South Africa: White Rule, Black Revolt
by Ernest Harsch (Monad Press, 1980)
pp. 321-328

Chapter 21

Toward Azania

When we talk about freedom, we mean freedom from poverty
and its associated evils, freedom to enjoy basic rights
of food, shelter and clothing, education which teaches creativity
not destruction, and access to the world of culture in
which all those who have the gift can participate.
—SASO Bulletin

The Black population of South Arica has a three hundred year history of fighting for liberation. Today the forces exist that can lead that fight to victory.

The Black working class of South Africa is stronger than ever before, in its numbers, its position in the economy, and its political experience. Through the strikes and political mobilizations of the 1970s, Black workers have become increasingly aware of their social power. They have shown their ability to bring South Africa's economy to a halt. They have learned the importance of mass political action.

This growing strength of the Black working class and the political ferment of other layers of the Black population, such as the students, has had a profoundly radicalizing impact on the thinking of Blacks in general.

The defeat of Portuguese colonialism, the victory of Angolan and Cuban troops over the invading South African army, and the massive advances of the Zimbabwean liberation struggle also have left a big imprint on the consciousness of Blacks, as did the revolutions in Iran and Nicaragua. All have added considerably to the combativity and self-confidence of Blacks. For example, when the Zimbabwean election results were announced in early March 1980, revealing a sweeping victory for Robert Mugabe's  Zimbabwe African National Union, Soweto resounded with car horns and shouts of "Viva Mugabe!" and "Amandla ngwethu!" (Power to the people).

During the struggles of the past decade, every aspect of white supremacy has come under attack, from the pass laws and the migrant labor system to the Bantustans and racist education. The South African masses have shown that they will not stop fighting until Black majority rule and full democratic rights have been won.

The freedom struggle has also shown itself to be a struggle over who will control the tremendous economic wealth and resources of South Africa—the small circle of white bankers, industrialists, farmers, and foreign investors or the Black masses themselves. In one battle after another—for higher wages and union rights, against rent and transportation fare hikes, against land rehabilitation schemes and forced resettlement programs—Blacks have fought to take back some of that wealth, wealth originally created through their own labor.

The fight for Black majority rule has been totally intertwined with this struggle to end the poverty and exploitation of the Black population. By its very nature, majority rule points in the direction of a socialist transformation of society. Because of the inevitable resistance of the white ruling class, a Black majority government that strives to wipe out the accumulated legacy of centuries of white supremacy cannot hope to achieve its aims without at the same time storming the strongholds of white capitalist economic power.

The obvious links between the struggle for Black majority rule and the fight for control over the allocation of South Africa's wealth has led a growing number of militants to look toward socialist solutions to the problems that confront Blacks. They have come to recognize more clearly the close interrelationship between capitalist exploitation and national oppression, and the need to wage a combined struggle against them.

Sipho Buthelezi, a former secretary-general of the BPC, has maintained that "while the struggle is one for national liberation it also has to be raised at the level of the class struggle. We don't think that we should first simply achieve national independence and then after that struggle for socialism. We believe that we shall have the combination of the two stages into one." [1]

Other activists have pointed in a similar direction. "Our struggle against apartheid is a struggle against capitalism," one former militant of the BPC told me in Johannesburg. "We do not want to just take over the government and leave everything else as we find it. We want to run the economy, in the interests of the masses, to their benefit, not to profit some capitalist, white or Black."

By the late 1970s, a number of activists who had come out of the Black Consciousness movement were already describing themselves as Marxist-Leninists' or adherents of scientific socialism. Some of the student militants in Soweto preferred the term communist, according to one former leader of the BPC. If the BPC or SASO were not banned and were allowed to hold open conferences, another affirmed, their resolutions would be "defiiaitely more to the left."

Despite the difficulties of obtaining socialist literature in South Africa, a certain amount circulates clandestinely. Among the Black Consciousness exiles abroad, where literature is more readily available and where there are fewer restraints on the expression of political ideas, this movement toward the left has been especially apparent.

The radicalization within the Black leadership is reflective of the growing popularity of socialist ideas among wider strata of the urban population itself, a development that has not escaped the notice of the white rulers of South Africa. An editorial in one of the major South African daily newspapers raised an alarm about the "steady drift towards communism/marxism/socialism on the part of South Africa's urban blacks... . This trend has been confirmed by three major surveys which show that the majority of urban blacks prefer to call themselves communists, marxists or socialists rather than capitalists." [3] While it would be unlikely that very many Blacks would consider themselves capitalists to begin with, it was nevertheless significant that so many would openly identify with socialism in a country when. To do so can mean imprisonment or worse.

This growing identification with socialism reflects an under standing on the part of many Blacks about what they are fighting for. Education to meet the needs of the Black majority, decent housing and medical care, and an adequate living standard will never be granted under the apartheid system. To win them will require Black workers taking control over both the government and the economy and using them to advance the interests of the vast majority of the population.

The revolution in Cuba holds out an example of what can be done. As the workers and peasants of that Caribbean country were able to do once they had freed themselves from local and foreign capital, the masses of South Africa could use the resources of their country to fulfill their own immediate and pressing needs, to build housing and schools, clinics and hospitals, to eradicate unemployment and poverty. And all this not on the scale of a small island with a tiny industrial plant, but on the basis of the wealthiest, most industrialized country in Africa.

Because of the absence in South Africa of any strong working class political parties, much of the emerging prosocialist sentiment is still vague and diffuse, to a great extent divorced from any thought-out strategy of how to achieve a socialist society.

Some of the young militants, however, are already grappling with that problem. Especially significant has been the growing appreciation of the potential power of the Black working class and its political and social role as the spearhead of the revolution.

A group of exiled South African revolutionists, based in Botswana, stated in an interview: "It is the Black working class that carries the burden of history. It is on the shoulders of this class that the wheels of industry lie. This is the class that is the mainstay of the socialist revolution in South Africa. The mobilization of this class is a necessity and it would be a dream to think of bringing down the South African racist regime without the greatest role being played by this class." They added that while white workers were not yet conscious of their class position, and while it was necessary for revolutionists to concentrate on organizing and mobilizing Blacks, some white workers could be won over as class allies of Blacks.[4]

Many of those who understand the crucial role of workers as a class have already taken their thinking one step further by recognizing the need for workers to have their own political leadership, their own organization, through which they could defend and advance their class interests. Specifically, they favored the construction of a working-class party, based on a revolutionary program, which could lead and mobilize the oppressed and exploited.

The group in Botswana has stressed that such a party "should be based among the struggling masses, give direction to the day-to-day struggles against capitalism, coordinate the upsurge by the masses, and give them direction." [5]

Similarly, Sipho Buthelezi has stated:

For Marxist-Leninists the most important thing is the formation of an independent working-class organization.... acting as the vanguard force in the struggle for national liberation. We appreciate that there should be a united front of all the "patriotic" forces in the country, but we recognize that we need to ensure, if we're to establish a socialist country, that the Black working class is the leading force... . We think this has to be built step by step through involvement in the day-to-day activity of the Black working class. At this stage it would be quite wrong for a small group of us, without any serious base inside the class, to proclaim ourselves the leadership. It is only after serious work with the class in its struggles that we shall see the emergence of a genuine proletarian party. [6]

Without such a party, a former BPC activist in Johannesburg has pointed out, future mass upsurges would "be like Soweto again, just hitting out blindly, not hitting the enemy where it really hurts. Soweto was good, it taught us many things, but it could have been better, more powerful. Now, we see we must organize ourselves into a strong force, a more disciplined force."

The armed strength of the apartheid state and the pervasiveness of its apparatus of political control dictate a highly organized response. A workers' party, in order to effectively challenge the apartheid regime, would require a political program based on the needs of all sectors of the oppressed, including Africans, Coloureds and Indians; urbanized workers as well as migrants; township residents and those in the Bantustans; women; the unemployed; squatters. As a number of South African revolutionists have explained, a workers' party would have to participate in the struggles of the masses for day-to-day changes, and link them up with the broader struggle to transform all of South African society.

The South African ruling class will not give up power peacefully. As its brutal response to the Soweto uprisings showed, it will not hesitate to shed the blood of thousands upon thousands of Blacks to uphold its oppressive and profitable system of white capitalist supremacy. Arms will thus be of crucial importance in the struggle against apartheid, both for the defense of the mass movement and for the ultimate disarming of the white rulers. But arms alone cannot defeat the powerful colonial-settler state. It can only be defeated through the organization and mobilization of the masses of workers and peasants, which will provide the best political conditions for the final overthrow of the apartheid regime.

The mobilization of the Black majority is, of course, the central task if South African society is to be transformed. But it will also be vital for revolutionists to try to divide the white population along class lines, to undermine the regime's base of support. Despite the bombastic pronouncements of some National Party leaders, far from all whites will be willing to die for apartheid. And, although the vast majority are not yet conscious of it, the maintenance of white supremacy is not in their real interests: it divides white workers from Black weakening all of them in face of the employers and thus holding down the living standards of working people in general; it leads to increasing repression against political dissent from any direction; it degrades and dehumanizes whites, stifling their cultural and social development; it deprives them of real and lasting security. Unlike the white capitalists, white workers in South Africa do not have a vested class interest in the maintenance of the apartheid regime. They do not profit from the exploitation of Blacks.

While continuing to build a powerful struggle for Black majority rule and while not giving in one inch to white racist attitudes, it will be possible for revolutionists to convince at least a layer of whites that it is better to throw in their lot with the future than to perish with the past. As the struggle of Black workers gains in organized strength and presents a clear alternative to the present apartheid system, it will win the respect of more white workers, especially those in industry, and serve as a pole of attraction to all the exploited. Some whites may simply be neutralized. But others can be won over to active support for the struggle. Despite their limited scale, the white student protests in support of the Soweto rebellions, the solidarity shown by some white unionists with the wage demands of Black workers, and the small but growing number of white draft resisters and army deserters already reveal cracks in the white monolith.

The apartheid regime relies not only on the support of the white population to remain in power. Its police and troops would be helpless without the arms, the planes, the fuel, the funds, and the technology Pretoria has obtained from its allies abroad. Because of the international character of capitalism, and especially the South African ruling class's close ties with its allies in North America, Europe, and Japan, revolutionists in South Africa will find it imperative to maintain and reinforce ties of political solidarity with workers in other countries, to fight their common enemies.

Effectively organized international campaigns can do much to help expose and undermine the apartheid regime's avenues of foreign backing: trade union actions to block shipment of vital cargo to South Africa; demonstrations, rallies, and other forms of mass pressure to demand that foreign governments and companies stop aiding the white supremacist system. It is the duty of labor activists and antiapartheid fighters in other countries to help expose the true nature of the apartheid regime and its so-called reforms and extend solidarity to the struggle for majority rule. Direct material aid—such as that provided by Cuba to freedom fighters throughout southern Africa—can also play a vital role.

The liberation of South Africa from national oppression and capitalism will be a momentous event for all of Africa. South Africa would cease to be an imperialist power. The days of South African economic domination and military intervention would be replaced by an era of genuine fraternity. South Africa's abundant wealth could be made available to help other African peoples develop their own countries.

A revolution in South Africa would also be a devastating blow to world capitalism. With the loss of South Africa's superprofits and an end to control over its natural wealth (especially gold), imperialism would be weakened economically. And an end to South Africa's role as a regional gendarme would be a major political blow to imperialism's grip on the African continent.

Even more crucially, the South African revolution will provide a stirring inspiration to workers and other oppressed people in Africa and around the globe.

The struggle of South African Blacks is part of the struggle of people everywhere for a democratic and just society, for a socialist future. Their victory will be a victory for humanity. Their triumph will belong to the world.

1. Interview obtained by John Blair in Britain, early 1979. Published in Intercontinental Press / Inprecor, May 14, 1979.

2. In the past, the term "Marxist-Leninist" was frequently used as a self-descriptive label by those who considered themselves followers of Mao Zedong and the Stalinist leadership in Peking. But today the term has a broader usage. Because of Peking's foreign policy stance in Africa (open support for the reactionary Mobutu regime in Zayre, opposition to Cuban aid to the African revolution), there are very few militants in South Africa who would now look to Peking for political inspiration.

3. Star (Johannesburg), May 4, 1979.

4. Interview obtained by author in Gaborone, Botswana, December 1978. Published in Intercontinental Press / Inprecor, February 5, 1979. 6. Intercontinental Press / Inprecor (New York), May 14, 1979.

5. Ibid.