Who's who in South Africa

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12 SOCIALIST ACTION JANUARY 1986 A serious discussion over revolutionary strategy is taking place in South Africa. We are publishing below a guide to some of the parties, unions, and coalitions involved in the anti-apartheid struggle and in the broader discussion over the strategy and goals of the revolution.

parties Among the many political parties of opposition today in South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC) is the oldest and most firmly established. It originated in 1912 and steadfastly pursued a non-violent path in its resistance to apartheid for almost five decades.

Initially based among the Black middle class, it did not demand a universal franchise until 1943. In 1956 it adopted the Freedom Charter as its political program. This program includes, among other things, the call for "one person, one vote," a minimum wage, a 40-hour work week, the redivision of the land, and the nationalization of mineral wealth, banks, and "monopoly" industries. Elsewhere, however, the ANC has indicated that it is not considering the nationalization of all monopoly industries.

The Freedom Charter does not call for socialism but for a national-democratic revolution. The Charter is in line with the Communist Party's strategy of a "popular front," which seeks to unite the working class and pro-capitalist forces around a common political program.

Only after its banning in 1960—along with the imprisonment of many of its leaders—did the ANC include armed struggle in its arsenal of weapons. It is allied with the Communist Party and some overlap exists among the leadership. Although the ANC enjoys the largest following of any political current in South Africa, it has neither controlled nor led the numerous protests that have shaken the nation during the past 15 months.

The South African Communist Party (SACP), which was founded in 1921, was banned in 1950 and has operated underground and in exile ever since. The CP supports the politics outlined in the Freedom Charter, acknowledging that "it is not a program for socialism."

While claiming socialism as a long-term goal, the CP has argued that its realization must be effected in stages. Hence the CP is quick to criticize as "sectarian par excellence" those organizations to its left (such as the National Forum) that argue for merging the working-class struggle with the national-liberation struggle.

The Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) was formed in 1959 by disaffected members of the ANC. Its criticisms were two-fold: It objected to the effective presence of the Communist Party within the ANC and the presence of whites and Indians in leadership positions.

At its inception, PAC's president criticized the ANC for regarding the struggle for freedom as essentially a struggle for the liberation of workers of all races. Instead, he argued, the revolution was a national struggle with the goal of liberating all Black people. In 1960 it declared itself Maoist and in the same year was banned, along with the ANC.

The term "Black Consciousness" refers both to an ideology and to various organizations that have loosely coalesced around this ideology. It was spearheaded primarily by Black students in 1968, with the thesis that Black liberation could only be accomplished by Black people.

European values were eschewed in favor of a purely African culture, and emphasis was placed on psychological liberation. Black Consciousness spanned not only pro-capitalist groups, which were organized to promote Black business, but other groups that eventually developed in an anti-capitalist direction. In 1976 it led the uprising in Soweto and was banned the following year. Steve Biko, its most prominent leader, was brutally murdered by the South African police while held in detention.

The Azanian People's Organization (AZAPO) was initiated in 1978, following the proscription of the Black Consciousness movement. Like its predecessor, it has chosen to exclude white participation, although there has been considerable internal debate over this. It has undertaken support for strikes, bus and rent boycotts, and has affiliated with the National Forum.

Unions

Although the trade unions have never been proscribed in South Africa, they were denied formal recognition until 1979. Since then the trade-union movement has mushroomed so that today it represents a formidable challenge to the apartheid system.

In 1969, there were 16,000 Black union members; in 1975, 40,000; and in 1984, 550,000. Now, there are Educati 55€ Participants in 1955 1955 congress adopted the Freedom Charter.

about 700,000 members spanning virtually all of the key sectors of the economy. Individual unions have augmented their power by joining together into federations.

The South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) was formed in 1955 as a non-racial federation and has consistently taken up political as well as economic struggles, allying itself with the ANC. With the increased political repression in the 1960s, SACTU was forced underground. At its height in 1961, SACTU included between 35 and 45 unions with a membership totaling 53,000.

The Federation of South African Trade Unions (FOSATU) coalesced in 1979 as a non-racial federation and has been rooted in powerful unions, including those in the auto, metal, food, transport, and textile industries. Although not allied with any political party, nor with the United Democratic Front or the National Forum, it has gone on record in support of the creation of a workers' movement to lead the political struggle. It supports "one man, one vote," and has denounced the Bantustan policy.

FOSATU's first general secretary, Joe Foster, explained the federation's position in the following terms: "Workers need their own organization to counter the growing power of capital and to further and protect their own interests in the wide society...However, in relation to the particular requirements of worker organizations, mass parties and popular political organizations have definite limitations which have to be clearly understood by us."

(continued from page 9: “[Socialist Action places great emphasis on the importance…]”) used by Lenin but-like his Stalinist mentors-distorts it. He implies that this method, which the SWP employed in the past, was equivalent to attempting to "impose a full, socialist program" upon the mass Barnes senses that many members of the Socialist Workers Party might remember that Trotsky wrote his "Transitional Program for Socialist Revolution," which was the founding programmatic document of the Fourth International, in consultation with the SWP.

Trotsky put forward a set of transitional demands as a bridge "stemming from today's conditions and from today's consciousness of wide layers of the working class and unalterably leading to one final conclusion: the conquest of power by the proletariat."

Trotsky insisted that the working class in colonial and semi-colonial countries champion the fight for democratic demands—such as those calling for national independence and agricultural revolution—which would predominate at first in the struggle.

These demands would be combined with others raised by the working class in its struggle. (Some trade unions in South Atrica, for example, have raised the demand for a 40-hour week at the old rate of pay in order to combat unemployment.)

Trotsky emphasized that "democratic slogans, transitional demands, and the problems of the socialist revolution are not divided into separate historical epochs in the struggle, but stem directly from each other."

In contrast, as a corollary of his two-stage theory for South Africa, Barnes substitutes a "minimum program." This is a concept dredged up once again from the Stalinists, who borrowed it from the Sunday Socialists of the Second International.

In South Africa, Barnes says, "the minimum program of a revolutionary workers' party, of a communist party" is the Freedom Charter, a document passed by an alliance of organizations including the African National Congress (ANC).

The ANC "the Foster criticized the ANC as a "popular front" and added: "To the major Western powers it has to appear as anti-racist but not as anti-capitalist. For the socialist East it has to be at least neutral in the superpower struggle and certainly it could not appear to offer a serious socialist alternative to that of those countries, as the response to Solidarity illustrates."

A second federation, the Council of South African Unions (CUSA), was founded in 1980 by unions in disagreement with FOSATU over the role of white members. CUSA, under the influence of the Black Consciousness movement, emphasizes the importance of an exclusively Black leadership.

An important sector of CUSA has articulated one of its goals as "a healthy relationship with the employers."

CUSA has affiliated with both the National Forum and the United Democratic Front but has been excluded from COSATU [see below] because of its exclusion of whites.

This past month a new "super-federation" was organized: the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), representing 500,000 workers.

In addition to FOSATU, it includes as its largest single member the National Union of Mineworkers, which alone has approximately 200,000 members and whose vice-president, Elijah Barahi, is the federation's new leader.

Not politically shy, this new federation has already announced its intention to defy the pass laws. It has given its support to the call for disinvestment of foreign business, and has set a six-month deadline for the abolition of apartheid, with threats of civil disobedience, general strikes, etc.

Coalitions

In 1983, sparked by the white minority government's decision to include a token representation of Asians and Coloureds in Parliament (but no Africans), two coalitions emerged to protest this new affront in particular and apartheid in general.

The largest of the two, the United Democratic Front (UDF), has attracted 600 organizations, ranging from unions to community groups, with a membership totaling over 1.5 million. It is non-racial and multiclass, including capitalist organizations within its ranks. Ideologically, the UDF has taken up a sympathetic posture toward the ANC, to the point of endorsing the Freedom Charter.

To the left and smaller than the UDF stands the National Forum (NF), including seven unions, CUSA, AZAPO, and, as its left-wing, the Cape Action League. Unlike the UDF, the NF calls for socialism.

It insists on the nationalization of the land and workers' control of the means of production. In opposition to the CP and the ANC, it argues for the formation of a "united front of workers' organizations in direct opposition to any popular-front strategy."-ANN ROBERTSON the democratic revolution," a non-Marxist category that even excels the gibberish of the Stalinists. But the Stalinists, after all, style themselves the vanguard and the ANC the leader of a multiclass "popular front."

Working-class independence

Barnes counsels that if the working class "charts a course toward the fight for power, not relying on bourgeois liberals, then it will play the decisive role in the bourgeois-democratic revolution in South Africa." But what can "the fight for power" mean other than the fight of workers to take state power from the bourgeoisie?

Barnes' stance reflects a profound pessimism concerning the ability of the working class to fight for its own interests. But the working class in South Africa has gained great confidence during its struggles of the last few years.

Elijah Barahi reflected a widespread sentiment among workers when he told the founding conference of the new trade-union federation that "COSATU is going to govern the country. COSATU will nationalize the mines under the government. And even some of the big industries will be taken over by the government of COSATU."

Last year there were 469 strikes in South Africa, the largest quantity by far in the country's history. As the struggle escalates, the need for leadership becomes aver more crucial. The working class must build its own party.

Some trade union leaders have pointed to the example of the Workers Party of Brazil (PT), an organization based'on the fighting trade unions of that country. [See December 1985 issue of Socialist Action.] As FOSATU General Secretary Joe Foster put it, "Workers must strive to build their own powerful and effective organization even whilst they are part of the wider popular struggle."

"This organization is necessary to protect and further worker interests," Foster noted, "and to ensure that the popular movement is not hijacked by elements who wili in the end have no option but to turn against their worker supporters." Foster concluded that building such an organization is "a fundamental political task."

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