Originally appeared in Inqaba ya Basebenzi No. 18-19 (February 1986)

by Bernard Fortuin

Editor’s note: The author has been active in pro-ANC youth and community organisations in SA since 1976. Like many others of his generation of fighters, he has been imprisoned repeatedly by the security police.

Here he answers the recent barrage of attacks on Marxists within the ANC, which was opened by the leadership in exile in June 1985 with the expulsion of four ANC members.

The expulsions were followed by articles in Sechaba and the African Communist attacking from a right-wing standpoint the Marxist Workers’ Tendency of the ANC, the Southern African Labour Education Project, and all those in the movement fighting for workers’ power and socialism.

June 16 is undoubtedly one of the most important dates of the South African revolution. It marks the entry of the working class youth into the arena of mass struggle.

Since the events of 1976, youths have died in their hundreds, and have demonstrated supreme heroism in the face of a monstrous killing machine – the SADF and SAP. Yet the will of the working class youth to struggle remains unconquerable.

June 16, 1985 – an historic occasion – the first ANC conference in fifteen years. It is sad and surprising that this Consultative Conference in Zambia chose to attack the Marxists in the ANC and in particular the fighting socialist youth.

Capitalism in South Africa faces an unprecedented crisis, rising inflation, bankruptcies, mass unemployment, falling profits, and it has responded with an attack on the entire working class. More than 1,000 people have died in the last eighteen months, mostly at the hands of the state, during the most sustained uprising against the bosses and the regime.

Conference

It is at the 1985 Consultative Conference, where our movement faced the challenge to arm the youth with correct perspectives on the nature and tasks of the South African revolution, that it chose to expel four Marxists and to warn socialist youth. In his speech to the Conference comrade Tambo showed alarm at the identification of the ANC with socialism and the growing influence of Marxism in our movement!

He said:

… significant numbers of democratic activists, particularly from among the youth, see the ANC as a socialist party and project it as such… It might be appropriate at this stage to refer also to the formation within the ANC of … the ‘Marxist Tendency’ within the ANC.[1]

In attacking the expelled Marxists, comrade Tambo appeals to the youth to reject Marxist ideas:

Members of this group are no longer within our ranks. It is, however, true that some of their ideas have penetrated sections of the democratic movement inside our country. These need to be combatted…[2]

Marxism has taken root in the working class movement in South Africa because it is capable of arming the workers and youth with perspectives, on the basis of experience in day-to-day struggles, to see the source of their misery – capitalism.

It is ironic that comrade Tambo and the ANC leadership oppose the ideas of Marxism and the attraction of the youth to socialism, while throughout South Africa the black workers and youth struggling against the state and bosses chant: “Viva Tambo Viva! Viva Socialism Viva!”

The attacks on Marxists, socialist youth and workers in the ANC were recently repeated in the African Communist[3] by Nyawuza, in an article entitled: “New ‘Marxist’ Tendencies and the Battle of Ideas in South Africa”. This attack came at the same time that the ANC Executive (with Communist Party endorsement) was meeting with the chief representatives of the South African capitalist class, whilst the National Union of Mineworkers engaged in battle with the same bosses!

It was Mike Rosholt, chairman of Barlow Rand, who first attacked Fosatu for preparing workers to gain control over production. Nyawuza’s attack on Marxists, socialist youth and workers repeats this attack:

There are people who advocate `workers’ control’ over production as the main objective of working class organisation and maintain that the hope of achieving this objective raises working class consciousness.[4]

In the most paternalistic and racist argument Nyawuza states:

The problem with people advocating ‘socialism now’ is that they expect those Blacks who cannot read or write to run socialist industries and mines… The result would be an economic crisis. [!!][5]

In this way Nyawuza, the ANC and SACP leadership directly attack workers who are engaged in struggle against the bosses in South Africa with the same arguments used by the bosses and the regime. The workers and youth do not accept this argument though.

At Printpak in Industria recently, ninety workers seized control and occupied their factory for two-and-a-half weeks in support of a victimised comrade. The workers declared:

Factories are what they are today because of the workers. The occupation gave … workers a chance to discuss many issues, especially the question of control. Who controls the factories? It is clear the workers are the rightful owners.[6]

This factory is a subsidiary of Barlow Rand and interlinked with Anglo American, whose bosses the ANC executive had ‘talks’ with. Is the expulsion of Marxists and the attacks on youth who ‘project’ the ANC as a ‘socialist party’ an attempt to allay the fears of the bosses – like Anglo American – who dominate the economies of the entire Southern Africa?

The ‘Communist’ Nyawuza’s attack on socialism and workers’ control is an insult to comrade Barayi, the president of Cosatu and an ANC activist in the 1950s – who in his speech at the Durban rally called for the nationalisation of the mines, factories, plants of the major monopolies on a socialist basis and the release of Mandela to head a workers’ government.

The Marxist Workers’ Tendency of the ANC not only stands for nationalisation (under workers’ control and management) of the factories, mines, farms etc. of the monopolies. We also stand for democratic workers’ control over all instruments of political, social and economic power. This can be achieved through the full implementation of the Freedom Charter under workers’ rule.

National Liberation

Nyawuza correctly points out that: “The real … aim of these new (?) ‘Marxists’ is to reject the two-stage theory of our revolution.” Quite childishly he accuses Marxists of ‘marginalising’ the national question and regarding “class exploitation” as the only “real oppression”.

Nyawuza and the ANC/SACP leadership falsely separate the struggle of the black majority for democracy and power from the struggle for socialism. Marxists have consistently argued that the tasks of national liberation and of overthrowing capitalism are indissolubly linked, and this finds its concrete expression in the day-to-day struggles of the masses.

The struggle of black workers and youth throughout South Africa arises from the fact that the vast majority of our people are denied democratic rights and are divided along ‘tribal’ lines on the basis of the cheap labour system of capitalism.

It is in this context that the demand for one person one vote in a united South Africa is a revolutionary demand. It is with this understanding that the black workers and youth chant: “Viva Tambo Viva! Viva Socialism Viva! Viva ANC Viva!”

Marxists are also accused by Claris, a writer in Sechaba (August 1985), of having a “distrust” of community organisations. It is said:

The argument that the struggle in South Africa should be led by the working class organised in the trade unions has as a corollary the argument that political organisations (such as the ANC) and community organisations are potential rivals to the trade union struggle because they contain middle class elements which dilute the strength of the working class.

This is a red herring and is misleading. The Marxists have always argued that the youth and workers in the community organisations together with the organised workers in trade unions should build A MASS ANC ON A SOCIALIST PROGRAM.

Mass Organisations

There is nothing middle class about the demands and struggles of the mass community organisations. From DHAC, CAHAC, Soweto Civic Association, to COSAS, SOYCO, CAYCO, PEYCO etc.[7] – the struggles of community organisations have articulated the demands of the working class.

The struggle against pass laws, high rents, gutter education, removals, high prices, community councils and management committees is a struggle against capitalism. The township youth have not only revolted against the education system but against capitalism and white domination. There is no future for young people on the basis of capitalism.

It is no accident that the revolt of 1984-85 has been most sustained in the Eastern Cape where youth unemployment is as high as 80% and the region faces rapid de-industrialisation.

It is no accident that black youth in the Western Cape refused to write their final exams. There is no future for the youth under capitalism, therefore they dare to:

“FIGHT FOR AN ALTERNATIVE SOCIALIST EDUCATION SYSTEM BASED ON THE INTERESTS OF THE WORKING CLASS” (position of school boycott committee in the Western Cape).

Despite admonitions from the ANC/SACP leadership in exile, the black working class youth of South Africa will continue to ‘project’ the ANC ‘as a socialist party to achieve their liberation.

Claris’s suggestion of an inherent rivalry between trade unions and community organisations because the latter “contain middle class elements” poses the problem falsely. The fact that community organisations have been dominated by middle class elements (something which has to be consciously combatted) does not alter the fundamentally working class nature of their membership and their struggles.

The rent strike by more than 350,000 residents in the Vaal Triangle is not middle class in orientation neither does it weaken trade union struggles. It is a struggle by the working class in defence of its living standards, kept alive particularly by the heroism of the working class youth.

In 1985 four Marxists have been expelled at a time when the ANC leadership has opened ‘talks’ with SA’s monopoly capitalists. Let us not forget that these comrades were suspended in 1979 when the ANC leadership held secret talks in London with Gatsha Buthelezi.

The Marxists in the ANC have always argued against political dealings with the capitalists or with their puppets such as Buthelezi. Today even the ANC leaders denounce Buthelezi as a traitor – but previously they gave him credibility, just as they are now giving credibility to the capitalists in many workers’ eyes. This is very wrong.

Nyawuza admits that there are classes “within the black community”[8] but argues that “all of them have a real interest in putting an end to colonial oppression.” Collaborators and middle class elements who support the regime are dismissed as corrupt “individuals”;[9] there is no analysis or understanding of their material interests in the maintenance of the apartheid state.

Interests

The failure to identify correctly who are the “classes within the black community” leads to the failure to identify their different interests.

The black middle class in South Africa is not a single force with a distinct and unvarying progressive interest in ending oppression. The middle class have no independent basis of existence in present-day economy and society, and therefore no independent class interest.

Their political role changes with different phases and intensity of the class struggle. They veer between the working class and the capitalist class in the course of the struggle between these irreconcilable antagonists.

There are middle class strata like the teachers, petty traders, lower middle class professionals, small landowners who are closer to the working class in lifestyle than to the capitalist class. They can be drawn to the working class in action. This does not preclude them from playing a treacherous role when the workers’ movement is weakened or its political and organisational independence is not safeguarded.

There are other strata amongst the black middle class whose interests depend upon the apartheid state. These strata in privileged positions in the police and army, the administration boards and community councils, the tricameral stooges, but more particularly those in the Bantustans – the bureaucrats, the larger landowners associated with the tribal authorities – are dependent on the maintenance of the present state system for their existence.

There are those who, like Buthelezi and Mangope, have a certain base of support among sections of the working class, but their strength rests in reality on the strength of the apartheid state.

State

The apartheid state is the instrument of capitalist dictatorship in South Africa; the instrument of the oppression and exploitation of the black working class essentially. It is for this reason that workers and youth have reacted with such violence against black middle class elements who collaborate with the state and use the system to enrich themselves.

In SA most of the black and even sections of the white middle class (together with white workers) can be won over to the side of the revolution through the strength and unity of the black working class.

This will be achieved through the mass mobilisation of organised workers in trade unions and community organisations, the youth and the unemployed in particular, on an uncompromising program for over-throwing the apartheid state and capitalism. It will not be achieved through attacking Marxists in the ANC in an attempt to calm the nerves of the capitalists and their hangers-on.

Marxism

Marxism has found an echo amongst black youth and in the growing trade union movement. The ANC/SACP leadership argue, in the words of Nyawuza: “All this … poses a challenge to us to strengthen and articulate our inter-class unity.”[10]

Marxists in the ANC call on the ANC/SACP leadership to identify those who make up this “inter-class unity” in our movement.

We are all for unity in action with those of the middle class prepared practically to come over and fight on the workers’ side. Does the leadership have anyone else in mind for “our inter-class unity”?

Perhaps Harry Oppenheimer, Gavin Relly, Van Zyl Slabbert?

There can be no unity between capitalists (or their agents) and the black workers and youth fighting for A MASS ANC ON A SOCIALIST PROGRAM – the only program which can fully mobilise and unite the working class, win over sections of the middle class, defeat the apartheid state, and lead to our national and social liberation.

Marxists continue to build the ANC on this basis inside the country despite the attacks and warnings of the ANC/SACP leadership.

Along with the youth and workers, Marxists are imprisoned, shot and attacked by the vicious state machine. And along with the workers’ movement and the youth, we will build a MASS ANC OF THE WORKING CLASS to strive for the socialist transformation of South Africa.

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

[1] Conference Report, p.13. Our emphasis.

[2] p.12. Our emphasis.

[3] No. 104, 4th quarter 1985

[4] p. 56-7

[5] p.58

[6] Saspu National, December 1985

[7] DHAC – Durban Housing Action Committee; CAHAC – Cape Areas Housing Action Committee; COSAS – Congress of South African Students; SAYCO – Soweto Youth Congress; CAYCO – Cape Youth Congress; PEYCO – Port Elizabeth Youth Congress [Footnote by the MWP, 2020]

[8] p.53

[9] p.54

[10] p.56