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Strategic Problems in South Africa's Liberation Struggle: a Strategic Analysis

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Strategic Problems in South Africa's Liberation Struggle: a Strategic Analysis Strategic problems in South Africa's liberation struggle: a strategic analysis http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.crp2b20038 Use of the Aluka digital library is subject to Aluka’s Terms and Conditions, available at http://www.aluka.org/page/about/termsConditions.jsp. By using Aluka, you agree that you have read and will abide by the Terms and Conditions. Among other things, the Terms and Conditions provide that the content in the Aluka digital library is only for personal, non-commercial use by authorized users of Aluka in connection with research, scholarship, and education. The content in the Aluka digital library is subject to copyright, with the exception of certain governmental works and very old materials that may be in the public domain under applicable law. Permission must be sought from Aluka and/or the applicable copyright holder in connection with any duplication or distribution of these materials where required by applicable law. Aluka is a not-for-profit initiative dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of materials about and from the developing world. For more information about Aluka, please see http://www.aluka.org Strategic problems in South Africa's liberation struggle: a strategic analysis Author/Creator Turok, Ben Publisher Liberation Support Movement Information Center (Richmond, British Colombia) Date 1974 Resource type Books Language English Subject Coverage (spatial) South Africa Coverage (temporal) 1959 - 1973 Source Northwestern University Libraries, Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies, 968 T956s Rights By kind permission of Ben Turok and the Liberation Support Movement. Description "This influential analysis of the strategic direction of the liberation struggle in South Africa was written by Ben Turok, a leading member of the Congress of Democrats in the 1950s and an active member of the ANC in exile in subsequent decades. After 1994 he became an ANC member of parliament." Format extent 80 pages (length/size) http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.crp2b20038 http://www.aluka.org African African 968 T956s Northwestern University Library Evanston, Illinois 60201 Ihi11LL ".. A method, a form of struggle can only be reckoned as the best most judicious one when it fully meets the requirements of a given concrete situation, when it is wholly suited to the conditions in which it is applied, when it makes it possible to muster to the greatest extent to the enemy 's weakness, and, for all these reasons, is likely to bring about the greatest successes possible, given the relation prevailing at the moment." Le Duan, in Vietnam Courier, March 1970. Strategic Problems in South Africa's Liberation Struggle: A Critical Analysis by Ben Turok /11 i versitY Library Evanston, W About the Author Benjamin Turok was National Secretary of the South African Congress of Democrats and Memberof the Cape Provincial Council representing the Africans of the Western Cape. Born in Latvia on 26 June 1927, he emigrated with his family to South Africa at the age of 7 and was educated at Cape Town High and the South African College School. Proceeding to the University of Cape Town, where he chaired the Students' Socialist Party in 1947, he graduated as a Bachelor of Science (Eng.) in 1950. In 1950 he went to Rhodesia for a while to work as a surveyor andin 1951 visited the territory again. In 1952 he worked in Cape Town as a surveyor and lectured part-time at the Cape Technical College. In 1953 he went to Britain, lectured insurveying at Battersea Polytechnic in London, and visited Budapest, Warsaw and Prague with an international team of architects and planners. Returning to South Africa in December 1953, he became, in 1955, full-time Secretary to the Cape Western Region of the Congress of Democrats and the Chairman of the Cape Provincial Action Council of the Congress of the People. Arrested and jailed at the Congress of the People Conference in George, he was released and introduced the economic section of the Freedom Charter at the Congress of the People on 26 June 1955. In October of the same year he was banned for five years from all gatherings under the Suppressionof Communism Act and he became full-time Secretary of the Metal Workers Union in Cape Town. In December 1956 he was arrested for high treason, though the charge against him was later dropped. On 23 June 1957 he was elected to the Cape Provincial Council to represent the Africans of the Western Cape, and in March 1958 he became National Secretary of the Congress of Democrats. Early in 1959 he became Secretary of the National Consultative Committee of the Congress Alliance. Sought but not found during the 1960 State of Emergency on 25 March 1961 he was banned and confined to the magisterial districtof Johannesburg for five years under the Suppression of Communism Act. In 1960, during the State of Emergency, Ben Turok worked underground for five months. He participated in the first wave of sabotage by Umkonto We Sizwe and on 16 December 1961 was caught and sentenced to three years imprisonment from 1962-65 including six months in solitary. After his release, Turok was placed under house arrest for six months, after which he fled with his family through the bush country of northwestern Transvaal and into Botswana. Eventually he found asylum in Tanzania, where he worked as a Government surveyor in the Coast Region. Ben Turok is at present working for the Open University in London and is a member of Sechaba's editorial board. Contents About the Author 3 Introduction 5 CHAPTER ONE - NON-VIOLENT MASS ACTION 9 The Social Configuration: Black Consciousness is not False Consciousness 10 Early Concepts of Democracy 13 A Militant "Program of Action" 16 Non-Violent Confrontation: The Defiance Campaign 23 Non-Racial Policies 30 CHAPTER TWO THE TRANSFER TO VIOLENCE 36 Sharpeville and Regrouping Underground 38 Sabotage and the White State Focussed 44 Catastrophe at Rivonia 47 Geographic Isolation 49 The Movement Abroad 52 A War of National Liberation 53 Notes 59 Map of South Africa 66 Selected LSM Publications 69 Introduction The sharp struggles in the "Third World" in the last decade have become internationally prominent for more reasons than their drama. While progressives everywhere have been stirred by the action of millions of oppressed people, the political problems thrown up in each case have also done much to stimulate interest and commitment. The "Third World" has become a most important crucible of political experience. Sometimes the equivalent of centuries of "normal" development has been compressed into a short time, bringing clearly into the open the heart of politics, namely, who will hold power and to what end. This function of crystalizing out the crucial questions of policy and strategy has placed "Third World" politics right at the center of international concern. But a qualification is necessary. Although we use the umbrella term "Third World" to identify a particular situation, we are not suggesting that there is a single pattern of struggle. Rather, one is bound to stress that in each case there isa unique combination of circumstances with peculiar strategies to match. We could hardly expect anything else in countries where class and national contradictions have not yet been clearly formed. Nevertheless, it is this variety of problems in the "Third World" that makes it so challenging but which also makes it so obvious that there is no universal law of revolution. Because the character of the social formations in "Third World" countries is not yet fully formed, it becomes difficult for the outsider to identify progressive tendencies and to decide which movement is genuine and deserving of support. Too often sweeping generalizations based on a rigid theoretical framework have led wellmeaning people to support the wrong group or to welcome what later turns out to be a retrograde tendency. There is no simple solution to this problem and I would argue only for a serious, historically concrete and specific analysis in each case to underpin our theory as the essential basis for determining where our support must go. I want to suggest a number of factors that might help focus attention on what is important in determining the objective role of a movement. We have to identify, in the first place, which forces it represents and in what combination they occur. We need to try to assess the validity of the banner raised by the movement in its efforts to win mass support. Which political force is dominant in the movement is of great importance and we have to remember that in the relatively undeveloped socio-economic conditions of the "Third World," text book Leninist parties arenot always available, nor can they always gain the leadership of the liberation forces. Finally, we have to evaluate the struggle methods proposed. In some cases the struggle takes on a revolutionary form with armed action the principal vehicle, while elsewhere political means are predominant. In yet other areas there is a combination of politically directed armed struggle together with various kinds of nonviolent actions. This was the model in the early years of the Vietnam war. Vietnam is also particularly instructive from the point of view of the political arrangements of the liberation forces. A broad coalition was established early on in which the most advanced socialist party combined with other parties to fight a Peoples'War under the banner of national liberation from imperialism and for ending feudalism.The protracted nature of the war notonly strengthened the coalition but it also confirmed the hegemony of the socialist forces. In other areas the combination of forces has not been so felicitous and the direction thestruggle takes is consequently erratic.
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