South Africa: workers again: not bring much solace to the blacks. No dated system of apartheid.' Citizenship for South African police officer would dare to all is not being interpreted as equal voting stop a white citizen and ask for their ID book rights to a unitary parliament. He is not
With every day Botha's apartheid regime lurches further towards terminal crisis. One of the most remarkable features of recent South African history has been the resurgence of black trade unions. The aspirations of this young black workers' movement, argues CHARLIE VAN GELDEREN, will not be merely anti-apartheid but anti-capitalist. RECENT EVENTs have highlighted the crisis which is rending the South African ruling class. An important section of the ruling class - that section connected with finance capital — looked forward to Botha's speech at the opening of the tri-cameral parliament in January 1986 for some sign of a radical change. These hopes were summed up last November by the governor of the country's Reserve Bank, Dr. Gerhard de Kock. Expressing his concern at the mounting economic crisis which faced South Africa, he said that in the face of mounting foreign pressure for tangible evidence of reform as a precondition for debt rescheduling, capital was still draining away from the country and that it would continue to do so unless perceptions that South Africa was in an Iraniantype pre-revolutionary period changed. He went on to say that he expected the Government to introduce political and constitutional reforms at the next parliament that would far enough to win support of 'moderate opinion, black and white' , in the republic and in some African states.'
In the event Dr. de Kock must have been sorely diappointed. True, President Botha did say that 'We have outgrown the outdated conception of apartheid.' He also said that the pass laws would be abolished. It was not long before the reality of these 'reforms' began to impinge on the rhetoric. In the very opening session where Botha made his second attempt to get his feet muddied in the Rubicon, 'coloured' members of the tricameral parliament were refused admission to the restaurant in the whites-only chamber of that parliament. More seriously, four days after Botha spoke, the Minister of Education, F.W. de Klerk (favourite to succeed Botha), declared that racially segregated education and residential areas, as well as political representation on the basis of race, was here to stav. He emphasised that there would never be integrated education — shades of lan Smith's 1000 years of white rule in Rhodesia and Hitler's thousand-ycar Reich. When Foreign Minister 'Pik' Botha, whose task it is to make South African I• politics acceptable to the wider world, tonk
the President's words seriously, that Blacks would be brought into the decision-making machine and that South Africa was a country of all its peoples and that no one group should be able to dominate others, and said that inevitably, one day, South Africa would have a black president, he was sharply ticked Now — it's pieces for everybody The abolition of the hated 'dompas' also turned out to be a mirage. Minister of Home Affairs, Stoffel Botha — yes, another Botha - explained that the pass law legislation will be replaced by a uniform ID book for all, which is expected to contain fingerprints. So now we are going to have passes for whites as well as blacks. In practice, of course, this will or summarily arrest him or her should they fail to produce it. But this will continue to be the fate of South Africa's blacks.
There can be no doubt that the Botha programme of reforms has been a deep disappointment to an important section of the
This is reflected in the resignations from parliament of Dr. van Zyl Slabbert, the leader of the white opposition Progressive Federal Party (PFP) and of his designated successor, Alan Boraine. The
'the very growth of South
African capitalism, its
rapid expansion during the
boom years, had produced
its gravedigger - the black
proletariat' PFP, is the parliamentary representative of the major capitalist and imperialist interests in South Africa. Their opposition to apartheid springs from the need for South African capitalism for a more mobile and stabilised workforce than the apartheid laws allow. They also realise that the continued violence in the townships is an effective
Ths section of South African capitalism, backed by the multi-nationals, genuinely seek a road away from apartheid but which will leave the capitalist economy
There is also a section of the ruling National Party, under the spur of the growth of Afrikaner capitalism, who have moved away from the crude Verwoedian concept of apartheid and who are prepared to see drastic changes. 'Pik' Botha and the Nationalist MP, Wynand Malan, who sought a chalogue with the ANC, are representatives of this faction. De Klerk and Stoffel Botha are fearful that they will lose their base to the right wing Conservative Party and the Herstigte National Party (HNP). President Botha is trying desperately to sit astride both camps.
Botha, of course, has been pressurised into his programme of 'reforms' both by internal and foreign capital, and by the growing resistance movement, which has created the gravest crisis in South African history. Last year he promised to restore South African citizenship to black people living in South Africa but deemed to be citizens of the 'indpendent' homelands. He further undertook to negotiate the return of South African citizenship to people living in these so-called 'independent' states. This has not stopped
'independence' 'self-governing national-state' north-east of Pretoria.
Botha still has a very long way to go if he wants to give any substance to his declaration that South Africa has 'outgrown the outeven contemplating the merging of the present triracial parliament, in which each race has its own chamber, into a single legislative assembly. This means that the Population Registration Act, under which each group in the population is identified as black, coloured, Indian or white, will remain on the Apartheid's crisis The picture emerging from South Africa is a
On the one hand, the regime has been doling out the minimum of reforms, on the other, it has strengthened the apparatus of repression. Even hefore Botha's speech made the headlines, black pople were dying under police bullets in the
have to look at the background to the situation of the past two or three years which has compelled the regime to embark on the 'reform' exercise and which has also determined the limits to which Botha is prepared or able to go.
The past two years have been marked by violent resistance to the regime and all it stands for throughout the length and breadth
The structures of racial oppression have been challenged by a national precedented in the history of the country. Among all sections of the oppressed there is a united demand for a non-racial demorratic state, a one-nation state with equal rights nd opportunities for all. This has led to a revival of popular national movements, after two decades of quiescence since the banning of the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan-African Congress (PAC) following the Sharpville massacre in March, 1960 The most widely supported of these national movements is, undoubtedly, the ANC. The Freedom Charter, which is the programme of the ANC, embodies the immediate demands of all sections of the oppressed. But the ideological and political aims of the Freedom Charter are shared by several, prefectly legal organisations in South Africa The United Democratic Front (UDF), Na-
International, No. 3, March/April 1986
South African riot police watches a defiant crowd during a funeral in Orlando, a district of Soweto.
t apartheid tional Forum (NF), Azapo and even, to some extent, the Progressive Federal Party (PFP) are all committed, at least on paper, to the establishment of a "united democratic South Africa, free from oppression and economic exploitation." Enter the working class While the media headlines have concentrated on the battles in the townships and the growing influence of the ANC and the UDF, the real source of the developing struggle has to be sought elsewhere.
After 1963, with the suppression of the national liberation movement, and the economic boom of the years 1963-73, the regime had a decade of relative political tranquility. White South Africa felt safe. It not only enjoyed one of the highest living standards in the world but it was surrounded by a number of so-called 'buffer' states — the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique and the settler-ruled Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). The economies of all these countries were closely integrated with, and dependent on, South African capitalism. They supplied South Africa's mines and industries with labour power, raw materials and services (such as transport). Inside South Africa all appeared quiet under the rule of the sjambok and the machine gun. Its frontiers were guarded by trusted allies. The only irritant was the increasing activity of the SWAPO guerillas in their Namibian colony. All this was to change in the decade which followed. International, No. 3, March/April 1986
The initiative passed from the ruling class to the masses. It was now the apartheid regime and the ideology which it was based on, which was on the defensive.
The victory of Frelimo in Mozambique, the collapse of Portuguese rule in Angola; the successes of Mugabe's guerillas in Rhodesia gave a tremendous boost to the self-confidence of the masses in South Africa. The whites were not invincible. Their superior military and technical equipment could not ultimately prevail over the aroused wrath of the people. Smith's '1000 years' of white rule was to last only a few more years. South Africa's capitalism was stronger and its armed forces more powerful than its neighbours' to the north. But the very growth of South African capitalism, its rapid expansion during the boom years, had produced its gravedigger - the black proletariat.
The wave of strikes which began in Durban at the end of 1972 and the beginning of 1973, marked the re-birth of the black/independent trade union movement in South Africa. Starting spontaneously as strikes for higher wages to meet the sharp rise in prices caused by the world economic crisis of the 1960s, it was not long before the need for organisation began to emerge. Hitherto black workers who were unionised had been accommodated in the Trade Union Council of South Africa (TUCSA), a multiracial as opposed to a non-racial national centre.
TUCSA's attitude toward organesne black workers was highty ambivalent. times, to conform to government legislat-en. which prohibited 'mixed' unions. n expri• its black workers, only to take drun lori later. In the 1970s, TUCSA allowed black. to affiliate in exclusively black unions, which remained highly depends! on their parent 'white' unions for finance and administration. These TUCSA unions were quite incapable of merting the risin! expectations of the black workers following the successful strike actions in 1973. By 197; black workers were putting forward the dr mand for the right to organise is will in demands about wages and conditions
Born in combat, the fledgling unicori came the restrictions of government legist: tion. Firmly rooted on the shop floor. 1! unionised workers were also able to giv cohesion and leadership to the struggles of students and the petty-bourgeoisir which began to wrack the townships and culminated in the great Soweto uprising of 1976. At this stage, the dominant ideological form of these struggles was the Black Con sciousness Movement (BOM); but from then on the working class began to place its own distinctive mark on the future evolution of the struggle in South Africa. The road to unity The growth of the trade union movement in South Africa is almost unique in the annals
beyond the immediate programme of the independent trade union has maintained but
international class history. Among the unions which have affiliated to
Confederation of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the Federation of South African Trade Unions (FOSATU) has over 100,000 paid-up members, the Na120,000, the Commerical, Catering & Allied 12,000, Food & Canning Workers Union workers are afiliated to the new confederation. There are powerful groups of unions grouped under the Azanian Confederation of Trade Unions (AZACTU) and the Confederation of South Africa Unions (COSU) who have, only for the time being, we hope, remained outside the Confederation. When we appreciate that two decades ago all these unions were non-existent we get some idea of remarkable, this expansion of the union movement and the gains they have wrested from the bosses, have coincided with a severe economic depression in South Africa against a background of retrenchment and rising unemployment.
This explosion of working class power, culminating in the unification of most of the
union federations and some filiated unions, has, mark on the political organisations engaged in struggle against the apartheid state. ANC, UDF, AZAPO — all refer to the leading role of the working class' although in the case of the ANC and the South African Communist Party (SACP) this appears to be merely a recognition of workers numerical weight in the population. once the working class enters the political scene, while supporting the struggle for national liberation, for elementary democratic
Tas incorporated in the Freedom Charter and in the Manifestos of the National Forum (NF), AZAPO and others, it adds its own imprint — specific working class, anti-capitalist demands. The workers and politics One of the factors which has prohibited the majority of trade unionists organised in the major unions from affiliating to the UDF is the fear of losing one of their greatest gains - workers' control. Most of the unions are organised with effective shop floor control over the leadership. The constitution of the UDF, where every affiliated organisation, whether it be a small community group or one with a mass base has one vote, seems to the workers to counteract this principle, painfully built into the union structures
years of struggle. Hence, Cyril of the powerful NUM, in his keynote address to the opening of COSATU's founding conference stressed that while COSATU must contribute to the liberation struggle it must not be 'at the expense of building up support in the factories. ' He went on to say that it was 'vital to ensure that whatever alliances with political movements are made on terms favourable to workers'. It was clear from this and other contributions that when the 12 organised workers join forces with the
political wings of the liberation movement to overthrow the aparthrid state it would not be simply to replace the white bourgeoisie with a black bourgroisie.
This should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the evolution of the trade union movement in South Africa. Faced with growing unemployment, the unions have identified government policy and the capitalist economic system as the tinal causes of unemployment. Thus the 1984 May Day demands were for immediate social security and full employment polries, as well as for fundamental social transformation in the interests of the working class.
All the armies that ever marched All the parliaments that ever sat have not affected the life of man on earth as much as one solitary life I am proud to be what 1 am The storm of oppression will be followed by the reign of my blood I am proud to give my life, my one solitary life. executed in 1985, age thirty, by the South African government.
The unions have, in many cases, gone syndicalism, Freedom Chares and pur forward transihegemony of capitalism in the workplare. Thus in the dispore between Of Bazaars and CCAWSA and that between Poshini and the same union in 1985, they forced the employers to open the books, en dischose financial information. Management has also been challenged successfull on the right to hire and fire at will. Thus Coco-Cola was forced to reduce the number of planned retrenchments from 203 to 63.
government-sponsored Wiehahn Commission argued in favour of granting trade union rights to Africans ir: 1970. it was on the assumption that by new unions a role in the industrial relations machinery and at the same time introducing a small package of reforms', they would be able to satisfy the political aspirations of the blacks without granting them meaningful rights. How singularly this dream of the ruling class has been frustrated! A recend survy
…..there is now dear evidence that all states, emergent unions not only accept that they have a political role to play, but arr willing to act accordingly...
At the first mecting of the Central Executive Comminee (CEC) of COSATU, held in February, the new Confederation once again distanced itself from any of the existing political movements. I resolved: 'that COSATU would not affiliate itself to any political organisation so that it can maintain an independent political position'
COSATU's stand on free enterprise is that blacks in SA have not received a fair
return on their labour and that the system has been based on the denial of their poltical •gles. In addition, it holds that the free enterprise system cannot solve the present economir crisis.
COSATU has also vigorously denied Bathelezi's allegations that it is a 'front' for the African National Congress (ANC). It maintains that all its decisions are based on democraric mandates from members. While defending its right to involve itself in politics, and to demand the unbanning of political organisations. "
This is, of course, not a repudiation of politics or a retreat into economism or BENJAMIN MOLOISE, a South African poet sympathetic to the ANC, was a re-iteration of the deeply-held conviction that the programme of none of the existing organisations, UDF, ANG, Azapo, National
adequate expression to the aspirations of the workers as a class. was, perhaps, most clearly expressed in an interview with Moses Mayekiso, secretary of the Metal and Allied Workers' Union in the Transvaal (one of the most important and powerful FOSATU affiliates). in the Socialist
present the FOSATU shop stewards' and also MAWU, are discussing the political set-up. We are looking at the crisis and the solutions to the crisis. general feeling is that the workers must have their own party and their own freedom
'The Charter (The Freedom Charter) is a capitalist document. We need a workers' charter that will say clearly who will control the farms, presently owned by the capitalists, who will control the factories, the miners and so on There must be a change of the whole society. Through the shop stewards' councils people are opposed to this idea that there will be two stages towards liberation. That we must clean up capitalism first, then socialism. It's a waste of time, a waste of energy and a waste of people's blond.'
The debate continues
It is precisely on this issue of workers' con-
trol, on the nature of the class which will take
power in South Africa when the hated apar-
theid regime is finally overthrown. which is
International. No 3. March/April 1986
quately represent all the currents that flow coverage was forbidden on 2 November this one set of conditions is not necessarily cor- January this year, the month in which Botha victory. While it may be an ideal to strive for (These figures are supplied by the South yet been reached. Any promature daim to February 18. Liberation sources estimate as bong the sole authentic representative of the many as 80 people were killed by security ment, holds within itself the seeds of devasta- Botswana and Lesotho — in the latter case tion, defeat and even betrayal... The corect resulting in a change of government more Sonch Alica Lena organisations affiliated Unita, South Africa's spearhead in Angola well as various trade union tendencies, have Namibia but are fearful that a SWAPO
the subject of debate in the working ‹ lass and liberation movements today. These debates are not academic exercises, but ar taking place in the heat of the struggle which itself will give the final answer. All the demands of the Freedom Charter can be met within the framework of a welfare-state caprialism. While such a state could be a million-Jold inprovement on today's South Africa, in Britain, we know the nature of such « stare: what the capitalists can give todas vi be forced to give, they can take away tom row There can be no guarantee that i Velson Mandela or O)liver T'ambo will not one day be followed by a Margaret Thatcher.
Nationalisation of kcy industries, outlined in the Charter, is an absolute prerequisite for any socialist rconomy, but these nationalisations are also feasible under an cconomy which is basically capitalist. What is key is the class nature of the state. Which class is in control? The Charter's answes is that "The people shall govern, that every man and woman should have the right to vote, and take part in the administration of the country, regardless of race, sex and rolour ' Demands which the workers will support but again it is not clear who controls and how. Nothing short of a system of government in which the poopie have not on ly the right to elect their se presentatives bur the right to recall them it dev should prove unsatisfactory will satist, the workers of South Africa. This has been learned from binking their own orgamsadone, the work ing class will not accepe loss from, the state: which they will help to bring into being
'Nothing short of a system
of government in which the
people have not only the
Wright to elect their representatives but the
right to recall them if they
prove unsatisfactory will
satisfy the workers of South
Africa'
'The South African masses are engaged in a struggle whach can only end in the over throw of apartheid Do is going to be a hard and batter struggle wait victories and see backs In this struggle the South African revolutionaries will need help. Speaking to the United Nations Special Committee against Apartheid on 11 October 1985, Dr. Neville Alexander said: ... it ought to be dear that anti-apartheid forces throughout the world have to do everything in their power to assist in altering the position of the exploited and oppressed Azanians inside and outside the country.
'One of the most important of these tasks is that of helping us to forge unity in our movement for national liberation. South Africa is one of the most comples social formations in the world today. Not for nothing has it been called a miocrocosm of the workd. It is a place where all the major contradi dions and divisions that tear apart the workd International, No 3. Manh/April 19R6:
Seven kilometres from the centre of Johannesberg. at large are in be found in such a society political tendency or organisation can adethrough it. What is possible and necessary in rect for another set of conditions.
Yet unity is one of the pre-conditions of unity of all forces of liberation in one organisation on party .. ths situation has not oppressed propic made by any tendeny or organisation. no matter how largr and socially resonant it may be at any given topolicy for international solidarity forces at the moment, the ideological and organisational preferences of any particular group, must be tie support the entire liberation movement. It is, given our cucunstances. one of the most dangerous acts of levity to declare any particular "an enemy of the people' , no matter how still Rhodesia. irksöme its presence might be.
'An aumosphere has to be created in which all gemanel; anti collaborationist organisations and tendenees can agree to work togerber on tactical and strategic levels until community of struggle makes possible «kologial and theoretical convergence and even agreement. In practice this kind of cooperation is already taking place inside Udoubtedly to the Linited Democrane Front or adhering to the position of the National Forum, as on many occasions planned actions jointly and/or executed them in consultation with be too one another.. It ought to be a matter of selfevident necessary that solidanty forces should eliminate and not derpen divisions within South Africa's liberation struggle..
While Botha tries in vain to convince the outside world that he is really on the road to reform. the farts eontound him. Repression has intensified. The daily death rate tells its
wwn story. Over the last two years. the average number of deaths in towrship up- 1986.
llan EdaleteniReflas miniature. In surges has been 1.68 per day. After the it is unlikely that any one declaration of the State of Emergency in July 1985, this increased to 3.69. Since media has gone up to 4.10. The death rate for made his Rubicon I speech, was higher than for any other since the unrest began — 5.47. African Institute of Race Relations and have been eclipsed by massacre in Alexandra on The Botha regime has also intensified its pressure on neighbouring regimes. Raids on anti-apartheid favourable to the apartheid regime — in- whatever creased aid to the MNR in Mozambique, making a mockery of the Nkomati concord, are symptomatic of the government's desire to re-create the 'Cordon Sanitaire' which cushioned South Africa from guerilla incur- sions when Mozambique and Angola were anti-collaborationist current to be still Portuguese colonies and Zimbabwe was Great pressure is being put on the Angola government to try and balt the growing suc- cesses of SWAPO in the battle for the libera- tion of Namibia. This is taking two forms Foreign Minister Botha is engaged in talks in Geneva with the US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Dr. Chester Crocker to cover 'bilateral and regional issues' increased American aid for will feature high on the agenda. Washington would like to see a nominally independent regime allied to the MPLA in Angola, would powerful a catalyst to the South African revolution which they fear above all else. Footnotes 1 Financial Times, 27/11/85 2 Lewis/Randall, "Survey of the state of the unions, " South Africa Labour Bulletin, Vol 2, No 2. 3 Thid. 4 Financial Mail, Johannesburg, 14/2/86 5 Quoted from Azania Frontline, No 12, January 13
Statement of the Fourth International