WIP AReplytolnnes The Working Class in National Democratic Struggle

Recently, HIP contributor Duncan Innes argued that the Freedom Charter van not an adequate basis for unity bat—an the popular and working-class movewanta. TOBY KAJLO* and MAX OZINSKY disagree, arguing that the working class la already at saying its leadership onto the national democratic struggle.

Duncan Innaa (VI? 41) believes ha has mobilising and linking up with others, advanced the debate between Alec Srwln their usefulness is limited'. and Jeremy Cronin (84 Labour Bulletin To intellectuals only aatlafled with 11[2*3)) on the working class and the paper guarantees perhaps this la so. But national democratic struggle. In the heat of struggle where these The aajor question posed by Innaa questions are being raaolved they are of concerns the relationship between the infinitely more utility than detached 'popular movement' and the 'working- debates about programmes. class movement*. On the one hand he la For Innaa, 'divisive concepta' must be critical of trade union economies, but jettisoned in pursuit of 'unity': but on the other aaaa a danger of working- unity in the struggle la not principally class interests being submerged In the baaed on mutually accepted concepts, popular movement. The Freedom Charter aa nor, ultimately, on a shared programme the basis for popular unity In South for reconstruction. It la dependent on a Africa, says Innaa, does not guarantee willingness In different organisations the interests of the working class, and to struggle together In the field for will Inevitably block its ability to the achievement of mutual objactivaa aaaart those interests. Ha argues that a despite programmatic and conceptual workers* charter should instead form the differences. basis of unity. Innaa examines questions of progri At the outset, It la necessary to warn only with reference to the task of against becoming carried away with a reconstruction In a aoclaty already sense of pioneering importance of liberated from minority rule. He discussions between intellectuals In consistently fails to confront the WIP. Innaa pays lip service to the questions, both programoatically and notion that questions of working-class practically* of reaching that stage of leadership will ultimately be resolved liberation. In practice, but remains detached from the concerns of that process. These questions are being debated and implemented where it really matters; TH» WKK0K CLASS AND POLITICS they are the focus of intense discussion and practical work in the trade unions, In the street committees, In the Innaa' basic dichotomy between a people*a education programme. The pages 'popular movement' consisting mostly of of Ialswe, the UDF theoretical journal, en—unity-based organisations 'inspired are filled with debates around the by the Freedom Charter', and a 'working- practical building of working-class class movement', the trade union leadership In the democratic struggle. movement, la puzzling. Ha himself Brwin and Cronin refer to such criticises aa 'syndicalism' Erwin's developments In aaaa organisations, but Innaa la rather dismissive: '(U)ntil tendency to focus on the factory floor such developments are combined in a aa the prime form of politlca, and to coherent form which the workers' derive other political forms from that movement can use aa a basis for arena. Tat Innea' own concept of a working-class movement appears to be 31 WIP firmly grounded within that approach. He of COSATU. It la reflected in tha creates tha Impression that tha working strength of people'a organisations In class la suddenly faced, for tha first areas where unions are strong. For time, with tha challenge of inserting example, when the Metal and Allied itself Into the popular struggle In a workers Onion formed the East Band leading position. This Ignores the People's Organisation, It did not remain reality of working-class participation outalde the popular movement - it became In tha liberation struggle at all the strongest DDF affiliate on the Eaat levels, both In the peat and present, Sand. Advanced and organised workers are and the working-class political not distinguishing themselves aa a tradition In that struggle. separate grouping outside of tha popular Innes1 dichotomy stems from the movement In the way that Innes is. construction of an imaginary working- Tha key question, which Innes has class persona operating within an Ideal- failed to pose. Is that of building type 'working-class politics9, working-class leadership within the (phenomena originally Introduced In Joe popular movement. The way In which trade Foratar'a keynote address to tha 1982 unions, aa a particular organisational FOSAXU Congress). It takes a very partial form, relate to community-based •law of tha consciousness of tha working structures ia one of the questions to be class, assuming that this is formed posed in this respect. But it la not the almost exclusively by the factory only one. experience. Thus, workers appear to have a cosmopolitan consciousness, with very little that is nationally specific about It; they observe the popular movement ON THE CHARACTER OF THE STRUGGLE from a distance, pondering when to intervene to secure their specific interests. Innes rather pretentiously sees himself and Fine joining Erwin and Cronln in Working-class consciousness cannot be 'breaking new theoretical ground', with equated with idealist notions or the 'divisive concepts1 of the past separated from an understanding of all having been abandoned by all. In the steps necessary for tha achievement particular he lauds the jettisoning of of a socialist society. the 'usual two-stage argument'• While Working-class political consciousness critical of Erwin's 'syndicalism1, ha Includes an understanding of the rejecta Cronin'a assertion that the interests of other classes, the extant 'dilemma' of relating 'transformational to which their intareats differ from politics to liberation politics* la one those of the working class, aa wall as of Erwin's own makings 'The dilemma the basis on which alliances may be cannot be glossed over so easily. One forged with those classes. It la only thinks of the course of liberation from concrete experiences of working- struggles in Spain, Greece or Chile.•• class Involvement In the national where the interests and demands of the democratic struggle that this working class were sacrificed to promote consciousness can develop. (unsuccessfully) a broad-based popular In reality, the working class la an unity against oppreaaive powers' (p 13). essential component of the nationally It la not particularly helpful to trot oppressed people, and this has a out three 'examples' of popular unity profound effect on ita politics. It la 'subordinating' working-class interests, intellectuals who ponder whether tha assuming wa are all faalllar with the working class should be involved in the processes in these situations which national liberation struggle. Workers substantiate his arguments. Innes needs themselves do not make the rigid to substantiate the case he is making distinctions between their factory-floor from such assertions. In the case of experience and their broader political Greece, is he referring to the struggle and social experiences. These bind them against Nasi occupation, or to the to, rather than separate them from, struggle against domestic reaction in other sectors of tha oppressed, and the the 1940a and 1960s, or to poat- national liberation struggle. dictatorshlp events? Lacy references of this kind prevent us from giving a This is reflected In the content of serious answer. much of the cultural work done by FOSATU workers, and in tha songs, slogans and In the case of Spain (assuming that demanda which characterised tha launch Innes la referring to the 1930s), the 32 WIP working dans united with other STAGXS IN TBI S7JWQQLB republican strata In defence of their republic against a Fascist military He need to be more careful about what onslaught backed by imperialism. There jettisoning of the 'usual two-stage la no question that the working class argument* entails. We assume 'two-stage van unable to complete a socialist argument' means a mechanical separation trans formati on. between the tasks of establishing But If the working class had abandoned democracy and of social emancipation. the Popular Front and proceeded with a These are slotted into 'stages' socialist programme, this would have separated by a chasm in time. The brought the collapse of the republic a Implication is that the second set of few years forward. The defence of the tasks Is only placed on history's agenda republic waa the most immediate and when the firat set is complete. But vital task of the Spanish proletariat. there is no 'usual* two-stage argument - Innes seems to imply that had the there have been many, from a wide Chilean working class abandoned popular variety of political positions. unity In pursuit of a more rapid The question of building the path to socialist transformation, the outcome full social emancipation cannot wait there (a military coup sponsored by US until the achievement of formal imperialism) may have been different. democracy In South Africa. It is the Other commentators have suggested the process by which the national democratic opposite. Random worker occupation of tasks are completed that will determine small and economically unimportant the character of the society which businesses waa promoted by the ultra- follows, and the extent to which left, who were unhappy at the pace of progress towards complete emancipation nationalisation undertaken by the from exploitation will be uninterrupted. popular unity government. This contributed directly to the alienation However, this does not deny the of the petty bourgeoisie from the existence of historically-distinct popular unity, and strengthened domestic stages, phases or moments through which support for imperialist intervention. our struggle must pass. These are not Hence the weakening of the popular unity determined by the programme or outlook actually contributed to a working-class of particular organisations, but mark an defeat. objective and historically-determined route along which we pass. In rejecting Innes' treatment of these examples a mechanical separation between stages, reveals a central weakness in his we do not reject the idea of the arguments the notion that the interests national democratic struggle as defining of the working class are subordinated In the character of the South African popular struggle unless those struggles struggle. are fought on the basis of a socialist The national democratic struggle la programme. the path necessarily followed by the we can pose this argument in reverse: struggle for socialism in South Africa. although there have been a number of This is a result of the particular instances of popular fronts suffering nature of South African capitalism * a defeat, there has never been an instance structure of minority rule and national of working-class victory without the oppression which has persisted, in working class having engaged in popular essence, from the colonial era. alliances. Indeed, would the Chilean The national democratic struggle working class ever have been able to unites all classes among the oppressed, create the potential for socialism, together with democratic whites, behind which it did, If the popular unity had the pursuit of democracy and national not included a programme for the middle self-determination. It Is not in Itself class? Viet Nam, Angola, Nicaragua and the struggle for socialism, nor Is it many other examples all speak volumes on simply a socialist programme which the ability of popular alliances to incorporates a challenge to racism. The advance the position of the working system of minority rule, through which class. political power is organised, la the Immediate obstacle to socialism in South To understand the tasks of the Africa. Only when that system has been working class In relation to other abolished does the possibility of social classes, we need to clarify the emancipation arise. Democracy la the character of the struggle In South vital condition for the completion of Africa. WIP the process of education, mobilisation felt betrayed. If anything, the opposite and organisation of the masses necessary was the case. It was the right-wing for the transitIon to socialism. Afrlcanlst group, still within the ANC The immediate objective of the working at that stage, who opposed not only the class is therefore the marshalling of non-racialism of the Charter's preamble, all possible social forces for the but also its 'communist' nationalisation eradication of minority rule and its clause. The radical liberal centre of replacement by democracy• The deeper the ANC was also unhappy with this that democracy, the greater the clause (see Luthuli's Let My People Go prospects for uninterrupted social for a candid commentary on this). At the transformation. time the official adoption of the The national democratic struggle Is Charter by the ANC in 1956 was widely not an unfortunate detour on the road to seen as s victory for the left (see for socialism: the present national popular example Drum of December 1955). But in mobilisation against the regime gives essence, the Charter was and Is neither tremendous momentum to the struggle for a victory for the left in the national socialism in South Africa* liberation movement, nor a populist The various claases among the sell-out. It is a document with a very oppressed are united, not by an wide following, providing general ideological smokescreen which hides guidelines for all democrats in South their different class Interests, but on Africa. While not a socialist programme, the basis of their common, but diverse, It certainly does not put s lid on class antagonism to the colonial socialism. structure of minority rule, a political Our approach differs fundamentally and economic phenomenon which preventa from Innes, who seems to imply that the any significant sector of the oppressed working class either participates in the from realising their class interests. struggle for freedom on the basis of its This is not to argue that all classes full programme, or not at all. among the oppressed have identical class The Freedom Charter, says Innes, makes interests, but rather that their too many compromises, and therefore different interests coincide on the inhibits the development of 'working- question of eradicating minority rule. class polities'. We believe that the The method of that eradication, and the full programme of the working class will depth of the democracy which replaces not be realised in one process, and that it, is the essential class question of It faces the continual task of removing the national democratic struggle ths Immediate obstacles to ita progress. The manner in which Innes rejects the Innes' narrow approach to alliances *usual two-stage theory' is such that he fails to confront the structure of rejecta, in practice, all phases, stages political power in South Africa, and the and momenta in the struggle. There is an concrete tasks of shifting those power inability to deal with struggle as a relations to favour the working class. contradictory process. The specific, the It la the teak of the working class to concrete and the historical are all weld together the broadest force - on evaporated. Nowhere does this appear the basis that other classes share a more clearly than in Innes' dry, particular Immediate objective of the constitutional handling of the Freedom working class - to most rapidly and Charter. effectively remove each obstacle in the It is true that Innes introduces some path of progress. historical remarks about the compilation Failure to win every potential ally at of the Freedom Charter. But these every point, no matter how temporary, remarks (passed on from Fine, who gets vacillating or conditional those alliea them from heaven knows where) simply may be, betrays the interests of the underline our points history is gaily working class. This is eecsuse it flattened out into a timeless debate delivers potential allies Into the hands between 'socialists' and 'populists', of the regime, thereby reinforcing between 'transformation' and obstacles in the path of the working 'liberation'. clmss. We are told, for instance, without any evidence being offered, that workers and worker leaders were unhappy about the tfOUOMG-CLaSS LEADERSHIP Charter in 1955-6, and that the socialist wing of the Congress Alliance Innes* approach to the development of 34 WIP working-class leadership la largely also been instances of charters based on programmes. In hia view the *iMnsting froa particular sectors of the major falling of the Freedoa Charter la liberation movement amplifying their that It does not outline a complete particular interests In relation to the working-class programme. Be therefore Freedom Charter (eg the Woman9a Charter concludes with a call for a new and the proponed Education Charter). programme or 'workers• charter' to Innea' proposal for the drafting of a ensure that the process of workers* charter la not inconsistent transformation la not tackled in a with the character of the Freedom piecemeal way. Charter. But he insists on a workers1 Innea examines the question of charter aa the basis of unity between programmes only at the level of the working class and other classes in programmes for reconstruction after the popular movement. He thereby minority rule. He fails to confront the outlines a view of struggle which makes question of programmea and practlcea of working-class participation in alliance the struggle to reach that point, to with other classes conditional on those actually liberate South Africa froa classes accepting the complete programme minority rule. Innea states that 'lack of the working class. of political awareness has led many To apeak of the working class leaking union members to believe that the alllaa In its struggle acknowledges that Freedoa Charter will liberate them froa while these allies share soma of the capitallet oppression - when in fact it interests of the working class, they does not even give them the right to 1 also have important differences in strike (p IS). This la reflective of outlook. The working class seeks these the facile constitutionalism which runs allies because it la unable, on its own, through his discussion of the Charter. to complete tasks which are vital to its He examines the Freedoa Charter aa it if advancement. If wa accept that the unity la the constitution of a liberated of the different classes in the national society, and concludes that it does not democratic struggle la not an identity contain sufficient guarantees for the of interests, how can wa propose that working class. unity be baaed on the complete programme But the Freedoa Charter la not a of the working class? constitution, nor la It a programme of But the problems of Innes' approach to action. To debate it aa such la to alas development of working-class leadership the living reality of the Charter In the run deeper than this. The leadership of actual process of struggle. The Charter the liberation struggle la not the la a document which outlines the inherent preserve of any class or group. objectives of the national democratic The character, form and outcome of the struggle, and the tasks of the national liberation struggle la determined by the democratic state, whose fullest relative strength of the different accomplishment will allow the process of groups which participate within it. To democratlaation to develop Into a withdraw the participation of the procaaa of transformation. working class froa the liberation The extent of achievement of those struggle because the programme of the objectives depends on the balance of liberation movement la not the full social forces which develops in the programme of the working class la the struggle. Here the programmea of action surest recipe for the eclipse of the which are designed to achieve the working claas in the struggle. Moreover, objectives of the national democratic to imagine that the national-democratic struggle, and the practices which they tasks of the struggle can be by-passed promote, must be examined. Debating the is simply to delay the achievement of Freedom Charter aa a constitution will social emancipation. tell us very little about the actual development of working-class leadership in the struggle. The Charter does not represent the BonDmc PEOPLE'S POWER final word on questions of liberation and transformation. There la an established tradition of groupings - The task of transforming society cannot both on the left and the right - be separated from the procaaa of locating the Charter within tHelr view liberating it. Aa observed earlier, the of a post-apartheid society. There have essential class question of the national 35 WIP democratic struggle Is the depth of community. These communities are also democracy achieved by it* continuously aware that in replacing Transformation is only possible if the state administration, they face the liberation struggle ensures the danger of sliding into reformism. Tola development of direct democracy based on issue is the subject of constant debate organs of people's power. These are the and vigilance (eg Xsicwe 1(2), p 12). crucial source of the power of the The basic units of these structures working class in the national democratic are street and area committees, and they state, and hence the foundation of an therefore depend on the involvement of uninterrupted transition to socialism. all sectors of the community, including lanes' failure to properly grasp the the working class, in the liberation class questions that are resolved within struggle. At the same time their mass- the popular movement runs through his based character allows the development critique of the Freedom Charter. The of a disciplined democracy and an Charter la the common programme of all accountable leadership within the the classes in the national liberation communities, which is an Important step struggle. The fact that it does not in stopping the development of elitism reflect only working-class demands is an and individualism* indication of Its multi-class origins. We have continually stressed that the This Is not to suggest that the crucial class question in the national Charter inhibits the development of democratic struggle is the depth of working-class leadership In the national democracy developed through that liberation struggle. Working-class struggle. This Is not an abstract leadership in that struggle has to be question. It is given an Immediate and built; It cannot be guaranteed by any concrete meaning In the creation of charter. structures of people's power. The The intense battles of 1985-6 have extension and deepening of these forged nascent structures of popular structures creates the most favourable power in many townships: people's situation for the working class relative courts, alternative education, street to other classes In the national and area committees. Other similar democratic struggle. structures have emerged throughout the country. At the forefront of these structures have been organisations which endorse the Freedom Charter* It is through the building up of THB HAY FGKKaRD democratic organs of people's power that the Charter Is being implemented by its supporters on the ground. This makes The South African working class, as a Xnnes' comment that 'organisations tend real social force rather than an to resort to sloganeering and pay mere abstract category of analysis, has begun lip service to (the Charter's) goals' to stamp its leadership onto the (p 14) reflect his distance from real unfolding national democratic struggle. political struggle. This process Is uneven, and certainly The importance of structures of not complete or final. But it has people'8 power In the process of dramatically affected the character of transformation cannot be underestimated. the structures which channel the Although initially formed as defensive political energies of the masses* structures against state repression, The depth of the democracy won in this they are being transformed into struggle is no longer left to abstract democratic organs of people's power. projection: hundreds of thousands of They fill the gap created by the ordinary South Africans in the schools, demolition of state structures in the mines, factories and communities have townships, and through their democratic asserted their ability to answer these character ensure that the struggle questions. remains under a firm political leadership and is not hijacked by anti­ It is in the building of people's social elements* power, and not in constitutional debate, that the Freedom Charter is given The gains made by these structures are meaning. Sooner or later, this process not Irreversible, and they are must Impact on university-baaed continually open to attack from both the Intellectuals, and guide discussion in state and divisive elements in the this arena* 36