YA BASEBENZI Journal of the Marxist Workers' Tendency of the African National Congress No. 7 August 1982 Price 50c

Only workers' rule can replace apartheid dictatorship ! :

Only workers' rule can replace YA BASEBENZI lapartheid dictatorship

The President's Council, and ihe posing unease and suspicion capitalists because "the only way olher constitutional changes now towards Ihe intentions of Ihe by which they could secure their being put forward by the govern­ regime. material interests, their social ment, are being hailed by the The old ways of ruling have fail­ power and the suppression of the capitalist press as "epoch- ed to stem the tide of black proletarian revolution was to ac­ making" reforms. Bui, as one resistance. The President's Council cept someone who pretends to worker put it, "dis maar nog net proposals are a pathetic attempt of stand above the contending weer 'n bieljie jam in die mond." the capitalists (o find a new way to classes.'* (Rand Daily Mail These changes offer nothing of rule. But this frantic altempl to 19/5/1982) value lo the working masses. divide the people by seeking the Increasingly the SA capitalists We want a democratic govern­ collaboration of Indian and Col­ are forced to place their hopes for ment of the working people, able oured sections of the tiny and weak survival in such a Bonapartist to end poverty wages, the pass middle class is doomed. regime—a regime relying on laws, racial humiliation, and all The middle class also can see bayonets, while manoeuvering and the other tortures of apar­ that "representation" is being of­ balancing between the pressures theid—made heavier every day by fered in a "parliament" whose of the opposing classes—attemp­ the economic crisis. already small powers are being ting to hold down the oppressed The President's Council is an reduced even further. Only a few and exploited in a reign of empty shell. vain and foolish middle class terror, and containing the These manoeuvres by the ruling leaders will want to beat such an ever-growing discontent of the class are a sign of the developing empty drum, and parade in "cor­ whites. revolutionary crisis. Under the ridors of power" from which The move along Ihis road signals combined onslaught of the power has vanished. the increasing weakness and decay resurgent workers* movement and Unable lo solve a single basic of the ruling class, and the oppor­ Ihe world capitalist crisis, the problem of the workers, the tunities that will open up for the whole political atmosphere is being bankrupt capitalist class is also in­ transformation of society. This transformed. capable of satisfying the black means rooting oul Ihe profit For generations the majority of middle class. More and more, the system and smashing the military- the people have been whipped into ranks of the middle class turn police dictatorship which defends line by Ihe twin sjamboks of na­ towards the revitalised working H. . tional oppression and capitalist ex­ class movement lo find a way for­ The methods of guerillaism can­ ploitation—by the cheap labour ward. not achieve this. The way forward system and a dictatorship resting With its support draining away to victory lies In building the con­ on white support. On all sides, Ihe capitalist class scious armed organised power of the Now, under the fierce hammer grows increasingly divided. For the working class, whose growing con­ blows of strikes, boycotts, survival of its system, it Is making fidence and strength terrifies the demonstrations, etc—spearheaded preparations to root out what little bosses. Around this pole of attraction by the battalions of Ihe working of 'democracy' remains, and con­ can be forged unity In action of all class—this whole structure Is centrate its rule in Ihe military- the oppressed. beginning to crack. The oppressed police machinery of the state. The struggle for democracy, na­ and exploited are impressing on tional liberation and social reforms the minds of the ruling class (heir The real significance of the new will be securely won only through refusal to continue to submit. proposals lies in the estabishment the establishment of workers' To maintain profits in the crisis, of an Executive Presidency, with democratic rule, laying the foun­ the capitalists are also compelled almost unlimited power. dations for socialism. to pull away from under the white The purpose of Ihis is spelled out To build the ANC as the con­ workers the cushion of privilege on in the capitalist press itself. One scious instrument of this struggle, which they have been sitting. The commentator draws an analogy with these perspectives and pro­ paint with which the class fissures with the dictatorship of Bonaparte gramme, is the duty of every ac­ in the white community were con- (Napoleon III, 1850-1871) in tivist. Icealed has begun to peel off, ex­ France, established by the YA BASEBENZI AUGUST 1982 •SHFIFILSEaSKriP KJ®o J

Contents

INTRODUCTION Page 2

SUMMARY AND PERSPECTIVES OF THE CHINESE REVOLUTION (1925-1927) By L. Trotsky Page 4 • 1. On the nature of the Colonial Bourgeoisie Page 4 • 2. The Stages of the Chinese Revolution Page 6 • 3. Democratic Dictatorship or a Dictatorship of the Proletariat? Page 8 • 5. Soviets and Revolution Page 10 • 6. The Question of the Character of the Coming Chinese Revolution Page 11 • 7. On the Reactionary Idea of 'Two- Class Workers* and Peasants' Parties9 for the Orient Page 12 EXPLANATORY NOTES Page 15 2 Introduction critical period of the 1920s. the period of the rise of The Chinese Revolution, involv­ In fact, the revolution of 1944-49 capitalism—the creation of national ing ihe victory of Mao Tse-tung's was the third great upheaval in the unity; the establishment of Red Army over the bourgeois struggle of the Chinese workers and parliamentary rule; the abolition of regime of Chiang Kai-shek in peasants to rid themselves of the feudal relations on the land, 1944-49, has been the greatest event yoke of imperial rule and, later, of etc.—had not yet been carried in human history after the Russian the corrupt regime of the through in China. Revolution of 1917. bourgeoisie. The first Chinese But the point is that the Chinese Liberating a quarter of mankind revolution led to the overthrow of bourgeoisie was incapable of carry­ from capitalism and landlordism, it the Manchu empire in 1911; the se­ ing through these tasks. Weak, has been a forerunner of many cond revolution of 1925-27, in economically bankrupt and subsequent revolutions that have which the working class emerged as politically rotten, it was the instru­ abolished the rule of private proper­ the leading force, is dealt with in ment of foreign imperialist interests ty in country after country of the this Supplement. and had nothing to offer the work­ former colonial world, from Cuba ing masses in their struggle for in 1959-60 to Angola and Mozambi­ social emancipation. que in 1974-75. Lessons The policy of the Communist In­ China's economic growth since ternational, based on the illusion the revolution has confirmed the im­ The events of ihe 1920s laid the that the Chinese bourgeoisie could mense superiority of production on basis for ihe course taken by the lead the struggle against imperialism the basis of state ownership and third revolution (which will be ex­ and serve as an ally of the Soviet planning over the hopeless stagna­ amined in a following Supplement). regime, therefore completely tion of capitalism in the 'third The fundamental lessons of this disarmed and disoriented the world*. This has been the case even period are explained in the docu­ Chinese workers' movement as to though the regime that developed in ment which we reprint here. Sum­ the tasks—and the dangers—that China has been bureaucratically mary and Perspectives of the faced them. This led directly to the deformed from the start, modelled Chinese Revolution was written by slaughter of the revolutionary on Stalin's regime in Russia. Leon Trotsky in 1928, addressed to workers of Shanghai in April 1927 In previous Supplements (no's 4 the Sixth Congress of the Com­ at the hands of the officially- and 5) we have examined the pro­ munist International in answer to proclaimed 'revolutionary leader* cesses that gave rise to the establish­ the ideas put forward by the leader­ Chiang Kai-shek (whom Stalin had ment of a workers* state in ship of Stalin and Bukharin. Unfor­ made an honorary member of the backward Russia in 1917, and later tunately, for reasons of space, ihe Executive of the Communist Inter­ to the political counter-revolution sections of Trotsky's document national). headed "Adventurism as the Pro­ headed by Stalin, which placed a But the Comintern leadership, duct of Opportunism" and "The privileged bureaucratic caste in having abandoned the method of Advantages Secured from the power on the basis of the planned Marxism in favour of short-sighted Peasants' International Must be economy. opportunism dictated by the in­ Probed", as well as the opening and To workers and youth in South terests of the Russian bureaucracy, concluding paragraphs relating to Africa and the world over, it is were unable to learn the lessons of the circumstances of the Congress equally important to understand the this catastrophe. They modified itself, have had to be omitted. course of the Chinese Revolution. their policy only to the extent of in­ Not only is this necessary for a cor­ The document was written against structing the Chinese CP to attach rect orientation towards the background of the defeated se­ themseives to the 'Left Kuomin­ developments in China today; the cond Chinese revolution. During the tang*, i.e. the Wuhan government lessons of the Chinese Revolution magnificent struggles of the Chinese led by Wang Ching-Wei, which tem­ provide us with essential theoretical workers and peasants in 1925-27, porarily found itself in opposition tools for analysing the revolutionary the leadership of the Communist In­ to Chiang. struggles that have swept the col­ ternational forced the Chinese Com­ Inevitably this led to fiasco, with onial world since 1949, and drawing munist Party to subordinate itself to the 'Left Kuomintang* very quickly from them the correct conclusions the bourgeois leadership of the breaking with the CP in order to as far as our own struggle is con­ Kuomintang nationalist movement, come to terms with Chiang. cerned. headed by Chiang Kai-shek. This, Stalin and the Comintern leader­ The Chinese Revolution—unlike they claimed, was necessary because ship now reacted by jumping from the Russian Revolution where for a in China the task of establishing their opportunist policies to an op­ period workers' democracy was bourgeois democracy was on the posite but equally disastrous ultra- established—gave rise to a deform­ agenda. left position. In December 1927, ed workers' state presided over by a In fact, as Trotsky explains, the with the revolution on the ebb as a Stalinist bureaucracy. To unders­ Chinese revolution was 'bourgeois* result of their own blunders, the CP tand why this happened, it is only in the sense that the tasks car­ staged a futile putsch in Canton necessary to go into the history of ried through by the bourgeoisie in which was bloodily repressed. (This the revolution, in particular the the advanced capitalist countries in marked the beginning of Stalinism's Ke mmuso wa basumi feela wo o ka kgonago go lokalla "aphartheid"(kgethologanya ya batho)

Mangwalo a makhaphilhalisi a ya ilaletsego yeo maburu a lekago ka puso ye ka go leka go sirelelsa "dijn- lumisa makgolhlana a yona go ka tlosalanya batho ba therese" isa bona tsa khumo le Mopheresidenihe le phethologanya Aforika-borwa ka go goketsa diripa- bogolo ka setshabeng le go leka go ya melao bjalo kage nke ke nyana Isa go fokola tsa baindia le galelela di phethogo tseo badiidi ba dikaonofatso tsa nnele tsa mmuso. bakhalate ga ena tswelopele. bego ba di hlabenela. Ka Mokgwa wo Mosumi o mongwe o opile kgomo le Ba forwa (middle class people) le makhaphilhalisi a dumetse go ka naka ge are diphethogo Ise bjalo ga bona ba setse ba lemoga gore sumisana le yoo a itirilego o kare o di hole lesaha la basumi ka selo. "phalamente" yeo e ba holofetsago emela ditumelo tsa baforelswa (Rand Re nyaka mmuso wo o Ilago goba kemelelo ka "phalamenteng" Daily Mail, 19.5.1982). ka dialleng isa basumi, wo o Ilago go (representation) matlana a yona a Goya le goya makhaphithalisi a kgona go busa setshaba kamoka ka fokotsega go ya le goya. E tla noba Aforika-borwa le bona ba holofetse go swana le go lekana; mmuso wo o baetapele ba baforelswa ba ditlaela go ka somisa puso ye ya Bonaparte kgonago go fedisa ditlala, wo o Ilago le go hlokakgopolo bao ba tlago go ka go leka go ilhekga le go dira go lefa basumi ka mokgwa wo o Ilago tsama ba lelsa dinakana le go malhailhai le manyokenyoke go go fedisa dillaisego tse di lliswago ke holofela go ka hwetsa puso le moo dimo ga dinthana tsa "dipaonete" "aphartheid", iseo di lhalhafalago puso e sa hwelswego. magareng a mehuiahula ya "diin- lelsalsi ka lelsalsi le maboihala a therese" (dikgopolo) tseo di sa "ekhonomi". swanego ka go leka go kokobeisa Makhaphilhalisi ao a go bagalelelwa le bahulwa ka puso ya Malhailhai a re a bonago ke dilaet- phuthagana fase ka dimpa ba palelwa bogale le go homotsa makgowa so tsa gore babusi ba swere malbaia le ke go rarolla bothatale ka botee bja godimo ga dillo Isa bona. Ditiro tse a allago ka mmelela. Moya wo o basomi. Ka lebaka leo ga gone di supa nlshifalo ya bofokodi le go mobe wa diphololhiki Isa lehono o ka kgonagalo ya gore ba ka kgotsofal- kgwellepana ga sehlophana sa feloswa ke ge basumi ka bo bona ba sa baforelswa ka go ba fa puso yeo babusi. ka kgona go eilamaganya le ba ba holofetsago yona. Goya le goya maboihala a lefase ao alliswago ke baelapele ka magareng a sehlophana Di bula dilsela Isa phetogo ka set­ makhapilhalisi. sa baforelswa le bona ba rata go ka shabeng. Ka go riano ke gore gomela ka sehlopheng se se ipupilego Kgalelelo ya mmuso wa mabi'ru le mokgowa wa go bopa "diphorofiti" (movement) sa basumi go tla go khulo ya bomenemene (exploitation) o tla tumulwa ka medu ya wona le go hwetsa dilsela Isa go tswelapele. Ya balho ke makhaphilhalisi ke Isona pshatlaganya puso ya lerumo yeo masole le maphodisa ba lekago go e Ise di gapeledilsego melokoloko ya Kwano ya maburu e thomile go hlabanela. balho ka bontshi go somela dilefo Ise hlohlorega ka Mathoko ohle, ka di nyenyane. Diliro (se di iliswa ke go lebaka leo diphapano Isa megopolo Mekgwa ya golwa-o-tshaba (guer- dumelela mmuso wo bothala wa tsa makhaphilhalisi di ntshifala goya rillaism) e ka seka ya kgona go fetiya makgowa, le goya. Gore ba lie ba kgone go mabolhata a. Tsela yeo e isago phe- Popego ye yohle ya dipholilhiki pholosa mokgwa wa puso, babusi ba nyong ya maburu ke go ka bopa le lehono e thomile go phatlolwa ke tukisetsa go tumula le masaledinyana go kgoboketsa dillhabano tsa basumi "diseteraike", "dipoekhotho" le a medu ya "botemokheresi" (puso ya godimo ga boitumelo bjo bo tletsego. "dilemonselereisene" Isa go liya Isa batho ke batho - democracy). Ka masole a basumi. Bagalelelwa le mokgwa wo ba rata go ka kgobelet- Kholofelo le maatla a basumi ao a bahulwa (oppressed and exploited) ba sa maatla a puso ka diatleng tsa golago ka mehla le mehla di roromet- iswelelapele go goptsa babusi ba masole le "maphodisa'*. sa mmuso wa maburu. Tlemegano ya maburu gore bona ba ka seke ba bagalelelwa e swanelse go bopja dumelela go galelelwapele. Dil- Segolothata ka mo Ishisinyong e godimo ga tsela ye. Go Iwela puso ya shirelelso tseo di bego di pipeditse set- mpsha ya maburu ke go leka go bopa setshaba ka setshaba (democracy) le shabana sa makgowa di thomile go maloko-magolo a "Mopheresiden­ lokologo ya setshaba le go tlisa ditnp- apoga (kgoramologa) gomme go se ihe" ao a filwego maatla ao a senago shafatso ka setshabeng di ka hwetswa ipshine le bomenemene bja maburu mellwane le bofclo ka pusong ya feela ka go bopa puso ya basumi yeo dl Ihoma go iponatsa. bona. e tla go go beya moiheo wa Dikgopolo Ise di laetswa ke phedisano setshabeng. Makgwa yela ya kgale ya go busa mangwalo ao a ngwadilego ke Gore lekgotla la "ANC" le tie le maburu ga se yaka ya kgona go ka makhaphilhalisi ka bo bona. kgone go bopja e le sebetsa sa thibela kgotlelelo ya batho ba baso go Mongwaledi ("mokhomentbara") o boitumelo ka mo ntweng, dikgopolo Iwela kaonofatso ya bophelo bja mongwe o swanisha mmuso wo wa Iseo di laelsago bophelo bja ka moso bona. Ka lekgotla la "Mopheresiden­ lehono le mmuso wa kgalelelo mat- le boitukisetso bja tsona e swanelse ihe" makhaphilhalisi ba leka ka satsing a puso ya Bonaparte go ba boikgafelo bja yo mongwe le boiihagarugo go ka hwetsa mekgwa (Napoleon III, 1850-1871) nageng ya yo mongwe yo a itlamilego go e meswa ya go busa. Eupja leko ye Fora. Makhaphithalisi a ile a kgethe hlabana ka mo ntweng. 3 period of ultra-leftism which con­ was a damaging attack on Stalin's peasants' parlies" deserves careful tinued until 1935.) policy in China. Of this Clements study. Clearly explaining the need This was the final nail in the cof­ Dult (a British CP for independent working-class fin of the Second Chinese Revolu­ delegate—Editor) said to me in all leadership, it provides a revolu­ tion. Combined with the further seriousness: 'Trotsky's analysis is of tionary answer to the more general decay of the international Com­ course correct, but I'm sorry to say Stalinist tendency towards policies munist leadership, this defeat was to that Trotsky is no longer a com­ of class collaboration. Absorbing have decisive consequences for the munist* "(!) (Rebel Pity, page 63.) Trotsky's arguments and melhod in subsequent development of the The correctness of Trotsky's fun­ relation to these issues will assist revolution. damental position—(hat the comrades in fighting for a correct The movement of the working demands of the workers and position in the SA workers' move­ class was crushed for a whole peasants could not be satisfied ment. period. The remnants of the CP without (he over(hrow of capitalism Marxism does not oppose class leadership abandoned the towns for and landlordism—was confirmed by alliances, as our opponents allege; the countryside, where they succeed­ the revolution of 1944-49, although, but Marxism understands that in the ed in placing themselves at (he head for the reasons that have been age of imperialism a revolutionary of the renewed peasant revolt that outlined, this revolution was carried alliance of the workers, peasants built up during the 1930s. through in a distorted, bureaucratis- and other oppressed layers can only As will be explained more fully in ed form. be built around the programme of a future Supplement, it was the new Under working-class leader­ the working class for the socialist international balance of forces aris­ ship—as in Russia in 1917 and as transformation of society. With ing after World War II that enabled called for by Trotsky in capitalism incapable of providing a the Stalinist leadership commanding China—there can be no doubt that way forward, only the workers' this peasant army to take power in the effects of the revolution would revolution can end the oppression of 1949—and left them no option but have been earth-shattering, the peasantry, the middle class, etc., to carry through the expropriation galvanising the working class into by imperialism and its national of the landowners and capitalists revolutionary struggles throughout agents. despite their programme which still the capitalist world in this period of Yet CP leaders continue to insist, called for an alliance with the crisis and turmoil internationally. In as stubbornly as in China in the capitalist class. these perspectives, cut across by the 1920s, that in order to form an policies of Stalinism, the full alliance with other classes oppressed Alternative significance of Trotsky's position by capitalism, the working class can be seen. must abandon its programme for During 1926 and 1927 Trotsky the overthrow of capitalism, and criticised the Comintern's policies South Africa link itself to 'all progressive forces' from the posts which he still held in (including 'progressive' sections of the leading bodies of the Russian Although the conditions of China the bourgeoisie) on a programme CP and the International, and at differed in important respects from for 'national democracy' within ihe every stage spelled out the revolu­ those of South Africa today, many limits of capitalism. What else is this tionary alternative. As far as the of the issues discussed in this docu­ but a recipe for renewed disorienta­ Stalinists were concerned, these ment are of crucial relevence to our tion and defeat of the workers' arguments fell on deaf ears. By struggle—not least because many of struggle? 1928, Trotsky had been expelled the uncorrected errors of Stalinism Absorbing Trotsky's arguments from the Party by the bureaucracy which are dealt with here have sur­ and method in relation to these and driven into exile in Siberia vived in the official Communist par­ issues will assist comrades in (from where he wrote this ties, and have been reasserted in the fighting for a correct position in the document). Political debate was SA liberation movement. SA workers' movement, in building now being stifled throughout the the ANC and the independent trade Communist movement. In particular, the notion of a 'democratic stage* of the revolution unions on healthy foundations, and The document reprinted preceding (he establishment of ensuring that mistakes of the past here—pari of Trotsky's broader workers* rule, which lay at the root are left behind for good. Critique of the Comintern's new of the Stalinist position on China, is The analysis put forward in this programme—was itself suppressed. being put forward in much the same document and in our following Sup­ (An English translation fell into the way by the present leaders of the SA plement will show (hat Marxism hands of American delegates to the Communist Party and their sup­ alone has correctly understood the Sixth Congress, who were convinced porters in the ANC. Trotsky's nature of the Chinese Revolution in by its arguments and published it in refutation of this idea will help com­ all its different phases. In addition the US later that year.) rades prepare for the crucial task of to all the specific lessons, our sense Edward Roux, one of the South dispelling all illusions of this nature of historical understanding, African CP delegates to this Con­ among the rank and file of our perspectives, strategy and tactics, as gress, recalls in his memoirs: "A movement. well as our ability to correctly typed copy of Trotsky's thesis on Likewise, although there is no analyse new situations, will be enor­ (he situation in China was circula(ed significant peasantry in SA, Trot­ mously enriched by studying this among some of the delegates...It sky's criticism of "Workers' and material. A Ngumbuso wabasebenzi kuphela ongaphelisa ulawulo ngobungqwangang qwili bocalucalulo ngebala Iqumru lika Mongameli-Sizwe kwangena kubasebenzi abamhlophe qinise ngayo ukufukamela ubutyebi (Presidents Council), ne/inye iingu- ukuxhalaba nokungathembi iin- babo, negunya lokulawula isizwe, qulelo ngokusemthethweni ezithen- jongo zikarulumente. nokudobelela phanlsi intshukumo jiswe kutsha nje ngurulumente Ukulawula ngendlel'endala yenguqulo simo yabasebenzi, yaba zibabazwa ngamaphephandaba koyisakele ukubhangisa um- kukwamkela umntu onga umi oongxowankulu ngelilhi, ezim- zabalazo wabamnyama. Le migudu ngaphandle kwedabi loongx- balini, eli likhefu engcinezelwini. yeQumru lika Mongameli-Sizwe owankulu nabasebenzi." (Rand Daily Mail 19/5/1982) Kambe omnye umseben/i sele kuku bopha nje inyanda yamathum- eyibeke ngelilhi: "dis maar nog net bu koongxowankulu befunana Oongxowankulu baseMzanlsi- weer 'n bietjie jam in die mond". nandlela yimbi yokulawula. Kodwa Afrika baya benyanzeleka ngakum­ (Kukosulwa kwakhona ngamafutha elilinge lobutyhakala lokwahlula bi ukuba babeke amathemba emlonyeni inyama ungayindlanga.) abamnyama ngenjongo zokwenza okuzisindisa kulorulumente wekrele Aba songuqululo balilize inxenye yama-Indiya nabe Bala, (wobuBhonaphathi), bayatatsalaza, kubasebenzi. hengcuntswana lodidi bayanyonyoba helhe ngiciphu Sifuna urulumente opheihwe Eoophangwana abamnyama, ukuba phezu kwamakrele, phantsi kom- ulawulwa ngabasebenzi ngokul- babe ngamajendevu libhangile. futhokazi wentlaba zahlukane zeen- inganayo ozakuphelisa imirolo Oophangwana nabo baya mbona jongo zendidi yendlala, amapasi, ucekiso ngebala lo 'sozimele' abaqhutyelwa kuye ezihlabanayo—bezama ukudobelela nazo zonke iinlshutshiso zocalulo- ukuba ngowe palamente engasayi phantsi abacinezelweyo naban­ ngebala, ezenziwa nzima mihla le kuba namagunya okulawula. cukuthwayo kwisihogo sombuso lunxunguphalo Iwendyebo yoongx- Zinkokheli zoophangwana eziralayo wobundlobongela, yaye bezama owankulu. nezizilyhakala kuphela eziya kufuna nokudambisa ukuvungama okuqina Eli Qumru lika Mongameli-Sizwe ukum'om'ozela kule fatyi eze, bet- ngokuqina kwabasebenzi likhoba. sala iintambo eseziqhawulwe. abamhlophe. Obubuqhokolo boongxowankulu Rengenako nokuncombulula Ngokuthatha le ndlela bubonisa ukuzinga kwenyikima nenye ingxaki embala yabasebenzi, babonakalisa ngakumbi yabasebenzi. Phantsi komvatho ukulambatha koongxowarkulu ubuthathaka nokubola kwabo ombobo-mbini wogqulhe, oluvuke kubenza bangakwazi ukvjnelisa oongxowankulu, babonalikalisa kwakhona, Iwesitshingitshane sent- noophangwana aba bai.inyama. futhi, ukuvuleka kwamathuba shukumo yabasebenzi, nenkinge Umndilili woophangwana ujonge okuguqula isimo sesizwe, Oku yendyebo yobungxowankulu ngakumbi, ngakumbi kwint- kuthetha ukuphelisa isimo emhlabeni jikelele, isimo sezombuso shukumo, ethe vumbu kwakhona, sepolofithi, noku phahlaza wonke siyatshintsha. yabasebenzi, befuna indlela uburulumenle bobuBhonaphathi eyaphambili. Izizukulwana ngezizukulwana obu liphiko lesi simo. ii in ii cl i | i 1 i ungonjwe ngemvubu Ngokupatyalaka kwendlu Imp! yokuphekula (guerillaism) emhaxa-mbini. yengcinczelo kanomyayi yobumhlophe, oongx­ ayinakuliqabelisa elidabi. Indlela- ngobuzwe nnbungx- owankulu bangenelwe yintlekele phambili eya ekuphumeleleni ise owankulu —ulawulo wekrele yokuqhekeka phakathi. I kusindisa komelezeni ngengqiqo yokuqu- Iwekratshi lobulungu nesimo umbuso wabo, ben/a quzelela umkhosi oxhobileyo semirolo yendlala. amalungiselelo okutshabalalisa wabasebenzi, okuzondelela Kungoku nje, phantsi iingcambu zokugqibela zombuso nokukhalipha kufaka intaka kwemivalho, etsho kanobom. kamasilingane (wabamhlophe) koongxowankulu. Kuphantsi kwale yogwayimbo (yokutrayika) obusisidodo kakade, beqinisa ntsika kuphela ekunga kheka uma- yokwayo (yobhoyikhothi) nentlaba ukukwakha umbuso wabo oza nyano ngezenzo zabo bonke mikhosi njalo, egalelwa yimikhosi kuphathwa ngamajoni abacinezelweyo. yabasebenzi, sonke esisakhiwo namapolisa—umbuso wekrele. Idabi elilwela umbuso wokul- sengcjnezelo siqalile ukuqhekeka. Owona mongo wale migudu emit- ingana, lokuphelisa ingcine/elo- Abacinezelweyo nabancukuthwayo sha usekusekweni ko Mongameli- sizwe, lokuguqula nentlalo yoluntu, bacacise mhlophe koongxowankulu Sizwe onamagunya liya kuphumelela xa kuthe ukuba abakungeni ukuzinikela. angenakuphikiswa. kwakhiwa umbuso olawulwa I'kukhusela iipolofithi /abo Injongo yoku ibekwe ebaleni ngabasebenzi ngokulingana oza kuitnkjnge, oongxowankulu ba- ngamaphepha-ndaba oongx­ kuba sisiseko sesoshiyalizim. nyanzelekile futhi ukuba bohluthe owankulu ngokwawo. Esinye Ukwakha iNkongolo (A.NC) nelonqathana Hsemlonyene isithelhi siyifanekise lemeko nom- ngengqiqo ibe yintonga yokulwa wabasebenzi abamhlophe elikade buso ngekrele kaBhonaphalhi elidabi phezu kwale mibono libenze izimumu zakwamlungu. Le (Napoliyoni III, 1850-1871) namabango ngumsebenzi womlweli kalika yobulungu ebeyifihle kwelama Frentshi, apho oongx­ nkululenko ngamye. ubundidi-ndidi kuhlanga owankulu bavumela lemeko kuba "inye kuphela indlela abangathi ba- labamhlophe iqalile ukuxwebuka, 4 i SUMMARY AND PERSPECTIVES eyes — until the first opportunity, such as was offered in Shanghai. But perhaps it is not a question hereof political obligations exacted OF THE CHINESE REVOLUTION from the bourgeoisie which, we repeat, it will immediately agree 10 in order ihus 10 transform us into its guarantors before the working masses? Perhaps it is a question here of an 'objective' and 'scientific* /. On the Nature of the Colonial Bourgeoisie evaluation of a given national bourgeoisie, an expert a pnon 'sociological1 prognosis, as it were, of its capacity to wage a struggle The draft programme states: 'Temporary agreements [with the and not to obstruct? Sad to say, as the most recent and freshest national bourgeoisie of colonial countries] are admissible only in so far experience testifies, such an a pnon prognosis make* fools out of as the bourgeoisie does not obstruct the revolutionary organization of experts as a rule. And it would not be so bad, if only they alone were the workers and peasants and wages a genuine struggle against involved , • , imperialism'. There cannot be the slightest doubt on the matter: ihe text deals This formula, although it is deliberately tacked on as an incidental precisely with long-term political blocs. It would be entirely superflu­ proposition, i$ one of the central postulates of th* draft, for the ous to include in a programme the question of occasional practical countries of the Orient, at any rate. The main pn>position deals, agreements. For this purpose, a matter-of-fact tactical resolution 'On naturally, with the "emancipation [of the workers and peasants] from Our Current Tasks' would suffice. Involved here is a question of the influence of the national bourgeoisie'. Bui we judge not from the justifying and setting a programmatic seal of approval upon standpoint of grammar bui politically and, moreover, on the basis of yesterday's orientation toward the Kuomintang, which doomed the experience, and therefore we say: the main proposition is only an second Chinese revolution to destruction, and which is capable of incidental one heir, while the incidental proposition contains what is destroying revolutions in the future. most essential. The formula, taken as a whole, is a classic Menshevik According to the idea advanced by Bukharin, the real author of the noose for the proletariat of the Orient. draft, all stakes are placed precisely upon the general evaluation of the What 'temporary agreements' are meant here? In politics, as in colonial bourgeoisie, whose capacity to struggle and not obstruct must nature, all things are 'temporary'. Perhaps we are discussing here be proved not by its own oaths but in a rigorous 'sociological' manner, purely practical agreements from one occasion to the next? It goes that is by a thousand and one scholastic schema* adapted to oppor­ without saying that we cannot renounce in advance such rigidly tunist purposes. delimited and rigidly practical agreements as serve each time a quite To bring this out more clearly let us refer back to the Bukharin definite aim. For example, such cases as involve agreements with the evaluation of the colonial bourgeoisie. After citing the 'and- student youth of the Kuominrang for the organization of an anti- imperialist content' of colonial revolutions, and quoting Lenin (with­ imperialist demonstration, or of obtaining assistance from the out any justification whatever), Bukharin proclaims: Chinese merchants for strikers in a foreign concession, etc. Such cases are not at all excluded in the future, even in China. But in that case The liberal bourgeoisie in China played an objectively revolutionary role why are f?nmi/political conditions adduced here, namely,4. . -in so over a period of a number of years, and not months* Then it exhausted itself. This was not at all a political 'twenty-four hour' holiday of the far as the bourgeoisie does not obstruct the revolutionary organization type of the Russian liberal revolution of 1905. of the workers and peasants and wages a genuine ['] struggle against 1 imperialism ? The sole 'condition' for every agreement with the Everything here is wrong from the beginning to end* bourgeoisie, for each separate, practical, and expe

Daar word groot ophef gemaak in word nou bloolgestel. volhou, was om iemand te aanvaar die kapitalistiese pers oor die Die ou melodes van beheer kan wal voorgee dat hy bo die Presidenlsraad en alle grondwetlike nie mecr die stroom van swart teenstrydige klasse staan". (Rand veranderinge wal voorgestel word weerstand in loom hou nie. Die Daily Mail, 19/5/82). deur die regering. Oil word beskryf voorstelle van die Presidenlsraad is Die kapitaliste in Suid-Afrika as "tydvakskeppende" hervorm- *n swak poging om 'n nuwe manier word al hoe meer gedwing om hulle inge. Maar, soos een werker dil slel, van beheer uil le werk. Hierdie hoop op oorlewing in so 'n "dis maar nog nel weer 'n bieljie wanhopige poging om die swan- Bonaparlisfiese regering le plans, 'n jam in die mond". mense le skei deur die medewerking Kegering wat staatmaak op ba- Vir die arbeiders is hierdie van middelsland kleurling- en Indier jonelte, wat balanseer en been en veranderinge waardeloos. Ons leiers le kry, is hopeloos. weer swaai onder die druk nodig 'n demokraliese regering van Die middelklas kan ook sien dal van teenoorgestelde klasse, in die werkende mense—'n regering die 'verleenwoordiging' aangebitrd 'n poging om die onderdruktes en wal slaaflone, paswette, vernedering word in *n 'Volksraad' wie se gesag uitgebuites met 'n skrikbewind in op grond van ras en alle al min is en nog verder verminder loom te hou, en ook die groeiende marleling onder apariheid—wal word. Dis nel dwase en verwaande onlevredenheid onder die blankes te elke dag swaarder gemaak word middelklasleiers wal so 'n lee, stuk- beheer. deur die ekonomiese krisis—lol 'n kende drom wil slaan, en wal wil Stappe in hierdie rigling dui aan einde kan bring. pronk sonder vere. ii verswakking en verrotting onder Die Presidenlsraad is 'n lee Nie een enkele probleem van die die heersende klas, en bewys dat dop. werkers kan deur die bankroi grool moontlikhede vir n verander- Hierdie knoeiery deur die kapitaliste opgelos word nie—hulle ing van ons samelewing aan die kom heersende klas is "n leken van die kan selfs nie die swart middelsland Is. Dit vereis dat die winsslelsel revolusionere krisis wal begin onts- tevrede stel nie. Die lede van die uitgeroei moel word, en dat die taan. As gevolg van die herlew- middelklas kyk al hoe meer na die miliiere-polisie diklalorskap wat die ing in die arbeidersbeweging en die geinspireerde arbeidersbeweging om verrotte stelsel beskerm, verpletter wereldwye krisis van kapilalisme die pad vooruit te vind. moet word. word die hele polilieke almosfeer Hoe meer blanke ondersleuning Die metode van guerillaslryd is verander. links en regs vertore raak, hoe mecr nie voldoende nie. Die pad vorentoe Die meerderheid van die mense is word die kapitaliste verdeel. Om hul en na oorwinning kan alleenlik ge- al lank aangedryf deur die twee slelsel te red, berei hulle hul voor vind word in die opbou van die swepe van kapitalisliese uilbuiling om wal oorbly van 'demokrasie* uit georganiseerde gewapende mag van en onderdrukking as 'n volk deur te roei, en om hulle regering op die die arbeiders, wie se toenemende die sisleem van goedkoop arbeid en masjienerie van die leer en polisie te selfbewustheid en sterkte alreeds die 'n diklalorskap gegrond op die grond. base laal skrik. Eendrag in aksie steun van blankes. Die ware betekenis van die nuwe deur al die onderdruktes kan ron- Hierdie hele slrukluur begin nou voorstelle is te vinde in die aanstell- dom hierdie aantrekkingskrag kraak onder die haelslorm van stak- ing van 'r. 'Ultvoerende President' gesmee word. inge, boikolte en demonslrasies met geen beperking op sy gesag nie. Die stryd vir demokrasie, na- gelei deur die balaljonne werkers. Die doel van hierdie stappe is sionale bevryding en gemeen- Die onderdrukle massa weier om duidelik beskryf in die pers van die skaplike hervorminge kan alleenlik langer nederig le wees leenoor die kapilaliste. Een woordvoerder het met sekerheid bekom word deur die heersende klas. *n vergelyking getref met die bevestiging van 'n demokraliese In die poging om hul profyl le diklalorskap van Bonaparte arbeidersregering, wat die grondslag beskerm. word die kapitaliste (Napoleon III, 1850-1871) in vir sosialisme kan aanle. verplig om die gemaksloel van voor- Frankryk, waar die kapitaliste so 'n Die plig van alle aktiviste is om reg onder die blanke arbeiders uit le regering toegelaat het omdal "die die ANC doelbewus op te bou as die irek. Die verf wal jare lank die enigsle wyse waardeur hulle hul instrument van hierdie stryd, op die skeure in die blanke gemeenskap materiele belange, hul gemeen- basis van hierdie program en weggesleek hel, dop nou af en skaplike gesag en die onderdrukking perspeklief. verdenking onder blanke arbeiders van die arbeidersrevolusie kon 5 or a particular section of it; finally, and ihis ts most important, by the towards Tsarism and the revolutionary classes in Russia, but, if decree of class activity of the native proletariat, and by the state of its anything, viler and more reactionary. That is the only way to pose connections with tbe international revolutionary movement. the question. A democratic or national liberation movement may offer the bourgeoisie an opportunity to deepen and broaden its possibilities for The Chinese bourgeoisie is sufficiently realistic and acquainted exploitation. Independent intervention of the proletariat on the intimately enough with the nature of world imperialism to understand revolutionary arena threatens to deprive the bourgeoisie of the possi­ that a really serious struggle against the latter requires such an bility to exploit altogether. upheaval of the revolutionary masses as would primarily become a menace to the bourgeoisie itself. If the struggle against the Manchu Let us observe some facts more closely. Dynasty was a task of smaller historical proportions than the over­ The present inspirers of the Comintern have untiringly repeated throw of Tsarism, then the struggle against world imperialism is a task that Chiang Kai-shek waged a war 'against imperialism' whilst on a much larger scale; and if we taught the workers of Russia from the Kerensky marched hand in hand with the imperialists* Ergo: whereas very beginning not to believe in the readiness of liberalism and the a ruthless struggle had to be waged against Kerensky, it was necessary ability of petty bourgeois democracy to overthrow Tsarism and to to support Chiang Kai-shek/ destroy feudalism, we should no less energetically have imbued the The ties between Kerenskyism and imperialism were indisputable. Chinese workers from the outset with the same spirit of distrust. The One can go even still further back and point out that tbe Russian new and absolutely false theory promulgated by Stalin-Bukharin bourgeoisie 'dethroned' Nicholas II with the blessings of British and about the 'immanent' revolutionary spirit ofthe colonial bourgeoisie French imperialism. Not only did Miliukov-Kerensky support the is, in substance, a translation of Menshcvism into the language of war waged by Lloyd George-Poincart, but Lloyd George and Chinese politics. It serves only to convert the oppressed position of f Poincart also supported Miliukov's and Kerensky s revolution first China into an internal political premium for the Chinese bourgeoisie, against the Tsar, and later against the workers and peasant). This is and it throws an additional weight on the scale of the bourgeoisie absolutely beyond dispute. against the scale of the trebly oppressed Chinese proletariat. Bur how did matters stand in this respect in Chini? The 'February1 revolution in China took place in 1911. That revolution was a great But, we are told by Stalin and Bukharin, the authors of the draft and progressive event, although it was accomplished with the direct programme, Chiang Kai-shek's northern expedition roused a pow­ participation of the imperialists. Sun Yat-sen, in his memoirs, relates erful movement among the worker and peasant masses. This is incon­ how his organization relied in all its work on the 'support* of the testable. But did not the fact that Guchkov and Shulgin brought with imperialist states — either Japan, France, or America* If Kerensky in them to Petrograd the abdication of Nicholas II play a revolutionary 1917 continued to take part in the imperialist war, then the Chinese role? Did it not arouse the most downtrodden, exhausted, and timid bourgeoisie, the one that is so 'national', so 'revolutionary*, etc., strata of the populace? Did not the fact that Kerensky, who but supported Wilson's intervention in the war with the hope that the yesterday was a Trudovik, became the President of the Ministers' Entente would help to emancipate China. In 1918 Sun Yar-sen Council and the Commander-in-Chief, rouse the masses of soldiers? addressed to the governments of the Entente his plans for the Did it not bring them to meetings? Did it not rouse the village to its economic development and political emancipation of China. There feet against the landlord? The question could be posed even more is no foundation whatever for the assertion that the Chinese widely. Did not the entire activities of capitalism rouse the masses, bourgeoisie, in its struggle against the Manchu Dynasty, displayed did it not rescue them, to use the expression of the Communist any higher revolutionary qualities than the Russian bourgeoisie in the MarnfestOt from the idiocy of rural life? Did it not impel the prol­ struggle against Tsarism; or that there is a principled difference etarian battalions to the struggle? But does our historical evalua­ between Chiang Kai-shek's and Kerensky1* attitude toward tion ofthe objective role of capitalism as a whole or of certain actions of the bourgeoisie in particular, become a substitute for our active imperialism. class revolutionary attitude toward capitalism or toward the actions of But, says the ECCI, Chiang Kai-shek nevertheless did wage war the bourgeoisie? Opportunist policies have always been based on this against imperialism. To present the situation in this manner is to put kind df non-dialectical, conservative, tail-endist 'objectivism*. Marx­ too crude a face upon reality. Chiang Kai-shek waged war against ism on the contrary invariably taught that the revolutionary consequ­ certain Chinese militarists, the agents of cm/ of the imperialist powers. ences uf one or another act of the bourgeoisie, to which it is compelled This is nor at all the same as to wage a war against imperialism. Even by its position, will be fuller, more decisive, less doubtful, and firmer, Tang Ping-shan understood this. In his report to the Seventh Plenum the more independent the proletarian vanguard will be in relation to of the ECCI (at the end of 1926) Tang Ping-shan characterized the the bourgeoisie, the less it will be inclined to place its fingers between policy of the Kuomintang centre headed by Chiang Kai-shek as the jaws ofthe bourgeoisie, to see it in bright colours, to over-estimate follows: its revolutionary spirit or its readiness for a 'united front* and for a struggle against imperialism. In the sphere of international policy it occupies a pasvive position in the full meaning of that word... It is inclined to fight only agaimt British The Stalinist and Bukharinist appraisal of the colonial bourgeoisie imperialism; so far as the Japanese imperialists are concerned, however, cannot stand criticism, cither theoretical, historical, or political. Yet it is ready under certain conditions to make a compromise wjih them. (Minutes of the Seventh Plenum, £CC/. Vol. I. p. 406) this is precisely the appraisal, as we have seen, that the draft prog­ ramme seeks to canonize. The attitude of the Kuomintang toward imperialism was from the very outset not revolutionary but entirely opportunist. It endeavoured to smash and isolate the agents of certain imperialist powers so as to make a deal with tbe self-same or other imperialist powers on terms more favourable for the Chinese bourgeoisie. That is One unexposed and uncondemned error always leads to another, or all. But the gist ofthe matter lies in the fact that the entire formulation prepares the ground for it. of the question is erroneous. If yesterday the Chinese bourgeoisie was enrolled in the united One must measure not the attitude of every given national revolutionary front, then today it is proclaimed to have 'definitely bourgeoisie to imperialism 'in general1, but its attitude to the gone over to the counterrevolutionary camp*. It is not difficult to immediate revolutionary historical tasks of its own nation. The Rus­ expose how unfounded are these transfers and enrolments which have sian bourgeoisie was the bourgeoisie of an imperialist oppressor state; been effected in a. purely administrative manner without any serious the Chinese bourgeoisie, a bourgeoisie of an oppressed colonial coun­ Marxist analysis whatever. try. The overthrow of feudal Tsarism was a progressive task in old It is absolutely self-evident that the bourgeoisie in joining the camp Russia. The overthrow ofthe imperialist yoke is a progressive historic of the revolution does so not accidentally, not because it is light- Lai task in China. However, the conduct of the Chinese bourgeoisie in minded* but under the pressure of its own class interests. For fear of relation to imperialism, the proletariat, and the peasantry, was not the masses the bourgeoisie subsequently deserts the revolution or mope revolutionary than the attitude of the Russian bourgeoisie openly displays its concealed hatred of the revolution. But the TRADE UNION UNITY- Which way forward now?

In mountaineering, the dangers in a false step become the greater the higher up a cliff one succeeds in going. So it is in the fey Rocco Malgas] class struggle, where all kinds of unforeseen barriers, crumbling land Paul Storey J footholds and sudden high winds imperil the unwary climber. The growing power of black workers organised in the indepen­ dent unions—now 300 000 altogether—is the single most impor­ the nationwide stoppage by 100 000 tant advance in the past ten turbulent years. The ability of the workers lo protest Neil Aggett's workers to build their own strong organisations through repeated murder; the metal and engineering militant struggles establishes the working class, not in theory but strikes which brought 120 000 out in the East Rand; the unprecedented in visible fact, as the decisive force that can challenge the power wage strikes involving possibly of the ruling class and show a way forward to all the oppressed. 70 000 mineworkers on nine gold This very fact gives the question of trade union unity a mines; and now the hard-fought significance that goes far wider than the union members and im­ strike in the motor assembly plants of mediate union issues. With the economic climate worsening sharp­ the Eastern Cape. ly, with the bosses and the state preparing new attacks, the Workers have begun to sense the immense potential power in their own breakdown of efforts to unite the unions in a single independent hands, if only they can combine in federation endangers the progress of the entire movement. full strength against the bosses and Union leaders bear a responsibility as never before to all op­ the state. This is (he basis of the pressed and exploited people to ensure that the obstacles to unity tremendous enthusiasm of the rank- and-file workers for trade union are overcome. unitv. 207 strikes and stoppages in ty and changed psychology of the 1980; 342 in 1981—the bald of­ When the first unity conference working class which in fact they took place in Cape Town in August ficial statistics show something of represent. last year, such was the pressure of the the rising scale of workers' ac- Already this year more than 200 ranks that not a single leader of any tions, but not the courage, tenaci- strikes have taken place: among them union seriously involved in struggle

Delegates at this year's FOSATU Congress 6 bourgeoisie tan go over "definitely to the counter-revolutionary camp\ autonomous class organizations, to break ruthlessly all organizational that is, free iiself from (he necessity of 'supporting* the revolution lies not only with the liberal bourgeois, but also with the revolutionary again, oral least of flirting with irt only in the event thai its fundamen­ petty-bourgeois parties, to win over the working class in the struggle tal class aspirations arc satisfied either by revolutionary means or in against these parties, and through the workers fight against these another way (for instance, the Bismarckian way). Let us recall the parties for influence over the peasantry? Did we not commit here a history of the pehod of 1848-1871. Let us recall that the Russian 'Trotskyism mistake? Did we not skip over, in relation to these bourgeoisie was able to turn its back so bluntly upon the revolution of oppressed, and in many cases very backward nations, the phase of 1905 only because the revolution gave it the State Duma, that is, it development corresponding to the Kuomintang? received the means whereby it could bring direct pressure to bear on Asa matter of fact how easily one could construct a theory that the ihe bureaucracy and make deals with it. Nevertheless, when the war 1 Of 19J4-1917 revealed the inability of the 'modernized1 regime to P.P.S., Dashnak-Tsutiun, the Bund, etc, were 'peculiar forms of secure the basic interests of the bourgeoisie, the latter again turned the necessary collaboration of ihe various classes in the struggle towards the revolution, and made its turn more sharply than in 1905. against the autocracy and against national oppression! How can Can anyone maintain that the revolution of 1925-1927 in China has such historical lessons be forgotten? at least partly satisfied the basic interests of Chinese capitalism? No. For a Marxist it was clear even prior to the Chinese eventsof the last China is today just as far removed from real national unity and from three years — and today it should be clear even to ihe blind — that tanffautonomyasit waspnorto 1925* Yet, the creation of a unified foreign imperialism, as a direct factor in the internal life of China, domestic market and its protection from cheaper foreign goods is a renders the Chinese Miliukovs and Chinese Kercnskys in the final life-and-death question for the Chinese bourgeoisie, a question analysis even more vile than their Russian prototypes. It is not for second in importance only to that of maintaining the basis of its class nothing that the very first manifesto issued by our party proclaimed domination over the proletariat and the peasant poor. But, for the that the further East we go, the lower and viler becomes the Japanese and the British bourgeoisie the maintenance of the colonial bourgeoisie, the greater arc the tasks that fall upon the proletariat. status of China is likewise a question of no less importance than This historical 'law* fully applies to China as well. economic autonomy is for the Chinese bourgeoisie. That is why there Our revolution is a bourgeois revolution, the workers must support the will still be not a few leftward zigzags in the policy of the Chinese bourgeoisie — say the worthless politicians from the camp of the bourgeoisie. There will be no lack of temptations in the future for the liquidators. Our revolution is a bourgeois revolution, say we who are amateurs of the 'national united front*. To tell the Chinese com­ Marxists, The workers must open the eves of the people to the fraud of the munists today that their alliance with ihe bourgeoisie from 1924 to the bourgeois politicians, teach them not to place trust in promises and to rely end of 1927 was correct but That it is worthless now because the onrA/trOlF\'fonm,onf/imOW'N organization, onthetrOWN unity, and bourgeoisie has definitely gone over to the coupler-revolutionary on their OWN weapons alone. (Lenin, Works, Vol. XIV, parti, p,ll.) camp, is to disarm the Chinese communists once again in face of the This Leninist thesis is compulsory for the Orient as a whole. It must coming objective changes in the situation and the inevitable leftward by all means find a place in the programme of the Comintern. zigzags of the Chinese bourgeoisie. The war now being conducted by Chiang Kai-shek against the North already overthrows completely the 2- The Stages of the Chinese Revolution mechanical schema of the authors of the draft programme* The first stage of the Kuomintang was the period of domination of the national bourgeoisie under the apologetic label of a 'bloc of four classes1. The second period, after Chiang Kai-shek's coup d'etat, was an experiment of parallel and 'independent* domination of Chinese Kercnskyism, in the shape of the Hankow government of the 'Left' Wang Ching-wei. While the Russian Narodniks, together with the But the principled error of the official formulation ot the question Mensheviks, lent to their short-lived 'dictatorship' the form of an will doubtless appear more glaringly, more convincingly, and more open dual power, the Chinese 'revolutionary democracy* did not even incontrovertibly if we recall the fact which is still fresh in our minds, reach that stage. And inasmuch as history in general does not work to and which is of no little importance, namely, that Tsarist Russia was a order, there only remains for us to understand thai there is not and will combination of oppressor and oppressed nations, that is of Great not be any other 'democratic dictatorship* except the dictatorship Russians and 'foreigners', many of whom were in a completely colo­ exercised by the Kuomintang since 1925. This remains equally true nial or semi-colonial status, Lenin not only demanded that the regardless of whether the semi-unification of China accomplished by greatest attenuon be paid to the national problem of the peoples in the Kuomintang is maintained in the immediate future or the country Tsarist Russia but also proclaimed (against Bukhann and Others) that is again dismembered. But precisely at a lime when the class dialectics it was the elementary duly of the proletariat of the dominant nation of the revolution, having spent all its other resources, clearly and to support ihe struggle of the oppressed nations Tor their self- conclusively put on the order of the day the dictatorship of the determination, up to and including secession. But did the party con­ proletariat, leading the countless millions of oppressed and disinher­ clude from this that the bourgeoisie of the nationalities oppressed ited in city and village, the ECCI advanced the slogan of a democratic by Tsarism (the Poles, Ukrainians, Tartars. Jews, Armenians, and (i.e.»bourgeois democratic) dictatorship of the workers and peasants. others) were more progressive, more radical, and more revolutionary The reply to this formula was the Canton insurrection which, with all its prematurity, with all the adventurism of its leadership, raised than the Russian bourgeoisie? Historical experience bears out the fact the curtain of a new stage, or, more correctly, of the coming tiara that the Polish bourgeoisie — notwithstanding the fact that it suffered Chinese revolution. It is necessary to dwell on this point in some both from the yoke of the autocracy and from national oppression — was more reactionary than the Russian bourgeoisie and, in the State detail Dumas, always gravitated not towards the Cadets but towards the Seeking to insure themselves against their past sins, the leadership Octobrists. The same is true of the Tartar bourgeoisie. The fact that the Jews had absolutely no rights whatever did not prevent the Jewish monstrously forced the course of events at the end of last year and bourgeoisie from being even more cowardly, more reactionary, and brought about the Canton miscarriage. However, even a miscarriage more vile that the Russian bourgeoisie. Or perhaps the Esthonian can leach us a good deal concerning the organism of the mother and bourgeoisie, the Lettish, the Georgian, or the Armenian bourgeoisie the process of gestation. The tremendous and, from the standpoint of were more revolutionary than the Great Russian bourgeoisie? How theory, truly decisive significance of the Canton events for the funda­ could anyone forget such historical lessons! mental problems of the Chinese revolution is conditioned precisely upon the fact that we have here a phenomenon rare in history and Or should we perhaps recognize today, after the event, that Bol­ politics, a virtual laboratory experiment on a colossal scale We have paid shevism was wrong when — when in contradistinction to the Bund, for it dearly, but this obliges us all the more to assimilate its lessons. theDashnaks,theP.P.S.ers, thcGeorgianandotherMensheviks— One of the fighting slogans of the Canton insurrection, according to it called upon the workers of all the oppressed nationalities, of all the the account inPrapda (No. 3D, was the cry 'Down with the Kuomin­ colonial peoples in Tsarist Russia, at the very dawn of the bourgeois tang!' The Kuomintang banners and insignia were torn down and democratic revolution^ to dissociate themselves and form their own trampled underfoot. But even after the 'betrayal1 of Chiang Kai-shek, could oppose it. The few that stayed away felt obliged at least to declare support for unity "in principle". The path from the first conference "...tremendous enthusiasm of the rank- posed before the unions the problem of how to organise unity: how to and-file workers for trade union unity." meet together, build together, discuss and decide together in a democratic and disciplined way the appropriate actions. the mass organisations with genuine of the trade unions' existence—and The inter-union solidarity commit­ roots in the factories have been under to link this to a call for the forma­ tees formed as a result of the con­ increasing pressure of the workers tion of a single, united trade union ference took shape in only a few either to evolve towards the left, or federation. areas. This reflected no lack of sup­ to hold firmly to that course. The Wilgespruit conference of 15 port for the idea by the union The line of march of the working unions and federations, which met members, but more the uncertainty class brings i( inevitably into bigger two weeks later, was thus presented over how to use these committees and and more decisive confrontations with an unavoidable choice: begin to where they should lead. with the combined forces of the translate the earlier, tentative moves In the months that followed, the bosses, and with the state which and talks about unity into concrete unions continued to chew over the shelters them. organisation—or crystallise the dif­ unity question, while all the time be­ This makes united trade union ferences into rival federations and ing stretched in action as strikes organisation imperative—while groupings. brought thousands of new recruits in­ simultaneously making it all the What was on the one hand a to their ranks. harder lo achieve. tremendous opportunity for common The toughest obstacles to unity are advance, thus carried within it on the not so much the specific differences other hand the chemical elements for between union leaderships over tac­ a crisis of disunity if the opportunity Growth tical and organisational questions, was not grasped. but rather the conflicting political The walkout by the MACWUSA directions—or tendencies—which delegation—not in itself crucial All the major independent unions these differences are known to because of the very small size of this have grown rapidly, some on firmer express. union—was nevertheless a very im­ foundations than others, with Underlying the disputes over portant symptom. For, by the time of vigorous factory committees and a registration, industrial councils, non- the July 'summit', it was clear that developed system of elected shop racialism, demarcation, etc., is the a major rift had opened up. stewards. question of the tasks and strategy of Discussions broke down with a By November 1981, for example, the working class in the struggle to number of union leaders, among FOSATU-the biggest of the in­ overthrow the regime, eliminate apar­ them the representatives of the vital­ dependent federations—reached theid, and destroy the dictatorship of ly important SAAWU, refusing to 95 000 members, up 35 000 in a the capitalists. participate in common organisation single year. Because the SA workers have no with unions which are either Of this increase, nearly half was mass party of their own; and because registered or take part in industrial provided by the growth of the Metal the ANC is not yet the mass force of councils. and Allied Workers' Union. organised workers which in time it Essentially, this means a refusal to This militant union, whose will become—the unions themselves unite with FOSATU. Transvaal branch alone is now 26 000 have inevitably become the forum in It must be stated without mincing strong, shows that the backbone for which the political tasks of the class words that this standpoint is a a fighting labour movement comes are most directly confronted and mistake. from the heavy battalions of the in­ argued out, in open and veiled ways, dustrial workers. within the movement. This changing composition of Neither the industrial nor the FOSATU, combining with the stor­ political tasks of the workers' move­ Intransigence my struggles of the period and the ment can be carried forward by a heightened confidence of the multiplicity of small organisations membership, has produced a shake- pulling in different directions—and An intransigent attitude against up of leadership within the even a hundred thousand members is political compromise with the bosses federation—encouraging it to begin really a tiny organisation in a labour and the regime is the greatest quality to address the tasks of the workers' force of 9 million and compared with of strength in a workers' leadership. movement not simply in their nar­ the immense power of the enemy. But 'intransigence' hides a rower economic ambit, but also in the That is why the speech of weakness when it manifests itself in wider struggle for a state and society FOSATU general secretary Joe defiant postures, hasty splitting and controlled by workers. Foster, endorsed by its Congress in ultimatums directed towards other While the development in April this year, was correct to organisations in which large bodies of FOSATU shows it most clearly, all acknowledge the political character our fellow workers are organising to 7 and the subsequent "betrayal1 of Wang Ching-wei (betrayals not of against the internal explosions of European capitalism today and iheir own class, but of our . . , illusions), the ECCI had issued the American capitalism tomorrow. This is what predetermines the solemn vow that: 4We will not surrender the banner of the gigantic scope and monstrous sharpness of the struggle that faces the Kuomintang!' The workers of Canton outlawed the Kuomintang masses of China, all the more so now when the depth of the stream of party, declaring all of tts tendencies illegal. This means that for the the struggle has already been plumbed and felt by all of its particip­ solution of the basic national tasks, not only the big bourgeoisie but ants. also the petty bourgeoisie was incapable of producing a political force, The enormous role of foreign capital in Chinese industry and its a parly, or a faction, in conjunction with which the parly of the way of relying directly in defence of its plunder on its own 'national' proletariat might be able to solve the tasks of the bourgeois democratic bayonets, render the programme of workers* control in China even revolution. The key to the situation lies precisely in the fact that the less realizable than it was in our country. The direct expropriation task ofwinning the movement ofthe poor peasants already fell entirely upon first of the foreign capitalist and then of the Chinese capitalist enter­ prises will most likely be made imperative by the course of the the shoulders ofthe proletariat, and directly upon the communist party; struggle, on the day after the victorious insurrection. and that the approach to a genuine solution of the bourgeois- democratic tasks of the revolution necessitated the concentration of all Those objective socio-histoheal causes which predetermined the power in the hands of the proletariat. 'October* outcome of the Russian revolution rise before us in China in Pravda carried the following report about the policies of the short­ a still more accentuated form. The bourgeois and proletarian poles'of lived Canton Soviet government: the Chinese nation stand opposed to each other even more irreconcil­ ably, if this is at all possible, than they did in Russia, since, on the one X. the interests of the workers, the Canton Soviet issued decrees hand, the Chinese bourgeoisie is directly bound up with foreign establishing . , . workers' control of industry through the factory imperialism and thclattcr's military machine, and since, on the other committees , . the nationalization of big industry, transporatinn, t hand, the Chinese proletariat has from the very beginning established and banks'. a close bond with the Comintern and the Soviet Union. Numerically Further on such measures are mentioned as: The confiscation of all the Chinese peasantry constitutes an even more overwhelming mass dwellings of the big bourgeoisie for the benefit of the toilers .,/ than the Russian peasantry*. But being crushed in the vice of world Thus it was the Canton workers who were in power and, contradictions, upon the solution of which in one way or another its moreover, the government was actually in the hands of the com­ munist party* The programme of the new state power consisted not fate depends, the Chinese peasantry is even less capable of playing a only in the confiscation of whatever feudal estates there may be in leading role than the Russian, At present this is no longer a matter of Kwantung in general; not only in the establishment of the workers1 theoretical forecast, but a fact verified completely in all its aspects. control of production; but also in the nationalization of big industry, banks, and transportation, and even the confiscation of bourgeois dwellings and all bourgeois property for the benefit of the toilers. These fundamental and, at the same lime, incontrovertible social The question arises: if these are the methods of a bourgeois revolu­ and political prerequisites of the third Chinese revolution demon­ tion then what should the proletarian revolution in China look like? strate not only that the formula of the democratic dictatorship has hopelessly outlived its usefulness, but also that the third Chinese revolu­ tion, despite the great backwardness of China, or more correctly, Notwithstanding the fact that tbe directives of the ECCI had ' because of this great backwardness as compared with Russia, will not nothing to say on the subject of the proletarian dictatorship and have a 'democratic' period, not even such a six month period as the socialist measures; notwithstanding the fact that Canton is more October Revolution had (November 1917 to July 1918); but it will petty-bourgeois in character than Shanghai, Hankow, and other be compelled from the very outset to effect the most decisive shake-up industrial centres of the country, the revolutionary overturn effected and abolition of bourgeois property in city and village, against the Kuomintang led automatically to the dictatorship of the proletariat which, at its very first steps, found itself compelled by the To be sure, this perspective does not harmonize with the pedantic entire situation to resort to more radical measures than those with and schematic conceptions concerning the interrelations between which the October Revolution began. And this fact, despite its economics and politics. But the responsibility for this disharmony so paradoxical appearance, flows quite lawfully from the social relations disturbing to the prejudices which have newly taken root and which of China as well as from the enure development of the revolution. were already dealt a not inconsiderable blow by the October Revolu­ tion must be placed not on 'Trotskyism' but on the km of uneven Large and middle-scale landed estates (such as obtain in China) arc development. In this particular case this law is especially applicable. most closely interlinked with city capital, including foreign capital. There is no caste of feudal landlords in China in opposition to the bourgeoisie* The most widespread, common, and hated exploiter in It would be unwise pedantry to maintain that, had a Bohhcvik the village is the kulak-usurer, tbe agent of finance capital in the cities. policy been applied in the revolution of 1925-27, the Chinese Com­ The agrarian revolution is therefore just as much anti-feudal as it is munist Party would unfailingly have come to power. But it is con* anti-bourgeois in character. In China, there will be practically no such temptiblc Philistinism to assert that such a possibility was entirely out of the question. The mass movement of workers and peasants stage as the firsj stage of our October revolution in which the kulak was on a scale entirely adequate for this, as was also the disintegra­ marched with the middle and poor peasant, frequently ai their bead, tion of the ruling classes. The national bourgeoisie sent its Chiang against the landlord. The agrarian revolution in China signifies from Kai-sheks and Wang Ching-weis as envoys to Moscow, and through the outset, as it will signify subsequently, an uprising not only against its Hu Han-mins knocked at the door of the Comintern, precisely the few genuine feudal landlords and the bureaucracy, but also against because it was hopelessly weak in face of the revolutionary masses; the kulaks and usurers. If in our country the poor peasant committees it realized its weakness and sought to insure itself. Neither the workers appeared on the scene only during the second stage of tbe October nor the peasants would have followed the national bourgeoisie if we revolution, in the middle of 1918, in China, on the contrary, tbey will, ourselves had not dragged them by a rope. Had the Comintern pur­ in one form or another, appear on tJie scene as soon as the agrarian sued any sort of correct policy, the outcome of the struggle of the movement revives. The drive on the rich peasant will be the first and communist party for the masses would have been pre-determined— not the second step of the Chinese October. the Chinese proletariat would have supported the communists, while the peasant war would have supported the revolutionary proletariat. The agrarian revolution, however, is not the sole content of the If. at the beginning of the Northern expedition we had begun to present historical struggle in China. The most extreme agrarian organize Soviets in the 'liberated' districts (and the masses were in* revolution, the general division of land (which will naturally be sup­ stinctively aspiring for that with all their might and main) we would ported by the communist party to the very end), will not by itself have secured the necessary basis and a revolutionary running start, provide a way out of the economic blind alley. China requires just as wc would have rallied around us the agrarian uprisings, we would urgently national unity and .xonomic sovereignty, that is, customs have built our own army, we would have disintegrated the enemy autonomy, or more correctly, a monopoly of foreign trade. And this armies; and despite the youihfulness of the Communist Party of means emancipation from world imperialism — imperialism for which China, the latter would have been able, thanks to proper guidance China remains the most important prospective source not only of from the Comintern, to mature in these exceptional years and to assume power, if not in the whole of China at once, then at least enrichment but also of actual existence, constituting a safety valve t . 8 carry on a genuine and determined strives to include all workers In fact, looking to the future, is it fight. employed in the industry or area not clear that the workers of these Every union activist rightly and where it chooses to organise, and not unions, perhaps more than any jealously guards the achievements of just those who agree precisely with others, once organised together, his or her own organisation built at the politics of the union leaders. This would provide the central dynamo of the cost of lives and livelihoods under is necessary for effectiveness in in­ a militant united federation capable the constant menacing*pressure of the dustrial action, just as a strike com­ of drawing the workers of all sectors bosses and their police state. In South mittee has to try to bring out all into it? African conditions, differences over workers regardless of their differing policy—even differences of detail- viewpoints. can be felt as life-or-death issues af­ Unions have to have clear policies, Initiative fecting possibly the whole future of democratically decided by the the unions. membership—but unions are not But the vital struggle for correct themselves revolutionary parties or The initiative being taken by the policies must be carried on as a strug­ cadre organisations. It would lead to GWU towards practical co-operation gle to win the conscious support of fatal mistakes and the fragmenting of in the metal and engineering industry the mass of workers, first and the trade union movement if union with MAWU deserves the fullest sup­ foremost the organised workers. To leaders were to treat 'their' respective port. It ought to be made clear do this successfully—to avoid the organisations as an exclusive preserve throughout the movement that this, mountaineer's false step—a clear of the adherents of this or that and the other 'demarcation' ar­ perspective of the path ahead of the political standpoint within the rangements decided on, are intended movement is necessary. movement. as a move towards the single federa­ tion of industrial unions, so setting The current breakdown of the ef­ To galvanise unorganised workers an unambiguous example to others. forts towards trade union unity for the struggle, to maintain con- In the 1970s when the building of results most of all from an insuffi­ fidence> to achieve and sustain the new unions began, the choice bet­ ciently thought-out perspective: a vi­ leadership by the working class at the ween forming general unions and sion that is too narrow and too short- head of all the oppressed, it is unions confined within single in­ term. necessary for the trade union move­ dustries seemed an important issue of ment to march as a united army of strategic difference. But the suc­ labour, and not sink its forces in the cessful growth of the unions along Main task quicksands of disunity. both these lines (for example, GWU This is not at all to suggest that dif­ on the one hand; FOSATU unions on ferences should be shelved. the other) has brought us willy-nilly With only a fraction of industrial It is an essential part of trade union within a few years to the practical workers organised (hardly one-tenth democracy that the holders of differ­ solution of the matter. of African industrial workers), the ing views among the workers—not main task of building the trade only on occasional, specific issues, Marx loved the saying of Goethe, unions still lies before us. Millions of but also contending political "Theory is grey, but the tree of life workers remain to be recruited and tendencies—must be able to put their is evergreen." united in struggle—not in the dim case freely within all the unions; sub­ All should now be able to see the and distant future, but in the years ject only to the practical necessity need for one united organisation immediately ahead. that the will of the majority prevails within each industry, combining in when decisions are made, and The incapacity of capitalism to one national organisation of all minorities abide loyally by the workers. What would be the real dif­ ease the yoke of exploitation and discipline of such decisions while con­ 1 poverty on the shoulders of the work­ ference between one 'general union tinuing, if they wish, to argue for a with developed industrial sub­ ing people; the inability of the regime change. to concede reforms of any real structures, and a 'tight federation' of significance to workers—these in­ industrial unions with strong inter* Provided democracy is to be union councils for discussion and escapable facts guarantee a fiery scrupulously upheld within the pro­ future for the independent trade decision-making at local and national posed new federation, what possible levels? union movement and will frustrate •argument could there be for any the hopes of reformist elements union leadership, genuinely fighting By the end of last year FOSATU within the union leaderships to for the interests of the working class, already had 17 functioning inter- achieve a stable accommodation with to refuse to join? union 'locals', while both SAAWU the ruling class. To take a specific example: and GWU have recently indicated Placed in this context, the attempt SAAWU, GWU and MAWU have that industrial-based unionism would of some militant unionists to preserve arisen from different origins, have no longer be a problem for them. seemingly 'correct positions' in the followed different Methods of One of the obstacles raised against splendid isolation of little organisa­ organisation, and their leaders adhere entry into the 'tight' federation pro- tions is obviously absurd. Correct to differing policy positions on some psed by FOSATU is the expressed positions must be fought for and won issues. But it would be impossible to desire of individual unions to retain within the broadest ranks of the find a single sound reason why the their 'autonomy'. workers organising for action. fighting ranks of these unions should The trade union movement re­ be kept separated. By its nature, every trade union quires both autonomy and cen- R

in a considerable pari of China. And, above all, wc would nave had negative attitude toward the so-called 'permanent revolution*: a party. But something absolutely monstrous occurred precisely in the The current period of the Chinese revolution is a period of a bourgeois- sphere of leadership—a veritable historical catastrophe. The authori­ democratic revolution which has not been completed either from the ty of the Soviet Union, of the Bolshevik party, and of the Comintern economic standpoint (the agrarian revolution and the abolition of feudal served entirely, first, 10 support Chiang Kai-shek against an indepen­ relations), or from the standpoint of the national struggle against im­ dent policy of the communist party, and then to support Wang perialism (the unification of China and the eslablishment of national in­ dependence), or from the standpoint of the class nature of the state (the Ching-wei as the leader of the agrarian revolution. Having trampled dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry)... underfoot the very basis of Leninist policy and after breaking the spine of the young Communist Party of China, the ECCI predeter­ This presentation of motives is an unbroken chain of mistakes and mined the victory of Chinese Kcrenskyism over Bolshevism, of the contradictions. Chinese Miliukovs over the Kerenskys, and of British and Japanese The ECCI taught that the Chinese revolution must secure for imperialism over the Chinese Miliukovs. China the opportunity to develop along the road to socialism. This In this and in this alone lies the meaning of what took place in China goal could be achieved only if the revolution did not halt merely at the in the course of 1925-1927. solution of the bourgeois-democratic tasks but continued to unfold, passing from one stage to the next, i.e., continued to develop uninter­ J. Democratic Dictatorship or a Dictatorship of the Proletariat? ruptedly (or permanently) and thus lead China toward a socialist development. This is precisely what Marx understood by the term But how did the last Plenum of the ECCI evaluate the experiences 'permanent revolution*. How then can we, on the one hand, speak of a of the Chinese revolution, including the experience of the Canton non-capitalist path of development for China and, on the other, deny insurrection? What further perspectives did it outline? The resolution the permanent character of the revolution in general? of the February (1928) Plenum, which is the key to the corresponding But — insists the resolution of the ECCI — the revolution has not sections of the draft programme on this subject, says concerning the been completed, either from the standpoint of the agrarian revolution Chinese revolution; or from the standpoint of the national struggle against imperialism. Hence it draws the conclusion about the bourgeois-democratic It is incorrect to characterize it as a 'permanent' revolution |the position character of the "present period of the Chinese revolution*, As a matter of the representative of the ECCI]. The tendency to skip (?] over the of fact the 'present period' is a period of counter-revolution. The bourgeois-democratic stage of the revolution while simultaneously [?] ECCI doubtlessly intends to say that the new resurgence of the appraising the revolution as a 'permanent' revolution is a mistake analag- Chinese revolution, or the third Chinese nrw/ufim, will bear a ous to thai commuted by Trotsky in 1905 [?). bourgeois-democratic character because the second Chinese revolu­ tion of 1925-1927 solved neither the agrarian question nor the national The ideological life of the Comintern since Lenin's departure from question. However, even thus amended, this reasoning is based upon its leadership, that is, since 1923, consisted primarily in a struggle a total failure to understand the experiences and lessons of both the against so-called 'Trotskyism' and particularly against the 'permanent Chinese and the Russian revolutions. revolution/ How » it, then, that in the fundamental question of the Chinese revolution not only the Central Committee of the Communist The February 1917 revolution in Russia left unsolved all the inter­ Party of China, but also the official delegate of the Comintern, i.e., a nal and international problems which had led to the revolution — leader who was sent with special instruction, happen to commit the serfdom in the villages, the old bureaucracy, the war, and economic very same 'mistake' for which hundreds of men are now exi^d (o debacle. Taking this as a starting point, not only the S.R.'s and the Siberia and put in prison? The struggle around the Chinese question Menshcviks, but also a considerable section of the leadership of our has been raging for some two and a half years. When the Opposition ov n party tried to prove to Lenin that the 'present period of the declared that the old Central Committee of the Communist Party of revolution is a period of the bourgeois-democratic revolution*. In this, China (Chen Tu-hisiu), under the influence of (he false directives its basic consideration, the resolution of the ECCI merely copies from the Comintern, conducted an opportunist policy, this evalua­ the objections which the opportunists raised against the struggle for tion was declared to be 'slander.' The leadership of the Communist the dictatorship of the proletariat waged by Lenin in 1917. Party of China was pronounced irreproachable. The celebrated Tang Furthermore, it appears that the bourgeois-democratic revolution Ping-shan declared amid the general approval of the Seventh Plenum remains unaccomplished not only from the economic and national of the ECCI that: standpoint, but also from the 'standpoint of the class nature of the 'At the very first manifestations of Trotskyism, the Communist state (the dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry)'. This can mean only one thing: that the Chinese proletariat is forbidden to Pany of China and the Young Communist League immediately struggle for the conquest of power so long as no 'genuine' democratic adopted a unanimous resolution against Trotskyism*. (Minutes* p. government stands at the helm in China. Unfortunately, no instruc­ 205) tions are forthcoming as to where we can get it. But when, notwithstanding these 'achievements', events unfolded their tragic logic which led to the first and then to the second and even The confusion is further increased by the (act that the slogan of more frightful debacle of the revolution, the leadership of the Com* Soviets was rejected for China in the course of these two years on the munist Party of China, formerly flawless, was re-baptized as Men- ground that the creation of Soviets is permissible presumably only shevik and deposed in the space of twenty-four hours. At the same during the transition to the proletarian revolution (Stalin's time a decree was promulgated that the new leadership fully reflected 'theory') > But when the Soviet revolution broke out in Canton and the line of the Comintern. But no sooner did a new and a serious te$t when its participants drew the conclusion that this was precisely the arise than it was discovered that the new Central Committee of the transition to the proletarian revolution, they were accused of Trots­ Communist Party of China was guilty (as we have already seen, not in kyism*. Is the party to be educated by such methods? Is this the way to words, but in actions) of swerving to the position of the so-called assist it in the solution of supreme ta&ks? 'permanent revolution*. The delegate of the Comintern took the very To save a hopeless position, the resolution of the ECCI (without same path. This astonishing and truly incomprehensible fact can be any connection whatever with the entire trend of its thought) rushes in explained only by the yawning 'scissors' between the instructions of post-haste to its last argument — taken from imperialism. It appears the ECCI and the real dynamics of the revolution. that the tendency to skip over the bourgeois democratic stage, lis all the more [!] harmful because such a formulation of the question We shall not dwell here upon the myth of the 'permanent revolu­ eliminates!?] the most important national peculiarity of the Chinese tion' of 1905 which was placed in circulation in 1924 in order to sow revolution, which is a semi-colonial revolution'. confusion and bewilderment. We shall confine ourselves to an exami­ nation of how this myth broke down on the question of the Chinese The only meaning that these senseless words can have is that the imperialist yoke will be overthrown by some sort of non-proletarian revolution. dictatorship. But this means that the 'most important national pecul­ paragraph of the February resolution, from which the iarity' has been dragged in at the last moment in order to paint the J passage was taken, gives the following motives for its 9

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Striking Ford workers, 1980 cralism. It requires autonomy in the achieve complete agreement on a more on the strength and militancy sense that, within each industry, each constitution for the founding of a of the workers organised within it area, indeed each factory, there united federation. But it would be a than on its constitution. should be the greatest possible self- mistake to allow this to become the management by the organised main focus of attention, exaggerating The tragedy today is that dif­ workers of their own immediate the obstacles to a working ferences between union leaders are affairs. compromise. being turned into a gulf between A fighting, democratic labour unions at the very moment that the movement depends on initiative, and movement is facing a period of nothing stifles this more than the greater hardships and uphill battles bureaucratic mentality that Practical need even to defend its previous gains. The everything of the slightest working class has never needed trade significance must be referred for deci­ union unity more. sion 'somewhere else'. Over and over again it will be The recent quick growth of the But 'autonomy' should not be us­ shown that no important question in unions, accompanying the mounting ed to justify freelancing. The the life of the workers' movement is waves of strikes, took place against workers' movement stands or falls by finally settled by formulas and rules. a background of sharp expansion of its ability to mobilise the greatest In every organisation genuinely run the capitalist economy—reaching an numbers in all areas in action by workers, it is the workers' prac­ unprecedented growth of production together, with united demands, a tical need for effectiveness in action of 8% in 1980/81. The anxiety of the common strategy and at times also a which ultimately governs everything. bosses not lose output at such a time; single line of tactical command. Thus their ability more easily to afford Thus, for example, FOSATU's wage increases and other concessions; a democratic structure of central constitution recently had to be worker leadership and decision­ the hiring of additional labour—all amended to recognise the area shop gave rise to a heightened confidence making is essential to the advance of stewards' councils, which have arisen the trade union movement—and and combativity of the workers, those who stand against this on the to play an increasing role of leader­ which spread and was reinforced argument of 'autonomy' would be ship within the federation, and to through successful action. standing against the very need of the establish democratic regional workers to deploy against the enemy congresses. Since the last part of 1981, their full strength. In the same way, within a new however, the economy has begun to united federation, democracy and a slide again into recession. By the se­ Undeniably it will be difficult, even correct balance between autonomy cond quarter of this year, the squeeze with the best will on all sides, to and centralism would depend far was visible in all branches of produc- 9 Chinese national bourgeoisie or the Chinese petty-bourgeois 'democ­ border between civilized countries and countries which were for the first racy' in bright colours. This argument can have no other meaning. time definitely drawn by this war into the vortex of civilization, all Eastern But this only 'meaning' has been adequately examined by us in our countries and non*European countries — that Russia therefore could and should have manifested certain peculiarities which fall, of course, along chapter *On the Nature of the Colonial Bourgeoisie'. There is no need the general lines of world development but which make its revolution to return to this subject. different from all preceding revolutions of the Western European coun­ China is still confronted with a vast, bitter, bloody, and prolonged tries and which introduce certain panial innovations in approaching the struggle for such elementary things as the liquidation of the most countries of the Orient . (flUtf., p- 118). 'Asiatic1 forms of slavery, the national emancipation, and the unifica­ tion of the country. But as the course of events has shown, it is The 'peculiarity* which brings Russia closer to the countries of the precisely this that makes impossible in the future any petty-bourgeois Orient was seen by Lenin precisely in the fact that the young pro­ leadership or even semi-leadership in the revolution. The unification letariat, at an early stage, had to grasp the broom and sweep feudal and emancipation of China today is an international task, no less so barbarism and all sons of rubbish from its path toward socialism* than the existence of the USSR. This task can be solved only by means If, consequently, we art to take as our starling point the Leninist of a desperate struggle on the part of the downtrodden, hungry, and analogy between China and Russia, then we must say: from the persecuted masses under the direct leadership of the proletarian standpoint of the apolitical nature of the Stated all that could have been vanguard — a struggle not only against world imperialism, but also obtained through the democratic dictatorship in China has been put to against its economic and political agency in China, against the the test, first in Sun Yat-scn's Canton, then on the road from Canton bourgeoisie, including the 'national' bourgeoisie and all its democra­ to Shanghai, which culminated in the Shanghai coup tTetat^ and then tic flunkeys. And this is nothing tlse than the road toward the dic­ in Wuhan where the Left Kuomintang appeared in its chemically tatorship of the proletariat. pure form, i.e., according to the directives of the ECCI, as the organizer of the agrarian revolution, but in reality as its hangman. But Beginning with April, 1917, Lenincxptainedto his opponents* who the social content of the bourgeois-democratic revolution will fill the accused him of having adopted the position of the'permanent revolu­ initial period of the coming dictatorship of the Chinese proletariat and tion*, that the dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry was the peasant poor. To advance now the slogan of a democratic dictator­ realized partially in the epoch of dual power. He explained later that ship of the proletariat and the peasantry after the role not only of the this dictatorship met with its furthtu txtension during the first period Chinese bourgeoisie, but also of Chinese 'democracy' has been put to a of Soviet power from November 1917 until July 1918, when the entire thorough test, after it has become absolutely incontestable that peasantry, together with the workers, effected the agrarian revolution 'democracy' will play even a greater hangman's role in the coming while the working class did not as yet proceed with the confiscation of battles than in the past — to advance this slogan now is simply to the mills and factories, but experimented with worken1 control. So create the means of covering up the new varieties of Kuomintangism far as the 'class nature of the state1 was concerned, the and to prepare a noose for the proletariat. democratic-S.R.-Menshevik 'dictatorship' gave all that it could give — the miscarriage of dual power. As to the agrarian overturn, the Let us recall for the sake of completeness what Lenin tersely said revolution gave birth to a perfectly healthy and strong baby, but it was about those Bolsheviks who insisted upon counterposing to the the proletarian dictatorship that functioned as the midwife. In other S.R.-Menshevik experience the slogan of a 'genuine' democratic die* words, what the theoretical formula of the dictatorship of the pro­ tatorship: letariat and the peasantry had combined, was dissociated in the course % of the actual class struggle. The hollow shell of semi-power was Whoever now talks only about the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship provisionally entrusted to Kerensky-Tseretelli, while the real kernel of the proletariat and peasantry* hus lost touch with life, has, in virtue of this circumstance, gone over, in practice, to the petty bourgeoisie against of the agrarian-democratic revolution fell to the share of the victorious the proletarian class struggle; and he ought to be relegated to the museum working class. This dialectical dissociation of the democratic dictator^ of 'Bolshevik* pre-revolutionary antiquities (or, as one might call it, the 4 museum of old Bolsheviks*). (Works, Vol, XIVt pan I, p. 29). ship, the leaders of the ECCI failed to understand. They drove themselves into a political blind alley by condemning mechanically These words ring as if they were actually spoken today. any 'skipping over the bourgeois-democratic stage' and by endeavour­ Of course it is not at all a question of calling the Communist Party of ing to guide the historical process in accordance with circular letters. China to an immediate insurrection for the seizure of power. The pace Ifive are to understand by the bourgeois-democratic stage, the accomplish­ depends entirely upon the circumstances. The consequences of defeat ment of the agrarian revolution by means of a 'democratic dictatorship'* cannni be removed merely by revising the tactic. The revolution is then it was the Oc tober Revolution itself that audaaojisty * skipped* over the now subsiding. The half-concealing resolution of the ECCI, the bourgeois-democratic stage. Should it not be condemned for it? bombast about imminent revolutionary onslaughts, while countless people arc being executed and a terrific commercial and industrial Why is it then that the historically inevitable course of events which crisis rages in China, are criminal light-mindedness and nothing else. was the highest expression of Bolshevism in Russia must prove to be After three major defeats an economic crisis does not rouse but, on the Trotskyism' in China? No doubt owing to the very same logic which contrary, depresses the proletariat which, as it is, has already been declares to be suitable for China the theory of the Martynovs, a theory bled white, while the executions only destroy the politically weakened fought by Bolshevism for two decades in Russia* party. We are entering in China into a period of reflux, and conse­ Bui is it at all permissible to draw here an analogy with Russia? Our quently into a period in which the party deepens its theoretical roots, answer is that the slogan of a democratic dictatorship of the proletariat educates itself critically, creates and strengthens firm organizational and the peasantry was constructed by the leaders of the ECCI links in all spheres of the working class movement, organizes rural exclusively and entirely in accordance with the method of analogy, cells, leads and unites partial, at fim defensive and later offensive, but a formal and literary analogy and not a materialist and historical battles of the workers and the peasant poor. analogy. An analogy between China and Russia is entirely admissible if we find the proper approach to it, and Lenin made excellent use of What will turn the tide in the mass movement? What circumstarccs such an analogy. Moreover hedidsonota/ter but befoie the events, as will give the necessary revolutionary impulsion to the proletarian if he had foreseen the future blunders of the epigones. Hundreds of vanguard at the head of the many-mitlioncd masses? This cannot be times Lenin had to defend the October Revolution of the proletariat predicted. The future will show whether internal processes alone wiU that had the audaciry to conquer power notwithstanding the fact thai be sufficient or an added impulsion will have to come from without. the bourgeois-democratic tasks had not been solved. Precisely because There are sufficient grounds for assuming that the smashing of the of that, and precisely in order to do that, replied Lenin. Addressing Chinese revolution, directly due to the false leadership, will permit himself to the pedants, who in their arguments against the conquest of the Chinese and toreign bourgeoisie to overcome to a lesser or greater power referred to the economic immaturity of Russia for socialism, 4 degree the frightful economic crisis now raging in the country. Natur­ whkhwas incontesuble'forhimClTarfo,VoLXVIII,part2,p. 119), ally, this will be done on the backs and bones of the workers and Lenin wrote on January 16, 1923: peasants. This phase of lstabiluaiion' will once again group and fuse together the workers, restore their class self-confidence in order It docs not even occur to them, for instance, that Russia* standing on the subsequently to bring them into still sharper conflict with the enemy, 10 Already, as a result of the current motor industry strike, NAAWU has withdrawn from the Industrial Coun­ 44 cil for the motor industry because the A campaign of united action will help to workers refused to be crippled by the raise the pressure within all the unions for arbitration procedure which member­ ship of the IC made compulsory. lasting organisational links." A campaign of united action would serve to test before the workers the correctness of the policy of non- racialism and show that it is not—as lion. This has meant rcduciion of only by determined unity of the some allege—a sign of weak-kneed overtime; redundancies; and the workers for mutual self-defence. liberalism in the unions, but a vital hardening of the bosses' attitude in Therefore it is vital to pursue with part of class-consciousness; a deter­ dealing with workers. Mass patience, and with all possible speed, mination of workers to unite with dismissals again become their first the unification of the independent their class brothers and sisters against weapon against strikes. unions in one federation. all the divisive racial barriers erected by the apartheid state. Economic growth for 1981/82 The leaders of FOSATU should could fall to about Wo, with an ac­ not, out of a feeling of exasperation, A campaign of united action would tual drop in production expected for now limit their approach only to serve to drive from their hide-outs 1982/83. The downturn is thought "those unions whose actions have to and expose before the workers the likely to last at least two years, and date shown serious commitment" to reformist, compromising elements possibly much longer. unity—apparently "satisfied" to within the union leaderships— Because the ruling class confront leave the rest (their leaders and their elements which exist not only in non- a more organised and determined rank-and-file alike!) to the judgement racial unions but also in unions with working class than ever before, they of "history". History is capable of an exclusively black leadership. have to calculate more carefully being equally ruthless with all parts before launching a major assault of a divided labour movement. against the unions. Bui for the same Also, just because a united federa­ reason the crackdown, when the tion has been proposed, there is not ground for it has been prepared, is the slightest reason to throw out of Practical agreement likely to be all the more savage. the window the idea of a trade union One sign of the preparations is the united front. It is necessary as never power taken by the state to treat in­ before to have a programme of basic There should be no obstacles to dustrial action as 'sabotage', with demands agreed by the unions and a reaching practical agreement on striking punishable by 20 years im­ joint campaign of action on this prisonment. Another sign is the use basis. * Joint measures to fight of the Intimidation Act, probably as Even in the midst of a heated argu­ redundancies; a test, against strikers at Richards ment, don't two neighbours instant­ * A mutual defence pact Bay. ly join forces against a robber's at­ against victimisations and arrests A sense of the change in the period tack? That is exactly the approach of trade unionists, which would that the workers of all the indepen­ has been creeping into the marrow of immediately serve as a warning to all the union activists over much of dent unions will take to the matter, the past year. Tensing themselves for if it is posed without ultimatums and the state; the harsh confrontations ahead, they preconditions. ' \ joint campaign for a na­ have tended to become more rigid Workers are not interested in paper tional minimum wage to mobilise towards other unions in which oppos­ unity, but in unity for purposes of ac­ the unorganised into the unions. ing policies prevail. tion. A campaign of united action will help to raise the pressure within A national conference to discuss all the unions for lasting organisa­ these issues should be urgently tional links. considered. Divisions Moreover, it will provide the Success in implementing a national workers with the means to test out in programme of action, and the practice all policies, principles and building from this of a national Taking a resolute stand on 'prin­ leaderships, and should be welcom­ federation of all workers, would be ciple'—today, in fact, even tactical ed by all sides in the current disputes a stride forward not only for the differences are being awarded this within lhe union movement. workers presently organised in the in­ title—we can forget that the bosses' The arguments against industrial dependent unions. It would advance own first 'principle' of struggle is to councils and registration can be the struggle of the whole working manipulate divisions and drive driven home, not simply by theory, class and of all the oppressed. wedges into the workers' ranks. In but by bringing to light in the prac­ this way they single out groups of tical struggle the obstacles to effec­ workers for step-by-step attack, tiveness which they are designed to something which can be prevented impose. Ill but on a higher historical stage. Ii will be possible to speak seriously experiment of setting up a Soviet of workers' deputies and the gigantic about the perspective of an agrarian revolution only on the condition experiment of setting up a Soviet government, more than twelve years that there will be a new mounting wave of the proletarian movement rolled by* Of course, such a period is not at all required for all other on the offensive. countries, including China, But to think that the Chinese workers are It is not excluded that the first stage of the coming third revolution capable of building Soviets on the basis of the little recipe that has may reproduce in a very abridged and modified form the stages which been substituted for Lenin's broad generalization is to substitute im­ have already been passed, presenting, for instance, some new parody potent and importunate pedantry for the dialectic of revolutionary Of »he 'national united front*. But this first stage will be sufficient only action. Soviets must be set up not on the eve of the insurrection, 10 give the communist party a chance to put forward and announce its not under the slogan of immediate seizure of power—for if the matter 'April' thesis, that is, its programme and tactics of the seizure of has reached the point of the seizure of power, if the masses are pre­ power, before the popular masses. pared for an armed insurrection without a Soviet* it means that there have been othtfr organizational forms and methods which made possi­ But what docs the draft programme say on this? ble the performance of the preparatory work to ensure success of the 'The transition to the proletarian dictatorship is possible here [in China] only after a scries of preparatory stages [?] only as a result of a uprising. Then the question of Soviets becomes of secondary impor­ whole period Of the growing over [??] of the bourgeois-democratic tance and is reduced to a question of organizational technique or revolution into the socialist revolution'. merely to a question of denomination. The task of the Soviets is not In other words, all the 'stages* that have already been gone through merely to issue the call for the insurrection or to carry it out, but to lead arc not to be taken into account. '1 he draft programme still sees ahead the masses toward the insurrection through the necessary stages. At first the what has already been left behind .This is precisely what is meant by a Soviet rallies the masses not to the slogan of armed insurrection, but to tail-endist formulation. It opens wide the gates for new experiments in partial slogans, so that only later, step by step, the masses are brought the spirit of the Kuomintang course* Thus the concealment of the old towards the slogan of insurrection without scattering them on the road mistakes inevitably prepares the road for new errors. and without allowing the vanguard to become isolated from the class. The Soviet appears most often and primarily in connection with strike Ifwcentcrthenew upsurge, which will develop at an incomparably struggles which have the perspectives of revolutionary development, more rapid tempo than the last one, with a blueprint of "democratic but are in the given moment limited merely to economic demands. dictatorship1 that has already outlived its usefulness, there can bp no The masses must sense and understand while in action that the Soviet doubt that the third Chinese revolution, like the second, will be led to is their organization, that it marshals the forces for a struggle, for its doom. resistance, for self-defence, and for an offensive. They can sense and understand this not from an action of a single day nor in general from 5, Soviets and Revolution any single act, but from the experience of several weeks, months, and perhaps years, with or without interruptions. That is why only an In the February resolution of the ECCI the representatives of the epigonic and bureaucratic leadership can restrain the awakening and Comintern, 'Comrade N. and others*, are made responsible for the rising masses from creating Soviets in conditions when the country is 'absence of an elected Soviet in Canton as an organ of insurrection'. passing through an epoch of revolutionary upheavals and when the (Emphasis in the original). Behind this charge in reality lies an working class and the poor peasants have before them the prospect of astounding admission. capturing power, even though this is a perspective of one of the In the report oiPravda (No. 31), written on the basis of first-hand subsequent stages and even if this perspective can be envisaged in the documents, it was stated that a Soviet government had been estab­ given phase only by a small minority. Such was always our conception lished in Canton. But not a word was mentioned lo indicate that the of the Soviets. We evaluated the Soviets as that broad and flexible Canton Soviet was not an elected organ, j.f#J that ittvas not a Soviet — organizational form which is accessible to the masses who have just for how can there be a Soviet which was not elected? We learn this awakened at the very first stages of their revolutionary upsurge; and from the resolution* Let us reflect for a moment on the significance which is capable of uniting the working class in its entirety, indepen­ of this fact. The ECCI tells us now that a Soviet is necessary to dent of the siK of that section which, in the given phase, has already effect an armed insurrection, but by no means prior to that time. But matured to the point of understanding the task of the seizure of lo and behold! When the date for the insurrection is set, there is no power. Soviet. To create an elected Soviet is not an easy matter. It is necessary that the masses know from experience what a Soviet is, that they Is any documentary evidence really necessary? Here, for instance, understand its form, that they have learned something in the past to is what Lenin wrote about the Soviets in the epoch of the first accustom them to an elected Soviet organization. There was not even a revolution: sign of this in China, for the slogan of Soviets was declared to be a Trotskyist slogan precisely in the period when it should have become The Social Democratic Labour Party of Russia (the name of the party at the nerve centre of the entire movement. When, however, helter- that lime) has never refused to utilize at moments of greater tn tmalte* skelter, a date was set for an insurrection so as to skip over their own revolutionary upsurge certain non-party organizations of the type of Soviet* defeats, they simultaneously had to appoint a Soviet as well. If this of Workers' Deputies in order to strengthen the influence of the social democrats on the working class and to consolidate the social democratic error is not laid bare to the core, the slogan of Soviets can be trans­ labour movement* {Works Vol, VIII, p. 215). formed into a strangling noose of the revolution. t One could cite voluminous literary and historic evidence of this Lenin in his time explained to the Mensheviks that the fundamental type. But one would imagine that the question is sufficiently clear historical task of the Soviets ii to organize, or help organize, the without them. conquest of power so that on the day after the victory they become the r In contradistinction to this the epigones have converted the Soviets organ of that power. The epigones — and not the disciples — draw into an organizational parade uniform with which the party simply from this the conclusion that Soviets can be organized only when the dresses up the proletariat on the eve of the capture of power. But this twelfth hour of the insurrection has struck. Lenin's broad generaliza­ is precisely the time when we find that the Soviets cannot be impro­ tion they transformpostfacturn into a little recipe which does not serve vised in 24 hours, by order, for the direct purpose of an armed the interests of the revolution but imperils it. insurrection. Such experiments must inevitably assume a fictitious Before the Bolshevik Soviets in October 1917 captured power, the character and the absence of the most necessary conditions for the S.R. and Menshevik Soviets had existed for nine months. Twelve capture of power is masked by the external ritual of a Soviet system. years before, the first revolutionary Soviets existed in Petersburg, That is what happened in Canton where the Soviet was simply Moscow, and scores of other cities. Before the Soviet of 1905 was appointed to observe the ritual. That is where the epigone formulation extended to embrace the mills and factories of the capital, there was of the question leads. created in Moscow, during the strike, a Soviet of printers' deputies. Several months before this, in May 1905, a mass strike in Ivanovo* During the polemics on the Chinese events the Opposition was Voznesensk set up a leading organ which already contained all the accused of the following alleged flagrant contradiction: whereas from essential features of a Soviet of workers* deputies. Between the first 1926 on the Opposition advanced the slogan of Soviets for China, its 11 Black miners, organise!

The violent struggles which action? The mines will be complete­ ly paralysed." (Rapport 3.7.82). erupted at five gold mines in The rapid settlement with the July testify to the burning By Alan Green white miners is in ironic contrast to readiness of black miners to the long battle for a better deal they fight, despite overpowering would have had before them given odds, against the system the reliance of their leaders on state- which oppresses them. precedented in recent years. enforced arbitration procedures, 30 000 miners (including workers The response of the Chamber of their disunity and their isolation in coal and platinum mines) siruck Mines and the state was equally from the workers' movement. for a living wage, threatening the decisive. A police rampage left 10 Thus the black miners showed jugular vein of the apartheid miners dead, hundreds arrested and their enormous potential power. economy—the flow of gold and thousands endorsed out to the rural Given their strategic position in the valuable minerals produced by areas. economy, where mining accounts cheap black labour. for 60% of exports, they have the Soon afterwards, with blood on capacity to lead the struggle for a Boiling discontent on the mines its hands, the Chamber promptly better deal for all. was set off by the annual wage 'in­ settled the white miners dispute with creases' announced by the Chamber a 12% offer—an increase four times In the coming months that capaci­ of Mines, in April of 3% for white higher than they were prepared to pay ty will be tested again and again as miners, and in July of 12% for black initially. the bosses attempt to overcome pro­ blems in the mining industry at the miners. For black miners, this The vigour of the black miners' would have meant an increase of struggle and its impact on white expense of the workers. R14 per month, bringing starting miners' claims was even It is true that the mining bosses in wages to R129 per month. Inflation acknowledged by Arrie Paulus, South Africa, like those interna­ now runs at over 17% and the threat ultra-right racist leader of the Mine tionally, face problems of falling Workers' Union. He sounded an ad­ prices and rising costs. The gold of retrenchment grows daily. price has fallen from an average of The reaction of a section of white vance warning to the Chamber of Mines of the risk they were running US $613 per ounce in 1980 to miners was to begin the process of around $346 at the present time. legal strike action to enforce their in holding out on white miners' claims: "What do you think is going Working costs have risen from wage claim of 15%. In contrast, the to happen if the white mine workers R35.53 per ton milled in 1980 to reaction of black miners was almost strike and the blacks hear it is about R4I.53 in 1982, an increase of near­ instantaneous. Within hours there wages? Don't you think they'll take ly 18%. The cost of producing an was a wave of strike action un- ounce of gold in 1976 was R64—by 1981 it had risen to RI78 (Financial Times, 15.7.82). International infla­ PIltJlH Rustenburg 9 PRETORIA tion will continue to push working Dim costs up. JOHANNESBURG GENCOR What the Chamber of Mines fails Wtstonaria Springs Cmtvlil to emphasise, however, is that while CarletonvHte GENCOR costs are going up, and the dollar Vnttrtpist Mill price of gold is falling, the rand Nut MltMMl GOLD FIELDS price of gold has in fact gone up, because of the fall in the value of the GOLD FIELDS TRANSVAAL rand against the dollar. As a result, Orkney in the last quarter many mines GOLD FIELDS declared record profits (Buffelsfon- tein, for example, of 82%). StHtHtKl HIM But in spite of this the relentless GENCOR battle to keep working costs down will continue. The mine bosses are hrlii Newcastle showing this in their present mer­ GENCOR IlllUlli ciless three-pronged attack on the Cillliry Danhauser work force. OFS Firstly, they are reducing the size ISCOR of their operations. Most strikingly, G**~- NATAL al West Rand Consolidated, 3 400 The mines in Transvaal and Natal where workers moved into struggle. men are to be laid off. A represen-

12

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Kloof Gold Mine on 7 July. Police surrounded I 500 striking miners and drove them onto a soccer field. Company officials then /old them to accept the *vge 'increase'.... lalive of ihe Chamber has said thai to iheir black employees with a view members, measure up lo this "several other mines are to defusing militant action, perspective? Its decision to apply vulnerable". As many as a third are Despite this, the crisis on the for registration was a step in ihe in difficulty as the bosses protest an mines will continue to boil as the wrong direction; as are its reported insufficient level of profitability to bosses, with the support of the attempts to raise funds from continue their operations. regime, tighten the clamps on the employers whose profits rest entire­ Secondly, they are moving as fast workers. The whole South African ly on the brutal state-enforced as possible to bring black workers in economy, after all, depends on the system of cheap labour. Nor did it to do white jobs at lower rates of 'peace and prosperity' of the gold play any role in the recent strikes. pay. This year, the first black mines and the capitalists will strive All (his will mean it will be indentured apprentices were engag­ by all means to retain it. For them mistrusted by the vast mass of ed on the mines. gold is the engine of prosperity and miners. Thirdly, as the strikes indicate, they will allow no spanner to get in To enforce the black workers' they are doing their utmost to hold the works. demands, mass trade union miners' wages down. mobilisation and uncompromising Even so some still claim to be in struggle will be needed. The the dark. The Star editorial asks: development of a union which can "Does anyone know why miners Enormous potential forge links between the black miners riot?" (9.7.82). themselves, and other sections of The utter hypocrisy of this ques­ The black miners, however, will oppressed workers can also show a tion is entirely in keeping with the continue to be hampered in their lead to the white miners, who have media treatment of the unrest. The struggle for better wages and condi­ no future in isolation from the black words 'rampage' and 'riot' sit tions so long as their actions are miners. uneasily on their snakc-likc tongues disunited. The building of a na­ The building of a genuine union when the grievances which led to tional mine workers union to among the black miners demands these outbursts, of which they pro­ harness and direct their energies is the utmost support of all indepen­ fess blind ignorance, are a product the task of the day. The potential dent unions. The trade union unity of the very system they uphold. for a fighting trade union lo discussions need to put on the agen­ It was in a vain attempt to bolster organise and unite (he black mine da the urgency of a national that system that some mining com­ workers is enormous. organisation of mine workers. It is panies broke ranks with the Does the Black Mine Workers from them that the initiative should Chamber this year and offered 16% Union, which claims some 800 come for setting up a trade union 12 than The proportion of the proletariat in the unal population. This is due to the fact that the proletariat is in economic command of the central points socialism in one country. The authors of the draft attempt to tell in the and nerve centres of the entire capitalist system of economy, and also programme that which 'no one can tell* a priori. because the proletariat expresses economically and politically the real It is impermissible, impossible, and absurd to seek a criterion for interests of the vast majority of the toilers under capitalism. the 'sufficient minimum' within national states ('Russia prior to For this reason the proletariat even if it constitutes the minority of the 1917*) when the whole question is settled by international dynamics. population lor in cases where the conscious *nd truly revolutionary van­ guard of the proletariat comprises the minority of the population), is In this false, arbitrary, isolated national criterion rests the theoretical capable both of overthrowing the bourgeoisie and of attracting subse­ basis of national narrowness in politics, the precondition for inevita­ quently to its side many allies from among tht masses of semi-proletarians ble national-reformist and social patriotic blunders in the future. and petty bourgeois, who will never come out beforehand for the domina­ tion of the proletariat, who will not understand the conditions and tasks of 7. On the Reactionary Idea of 'Two-Class Workers' and Peasants' this domination, but who will convince themselves solely from their Parties* for the Orient subsequent experiences of the inevitability, justice, and legitimacy of the proletarian dictatorship, (Lenin, Works, The Year I919y Vol. XVI, p. The lessons of the second Chinese revolution are lessons for the 458). entire Comintern, but primarily for all the countries of the Orient. The role of the Chinese proletariat in production is already very All the arguments presented in defence of the Mcnshevik line in the great. In the next few years it will only increase still further. Its Chinese revolution must, if we take them seriously, hold trebly good political role, as events have shown, could have been gigantic- But the for India. The imperialist yoke assumes in India, the classic colony, whole line of the leadership was directed entirely against permitting infinitely more direct and palpable forms than in China. The survivals the proletariat to conquer the leading role. of feudal and serf relations in India are immeasurably deeper and The draft programme says that successful socialist construction is greater. Nevertheless, or rather precisely for this reason, the methods possible in China 'only on the condition that it is directly supported by which, applied in China, undermined the revolution, must result in countries under the proletarian dictatorship*. Thus, here, in relation India in even more fatal consequences. The overthrow of Indian to China, the same principle is recognized which the party has always feudalism and of the Anglo-Indian bureaucracy and British militarism recognized in regard to Russia. But if China lacks sufficient inner can be accomplished only by a gigantic and an indomitable movement forces for an independent construction of socialist society, then accord­ of the popular masses which precisely because of its powerful sweep ing to the theory of Stalin-Bukharin, the Chinese proletariat should and irresistibility, its international aims and ties, cannot tolerate any not seize power at any stage of the revolution. Or it may be that the half-way and compromising opportunist measures on the part of the existence of the USSR settles the question in just the opposite sense. leadership. Then it follows that our technology is sufficient to build a socialist The Comintern leadership has already committed not a few mis­ society not only in the USSR but also in China, i.e., in the two economically most backward countries with a combined popula­ takes in India. The conditions have not yet allowed these errors to tion of six hundred million. Or perhaps the inevitable dictatorship of reveal themselves on such a scale as in China. One can, therefore, the proletariat in China is 'inadmissible1 because that dictatorship will hope that the lessons of the Chinese events will permit of a more be included in the chain of the world-wide socialist revolution, thus timely rectification of the line of the leading policy in India %nd in becoming not only its Link, but its driving force? But this is precisely other countries of the Orient. Lenin's basic formulation of the October Revolution, the 'peculiarity' The cardinal question for us here, as everywhere and always, is the of which follows precisely along the lines of development of the question of the communist party, its complete independence, its Eastern countries. We see thus how the revisionist theory of socialism irreconcilable class character. The greatest danger on this path is the in one country, evolved in 1925 in order to wage a struggle against organization of so-called * workers' and peasants' parties' in the coun­ Trotskyism, distorts and confuses matters each time a new major tries of the Orient. revolutionary problem is approached. Beginning with 1924, a year which will go down as the year of open revision of a number of fundamental theses of Marx and Lenin, Stalir The draft programme goes sail further along this same road. It advanced the formula of the 'two-class workers' and peasants' parties counterposes China and India to 'Russia before 1917' and Poland for the Eastern countries1. It was based on the self-same national Cetc.*?) as countries with 'a certain minimum of industry sufficient for oppression which served in the Orient to camouflage opportunism, as the triumphant construe! ion of socialism', or (as is more definitely did "stabiliration" in the Occident. Cables from India, as well as from and therefore more erroneously stated elsewhere) as countries posses* Japan, where there is no national oppression, have of late frequently sing the 'necessary and sufficient material prerequisites ... for the mentioned the activities of provincial 'workers' and peasants' parties/ complete construction of socialism'. This, as we already know, is a referring to them as organizations which are close and friendly to the mere play upon Lenin's expression 'necessary and sufficient' prere­ Comintern, as if they were almost our 'own' organizations, without, quisites; a fraudulent and an impermissible jugglery because Lenin however, giving any sort of concrete definition of their political definitely enumerates the political and organizational prerequisites, physiognomy; in a word, writing and speaking about them in the same including the technical* cultural, and international prerequisites. But way as was done only a short while ago about the Kuonuntaog. the chief point that remains is: how can one determine a priori the Back in 1924, Pravda reported that: 'There are indications that the 'minimum of industry1 sufficient for the complete building of movement of national liberation in Korea is gradually taking shape in socialism once it is a question of an uninterrupted world struggle the form of the creation of a workers'and peasants' party'. (Pravda, between two economic systems, two social orders, and a struggle, March 2, 1924). moreover, in which our economic base is infinitely the weaker? And in the meantime Stalin lectured to the communists of the If we take into consideration only the economic lever, it is clear that Orient that: we in the USSR, and all the more so in China and India, have a far shorter arm of the lever than world capitalism. But the entire question The communists must pass from the policy of a united national front > . . to the policy of a revolutionary bloc between the workers and petty- is resolved by the revolutionary struggle of the two systems on a world bourgeoisie. In such countries this bloc can assume the form of a single scale. In the political struggle, the long arm of the lever is on our side t party, a workers* and peasants* party, akin to the Kuomioiang , , .* or, to put it more correctly, it can and must prove so in our hands, if {Stalin. Problems of Lemntsm, p. 264). our policy is correct. Again, in the same article *On Our Revolution*, after stating that 'a The ensuing tiny 'reservations* on the subject of the independence certain cultural level is necessary for the creation of'socialism1, Lenin of the communist panics (obviously, 'independence' like that of the adds: 'although no one can tell what this certain cultural level is'. Why prophet Jonah inside the whale's belly) served only for the purpose of can no one tcU? Because the question is settled by the struggle, by the camouflage. We are profoundly convinced that the Sixth Congress rivalry between the two social systems and the two cultures, on an must state that the slightest equivocation in this sphere is fatal and will international scale. Breaking completely with this idea of Lenin's, be rejected. which flows from the very essence of the question, the draft prog* It is a question here of an absolutely new, entirely false, and ramme asserts that in 1917 Russia had precisely the 'minimum tech­ thoroughly anti-Marxist formulation of the fundamental question of nology' and consequently also the culture necessary for the building of the party and of its relation to its own class and other classes. 13

South Africa's Impending Socialist Revolution

Perspective of the Marxist Workers' Tendency of the African National Congress

A major pamphlet of 159 pages, this is intended as a practical introduction to the ideas of Marxism and their importance for our struggle. It analyses the crisis developing in South Africa, showing the connection between the struggle against the racist regime and the struggles of working people throughout Southern Africa, and all over the world. It explains why the battle to overthrow apartheid cannot be separated from the need to overthrow the capitalist system. It examines strategic and tactical questions of the struggle. It sets out the basic ideas of Marxism on economics, politics and history by applying them concretely to the modern world situation, and draws lessons from other revolutions for the SA liberation struggle. While most relevant to the black workers and youth in South Africa, it will also be useful for comrades in the labour movement in all countries who are fighting for an end to exploitation and oppression.

Copies are circulating clandestinely inside South Africa. The document is also available to readers outside South Africa who can order them by post.

Price: R1.50 or equivalent for orders from Africa. Please add postage and packing costs: £0,35 for surface mail, £1,75 for airmail. All other countries (including postage and packing costs): £1,85 by surface mail, £3,25 by airmail. Orders outside South Africa from: INQABA YA BASEBENZI. BM Box 1719, London WC1N 3XX enquiry into the shootings. tics of divide, rule and repression to more central as a focus of struggle At the same time the independent maintain profitable production. The will become the Freedom Charter's unions must stress their unbending only way to resist them is with unity demand for the nationalisation of rejection of the foundations of and strength. the mines under workers' control oppression: the migrant labour As the struggle on the mines un­ and management. Only when this is system on the mines. folds, and the unity and organisa­ finally achieved can job security, de­ cent conditions and a living wage be In the period ahead, the mine tion of the workers is built on an secured for all workers. owners will continue to use the tac­ open and underground level, the

...with those who refused being immediately packed off to the reserves. The necessity for the Communist Party of China lo enter the tional measures, instructions, and circular lettere, is in reality a cardi­ Kuomintang was defended on the ground that in its sociaJ composi­ nal and basic feature of a bourgeois party, particularly in a revolutio­ tion the Kuomintang is a party of workers and peasants, that ninc- nary epoch. tenths of the Kuomintang — this proportion was repeated hundreds It is from this angle that the basic arguments of the authors of the of times — belonged to the revolutionary tendency and were ready to draft programme in defence of all kinds of opportunist blocs in march hand in hand with the communist party. However, during and general — both in Britain and China — must be judged. According to since the amps Sixat in Shanghai and Wuhan, these revolutionary them, fraternization with the tops is done exclusively in the interests nine-tenthsofthe Kuomintang disappeared as if by magic. Noonehas of the rank and file. The Opposition, as is known, insisted on the found a trace of them. And the theoreticians of class collaboration in withdrawal of the party from the Kuomintang: China* Stalin, Bukharin, and others, did not even take the trouble to 'The question arises', says Bukharin, 'why? Is it because the leaders explain what has become of the nine-tenths of the members of the of the Kuomintang are vacillating? And what about the Kuomintang Kuomintang — the nine-tenths workers and peasants, revolutionists, masses, are they mere 'cattle'? Since when is the attitude to a mass sympathizers, and entirely our 'own*. Yet, an answer TO this question organization determined by what takes place at the 'high' summit!* is of decisive importance if we arc to understand the destiny of all {The Present Situation in the Chinese Revolution)* these 'two-class' parties preached by Stalin; and if we are to be The very possibility of such an argument seems impossible in a clarified upon the very conception itself, which throws us far behind revolutionary party. Bukharin asks, And what about the Kuomin­ not only of the programme of the RCP of 1919, but also of the tang masses, are they mere cattle?' Of course they are cattlt. The Communist Manifesto of 1847. masses of any bourgeois parly arc always cattle, although in different The question of where the celebrated nine-tenths vanished can degress. But for us, ihe masses are not cattle, arc they? No, that is become clear to us only if we understand, first, the impossibility of a precisely why wc arc forbidden lo drive them into the arms of the bi-composite, that is a two-class party, expressing simultaneously two bourgeoisie, camouflaging the latter under the label of a zvorker$* and mutually exclusive historical lines — the proletarian and petty peasants* party. That is precisely why we are forbidden to subordinate bourgeois lines; secondly, the impossibility of realizing in capitalist :he proletarian party to a bourgeois party, but on the contrary, must at society an independent peasant party, that is, a party expressing the every step, oppose the former to the latter. The 'high' summit of the interests of the peasantry, which is at the same time independent of Kuomintang of whom Bukharin speaks so ironically, as of something the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. secondary, accidental, and temporary is in reality the soul of the Marxism has always taught, and Bolshevism, too, accepted, and Kuomintang, its social essence. Of course, the bourgeoisie constitutes taught, that the peasantry and proletariat are two different classes, unlv the 'summit' in the panv as well as in society. But this summit is that it is false to identify their interests in capitalist society in any way, powerful in its capital, knowledge, and connections: it can always fall and that a peasant can join the communist party only if, from the back on the imperialists for support, and what is most important, it property viewpoint, he adopts the views of the proletariat. The can always resort to the actual political and military power which is alliance of the workers and peasants under the dictatorship of the intimately fused with the leadership in the Kuomintang itself. It is proletariat does not invalidate this thesis, but confirms it, in a differ­ precisely this summit that wrote laws against strikes, throttled the ent way, under different circumstances- If there were no different uprisings of the peasants, shoved the communists into a dark corner, classes with different interests, there would be no talk even of an and, at best, allowed them to be only one-third of the party, exacted an alliance. Such an alliance is compatible with the socialist revolution oath from them that petty-bourgeois Sun Yat-senism takes prece­ only to the extent that it enters into the iron framework of the dence over Marxism- The rank and file were picked and harnessed dictatorship of the proletariat. In our country the dictatorship is by this summit, serving it. like Moscow, as a'Left'support, just as the incompatible with the existence of a so-called Peasants' League generals, compradores, and imperialists served it as a Right support. precisely because every 'independent* peasant organization aspiring To consider the Kuomintang not as a bourgeois party, but as a neutral to solve all national political problems would inevitably turn out to be arena of struggle for the masses* to play with words about nine-tenths of an instrument in the hands of the bourgeoisie. the Left rank and file in order to mask the question as to who is the real Those organizations which in capitalist countries label themselves master, meant to add to the strength and power of the summit, to peasant parties are in reality one of the varieties of bourgeois panics. assist the latter to convert ever broader masses into'cattle', and, under Every peasant who has not adopted the proletarian position, abandon­ conditions most favourable to it to prepare the Shanghai coup d'itat. ing his proprietor psychology, will inevitably follow the bourgeoisie Basing themselves on the reactionary idea of the two-class party, when it comes to fundamental political issues. Of course, every Stalin and Bukharin imagined that the communists, together with the bourgeois party that relies or seeks to rely on the peasantry and, if 1 Lefts1, would secure a majority in the Kuomintang and thereby possible, on the workers, is compelled to camouflage itself, that is, to power in the country, for, in China, power is in the hands of the assume two or three appropriate colourations. The celebrated idea of Kuomintang. In other words, they imagined t hat by means of ordinary 'workers' and peasants* parties' seems to have been specially created elections at Kuomintang Congresses power would pass from the hands of to camouflage bourgeois parties which are compelled to seek support the bourgeoisie to the proletariat. Can one conceive of a more touching from the peasantry hut who are also feady to absorb workers into their and idealistic idolization of 'party democracy* ... in a bourgeois ranks. The Kuomintang has entered the annals of history for all time party? For indeed, the army, the bureaucracy, the press, the capital as a classic type of such a party. are all in the hands of the bourgeoisie. Precisely because of this and Bourgeois society, as is known, is so constructed that the property- this alone it stands at the helm of the ruling party. The bourgeois less, discontented, and deceived masses are at the bottom and ihc 'summit1 tolerates or tolerated 'nine-tenths'of the Lefts (and Lefts of contented fakers remain on top. Every bourgeois party, if it is a real this sort)* only in so far as they did not venture against the army> the party, that is, if it embraces considerable masses, is built on 'he bureaucracy, the press, and against capital. By these powerful means self-same principle. The exploiters, fakers, and despots compose the the bourgeois summit kept in subjection not only the so-called nine- minority in class society. Every capitalist party is therefore compelled tenths of the'Left' party members- but also the masses as a whole. In in its internal relations, in one way or another, to reproduce and this the theory of the bloc of classes, the theory* that the Kuomintang is reflect the relations in bourgeois society as a whole. In every mass a workers' and peasants' party, provides the best possible assistance bourgeois party the lower ranks are therefore more democratic and for the bourgeoisie. When the bourgeoisie later comes into hostile further to the 'Left' than the tops. This holds true of the German conflict with the masses and shoots them dow*n, in this clash between Centre, the French Radicals, and particularly the social democracy. the two real forces, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, not cv^n the That is why the constant complaints voiced by Stalin, Bukharin, and bleating of the celebrated ninc*tenths is heard. The pitiful democratic others that the tops do not reflect the sentiments of the 'Left* fiction evaporates without a trace in face of the bloody reality of the Kuomintang rank and file, the 'overwhelming majority,' the 'nine- class struggle. tenths/ etc., are so naive, so unpardonable. That which they rep­ Such is the genuine and only possible political mechanism of the resented in their bizarre complaints to be a temporary, disagreeable 'two-class workers' and peasants' parties for the Orient', There is no misunderstanding which was to be eliminated by means of organiza­ other and there will be none. 14

Build international union links!

Workers at Wattville Stadium on their way to MA H'U's Annual General Meeting

In June the International tions that the unions were racist and showing how important interna­ Metalworkers' Federation (IMF), had obstructed them. They show tional solidarity between workers is. representing millions of workers that every section of the vast labour Workers in all countries face the world-wide, expelled two white-led movement is being forced to same problems, and increasingly SA trade unions, the Amalgamated recognise unions like MAWU and with the development of the Engineering Union and the SA Elec­ NAAWU as representatives of the multinationals, the same trical Workers' Association. SA workers. This is a tribute and en­ employers". Also the Radio, Television and couragement to the struggles and NAAWU, MAWU and all the in­ Allied Workers' Union and the sacrifices of all MAWU and dependent SA unions need links with Engineering Industrial Workers' NAAWU members. workers internationally at all levels in Union were given a year to "get rid After the April IMF world order to turn this solidarity into con­ of apartheid in their organisations" automobile workers' congress held crete common struggle. or face expulsion. in Japan, SA delegate Roy Msiza These steps were taken following (NAAWU chairman at Sigma) said: MAWU's and NAAWU's allega­ ** The congress was important in By S. Freedman Bosses try to divide skilled workers With the economy in downturn, being slashed. stimulate divisions on regional there is a big movement to the The bosses are taking advantage lines—setting Cape and Natal peo­ Transvaal from Natal and the Cape, of this movement to replace workers, ple against those on (he Rand. particularly of artisans and clerical undercutting existing wages on the The only answer is trade union workers. Squeezed by rising prices Rand. organisation. Through this, unity and lack of jobs, these In some cases it seems that con­ can be strengthened, and wages and people—especially "Coloureds" struction workers are being paid jobs defended against the attacks of and "Asians"—are hoping that the below the legal minimum wage. the bosses. Rand will provide better oppor­ While clerical workers used lo Organising workers in areas like tunities (such as those that have ex­ start at R680-R700 a month, now office work and construction faces isted in the building of the new the bosses are able to take on staff difficulties. The existing registered SASOL complexes). at R450-R500 a month—and use unions have conservative leader­ But there is no escape from the any excuse to sack workers with ships, and restrictive entry. In some economic crisis on the Rand either, longer service. cases unorganised workers are scat­ where prices are rising too and jobs In this way the bosses hope to tered, coming and going in jobs. • 14

Although (he idea of the two-class panics is motivated on national tion. (Works, Vol. IX, p. 410). oppression, which allegedly abrogates Marx's class doctrine, we have This idea reappears in hundreds of Lenin's major and minor works. already heard about 'workers' and peasants' ' mongrels in japan, where there is no national oppression at all. But that isn't all, the In 1908, he explained: matter is not limited merely to the Orient, The 'two-class* idea seeks The alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry must in no case be to attain universality*. In this domain, the most grotesque features interpreted to mean tfuswn of the different classes or partus of the proletariat were assumed by the above-mentioned Communist Party of America and the peasantry. Not only fusion, but even any sort of lasting concord in its effort to support the presidential candidacy of the bourgeois, would be fatal for the socialist party of the working class and zveaken the revolutionary democratic struggle. (Workst Vol. XI, ftm I, p.79. Our 'anti-trust' Senator LaFollcttc, so as 10 yoke the American farmers by cmphasisl. this means to the chariot of the social revolution. Pepper, the theoreti­ cian of this manoeuvre, one of those who ruined the Hungarian Could one condemn the very idea of a workers' and peasants' party revolution because he overlooked the Hungarian peasantry* made a more harshly, more ruthlessly, and more devastatingly? great effort (by way of compensation, no doubt) to ruin the Com­ Stalin, on the other hand, leaches that: munist Party of America by dissolving it among the farmers. Pepper's theory was that the superprofit of American capitalism converts the The revolutionary anti-imperialist bloc - , - must, though not always [l\ necessarily [!(, assume the form of a single workers' and peasants' pany, American proletariat into a world labour aristocracy, while the bound formally [?] by a single platform, (problems of Leninism* p. 265). agrarian crisis ruins the farmers and drives them onto the path of social revolution. According to Pepper's conception, a pany of a few Lenin taught us that an alliance between workers and peasants thousand members, consisting chiefly of immigrants, had to fuse with must in no case and never lead to merger of the parlies. But Stalin the farmers through the medium of a bourgeois party and by thus makes only one concession to Lenin: although, according to Stalin, founding a 'two-class' party, insure the socialist revolution in the face the bloc of classes must assume 'the form of a single party', a workers' of the passivity or neutrality of the proletariat corrupted by and peasants* party like the Kuomintang — it not always obligatory. super-profits. y Wc should thank him for at least this concession. Lenin put this question in the same irreconcilable spirit during the This insane idea found supporter* and half-supporters among the epoch of the October Revolution. In generalizing the experience of upper leadership of the Comintern. For several weeks the issue the three Russian revolutions, Lenin, beginning with 1918, did not swayed in the balance until finally a concession was made to the ABC miss a single opponunityto repeat that there are two decisive forces in of Marxism (the comment behind the scenes was: Trotskyist pre­ a society where capitalist relations predominate — the bourgeoisie judices). It was necessary to lasso the American Communist Party in and the proletariat. order to tear it away from the LaFollette party which died even if the peasant does not follow the workers, he marches behind the before its founder* bourgeoisie. There is and there can be no middle course*. (Works t Vol. Everything invented by modem revisionism for the Orient is car­ XVI, The Year 1919', p. 219). ried over later to the West. If Pepper on one side of the Atlantic Ocean Yet a 'worker*' and peasants' party' is precisely an attempt to create tried to spur history by means of a two-class party then the latest a middle course. dispatches in the press inform us that the Kuomintang experience Had the vanguard of the Russian proletariat failed to oppose itself finds its imitator* in Italy where, apparently, an attempt is being made to the peasantry, had it failed to wage a ruthless struggle against the to foist on our party the monstrous slogan of a 'republican assembly on all-devouring petty bourgeois amorphousness of the latter, it would the basis [?!] of workers' and peasants* committees'. In this slogan the inevitably have dissolved itself among the petty-bourgeois elements spirit of Chiang Kai-shek embraces the spirit of Hilferding. Will wc through the medium of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party or some really come to that?7* other 'two-class parry' which, in turn, would inevitably have sub­ jected the vanguard to bourgeois leadership. In order to arrive at a * * • revolutionary alliance with the peasantry — this does not come gratuitously — it is first of all necessary to separate the proletarian vanguard, and thereby the working class as a whole, from the petty In conclusion there remains for us only to recall that the idea of a bourgeois masses. This can be achieved only by training the pro* workers' and peasants' party sweeps from the history of Bolshevism letarian party in the spirit of unshakable class irreconcilability. the entire struggle against the Populists (Narodniks), without which there would have been no Bolshevik party. What was the significance The younger the proletariat, the fresher and more direct its'blood* of this historical struggle? In 1909 Lenin wrote the following about tics'with the peasantry, the greater the proportion of the peasantry to the Socialist-Revolutionaries: the population as a whole, the greater becomes the importance of the struggle against any form of 'two-class1 political alchemy. In the West The fundamental idea of their programme was not at all that 'an alliance of the idea of a workers' and peasants* party is simply ridiculous. In the the forces* of the proletariat and the peasantry is necessary, but that there Fast it is fatal. In China, India, and Japan this idea is mortally hostile is noclass abyss between the former and the latter and that there is no need not only to the hegemony of the proletariat in the revolution but also to draw line of class demarcation between them, and that the social to the most elementary independence of the proletarian vanguard. democratic idea of the petty bourgeois nature of the peasantry that distin­ The workers' and peasants' party can only serve as a base, a screen, guishes it from ihe proletariat is fundamentally false. (IF

By Monde Mlamoli

Some may mistakenly feel they can is impossible, turn to the existing in­ democracy, organising the achieve security without a union. dependent unions or form a new unorganised, and building workers' An aspect of this struggle will be union. This involves linking up with unity for the transformation of to transform the registered unions the growing non-racial trade union society. into fighting democratic indepen­ movement. All our resources must dent unions—or in cases where this be combined in the fight for union By Farouk Dawood Explanatory Notes receive Chiang as a revolutionary leader. Entente (cordiale)—alliance between Page 4 As a result the workers were completely British and French imperialism formed in 1904. Menshevik ('minority')—ihe reformist unprepared when Chiang moved against wing of ihc Russian Social-Democratic ihem, with only a handful—in defiance Labour Party, formed into a separate of Party orders—resisting, Munchu Dynasty—imperial house that party in 1912. In 1917, with their ruled China from 1644 to 1911. mistaken 'two-stage* theory of ihe Bukharin (1888-1938)—leading member Revolution, Menshevik ministers helped of the Bolshevik Party and of the Soviet ECCI—Executive Committee of the prop up the capitalist Provisional regime after Ihe October Revolution- Communist International. Government, supported its imperialist Moving from the extreme left of the Par­ policy and fought against the proletarian ty, Bukharin became a leader of its right Northern expedition—military cam­ revolution. wing by the mid-1920s and entered a paign led by Chiang Kai-shek from July bloc with Stalin against the Left Opposi­ 1926, with Russian support, to conquer tion. After 1928, Stalin attacked the central and northern China from ihe Kuomintiing—Chinese bourgeois- right wing in order to gain complete con­ feudal warlords, but also lo curb the nationalist movement which looked for trol over the Party apparatus. Bukharin mass revolutionary movement of the support to the peasantry, urban middle was murdered by the Stalinist regime in workers and peasants- The campaign class and workers, but with its leadership 1938 following the fourth of the culminated in the Shanghai massacre completely in the hands of the bankrupt notorious * Moscow Trials'. (see note above), bourgeoisie.

Peasants* International—formed in 1905 revolution—the forerunner and Guchkov, leader of the 'Octobrists' (see Moscow in 1923 in a period of peasant 'dress rehearsal* for the Revolution of note below), and Shulgin, pro- struggles in many parts of the world, the 1917, the 1905 Revolution exposed the monarchist Duma member, negotiated Peasants* International was described by reactionary role of the liberal Nicholas IPs abdication in February Trotsky as "an experiment ... to test the bourgeoisie and clearly established the 1917 in the hope of placing a more new relations between the proletariat working class as the leading force in the popular member of his family on the and the peasantry and between the struggle, giving rise to the first Soviets throne, and thus saving the monarchy. peasantry and the bourgeoisie". (councils of workers' delegates) before it However, no revolutionary peasant par­ was eventually crushed. Trudovik^petty-bourgeois grouping in ties developed to adhere to its banner the Tsarist Duma (parliament) in Russia. and the organisation collapsed. Page 5 Page 6 Comintern—Communist (Third) Inter­ Chiang Kai-shek (1882-1975)—leader of national, formed in 1919 under the the Kuomimang from 1926, defeated by Bismarekiyn way—a reference to the leadership of Lenin and Trotsky as a Mao Tsc-tung's Red Army in 1949 and peculiar course of the bourgeois revolu­ new centre for the revolutionary expelled to the island of Taiwan with the tion in Germany under the authoritarian working-class struggle internationally in remnants of his Nationalist regime. leadership of the Prussian Prince Otto place of the discredited Second Interna­ von Bismarck (1815-1898). Capitalism tional which had collapsed in 1914. Kerensky (1881-1970)—radical petty- had developed later in Germany than in Following the Stalinist counter­ bourgeois politician in Russia and the western part of Europe. Thus, as revolution in the USSR, the Comintern Trudovik (see note below) member of Marx explained, the German itself degenerated, becoming a tool of the Tsarist Duma (parliament), who bourgeoisie "saw itself threateningly the Russian bureaucracy, until it was of­ headed the bourgeois Provisional confronted by the proletariat ... at the ficially dissolved in 1943. Government from July to October 1917. very moment of its own threatening con­ frontation with absolutism*'. To avert a Red International of Labour Nicholas II—last Tsar (emperor) of revolution from below the bourgeoisie Unions—formed in Moscow in 1921 as a Russia, ruling from 1894 until his over­ sought compromise with the landowners revolutionary alternative to the refor­ throw by the February 1917 revolution. and the monarchy. The landowning - mist International Federation of Trade Junkers, their interests intertwined with Unions (the "Yellow International"), Miliukov (1859-1943)—leader of the capitalism^ from their side sought a deal but like the Comintern, undermined and Cadet Party (see note below) in Tsarist with the bourgeoisie. The result was the discredited by the policies imposed on it Russia and foreign minister of the Provi­ Prussian constitutional model, in by the Russian bureaucracy from the sional Government after the February essence the denial of democratic rights mid-1920s onwards. 1917 revolution. to the masses.

Shanghai—the reference is to the Lloyd George (1863-1945)—British Cadets—The Constitutional-Democratic massacre of Communist workers by Liberal prime minister, 1916-1922, Party of the liberal pro-monarchist Chiang Kai-shek in Shanghai in April bourgeoisie in Tsarist Russia, supported 1927 (see also Introduction). In Poineare (1860-1934)—bourgeois Presi­ by liberal landowners and sections of the February 1927, reacting to the revolu­ dent of France, 1913-1920, and prime intelligentsia. tionary movement of the workers and minister, 1922-24 and 1926-29. peasants, Chiang had begun banning Octobrists—the "Union of October strikes and suppressing trade unions and Sun Yat-sen (1867-1925)—Chinese 19'*, a party of capitalists and lan­ peasant leagues. On 21-22 March the bourgeois-nationalist leader, founder of downers to the right of the Cadets. Shanghai workers took control of the ci­ the Kuomimang in 1894, and President ty through an insurrection, but were in­ of the Chinese Republic following the Bund, Dashnaks, P.P.S.—the Bund was structed by the Comintern leadership to revolution of 1911. an organisation of Jewish workers in 16

HSSS «fe& ®$$MO

SA LABOUR 16 Tsarist Russia which took up a na­ .Page 7 tober 1917. tionalist position- The Dashnak-Tsutiun and the Polish Socialist Parly played a Kulak—*fisi\ Russian nickname for rich Page 11 similar role within the Armenian and peasant. Polish population groups of the Russian Comrade N,—Heinz Neumann, a Ger­ empire- 'National' bayonets—to protect their man CP member who, together with the massive interests in China, the im­ Russian Lominadze was given respon­ Hankow government—also referred to perialist powers maintained their own sibility for planning and directing the as the "Wuhan government" of the military garrisons in key Chinese ports Canton insurrection, 'Left Kuomintang1 (see Introduction). and patrolled the coasts and rivers with Hankow is one of three cities that their navies. Furthermore large foreign police forces were present in the Germany in the autumn of 1923—With amalgamated to form the city of the invasion of the Ruhr area of Ger­ Wuhan. "foreign concessions" (areas ad­ ministered by the imperialist powers). many by French troops in early 1923, Narodniks—a liberal-democratic move­ Germany was thrown into deep ment that arose among radical Russian economic and political crisis. The taking intellectuals in the mid-19th century. Six month period—Trotsky is referring of power by the working class, led by the Regarding the peasantry as the revolu­ to the period when the Russian Revolu­ mass-based German CP, was on the tionary class in Russia, they believed tion advanced from the initial struggles agenda. However, the inexperienced that Russia could advance to a form of to smash Tsarism and landlordism to the Party leadership, following the socialism, based on peasant collectives, expropriation of the capitalists and the vacillating position of Stalin, Zinovjev without undergoing a capitalist develop­ propertied classes in general. Lenin em­ and Kamenev at the head of the Com­ ment. After 1900 various Narodnik phasises that (his was a continuous intern, failed to prepare the working groups combined to form the Socialist* movement: "To attempt to put ar­ class for this. Although an insurrection Revolutionary Party which, after the tificially a Chinese wall between the two was formally planned for October, it February 1917 revolution, helped to stages, and to separate them by any was called off at the last moment. Only other factor than the degree of in Hamburg the workers went into ac­ prop up the capitalist Provisional preparedness of the proletariat and of its tion, and were crushed by government Government. By the time of the October unity with the village poor, means com­ troops. This debacle of the German Revolution, the right wing sided openly pletely to pervert and vulgarise Marxism revolution marked a setback for the with the counter-revolution while the and to replace ii by liberalism." (The workers' struggle internationally, with a left wing formed a short-lived coalition Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade period of ebb setting in, and the with the Bolshevik government. Kaulsky. 1918.) demoralisation of the Communis) workers enabling the bureaucracy to Dual power—after the February 1917 Law of uneven development—In his strengthen its grip in Russia* revolution in Russia, the Provisional History of the Russian Revolution Trot­ Government formally held power; but sky explains: "A backward country real power lay with (he Soviets (Coun­ assimilates the material and intellectual cils) of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. conquests of the advanced countries. "Dual power" thus existed because the But this does not mean that it follows Page 14 Mensheviks and Socialist- them slavishly, reproduces all the stages Hungarian revolution—In March 1919, Revolutionaries, having control of the of the past ... Savages throw away (heir following the revolutionary overthrow Soviets at first, failed to take stale power bows and arrows for rifles all at once, of the Austro-Hungarian imperial into the hands of the Soviets and instead without travelling the road which lay regime, a Soviet Republic was proclaim­ supported the bourgeois Provisional between these WW) weapons in the past ed in Hungary placing the newly-formed Government. After August this situation ... From the universal law of unevenness CP in power- The inexperienced CP was reversed: the Bolsheviks gained a thus derives another law which, for the leadership committed many errors. majority in the key Soviets and. raising lack of a better name, we may call the Alienating the peasantry and missing all anew the slogan "All Power to the 1 1 law of combined development—by opportunities of consolidating workers Soviets ', led the October insurrection to which we mean a drawing together of rule, they paved the way for a victorious victory. the different stages of the journey, a invasion by a Rumanian army of combining of separate steps, an counter-revolution. Finally they handed Canton uprising —launched in amalgam of archaic with more contem­ back power to the ruling class without December 1927, the uprising was a porary forms." firing a shot, A reign of terror by ihe rul­ disastrous adventure engineered by ihe ing class followed. Comintern leadership recoiling from their own opportunist policy of the Hu Han-min (1879-1936)—right-wing previous period- 3 000 poorly-armed Kuomintang leader who attended the Hilferding (1877-1941)—reformist workers and 1 200 military cadets, Sixth Plenum of the ECCI in February theoretician of the German Social- isolated from the masses of Canton 1926, and was elected to the Presidium Democratic Party, who during the Ger­ itself, were thrown against 50 000 of the Peasants' Internal tonal. man revolution of I9I8-I9I9 put for­ Kuomintang troops amongst whom no ward the constitutional plan for 'legalis­ political propaganda had been con­ Bolshevik Parly—revolutionary wing of ing' the workers' revolutionary councils ducted by the CP. The uprising was and making them subordinate to the crushed within 50 hours at a cost of the RSDLP, formed into an indepen­ dent party in 1912, which under the bourgeois parliament. This helped to 5 700 workers' lives, among them the resolve the period of dual power in best remaining cadres of the revolution. leadership of Lenin and Trotsky headed favour of the ruling class. the working class in taking power in Oc­ Ihis is a supplement to INQABA YA BASEBENZI. journal of the Marxist Workers' Tendency of the African National Congress. Readers are urged to make photocopies of this publication and pass them on to other comrades. Cjbscriptions for readers outside South Africa can be ordered from: BM Box 1719, London WC1N 3XX. 17 Armed struggle and workers power In the present period, the struggle for power bet­ ween the forces of capitalism and the forces of the By D. Sikhakhane working class is opening up in countries around the and D. Hugo world. In South Africa over the virtually all centres of SA. "guerilla activity in the urban areas last decade, the workers and There is widespread sympathy of a special type is always important and support for the guerillas. But as an auxiliary"). youth have surged forward in despite their bravery and their deter­ The Central Committee of the wave after wave, only to find mination to fight the regime, guerillas SACP in 1970 pledged "unqualified themselves confronted with are no answer to the need to protect support for the liberation army in its the guns of the police. Many the mass movement against police at­ aim to recruit and train guerilla hundreds have fallen victim to tacks, to prevent arrests or killings, fighters, to spread the area of guerilla war to the heart of the the regime. to free political prisoners and drive back the forces of the state. Republic" (A. Lerumo, Fifty Since well before Sharpeville it The most serious crisis for the Fighting Years). has become clear to many workers whole strategy of guerilla struggle But the perspective of rural thai there is no peaceful way of arose with the struggles in Soweto. guerilla war spreading to the cities removing the apartheid regime. The massacre of schoolchildren pro­ has failed to materialise. In fact, the After Sharpeville there was a voked calls among wide sections of social conditions for a struggle of massive, spontaneous strain the youth and workers for the means this nature are completely absent in towards the use of armed force of armed resistance against the SA. against (he state which induced the regime. In countries such as China, Viet­ leaders of the ANC and the SA But it was unprepared and unarm­ nam, Mozambique and Angola, the Communist Party to abandon their ed that they were obliged to confront victories of the heroic guerilla ar­ policy of non-violence. the forces of the slate. Again in Cape mies were the result of specific con­ Marxism has always combaited the Town in 1980 the youth died with ditions created by an extremely low illusion that the ruling class can be sticks and stones in their hands, level of capitalist development and, persuaded to peacefully surrender its without means or training to defend internationally, by the relative power. Violence is daily used by rul­ themselves. Most recently in July weakness of imperialism since the ing classes against the oppressed, in 1982, black miners found themselves Second World War. countries throughout the world. defenceless against the guns of the The class basis for guerilla armies The state power of the capitalists police. has always been the peasantry. With depends on armed bodies of Clearly, the question of how to the capitalists a puny force, a mere men—the army, police, etc.—defen­ build the armed force capable of pawn of imperialism and incapable ding their privately-owned factories, defending our struggle, of defeating of developing the economy; with the mines, banks and land against the the regime and placing the working working class correspondingly workers* struggle to take over that people in control of society has still small; and with the state apparatus property in order to organise produc­ to be resolved in our movement— weak and unstable, the armed pea­ tion for the common benefit. over twenty years after the turn to sant masses have been able to defeat Every struggle should therefore 'armed struggle'. the regimes of the capitalists and be approached as a step towards landlords. building the organised strength of Rural struggle (However, in the absence of a the workers for the ultimate exer­ Marxist leadership of the working tion—the seizure of power and the At the Morogoro conference in class with a programme for total destruction of the capitalist 1969, the ANC leaders in exile workers' democracy, power fell into slate. declared that "general strikes as a the hands of the leadership of the method of mobilisation, suppressed guerilla armies, giving rise to with the utmost vigour at the end of bureaucratically deformed states. Guerillas the fifties, could no longer be effec­ These questions are discussed more tively employed as an instrument of fully in Inqaba no. 5.) mass struggle" (Strategy and Tac­ In comparison with these coun­ In the wake of the Durban strikes tics of the ANQ. tries, SA has undergone a powerful and the Soweto uprising there has The struggle, they went on to say, development on a capitalist basis. been a re-emergence of actions by should be fought as a "guerilla Massive foreign investment, and the ANC guerillas. In the past year struggle", initially "outside the growth of a national bourgeoisie, there has been a 200% increase in enemy's stronghold in the cities, in have built up an industrialised the number of attacks. In June 1982 the vast stretches of our coun­ economy and called into existence a alone, nine attacks were reported in tryside" (though, it was added, powerful working class. 18 The ruling class has been able to whole population lies in the urban countryside, the guerillas—drawn develop mass support among the centres. The cities are not only the by the magnetic power of the white middle class and workers. Out capitalists* stronghold but are also workers' renewed upsurge—have of while conscripts they have built a the central battleground in the turned increasingly towards urban military machine equipped wilh ihe liberation struggle. Society is and industrial targets. most deadly weapons, which is com­ polarised between the capitalist This becomes clearer if we look at parable in its ruthless ferocity to the class, relying on the guns of the the guerilla actions carried out last Israeli army in Lebanon. This is in state, and the mass force of the year (this breakdown is based on sharp contrast to former colonial working class. press reports and is not necessarily countries where guerilla forces have Only the working class is able lo complete): been able to wear down and defeat defeat the regime, to smash the unstable, weak regimes. capitalist system and thereby lo Bomb attacks 21 Capitalism in SA has also liberate all Ihe oppressed. Alt other • electricity installations 6 transformed ihe countryside. The sections of people in struggle must • railway lines 5 bulk d*f agricultural production is in throw in their lot with the workers' • government offices 5 ihe hands of big capitalist farmers movement to ensure the enemy's • business property 3 and even international monopolies. defeat. • other 2 A peasantry, to ihe extent lhai it As this has become more and ever existed, has largely disap­ more clearly understood in the Shooting attacks B peared. ranks of the working class, the • police stations 6 The rural areas are inhabited by youth and all militants, renewed • military base l agricultural workers and im­ debates have opened up as to when, • individuals (C. Sebe) i poverished masses whose liberation where and how to use arms in the depends on the expropriation of ur­ battles that lie ahead. These actions, involving great ban industry and mining, as well as personal danger, show a high degree the huge agricultural enterprises, in of courage and commitment on the order 10 replace capitalist ownership Urban targets part of the guerillas. Even so, the with democratic working-class con­ sum total of what was achieved in trol and management. the course of a year's struggle, Thus in SA the future of the Unable to base themselves in the measured in terms of damage suf-

Young ANC guerillas—willing lo face death in iheir resistance to the regime. 19 fered by the regime, is minimal. control over its programme and no change..." (Strategy and Tactics). The intended strategy has been to clarity as to where it will lead. There These remarks also sum up the strike at the material resources of can be no prospect of military vic­ weaknesses of the guerilla strategy the regime and bring about a tory under these conditions. in SA, and identify the mistakes breakdown of the system. But SA's More likely, Comrade Tambo which the workers' movement must developed economy has been able to meant a stepping up of sporadic avoid in preparing for the armed absorb the destruction of facilities, raids on police stations, military in­ struggle that will be capable of and replace them, on a much greater stallations etc. But such attacks smashing the regime. scale than the guerillas have been would amount to no more than pin­ able to inflict. pricks against the regime (a point The damage to railway lines etc. conceded by Comrade Nzo, Mobilisation can be repaired sometimes within Secretary-General of the ANC, in a hours. Even the spectacular Sasol TV interview in Britain) which would goad it to greater fury and The central task in SA is the bombing in 1980 meant no serious rally the forces of white reaction, setback for the ruling class. The pro­ mobilisation of the workers' move­ while the decisive struggles are ment to end apartheid, abolish duction of oil from coal has fought out in the factories and continued. mines. capitalism and carry through the Even the bold assaults on police socialist transformation of society. stations (totalling 12 between Oc­ A hint of the real implications of Urban guerilla action, by its very tober 1976 and December 1981) increased guerilla attacks has been nature, can provide no basis what­ have been little more than symbolic given by ANC leaders who have soever for carrying forward this challenges to the authority of the pointed at the Israeli inva­ struggle. state. There is no prospect of sion of Lebanon as an example of This has been implicitly recognis­ seriously weakening the regime's the murderous reprisals the SA ed in Strategy and Tactics: "when armed power by this means. regime would be capable of laun­ armed actions begin they seldom in­ ching against the countries where volve more than a comparative On the contrary, it is the guerillas, the guerillas are based. handful of combatants whose very with their small numbers and The crushing defeat of the PLO conditions of fighting-existence limited resources, who would risk make them incapable of exercising being weakened and ultimately and the savage slaughter of Lebanese civilians should stand as a the functions of all-round political destroyed in a drawn-out military leadership". struggle against the police and ar­ tragic monument to the conse­ my. This has been the fate, for ex­ quences of trying to fight a guerilla Twenty years after the founding ample, of the ERP in Argentina and war under conditions where no basis of MK, armed actions have not yet the Tupamaros in Uruguay. exists for its success. For the masses progressed very much beyond this of Southern Africa, the military 'beginning' stage. Nevertheless, programme of the ANC leadership proponents of guerilla war continue holds out the deadly danger of turn­ to argue that (he guerillas' isolated ing the region into a new and bloodier Middle East. mode of operation—which is in­ Limitations evitable under the conditions of a powerful police state—is only tem­ The limitations of the current The writing is already on the porary. Increasingly, they believe, armed actions were recognised by wall—Kassinga; Matola; Chimoio; the masses will be mobilised and the ANC President, Comrade Tam- the assassination of more and more turn the scales against the forces of bo, in his recent statement in Zim­ activists in neighbouring countries. the state. babwe that "sabotage attacks alone The conclusion needs to be clearly These arguments, based on the would not bring South Africa to its drawn: to launch armed attacks experience of peasant wars, are knees" (reported in the Herald, 21 against the regime at a stage when dangerously misleading in the con­ the workers' movement has not yet text of an industrialised country. June). Less clear, however, was the decisively weakened its social and alternative he put forward: "We are material base is to challenge the The guerillas may attempt in moving from sabotage acts to attack enemy at his strongest point—which every way possible to link up with the enemy face to face". is also, at this stage, the weakest the workers. In some cases—e.g. the Does this mean a serious offen­ point of our own movement. bombing of Leyland showrooms sive by MK against the SADF? If so, during the Leyland workers' MK would find itself isolated and The ANC leadership itself has strike—the intention was clearly to outnumbered by enemy forces with correctly recognised that "to ignore support the workers. an overwhelming superiority in the real situation and to play about Similarly, blowing up the Soweto terms of weapons, equipment and with imaginary forces, concepts and railway line can prevent workers morale. ideals is to invite failure. The art of from going to work; and bombing The mass of the workers would be revolutionary leadership consists in the Rosslyn electricity sub-station overwhelmingly sympathetic to the providing leadership to the masses can shut down factories in the area, guerillas. But the workers' move­ and not just to its most advanced thus bringing about a 'strike'. ment, greatly matured after ten elements ... Untimely, illplanned or But the method of guerilla strug­ years of struggles, will not easily premature manifestations of gle cannot serve to mobilise the commit itself to bloody battles led violence impede and do not advance mass of workers. from outside its own ranks, with no the prospect of revolutionary On the contrary—if the Leyland 20 bosses can be forced to make con­ at bay by the strength and militancy make it clear lhai to carry ihe strug­ cessions by a bomb placed in their of the workers' organisations gle further, it is necessary to beat building by a single activist, why themselves. back the forces of the state. should the workers have to organise Conversely, the regime's own sup­ But simply putting rifles into and strike? If a stay-away can be port among the whiles has un­ workers' hands, or organising 'organised' by placing explosives on doubtedly been strengthened by what guerilla support, will not solve Ihe a railway line, what need is there for is seen as 'external attack'. problem. political leadership 10 unite the Bombings, raids on police sta­ Any use of arms by ihe oppressed workers behind a programme of ac­ tions, etc., point out no alternative inevitably iriggers off ihe mosi tion? to Ihe present system. Their main ef­ vicious slate reaction. To seriously Bui in reality, no armed in­ fect is to harden while reaction and put up armed resistance, Ihe dividual or group of individuals can divide Ihe working class still further. workers' movement must be able to take the place of (he collective This prepares the ground for the withstand the attacks thai will organisation and power of Ihe militarisation of white vouth. and to follow and sustain the struggle at a workers as a class in Ihe struggle (o divert attention of ihe whites from higher, more intense level. defeat the apartheid regime and ihe hopeless failures of state policy. For ihis, a massive degree of replace it with a system of workers' organisation and unity will be essen­ democracy. Carried 10 their logical conclu­ sion, these meihods would serve to tial—trade unions able to unite the The guerilla method cannot con­ confront the working class wilh a key sections of workers in action on tribute to the building of a revolu­ uniied enemy, wilh armed forces a country-wide scale; and political tionary leadership among [he workers hundreds of thousands strong, leadership able to coordinate the and youth. In fact, more often it has which could only be defeated ai the struggle as a whole, open and the opposite effect. cost of a bloodbath that would leave underground, armed and unarmed. This applies very clearly*at ihe the revolution noihing io inherit ex­ Such a leadership can only be level of human resources. cept the smouldering ruins of the developed out of the ranks of ihe Thousands of [he bravest and most cities and the farms. oppressed working class itself, and dedicated youth, recruited for can play an effective role only lo ihe military training abroad, are in All these aspects have lo be laken extent lhat it remains rooied among practice unable to return. Confined info account in drawing up a sober the active sections of ihe workers. to military camps, they have been balance sheet of Ihe gains and losses Therefore it is necessary to build effeciivcly removed from the strug­ of twenty years of guerilla struggle. the ANC not for the purpose of gle on the ground and are even There remains only one force recruiting youth for guerilla (rain­ prevented from supporting the potentially strong enough lo liberate ing, but to engage in the mass strug­ workers' struggle actively in exile. SA: the revolutionary movement of gle of the workers and provide a (he working class. It is that force revolutionary lead. For those who return on missions, which must be built and armed. the rale of casualties is high, not on­ We must build branches of the ly to themselves but to the move­ ANC (initially as an underground ment as a whole. network) in every factory, mine and Every guerilla action is followed township and link ihcm together by intense police reaction, regionally and nationally. We musi roadblocks, house to house sear­ mobilise in every district on the ches, detentions of known activists, Armed mass insurrection basis of the workers' most pressing etc. Solomon Mahlangu became the demands, and link these to the first freedom fighter to die at the Armed struggle aimed at the tak­ struggle for power. We must fight hands of the apartheid hangman ing of state power cannot take place for trade union unity as the since the early 1960s. There can be separately from ihe mass movement backbone of working-class power, no doubt thai in future the regime's of the workers. The power of the and link the trade unions of the reaction will harden, with a spirall­ capitalists can only be dismantled by workers with the workers' ANC. ing increase of hangings and long- the organised power of the workers, In the course of this struggle all term imprisonment. linking the day-to-day struggles to questions of policy, strategy and tac­ At the same time, the regime's the organised seizure of power. tics, including the question of armed vicious weapons for smashing The need for (he workers to struggle, have to be addressed. guerilla action are pointed against develop the means of armed struggle In the early stages armed struggle the movement as a whole. Measures is experienced by the workers is likely to have the character of such as the 'Sabotage Act' and the themselves through their confronta­ armed self-defence against the ter­ Terrorism Act were originally in­ tion with (he armed forces of (he ror tactics of the state. Bui as ihe tended for crushing armed insurgen­ state. masses gain strength, confidence cy. But in practice they have been The armed police at the factory and skills, and as the camp of the used against all opponents of the gate, driving away striking workers enemy gets divided, the basis will be regime. and letting the strike-breakers laid for passing over onto the offen­ Thus conditions have been through; the baton charge which sive. created for even more vicious at­ breaks up a mass meeting—it is Only armed detachments of tacks against the movement of the these turns in events which lay down workers, feeling the support of workers, which have only been held ihe limits of unarmed struggle and •housands of toilers behind them, 21

/n Spam in 1936 the armed working class took control of much of the country

can successfully prevail against all socieiy. While rallying ihe over­ it is linked lo a programme for the Ihe pressures of the slate, the ruling whelming mass of the oppressed, complete transformation of society class and the agents of capitalism such a programme can also present and the establishment of workers' warning against 'going too far*. an alternative to the mosi advanced democracy, in which working-class These detachments would be able to sections of white workers, thus whites could recognise their interest. protect the picket lines outside fac­ beginning to drive a wedge into the The weakening and division of tories on strike, the homes of people social basis on which the regime the capitalists* white support; the threatened with eviction, mass depends. power, uniiy and determination of meetings, etc. No one must underestimate the the workers* mass movement; the How will the workers' movement difficulties which this process will clarity of the revolutionary leader­ become armed? involve, or the palience and firm­ ship provided by the ANC—these are the basic elements that will In SA there is no shortage of ness with which black workers will determine the ripening of a revolu­ weapons. A workers' ANC, based need to explain the advantages of a tionary situation in SA. When thai in every district, would find the revolutionary workers' South situation arises the armed insurrec­ ways of transferring these into the Africa to those among their white tion of ihe oppressed masses, under workers* hands and teaching fellow-workers who are prepared 10 the leadership of Ihe working class, workers how to use them, as and listen. The alternative, however, is will be on the agenda. when this becomes possible. to prepare for racial civil war that would devastate the country and in­ An important part will un­ Under these conditions the armed flict a terrible toll on our movement. doubtedly be played by those com­ workers will be able to take by storm, rades who have already received Even sections of the existing disarm, and conquer the armed military training as guerillas. Once police and armed force, not only forces of the slate. they become fully involved in the blacks but also some whites The capacity of the working class day-to-day struggles of the masses, —especially conscripts—could to do this was shown by the Paris they will be able to assist in the train­ be won 10 the side of the work­ workers in 1871, the Russian workers ing and arming of the movement. ers' movement on ihe basis in 1917, the Spanish workers in 1936. the Iranian workers in 1979, etc. The supplies of weapons which they of a genuine socialist programme. They could bring with lhem not only These revolutions—their victories have brought into the country can their own guns but also the keys to and defeats—should be carefully then be used for this purpose. the armouries of the slate. studied lodav. What will be decisive, however, Correctly, an ANC statement on The task of all comrades is to help will be the development of the ANC 16 June encouraged young whites prepare our movement for the bai­ as a revolutionary mass organisa­ who find ihemselves in the SADF lo lies that face us by building the tion putting forward a clear pro­ form clandestine groups and start ANC and the trade unions, and ex­ gramme for the dismantling of apar­ operations against the government. plaining the need for a socialist pro­ theid, Ihe smashing of capitalism But such a call could only be heeded gramme that can show ihe way lo and the socialist transformation of by significant numbers of soldiers if national and social liberation, # 22 The liberation struggle in EL SALVADOR

The whole of Central America is a boiling pol of revolt. Brutally oppressed, the people suffer the lowest living By Lesley Reed ^PACIFIC standards in Latin America. ~OCEAN In El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras, life ex­ pectancy is only 56 years. Seven could be solved by following this ex­ the guerilla movement, was tormed people out of ten cannot read or ample. in 1980 when left-wing groups com­ write; 58 out of 100 have no access Today, at least 20°/o of the land bined with representatives of the to education. Child mortality is over area of El Salvador, containing 'progressive* bourgeoisie and the one in ten live births. Seven out of possibly a greater proportion of the "popular fraction" of the Christian every ten children under the age of population, is controlled by the Democrats (including people who five suffer from malnutrition. FDR/FMLN, the guerillas' political had served in the government under the junta). But for US imperialism and its party and army. local puppets, the area is full of The programme of the FDR huge profits and cheap raw Working class reflects this compromise between materials, based on cheap labour. the guerilla leaders and the anti- The working class in El Salvador junta capitalists. It contains many In all these countries there is a radical demands of the working huge gap between rich and poor. In is relatively strong, with a history of militancy. In the struggle of the past people, including nationalisation of El Salvador the economy is the banks, foreign trade, electricity dominated by 14 families. lO^o of few years, however, its power has not been fully mobilised. and "monopolistic enterprises in in­ the population own 90% of the dustry, trade and services'. wealth; 2"!o own 60^0 of cultivable In 1979-80 an unprecedented land. At least half the workers are wave of workers* struggles showed But its muddled formula on the unemployed. Nine-tenths of the the ability and the willingness of the crucial question of the class character working population earn less than working class to change society. In of a revolutionary government SI00 per year. response to calls from the guerilla reveals illusions in the possibility of achieving democracy within the Against the privileges and power leadership, massive general strikes took place in June and August 1980. framework of capitalism. The pro of the ruling land-owning parasites, gramme says that the new govern­ the peasants and workers have wag­ The ruling junta, in fear of this powerful movement, announced the ment should "rest on a broad ed dedicated, heroic battles. The political and social base, formed best and bravest fighters have been nationalisation of the banks, in­ cluding foreign banks. Enormous above all by the working class, the prepared to die in the struggle to peasantry, and the advanced middle overthrow landlordism and foreign possibilities existed at this stage for the building of a mass revolutionary layers. Intimately linked to the latter domination. forces will be ... small and The military dictatorship has been party, based on the workers' move­ ment, and the overthrow of the junta. medium-sized industrialists .... prepared to trample democratic democratic parties such as the MNR rights underfoot. In 1972 the elected The general strike poses the ques­ (the social-democrats—Editor), ad­ government was prevented through tion of power. With industry, vanced sections of the Christian fraud from taking office. Power re­ transport etc. brought to a stand­ Democracy*'. mained with the military junta. still, the working class can clearly With the parliamentary road clos­ see it has the power to run society. The left groups in the FDR, in ed off, many groups resorted to By generalising and extending ine order to maintain their 'broad guerilla struggle. The youth in par­ workers' councils which had sprung front' with the capitalists, have ticular, burning to change society, into existence to include peasants, refused to put forward a clear and the peasants struggling for land, housewives, soldiers, community revolutionary programme. The pro- supported what seemed to be a organisations and students, the capitalist elements in the FDR, on quick and practical way of fighting revolutionary movemeni would the other hand, have had no cor­ the dictatorship. have become unstoppable. But the responding inhibitions. guerilla leaders, tragically, only us­ Backed by Western European The victory of the Nicaraguan ed the workers' movement as an ap­ guerillas had an enormous effect on governments and the reformist pendage to their main strategy of leadership of the 'Socialist Interna­ the masses in El Salvador and rural guerilla warfare. Guatemala, strengthening the belief tional', they have constantly that the problems of the country The FDR, the political wing of pressurised the left groups to com- :3 mil themselves to the maintenance squads terrorise and torture the peo­ not subject to their collective of capitalism. ple, murdering thousands. Bombs discipline, inevitably tend to become Thus in February the FDR came made of pesticides, defoliants and an uncontrolled force leading by out in favour of a coalition govern­ white phosphorus are used against military command. ment that would guarantee "an the people. Thus in countries such as China, assured role for private enterprise in Four years of guerilla warfare Cuba etc., where capitalism and El Salvador". have so far led to a toll of 32 000 landlordism have been overthrown In March a new peace plan being dead—in proportion to the total by guerilla armies, this has not led launched by the FDR president was population of the country, this to workers' conlrol over production announced. It called for a "broad would have meant over 200 000 and workers' democracy in society based interim government" which dead in South Africa. as a whole. Instead, ihe guerilla commanders have placed themselves would include politicians of the left At the same time, the failure of the FDR/FMLN leadership to base in control of society as a new ruling and right, army officers "not involv­ elite. ed in atrocities", church leaders, themselves on the working class and businessmen and trade union leaders, their concentration on rural guerilla Although enormous progress is leaders. warfare has seriously cut across the possible on the basis of the state- Such a government would be in­ development of the workers' revolu­ owned and planned economy, the capable of carrying through the tionary movement. concentration of power in the hands revolutionary changes that are Under the conditions of a pro­ of a mililary-bureaucratic ruling necessary to meet the basic needs of longed rural struggle, the working caste will increasingly stand in the the workers and peasants. class can become passive, filled with way of ihe building of socialist democracy. Under revolutionary pressure a feeling of impotence, and wail for from the masses, the guerilla leader­ the guerillas to liberate them. At the Our movement needs to be guid­ ship could be pushed further than same time, the most ferocious ed, in El Salvador as in South their existing programme lays down. repression is unleashed by the Africa, by the clear slogan of Marx­ What is clear, however, is that they regime. ism: "the emancipation of ihe are taking no action to mobilise the Undoubtedly, a victory for the working class is the task of the working people for the armed guerillas in El Salvador would bo a working class itself". seizure of power and for democratic giant step forward and a driving The workers' movement needs to control over production and society force in the mass struggles in all be armed for the overthrow of the as a whole. Latin America. But for a real solu­ regime. Only democratic control This will have inevitable and tion to the problems of the people, over society by the working people the class-conscious movement of the can prevent the development of a serious consequences for the future working class must play the leading new bureaucratic elite and prepare of the struggle. role. the way for a socialist society of Guerilla war No matter how sincere or heroic freedom and abundance. the guerilla leaders may be, or how Linked to the working class in the The long drawn out guerilla war, overwhelming their support at pre­ neighbouring countries and interna­ despite enormous sacrifices by the sent, even if they were to defeat the tionally, the workers' revolution in peasantry and youth, has not yet Junta and bring about the collapse El Salvador would spread through succeeded in defeating the Junta. of capitalism and landlordism, it Central America, including the key Armed to the teeth by US im­ could not lead to genuine state of Mexico. Not only would it perialism, the regime is using the democracy and socialism. be a guiding light to the revolution most vicious means in its efforts to A fundamental problem of in South America; it would hammer a( the doors of US imperialism keep power. guerilla warfare is that the leader­ The army and ultra-right death ship, isolated from the workers and itself. 24 BCM, the struggle for democracy and the workers movement

Large numbers of today's struggling youth have had ceed in rallying to rid society of the their political baptism of fire under the banner of the J^S "Jj™ ^wffttKS! *! bosses' system which it defends. In black consciousness movement. For over a decade what ways does the debate which BCM was the vehicle through which successive classes has taken place in the movement of youth, in ever growing numbers, from the bush col­ serve to clarify our tasks? leges down to the primary schools, expressed their The form that the youth move­ ment took when it re-emerged ten unanimous opposition and burning hatred towards years ago—the form of BCM—was oppression and exploitation. a result of the political experience the black masses had gone through With black consciousness in the 1950s and 1960s, and in par­ as their inspiration, the youth ticular the conclusions that the threw themselves into the bat­ youth had drawn about the policies tle against the armed might of of the leadership of these struggles. the state in 1976 and after. By BCM represented, in many ways, an Their unmatched courage and Basil Hendrikse effort not to repeat the mistakes of almost reckless revolutionary the earlier period. determination shook the capitalists to their bones. Yet over the last year, with in­ this programmatic change? Pro­ The ANC creasing momentum—and often in gramme—a common understanding In the early 1960s the independent the same organisations that of the tasks and methods of the trade unions organised in SACTU spearheaded black consciousness—a struggle—is the key to political were brutally suppressed, the ANC different rallying cry has emerged: organisation. A revolutionary pro­ and PAC were banned, and the gramme for solving the daily pro­ leaders of the mass movement were that of the struggle for non-racial blems of the oppressed workers and arrested, put on trial and imprison- democracy. What is the concrete meaning of youth is essential if we are to sue- ed (or went into exile).

The 1970s: the youth movement re-emerges in the form of BCM. 25 All this brought to a close a co-operation of all the "anti- machinery of repression protecting period of political turmoil similar in Nationalist" forces—among whom the capitalist system. So long as the many respects to the one we have it listed the United Party, the capitalists and their political now entered—a period in which Liberal Party, and the editor of the representatives are defended by every sector of society was affected Rand Daily Mail (L. Gandar). their army and police, they will by the atmosphere created by Similarly, the NEC report to the "discuss" types of social system on­ strikes, demonstrations, rent pro­ 1959 ANC conference (its last ly by force. tests and azikhwelwa. before being banned) welcomed the The interests of the working class The post-war years, in fact, had "formation of the Progressive Par­ and those of the capitalists are ir­ witnessed one of the most serious ty" because of its "rejection of reconcilable. Against the consistent and lengthy periods of class con­ racial discrimination and the colour democracy of the working class, the frontation in SA history. bar." capitalist class can afford to be The capitalists could not survive But what practical unity in action 'democratic* only so long as its except through maintaining the could be expected between the system is not challenged. Thus bet­ black workers as a cheap labour working masses in the ANC and ween those democrats on the side of force. Thus the struggle of the these "forces"—all of them, in­ the working class and the 'shades' workers to defend and improve their cluding the Liberal Party, defending of pro-capitalist democrats there living standards rapidly transform­ the capitalist system, and unable can be no unity. ed itself into a political struggle. therefore consistently to oppose its Only the working class, struggling The black workers realised that basis in cheap labour and national for democracy, national liberation, the redress of their social oppression? and material welfare by struggling grievances—the pass and influx con­ The Progressive Party—as the to establish workers' rule, can act as trol laws, the denial of irade union Financial Mail has recently con­ a magnet for the unity of all the op­ rights and the vote—could be ob­ firmed—was financed at that time pressed. tained only through a political to the tune of R250 000 annually by transformation: the bringing to none other than Harry Op- The Liberals power of a government of their penheimer, in whose mines millions of black migrant workers have own. They gave their support to the The so-called 'liberals', represen­ organisation which had begun to sweated blood. When these workers have protested against their ex­ tatives of big business, could emerge, from the time of the De­ therefore play no other role in the fiance Campaign, at the head of the ploitation, they have been shot down by the police sent in by that liberation movement except to sow struggle as the focal point for mass disunity, by persuading the unity—the ANC. same government whose policies Oppenheimer allegedly opposed. organisations of the oppressed to Yet, because of the lack of clarity moderate their stance, to try to at­ of programme and perspectives of Without cheap labour, South tain their objectives step by step. the ANC leadership, the mass move­ African capitalists, however The 'liberals' fully exploited the ment contained within it the seeds of 'progressive', would find it impossi­ lack of a clear revolutionary pro­ its own disunity. ble to withstand the cutthroat com­ gramme on the part of the ANC The leadership based itself on the petition of their rivals in the world leadership, and involved them in view that the responsibility for the market. secret meetings. Jordan Ngubane, a sufferings of the masses, for the Therefore the ruling class has lit­ right-winger who broke with the denial of the franchise, for the tle room to manoeuvre: it can bring ANC in 1955 and would have no whole machinery of racist oppres­ about neither a substantial lasting reason to exaggerate the conser­ sion and the exploitation of the improvement to the living standards vatism of its leaders, revealed that at workers, was to be laid simply at the of the working class, nor make any one particular meeting (organised door of the racist policies of the Na­ meaningful political conces­ by the Institute of Race Relations, tionalist Party government. sions—the black working class to which he had been invited In his presidential address at the would immediately use democratic together with Chief Albert Luthuli annual ANC conference in 1953 rights to struggle for a change in and two former ANC Presidents): Chief Luthuli said: "We are now in their conditions. "the majority on the white side a position in Union politics when we Walter Sisulu, also in 1953, put wanted us to pursue a course so have two main opposing forces: Luthuli's argument in a different moderate our people would prompt­ AFRIKANER NATIONALISM way: "The immediate task of the ly lynch us." {From Protest lo and AFRICAN NATIONALISM." people of SA is to win the right to Challenge, Vol 3). (Luthuli's emphasis). The ANC, determine what sort of society they argued Luthuli, was the vehicle of are going to live in. When African nationalism, and around it democratic rights have been won, The Role of the SACP could become grouped all forces op­ we can discuss what type of social posing the Nationalist government. system we are going to have. Mean­ The leadership of the SA Com­ The practical nature of some of while democrats of all shades must munist Party, banned in 1950 but these "forces" was spelled out, for unite to win political equality." then regrouping underground, gave example, at the annual ANC con­ But the working people cannot uncritical support to the programme ference in 1958. The NEC lamented achieve the ability to "determine of the ANC leadership. the fact that the liberation move­ what sort of society they are going Thus in 1956—barely a week ment had failed to bring about the to live in" without dismantling the before being arrested bv the SA 26

The 1950s: ihe ANC emerges as the focal point for mass unity. government with numerous other of the African people... position on the character and tasks leaders on charges of "It is in this situation that the of the revolution, the SACP disarm­ treason—Moses Kotane, general Communist Party advances its im­ ed many workers who had turned secretary of the SACP, wrote thai mediate proposals before the towards it for a lead. this was not the lime for restricting workers and democratic people of Militant workers, distrustful of the ranks of unity to those suppor­ South Africa. They are not pro­ the open pro-capitalist reformism of ting the Freedom Charter. The op­ posals for a socialist state. They are the nationalist section of the ANC portunity existed "to bring the over­ proposals for the building of a na­ leadership, and sensing behind this whelming majority of anti- lional democratic state." the influence of the ANC's capitalist Nationalist South Africans together This is ihe policy of 'two-stage' "allies", sought from the CP a clear with a common programme of revolution. Every worker and ac­ class answer to the questions thrown struggle againsl the Government." tivist would be quite happy to divide up by the struggle. Many of these (Brian Bunting, Moses Kotane, the struggle into two, 20, or even workers, bitterly disappointed by a pp.226-7) 20 000 stages if needed, if only at "Marxism" that was itself in­ Only in 1962 did the banned the end of it all the chains of oppres­ distinguishable from white SACP publish a complete pro­ sion and exploitation could be snap­ "liberalism", turned to the radical- gramme, The Road to SA ped...if it could be done that way! sounding alternative of Africanism. Freedom. This both confirmed and In fact however, it is quite Uto­ sought to provide an explanation pian to believe that "national for the positions taken by the SACP freedom" can be won, that race in the 1950s—and still stands as the discrimination and privilege can be The PAC SACP programme today: completely abolished, while the The failure of the ANC and CP "The immediate and imperative power of the capitalist class is un­ leadership to provide a clear way interests of all sections of the South broken. Marxism explains the need forward -created conditions for a African people demand the carrying for the overthrow of capitalism by split and the emergence of the Pan out of...a nalional democratic the working class, not because it Africanist Congress, which sought revolution which will overthrow the seems a 'good idea', but precisely the solution to mass oppression in a colonialist state of White supremacy because it is the only way in which programme of African nationalism. and establish an independent state national liberation itself will be realis­ Even when it used the language of of National Democracy in South ed and all the concrete demands of 'class', this programme sought to Africa. The main content of this the struggle achieved deny the class basis of society. revolution is the national liberation In putting forward its erroneous In January 1959 Robert Sobukwc 27 (in an interview in The Africanist) world capitalism hitched the SA weak echoes of the reformism of the declared that the PAC differed from economy to its train, albeit as one of 1950s, and seeking to stifle the new the ANC in holding thai "we are the coaches at the rear. Foreign and voice of the youth. oppressed as a subject nation—the local capitalists reaped huge profits It was inevitable and understan­ African nation....Those of the ANC and white workers* living standards dable that the youth would, in an maintain....That ours is a class soared, in a period of relative class attempt to salvage the national pride struggle. We are, according to them, peace which the ruling class succeed­ of the oppressed, develop an oppressed as WORKERS, both ed in imposing for almost a decade. ideology of intense and defiant white and black. But it is significant BCM was born towards the end black nationalism. that they make no attempt what­ of this period, calling to battle a new soever to organise white workers. and refreshed generation of youth. Their allies are all of them the Its birth was a signal to the Limitations of black bourgeoisie."(OuT emphasis) bourgeoisie that the class 'peace', and consciousness In these accusations there was, as the brief honeymoon of unhindered many workers were well aware, exploitation of the masses, had The youth felt it their task to more than a grain of truth. But the come to an end. mobilise the black people as a whole middle-class PAC leadership took The youth, as Trotsky once said, behind the radical slogans of black advantage of this fact in an oppor- act like the topmost leaves of the consciousness. Until 1976 BCM tunisi fashion in seeking to swing trees, rustling first to the gusts of an grew alongside, but separate from, the black workers behind them. impending storm. The rise of BCM the movement of the workers. The In the same way as the ANC and took place in parallel with the first strike wave of 1972-74, and the birth CP leadership, they put forward the renewed stirrings of the working of the independent union move­ task of national liberation without class. ment, touched the youth only in­ explaining that this could be achiev­ The enormous expansion in the directly. ed only through the struggle for 1960s of the productive forces (the 1976 proved to be a watershed in workers' • rule. Despite its radical number, size, and mechanisation of the development of the youth move­ polish, their programme was no dif­ the factories, mines and farms) ment. The struggle in the schools ferent from the bankrupt reformism massively increased the size and was suddenly confronted with the of the 'two-stage' theory. strategic placement of the black unleashed barbarity of the regime—a greater force in practice In addition the PAC leadership, working class. While grappling with repression the black workers healed than even the most intense na­ criticising the ANC for paying lip tionalism had anticipated in theory. service to the vital (though difficult) their wounds, reflected on the struggle for workers' unity, lessons of past defeats, and Barely two months after they had themselves threw it out of the win­ prepared for a renewed onslaught hurled themselves against the state dow altogether. Their programme on oppression and exploitation. in June, the youth were forced for could offer to the black working The youth, sons and daughters of the first time to call on the workers people only the perspective of strug­ the working class, responded with for support. Instinctively at first, gling for victory against a solid reac­ revolutionary enthusiasm to the but later with far greater understan­ tionary mass of whites, with white spirit of defiance and hatred which, ding, the youth appealed to their workers permanently abandoned to as BCM, spread like wildfire parents, brothers and sisters to join serve as the instrument of the ruling throughout the bush colleges, them in the battle to overthrow op­ class. schools, and townships. But at first pression and exploitation. The ruling class took advantage the youth marched separately from The events of this period etched of the confusion created among the the working class. into the consciousness of the youth workers by the reformism of the BCM arose without a legacy of the lesson that their own forces in ANC-CP leadership, and by the Marxism to draw upon, without the isolation were incapable of bringing guidance of an experienced the state, and the society which it emergence of the PAC 'alternative*. defended, to its knees. Burned into With the movement divided and underground cadre steeled in the Marxist method. The youth had to their understanding by bullets and weakened, the state stepped up its teargas grenades was also the repression. Instead of conceding confront afresh the problems of developing a revolutionary move­ realisation that baasskap was the reforms, it proceeded to smash the means of defending the capitalist organisations of the masses. ment and sewing together the disunity of the past. system of the bosses, local and foreign. The youth were faced with the Why BCM? ostentatious wealth of the whites These lessons sowed the seed in contrasted against the stark poverty their minds for the beginnings of a The crushing of the black of the blacks. They were provoked reassessment of the programme of workers' movement, together with by the racist arrogance of the black consciousness. the political consolidation of "white government, police and the army, Calling their parents to action the and also of white supervisors on the youth discovered, in the workers' unity" around the bourgeoisie, pro­ factory floor. vided the ruling class with the struggle, a force immeasurably political conditions to take full ad­ At the same time the main forms more powerful than themselves vantage of the period of economic of open, organised 'opposition* to alone. expansion that followed. the government were the feeble Yet the political general strikes of In the 1960s the post-war boom of reeds of white liberalism—uttering that period, mobilised from 'out- 28 side' rather lhan by the workers' tical answers. tionalism. The battle against own organisations, left many ques­ This is reflected in the over­ liberalism and reformism can be won tions of strategy and programme whelming turn among the youth only by strengthening the struggle for unresolved. How should the revolu­ towards a class approach to the workers' unily and workers' power. tionary energy of the youth move­ struggle, and towards an understan­ The youth have a vital role to play ment relate to the immense potential ding that the problems of the society in the workers' movement in sus­ power of the workers' movement? will not be solved until the working taining and developing the struggle Because even the workers* people have a government of their for consistent democracy and na­ political struggle in 1976-77 led to own. tional liberation, and exposing and no decisive victory against the This understanding has been ex­ defeating the democratic and na­ regime, because the workers* in­ pressed in the turn to the slogan of tionalist 'diluters'. Absorbing the dustrial movement entered a period 'non-racial democracy'. Yet this lessons of the 1970s and the recent of lull in the economic downturn slogan is only a general formula, period must go hand in hand with between 1975 and 1978, because the which needs to be filled in by strug­ guarding against the mistakes of the banning of BCM organisations in gle rooted in an understanding of 1950s and 1960s. 1977 necessitated a period of the class forces that can achieve it. rcgroupment for the youth, these For the working class, the strug­ questions receded to the gle for non-racial democracy background for a while—only to re- represents no concession to emerge in 1980-81. capitalist reformism or liberalism. Programme By that time the resurgence of the For the working class, democratic workers' movement, fuelled by the organisation is the essential means For forging unity in the struggle temporary economic upturn, had for building its own self-confidence for a government of their own, the begun to transform the whole and power; democracy in society is working class is turning increasingly political atmosphere. In strike after the indispensible guarantee of its towards the ANC. With the workers, strike the working class was showing welfare and security. the youth also have turned their sup­ its power to smash back at the Non-racialism expresses the vital port more and more to the ANC. bosses and serve as a militant pole intention of creating the strongest To achieve non-racial democracy of attraction for all sections of the unity of the working class across all and national liberation, the ANC oppressed—and this when only the the racial divisions imposed by (he will need to be built on a conscious first regiments of the working class ruling class. socialist programme. The turning of army had entered onto the bat­ For the workers' movement, (he the workers towards the Freedom tlefield. struggle for non-racial democracy in Charter reflects the quest for a pro­ As the youth threw themselves SA is waged inch by inch against the gramme that can serve both to meet again into struggle, (he previous in­ implacable enmity of the capitalist the demands of the everyday strug­ stinctive and spontaneous coopera­ class, its regime, and their sup­ gle, and as a rallying point around tion with workers was replaced by a porters, and can be victorious only which to consolidate the unity of the more conscious drawing together. through replacing the capitalist state movement in action. First the education struggle, and by the democratic rule of the work­ This can only be done if the im­ later community struggles, brought ing class. mediate demands of the Charter are together the youth and their Yet the huge uplift of the mass concretised into a programme of ac­ parents. The youth mobilised active struggle in the recent period, under­ tion. They can serve as a basis for support for workers' action, as in pinned by the workers' movement, further consolidating the unity of the Fatti's and Moni's, the meat has also allowed onto the stage the oppressed by bringing together workers' and the Rowntree strikes. those middle-class 'democrats' who the community organisations and peddle illusions in the possibility of the trade unions in campaigns to en­ the democratic reform of SA force those demands. Democracy capitalism. Posing the struggle for In these struggles it is the task of 'non-racial democracy' in the Marxists to explain that the struggle The unprecedented militancy and abstract, they consciously or un­ of the working people for a high level of organisation of the consciously seek to dilute the class democratic government of their own workers' movement has set in mo­ thrust of revolutionary nationalism, cannot be separated from the strug­ tion among the youth a lively discus­ as well as the struggle of the work­ gle for socialism. Those who sup­ sion in search of the ideas and ing class to take power. port democracy consistently have no methods of organisation which can These old liberals in new dress choice but to support this struggle. consolidate a unity rooted in the will take advantage of any lulls in Thus the key demand of the workers' movement. the workers' movement to sow con­ Charter is the demand for the na­ What the development of the fusion among the masses. In this tionalisation of the banks, mines struggle has revealed is the im­ they will serve the interests of the and monopoly industry. This can be possibility of working out a pro­ ruling class. realised, under workers' control and gramme and perspective within the Nor is any solution offered to the management, only if the capitalist framework of black consciousness. problems faced by the workers, the state is smashed and replaced by a The problems posed, and in­ youth (and the middle class itself) by workers' state, which will fulfill not completely resolved after 1976-77, only the aspirations of the working are now urgently demanding prac* those middle-class elements who cl­ ing or revert to exclusive black na­ class, but of all the oppressed. Q 29 Health workers must unite!

In Baragwanath Hospital patients are put on stretchers, couches, chairs or even floors—while wards are empty in the 'white Johannesburg Hospital. South Africa's hopelessly inadequate health care are vacant, 51% for white assistant services are falling into even deeper crisis. Over the nurses, 17% for African nurses and 38% for Indian nurses. past year this has been highlighted by the epidemic of The reason for these shortages at cholera. By mid-1982 there were over 200 dead and a lime of increasing unemployment more than 60 000 victims in Natal alone (according to for blacks and whites is simply the bad working conditions—long Dr Fred Clarke, MEC in charge of Natal hospital ser­ hours, night duties and very low vices). wages. There is almost no safe open The shortages mean nursing staff water in Natal. Even seafood is con­ are overburdened, and patients suf­ taminated. There have also been fer as a result. Or at least the outbreaks of pink-eye and bubonic By Rose Tyler workers, their families and the plague in SA. unemployed who need these services TB, now a rare disease in Europe suffer. The wealthy capitalists and and North America, results in an rulers and those on medical aid in­ average of 10 deaths a day in SA. In the urban areas hospitals for surance have private doctors and Blindness and deaths caused by black patients, like Baragwanath, hospitals to turn to. Here the nurs­ measles are accentuated by are grossly overcrowded. ing staff are better paid and working malnutrition, particularly in rural Baragwanath has 2 713 beds, but conditions are better. areas. frequently 60-80 patients are crowd­ At times the wealthy need the Polio, almost non-existent in ed into a 40-bed ward. The new specialist treatment that only the. most advanced capitalist countries, Johannesburg hospital for whites, state hospitals can provide and then recently caused 10 deaths in the built at fantastic cost, has wards they get VIP treatment with the Northern Transvaal. It could easily which have never been opened shortages hidden. They have private be eliminated with a planned im­ because of the staff shortages. wards—while sick workers sleep on munisation campaign, while pro­ In the Transvaal (according to the stretchers or blankets on the floor or viding clinics with adequate government's racial categories) two in a bed. facilities to refrigerate the vaccine. nearly 40% of posts for white nurses In these overcrowded conditionc 30 someiimes diseases are passed from one paiient to another, for example a malnourished child getting polio from another child, and so ending up with paralysed arms and legs. But as the economic crisis of capitalism deepens in SA and inter­ nationally, cut-backs have been made in the health budget. The state budget for health of Rl 000 million for 1982, with R2 500 million for military spen­ ding, is an insult to the workers, who produce the wealth of the coun­ try. Disability grants have been cut for anyone under 16 years of age. Disabled people are also shunted out to the Bantustans where no assistance at all is given. A proportion of the health budget also supplements military spending by providing medical services for the military. "All those involved in the running of the health care Modern, well-equipped military services must be embraced in a single union...firmly hospitals have been built in Voor- rooted in the less skilled workers...and on the basis of trekkerhoogte and Wynberg. Their full union democracy." wards are filled with those who can still be useful to the state to carry out its dirty work. the complicity of white district workers. A petition was drawn up Those who are no longer considered surgeons in the death of Steve Biko, and presented to the administration. useful are shunted aside. So now the TMS has worked within a pro­ This was ignored and nothing more many paraplegic ex-soldiers can be fessional framework, attracting happened. This was largely because found in Durban's hospitals getting black nurses and doctors. It adopted the TMS leadership did not rally the inadequate treatment. a black consciousness ideology and hospital workers, or even involve limited membership to blacks. the radiographers themselves. Pressures from the wider labour Recently there have been meetings Cost of treatment movement and within the TMS has at Baragwanath to protest against brought about a change and the the victimisation of health workers, With the economic crisis the cost TMS now calls itself the Health in particular a student midwife who of admission to hospital has also Workers Association (HWA) and was refused a job because she had been increased. At Baragwanath the has a non-racial approach to fought for the right of student rate for an in-patient is R5 a day, membership. nurses to have study leave. with persons in higher income In 1981 the health service crisis These issues reveal the urgent brackets paying R35 a day. Even came to a head in mass resignations need for a strong and united trade out-patients must now pay R2 a by radiographers. They complained union for health workers in the face visit. Unfortunately the suggestion that they were not being paid the of the hostile provincial administra­ by the Orlando community to rate for the job after a new examina­ tion. The HWA can only develop if boycott this fee didn't work as tion was introduced, it organises all health workers in the organisation was weak and the trade Since they had better job oppor- struggle for better conditions. unions were not involved. tunies and pay with private doctors All those involved in the running Health workers must organise to or in the mines, they tended to of the health care services must be demand good health facilities for resign rather than start a long strug­ embraced in a single union; the working class while improving gle against the Transvaal Hospital cleaners, clerks, gardeners, security our own working conditions. Administration. staff, porters, technicians, In all areas of SA health workers Conditions in state hospitals for paramedics, secretaries as well as are beginning to organise. For about patients needing X-rays deteriorated ambulance drivers, nurses, two years the Transvaal Medical badly. Only the student radiographers, physiotherapists and Society (TMS) has been raising the radiographers remained, and were doctors. In Baragwanaih itself there question of an organised opposition loaded with excessive work. In are some 10 000 health workers, and to the racist administered health ser­ desperation doctors took over some probably several times that number vices. of the X-ray work. on the Reef alone. Formed initially to campaign on TMS called a meeting of com­ Organisation into a single union the issue of medical ethics to expose munity organisations and hospital will undoubtedly face problems in 31 uniting the struggles of workers with working class. Withdrawing their differing levels of skill, especially services causes immediate increased those considered 'professionals'. suffering for other workers, and INQABA The 'professionals' have the benefit does not hit the bosses of long education, in some cases up directly—although in the long run NEEDS to six years university training, but organisation by health workers is doctors form only a small minority the only way to force improvements of health workers. At Baragwanath in services for the working class as a CASH! for example doctors are only 5% of whole. To step up the campaign for the workers. socialist policies in the workers' The relative privilege of their movement, resources are situation makes it more difficult for needed. them to reflect the interests of the Industrial muscle, The cost of printing Inqaba majority of ordinary workers. A and distributing ii is paid for trade union top-heavy with such Other organised industrial completely out of sales and professional leadership will always workers must use their muscle to donations from readers and face the danger of slipping into an support the health workers. In the supporters. association increasingly isolated present industrial action in Britain, Within South Africa, Inqaba from the wider labour movement. miners and other sections of supporters should ensure that Thus when two porters were fired workers are actively supporting the our journal always changes at Baragwanath for organising health workers. This must be the hands in return for money, no among the porters, the HWA did aim in SA too. The HWA and also matter how little. not take up and fight against this others working towards organising Many demands are made on victimisation. health workers must link up with the workers' inadequate pay Organisation of health workers moves towards trade union unity. packets. But for an indepen­ must be firmly rooted in the less The health workers' organisation dent workers* press to develop, skilled workers, who form the great will give important additional power it must be reliant on the rands majority, and on the basis of full to the labour movement as a whole.' and cents of workers them­ union democracy (where needed, The workers of SA are desperate for selves. separate branches of the same union improvement in health services and Free distribution would mean can be formed for higher level or the health workers are able to put having to look to rich benefac­ supervisory personnel—as is forward many demands which can tors for support, who inevitably sometimes done in other countries). become incorporated into the would try to exchange their This has been the approach at general demands of the workers' money for a say in policy. Woodstock Hospital in Cape Town movement. From sales of Inqaba at where the workers' committee has Every effort has now to be made home, local funds should be been recognised by management. to organise all health workers— built up to finance photo­ copying, distribution and the * to campaign for a comprehensive necessary travel costs of com­ and free national health service to rades in each area. Single health union take the place of private practice; It is essential also for com­ rades to set aside and contribute The advantages of a single health weekly as much money as union can be seen from the dif­ * to struggle to eliminate all racial possible into a 'fighting fund' ficulties caused by divisions in other and class discrimination in health for political activities. Cash- countries. In Britain, for example, care without distinction between ur­ consciousness is pari of there are at least six major unions ban and rural areas; political consciousness. with members in the health sector. Supporters who organise * to struggle for a national Some are professional associations, discussion groups round In­ minimum wage of R100 a week ris­ and others have mushroomed in re­ qaba should take regular collec­ ing automatically in line with the cent years among the unskilled and tions for the journal. low-paid workers. cost of living, on the basis of a negotiated agreement between an in­ To our readers and sup­ This causes division at the very dependent health union and porters abroad we appeal for time there needs to be united employers of health workers; regular donations to enable us organisation and struggle. The pre­ to expand our work. sent industrial action in the National Help the ideas of Marxism Health Service in Britain is compell­ * to combine with other workers to gain a mass hearing in the ing the diffferent unions to work achieve a socialist South Africa labour and youth movement. more closely together. This wuld where all workers will enjoy health, Letters and donations from be much easier if there wa.-. one full employment, and social securi­ outside South Africa should be union. ty. sent to: Health workers must also INQABA YA BASEBENZI, recognise their relative weakness in BM Box 1719, London comparison with other sectors of the WC1N 3XX 32 MONONO 'A9 MASAPOA BONA

Al dra 'n aap 'n goue ring bly hy nog steeds 'n lelike SA) and are having a good time before Rome starts bur­ ding. ning!" Pik Botha recently appeared at a press conference The working class, building its own means of achiev­ dressed as colonel in the SAAF. Pik's problem is, ing freedom, security and power, knows the answer to though, that no one but himself can remember giving this. him the rank. The SADF denies he holds it. This isn't the first time Pik has impersonated an army officer (for which he could get 5 years in prison or RIOOO It doesn't matter which party the bosses support; fine!) Once before he appeared with a strange badge of when il comes to profits, they all act the same way. rank which someone described as looking like "a cross French workers in a Toulouse wine factory discovered between a garden and a car accident". this when the managing director of the Sica-Vin wine The South African regime made great propaganda company sacked 14 workers including 3 officials of the over the antics of Idi Amin, who promoted himself to CGT, the trade union federation led by the CP. various ranks in the Ugandan Defence Force. They had The managing director, millionaire Monsieur better watch out for Pik. Dumeng, has been a member of the French Communist Parly for almost fifty years!

The bosses are telling the workers that because of the recession they will have to tighten their belts. What kind of example are the bosses selling? "Spending by the rich In April, Golden City Press reported an attack by has taken on record proportions...Money is power. Chief Gatsha Buthelczi against people who, he claimed, Money is security. Money is, above all else, freedom," were trying to discredit him as a leader of the working declares the Financial Mail survey, "The rich at play". masses. They were people, he complained, "who are not Got housing problems? Harry Oppenheimer's Johan­ in the struggle for liberation." nesburg home is on an 18 hectare estate in Parktown. Those he referred to were four Marxists suspended According to rumour David Lurie spent RIOO 000 on from the ANC. In the course of a document published altering his home. Natie Kirsh even more. in 1979, The workers' movement, SACTU and the ANC Tired of crowded trains and buses? One car dealer (hey cautioned the ANC leadership against talks with sells over 20 new Rolls Royces every year. The Buthelezi. Camargue costs R275 000, the Silver Spur only "II is necessary lo underline" said the document, R210 000. "that, despite his pretences, Buthelezi is no friend of the Feel like freshening up? Try the most popular of the working class- He is a defender of capitalist interests, prestigious lines of men's toiletries, Paco Rabanne's and as our struggle mounts he will be used by big 'Pour Homme'. The shaving foam costs R13.50; and the business in an attempt to restrain the movement of the soap R8.50. workers from carrying out its revolutionary tasks." Have you got the time? Join the waiting list of over 60 A week earlier, the Chief found himself in better com­ people at one jeweller tor the RI2 000 Piaget Polo wat­ pany. To his fellow-speaker al a public meeting he said ch. "1 want here publicly to share a platform with you and Are the kids getting under your feet? Send them to a say that SA blacks are deeply grateful for what you have private boarding school at anything between R2 500 and done for us". Who was this benevolent figure? None R4 500 a year per child. other than Harry Oppenheimer. But even the Financial Mail knows this can't last. Of course Galsha is not a "defender of capitalist in­ Could it be, it asks, that the rich are "worried that the terests". Of course Harry Oppenheimer must be "in the curtain is finally coming down on the West (especially struggle for liberation". And pigs can fly... i* Hulle vet. ons bene" 33

Zimbabwean workers struggle continues

*

The workers of Harare have availability of raw vegetable seeds. the pressure be to move towards a scarcely had lime lo lidy up afler (he Faced with declining profits, the one-party state. This would cut second anniversary of independence capitalists are squeezing the govern­ away many of the democratic gains before Ihe country has had lo face a ment to remove even the weak con­ made by the massses in the in­ number of shocks. trols over prices. Despite legislation dependence struggle. 'Bandit' attacks (many by former prohibiting companies from firing The workers and peasants are ZIPRA guerrillas) have increased workers, almost 2000 workers have learning through experience that during the last few months as buses already lost their jobs through the every move the government is forc­ have been looted and motorists and closure of 177 small mines. In many ed to make to alleviate their condi­ farmers shot. Many stale welfare cases workers' leaders are singled tions, the capitalists proceed to and veterinary programmes in out for sacking. undermine. The real way forward Matabeleland have ground to a halt. Bourgeois economists are now lies in overthrowing capitalism and Most recently six hostages were seiz­ pointing to a downturn in the Zim­ carrying through nationalisation of ed; and an airforce base at Gweru babwean economy, with the growth the monopolies under workers' con­ blown up (although it is possible the rate declining from 12,9% last year trol and management. Only then South African regime was behind this to 3% or less this year. The balance can planned production and rather than 'dissidents'.) of payments deficit is now estimated distribution be instituted in the in­ terests of the whole people. These futile activities have been to run at around $400 million for met with a clampdown by the 1981. Fierce battles lie ahead, as the military and police in Bulawayo and Hit by the world economic workers organise to defend surrounding areas, resulting in a downturn, plagued by drought, and themselves against growing growing number of detentions. constantly reminded by the masses unemployment, price increases and The deteriorating security situa­ of the promises made by ZANU falling wages. Strengthening the tion reflects the crisis in Zimbab­ before independence, the Mugabe trade unions and the struggle for a wean society. While independence government is struggling to con­ socialist programme within the has undoubtedly been a big stride solidate its rule. ranks of ZANU and ZAPU are forward for the people, the land, the The more banditry in the rural urgent tasks in the next period. factories and the mines remain in areas develops, the more the the hands of the power-seeking big workers resort to strike action to en­ bosses. Land grabbing continues. force their demands, the greater will By Sam Parkin

Drought The plight of the peasants and workers has been aggravated by the worst drought experienced in 30 years. It could result in 2 million Zimbabweans facing starvation and long term damage to the national herd and agriculture. The decline in the economy con­ tinues to strike at the urban masses. After a three-month price freeze (which ended on 30 April) prices have continued to rise steeply. Even during the price freeze the price of sugar and beef was raised sharply! For the first time in many workers' experience they have had to queue for necessities, including paraffin and bread. Cooking oil has Women workers on a tobacco farm. The picture was taken before in­ not been available, despite the dependence—but the same bosses are stiti in control. 34 i®HOG[b(M?0Ll i\8s?fl@am 0Q®3@ imperialism be respected(!)—but its next chairman, Gaddafi, has No to Botha-Swazi land deal! already supported the land deal!! The decision by Ihe SA gov- the attempt 10 draw Swaziland more Sobhuza and his government have ernmenl lo hand over KaNgwane closely under the Bantustan um­ accepted the deal because it adds to brella, in part this is to cover over their territory, gives them access to and the Ingwavuma district of the absurdities in giving Kwazulu to Swaziland, and the the sea, and has been sweetened by 'independence' to the tiny remain­ promises of financial and technical dissolution of the KaNgwane toy ing non-independent 'homelands'. 'government*, has left the Ban- development assistance by the SA Already rumours are circulating of a government. tustan collaborators wailing with future deal with Lesotho over Qwa- powerlessness. But none of this offers any way qwa—and even of a link up between forward for the people of The matter has been taken to the Bophuthatswana and Botswana. Swaziland. The increasing crisis of courts in an attempt to stop what Moreover this is an attempt by the the SA capitalist economy will the apartheid regime is doing. But in SA government to gain interna­ gradually sap the ability of the SA spite of these protests and legal tional recognition for its Ban- government to prop up the Swazi wrangles, the SA government seems tustans. Swaziland is a member of rulers with 'aid*. The economic poised to bulldozer ahead. the UN and the OAU—and the SA dependence of Swaziland on SA will That the land deal is motivated by government hopes it will serve as the mean that any new port in Kosi Bay the government's desire to "bring thin edge of the wedge to gain will have to compete for trade together those whom history has set with Durban, Richards Bay and recognition for Transkei, Maputo. apart" (a former Natal MP, Botha) Bophuthatswana, etc. is a deliberate lie. The SA ruling class and its apartheid government Swaziland's acceptance of the In fact the new deal is likely to have always set themselves against deal will certainly add to the confu­ lead only to tightened SA political democracy and national unity. sion and division within the OAU. control over Swaziland. If an at­ Its charter demands that old ar- tempt is being made, as is suggested, What is the real purpose of this tifical colonial borders imposed by to create a buffer against guerilla deal? Faced with the swelling move­ ment of the SA workers and op­ pressed, the SA government is try­ ing to speed up 'Bantustanisa- tion'—and turn it in new directions. For the people of KaNgwane and Ingwavuma the deal will mean the loss of SA citizenship, and as Swazi citizens they will face greater dif­ ficulties when seeking employment in SA industries and farms. The SA government wants to shift the responsibility for these people onto W£ ARE v^i the Swazi government, where serious unemployment problems already exist. ?KEPAK £b To cS,^- M Already the fear is being express­ ed that, once the land deal is through, the people of Ingwavuma and KaNgwane will be treated as second-class Swazi citizens, and may even lose jobs they are holding at present. In this way the plan is designed to divide the working class in order to escape the political pro­ blems which will arise out of widespread unemployment and poverty. It may also be an attempt at re­ juvenating tribal conflict to divert the attention of the masses from their appalling conditions. The new feature of this action is Protest in KaNgwane agatnsl the land deal 35

incursions, then this will inevitably Southern Africa has already been and organised working class to over­ come to involve increased SADF ac­ made into one economic whole, throw capitalism, create conditions tivity in Swaziland itself. This will in with one working class enslaved by for genuine self-determination, and turn allow the SA military to be us­ the domination of the SA rid society for ever of the rule of ed against the Swazi working class capitalists. At the same time, the feudal remnants like Sobhuza and as it reawakens to carry forward its political fragmentation of the sub­ modern dinosaurs like P.W. Botha. history of militant struggle. continent has thrown up barriers to On the basis of a federation of Already Koornhof has secretly the development of production. socialist states of Southern Africa, promised Mabuza, the KaNgwane Capitalism is incapable of the the resources of the entire region puppet, the deputy premiership of unification of Southern Africa. could be used also for the benefit of Swaziland! The only way forward for the the impoverished masses in The workers' movement working people of Swaziland, South backward areas like KaNgwane, vehemently opposes this land deal Africa and the whole of the sub­ KwaZulu and Swaziland. and any further fragmentation of SA continent lies in joining together by the regime. under the leadership of a unified By Gerald Desai

Mozambique These cold-blooded manoeuvres parliamentary seats! will fail to bring about a counter­ The reason for the massive swing The reactionary 'Movement revolution. The majority of workers to the left has been the devastating of National Resistance' in and peasants realise that the MNR effects of capitalist crisis on Mauri­ Mozambique has been stepp­ and its imperialist backers have tian working people. With a slump nothing to offer the Mozambi- in the world price of sugar—the ing up what even the capitalist quans, and they will defend the island's main export—the economy press calls its "terror cam­ gains of the revolution. has been crippled. Purchasing paign" (Star, 4 June). To a limited extent, the Mozambi- power has fallen by 40<7o since 1978; Vital projects like the Caoora quan economy has begun to recover one in five workers is unemployed. Bassa dam and the oil pipeline to from the collapse brought about by Only socialist policies can lift Zambia have been set back by MNR Portuguese withdrawal. Mauritius out of the poverty trap, activities. Rail traffic to Beira has But Mozambique on its own does by abolishing capitalist exploitation been attacked. not have the means for a rapid and bringing the economy under The defeat of Portuguese col­ development of the economy that working-class control. But for this onialism in 1974 meant the collapse can satisfy the people's aspirations. small island-state, everything will of capitalism and the establishment Nor, with capitalism as well as depend on a correct internationalist of a planned, state-run economic Stalinism in deepening crisis inter­ standpoint. Its development needs system. But the poverty and nationally, can it hope for adequate to be linked to the advance of the underdevelopment which Mozambi­ development aid from either West workers' movement in India, que has inherited cannot be over­ of East. France, South Africa and elsewhere. come as long as it remains the economic prisoner of SA and world Only the victory of the SA The MMM leadership, unfor­ imperialism. workers* revolution, bringing the tunately, have set out in an opposite powerful SA economy under direction, toning down their radical Thus thousands of rural people, workers' control and management, policies in seeking to compromise unable to make a living on the land, can lift the burdens which im­ with capitalism. For example, only are flooding to Maputo. But the perialism imposes on the people of two of the 20 private sugar estates government, with no prospect of Mozambique and other independent are to be nationalised. "We can best providing enough new jobs and states. be compared with the Socialist Par­ housing, has resorted to measures of ties of France or Spain", MMM 'influx control' that will require all leader Berenger has assured the citizens over the age of 16 to carry a capitalists. "residence card" showing if they Mauritius are employed in the city. The road of reformism will prove disastrous for working people in a The MNR is being used by the The Mauritian elections on 11 country where capitalism can afford apartheid regime to exploit these June showed an unprecedented no significant reforms. Either the grim conditions. It is callously indif­ landslide vote for the revolutionary rule of capitalism must be ended, or ferent to the suffering of the people. transformation of society. the capitalists will eventually move At a time of serious food shortages Standing for radical change in the to crush the workers' expectations. it has turned its attention to disrup­ eyes of working people, the Mauri­ ting the harvesting of crops in the tian Militant Movement and its Revolutionary battles lie ahead of central provinces, trying to stoke up partner, the Socialist Party, won the Mauritian workers to defeat this more anger against Frelimo. every single one of the 62 elected danger. 36 KAUNDA AND BOTHA -

talks will not help them have found themselves being forced to struggle against the very same people they put into power, waging strikes and demonstrating to register their complaints and grievances. The protest of the masses is met with brutal force by the armies, the police and the courts. In these coun­ tries as well as South Africa the workers arc chained to the factories and have the police and ar­ my to force them to produce more wealth, thus prolonging the survival of capitalism and its defenders. In Zambia as in SA trade union leaders have been arrested and de­ tained. In most of the Southern African countries the trade unions are strictly controlled by the govern­ ment, and strikes arc illegal. Today Zambia is troubled, with gigantic strikes by the workers and bitter opposition to the regime. This is as a result of Zambia's economic problems, fuelled by the world On 30 April President Kaunda of After the Kaunda-Botha meeting, the capitalist crisis. Zambia and Prime Minister Botha Zambian press stopped referring to SA Thus Kaunda, with his dream of met, al Kaunda's request, in a as 'racist'. "humanism" faded, runs from his mobile caravan carefully placed on problems to Botha, using Namibia the Botswana-SA border. and SA to divert the attention being What made Kaunda want to talk focussed on him by the Zambian to Botha, and what made Botha ac­ feared for the destruction of masses. He hopes Botha can bring cept the request? After all, in doing capitalism in Rhodesia, and an end to (he explosive tensions in this, Kaunda 'broke ranks' with the escalating working-class struggle Southern Africa and save him the front-line states—although from throughout the region. trouble of having to face the Zam­ these slates there was only muted In SA too it will not be fine words bian workers who are already on the criticism of his actions. by black leaders, but only the warpath. Kaunda is reported to have told organised movement of the working Botha that if the SA government class, that can compel the release of wants "racial peace" it will have to all political prisoners. release from prison the black leaders Thus Kaunda exaggerates his per­ Hoping vainly such as Mandela, Sisulu and others, sonal magnetism. His real concerns and negotiate with them. are shown by the report that he told to buy time It was, he claimed, "as a result of Botha that unless SA's rulers my meetings with John Vorster in withdrew from Namibia and made No doubt Botha told Dr Kaunda 1975 and with Mr Ian Smith" that reforms in SA, "the resultant explo­ of the so-called "reforms" he is Mugabe and Nkomo were released sion would make the French revolu­ promising to bring about in SA. from prison in Zimbabwe—"the tion look like a Sunday school pic­ With such meetings, and his talk of essential first step to Rhodesia nic." Kaunda fears that such an reform, Botha hopes vainly to buy becoming independent Zimbabwe." "explosion" would affect the whole time and convince the Southern In fact the release of Mugabe and of Southern Africa—including African black working class he is Nkomo was forced on Smith by the Zambia itself. driving closer to change. pressure of the peasants and When black states like Zambia at­ Because of Zambia's economic workers who had overthrown tained independence the workers dependence on SA, the SA ruling capitalism in Mozambique and and the poor masses thought that class hopes to draw Kaunda and Angola and were becoming they were going to enjoy the fruits other such leaders into active radicalised in the war situation in of their labour. defence of the capitalist system in Rhodesia itself. The imperialists Instead, under capitalism, they SA. This is the meaning of the state- 37 ment by Colin Eglin, former leader always remain poor, live in horrible rid South Africa of racism and of the PFP, when welcoming the conditions, and work endlessly for capitalism. In the same way the Botha-Kaunda talks, that "despite the capitalists who depend on the South African workers must build hostile rhetoric and understandable police and the army for their rule. their Jijiks #ith the workers struggl­ hostility to apartheid many people ing in Zambia, and throughout in Africa displayed a very real and Southern Africa, to carry out the even understanding interest in SA socialist transformation of the and would like to sec circumstances Gravediggers region. change so that the people of Time is running out for Kaunda Southern Africa could benefit from But the capitalist system in and Botha and they must know that SA's inclusion in a wider communi- Southern Africa is day by day their talks will not help them. It is ly of African nations". creating its gravedigger, the working the working class that will free But the problems facing the work­ class, which is forced by its misery South Africa's political prisoners ing people of South Africa, and poverty to see the need to unite and call on them to lake their full Namibia, Zambia and the whole of and struggle for democracy and an part in the struggle. Southern Africa cannot be solved end to exploitation. within the framework of capitalism. The working class in SA and Under capitalism the workers will Zambia must unite in the struggle to By Headman Sasa

"Youth movement must ILfflGftHP integrate into the workers movement"

Dear comrades, youth into a massive movement revolution in SA. The recent debate in the black against state power and capital that Criticism of black consciousness consciousness movement about the led to the bannings. To the rulers, in earlier years was not sufficient for way forward reflects the growing any movement or tendency that will the movement to see its weaknesses strength of the black workers' have the effect of propelling the and change course. Only under the movement during the past 2-3 years. workers into strikes and especially sheer impact of events, with the The numerous strikes, militant political action, must be crushed if it workers moving strongly forward, struggles and gains that the workers' cannot be tamed. are sections of BC realising the most movement has made could not fail However the rapidly unfolding fundamental truth of all the strug­ to hammer home certain conclu­ strike action since late 1979, and the gles in SA—the fate of SA and even sions about who are and will in­ emergence of the black workers' Southern Africa will be determined creasingly be the decisive forces of movement as an independent force, by the outcome of the class conflict the South African revolution. began to challenge existing illusions between capital and labour, The banning of the BCM in the leadership of BCM. especially black labour. organisations in 1977 had the effect Increasingly the black youth are This is not in the least to belittle of temporarily strengthening the drawing the most important the militancy of the black con­ belief that black consciousness ideas political conclusions from the sciousness youth and the show the way forward under the tremendous struggles that have been devastating effect of the national leadership of the youth. waged on hundreds of issues—that oppression and racism directed In fact the bannings revealed the black working class alone has against black people, especially the more blatantly the repressive the power, rallying all the oppress­ workers. But the fact remains that character of the state which is deter­ ed, to end the apartheid-capitalist the virulent racism and and national mined by the explosive depth of the system. oppression faced by black people social contradictions between the It is this which has caused them to cannot be overthrown without the rulers and the workers. review the developments since the destruction of its foundation, This is not to say that the strug­ inception of the BCM. As a result capitalism, and the conquest of state gles of the black youth were not in many youth have moved over to power. themselves intolerable to the rulers, support for the Freedom Charter, As the youth learn this they will revealing the unstable, narrow and and also for the workers' move­ take their place in the forefront of severely contradictory social basis ment. The further integration of the the struggle for the workers' revolu­ of its rule. But it is the realisation by youth movement into the general tion. the rulers that it is the black workers working class movement will afford who can transform this threat of the the best prospect for the unfolding Farouk Dawood 31* InternatiB Bloodbath in Lebanon On 4 June the Israeli army Imperialism is realising that the launched its massive invasion I by FJma Louw I Palestinians cannot be bombed out into Lebanon. The alleged of existence. Furthermore, another major war in the Middle East, could reason given for this "Opera­ well trigger off revolutions in the tion Peace for Galilee' was to already very unstable region. In put Northern Israeli towns of military aid. Israel was seen as a fortress against the Arab revolution, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt as well as beyond the range of rocket which would threaten the material Israel, class contradictions have and artillery fire from the interests of imperialism—especially been sharpening over a long period. Palestine Liberation oil. For these reasons the Arab states want to avoid becoming involved in Organisation (PLO). another war with Israel, which But it has become clear thai the would put enormous pressures on Israeli government hopes to Strengthen determination their already weak economies. decisively destroy the PLO in The repressive capitalist and feudal Lebanon. By not just attacking regimes in the Arab countries, unable military targets, but savagely bomb­ to provide homes, jobs and a decent ing Lebanese and Palestinian Far from ending the Palestinian living to the working people in their civilian areas, including hospitals, struggle, however, the murderous own countries, will not give consis­ schools and the refugee camps, bombings of civilian areas and tent support to the Palestinians' the Israeli government hopes to ter­ refugee camps will only strengthen rorise the Palestinians out of struggle. the determination of the three The national liberation of the Lebanon—in this way 'solving' the million Palestinians in Ihe Middle Palestinian question. Palestinian people cannot be East to fight for their national and separated from the struggle of In fact, with an estimated 10 000 social emancipation. people killed so far and 600 000 made homeless, the biggest victims of the Israeli aggression have been the Lebanese civilian population. Slaughter on this scale, unprecedented even for the Israeli military machine, shows up SA's staunch ally in the Middle East for what it is.

Imperialism

Since the establishment in 1948 of the Jewish state of Israel in what us­ ed to be Palestine, the Palestinians have been driven into exile as refugees or made into second-class citizens. This led to hostilities bet­ ween Israel and the Arab states, resulting in four major wars—in 1948-9, 1956, 1967, and 1973. The formation ot Israel was back­ ed by imperialism from the beginn­ ing, especially the US. After the war of 1973 the USA gave Israel $2 The Lebanese people have been the biggest victims of Israel's merciless billion a year—half of it in the form bombing attacks. 39 nsl notes BRITAIN Fight the bosses,

workers and poor peasants throughout the Middle Easl to end not the socialists! capitalism and establish workers' rule. The bubble of nationalist ment, to implement the socialist This struggle is in the interest, too, euphoria blown up by the right-wing clause of the Constitution, which of Israeli workers, who will find no calls for nationalisation of the security while the Palestinian ques­ media over the victory of British im­ perialism in the South Atlantic war economy under workers' control tion remains unresolved, and who are and management. also suffering the bitter effects of is bursting, leaving working people capitalist crisis. again with the cold reality of life in The attack on Militant is only the capitalist Britain. beginning of a last concerted effort Inflation in Israel is running at well Thatcher's guns are si ill trained by the pro-capitalist right wing to over 100% and the war costs are on the living standards of the work­ smash the growing radicalisation of loading huge new burdens on the ing class. Four million are labour's ranks. people—estimated at present at more unemployed. For the youth, the than R35O0 million. There has been But already their witch-hunt is fac­ future is one of poverty and ing problems as rank-and file a sharp drop in production and ex* squalor. Two out of three school members rally to defend the ports because workers have been call­ leavers this year will not find jobs. movement's democratic traditions ed up for military service. Train drivers and health workers of open debate. A group of Welsh have been in the front line of the workers expressed this mood, say­ workers' counter-offensive. The ing: "If they try to expel you, we are Socialist federation train drivers' strike, which the joining the Labour Party to defend bosses could not break, was ended you". Literally hundreds of Party and trade union branches have only by the betrayal of the right- flooded Labour's headquarters with Opposition to the war is growing wing leaders of the Trade Union in Israel. Anti-war demonstrations in resolutions opposing any witch­ Congress. hunt. Tel Aviv have attracted tens of It is against this background thai thousands of people. AI*o Israeli socialist policies to defeat the big- The British Communist Party, on soldiers have organised to coordinate business government are gaining a the other hand, opposes an attack further protests. More and more can wider hearing. The capitalist press on the "left as a whole"—but ap­ see that this war is not about defen­ and its 'shadows' in the labour parently not on Militant supporters! ding Israel, but destroying the movement, principally the Its paper, the Morning Star, spells Palestinians and their organisations, Parliamentary Labour leaders, fear out this scandalous position: regardless of the cost in lives. Karl Marx's saying becoming a "If there is evidence that the Mili­ Cooperation among the peoples of reality: "Ideas become a material tant Tendency is in breach of the the Middle East, whose futures are force when they grip the minds of rules (of the Labour Party), let that inseparably bound together, in a the masses". evidence be made public ... If it is socialist federation, would provide That is why the capitalists and the then thought necessary, the Labour the basis to begin to develop the rich right wing of the Labour Party have Party's rules are adequate enough to resources of the region to the benefit launched an "investigation" of deal with Militant without a register of all. Within such a federation both Militant, the Marxist tendency of which opens up the spectre of witch­ the Palestinians and the Israelis, and the Party. The resulting report— hunts..." (2 July). other national groups, could if they in reality a plan to exclude However, all those who try by wished exercise a right to a state of Militant supporters from Party their own. bureaucratic means to separate membership—has since been ac­ Marxism from the workers' move­ Marxists must seek to build a basis cepted by the National Executive ment will find that it is impossible. among workers in the Middle East Committee after a fierce debate. The rising tide of the workers' strug­ for a programme of common strug­ Behind a smokescreen of charges gle will create conditions where the gle towards this. of breaking the Party's rules, the ideas of Marxism and the socialist right wing are trying to hide their revolution will become an unstop­ own political nakedness. They have pable force. failed to build the Party or, despite 17 years of post-war Labour govern­ By a Militant supporter 40 JOE MAVI

— a militant and courageous union leader

In July 1980 10 000 municipal bosses decided to drag the workers members who were killed in workers came oul on a strike which out of the compounds at gunpoint Swaziland, the ruthless police show­ lefl refuse uncollected, pavements and into buses to dump them in the ed their utmost callousness by ar­ uncleaned and buses idle. Their 'homelands'; many were forced to resting all the people and packing leader was Joseph Mavi, a former leave their personal belongings them all in five vans like sardines. bus driver in the Johannesburg behind. They were then taken to security Municipality. On June 8th this year, In the Bantustans magistrates police headquarters at Protea for Joseph Mavi was sadl> killed in a were ordered to arrange for fresh questioning. As usual the police did car accident while travelling from workers among (he many not give reasons for the arrests and Port Elizabeth with three other unorganised and unemployed to even admitted that there were no in­ unionists who sustained minor in­ replace the dismissed municipal cidents of unrest that sparked them juries. employees. In this way the bosses off. Joseph Mavi is remembered by were able to break the strike. Even the church leaders were not the workers as a militant and Mavi was arrested during the helpful in any way. The spirit courageous leader but as a strike and charged with 'sabotage' of the mass movement so haunts the law - breaker by the bosses because but later acquitted. Afterwards he Catholic bureaucrats that they were of the 1980 Municipal strike. suffered detention without trial and afraid to have Mavi's dead body in Mavi started organising the many other hardships in the course their church. It took a long time Johannesburg municipal workers of his work as a trade union leader. before they were persuaded by the into the Black Municipality From then on up to the time of his workers to allow the use of the Workers Union (BMWU) into death he was involved in organising hall. which thousands of workers flock­ workers and creating links with 1 The municipal workers have lost ed, shunning the bosses union, the other trade unions. one of their leaders and comrades Union of Johannesburg Municipali­ Trade unionists who paid tribute but, as was said at his funeral, "they ty Workers (UJMW). to Joseph Mavi described him as a must take heart in spile of the great The Johannesburg Management talented and commiled trade loss and look to the future.** Committee refused to recognise the unionist, whose death was not only The working class must continue BMWU saying the Union did not a loss to the municipal workers in lo organise themselves and create represent the majority of the Johannesburg but to the working their own leaders who will be com­ workers. But they got the surprise of class movement as a whole. They mitted to their struggles against the their lives when within a week 10 000 pledged that they would continue bosses. Those at the head of Ihe workers went on strike—one of the with the struggle for a South Africa, union must continue where Mavi biggest in a single industry in the "where there shall be work, security left off—organising more workers history of South Africa. and comfort for all." and establishing more branches all The bosses declared the strike il­ On 13th June when about 250 over the couniry and struggling for legal and ordered their police lo trade unionists and friends were at­ trade union unity. restore 'law and order' but the tending a memorial service in Dube, workers still did not go to work. The Soweto for Mavi and two ANC 4' By P. Qubulashe CHILE 1970-73 £an d R. Monroe ]

The Revolution Aborted exports, was half-owned by the In September 1970 Salvador Allende was elected government, yet the US Anaconda President of Chile at the head of the Popular Unity (UP) Copper company was still in 1969 coalition. The installation of a UP government drawing 80% of its world profits dominated by the traditional workers1 parties of from the labour of Chilean workers. Economic growth was held back Chile—the Socialist Party and Communist Party— by the small domestic market and the showed the burning aspirations of the Chilean workers high cost of manufactured imports. and peasants for the transformation of society. Borrowing money to stimulate pro­ duction made Chile a pawn of the US Almost exactly three years history of Latin America?, banks—with an external debt in 1970 later, on 11 September 1973, a In Chile at the end of the 1960s, the ... $300 per head, then one of the military coup organised by yoke of landlordism and capitalism highest in the world. General Pinochet overthrew inflicted on the masses conditions of Against the background of these the democratically-elected UP poverty, hunger, landlessness, il­ conditions, the UP government was government. Allende himself literacy, endemic sickness, slum and elected en a radical programme was killed in the defence of the squatter housing, and alcoholism. which awakened the hopes of the Presidential palace; at least In 1970 nearly \ of the people earn­ masses that it would solve the pro­ 50 000 workers, peasants and ed less than the minimum wage, while blems of society. Under its banner the top 2% of salary-earning many gains were made. youth died in resistance, or households got 12,5% of total in­ were rounded up to be tortured come. Banking and industry was con­ and executed en masse in cold trolled by the wealthy few. In 1965 blood. less than 2% of landowners controll­ Radical reforms The trade union and political ed 73% of the land (a situation organisations of the workers and scarcely altered by agrarian reform The copper industry was finally ex­ peasants were outlawed, strikes between 1965 and 1970). propriated (effectively without com­ declared illegal, and working hours Capitalism in Chile arrived too late pensation) from US imperialism. increased under the jackboot of the to develop the economy in an all- Large sectors of industry, from coal military. round way. to textiles and fishing, were na­ What were the conditions which In 1970 nearly half the top com­ tionalised in whole or part. About 9 gave rise to the UP government? And panies were foreign-controlled, drain­ million acres of the biggest landed why was it overthrown by the ing profits to US big business. Cop- estates passed into the hands of pooi bloodiest coup in the coup-prone per mining, accounting for 70% of peasants. In the first year of UP, in- 42 dustrial production rose by 23%. Living standards of even the poorest rose by a fifth. Children, for "Chile has chosen to carry out a revolution within a the first time in history, got free milk and meals at school. Great strides bourgeois democracy and will continue to do so, even forward were taken in the field of though it is difficult" — Allende pensions, welfare services, health, housing and schooling. But these attempts to turn the • capitalist profit system to serve the laboration were the fundamental that this "Chilean road...carries with needs of the people were all drown­ cause of the defeat. it the fewest risks in human terms." ed in the blood of the counter­ The leaders of the Chilean CP Why was this "democratic revolu­ revolution—in the space of only three argued that the UP reforms attack­ tion" difficult? In capitalist society, years. ed "only" the interests of US im­ as Lenin had long before explained, Under Pinochet the people were perialism and "feudal" Chilean "There is not a single state, however again brutally re-enslaved. Factories landowners—that a "national democratic, which has no and lands were restored to their old democratic revolution" could win the loopholes...in its constitution, owners. The US experts rushed in to support of "progressive" local guaranteeing the bourgeoisie the recover the economy for decaying capitalists, politicians and generals. possibility of despatching troops imperialism. Indeed, under the pressure of the against the workers...in a case of a The coup coincided with the end of organised movement of workers and 'violation of public order' and actual­ the post-war boom in the advanced peasants, the Chilean oligarchy was ly in case the exploited class 'violates' capitalist countries. Under the divided. Politically, it was split bet­ its position of slavery and tries to generals, the weak and dependent ween the right-wing National Party behave in a non-slavish manner." Chilean economy went into a and the "progressive" Christian Within its history, the Chilean devastating slump, worsened by the Democrats. working class had experienced use of monetarist policies. Industrial But the UP reforms, pushed on by countless massacres at the hands of production fell (by 25% in 1975 the pressure of the working people, the troops of the ruling class—the alone) and unemployment soared— went far beyond what Chilean worst of them the slaughter of 3 000 to over 50% in some sectors in 1975. capitalism could afford: they nitrate miners, their wives and Living standards fell sharply. necessarily represented not just an at­ children, in the schoolhouse of San­ Nine years later the Chilean peo­ tack on particular capitalists, but on ta Maria de Iquique in 1907. ple, nearly | living in towns, still the intertwined interests of im­ In September 1973, to suppress the struggle under the grim whips of perialism, landowners and local non-slavish behaviour of the Chilean military dictatorship, unemployment, capitalists—on the system of private masses, the generals had no scruples and economic crisis. The Chilean property itself. about dissolving parliament, murder­ working class, the decisive force in As Trotsky had explained before ing the president, tearing up the con­ society with a proud and militant the Russian Revolution of 1917, stitution, and burying democracy in tradition, is still fighting to regroup social and democratic reform in a the mass graves of the workers. and overcome the effects of the backward country could be carried Printed on every Chilean Socialist catastrophic defeat of 1973. through only by the working class Party card was a warning of this, The working class of the in­ taking power and abolishing the distilled from its own history and that dustrialised as well as the colonial system of profit and private proper­ of the working class internationally: world looked in 1970 to the "Chilean ty. The UP reform programme con­ "Evolutionary transformation by experiment" of the UP government firmed this in practice, basing itself means of the democratic system is not as a test of a strategy to transform necessarily on nationalisation, possible because the ruling class has society. We must learn the lessons of redistribution, takeover of industry organised itself in armed civil bodies [hat defeat. and land—the assertion of workers' and has erected its own dictatorship and peasants' power and workers' to maintain the workers in poverty control. and ignorance and prevent their The leaders of Popular Unity pro­ emancipation." Class collaboration mised the masses they would Marx and Engels had concluded "strengthen democracy" and from the experience of the Paris In different ways, the workers' ultimately, in Allende's words, "in­ Commune in 1871—when the first leaders in the UP government—who stall a new system in which the work­ workers' government was bloodily claimed to stand in the tradition of ing class and the people are the ones defeated—that "the task of the Marx and Lenin— argued that the who really exercise power." But, revolution is no longer, as before, to aims of the working class and the op­ added this "Marxist", "Chile has transfer the bureaucratic-military pressed masses could be achieved by chosen to carry out a revolution machine from one hand to another, cooperation with a so-called within a bourgeois democracy and but to smash it, and this is essential "democratic" section of the capitalist will continue to do so, even though for every real people's revolution." class, its political and military it is difficult." "The working class", they insisted, representatives, and their supporters. In words which now read with a "cannot simply lay hold of the ready- The resulting policies of class col- gruesome irony, Allende maintained made state machinery and wield it for 43 its own purposes.** From the start the UP leaders were cluded promises to make "no "In order not to lose again its on­ warned of this. Two days before changes in the sirengih of the Army, ly just won supremacy, this working parliament ratified Allende's elec­ Navy, Air Force or national class must, on the one hand, do away tion, the head of the army was police...except by laws passed by with all the old repressive machinery assassinated for opposing plans for Congress." He promised not to ap­ used against itself, and, on the other, a coup. This coup was postponed (on point any officers who had not pass­ safeguard itself against its own the advice of the US) only because it ed through the academies training the deputies and officials by declaring was felt its leader, General Viaux, military elite. them all, without exception, subject was "not adequately prepared, his In futile measures to maintain their to recall at any moment.** timing is off." Correspondence on "loyalty", the UP government began this conspiracy was exposed publicly Between the UP victory in 1970 by raising the salaries of the officers, in 1971, from which it was also clear and ended up by inviting them into and the 1973 onslaught by the bosses' that "as pan of the persuasion to armed bodies of men, the Chilean the cabinet. The generals, scheming delay, Viaux was given oral assurance with the bosses, were only too will­ masses had three years to carry out that he would receive material ing to swear solemnly, to the moment this task in practice—the task of assistance and support from the US of the coup, to give "invariable sup establishing workers' democratic and others for a later manouevre." port to the constitutional order". rule. Yet their "Marxist-Leninist" leaders completely failed to organise The UP leaders justified their class for achieving this. collaboration out of the need to con­ Describing the masses' enthusiasm solidate an "electoral majority"— at Allende's victory, Luis Corvalan, Assurances especially among the middle classes. Chilean CP leader, complacently Indeed, Allende won in 1970 on a concluded at the end of 1970 thai Despite this, despite all the lessons minority vote (of 36^o); at that time "this atmosphere...plus the of Marxism, despite the continued the UP did not have a clear majority legitimacy of the election victory conspiracies of the officer caste, the in parliament. Also, the UP coalition which no-one can challenge, and the "Marxist" leaders of UP—up to the itself included six tiny reformist par­ powerful impact of world socialism, time of the coup itself—continued to ties, with middle-class support. explain why US imperialism and assure their supporters of the But these middle-class parties did Latin American reaction will find generals' "spirit of professionalism, not, and could not, serve the interests themselves compelled to accept the their respect for the constitution and of the middle class. The Chilean mid­ situation in Chile." the law" (Corvalan, World Marxist dle class, squeezed by the Review, December 1970), of 'heir Indeed, already divided, the monopolies, largely white-collar "loyalty to the elected government" workers, many in the state sector, Chilean capitalist class and their ser­ (WMR, November 1972). In June had no objective interest in the pro­ vants, the generals, were stunned by 1973 Allende warned against "classi­ fit system. Politically, they would the UP victory. Their trusted protec­ fying the armed forces as sway to the strongest force in the tor, US imperialism, was bogged reactionary." class struggle. down in the war in Vietnam and unable to intervene militarily. To secure ratification of his elec­ In the first period of the UP But so long as capitalism and its tion by parliament, Allende conclud­ government, the middle class swung state remained in existence in Chile, ed a pact with the main capitalist par­ increasingly towards it. Copper na­ the stalemate could only be ty, the Christian Democrats, in which tionalisation was supported by 93% temporary. his bowing to "constitutionalism" in­ in an opinion poll (even the Christian

Chilean workers demonstrate after the first abortive coup-marching by the hundreds of thousands, but or«—, ^ .... s„c*5 44 Democrat leaders dare not oppose it seizures; and did not prevent the ar­ marched through the streets of the openly). In the 1971 municipal elec­ rest and jailing of activists by the capital; and there were similar tions UP candidates increased their forces of the state. demonstrations in every town and vote, to 49.7%—with the SP doubl­ With only 40% of production na­ village. ing its support, while the vote of the tionalised, the anarchy of the The demonstration in the capital Radical Party (on the right of the capitalist system still prevailed. Fail­ mobilised nearly 10% of the coalition) was halved. The reformist ing to bring production under the population—equivalent to 2 million parties (including the Christian social control and management of the in SA! "Strike hard, strike hard, we Democrats) went through convul­ working class on the basis of want tough measures" was the de­ sions and splits, with large sectors economic planning, the UP govern­ mand shouted by the masses to their gravitating to the left. ment could finance its reforms and leaders. They called for arms to With decisive mobilisation of the combat capitalist financial sabotage enable the people to defend the workers and poor peasants, and a only by printing devalued paper Allende government. There was no clear programme for solving their money. Fuelled by inflationary lack of courage or will to fight. daily problems through ending pressures of world capitalism also, Yet from 1970 to the coup the UP capitalism, the UP would have main­ prices in Chile soared—to an annual leaders actively opposed the forma­ tained and strengthened its middle- official rate of 200% by September tion of a workers' militia and the ar­ class support. But the policy of 1973. ming of the masses. Allende's pact gradual reforms and constitutionalist This, more than anything, turned with the Christian Democrats for­ illusions created conditions in which the middle class away from UP; and, bade the formation of "unconstitu­ the vacillating middle class turned undermining gains in living stan­ tional militias'—a paper pact which away from the government. dards, drove the organised workers did not deter the fascists! Hamstrung militarily, the capitalist into struggle against the policies of According to Corvalan, a people's class did what it could to undermine their own leaders. Failing to break militia "would be equivalent to a the Chilean economy. US im­ with capitalism, the UP government mark of defiance of the army". perialism organised the cut-off of in­ left open the gate for the middle class {Morning Star, 29 December 1970). vestment, loans and credit, and tried to fall in despair under the renewed Of course, arming the workers would to marshall a world-wide boycott of sway of capitalist propaganda. Even have 'defied' the generals and the Chilean copper. The Chilean the press was left in the hands of the bosses. But these already felt 'defied' capitalists and their politicians used bosses. by the desire of the masses even every device of the constitution to From the "March of the Pots" by without arms to take their destiny in­ delay nationalisations, while they ex­ middle-class housewives in 1971 pro­ to their own hands. ported their wealth, ceased investing, testing against food shortages up to The real task for the workers' and tried to sabotage production.. the coup itself, the government was leaders was to paralyse the generals faced with a series of crippling reac­ by combining the arming of the tionary strikes—by shop-keepers, workers with winning the revolu­ Inflamed anger lorry-owners, doctors, small farmers, tionary support of the army rank and bankworkers, lawyers, teachers, file. There were thousands in the Each counter-measure by the airline pilots and even the copper military, even up to NCOs and of­ oligarchy inflamed the anger of the miners. ficers, who supported the govern­ working masses and spurred their Out of the ranks of the despairing ment and were SP or CP members. determination. In land seizures and middle class and the unemployed, Shortly before the coup there was an factory occupations, in the formation recruits were made for the small and attempted uprising by left-wing of workers' and peasants committees ferocious gangs of fascist thugs—of sailors. and assemblies, in beginning to "Fatherland and Freedom", etc— An organised appeal for forming assume control both of production used by the capitalists and landlords revolutionary committees in the arm­ and distribution of goods, the with growing boldness to reclaim and ed forces, linking up with and arm­ Chilean masses were forging the in­ defend their property. ing the workers' and peasants' com­ struments of their own rule. The But fascist gangs were not enough mittees, would have cut away the movement which took place under to topple the government or defeat power at the disposal of the generals the banner of 'people's power' the mass movement. In the at­ and left them suspended in mid-air. represented the drive of the Chilean mosphere of growing economic and Instead, after the June coup at­ working class to establish its own social chaos, the capitalists mustered tempt, the UP leaders went further democratic state, serving the interests their forces for a decisive counter­ along the futile road of appeasement. of all the oppressed." blow. In June 1973 the generals They allowed the navy to purge its struck in a coup attempt, which was ranks of left-wingers. Pinochet, who But the leaders of UP, timid, bow­ was to lead the September coup was ing to capitalist pressure, argued that defeated only by the response of the workers who, in a matter of hours, appointed head of the army as the the Chilean masses were "not ready "most constitutionally-minded for socialism"—even while the came out in general strike', occupying factories and demonstrating in sup­ general", and brought into the socialist reorganisation of society was government. taking place under their noses! port of the UP. Preaching "responsibility" and On 4 September 1973, only days In a speech made so soon before "discipline", they condemned "il­ before the successful coup, 800 000 the coup that it was printed (in World legal" factory occupations and land workers, many armed with staves. Marxist Review) only after the coup 45 itself, Corvalan contined to insist on the "absolutely professional character of the armed institutions"! "...instead of organising the working class at the head And, he continued, "if the reac­ tionaries do unleash an armed strug­ of all the oppressed to pull out the fangs of capitalist gle, they will be defeated. Of that power, they put chains on the mass movement..." there cannot be the slightest doubt, for the people will rise to a man to crush the enemy." When this appeared in print Cor­ their own parties (particularly the generals turned out to be "traitors". valan was in the military's jails, under SP), and while sections of those par­ Who expects to make a revolution sentence of death, along with ties drew revolutionary conclusions, except against the plot- of US im­ thousands of his CP comrades. handfuls of "revolutionaries" stood perialism? Far from the generals be­ Indeed the people would have risen outside these parties, and followed ing "traitors", they proved loyal to to a man and woman to forestall a sectarian and adventurist policies. the class whose interests they coup, to defend the gains achieved, The most significant of these sects, represented. Only people steeped in and to establish workers' rule—if the MIR, called for a boycott of the their leaders had supplemented this class collaboration could be taken by 1970 elections! While playing a tiny surprise by this. euphoric rhetoric with organised role in encouraging factory occupa­ preparation. No ruling class in history has given tions and land seizures, il turned to up its privilege and power without " Between 1970 and 1973 the class the adventurism of creating "armed combat groups" separate from the struggle to the finish. The tasK (or the compromises and vacillation of the worki; ..er \, ic organise to win UP government had opened up huge mass organisations of the working e fc splits in the SP and even the CP. In class, impatiently and vainly seeking that struggle. the SP, the right-wing had been a shoot-out with the incomparably From 1917 to 1920 the Russian ejected, and a strong left-wing mightier firepower of the armed workers and poor peasants, because forces. they had dismantled the capitalist developed, critical of the govern­ state and established democratic ment, calling for "advance without The Pinochet coup was the bloody workers' rule, were able to defeat not compromise". As the counter­ revenge of the capitalists against the just economic sabotage and con­ revolution loomed, the SP in the masses for 'dari-.V to lake matters spiracy by imperialism, but the direct capital and the national SP youth into their own hands. But this military intervention of 21 imperialist called for forming a workers' militia, revenge was made possible only by armies! A democratic workers' state and assisted in getting arms into the the false policies pursued by the in Chile, organising resistance to im­ factories. Popular Unity leaders. Instead of perialism and appealing to the inter­ organising the working class at the national working class, would not on­ head of all the oppressed to pull out ly be able to paralyse the counter­ the fangs of capitalist power once and revolution, but act as a revolutionary No clear lead for all, they put chains on the mass beacon for the masses throughout movement, drove the middle class to Latin America. reactionary despair, and propped up But this came too late to alter the vicious state machine through Yet the SP and CP leaders still con­ events. The heroic resis'".nce to the which the capitalist class struck its tinue today to put forward the need coup put up by scattered

To overthrow white domination, to win the struggle for democracy — we will have to break down the entire state machinery created over generations by the bosses and their supporters to enslave us for exploitation. Only the mass of the working people, when organised and armed, can carry through this revolution. To eliminate poverty and hunger, to secure work and homes for all — we will have to end the capitalist system and take the factories, mines, banks and farms into com­ mon ownership, so that production and distribution can be democratically planned and controlled for the benefit of the people. Only when equipped with a clear socialist programme and strategy for workers' power, can our movement carry through these tasks. Seeking open political expression of their revolutionary aims, tens of thousands of workers and youth are turning to the banner of the A.N.C. as their rallying point. For the A.N.C. to effectively unite and lead the liberation struggle of the working peo­ ple to the conquest of power, it must be consciously built and transformed into a mass organisation with a socialist programme. INQABA YA BASEBENZI ("Workers' Fortress") fights for this. The task of supporters of INQABA, in the course of every struggle, is to convince other comrades of the need for these policies. WHERE TO START

7m FORM AN INQABA READERS' GROUP OF TRUSTED COMRADES. Study and critically discuss the articles in the journal, as well as other publications of the movement. Study the theoretical supplements with every issue of INQABA. Also get hold of other writings especially of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky to discover the rich lessons and traditions of the international working class. Plan together how to fight for socialist ideas in all the specific conditions in which you are involved — in building the trade unions and community and youth organisations; and above all, in building the A.N.C. 2 MAKE INQABA AN EFFECTIVE VOICE OF THE WORKING CLASS Because of its experience, the working class is the instinctive bearer of socialist ideas — which Marxism clarifies and puts together scientifically. In the daily life of every worker is an armoury of facts and arguments to prove the need for socialist policies to overcome their problems. Bring them to the fore! Use your initiative to the full. Collect facts, opinions, interviews, reports on struggles, criticisms of the journal and suggestions for improvements. Write about local, national and international issues. Send articles, letters, photographs, cartoons, reviews — whatever should be brought to the attention of comrades in the struggle all over the country. Encourage workers to write about their own conditions. The best articles are those which are drawn directly from experience. Because the ruling class has systematically denied the working class access to education, many workers feel they lack the ability to contribute. It is essential to overcome this hesitation. Even workers without literacy can speak about what they know and think, so that other comrades who have the ability can write down what they say. Encourage also those activists who disagree with INQABA, but whose ideas have an echo within the working class (or even a section of it) to write for the journal. By raising important questions for debate in this way, we can make the journal a more effective instrument in raising political consciousness in every area. 2 HELP TO CIRCULATE INQABA The name "INQABA" is already fairly well known among activists in South Africa. But all too few are able to get hold of a copy; much less to receive it regularly. This is because of the big problems of clandestine distribution. INQABA supporters need to give systematic and careful attention to this, using all possi­ ble facilities for copying the journal and then getting copies swiftly through reliable net­ works into the right hands. Every individual reader should try to pass on a copy regularly to at least one other per­ son, and if not already part of an INQABA readers' circle, work to form one. In distributing INQABA, the main concentration should be on workers, especially in the large industrial and mining areas. For added effectiveness, translations of material from INQABA should be made into the different languages spoken by workers in all areas, and reproduced. ^ USE INQABA TO BUILD THE BASIS OF A MASS, SOCIALIST A.N.C. It will not be enough for the A.N.C. to simply have the support of the working people. The working class needs to make the A.N.C. its own — by building it within South Africa, organising it, filling it with the power of the workers' movement and bringing it under the democratic control of its membership in struggle. The most resolute fighters in all the various organisations of the working class — especially in the trade unions and the youth movement — are the backbone for the mass, socialist A.N.C. of the future. INQABA supporters among them must work steadily to group together those who share our ideas on the building of the A.N.C, to begin putting these ideas into practice. The A.N.C. will take on flesh — will be able to develop structures embodying large numbers of workers in open organisation — as the strength of the mass movement drives back the state's powers of repression and enlarges the space for open revolutionary work. INQABA supporters should themselves combine open with 'underground' work, prov­ ing themselves the most steadfast builders, not only of the A.N.C, but also of the trade unions and the youth and community organisations of action. We must be able to show in our own work the correctness of the policies which we stand for. That is the only way to arm the movement with the ideas of Marxism and win the struggle for a socialist programme. Apply the ideas and method of INQABA to every local struggle. Summarise the main arguments and conclusions from articles in the journal to use in agitational leaflets. Com­ bine the general demands raised in INQABA with the detailed demands put forward in each particular struggle. Link the day-to-day struggles over wages, education, transport, housing, etc., to an understanding of the need for the socialist transformation of society. Organise round the ideas of INQABA to build the A.N.C Let every work place, college and locality where INQABA supporters are present become a fortress of this work — a firm foundation for the mass, socialist A.N.C of the future. CONTENTS

Editorial page2 Trade union unity page 6 Mine workers page 11 Workers organise! page 14 Armed struggle page 17 El Salvador page 22 BCM/Democrats 4 page 24 Health workers page 29 Southern Africa page 33 Botha and Kaunda page 36 International page 38 Joe Mavi page 40 Chile page 41

For security reasons, fictitious names have been used by writers of articles in this issue of INQABA YA BASEBENZI. In every case, however, care has been taken not to give a misleading impression of the background and experience of the comrade concerned. Details about writers are provided only when security considerations make this possible.

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