist governments and a sector of companies operating in South Africa have taken wide-ranging measures of economic and political pressure against the South African government. Their respective motives are different but they all concur in seeking a negotiated solution which avoids a revolutionary crisis and maintains a favourable framework in the future for the durability of imperialist interests in this country.

American institutions have withdrawn more than $5 billion from companies with interests in South Africa. In 1985 at least twenty American companies stopped or slowed down their economic activity in this country.

Twelve states, 39 towns and 67 universities have sold $5.4 billion worth of shares held by companies operating in South Africa. According to the Department of Commerce direct American investment fell from $2.6 billion in 1981 to $1.8 billion in 1984. South African policy in Namibia is no longer credible for these circles. Military operations in Angola, including the

page 29 sabotage of an oil well belonging to the American Gulf Oil company, upsets them. Systematic repression of demonstrations worries them because they see it as proof of the lack of any alternative policy. Throughout 1985 the crisis of confidence in Botha’s government has worsened. A sector of the American ruling class no longer believes in Ronald Reagan’s policy of *constructive engagement’ which consisted in unfailingly supporting the Pretoria regime in the name of the global interesis ur the Ur. :ted States. Indeed, the present crisis confirms that American aid ana support have been no help in avoiding the crisis of the regime, even if this favoured the military and diplomatic operations in the rest of Southern Africa. The reform policy Reagan promised in exchange for this support has proved to be a farce.

The capitalist lobbies which want to go further in structural reforms in South Africa do not just take into account the social risks. They also think the ume has come to permanently change the South African economic system based on apartheid laws. It is the combination of these economic and political criteria which make these capitalist circles take a line today which is so much harder than in the past. The greatest attention must be paid to this development tor, far from absolving these forces from their previous praclice it represents a new arm in imperialism’s arsenal to push the Black movement along moderate lines. to trap and weaken it.

The British government criticises the South African government in the sume formal way as Reagan but nevertheless is also seeking to encourage a process of negotiation by discreetly supporting an ‘eminent persons group” whose aim is said to be to favour contacts between the ANC and the Botha regime. Al these manoeuvres must not get in the way of real, active solidarity.

Calls to break all links with the South African government, opposing Kruggerrand sales and boycotting all sporting links with South Africa have to be systematically taken up. The demand for an economic boycott of South Africa is a central focus of solidarity. principally in the imperialist countries. The arguments according to which Black workers are supposed to sutfer from such a boycott do not hold water. All the South African organisa- Uons have themselves rejected this explanation and want the stepping up of such measures against South Africa. The campaign for total sanctions or boycott must be used to show the complicity or passivity of governments to the racist regime and to highlight the importance of imperialist interests in this country. This activity against the regime must also be a means of developing concrete solidarity of the workers and anti-imperialist movements in support of the organisations struggling in South Africa. Organising direct links and supporting civic associations in struggle, should be the natural complement of protest campaigns against the regime.

In African countries, where the South African situation has a particular impact. it is necessary to highlight the passivity of governments which more often than not limit themselves to mere anti-apartheid rhetoric but without bringing any real aid to the Black movement. When there exists in these countries the beginnings of an independent solidarity movement it is necessary to popularise the forms of struggle and the courage of the South African oppressed masses. Since COSATU has said it is in favour of links with independent African trade unions initiatives should be taken building up such links in countries where such unions exist.

The aim of solidarity is to increase the active involvement of youth and workers’ movement in solidarity with the South African oppressed.

The South African mass movement is going through internal differentiations on the political, trade union and civic association levels. The press of the International should report this diversity. In a country where the masses are struggling against racist barbarism and are demanding above all basic democratic rights it is not the business of solidarity organisations to make some sort of selection among South African organisations and activists and designate those to whom support must be given as a priority.

In present conditions no political conditions justify acting in this way. The struggle in this country will be a long one. It will be very complex. Solidarity must be given to all components of the movement without sectarianism or exclusion. It must be given to COSATU, the ANC and all the social and political forces struggling against apartheid.

Our members should defend this approach in the solidarity campaigns or committees where they are active. Our sections intervene with a position of solidarity with all independent and non-racial organisations representing a sector of the oppressed who are fighting apartheid. Our organisations propose that this approach to solidarity be taken up and asserted when mass actions are organised.

In certain countries like the United States or Great Britain the antiapartheid solidarity campaigns mobilise a large number of Black workers and Black youth. This must be a way for our sections to link up with these sectors of the masses. We also try and get working class organisations to send delegations of inquiry and solidarity to South Africa. In the workplaces we call on the trade unions to participate in the permanent solidarity structures. We aim to get them to take up specific tasks of solidarity with the independent South African trade unions both on a national level as well as in each industry or multinational (especially the ones operating in South Africa). Appropriate trade union aid, popularising strikes, distributing the trade union press and ongoing links should be organised, not only to help the South African trade unions but also to bring the solidarity movement into the heart of the workplaces. International

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