All the Way with Lbj

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Over a year ago, Sid Lens, then editor of the Progressive magazine, contacted Socialist Action and asked for our help in organizing a series of conferences with the aim of promoting the unity of the various sectors of the "progressive movement."

We declined to take part in this effort because we believed that this broad "left unity" would not be based on clear and principled opposition to all wings of the Democratic Party.

We explained that while we sought to work with all forces in helping to build the broadest possible unity in action against the war policies of the U.S. government, we could not participate in an effort that in any way oriented working people toward the Democratic Party.

The first Lens-initiated conference was held in New York City in December 1985. Major sponsors of this East Coast Conference on Socialism and Activism Included The Guardian, The Nation, and the Progressive, all of which have a long history of supporting the "peace" or "progressive wing" of the Democratic Party.

The Guardian, for example, called in 1984 to vote for Walter Mondale, the candidate who said he would have bombed Grenada and quarantined Nicaragua.

The Progressive has taken a certain distance from the Democrats in recent years given this party's rapid drift to the right, but its pro-Democratic Party record is no secret.

In 1964, it supported Lyndon Johnson. In September 1968, a Progressive editorial backed Eugene McCarthy as "the last hope for deliverance from the perilous plight that confronts us in this year of decision." And in 1972, it backed George McGovern to the hilt.

Today, in an August 1986 editorial in the Progressive, Erwin Knoll tells us that the Democratic Party has "capitulated" to the Republicans, that it has "lost its last eyelash of dignity," and that its policies are "now virtually indistinguishable on issues of foreign policy."

No, the Democratic Party has not capitulated, nor did it ever have any dignity. It was never, is not now, nor will it ever be a political instrument to serve the needs of working people. Its domestic and foreign policies have always been aimed at serving the needs of the capitalist class.

Knoll's best formulations still leave open the possibility of reorienting toward the Democratic Party. In no issue of the Progressive has there ever been a clear call for the labor and social protest movements to break decisively with the Democratic Party and form a labor party based on the unions and open to all the oppressed and exploited.

Middle-class-oriented, third-party formations like the Citizens Party, which the Progressive campaigned for in 1980 and 1984, are no substitute for genuine independent working-class political action. In fact, the Citizens Party has all but folded today, with most of its members and

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:..You're under arrest for inciting riot.!

More than 2100 people have been killed in political violence during the last two years in South Africa. The current rebellion began in September 1984, when Black residents refused to pay increased rent and service charges that had been imposed by township authorities.

During recent months, the rent strike has gathered new momentum, spreading to hundreds of thousands of households in over 50 Black communities around the country.

On Aug. 26, residents erected barricades in the streets of Soweto to obstruct the attempts of police to evict people who were in arrears in their rent. At least 50 people, by unofficial count, died in the police attack that followed.

On Sept. 4, a funeral for several victims of the Soweto massacre was attended by some 8000 people-until they were driven away by a police tear-gas attack.

On the same day, tens of thousands of Soweto workers participated in the largest work-stoppage in the area since the rebellion of 1976.

In mid-August, Black students in many parts of South Africa relaunched a boycott of the schools. The students are trying to counter government attempts to reregister students in order to weed out potential political activists. They are also protesting the presence of government security forces around the schools.

These mass protests-including Black students, township residents, and workers—have taken place in the face of unprecedented repression. The great majority of Black South Africans have stopped looking to the government for a way out of their oppression. And an increasing number are looking beyond-to the construction of a new social and economic system.

Neville Alexander, a leader of the National Forum in South Africa, put it this way in a recent article: Speaking about a growing trend, he said, "The liberation movement has switched from what was essentially a liberal capitalist discourse to what has become democratic socialist discourse."

A "developed country?" • Capitalism has ravaged South Africa. But this fact might not be readily grasped. Statisticians for both the United Nations and the U.S. government separate South Africa out from every other country in Africa: It is the only one that they put in the category of "developed countries."

First of all, these researchers point out, South Africa produces one-half the electricity and six times the steel of all the other countries on the African continent put together. Some 42 percent of the economy is in industry (including mining). South Africa produces about 80 percent of its own necessary industrial capital —machines, steel, chemicals, locomotives, etc.

They also point out that South Africa has a relatively high average standard of living compared to the rest of Africa. The average standard of living is high in South Africa, of course, because white people there live well.

SOUTH AFRICA

PROTESTS OVER They have one highest entire world.

But there is another side to this equation. South Africa is unevenly developed —displaying in some sectors a poverty and misery equal to the most underdeveloped countries in the world.

The method by which wealth in South Africa has been concentrated in the hands of a few is precisely by despoiling a large part of the land and its people. African Blacks were driven from the land, their cattle slaughtered, and their handicraft industry destroyed.

This process gathered force during the 19th century to provide labor principally for the mines. After the Second World War, the South African mine owners increased their investment in manufacturing-which they still largely control compared to the British, American, and other foreign capitalists.

High profits and low wages The South African capitalist class was able to reap unusually high profits in part because of the sheer abundance of mineral wealth in the country and the high market price of its products-especially diamonds and gold. But the capitalists have likewise prospered through the success of the government-sponsored apartheid policy, which keeps wages low.

A report on the earnings of one company several years ago found that if the wages of its Black employees were raised even to the level of the Poverty Datum Line-the barest minimum considered necessary for survival in South Africa-the capitalists' after-tax profits would fall 8 percent. If Black wages were raised to what the researchers considered a "more humane" poverty level, the company's profits would fall almost 22 percent!

How are capitalists in South Africa able to keep wages so low? Apartheid has three major techniques for the purpose:

1) Police terror and anti-labor legislation—to limit strikes and union organizing, etc.

2) Job segregation-Blacks have been prohibited from entering certain job categories by means of outright restrictions (the color bar), by restrictions on the right to travel and housing, and by educational handicaps.

3) A reserve army of labor maintained by means of the so-called Bantustans-which are considered "homelands" for the country's African Blacks, whether they were born there or not.

Under the system, Black workers considered resident in a "homeland" are permitted to work in white South Africa as "migrant workers," usually for a year. By 1976, almost three-fourths of the income of people in the "homelands" consisted of wages paid to migrant and commuter workers.

Meanwhile unemployment in the "homelands" ranges from 50 percent to as high as 80 percent, according to some accounts. Surveys have shown that in the Transkei, for example, 60 percent to 70 percent of the children die from malnutrition before they are 10 years old.

The system "homelands" industries a labor force that is desperate for work-regardless of the low wages. When workers go on strike in the mines, for example, it is common practice to simply fire them and bring in a new group of workers from the "homelands" to take their jobs.

Economic problems increase

In times not too long ago, this situation made the capitalists—domestic and foreign variety—very happy. U.S. investors, for example, found their highest profit rate in the world in South Africa. They received twice their average rate of return for the rest of the world.

But then problems set in for the capitalist class—union organizing, strikes, and political "turmoil." Their profits were also affected by low industrial productivity due to the lack of skilled workers under apartheid.

And in recent years, another problem has become evident. The restrictions that apartheid places upon the power of Black people to earn money also limits their power to consume. In other words, industry cannot find enough buyers for its products inside South Africa.

For example, the Financial Mail newspaper estimates that auto companies can sell only 40 cars to every 1000 Black consumers. The automobile industry, centered in the Eastern Cape region, is currently running at only 40 percent of capacity.

It is no wonder that many of the heads of South African industry have endorsed more "liberal" policies that they believe could mitigate the excesses of apartheid while leaving the private-profit system intact. They have tried to foster the growth of a "middle-class" layer among Blacks, a relatively privileged grouping that would acquiesce to their plans for "reforms" and limited "powersharing."

So far, however, the "liberal" capitalists have been largely thwarted. Most Black small-business people and other middle-class layers have been impressed by the power displayed by the working-class-led liberation movement and tend to side with it.

Independent Black unions

The major working-class organization in the country is the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), a federation of unions claiming over 650,000 members. One tenet that COSATU holds to, according to General Secretary Jay Naidoo, is that workers must lead the fight for a new society while maintaining their class independence within the political fight.

Trade-union activists in South Africa have discussed the project of building a workers' political party. Such a party could gather strength by expanding outside the organizational framework of the trade unions to include community groups, women's committees, student groups, and unemployed organizations.

Although Naidoo stresses, "We do not see COSATU as a political party," the federation carries out many of the functions of a party. COSATU organizers, for example, are helping to set up some of the street committees directing the struggles in the townships.

At present, the project of building a workers' party has been put aside in order to concentrate on reinforcing the structure of the trade-union movement itself. And of course, the problems of organizing a party have been magnified under the state-of-emergency repression. But a workers' party is a logical and necessary outcome of COSATU's work.

A revolutionary leadership In its founding resolutions, COSATU demanded that the corporations open their books for inspection by the workers in order to "strengthen the case for worker control and management of production." Demands of this sort are logical to workers in South Africa today and directed straight against the system of private profit.

Ultimately, working people in South Africa will find that their oppression can only be ended when the workers and the rural poor have taken power into their own hands. Half-way measures that aim at sharing power with alleged "progressive" capitalists are doomed to failure.

A revolutionary leadership must be built in South Africa, which can offer clear explanations of the way forward to the construction of a new society through socialist revolution. That is the project that we in the international Trotskyist movement, the Fourth International, have before us.

San Francisco Community/labor rally against Prop. 64, the La Rouche AIDS initiative Featured speaker: Patty Duke, Pres.

Screen Actors Guild

Wed., Oct. 29, 7:30 p.n First Unitarian Church, Call (415) 431-1522 Sponsored by Labor Task Force/No on 64

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General secretary of S. African union federation:

The following are major excerpts of an interview with Jay Naidoo, who is the general secretary of the Congress of South

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12 SOCIALIST ACTION OCTOBER 1986 STIRSORE TWEENNOT

POLICE KILLINGS