Discussion reveals heated debates in Black unions

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8 SOCIALIST ACTION MARCH 1988 The following is a discussion between Socialist Action editor Alan Benjamn and a leading member of the Azanian People's Organization (AZAPO) of South Africa, whose name has been withheld for reasons of security.

Question: In recent months, the mainstream press has prominently featured statements by leading Soviet officials to the effect that the ANC should rapidly move toward a political settlement that would "provide comprehensive guarantees for the white population."

One such article from the Feb. S, 1988, Los Angeles Times describes the pressures the Soviet Union is placing on the ANC.

According to the Times, Soviet officials interviewed at the ANC-sponsored conference in Arusha, Tanzania, last December said that "the ANC should expect to be part of a coalition government in the future and should not seek to dominate it if that would deepen political divisions... The country's present capitalist system should be modified only with great care...even though this means the continuation of 'monopoly capital' for many years."

One Soviet official at the Arusha conference is quoted as warning the ANC to move slowly on nationalizations. "If a post-apartheid government, for example, took over the big mining companies, as the ANC proposes, who would manage them?" the Soviet official stated. "Would these people have enough experience? But, if this is just something for far in the future, why insist on it now when it only alarms businessmen and other whites who might join a united front against apartheid."

The Times article quotes Gleb Starushenko, the deputy director of the Africa Institute in Moscow, who went so far as to suggest a federal system made up of "autonomous components" and a "bicameral parliament that would give the white minority an effective veto within a majority-rule government."

The Times concludes that these views are not simply the personal opinions of a few maverick Soviet officials, but rather "reflect broader trends in Soviet foreign policy under Gorbachev."

What is your assessment of the foreign policy of the Soviet leadership, and is there a danger that it will exert its pressure to attempt to derail the revolutionary struggle in South Africa?

Answer: I think this must be understood in terms of the various pronouncements the Soviet Union has made from time to time on the struggle in South Africa.

The Soviet Union has never significantly moved from "socialism in one country," a policy which was so dangerously put forward by Stalin so many decades ago. And today when Gorbachev has taken over and has introduced his new perestroika policies, Soviet leaders have made many significant "holy pronouncements" about the character of the revolution in South Africa.

A conference was held not long ago in the Soviet Union where top government officials and party leaders discussed "the problems of the South African revolution. They talked about giving the white minority certain guarantees. This notion could have only come from the Reagan administration, with which Gorbachev is hoping to achieve a detente. The Reagan government is particularly concerned about what would happen to the position of the white ruling class and the basic system of capitalism in a post-apartheid South Africa. Would they be guaranteed?

In my view the Soviet Union is moving hastily to seek further rapprochement and agreement with the U.S. government in South Africa and other regions of the world where revolutionary struggles are unfolding.

Question: But does the Soviet leadership have sufficient influence in the ANC to be able to push through these polices of accommodation? Will there be resistance in the ANC to these pressures? What is the role of the South African Communist Party (SACP)?

Answer: Joe Slovo [general secretary of the SACP] in an interview he gave early last year to the London Observer said he was ashamed of his Stalinist past. But when he was asked to elaborate or give examples of when he would have disagreed with positions taken by the Soviet Union, he could not give any examples.

What Slovo really finds embarrassing is that Stalinism has been denounced to a limited extent by Gorbachev, and therefore it would not be wise for people like him to say that Stalinism is relevant. But the SACP has not broken with Stalinism.

Nonetheless, I cannot really say that the ANC would be overwhelmingly influenced by the positions of the Soviet Union. I see a lot of debate that will go on within the ANC because while too many of the comrades within the ANC have great respect for the Soviet Union, they will begin to reassess this respect if such revisionist demands are in fact implemented in order to divert the struggle. At that point, the ANC will face a real revolution within its ranks.

Question: So despite the ANC's misguided strategic framework resulting from its support to the Freedom Charter, you think there will nonetheless be resistance by a membership which is revolutionary-minded...

Answer: Oh yes, I think that a significant percentage of their membership abroad and in the country will resist these pressures. Already many ANC members are questioning their leadership's decision to meet with sectors of the ruling-class oppressors, particularly the mine bosses, who at home were at that very moment responding to the mineworkers' strike with such violence. They are asking why Oliver Tambo [president of the ANC] can meet with George Shultz at a time when inside the country no credible leader would dare to meet with an American official.

They are also beginning to question whether it was right for the ANC to have given a lot of backing to the creation of Buthelezi's Inkatha—the ANC blessed that creature at a certain point in its history The same Buthelezi and his Inkatha are now murdering many of the ANC comrades in different parts of the country.

On the split in COSATU Question: A big struggle is now underway in the South African trade unions over the Freedom Charter. At its second Question: I was impressed during the three-month miners' strike last year that the Black Miners, Construction and Allied Workers Union (BAMCWU), a NACTU affiliate, honored the NUM strike and actively supported it. BAMCWU, if I'm not mistaken, claims a membership of 175,000 workers. But I was also interested by the fact that the BAMCWU did not countersign the appeal by the NUM at the beginning of the strike for workers to leave their work place and return to their homes— for most of them the distant homelands. If I'm not mistaken, the BAMCWU explained the the NUM appeal meant that the mineworkers wouldn't be present to make the decisions about how the strike should be run. I think the mineworkers were, in fact, only consulted once during the entire strike. Answer: I think that BAMCWU's criticisms of the NUM leadership were justified. It was a miscalculation on their part. But in another sense it was a calculation, because in the previous strike that took place in 1985, many of the workers, when they got thrown out of the mine premises, camped out at the union headquarters.

At one point there was a palace revolt by the mineworkers against the leadership of Cyril Ramaphosa and others. So the union leadership calculated that they conference in July 1987, the 750,000member COSATU [Congress of South African Trade Unions] adopted the Freedom Charter of the ANC as a document that "encompasses the minimum demands of the democratic majority which lays the basis for the building of a non-exploitative society."

But not all the unions affiliated to COSATU endorsed the Freedom Charter. This was the case of the catering and commercial union, CCAWUSA, the third largest union in the federation, which voted by over two-thirds of its membership at its congress in June 1987 against having the trade-union movement endorse a political didn't want disgruntled workers who were thrown off the premises to camp on their doorstep this time. That's one factor.

Second, they said they wanted to create an impression of discipline and so on. But that is hogwash. The truth is that they simply didn't want the workers to be faulted by management for blocking minerals from leaving the mines or for confrontations. They wanted to prevent the source of confrontation. But what is a strike if it is not a picketline that manages to stop production.

The NUM leadership just simply didn't take into account that there is a huge problem of unemployment, that many tens of thousands of workers were able and willing to be recruited as scabs in the mines. This permitted the mine bosses to bring on their premises these new recruits when everybody else had gone back home. So that in effect there was no defense of their jobs at the mine gates.

And that is why even the president of the mineworkers is out of his job. And so are some 30,000-plus workers.

Question: Did the NUM issue an appeal to the entire labor movement to come to the aid of mineworkers?

Answer: No. The leadership of the

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The same Buthelezi and his Inkatha are now murdering many of the ANC comrades in different parts of the country.

On the split in COSATU Question: A big struggle is now underway in the South African trade unions over the Freedom Charter. At its second conference in July 1987, the 750,000member COSATU [Congress of South African Trade Unions] adopted the Freedom Charter of the ANC as a document that "encompasses the minimum demands of the democratic majority which lays the basis for the building of a non-exploitative society."

But not all the unions affiliated to COSATU endorsed the Freedom Charter. This was the case of the catering and commercial union, CCAWUSA, the third largest union in the federation, which voted by over two-thirds of its membership at its congress in June 1987 against having the trade-union movement endorse a political programmatic document.

The CCAWUSA leadership argued that adoption of the Freedom Charter would only divide the membership. CCAWUSA leaders pointed to the fact that some of its members support the Charter while others support the Azanian Manifesto [the basic strategic document of the National Forum and of AZAPO].

In addition, a number of other unions that endorsed the Freedom Charter qualified their support considerably. Many of them referred to the Charter simply as a "good foundation stone on which to start building our working-class program." These unions also stressed their commitment to "building socialism" and to struggle "to uphold in an spheres of soci however. a plit advance the leadership of the working c In recent months, however, a split occurred in CCAWUSA over the Freer Charter, with the pro-Freedom Cha minority forming a separate union wl has, unfortunately, received the support now the recognition of the COSA leadership.

What is your assessment of discussion within COSATU and how you view the recent split wil CCAWUSA?

Answer: It is very unfortunate that Freedom Charter has caused further ruption within the united trade-un movement. This makes trade-union s darity so much more difficult to achieve

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