Originally published in Inqaba Ya Basebenzi No.23 (April 1987)

Four Marxists suspended from the African National Congress in 1979 and expelled in 1985 have welcomed an announcement by ANC President Oliver Tambo as signifying their readmission.

At the ceremony in Lusaka on January marking its 75th anniversary, the ANC publicly invited back into membership those it had previously expelled, provided they “recanted” errors.

Paula Ensor, David Hemson, Martin Legassick and Robert Petersen were suspended and expelled after expressing differences with policies of the ANC leadership.

They argued for a clear strategy of mass working class action to defeat the apartheid regime and the capitalists together. Neither alliances with capitalists nor guerrilla methods of fighting the state would win freedom in SA. The ANC should be built as a force of millions capable of eventually carrying out an armed insurrection, with a program for socialist democracy based on the Freedom Charter and its nationalisation clause.

These Marxists also spoke-out against the ANC leaders’ dealings with Gatsha Buthelezi at the time of their suspensions.

The suspensions and later expulsions were carried out without the hearing laid down in the ANC constitution. The comrades maintained throughout that they were victims of SACP Stalinists and right-wingers influential in the ANC in exile, who were opposed to any genuine voice of Marxism in the ANC.

Accepted

Interviewed by Inqaba, banned Natal trade unionist David Hemson said he spoke for the others also in “accepting the ANC President’s recent statement as readmitting us to the organisation.”

He continued: “The movement needs to stand united against the enemy – the murderous apartheid state and the bosses it defends.”

“However, unity cannot be sustained by suppressing political debate. Today, when reaction is trying to regain the initiative after two years of unprecedented revolutionary upheaval by the workers and youth, full and open discussion on how the movement is to go forward to victory is more important than ever.”

Ideas

Comrade Hemson noted that the ANC leadership had invited those who are reinstated to recant their errors. However, it had not been said which ideas of the Marxists were now considered by the leadership to be wrong.

“Events since 1979 – and particularly in the last two years – have only confirmed the policies we have consistently stood for. The necessity for socialist revolution led by the working class, is increasingly widely recognised among strugglers.”

“In fact the spreading support for Marxist ideas among Congress activists is probably one of the factors which induced the NEC to withdraw our expulsions at this point.”

“Let me be clear, when I make mistakes I am prepared to correct them,” comrade Hemson said.

“But the policies we stood for have been completely vindicated. There is nothing to recant. The allegations of ‘misconduct’ made against us to justify our suspension and expulsion were always untrue. We welcome the recent statement by the leadership as in effect a correction of its mistake in suspending and expelling us.”

“We would Iike to believe that our reinstatement marks an acceptance by the ANC leadership of the need for Marxist policies. Possibly its effect has been to reassure the socialist rank-and-file of the movement in this regard.”

“Unfortunately, however, we have to express concern at the signs which are evident at this very time of a turn towards the right on the part of the leadership.”

“Not only are talks being held with SA and overseas capitalists with the apparent aim of reconciling our liberation struggle with their vested interests. The quite mistaken policy is also being pursued of apparently discussing compromises of majority rule and socialism with the leaders of imperialism, such as George Schultz, in Washington.”

“That cannot strengthen, but only weakens the working class struggle.”

“Unfortunately, there are no short cuts to achieve democracy and liberation. The imperialist powers and ‘liberal’ bosses who now claim to ‘oppose apartheid’ remain our class enemies. They continue to implacably oppose majority rule, and they show friendliness to the ANC only in the hope of derailing the revolution. Look at Tony Bloom, for example, chairman of the Premier Group monopoly.”

“As the CCAWUSA workers who struck at OK Bazaars – which he owns – have said, he ‘is prepared to hold discussions with the ANC in Lusaka on SA’s future, yet his own company has no qualms about using the police against workers on strike’.”

“Within the discipline of the movement, which we have always observed, we will continue to struggle for socialist policies.”

“Despite our victimisation, we have continued in unflinching loyalty to the ANC. Who, after the banners hoisted at the mass funerals of the last years, after the huge sacrifices of the youth, after the foundation of Cosatu, can doubt that the workers and youth want to build a mass ANC to carry through the democratic and socialist transformation of South Africa?”

Socialism

The Inqaba Editorial Board adds: We welcome the decision of the ANC to readmit the expelled Marxists and endorse the standpoint taken by these comrades.

The many workers and youth in South Africa who hold the same ideas as these comrades have never been expelled. “Socialism” is today on the lips of the countless activists or the Youth Congresses, Cosatu and the UDF. No expulsions could ever change the reality that socialism is what the mass of black working people in South Africa are fighting for.

Along with all socialists in the movement, we welcome again to the ranks of the ANC the four expelled comrades who in reality never left those ranks. Through this the whole movement can go forward stronger in the struggle for democracy, workers’ power, and socialism.

At the same time Inqaba views as gravely mistaken the decision of the ANC leadership, also announced on 8 January, to offer “amnesty for all state security agents it had captured infiltrating into its membership”.[1]

Collaborators and informers have inflicted horrible damage on our movement and communities. The fierce struggle to root them out has been a feature of the rising mass movement of the past years. Today it is more than ever necessary to exercise vigilance against the infiltration of our movement by agents either of the state or the capitalist class. The ANC’s “amnesty” policy towards them gives quite the wrong signal to the people and should be reversed.

© Transcribed from the original by the Marxist Workers Party (2020).

[1] Weekly Mail, 9-15 January 1987