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.