Communist No. 93) on the address of Joe Foster, General Secretary of the
Federation of South African Trade Unions (FOSATU) at that organisation's 1982 Conference. "Toussaint' tried to show, with the help of liberal quotations from Lenin torn out of context, that Foster's approach is "workerist', that he wants to substitute the trade unions for the political organisations of the working class. In fact, the whole tenor of Foster's address, as the following quotation shows, is just the opposite:
*..worker activities such as strikes and protests do not in themselves mean that a working class movement or working class politics exist. These later are more than that.
"Toussaint's attacks have been followed by others in African Communist and Secheba but it reaches a new low in the most recent issue of the SACP quarterly, African Communist No. 103 (Fourth Quarter 1985 pp9-10). This time the assault comes in the Editorial Notes and it tries to establish a link between the growing effectiveness of the trade unions with the ruling class 'reforms' - and this on the very eve of the unification conference?
Resorting the well-tried Stalinist method of the 'amalgam' (mixing up two unrelated sets of fact and drawing false conclusions from them), the Notes refer to an appeal by a 'verligte Professor Blackie Swart of Stallenbosch University to employers and the government not to use strong arm tactics against independent trade unions because this could have disastrous long-term consequences and could lead to unmanageable industrial unrest .. which will result in a shift towards more politically motivated organisations...
In other words,' write our SACP hacks, 'he is appealing to the bosses to let the unions succeed in negotiations for higher wages and better conditions because failure at the negotiating table would throw the workers into the arms of the AN and SACP: And now comes the amalgam: "This explains why so many employers recognised the relevant trade union and allowed it to function. This explains why millions of rand are being channelled by the CIFTU, AFLCIO and other bodies towards South African unions which it is hoped will develop into a "third force" drawing workers away from the ANC. So according to the CP, the bosses are supporting the unions inorder to win support away from the ANC!
This does not explain, of course, the fierce struggles of the unions for recognition nor does it explain, as stated in the ANC journal Secheba (March, 1985 p. 21) the arrest of 'over a thousand trade unionists' under the emergency regulations. These slanderous remarks in African Communist can only serve to undermine the strength and influence of the trade unions and the vital part which the organised working class will have to play if South Africa is to achieve freedom.
The achievement of the women in WAPC, says JANE KELLY, is to begin to break with the traditional political practice of the labour movement in Britain. The women not only supported the most militant sections of the NUM during the strike, but are continuing to organise. Their struggle has stimulated new discussion of all the familiar questions about the relationship between women's liberation and the fight for socialism. THE CONFERENCE of the Women