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Mi 48106-1346 USA 313.,761-4700 800:521-0600 © 1995 Dale Thomas McKinley ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DALE THOMAS McKINLEY. The African National Congress in Exile: Strategy and Tactics 1960-1993 (Under the direction of Dr. Catharine Newbury) ABSTRACT This dissertation is about the struggle for the national liberation of South Africa. My investigation is centered around the strategy and tactics of the main liberation organization, the African National Congress (ANC), and its alliance partner the South African Communist Party (SACP) . The core of the study covers the period 19601993, a time, with the exception of the last three years, in which these organizations were officially banned by the white minority apartheid government. More precisely, this study seeks to provide a critical historical analysis of those strategy and tactics within the externalized (internationalized) environment within which these organizations operated. The analytical heart of this dissertation revolves around a crucially identified dialectic of struggle. It is the dialectic between the objective conditions within which the ANC and the SACP conducted their liberation struggle and the subjective choice of strategy and tactics the organizations pursued. Special focus is given to the role of leadership. Analysis of the period after the 1990 unbanning and the consequent internal resuscitation of the organizations will serve to show the most immediate results of such a dialectic. By showing how the liberation organizations have responded, both pro and re-actively, to the changing historical conditions under which their struggle has labored, a much clearer picture emerges of the connection between choices and possibilities. This approach reveals much about the ways in which revolutionary leadership interprets and acts upon both the structural conditions that contextualize the struggle they lead, and the role of agency which seeks to change those conditions. Consequently, the rich and varied activities of the "rank-and-file" are highlighted as fundamentally integral to an understanding of both actual and potential outcomes of struggle. Through this study I intend to show that the dialectic of South Africa's national liberation struggle has, despite potential appearances to the contrary, seriously undermined the basis for any genuine realization of the ANC's own stated goal of struggle - national liberation for the "transfer of power to the people." CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION........ ................................ 1 1.1. Surveying the Literature: Some Theoretical Considerations 4................................4 1.2. Looking at the ANC ........................... 15 1.3. Structure and Struggle .......................18 II. EARLY HISTORY AND STRUGGLE: THE FORMATIVE YEARS..... 27 2.1. The 1930's and 1940's: 'Front' Politics and Lost Opportunities ........................... 36 2.2. The Rise of Dual Nationalisms ................42 2.3. Setting the Boundaries of Liberation ......... 47 III. EXTERNALIZATION: NATIONAL LIBERATION OF A SPECIAL TYPE (1960-1975) .........................................68 3.1. Armed Struggle: Turning Away from a Mass Base 71 3.2. The 1960's: The Role of the SACP and the Descent into an Exile Laager .........................76 3.3. Morogoro and Beyond: The SACP Ascendant ...... 82 IV. From SOWETO to KABWE (1976-1984) ....................95 4.1. The '76 Uprising and Beyond: Answered Prayers and Lost Opportunities .......................100 4.2. Competing for 'Hearts and Minds' ............106 4.3. Viva Internationalism ........................111 4.4. Internal Mobilization .......................116 V. THE POLITICS OF UNGOVERNABILITY: INSURRECTIONARY HOPES AND STRATEGIC REALITIES (1985-1989) ................131 5.1. The Kabwe Conference ........................133 5.2. Internal Revolt .............................138 5.3. The Logic of External Management ............148 VI. FOURTH PILLAR, FIFTH COLUMN: THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF THE STRUGGLE ..................................... 166 6.1. The Push for Negotiations .................... 167 6.2 Sanctions: Misplaced Reliance ............... 177 6.3 Toward February, 1990 ....................... 183 VII. RETURNING HOE: THE STRATEGY AND PRACTICE OF NEGOTIATIONS (1990-1993) ............................ 200 7.1. The Fetishization of Talks ................... 201 7.2 The Strategy of the Zigzag .................. 212 7.3. Damn the Torpedos, Full Speed Ahead ......... 220 VIII. CONCLUSION: OLD WINE IN NEW BOTTLES ................ 248 8.1. Searching for Unity in the Face of Contradiction ................................ 251 8.2 Laboring under a Weighted Dialecticism ...... 255 APPENDICES ............................................... 262 REFERENCES ............................................... 322 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION A Luta Continua!' This popular slogan borrowed from the Portuguese still holds its meaning at least in one part of the world - South Africa. Three hundred years after the first settlers arrived at the ironically named Cape of Good Hope in the 1600's a struggle of liberation, varying in content and degree, has been waged within and outside its borders. It is a struggle that has followed the historical mutation of global mercantilism, modern capitalist development and penetration, and their uniquely South African by-products. Infused with a range of often peculiarly distinct racial, national, and class conflict, the struggle for liberation in South Africa has provided an enduring source of inspiration for ordinary people the world over as well as riveting material for academic analysts. This study is about that struggle and one of the organizations that has now come to occupy center stage, the African National Congress(ANC). The core of my investigation revolves around the strategy and tactics of the externalized ANC and its alliance partner, the South African Communist Party(SACP)-, with special focus on the last two decades. The time frame of this study ends with the agreement for the installation of a Transitional Executive Council(TEC) in 1993. (The TEC represented the transitional institutionalized form of the negotiated political settlement forged between the ANC and the ruling (white) National Party). The short-lived 'rule' of the TEC and the subsequent victory of the ANC in the April 1994 elections signaled a qualitatively distinct era in the history of the South African struggle which remains open for future analysis . The analytical heart of this dissertation revolves around the dialectic between the fluid objective (structural) conditions within which the ANC and the SACP conducted their liberation struggle and the choice of strategy and tactics the organizations (with special focus on leadership) pursued. By showing how the liberation movement has responded, both pro- and re-actively, to the changing historical conditions under which their struggle has