A discussion on the labor movement in South Africa

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The following is a four-way discussion among South African revolutionists and anti-apartheid activists in Great Britain. The discussion took place in London last November.

Bob Fine, co-author of "A Question of Solidarity-Independent Trade Unions in South Africa," had recently returned from a four-week visit to South Africa. He discussed his impressions and ideas with Charlie van Gelderen, a veteran South African Trotskyist now living in Britain; a Black South African revolutionist, a sympathizer of the Cape Action League, identified below as X; and Martin Thomas, editor of Socialist Organizer, a socialist newspaper published in London.

Bob Fine: My main impression, from the trade unionists that I met—in the Federation of South African Trade Unions (FOSATU); in the Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers' Union; in the General Workers Union (GWU); and others—was the depth of workers' concern with trade-union democracy. (1)

As the new labor federation [embracing FOSATU, National Union of Mineworkers, and a number of other unions] becomes a possibility, workers are discussing ways in which they will be able to extend the democratic structures that already exist into the new federation.

A lot of workers drew a close link between the structures of democracy in their own unions and wider questions of democratic organization inside South Africa. So, for example, one of the ways in which workers would address the character of the United Democratic Front (UDF) (2) is to ask: what structures does the UDF have? To whom are their leaders accountable? What kind of education does the UDF provide for its members? What possibility is there of recall of their officials?

Charlie van Gelderen: I read a report of a UDF meeting where a Black trade unionist asked the question: How do we know if you get into power that what's going to happen here is not what has happened in other parts of Africa?

Fine: I heard that as well, a number of times. The question of the relationship between democracy and socialism is often raised. There were a number of discussions in the trade-union educationals about nationalization. The Freedom Charter [of the African National Congress] (3) has a clause which doesn't exactly call for nationalization, but is along those lines-ownership by the people of the monopolies.

The trade unionists asked themselves the question: What has nationalization got to do with 10 SOCIALIST ACTION JANUARY 1986 socialism, unless nationalization also means democratic control of industry by workers? There is strong emphasis within the trade-union educationals on workers' control in industry.

The problem of Eastern Europe also came up a lot. A lot of workers had followed the progress and defeat of Solidarnosc-there were a lot of articles in the tradeunion newspapers-and there was a strong belief that socialism without free trade unions was a contradiction in terms.

X: How widespread is this discussion? Is it confined to the top layers, the leaders, the shop stewards, or do you find it at the shop-floor level?

Fine: My impression is that the discussion is not just among leaders. It percolates further than that...The education is much broader than trade-union education here. All kinds of political issues are taken up. But there's no attempt to counterpose directly the politics being established within the trade unions to the politics of the ANC or orthodox nationalism. There's an implicit counterposing, but no explicit counterposing.

African National Congress

van Gelderen: Can we move on to the question of the ANC? The impression I get is that though the ANC is not necessarily leading what is happening in the townships, the people there feel inspired by the ANC and look to the ANC, either directly or through the UDF.

Fine: Yes. The symbols of the ANC are very powerful: "Free Mandela," Freedom Charter, the colors of the ANC. I found a lot:of people in the unions who supported the UDF, and many of those support the ANC.

But it's an odd kind of support. It's almost: "Here's a collection of symbols, and we'll give those symbols our own content." No one really knows precisely what the ANC stands for.

In some areas there is a lot of fluidity between the UDF and the unions. In Natal, both the UDF and the unions face a common threat from Buthelezi's Inkatha The main point is that workers in the unions will adopt one form of politics or another. And at present there are basically three places you can go: the UDF/ANC circle, Black Consciousness (5) in one form or another (which a sizeable minority of workers do), or in Natal a lot of workers belong to Inkatha. The tradeunion movement as such does not have a political voice.

The lack of an independent workers' voice is becoming much more apparent.

X: How much National Forum presence is there in the unions? (6)

Fine: There especially Talking to workers at the educationals there I found that many support Black Consciousness. And I think that some of the very top FOSATU officials in that area are pretty sympathetic to the National Forum. I think the overwhelming political presence, though, for better or worse, is the UDF.

A workers' party?

Fine: I met almost no one who thought that a workers' party was an immediate possibility. A lot of people felt that they were in a political vacuum. A lot of people were saying, "We have to do something political," but were not very happy with the options available. On the other hand—and this leads to a kind of paralysis-there's a notion that it's impossible to set up an alternative to the ANC-the symbols of the ANC are too strong, the tradition is too stong. To try to take on the ANC would be big trouble.

Also, within the trade-union movement there is a very strong current which doesn't give top priority to the question of a party. Top priority is building a trade-union movement. I suppose there is a syndicalist element there, which says that the party is important but it can wait—it is always something for a future date.

So in the place where the best human resources for the building of a workers' party are to be found, a lot of those resources are still directed to the trade-union movement and not toward a party.

The question of a workers' party is on the agenda, and ought to become more explicitly on the agenda. But there is a danger of a kind of substitutionism. The trade unions at the moment are not willing to go down that road, but it seems to me either a workers' party will come out of the trade union movement, or it will not come out at all.

van Gelderen: Yes, there is a danger of syndicalism, especially in the General Workers Union, which seems to be much inclined toward a simple position of just building up trade-union strength, rather than building a political party. But how do the trade unions relate to the community organizations?

Fine: The 'trade unions' relation to community organizations is entirely different in different parts of the country. In Port Elizabeth, in the Eastern Cape, relations are disastrous. Trade unionists are fingered as collaborators. When there was a call for a general strike in that area for one day—from Boesak [of the UDF] I think it was—the unions objected. They said you can't just call on workers to do things—it's the workers who decide, not a call from on high.

In other areas relations are much better. In some areas community organizations are based in the unions.

I think the most advanced notion coming out of FOSATU is "transformative politics." This means that the structures built up by trade unions in the workplaces—i.e. solid, democratic, grass-roots structures—should be extended into the community, so that for the next period of time the unions can be involved in building community organizations.

Also, that the kind of politics that unions engage in in the workplace-the posing of demands on immediate questions: the right of access to workers, better wages, better conditions, end to discrimination against women-should be extended from the workplace to the community.

The idea is that in this way the unions will be able to develop a solid base in the community as a step toward developing their own political voice. The problem, of course, is that the development of community (continued on page 11)

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(continued from page 10) organizations is not a substitute for the development of a party.

FOSATU and independent politics 1: Joe Foster of FOSATU made a very good speech in 1982 about the need for independent working-class politics. But what worries me is that I don't see any effort by FOSATU since then to carry those ideas forward. It looks like a project abandoned by FOSATU.

Fine: I think you're right. The speech was out on a limb, and very little has been done to turn it into reality. FOSATU was dragged into politics by the rapidly escalating events...in particular by the politicization of its own members.

van Gelderen: I think the difficulties in the way of a workers' party in a way are analogous to the situation here [in Great Britain], where the immediate feeling among workers is to get rid of Thatcher. There the feeling is to get rid of apartheid, and the ANC represents the main force, like the Labour Party does here, for the immediate task.

Fine: Yes. One of the things I learned there was the strength of the ANC's appeal. In a way the analogy with the Labour Party is a good one—to the extent that we have to understand the strength of the Labour tradition here, and also the ANC tradition has important strengths which we need to understand if we're going to relate to it adequately.

X: The ANC has very strong symbols. But are these symbols visible to the population as a whole? Or just to the urban population? And not everyone in the urban population, but only the educated people, the ones who read newspapers?

I think the process by which the ANC is becoming visible to everybody is the mass funerals. The majority of the people at those funerals have come to bury a friend, a relative, a member of the community. But during the funeral—through the ANC colors draped on the coffin and so on—they are brought into contact with the ANC. The majority of these people will be people who do not read newspapers.

Fine: I don't know. My impression is that the ANC's popular appeal is growing very rapidly. The organizations that are going to come out of this present period the strongest, most unscathed, are not the ANC organizations but the trade-union movement. The problem is to translate that organization into a political presence.

At the moment everyone feels that power is on the agenda. And who are the trade unions when power is on the agenda? They chip away—better conditions here, a workers' organization there—but they don't address themselves to the really central questions of power. And the ANC does.

What road for South Africa?

van Gelderen: It seems to me that there are only two roads for South Africa, over five or 10 years. Sooner or later this regime must give way. The most likely thing at the moment is some kind of agreement between the ANC and the white bourgeoisie. The only other alternative is that even the democratic demands of the Freedom Charter can finally be realized only through something completely different—a workers' party.

Fine: Part of the problem with the Freedom Charter is that the means are so disconnected from the ends. There's a loosely-defined democratic vision, but that vision is entirely abstracted from any means of getting there. Without some democratic element in the means of getting there, you'll never get democracy.

Martin Thomas: There seems to be a contradiction in the way the ANC conducts politics. The immediate slogans put forward are fantastically militant-"Make South Africa ungovernable," "No education before liberation," blank opposition to everything. On the other hand, there they are lobbying governments for sanctions, talking to the capitalists, and so on. And the social program they put forward is in fact very moderate.

The explanation, I think, is that the ANC's vision is not one where a new South Africa will be created by the people taking control: but the role of the mass of the people is just to be disorderly and to put the government in a position where the government then has to negotiate with the ANC. The whole thing takes place over the heads of the people.

This approach has dangers, it seems to me, not only in the long term but also in the short term.

Oliver Tambo [president of the ANC], in an interview with Newsweek, said that he could see the downfall of apartheid maybe in 10 years, being optimistic. The perspective of making South Africa ungovernable might be a good tactic if you think that the government is going to fall in a few months: But 10 years?

To pursue that sort of politics cannot but create divisions among your own people: People become exhausted and frustrated by the disorder. The logic of it, despite all the ANC's calls for unity, is to fragment and divide. Which from the point of view of the ANC is not necessarily a bad thing: It ensures that the initiative remains in their hands.

Fine: Yes. I don't think the uprisings take place in the townships because the ANC called for them.

They take place because of the extraordinarily difficult By Mill ANC leader Nelson Mandela conditions that people in the townships face. The problem with the ungovernability slogan is that it does not offer any sense of what a workers' government would consist of.

When the students and the people in the townships throw their bodies against the police, the ANC doesn't so much try to organize that as to use it as a bargaining weapon.

Capitalism needs apartheid?

van Gelderen: Most of us, myself included, have firmly believed that in South Africa capitalism can't exist without apartheid. I'm not so sure that still holds true today, with more sophisticated industry in South Africa.

The problem, of course, is the mines. The low productivity of Rand ore still demands cheap unskilled labor to make those mines profitable. But they can create a Black aristocracy of labor and still have a mass of unskilled workers on low wages.

Thomas: Isn't it a fact that wages in the gold mines, after declining or stagnating for 80 years, have risen considerably since the early '70s?

It seems to me that the problem for the government, in dismantling some of the special features of South Africa and turning it into a more "normal" racist capitalism, is not so much some economic impossibility in the abstract as the difficulty of dealing with its base, the white population.

Fine: "Is capitalism possible without apartheid in South Africa?" In a sense it's the wrong question. Theoretically we can argue it until the cows come home. What we have to be warned against is that certainly capitalism without apartheid is what a lot of people are trying to establish. Whether it is, in fact, established will be determined not theoretically but in practical politics.

Police surround Black workers on strike in South Africa.

The Progressive Federal Party (7) and the capitalists are putting forward a definite anti-apartheid position. It's just not pro-socialist and not pro-democratic. They want a kind of federal power-sharing that will guarantee private enterprise.

A lot of people say that the government is just perpetuating the old apartheid system under a slightly new guise. I think that's probably right so far, but if sufficient pressures are put on the government, l wouldn't put it past them to pursue a program of reforms to a point where the major planks of apartheid are eroded.

In its place you'd have a military-bureaucratic dictatorship, partially de-racialised, that offers us nothing at all, no improvement on apartheid.

We have to be aware that there are kinds of "anti-apartheid" that have nothing to do with democracy and nothing to do with socialism.

X: It is in the context of these changes that a workers' party has meaning.

It seems that capitalism in South Africa is capable of de-racialising itself. I'm not happy with the theories that say capitalism is inseparable from apartheid. Theoretically, from an abstract point of view, that may be very correct. But in terms of practical day-to-day politics an understanding like that can turn into ultraleftism, where you do nothing because the struggle is not against capitalism.

It is only through a workers' party that you can have a combined struggle, a permanent revolution. In the context of the changes that are taking place you need a workers' party to defend the workers' interests, to carry on the workers' struggle. You're not going to get socialism overnight. If in the context of these changes the ANC comes into power, either alone or as part of a coalition, you will need a workers' party that will stand in opposition.

(1) The Federation of South African Trade Unions (FOSATU) has been the largest of the non-racial (mainly Black) trade union groups that have developed since the early 1970s. It has joined the newly-formed Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU).

(2) The United Democratic Front (UDF) is a coalition of some 645 organizations, broadly reflecting the politics of the African National Congress.

(3) The African National Congress (ANC) is the main nationalist organization, dating back to 1912. It has been closely allied with the South African Communist Party.

The Freedom Charter is a manifesto adopted by the ANC and other organizations in 1955, which codified the South African Communist Party's strategy of a "two-stage revolution." The first stage posits an alliance with the liberal capitalists in a struggle for democracy. The second stage, the struggle for socialism, is relegated to a future stage.

(4) Inkatha is a conservative movement, based mainly among Zulus, and led by Gatsha Buthelezi, chief minister of the KwaZulu bantustan in Natal. Inkatha is allied with the Progressive Federal Party.

(5) The Black Consciousness Movement arose during the mid-1970s. Influenced by the Black nationalist movement in the United States and Africa, it called on Blacks to unite against the apartheid regime. In recent years many of the Black Consciousness organizations have evolved in a more explicitly anti-capitalist direction. The main exponent of this movement is the Azanian People's Organization (AZAPO).

(6) The National Forum is a coalition that includes AZAPO and the left-wing Cape Action League.

(7) The Progressive Federal Party is the main white opposition party, formed in the late 1950s. It is backed by major capitalist interests. It advocates a federal powersharing system with veto powers for the white minority. It is allied with Inkatha.

SOCIALIST ACTION JANUARY 1986

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