By Charlie van Gelderen THE CURRENT which has carried South African CP leader Joe Slovo away trom Marxism albert in us debauched Stalinist form) has become an avalanche The president of the SACP has finally abandoned the struggle for a democratic South as enshrined in the ANs as enshrined in the In an arace in the currens issue of African Communist he proposed what he terms 'a short-term solution to sout Africa's problems'. He says that gle for power during the long Teners the magning to Going nowhere But this does not draw him to the conclusion that revolutionary marxists drew long ago -that negotiations per se would get the liberation struggle nowhere-but to the conclusion that compromise is inevitable. should He oes even further. There no question of dismantling the apartheid state. Civil servants, including police and army officers should be given xuarantees that they would ke eep their jobs in a post-apartheid (sic) South Africa, and if necessary be granted amnesties.
In an interview in the Independent (30 October) he says: I'm not pandering to people... I am acting in the interests of a lasting democratic transformation because the new fledgling democracy, if it merges, will face a period o nordinate social and economi problems which will require the broadest national effort to resolve.
'...most important, within the ambit of basic democratic principles we should try to minor 12" X 16" (E10).
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5 Dec, 1992 imise those forces which could provide the potential for rightdestabilisation and sabotage, what I call counter..even if the ANC gets a 60 or 70 percent majority in the first constitutional election, it will achieve political office but will not really achieve control over the essentials of the state framework operators. The civil service will; the State exactly the same the day alter. the same with the judiciary ... the army ... the ponce force and so oil Stages So now we know what slovo's incory of acmevins socialism in stages really means (he still says he thinks socialism is the 'only sensible form of human existence'). the first stage means no socialism at all. Everything stays just the same with a few black faces in the cabinet and, maybe, a dozen or so black generals in the police and army.
The mineowners and finance capital will still be in control of economy, white farmers will still dominate the ownership of land.
We're talking of equality says Joe Slovo but we are talking of meaningful participation' Slovo's line has now been endorsed by the ANC leadership at its mid-October summit, which laid the basis for the so-called Strategic Perspective.
It suggests that the question of job security, pensions and a general amnesty (for civil ser. vants and military personnel who have kept the wheels of apartheid oiled may need to a constitution 'in which the ANC and the (ruling) National Party are the main players!
This policy of capitulation has been scathingly attacked by Pallo lordan. a member of the ANC National Executive Comin an article entired to re Trail to you, or Riding into Sunset together?, he argues that ANC goals aim for not only for the creation of a democratic state but also for the dismemberment of the racist state.
He says: 'It is these organs of white minority state power that • we are now being told should Party banners on Slovo shows what 'stages' theory really means not be tampered with to enable the siberation movement and the regime to ride blissfully into the sunset together.
We have to keep in place a public service that has no interest in serving the mass of the oppressed who are the ANC's constituency; keeping in place a Pubic service that will do everything to undermine the democratic government; and under arms the agency that can ensure the democratic state can touch the public service when its disloyalty is uncovered.
"A national liberation movement that did this would not be riding into the sunset, it would be bullding its own funeral pyre!