[page 3]
Mandela's release
Mandela has merged from
prison into an unfolding
revolution
MIR
Richard Monroe, from
Board of Inquaba
journal of the Ma
Tendency of the ANC,
way forward for the
the Editorial Ya Basebenzi, rxist Workers'
examines the South African
revolution.
Millions of people watching TV on February - were inspired to see Nelson Mandela, clenched fist held high, striding out of Victor Verster prison atter 27 years in apartheid jails. In South Africa, his release was greeted with days of mass jubilation and the biggest political rallies in the country's history:
This has been a victory not just for the black majority in South Africa but for oppressed people everywhere. Among the masses, huge hopes are now vested in Mandela to lead to victory the struggle against oppression and exploitation - to end 300 years of slavery.
But against this, the hope of the De Klerk government is that Mandela will participate in a controlled experiment in political change to preserve capitalist power and wealth and white privilege.
Mandela emerges from prison into an untolding revolution - with increasing polarisation between the races and the classes. It is this revolution which has brought about his reicase, the release of other political prisoners. the unbanning of the African National Congress and SA Communist Party: and other retreats by the apartheid regime.
The spectre of this resolation territies the ruling cias» Despite thousands at deaths deten. tions, shootings and beatings under the Mate ot Emergency since. 1986. the regime has been unable to defeat the blach working class. The uprising of 1984-6 abated in the townships. But industrial struggles and political general strikes continued. Fresh forces came into action. particularly in the countryside. By last year a new movement was welling up from below, spearheaded by organised workers in the factories, incensed at the attempt to introduce a new Labour Relations Act reversing trade union gains achieved over nearly twenty years.
The old system of white minority rule is doomed. Since 1986 alone. the black population in the cities has increased by up to one third. In both town and countryside the black population is overwelmingly working class. In ten years in SA there will be only 5 million whites among 47 million people.
The industrial economy needs an integrated labour force. Even the police and army depend increasingly on blacks. Strict apartheid can no longer be maintained. Defiance simply pushes it aside. To try to avert revolution, the government is driven further on the path of reform.
PW Botha's attempt at this - the 'tricameral parliament' for whites, coloureds, and Indians - was discredited almost before it was in operation. But, despite pressures from the big capitalists and imperialism, Botha baulked at going further: at 'crossing the Rubicon' by addressing the question of how to include the African majority within the constitution. This is why. after his stroke in January 1989, he was so unceremonious!, swept aside and replaced by De Klerk as state Prosicient.
Inder De Klerks leadership the Nationalist Party iMP, in government for over 40 years. fought the parliamentary election last september for the first time on an open program of retorm. Although the NP vote fell, the total vote for reform' (counting also the liberal bourgeois Democratic Party) was more than 70%, - holding off the ultra-right Conservative Party (KP) which stands for partition of the country on racial lines.
For the moment, most whites are prepared to give De Kierk a chance to achieve racial reconciliation and peace. A KP government could catalyse open civil war. What such a government would mean was shown on a small
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scale by the attempt of the KP municipal council in Boksburg in 1988-89 to reintroduce petty apartheid. A black boycott almost crippied small white businesses in the town.
Coming from the right wing of the OP. De Klerk is taking bold steps. His government has been forced to recognise that the ANd previously denounced as a terrorist organisation' - is overwhelmingly popular among the black majority. If constitutional retorns is to work, they understand, it is necessary to secure its acceptance in negotiations with the ANC leadership. particularly Mandela.
But these aims run four-square against the aspirations of the masses, as embodied in the Freedom Charter, program of the ANC. The minimum demand of the black people is for majority rule - power in government in accordance with their numbers in society. The black majority want the power to end poverty wages and achieve decent jobs. homes. education and health for all.
A real government of the majority would come into immediate conflict with SA's backward and diseased system of capitalism. The Freedom Charter calls for the nationalisation of
the banks, mines, and monopoly industry commanding heights of SA's economy
All this is anathema to the ruling class. Against the black masses, their ultimate bastion of defence is the armed might of the state machine, staffed at its core by whites. To preserve the cohesion of the state, they must protect white privilege through an effective white veto in politics.
At the same time, to try and hoodwink the masses and trap the ANC leaders, government ministers increasingly speak the language of non-racialism and 'democracy. De Klerk, in his speech on 2 February unbanning the ANC. committed himself to 'universal franchise.' Despite this, the government has no intention of conceding majority rule.
Gavin Relly is boss of Anglo American Corporation, SA's largest monopoly, and is one of the 'progressive capitalists' who has met ANC leaders. As he declared recently, there was no question in SA of a British-style democratic government "with its 'winner take all' constitution". This "would not work for South Africa." (Financial Times, 15 February 1990).
De Klerk and his ministers are insistent that
Huge hopes are now vested in Mandela to lead to victory the struggle to transform society.
The minimum demand of the black people is for majority rule
VIR
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4L Spr Sor
MIR
ng South Africa
ANC leader Walter Sisulu.
existing privilege in housing, education. etc - must be protected. "We cannot allow the minorities that live here to be swamped by majority decisions", said one minister. "We believe community life is a right." (Guardian, 6) February 1990)
What precise constitution the government is aiming for is a matter for speculation. But they appear to want to combine the principle of votes for all on a non-racial basis, with blocks on majority rule by new and sophisticated 'divide-and-rule' mechanisms. For such a cons titution there are precedents in SA, at least on paper.
Something along these lines, for example, has been proposed for Natal by the KwaZulu/Natal Indaba, a body involving white political parties and Inkatha. It combines a 'lower chamber' of parliament elected by universal franchise, with an upper house, standing committees and an executive through which minority 'background groups' (effectively ethnic groups) can exercise a veto.
"The essence of the legislative process", a participant in the Indaba writes, "is that bills require the agreement of the executive, both Chambers and the relevant standing committee before they can become law... it is impossible for a majority party, irrespective of its size. to obtain approval for proposed laws without gaining the support of members of other political parties." (Peter Mansfield. 'Checks and Balances' ', Leadership, 1987)
Such a constitution, of course. would be a recipe for legislative and even executive paralysis. Neither advancing the interests of the majority nor protecting minorities, it would guarantee increasing extra-parliamentary conflict along race and class lines. Moreover, it is one thing to propose such a constitution for a province like Natal. There are a whole new set of problems in devising one for the whole of SA. involving control over the armed forces, finance, and foreign policy.
Under the huge opposing pressures of the different races and classes such a constitution, even if it were introduced, would sooner or later break down, with real government assuming a dictatorial Bonapartist character, perhaps in the hands of the military. The constitution would become as irrelevant to the processes in society as the constitution of Lebanon.
Yet, these are the lines along which the government appears to be moving in its futile attempts to square the circle of irreconcilably opposing forces - the interests of the overwhelmingly working-class black majority on the one hand, and those of the ruling class on the other. The regime is gambling that, if it can secure the support of the ANC leadership for such a constitution, it can hold off the pressures that will come from the whites on the one hand
and the black masses on the other.
These developments have been enormously influenced by the world situation: by the prolongation of capitalist upturn in the advanced capitalist countries, and the shattering crisis of the Stalinist regimes of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. All this has created the appearance that capitalism has an optimistic future and that socialism has failed - an impression trumpeted by apologists for capitalism, and echoed as well by sections of the Stalinist bureaucracy: It has created illusions in the idea that all the antagonisms in society can be resolved through negotiations.
In his 2 February speech. De Klerk spoke extensively of the crisis in Eastern Europe: "The collapse. particularly of the economic system in Eastern Europe, also serves as a warning to those who insist on persisting with it in Africa. Those who seek to force this failure of a system on South Africa should engage in a total revision of their point of view."
In reality the crisis of the Stalinist regimes is not a crisis of socialism, nor of planned economy. It is a crisis of nationally based bureaucratic rule. The way to free the forces of production from these barriers, as Marxism explains, lies in political revolution - workers' revolutions overthrowing the bureaucracy, establishing workers' control and management of production and society, and linking together in a federation of socialist states.
Moreover, the upswing in the advanced capitalist countries, while it may continue for a further period, cannot last indefinitely. The anarchy inherent in capitalism means it will give way at some point to a renewed downturn and recession.
Nor does the condition of capitalism in the advanced countries offer hope for the impoverished black masses of SA. SA's economic crisis is, at root, not a product of sanctions, nor of apartheid alone, but of a cheap labour economy in a world dominated by production on the basis of advanced machinery. The investment required to transform the basis of the SA economy, and provide every South African with a decent life, will not be forthcoming while it is ruled by the profit system.
The way forward for the black masses in SA lies in winning majority rule, establishing a government with the power to end capitalism. This will require a revolution consciously led by the working class, mobilising all the oppressed to defeat the state, establish workers' democratic rule, and open the road to socialism. For the whites also, such a society is the only guarantee of peace, security, and lasting prosperity. This is the struggle that the ANC needs to organise in South Africa.
Speaking on the day of his
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balcony of Cape Town City Hall, Mandela made warmly-welcomed reaffirmations of his commitment to armed struggle, democracy and nationalisation. At the same time, in regard to a new constitution, he has said he understands the insistence of the whites on 'structural guarantees'. It is right to support guarantees protecting language and cultural rights of all; protecting all individuals by law against racial. religious or sex discrimination. But 'structural guarantees' to the whites is something different It means constitutional powers in the hands of whites to block legislation needed by the majority to end poverty, end social inequality and redistribute wealth - ie an effective white veto.
Interviewed by the British TV programme, Neu'snight on February 23 Mandela also stated "If we do desire to negotiate, we must be prepared to compromise. If we are not prepared to compromise, there is no point in negotiating." The NEC of the ANC agreed to send a delegation headed by Mandela to meet De Klerk - to discuss remaining obstacles to negotiations: the state of emergency, amnesty for all political prisoners, etc. They have made clear they are placing their hopes in a negotiated settlement with the government.
Journalists in the British capitalist press are already sketching out an optimistic scenario of 'reconciliation', previously unthinkable. "The ritual minuet of negotiation has only just begun But not many years down the line we shall probably see a coalition government in which Mr De Klerk's National Party and the ANC will share as equal partners. probably leading to a phased program for complete majority rule." (RW Johnson, Independent on sundar: 25 February 1990)
After decades of bloody struggle. and huge sacrifices, many black workers and youth are no doubt hoping that there is a peaceful way to freedom. There must be many whites too who are hoping that Mandela. with his enormous authority, can produce miracles But it is wrong for the ANC leadership to take part in these negotiations. Negotiations should be only for majority rule. De Klerk is not putting majority rule on the table to negotiate.
The as yet small forces of the Marvist Workers'
Tendency of the ANC are explaining all these realities in the ranks of the Congress movement. We say that negotiations are a trap unless a number of key conditions are on the agenda which could ensure the immediate transfer of power to the majority through them:
* A Constitutional Assembly: with delegates all freely elected on the basis of one-personone-vote from every part of SA (including the so-called 'independent states) to draw up a new constitition;
* Immediate suspension
of all segregation
laws, and the Labour Act;
* The equal right of all the people irrespective of race to bear arms for their own defence. The right of local people to form militias for defence purposes in all residential areas, and of the trade unions to form workers' defence guards in all industrial areas and on buses and trains.
The idea that the become indefinite government which rule is completely pressures on the intense for this.
For blacks, the harsh burdens of daily life - in the workplaces, in the townships, in the schools, in the countryside - cannot wait to be resolved. They will drive the black working class again and again into struggle against the bosses and the government, striving to use the ANC, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the South African Youth Congress (SAYCO), etc as organisations of combat.
The very retreats of the regime are an incentive to push for further gains. 'Now that Mandela is free we should get higher wages and pay no rent', is what many workers are saying. The great danger is that, in the name of a policy of negotiations, the huge potential power of the mass Congress movement will not be mobilised in a struggle for power. But unless political power is taken decisively by the oppressed majority out of the hands of the ruling minority, black working people will continue to be cheated even of the most basic real reforms.
In January De Klerk told a closed door meeting of 500 senior police officers "that the force would no longer be used to fight the government's political battles... 'In the past you have been asked to handle situations that had nothing to do with ordinary crime... Circumstances have changed'" he said. (Financial Times, 29 January 1990)
But who can imagine that the ruling class will abandon the use of their bloodthirsty armed forces, security guards, and vigilantes in trying to hold down and crush the movement of the working people? Every use of these forces will be a reminder for the masses what the state power is, and that it is essentially intact. As soon as the working class comes to recognise that De Klerk's schemes are a trap, designed to defraud them of real democratic rights and political power, they will have to find their way back to the road of revolution.
The black majority has a deep-rooted mistrust of the age-old treachery of the white regime. It will not willingly accept compromises with it by the Congress leadership. The danger is that the policy of negotiations, which cannot lead to
NP and the ANC could
co-partners in a stable led step-by-step to majority utopian. The contradictory opposing parties are too
MIR ng 1
Aj
The very retreats of the regime are an incentive to push for further gain
190 ica
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60 MIR the full exercise of majority rule, will open up splits and divisions - weakening the unity Spring 1990 South Africa which the black working class has struggled to build over two decades of struggle. At the same time, the ultra-right is likely to take advantage of every opportunity to sabotage the negotiating process and whip up fears among the whites of impending black dictatorship.
De Klerk is hoping to have a new constitution in place before the present parliament requires fresh elections - in a form which would make it impossible for the KP or any ultra-right party winning a majority among the whites to win control of government. But, even in the short run, many developments can cut across the plans of the ruling class. Negotiations can begin, break down. and then be revived again and again. The course of events will reveal that the demand of the African majority for power in hands cannot be achieved through their negotiations. All the attempts will ultimately founder in the irreconcilable struggle between capitalist wealth and white privilege, and the unquenchable needs of the black poor. In his address to senior police officers in January, De Klerk warned apocalyptically of the dangers of race war: "if this Armageddon takes place - and blood flows ankle deep in our streets and + or 5 million people lie dead - the problem will remain exactly the same as before the shooting started." (The 'problem' for him being that the blacks form an ever-increasing FW De Klerk.
majority of the population).
He claims his policy will avert this danger. But the truth is the exact reverse. It is out of the frustration, confusion, and disappointment that would arise to afflict both black and white through the failure of negotiations to solve the problems of SA society, that the danger of all-out racial war - not only of white against black, but black against black also - would arise.
The openly fascist banners displayed by the AWB on the fringes of the 30,000-strong march of ultra-rightists in Pretoria on 15 February are an indication of the depths of racial fanaticism lurking in white society, particularly among the police.
war waged by Inkatha against Zulu workers and youth in Natal has proved unstoppable, despite attempts at making peace with Buthelezi by the Congress leadership. Buthelezi is terrified of the ranks of Congress, and does not want peace. His gangster mafia: the atrocities of vigilantes around the country: the rise of gangsterism in the townships - are all smali symptoms of the future of South Africa unless it is fundamentally transformed. All these forces must be defeated.
Speaking in Natal on 25 February, Mandela the youth defending their comcalled on munities against Inkatha violence to "take your guns and your knives and your pangas (machetes) and throw them into the sea." To hisses from his audience, he hoped "that it would be possible one day to share a platform" with Chief Buthelezi. But, despite his authority; Mandela will find it impossible to establish between lasting the counterpeace revolutionary Buthelezi and Congress. The warlords will not disarm. Mandela is politically disarming the Natal youth by his call. All these vicious forces of reaction can be defeated if the Congress movement mobilises for majority rule on the basis of workers' revolution. And. with such a revolution, linking up with the international struggle of the work ing class, there is the perspective of peace, justice, and growing prosperity for all. The ANC leadership are taunted by Foreign Minister Pik Botha that they have been 'abandoned by their 'ally' the Soviet Union. In the interests of compromise with imperialism Gorbacher is exerting strong pressures on the ANC leadership to enter negotiations and reach a compromise with De Klerk. But the Soviet bureaucracy have always been terrified of workers' revolution anywhere in the world. It has never been a genuine ally of the oppressed masses in South Africa Their surrogates within the ANC. the leadership of the SA Communist Party, have never put forward a realistic strategy for freedom in South Africa. The SACP's support for negotiations with De Klerk is entirely consistent with the two stage' approach to revolution they have advocated. The 'armed struggle' they promoted for all the heroism of those who have participated in it - is not in SA conditions a strategy for power. Against the might of the regime, urban guerrilla actions have been no more than pinpricks, failing to defend the struggles of the masses, and driving whites into the arms of reaction. But the state can be defeated. De Klerk's concessions show that the enemy is on the retreat.
To achieve victory, the black working class in SA will need to form itself into a mighty mass army, arming itself politically and physically, to build a force capable of splitting the whites, and thus of deteating the state.
For this it can rely only on its own strength. on the genuine ideas of Marxism, and on its real allies. the working class around the world. The rise of the black working class in SA, as a force of steel against a ruthless regime, has won the respect of workers internationally. It will not easily give up the gains it has won. We can be confident that it will turn increasingly to building a mass ANC under its control around the program of Marxism.
1 March 1990