Election result a prelude to future storms

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Election result a prelude to future storms Militani International Review 3-13 Hepscott Road, London E9 5HB Editor: Alan Woods Contents Editorial: Election result a prelude to future storms Business Managers Report The South Korean revolution has begun!.

By Clare Doyle Cracks widen in apartheid 'fortress' By Joe Jackson World economy heads for slump By Ted Grant THE RESULT of the general election must have been a bitter blow to the hopes and aspirations of millions of workers, desperate to see an end to the years of Tory rule. Indeed the striking feature of the election was the enormous polarisation between the classes. This was revealed in the fate of the Liberal/SDP Alliance.

Only a month before the election the media were trying to push their creation into second place ahead of Labour. But the capitalists' dream that they could recreate the position of the past of two alternating capitalist parties, like the Republicans and Democrats in the USA, was rudely shattered. Contrary to the myth of the capitalist commentators, that the class divisions have been 'blurred' in the south, even in London the Alliance vote fell at the expense of both Labour and the Tories. While in Scotland, Wales and the North there was a crushing defeat for the Tories and a victory for Labour. This is an anticipation of what will happen in the whole of Britain tomorrow. In the 1955 election in Scotland, the Tories gained over 50% of the votes. In the course of three decades, they have been reduced to 24%. In Liver- By Sean Heron ....3 •...7 By Dermot Connolly ....8 • 13 the growing divide..

By Alan Woods . 17 Book Reviews.

Editorial By Ted Grant pool, because of the peculiar development of events and the decisive role of Marxism, the disasters have been even worse for the Tories. They secured 36% of the vote in 1979, 29% in 1983 and only 17% in this election. In Scotland the Labour Partv has now 42% of the vote.

But in Merseyside they received 47.5% and in Liverpool alone they have already reached the figure of 57% of the vote.

The Merseyside and Liverpool results show the superiority of Marxism over reformism. They quence of the battle that was waged by the Council over four years, involving the mass of the working class of Liverpool.

population demonstrate that the policies of struggle, of mobilisation of the masses and leaning on the working class for support, are the means not only for successful struggle but also for electoral PriSB 0906582 ations, 3/13 Hepscott Road, London E9 Perspectives for American Labour. ......22 A new opening in Ireland.............28 Letters to the MIR.................33 The History of Bolshevism, Part Six: Bolshevism and Menshevism, 34 .43 success. That also is undoubtedly a mirror of the future.

despite the evident class Yet, polarisation, the election result represented a severe defeat for the Labour Party. The scale of the Tory victory was entirely unexpected to including the Tories everyone, themselves. Prior to polling day Tebbit himself was extremely reluctant even to anticipate a majority of more than 50 seats. In the event, the Tories secured a majority of 101 and Labour increased its vote from 27.5% in 1983 to 30.8% in 1987, receiving less votes than when it lost in 1970. Even in prewar elections Labour won at least 33-35% of the votes: in 1945 they won 48%. That the Tories could achieve such a victory after eight years of Thatcherism, of consistent attacks on social services, pensions, health and education, is an absolute disgrace for the labour movement. How can the scale of Labour's defeat be accounted for? Trotsky explained that, "a political prediction does not have the shape of plan, it is a working hypothesis."

A perspective is not a blueprint; it can only delineate the main processes taking place in society. It is

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MIR Summer 1987: Editorial

not possible to work out concretely all the developments because of the multiplicity of divergent factors especially the subjective factor, in this case, the campaign and attitudes of the labour and trade union leadership.

In reality, the campaign was an absolute disaster. The labour and trade union leadership, especially the right wing, are responsible for what has taken place. The left was excluded and consequently the right should bear all the odium for the defeat.

Thus, according to the exit polls, only 43% of trade unionists voted for the Labour Party. Yet in the ballots for the political levy, in practically all the unions, between 80-90% voted for affiliation to the Labour Party and for the right to conduct political activities. A campaign along socialist lines could have mobilised a big majority of trade unionists to vote in their class interests and against the interests of big business. But the class issues were never raised during the election. The attempts to conciliate with the city and big business which were pushed forward by Kinnock and the other Labour leaders flew in the face of the day-today class struggle which is inevitable under capitalism.

Labour's campaign

The Labour leaders did not even conduct this election campaign on the lines of those in the past. The campaign concentrated on health, education, social services, pensions and the day-to-day needs of the masses, which was correct. But this was not linked to the need to change the system as the only guarentee of working class living standards and conditions. No vision was given of what a socialist change would mean, even to the extent that it had been done in previous manifestos and previous campaigns of the Labour Party.

The way the campaign was conducted on defence and taxes were two of the main factors in the defeat. If the question of defence had been presented in a Marxist manner, it would have been an issue on which Labour would have gained votes instead of losing support. But the Labour leaders did not puncture the delusion that the minor nuclear arsenal that British capitalism could afford, could ever be a 'deterrent'. And with their determination to spend the money saved from Trident on conventional weapons, they could not explain what social reforms could be achieved by scrapping nuclear weapons.

Even more, the way in which Hattersley, Smith and other right wing leaders presented the question of tax- 4

ation can only leave the conclusion that if they had desired a defeat they could not have presented it in any other way! They learnt nothing from history, or from the experience of the working class in other countries. Walter Mondale suffered a disastrous defeat for the Democrats in the 1984 American Presidential elections when he said, in effect, 'vote for me, and I'il increase your taxes' , Imagining that by putting forward an 'honest' position he would gain support. Yet he won only one out of the 50 states in the United States as a result.

Had the question been presented in a correct way, explaining that the Tories had raised taxes for the working class more than any other government for many years, while giving lavish concessions to big business and the rich, then it could have been an election winner, especially as the Tories two pence cut in the level of income tax will be very temporary. It is inevitable, as the Daily Express inadvertently blurted out on its business pages, that whatever government won the election, on a capitalist basis, there would be an increase in the level of income tax of 4 points after the election. Thus the cut was merely a confidence trick played on the electorate by the Tories.

The campaign on the ground also was not waged in the same way as in the past. The Labour Party campaign was conducted from the top with a reliance on the TV and the right wing leaders of the Labour Party. There were very few meetings in the constituencies apart from the set pieces, by ticket only, at which the audience was vetted by Labour Party officials. In no way did they take advantage of the election to raise the ideas of socialism. In reality, there was not a fundamental difference in the campaign waged by the Liberals and the campaign waged by the Labour Party. Apart from incidentals, they more or less put forward the same demands and the same approach.

However, in addition to the subjective conditions leading to defeat, there are also objective conditions. 43% of the population lives in poverty, but the skilled section of the workers and those receiving high wages in private engineering and manufacturing industry actually increased their standard of living in the last two years. Of course Thatcher and her Cabinet were strenuously opposed to the wage increases which were given. Moreover, the increases have not been obtained by greater investment in machinery and plant, but by the increased expioitation of the workers, by rationalisation through the loss of jobs, and the in-

creased productivity of labour, in other words, through the sweat, muscle and sinew of the worker. Nevertheless, on the basis of the big profits bonanza in the last two years due to the 'boom' it was possible for the employers to give increases in wages and thus raise standards of living. In effect they agreed to give a share of the surplus extracted from the labour of the working class to the workers to avoid a struggle. The working class does not go on strike for the sake of it, but either in defence of living standards or to improve conditions, or in defence of trade union rights. Therefore there were no big struggles in private industry.

Thus while the official inflation figures were 4% a year, sections of the skilled workers and the top layer big earners in the working class in private industry had their standard of living increased, according to one calculation by Micheal Meacher, by 20% in two years. Ivor Crewe in the Guardian pointed out that the months before the election saw a marked shift in people's perception about the state of the economy. In September 1986 those who believed that 'the general economic situation had got worse' outnumbered those who believed it had got better by 32 percentage points. By polling day the figures were reversed with 45% believing that the economic situation was improving against 30% who believed it had got worse, a lead of 15 percentage points. It was these factors in the West Midlands and in the South of England which were instrumental in the victory for the Tories.

A new recession

However, there is a new recession looming in the next one, two or three years, far deeper than previous recessions. The 'candy floss' economy which has been built up on the basis of an artifical boom engineered to make certain of a Thatcher victory in the months before the election, will peter out. But nowhere was this perspective explained by the Labour leaders or the real catastrophe facing British capitalism outlined.

As the economic situation deteriorates, the employers will no longer be able to give concessions and will be compelled to savagely attack the standards and conditions of the workers. This will result in an explosion of struggle on the part of the workers such as has not been seen in Britain during the course of the last ten to twenty years. This is shown by the developments among the public sector workers. The customs officers, formerly a politicaliy and industrially backward section, went on strike during the

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Photo: Jacob Sutton

The right wing Labour leaders imagine that the next five years will be a repetition of the past. But the renewed combativity of the miners, just two years after the most bitter struggle since 1926, gives just a hint of what is to come.

general election. The civil servants, post office workers, and teachers, also previously privileged and politically backward sections of workers, have also conducted a massive struggle against attempts to limit their wage increases and cut their standard of living.

The same process that we see among the public sector workers will take place in manufacturing industry, especially in engineering, in the coming period. Big battles are inevitable, in the South East as well as in the Midlands and the rest of the country. While the union leaders, at least in the first period, might move to the right as a consequence of the election defeat, the active rank and file will begin to move to the left.

In France, the Tories gained a victory over the Socialist and Communist Parties and imagined that they could proceed with an enormous offensive against the working class. But after eight months they had to draw back, faced with a movement of millions of students and workers and the possibility of a virtual insurrectionary or prerevolutionary situation unless they gave concessions. A similar situation could develop in Britain. The incipient split within the Tories between the 'wets' and the 'hards' still remains as an inevitable development in the future. Thatcher and the right wing Tories, despite the changes in government which have tilted it further to the right, may not be able to carry through the programme which they have set themseives.

The government will be blown apart by the crisis which will develop in the coming years. In reality, it is a pyrrhic victory for Thatcher. What we have seen in Wales, Scotland, the North East, Merseyside and the North West, will take place inevitably in the Midlands, East and West, and in London and the South East. The attempt to picture it as a North-South divide and not as a class divide is utterly false. Regional general strikes, and even the possibility of a national general strike, loom in the not too distant future. The development of a recession will have an enormous effect on all classes and on all parties.

The Labour Party

What will be the consequences of the Tories' election victory within the Labour Party? The active rank and file of the trade unions and the Labour Party will want to know why there was another defeat after the debacle of 1983. The media is still enthusing over the Labour leadership's 'brilliant campaign' '. In particular the venal, rotten, degenerate and corrupt capitalist press which savaged the Labour Party during the campaign, is now prepared to describe the campaign in glowing terms. That is because they are in favour of the non-class, so called 'one nation' policy put forward by Kinnock and the right wing of the parliamentary party. The ruling class want Kinnock to remain leader of the Labour Party because they think the right wing will

maintain its position so maintains the leadership.

Having attacked the Labour Party in the most foul and scurrilous language, they now offer hypocritical 'advice'. They are vociferously demanding the so-called 'one member, one vote' which in reality would dissolve the Labour Party and its structures into the broad mass of Labour supporters. They want to take the right to select and deselect MPs out of the hands of the trade unions and of the active layers in the constituencies. Then they might be able to have an effect, by hysterical and scurrilous attacks, on the candidates the Labour Party would choose.

Although it is still possible, it is unlikely that there will be a further split off of the right wing, at least in the immediate period ahead. Frank Field openly stated in the weeks before the General Election that, in the event of Labour losing, especially by a big majority, the extreme right wing of the Parliamentary Labour Party of between 20 and 50 Labour MPs, would be prepared to split to form some sort of alliance with the Liberals. Of course that is still possible in the future. However, the polarisation that took place during the election, which meant that the media could not give the same friendly support to the Alliance as in the last election for fear of taking votes away from the Tories rather than the Labour Party, resulted in a big defeat for the Alliance.

Now the Alliance is on verge of

pse, with the possibility of

long

colthe

5

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MIR Summer 1987: Editorial

disintegration of the SDP. Steel is pushing for a merger, primarily to absorb the SDP rank and file into the Liberal Party as a bolster against the 'radical Liberals' . Such a merger will be a recipe for a future split in the Liberal Party itself.

Consequently, with no future in the Alliance, Labour's right wing, careerists bar excellence and not known for their enthusiasm to commit suicide in pursuit of an 'ideal', will hesitate more than once before they decide on a split. Of course this process will depend on the development of events in the Labour Party in the coming years:

Within one, two or three years a world recession will have a disastrous effect on the British economy and on industry generally. Once again unemployment will begin to rise, the conditions of the masses will be attacked and this will have an enormous effect within the Labour Party. Developments in Liverpool are a glimpse of the future within the Labour Party in all regions of the country. A new period opens up worldwide, but in Europe and especially in Britain this will be of a stormy and turbulent character. The years between 1970 and 1974 were stormy, leading almost to a revolutionary situation within Britain. That was followed by the Labour Government and a further reaction in the Thatcher years of 1979-1987. Now there will inevitably be a new swing of the pendulum to the left.

Leftward shifts inevitable

In the last five years, the shifts in the trade unions and in the Labour Party have largely been to the right, with exceptions in certain industries and areas. Now in all areas, in all industries and within the labour and trade union movement itself, there will be massive shifts towards the left. It is true that for the immediate period ahead the right wing might even reinforce its grip on the Labour Party, but this v ill inevitably change as a consequence of the battles and storms which lie ahead. If one takes 3,5, 10 years as a basis, the future will be one of the most turbulent and stormy periods in the whole history of the British working class.

The active layers in the unions - and many more will become active - will transform the shop stewards committees and union branches. The processes of change and development in the trade unions and in the Labour Party do not proceed in a straight line. Periods of reaction will be followed by stormy periods of transformation and re-transformation.

One layer after another will be involved in struggle. On the council estates 6

and amongst tenants generally there

will be stormy battles. The struggle against the Tories 1972 Housing Finance Act will pale by comparison with the movement that will unfold against the poil tax. Within the YTS, slave conditions and the conscription of 16 to 18 year olds will have, as an unwelcome by-product for the ruling class, the disciplining and the revolutionisation of the youth. The youth in the inner cities will inevitably explode as they face further attacks on conditions and standards. There will be stormy developments and battles amongst students too.

The very fact that workers have gained concessions in private industry in the last two years, particularly the upper layers, means that when these are taken away from them they will struggle even more ferociously to defend their standards and conditions. As workers begin to move towards the left and towards struggle, they will pull behind them large layers of the middle class, small businessmen and small shopkeepers. Many white collar workers too have already been affected. There has apparently been a 25% swing away from the Tories among teachers, a privileged section which previously overwhelmingly supported the Tories. As with teachers, so also with other professional layers. All sections of society will be involved in the ferment which will take place among the classes.

The right wing leadership of the Labour Party imagine that the next five years will be a repetition of the years through which we have gone. Of course, these were not free of enormous struggles by the miners, printers, railwaymen and other sections. But in reality we are on the threshold of the most turbulent and stormy period. in such an atmosphere, support for Marxism will grow feverishly. Ali the attempts to turn the Labour Party into a new version of the Liberals or the American Democratic Party will fail on the basis of the struggles of the workers, and the workers in turn will transform and re-transform the Labour Party and the trade unions many times.

The working class will learn, in the course of experience, the need to transform their organisations and to change society. It required the experience of the Labour government of 1974-79 to push the Labour Party and the trade unions far to the left. Since then there has been a reaction. As all history has demonstrated, periods of revolution are short and periods of reaction are long, and the reaction has lasted roughly 5-6 years in the Labour Party and the trade unions. Even then, it has not been a consistent movement

of reaction, and there has been enormous support for the ideas of Marxism within the youth, sections of the Labour Party, the unions, on the estates, among the mass generally in Liverpool and in other areas of the country. This will be reinforced in the course of experience. In spite of flurries and zigzags to the right, which are inevitabie, the pendulum will swing rapidly towards the left, even before the election of a new Labour government. In these stormy struggles, the ideas of Marxism will reveal their complete superiority over all other tendencies in the labour movement.

'A momentary snapshot"

This election has once again been a laboratory test of the difference between reformism and Marxism. It was a feature of the election, unprecedented in modern times, that the 'Militant Tendency' was attacked by the leaders of the Tory Party, the Liberals and the SDP, and also by the Labour leaders. But where Marxists fought, there were big victories for Labour. Even in the seats contested by the official 'left' , they did not get any better results because of their timidity in putting forward socialist ideas and a socialist carnpaign.

One would search in vain through all the material of the Labour Party and the trade unions for an explanation that the Tories attacks are a consequence of the crisis of capitalism on a world scale and especially in Britain, and not the whims of Thatcher. It is as a consequence of this crisis that, inexorably, as a result of the experiences they will undergo, the working class will more and more come to understand the need to transform the Labour Party and to transform society. An election is just a momentary snapshot of the processes and of the attitudes in the minds of people at one moment in time and history. Far more decisive than the votes in the election are the processes of the class struggle, the processes of history, the development of the national and international crisis of capitalism which, in the last analysis, will determine the attitude and the response of workers, youth, students, and all sections of society.

The future lies with Marxism. No amount of witch-hunts, no amount of persecution, in industry, in the unions, in the Labour Party, in society as a whole, will be able to hold back the development of Marxism. Marxist ideas will conquer in the Labour Party and in the trade unions, preparing the way for the overthrow of capitalism and the transformation of society

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with the nomination of John McCreadie publication of the MIR be achieved. Guarantee your regular copy of the Militant International Review. Take out a years subscription, four issues for £4.50 (postage and packing included), £5.00 overseas. Fill in the form below and send to: World Socialist Books, 3/13 Hepscott Road, London E9 5HB. Please send me a years subscription to the Militant International THE EVENTS of the past few months have shown again the urgent need to increase the frequency of the Militant International Review.

The last issue of the MIR, printed in February, led with an editorial on the new stage in the European revolution. But since the last issue appeared every sphere of the unfolding world revolution has been touched by momentous events! Thus, Latin America witnessed the officers coup in Argentina, aborted by a mass movement of workers. Asia saw elections in the Philippines, city general strikes in Pakistan, revolutionary turmoil in South Korea and new twists in the crisis facing the Gandhi regime in India. There were important developments in South Africa too, not least the magnificent victory of the black railway workers, showing the undefeated militancy of the black working class as they recover from the blows inflicted by the state. Australasia saw the re-election of the Labour government in Australia, and a military coup in Fiji. In the Stalinist countries, a strike wave by over 28,000 workers marked the beginning of the political revolution in Yugoslavia. While Europe has seen elections in Ireland, Italy and Britain and a strike wave in Spain.

All of these events, while they have been reported on in the weekly Militant, could justify further detailed analysis examining the general processes behind the immediate developments. And probably every reader could draw up their own list of issues raised during the British general election alone from the defence debate to the future evolution of the Alliance etc - that they would like to see further amplified. Of course, a twice-weekly Militant, as the next step to a daily Militant, would be more able than the weekly paper to analyse current events in depth and draw out the key lessons for the labour movement. For this reason alone every reader is urged to join the campaign to increase the sales of the Militant and raise the finance necessary to move as rapidly as possible to a twice-weekly. But alongside the steps forward for the Militant must go the development of the Militant International Review.

The MIR is an invaluable supplement to the Militant. This is not a technical question of how much space is available in a paper compared to a journal but rather the different character of the tasks, allowing of course for a considerable overlap, that both publications try to fulfill.

A Marxist paper aims to introduce Business Managers Report Help us build the MIR Marxist ideas to the widest possible layer of workers. It draws on the struggles and experiences of the workers to explain the conclusions of a Marxist analysis, in other words the programme, strategy and tactics to take the struggle forward. Above all, it links the day-to-day experiences of the working class, the events which unfold nationally and internationally, with the need for the socialist reorganisation of society.

Bi-monthly target The main function of a theoretical journal on the other hand, is to educate its readers in the method of Marxism, to show how the conclusions are reached by tracing all the steps of a Marxist analysis. In this way 'theory becomes a guide to action': the reader is enabled to draw the correct programme, strategy and tactics for future struggles from current and past events. This task becomes ever more important as Marxists increasingly come to the fore of workers struggles: where 'action guided by theory' becomes decisive. In fact, just in the period since the last MIR appeared significant advances in the influence of Marxism have been made. While one chapter ended with the disqualification of the 47 Liverpool councillors a new one began at the May council elections, with Marxism still heavily represented in the victorious Labour Group. Eiectoral successes have been recorded not only in Parliamentary seats but in the National Union of Students and in the executive elections for the CPSA, USDAW and the NCU as well. And Subscribe now.d!

Cheques payable to 'World Socialist Books' Review, starting with issue No 36, Autumn 1987. Name...

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I enclose £4.50 (UK/Ireland) £5.00 (Overseas). to the TUC General Council, from September the authentic voice of Marxism will be represented on the 'General Staff' of the Trade Union movement.

Finally, again since the last issue when the movement had not been concluded, the Marxist led Spanish School Students Union achieved an unprecedented victory, winning free school education and free university education for working class students for the first time in Spain's history. Increasingly the role Marxists play has been decisive to the outcome of various struggles.

The MIR aims to become an indispensable aid to every serious Labour movement activist. But if the MIR is to adequately analyse just the issues raised by the advances of Marxism in the trade unions, or in the leadership of the struggles of the youth and students, its more frequent production is essential. The Editors believe that the next step forward for the MIR should be as a 32 page journal printed bi-monthly. But to do this we are entirely in the hands of our readers.

Consistently good sales have been achieved in Hull, Bristol, Bedford, Lee Valley in London, West Lancashire, Teesside and other areas. Often this has been the result of a few readers taking the initiative in pushing sales of the MIR on all possible occasions. But every reader must see themselves as an ambassador for the MIR, selling it in their Labour Parties, trade union meetings, Womens Sections, LPYS branches or student Labour Clubs. Only with the full support of our readers will our target for the more frequent 7

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The South Korean revolution has begun!

Weeks of protests and clashes on the streets of South Korea's cities culminated on the 26 June in 'peace marches' of over 1 million participants. A quarter were students, who formed the front-line troops, hurling rocks in running battles with the riot police. But in Seoul and Pusan even businessmen in suits, clutching brief-cases, yelled anti-government slogans. 'We are all demonstrators' said a young stock broker, one of Korea's new middle-class elite, having left the office early to stand in front of the Seoul City Hall and be tear-gassed." Sunday Telegraph, 28 June, 1987.

The human tide had become unstoppable. Two days later in a dramatic climbdown, the ruling Democratic and Justice Party announced a sweeping programme of democratic reforms that took the world by surprise. After 80 years of foreign occupation and military rule with hardly an interlude, direct elections were promised. Assurances were given on press freedom, releasing political prisoners, restoring civil liberties, attacking corruption and reforming education and local government.

Unstoppabl

Faced with revolution, the ruling class preferred reform! Since 10th June—the day President Chun had announced his "successor'—over 17,000 arrests had been made, 351,000 tear gas shells fired ($7m worth), 35 regional offices of the DJP and 262 police stations had been attacked, and 164 vehicles damaged or destroyed. The forces of the state on numerous occasions had been overwhelmed. Riot police had been surrounded and disarmed. As conscripts, they had no heart for the fight. In Pusan, Korea's industrial capital with 3.5 million inhabitants, the authorities had lost control of the inner city for three days. The army had been ordered in but the authorities wavered and eventually withdrew the order. In Kwangju, focal point of opposition to the regime over decades, nearly half of the one million population had been on the streets on June 26th.

The dictatorship was at an end; a mighty victory. But the bloody history of Korea teaches caution in relation to promises of democracy: 'We have been cheated so many times' is a widespread feeling. As if 'to make assurance doubly sure, on Friday 10th July one million Koreans came onto the streets once more for the funeral of the student martyr Lee Han Yol, killed by a tear-gas cannister. The message to the military rulers was clear: 'Down with dictatorship, once and for all!'

In South

the

00

By Clare Doyle

take power in society. Indeed they paralysed one of the most powerful dictatorships in the world. They will not be easily satisfied and will not give up their gains without a struggle.

The South Korean revolution has begun and a period of instability opens up. Dictatorship gives way to democracy; democracy may yet prove too fragile to last. That depends on many factors-in Korea and internationally. The Korean workers will enter the fray, using a period of 'democracy' to forge powerful weapons for their own battles-trade unions, workers parties etc. They will search for a lasting solution to the myriad horrific problems they face. They have suffered long enough in the giant labour camp of South Korea under American domination.

The Economist hails South Korea's "jump to instant democracy' as an experience "that could be invigorating for other countries in this region of one-party states, soldier politicians, racist governments and simple dictatorships: a region of few genuine democracies, although every country calls itself one" • One year ago, when 'People Power' forced the dictator Marcos out of the Philippines, speculation was rife as to the fate of all these regimes, particularly that of Chun in Korea. But "compared with General Chun, Mr Marcos behaved like an angel," an exiled Korean journalist commented.

Signing a petition was an offence. One of the thousands of political prisoners cited by a Human Rights Bulletin, "suffered weeks of electric shocks, water torture, and beatings. Finally he 'confessed' to being leader of a movement for the establishment of a democratically elected government in South Korea!"

Chun's police force, 120,000 strong, was known as the most brutal anti-riot machine in the world, despite being a predominately conscript force. In July, ie even after the government's declaration for 'the grand harmony of the people' a 22 year old South Korean riot policeman was beaten to death by his officer for disobeying an order! In the 700,000 strong army, conditions are so gruelling that six young soldiers died within the space of a few months.

The Korean state has been backed up by the US Government, with more than 40,000 troops in the country. American Generals command the combined US- South Korean forces. The dilemma tor US imperialism, as in the Philippines, Haiti, Panama etc, has been how to effect a 'cold transition' from dictatorship

to democracy, once the population shows its capacity to take things into its own hands. To hold down the lid forcibly would lead to an explosion that threatened the whole system. Lifting the repression, even by a fraction, could make way for a flood of expectation and wave of revenge which could also sweep aside capitalism itself. The general strike in Haiti and the problems which beset the Aquino Government in the Philippines indicate the rocky road ahead for capitalist democracy after the overthrow of autocracy.

Koreans-especially the students but also farmers and workers too-have a long history of heroic struggles which have toppled governments or led to dramatic reforms.

History of

The first decade of the century saw revolt and insurrections and the formation of an 'army of liberation' of soldiers, workers, peasants and intellectuals. The Japanese could only consolidate their rule by political suppression, economic exploitation and the abolition of the right to speak in the Korean language. 17,000 insurgents were killed in the period 1907-1911, 36,000 wounded. In 1912 50,000 Koreans were arrested, in 1917 130,000, in 1918 140,000.

In 1919 more than 2 million Koreans participated in nation-wide demonstrations; a general strike involved shops, schools, factories mines, offices and transport. 7,000 demonstrators were killed, tens of thousands arrested or forced into exile in China and in Siberia (Koreans had aided the Bolsheviks against the Whites and Japanese during the Russian Civil War). The tiny Korean working class formed the backbone of the movement but the middle class student leaders had failed to provide a clear lead.

In the 1920s, Marxist ideas and workers' organisations, including a Communist Party, developed through strikes of fishermen, miners, railworkers and other struggles. 1929 saw a major student uprising against the Japanese. During the Second World War an heroic guerrilla campaign was conducted.

A LS Commander reported that by 1945, "when we came in, we found the Communists actually ruling and controlling South Korea. " US troops drove them off but then faced waves of strikes in the cities and a 'peasant October' uprising in which 2 million took part. A massacre in Cheju in 1948 saw 30,000 dead.

In the 1950s, Syngman Rhee, a puppet of US imperialism, was forced by the extent of the revolt in the countryside to put through a wholesale land reform. Millions of small scale land holdings were

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established in place of the semi-feudal system that existed under Japanese rule. Reforms were thus the by-product of revolution.

By 1947 manufacturing had declined to 15% of 1939 levels! By 1960 per capita income was only $50 per annum and Syngman Rhee's dictatorship had lost its momentum. It crumbled in the face of student demonstrations. US aid poured in at the rate of $2.2bn in a year, but was largely squandered. Unemployment reached 4 million. The newly elected Second Republic was as corrupt and incompetent as the previous regime.

Anti-Government demonstrations led by Socialists and Communists gripped most of the cities of Korea but were snuffed out by the military coup of Park Chong Hee in May 1961. Fifteen political parties were disolved, and 230 social, labour and student organisations. In the first week of its rule 22,000 were jailed and 41,000 Government employees were sacked.

The world economic upswing and the development of the Korean 'miracle' kept Park Chong in power until 1979 when he was assassinated by the Korean CIA who thought he was on the verge of making concessions to yet another wave of student protests. In the ensuing period clashes between the population and the military came to a head. In April and May, student riots, labour disputes and strikes broke out. In four weeks in Seoul, 80,000 workers in 100 industries were on strike.

Three days mining town, declared but

of rioting took place in a Sabuk. Marshall law was in Kwangju an attack by

Paratroopers swelled demonstrations from 2,000 to 100,000. The paratroopers were forced to flee. Workers and students raided the armouries, miners occupied their mines and brought dynamite to the town. The 'Committee of Citizens and Students of May 18th' controlled Kwangju for nine days.

The insurrection was brutally crushed under the orders of Chun Dae Woo and the American Generals. Up to 2,000 were murdered. Human beings were mutilated and mangled. Women had their breasts cut off; young men were disembowelled. 'Communists' were blamed for the unrest, and local activists victimised. Opposition leader Kim Dae Jung, who comes from that area, was sentenced to death for sedition. Only US intervention saved his life, but he is still subject to a 20 year suspended sentence. The present aspiring DJP president, Roh Tae Woo, was at the head of his troops in this massacre. Whatever he does now to try to prove his 'democratic' credentials, no one will forget, let alone forgive, the bestiality that he and Chun Dae Woo were responsible for that day in 1980.

Workers' conditions

Since then there has not been a year without violent anti-government demonstrations and protests. The students have been drawing more and more revolutionary conclusions. Some have adopted guerilla, terrorist ideas out of frustration. Some have organised and linked up on a national scale. Some have made a deliberate turn towards the working class getting involved in struggles for

trade union rights, against victimisations and black-lists and for a 'livelihood and security for the people'

Various organisations have been thrown up bringing together the victims of different aspects of state repression— 'Dismissed Professors' ', 'Sacked Journalists', 'Persons arrested in Kwangju' etc.

With trade union membership and strikes punishable by arrest and torture, as well as by wholesale dismissal, workers have nevertheless moved into action time and time again. The Labour unions that have been established have been predominantly workplace based. In some cases they have been tolerated by management, in others brutally suppressed. The Korean Workers' Welfare Council has attempted to link up workers' organisations on a national scale. Taxi drivers and garment workers have been in the vanguard of the struggle.

Taxi drivers are 'lucky' if they earn $1 an hour. Working all hours, most drivers are on stimulants and pain killers. They are under constant threat of dismissal and black listing. Garment workers are 'lucky' if they get $3 or $4 a day. They work 10, 12, 14 hour shifts, six days a week, sleeping in overcrowded dormatories or even on their cutting tables.

Even in the ultra modern industries of South Korea hours are long. Women work in offices from 9 in the morning until 10 at night with Saturday working the norm. In heavy industry likewise. Wage rates are far below those of the advanced capitalist countries. Even in the booming ship building industry they are one third below those of European workers.

9

[page 9]

MIR Summer 1987: South Korea In the car industry, steel, mining etc they range from $250 to $600 per month. Not surprisingly then strikes have have taken place in these industries as well. There was a ten day strike at Dae Woo Motor in 1985, a short coal miners strike last year and some stoppages in textile factories. Posco, the state owned steel company, run by a vicious ex-army General, broke a union in one of its production operations during a bitter strike. Some of the steel plants draw thousands of workers together in production sites of up to 2,000 acres. The rapidly forced growth of the South Korean economy has brought more than 12 million people to the cities in the period 1957-82. The development of new and heavy industry in South Korea has illustrated, yet again, the basic laws of Marxism. Capitalism is creating its own grave digger in the form of the working class. The power in society of the industrial working class, even where, as in Korea, it is still a minority of the working population, is far greater than the weight of their numbers. As one taxi driver in Seoul expressed it recently: "one worker is worth ten students"

Industry develops The wind of revolution, blows the tops of the trees first-the students and the middle layers in society. A mass workers' party has not yet arisen-due to repression and also to the lack of appeal of the Stalinist dictatorships in North Korea and elsewhere. Opposition, even revolutionary, politics have been expressed through the church. A Christian publicațion, exposing the horrific injustices of the regime, the tortures etc, has a circulation of 700,000 a week. A pastor, released from jail under the new amnesty, Moon Ik Hwan, is chair of a federation of dissident groups called Mintongyon.

It is no accident that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of 'practising' Christians to the figure of 9 million-one quarter of the population. Preachers of the liberation theology like Cardinal Stephen Kim (friend of Manila's Cardinal Sin) and organisations like the Catholic Farmers Union, have opened the doors of the churches and cathedrals to 'practising'

demonstrators. Even Buddhists monks have found themselves getting uncharacteristically angry when hit on their unshaven heads by the riot police! As Trotsky explained in relation to Nazi rule in Germany, the church under such conditions is forced to play the role of ihe absent workers'

parties in chanelling In June this year the groundswell of opposition to the regime was turning into a flood. Last year the democratic opposition parties had been opposed to the students' demonstrations, organising instead petition signing campaigns for which they were nevertheless persecuted. It was Protestant churchmen and other religious activists who set up the National Coalition for a Democratic Constitution. demonstrations, bringing together all the contending elements, including the main opposition party, the Reunification and Democratic Party led by Kim Young Sam and Kim Dae Jung.

The new wave of revolution takes not against a background of economic crisis and collapse, as was the case in the Philippines, but of an unprecedented and sustained boom. The strategic importance of South Korea for US Imperialism-as a bastion against 'communism'-and favourable factors in economic relations, nave seen massive US aid and $50bn of bank credit increase South Korea's GDP 30 fold in 20 years! South Korea is now the fifteenth largest trading economy in the world and attracts the second largest net inflow of Manufacturing exports have increased from $104m in 1965 to $22,240m in 1983 (more than 200 fold). Even since then, manufacturing has been growing at an average of 20% per annum and last year grew by a massive 23%.

In a series of five year plans the state has assisted (with 40% of all investment) in a rapid expansion of heavy industry. In 1983 machinery production went up 40%. In shipbuilding, South Korea is second only to Japan with more than a 15% share of the world market. Steel production will reach 20 million tonnes by next year and is forging ahead towards 30 million, fuelled by the still massive investment in car making, electronics etc. Electronics exports increased 38% in 1984. Korea already has 8% of the world market in semi-conductors. The South Korean economy as a whole has increased by an average 9% over the last 20 years-12% last year and 15%, on an annualised basis, in the first quarter of this year. GNP per head, at more than $2,000, is higher than that of Portugal. But few, if any, of the benefits have reached the mass of the population: 80% still live on poverty wages. Workers have suffered wage-freeze: and brutal measures of intimidation in ine workplace on top of insurferably long hours. A leader of the Workers' Welfare Council expiained "If you see the drastic increase in labour accidents you ian understand who bears the cost of growth. Fifty-eight workers out of 100 suffer from workrelated diseases and one worker dies or is seriously injured in a labour accident every 1.15 minutes!

•Tuberculosis is still common among workers.

'Enterprises on the contrary have richly profitted: 322 showed a 37% increase in profits. The top ranking 30 companies accounted for 60% of GNP... as well as 48% of all bank loans. The net profit of 199 companies showed a 56% increase... you can see how unbalanced is the so-called economic miracle in Korea."

The giant conglomerates have spread their tentacles into the countryside, taking advantage of the crushing indebtness of the farmers to force them off their land by fair means or foul. Two million farm families had debts of more than 2.7m Won each (800 Won equals one dollar). The smallholdings, averaging today less than one hectare each and supporting a rural population of nearly ten million, are anyway unviable. A fully developed cooperative system is required. The Co-ops that do exist have been strangled by state appointments and corruption. Subsidies have only gone to the favoured few. Tied to US market Half of government aid goes to the 30 monopolies-more than 1 trillion Won to each. Yet only 500 billion in capital was made available for agriculture. A third of farming families' income does not come from the land, but 'side-businesses'

', students getting jobs in the towns, etc. Farmers use much needed money to hold parties for bankers and co-op officials in desperate attempts to secure loans. Many run away and abandon their farms. Suicides by ingesting agricultural chemicals are increasingly A crisis in agriculture has taken Korea from being 95% sufficient in food in the 1960s to little more than 40% now. Farmers frequently vent their frustration through public burnings of imported foodstuffs. But little or nothing can be done to modernise farming technique, given such a widespread parcelisation of the land. The growth of agri-businesses does nothing to increase the supply of food for domestic consumption. On the other hand, an indication of the advanced nature of the South Korean economy as a whole is that 91% of all exports are manufactured goods rather than raw materials or agricultural products. Both the land reform and the rapid industrialisation of Korea were the result of US imperialism's need to stem the tide of revolution sweeping through China, Vietnam, North Korea, etc immediately after the defeat of Japan. Korean capitalism was too weak to stand on its own. At the end of the civil war, which took a toll of up to 2 million lives and left the country divided, US capital financed 75% of investment and 50% of all public spending. South Korea needed to be like the West Germany of Asia. Without improvements

[page 10]

benefitting the whole population, the attraction of the results of state planning in the North would have been too great.

The growth in the economy has brought with it considerable improvements in social conditions compared with most countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Infant mortality has been more than halved in the last 20 years. The ratio of doctors to the population has improved 100%. Life expectancy has dramatically increased from 55 to 65 for men and 58 to 72 for women. A higher proportion of Koreans are literate (98%) than Americans. More Koreans than Britons get higher education (24% compared to 20%).

These improvements bring with them further contradictions. Expectations are aroused. The middle layers in society, as well as the youth, will not tolerate the ignomonies and injustices that have been their lot under military rule. They want the right to elect the President and Parliament of their choice, the right to move about freely without petty restrictions on passports, (only 70,000 citizens are allowed them at present), the right to read about what is going on in the world and in their own country, (without daily 'instructions' to the media from a body of government censors). In summary, South Koreans want the right to do what they like and say what they like without fear of arrest and torture.

The wave of street demonstrations that toppled the dictatorship were sparked off by the particular case of a student tortured to death in police custody and inflamed by Chun's decision to postpone the presidential election and to nominate another general to head the government.

Enormous contradictions had accumulated. Modern industry and technique had developed rapidly but an archaic political system persisted. Even from the point of view of capitalism such a situation had become intolerable. As The Economist explained on the 20th June: "Authoritianism can have economic virtues in the early stages of industrialisation, but it becomes a political and economic hindrance when carried on too long. Politically, because people enjoying freedom as consumers start craving other kinds of liberty as well; economically, because, as a country starts to move upmarket. it needs the unruly skills of individual creativity more than it needs disciplined kow-towing in big factories."

Resentment has grown against US imperialism—against the continued 'occupation' of the country, and against its open support of Chun's brutal dictatorship until the eleventh hour. Particularly resentful are the youth: two thirds of the population in South Korea is below the age of 30. They were expected to be grateful for the role America played in the Korean war, and to honour the 'Great

Benefactor'

Democracy, this image.

No one now wants Korea to remain divided. Chants of reunification now' were common during the street demonstrations. The newly formed opposition party (RDP) inscribes reunification on its banner. Each regime-North and South—uses the other as a threat to cow its own workforce. Only on the basis of the socialist transformation in the South and the establishment of workers' democracy through the political revolution in the North could the country be reunited.

The main target of the street protests has been indicated by the burning of effigies of Chun and Reagan and the burning of the Stars and Stripes. Another element of resentment that persists, however, is the legacy of Japanese rule.

The Koreans were denied the right to use their own language, form their own organisations, or derive any benefit from their own labour. Between the wars, more than one million were forcibly removed to labour in Japanese factories. Those who remain in Japan and their descendants (a total of 600,000) are not permitted to become citizens of Japan unless they take Japanese names. Japan is seen as a rivai for Korean products on a world scale. It also takes out of Korea more than it puts in: $1.39bn Japanese capital is directly invested and far more has gone in via joint ventures, especially in the building of hotels and service industries. South Korea's adverse balance of trade with Japan is reaching $7bn.

and but they

•Upholder of have seen through

Prospects for democracy

The begining of a recession in the Japanese economy will nevertheless adversely effect the economy of Korea which sends 15% of its exports to Japan. More catastrophic will be the development of the crisis in the American economy.

Already bills imposing controls on imforts of 24 Korean products are going through the US Congress. A shrinking American market will provoke a collapse of the Korean miracle. More than 35% of Korea's exports go to the US. Exports are increasing generally at a rate of 50% this year. A world recession will lead to an unimaginable crisis. Four fifths of all cars produced are exported: 40% of industry depends on export. With poverty wages there is no scope on the home market.

The Korean boom has depended heavily on cheap oil—since 75% of its energy is imported; low interest rates; and a cheap dollar, to which the Won has been tied for most of this period. Korea's massive debt to the world banks has increased $20bn in the last five years. At

$46bn, it is the world's fourth largest debi-more per head than in Mexico or Brazil. This has been no problem while exports have been going up at such a phenomenal rate. But the South Korean economy will have a massive price to pay for any increase in interest rates, for any attempt to call in capital and for any contraction of the world market.

Even the small recession of 1979 led to a dramatic drop of Korea's growth rate. In fact the economy contracted by 5.2%. Inflation reached 30% and the whole distorted economic structure began to rock on its shaky foundations.

The prospects for any government coming to power with a new world recession in the offing are grave. A 'democratic' government in South Korea will bring with it new headaches for the capitalist class.

In 1984, with just a slight lifting of elements of the repression, workers moved to create their own weapons of struggle in the form of trade unions, and to take control even of the state-run labour organisations. As many unions were formed—160—in the course of 9 months of that year as had been created in the previous 4 years. This will seem as nothing compared with the mushrooming growth of workers' organisations that will take place now that the dictatorship is crumbling.

Democracy is not an abstract question to the oppressed. The Financial Times commented on the 4th July 1987, " the new democratic atmosphere has prompted several groups to voice complaints... representatives of a village near a new nuclear power station held a meeting with their National Assembly member and the Korea Electric Power Corporation to ask for compensation for the loss of income from fishing and tourism when a local beach was closed to build this plant. Taxi drivers in Taegu held a sit-in at their members' office asking for help in getting licences from the city administration. Two small strikes, one at a leather factory and one at a grinding company, both in the western city of Inchon, were reported. Meanwhile in the first indication of what democracy might mean for business, the Economic Planning Board said that the Fair Trade Commission was to crack down on unfair business practices by public sector corporations."

State funding has assisted the big monopolies but now a large proportion of the subsidies and up to 40% of foreign loans go directly into private pockets. Maintaining a military police state and a corrupt bureaucracy has become a massive burden. 'Defence' swallows up to 30% of the budget. Generals are paid off with sinecure jobs in industry or agriculture. All appointments are under the direction of the President himself.

1

[page 11]

MIR Summer 1987: South Korea

The interests of capital were indicated by the record rise of share prices on the day the Government conceded the new reforms, faltering when progress towards democracy appeared to be in danger.

Although the DJP has altered its cabinet to appear more 'neutral' , the tentacles of the military are going to be difficult to remove. Seventeen ex-generals, admirals and colonels are among their parliamentary representation where at present they can veto any opposition proposals.

How will a new democratic government dismantle a military apparatus that has seized power twice to prevent 'subversive' disorder in the past 27 years? Just the prospect of one of the opposition Kims coming to power, even though they promise 'no reprisals' , is enough to frighten some of the military into contemplating yet another coup. Yet it is most likely that the army tops will bide their time, and wait for an RDP government to get into difficulties.

There seems little doubt that with the youth of the electorate, with two thirds never having voted before, the RDP candidate will receive a massive vote. In Seoul 70 per cent of the population are for them. In past elections the opposition have won a majority even if robbed of seats through an electoral system weighted heavily against them where a city constituency might have 5 times as many voters as a country constituency. With electoral reform and a massive build up of expectations, the RDP should sweep to power. Few in Korea will not hold tremendous illusions in what democracy will bring for them.

With the granting of most of the opposition's demands, ex-General Roh is trying to steal their clothes. But the memory of his role in Kwangju, and the heroism of the opposition leaders-in the case of Kim Dae Jung, arrested, kidnapped, nearly assassinated, sentenced to death and to 54 different house arrests— will ensure the defeat of Roh or any DJP candidate.

The RDP is an uneasy coalition of diverse elements. Even the 'radical' Kim Dae Jung holds up capitalist West Germany as his model. He is against the power of the big conglomerates but in favour of less state intervention. He is for the re-unification of the country but after the withdrawal of US troops. American imperialism, which regards Korea as a vital strategic base, will only be forced out by a movement that would strip it of all its interests.

Once in power the RDP will be under enormous pressure from big business and imperialism on the one hand, and from an aroused working class, middle class and the students on the other. Under the pressure of the movement, especially if its leaders are forced to take up the reins of

12

government, the RDP will itself begin to polarise along class lines, with the left wing striving to find a road to a fundamental change of society.

If the RDP is pushed into power, in spite of the limitations of the leadership, the radicalised workers and students will push for the immediate implementation of the promised democratic rights and reforms. Any such gains, moreover, will be seized by the workers as levers to redress their class grievances. Far from satisfying all those who have been exploited for so long by the Korean capitalists and landlords under their military protectors, democratic concessions will intensify the demands for trade union rights, jobs, improved wages and conditions, and decent housing and health services.

The movement will dig at the roots of the ruling class's power. Any attempt by the leaders to hold the movement back, to preach restraint and constitutional propriety, will build up frustration and create the conditions for even bigger explosions.

Marxist progra

In the situation which is opening up, revolutionary Marxist ideas will gain an enormous echo. The Korean Communist Party, which has had a shadowy existence in the underground, may make some gains in the new situation. But Stalinism has completely failed to offer a way forward in the ex-colonial, bonapartist states. In South Korea, given the example of the ruling bureaucracy in the deformed workers' state in the North and the crisis and national conflicts of the other Stalinist states of South East Asia, the Communist Party will have even less attraction for the workers and youth.

The mighty strength of the growing proletariat of South Korea, the 12 million who have come from the land to the slum conditions of the cities, the impoverished farmers, the indignant middle classes could be rallied behind a clear socialist programme. Such a platform would link the struggle for all basic democratic rights, and the call for a revolutionary constituent assembly, with the demand for the nationalisation of the 30 Chaebol conglomerates. It would also campaign for a minimum wage, maximum hours, the abolition of small debts, the approbriation of foreign capital, a state monopoly of foreign trade.

A genuine mass socialist party would appeal to the workers in the whole Pacific region to move to take society into their own hands—both in the shaky capitalist nations and the crisis-ridden deformed workers' states, where the bureaucracy stifles the development of the nationalisea, planned economies. A Marxist leadership would call for a complete purge of the army and the police, for trade union

rights for soldiers and police conscripts, the right to elect officers, control training etc and for labour movement control through joint committees etc.

The Korean capitalist economy is so dependent on low wages and higher returns on capital that it cannot continue to develop, or even maintain its present level, on the basis of democratic conditions which would bring mounting demands from the working class. Faced with the threat of revolution, the ruling class has little choice but to make concessions-encouraged at this stage by US imperialism. Some of the radical democrats, in spite of the world crisis, are under the illusion that there can be a further stage of development for Korean capitalism within the framework of democracy. Other capitalist representatives undoubtedly calculate that it is expedient to make concessions now, in order to re-consolidate the economic position and political power of big business later, when the leaders of the new democracy become discredited and the movement, they hope, will have cooled off. Some of the big capitalists closest to the dictatorship, however, are already straining at the leash, impatient to launch a bloody counter-revolution to smash the workers' movement.

The course of events will be determined by the struggles, above all by the extent to which the working class comes to the fore as an independent force. The workers will keep their bearings only if they recognise that none of their gains can be guaranteed within the framework of capitalism; until a fundamental socialist change is carried through, the threat of reaction will still be there.

If the Korean working class fails to carry through the movement to victory, there will be the prospect of a bloody dictator who will make Chun look 'like an angel'!

The revolution that has opened up will not move in a straight line because there is no party of Marxism to draw the lessons and conclusions on how to guarantee the basic rights and freedoms so longed for by the working class. The Marxist party required to ensure the success of the revolution will be created in the furnace of the revolutionary struggles to come. International developments, both in terms of the world economy and political upheavals in the South East Asian rim of the Pacific, will have a profound effect on the course of development of the Korean revolution. Once on the march, a successful socialist revolution in one country would spread like

wildfire through the area. At last the

Asian peoples would be released from the slave conditions they have faced through the centuries.

[page 12]

The recent South African white election marked the beginning of the disintegration of the social

negotiated settlement'.

Cracks widen in apartheid "fortress'

THE RECENT white election in South

Africa confirmed the massive support for

the ruling National Party among the

white electorate while it registered a

significant shift to the right. But it can

have given no comfort to a ruling class

besieged by economic problems and

threatened by social revolution. The

movement to the right is an indication, small at this stage, of the beginning of the

break-up of the National Party monolith, despite the reinforcement of its huge parliamentary majority.

Although it has no vote or legal political voice, the black working class was, nevertheless, the only real issue. Every debate revolved around the central question of if, how and when South Africa should move towards black majority rule. Every newspaper article agonised over whether and how the banned African National Congress - supported by the mass of the black population could be brought to the negotiating table to thrash out a 'deal' with the Government.

A great deal of attention was paid during the election campaign to the so-called "liberal revolt' against the Nationalists. A number of leading NP members resigned to stand as Independents, the most notable being Denis Worrall, former ambassador to London. They were opposed to the 'slowness' of the Government's reforms, but did not themselves support any proposals for genuine democratic change. Worrall was even opposed to the release of those detained under the State of Emergency. In practice, what they were putting forward was merely a new prescription for white control of the state and guarantees for capitalism, cloaked in the guise of reform.

As the election results have shown, the majority of white voters are still, at this stage, backing the NP. Even though many whites express support for some reform, it is their fear of losing their increasingly precarious privileges that holds them to the NP, which is seen as the party of the strong white state, the main bulwark against revolution. Opinion polls frequently show wide support among whites for the policies of the Progressive Federal Party (PFP), but it is not 'trusted' by the white workers and middle class to defend what they now have. While their reform policies often rate as high as 40 per cent in polls, the PFP vote in this election slumped to only 14 per cent. This miserable showing has caught the 'liberal' establishment completely by surprise because they were hoping for a 'realignment' to the left of the Government. The

By Joe Jackson

election, demoralising for PFP supporters, must put a question mark against the very existence of the party.

The results have also come as a shattering blow to those elements in the United Democratic Front, the only legal opposition with mass support among blacks, who had similar illusions in a realignment to the left of the NP. The radical Work in Progress magazine commented before the election (April issue): "Its outcome may decide the sort of white power bloc the ANC and its allies will ultimately sit down with to discuss the dismantling of apartheid and a transfer of power."

The 'Independent' candidates did better than the PFP, Worrall only failing to beat Minister Chris Heunis by 39 votes. But that was precisely because they distanced themselves from the PFP, were not associated with its 'weakness' and in fact presented themselves as dissidents, 'shaking the Nationalists' tree a little'

Strike movement

The greatest haemorrhage of support from the NP was to the right. The total right wing vote went up from 14 per cent to 30 per cent: 27 per cent for the Conservative Party (CP), eclipsing the 3 per cent for the Herstigte Nasionale Party (HNP) which was the only right wing party in the field in 1981. The increased right wing vote is due to the economic pressures and political insecurity faced by the white working class and lower middle class which have pushed many into losing patience with Botha and his constitutional dickering over the last six years. White South Africans are under greater economic pressure than at any time for years, facing inflation and unemployment, and the demagogues on the right are not slow to blame this on the increasing power of the black trade unions and the 'weakness' of the Nationalists' Government.

In practice, however, all the parties in the election shared common aims. The PFP, the Independents, the National Party, the Conservatives and the HNP wanted above all to preserve the white state and capitalism from the threat of the black workers' revolution, differing only on the best means of doing it. The different social bases of these white parties mean that they have different illusions: either in the possibility that a few paltry

'negotiated' reforms can head off the

black majority or, alternatively, that repression alone can save apartheid.

The giant capitalist monopolies - the

biggest four of which control 83 per cent of the Johannesburg stock exchange - feel themselves the most secure economically and are therefore the most able to grant a few grudging concessions to their workers. This explains the apparent paradox that the biggest capitalists are seemingly the most 'liberal', financing the PFP, and opening up contacts with the ANC

Conversely, the section of the capitalist class most buffetted by economic crisis and recession, most burdened by debt and most immediately threatened by the black working class are the smaller businesses and the farmers. These form the main social base of the Conservative Party and, in contrast to the liberals, have the opposite illusions; that increased repression can restore law and order ('within 14 days' as one CP candidate put it) and that the black trade unions can be simply banned.

But between the PFP and the CP, the National Party, still commanding the support of over half the white electorate, embodies the dilemma of the ruling class, trying to face both ways at once. Through the medium of the Bonapartist presidency, PW Botha is desperately trying to manoeuvre a way out of a doomed position by tacking this way and that. The background to the poll was the most explosive strike movement for a year.

On election day, millions of black workers and youth were on strike -outnumbering those voting by at least three: to two - in protest against the election itself and the apartheid government's brutal attempts to suppress the railway workers' strike. This strike in turn was an echo of what was the greatest-ever movement of the black working class in the country, between 1984 and 1986. In any other country the scale and intensity of this uprising - with general strikes, occupations, rent and consumer boycotts, incipient soviets in the form of street committees, no-go areas and struggles of millions of youth - would have overthrown the old regime and brought a popular government to power.

But the South African working class came up against a powerful obstacle in the form of the South African state, one of the most formidable anywhere in the world, resting on the support and cooperation of the privileged white workers and middle class. At least for the moment this obstacle proved too strong.

13

[page 13]

MIR

Summer

1987:

South

Africa

However, although the workers' movement ebbed back in mid-1986 and suffered from the imposition of the State of Emergency in June, it is a long way from being broken. Despite thousands of arrests and detentions there has been a spate of strikes in one industry after another.

The bitter ten-week strike of workers at OK-Bazaars, ending in February, resulted in a marvellous victory with the workers winning a rise across the board of R100 a month. Within days, another supermarket chain, Pick n' Pay gave their workers the same rise, rather than face a similar strike. But the strike by black workers of the South African Transport Services (SATS) has been the most explosive of all the movements that have taken place under the State of Emergency. 25,000 workers have thundered out a message of defiance to PW Botha.

The strike began over the dismissal of a single black worker, which proved to be the last straw for workers suffering one of the most racist and oppressive managements, even by South African standards. The rank and file members of' the South African Railway and Harbour Workers Union (SARHWU), which has recently made many gains at the expense of the company-sponsored union, were eager to demonstrate their strength and organisation.

in any way, Botha is forced to try to draw into government a layer of black collaborators, if he can find them, in an attempt to defuse the ever-present threat of revolution.

As if struck by a divine revelation, Professor Sampie Terreblanche, close advisor to Botha for many years, has now discovered the deceit behind the Government's 'reforms'. These were "little more than a public relations exercise," he writes in the South African Sunday Times, 'to improve the image and the effect of apartheid, but in a manner that would not endanger Afrikaner (or white) control" 15 March 1987.

But black workers and youth are not fooled by 'reforms' that mean nothing, like the Coloured and Indian parliaments introduced in 1984. For the working class, genuine freedom and democracy are not abstractions, but means to an end. Real freedom would mean opening a floodgate of demands and struggles by the mass of the black population. The demands would be for jobs for the millions unemployed, decent wages and an end to racial privileges, homes for the homeless, adequate health and educational services. Workers would demand the scrapping of all the apartheid laws, the 'homelands' policy and the dismantling of the white police state from top to bottom.

It is because of what the black masses would expect from real democracy that makes it totally incompatible with capitalism in South Africa. The whole thrust of the 'reforms' mooted by the regime and by most white liberals, including the Progressive Federal Party (PFP), is an attempt to give the impression of genuine democracy, while maintaining the white state and capitalism.

The fundamental dilemma of the regime - how to deal with the threat posed by the black working class - will not be changed by the election even if the increased right wing vote has complicated the picture by promoting the Conservatives to the official opposition, increasing the pressures against 'reform'. As one liberal commentator, Allister Sparks, remarked, Cape Times, 26 February 1987:

'It is the great township upheaval of the last two and a half years that has caused these trends (in white politics) to develop. Although the unrest seems to be receding now and we may be in for a bit of a lull (this was written before the SARHWU strike - Eds), the crisis has produced some irreversible changes. Chief among these has been a breakthrough by blacks of the psychological barrier which caused them to doubt their ability to end white domination. Blacks now know that, though it may take some time yet, they are going to win in the end."

Referring 1o Botha's switch

The regime's dilemma

The reaction of the Government was to sack the strikers and launch a massive police assault on the headquarters of the union and the main black union federation, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), with the result that a number of workers were shot dead. It was in response to these attacks that COSATU called for a two-day 'stayaway' on election day and the day before.

Over the years it has been this growing economic and industrial power of the black working class that has forced the apartheid regime to manoeuvre with socalled 'reforms'. The old apartheid theories of 'separate development' have collapsed in the face of the increased urbanisation and concentration of the black workers, a process which is the inevitable result of the development of capitalism itself. Repression, pure and simple, is no longer a viable long-term strategy to deal with a powerful working class increasingly organised and aware of its enormous social weight.

The change in the class balance of forces, not any democratic 'conversion' by Botha, has led him in the direction of his fake reforms. The State President has been able to use his powerful constitutional position to manoeuvre between reform and repression. But while he cannot even consider relinquishing control of the state, or allowing it to be weakened

14

retorm' track to repression, Sparks goes on, "I don't believe this can succeed for long, because the people the Government are occupying instead of governing are the primary source of the country's productive capacity - its labour force. The occupation will aggravate their discontent, and next time there is a flare-up it will be bigger and more serious than the last one and all the trends that have now emerged will be accelerated."

Under these pressures, Botha, or his successor, will be forced again and again to attempt to defuse the threat of revolution. Without relinquishing the iron fist, perhaps even intensifying repression, his policy will inevitably include a programme of cosmetic reforms. The gloom of the liberals notwithstanding, there will be pressure from the working class on the left of the regime, as well as from the right, and Botha will be forced to respond to it. The election was called to enable him to do that trom a position of maxımum strength in relation to the white electorate, but in the longer run, the pressures of the Conservative opposition on the one side and the masses on the other, will only lead to further splits and disintegration within the Nationalist regime. Even the Conservative Party itself will be subject to a similar two-way pull, its extreme right wing tending towards the fascist AWB.

Trends amo

Yet even among right wing parties there is at least a dim realisation that some sort of change is necessary, that society cannot go on as before. As Allister Sparks comments, "There has been an end to the monolithic certainty of the whites that they can remain permanently in power. Apartheid is dead and there is nothing to replace it as a formula for preserving control. Even the far-rightist Afrikaner Volkswag now believes that black rule is coming and is looking to the idea of an Afrikaner 'homeland' as a last refuge."

But although this consciousness is gradually beginning to dawn on white workers, there still remains a stubborn determination to defend the privileges of the past against the uncertainties of the future, which explains the swing to the right. Within the white population, there is a class polarisation developing, which at present is manifested as a swing to the right. "Class rather than language has increasingly become the determinant of voting patterns." The Financial Times, 8 May 1987.

White workers are increasingly likely to move to the right in the coming years even a proportion to the fascist AWB in a vain attempt to find a way out of their insecurity by the forceful suppression of the black working class. It will be the failure of white reaction to crush the

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-: million strong black working class, however, that will lay the basis for eventually splitting white workers away from the racist state. The programme of the socialist revolution does not appeal to more than a small minority of whites at present. But faced with increasing economic insecurity and the indomitable will to struggle of the black working class, there will be no other avenue open for them.

It is only a small indication of the way white workers will move in the future that, according to the South African Weekly Mail, an Afrikaner worker in the Transvaal joined the black Food and Allied Workers Union, the first white member of that union, and there are other 'black' (in reality, non-racial) unions with a smail proportion of white members. As one social and political convulsion after another rocks South Africa, many more white workers will come to realise they have much in common with black workers struggling with the same white bosses.

Student struggles are always an anticipation of later movements among workers and last month's demonstrations at the University of Cape Town, South Africa's 'Cambridge' , are a pointer to the movement of other white youth in the future. Over 3000 were involved in fierce clashes with the police and for the first time ever live ammunition was used against white students.

Despite the apparent return of the National Party 'monolith' to Parliament, this election marks the beginning of the disintegration of the NP and the social base of the white state. White politics is experiencing its greatest ferment for 40 years. A record number of MPs, 37, chose not to seek re-election and there

were a record number of candidates, over 400. Almost every party suffered defections to the right and to the left. The

fissures that have now begun to open up

will broaden and will be even more pro-

nounced by the time of the next white

election only two years away.

Capitalism in South Africa cannot go

on as before. Apartheid is in its death

throes. The ruling class understand that

it relies on the cheap labour guaranteed

by apartheid and when the racist system

is overthrown, capitalism must inevitably

go with it. It is the overwhelming feeling

among black workers and youth that the

struggle for democracy, freedom and

socialism are one. Even the weekly Finan-

cial Mail admitted (20.9.85) that 77 per

cent of urban blacks" want socialism.

For the black masses, their struggle

against apartheid is not an end in itself,

but a fight for jobs, homes, education,

health care and decent living standards.

The Freedom Charter, adopted by the

movement in 1955, is for them a socialist

programme and nothing less. The black

workers have been held down for too long in poverty, disease ana squalor to be content with just an 'X' on a piece of paper. But capitalism cannot reconcile itself to these material needs of the South African masses. Hence its desperate attempts to forestall the revolution by one means or another.

Unfortunately, the leadership of the ANC, and the South African Communist Party which has a decisive influence in the former, appear to share the same illusions as the liberals, the PFP and the South Atrican monopolies in a negotiated 'compromise. Even Winnie Mandela recently said of Chris Ball, managing director of the First National Bank - formerly Barclays South Africa - that there was "no greater patriot."

'Until recently," writes Allister Sparks, "the prevailing credo in the African National Congress and likeminded activists within South Africa was that a transition from the apartheid system to majority rule could take place only by what they called a 'seizure of power' ... No longer. I have spent much time in the townships in the past few years

and held lengthy discussions with key

ANC figures in Lusaka, Dar es Salaam and Luanda - including, last week, an eight-hour conversation with Pretoria's bete-noire, Joe Slovo - during which I have become aware of a shift away from this viewpoint towards a belief that the transition is more likely to take place at the negotiating table. This does not mean that the ANC is about to abandon its

armed struggle. Indeed it seems intent on

trying to intensify it, but more as a means

of increasing the pressure for negotiation

than with any realistic hope of being able

to win a military victory." (our em-

phasis).

'Negotiations"?

Whoever Allister Sparks was speaking to in the townships, it was certainly not the youth and the workers, who still believe, overwhelmingly, in an armed struggle and, moreover, in 'a fight to the finish.' But a part of the interview with Joe Slovo, general secretary of the SACP (and at that time Chief of Staff of the ANC guerrilla wing, MK), published in the London Observer, confirmed the changed line of the leaders:

"I believe that transition in South Africa is going to come through negotiations," he said. He continued to advocate a broadened anti-apartheid alliance, «even to include forces he did not regard as revolutionary, but who nevertheless shared the goal of ending apartheid."

'Once a non-racial democracy was established, ideological differences between the various elements of the alliance could be resolved in a democratic way ... he hoped and believed that if a non-racial

democracy would be established, true socialism would 'flow from it' naturally in time ... The party (SACP) also accepted that there was no inevitability about a move from non-racial democracy to Communism.

There should be no misunderstanding what these statements mean: although the mass of the working class (77%) want socialism, a fact acknowledged by Slovo in his speech in London last year, for the leaders of the 'Communist Party' it is not 'inevitable'. On the contrary, it is relegated to a 'hope' , and even that.... 'in time'. And while the movement would sit around, presumably accepting the denial of its majority wishes, its leaders would sit around a table with the big monopolies - because that is who is meant by the 'allies' - to negotiate away apartheid, and, while they are about it, peacefully settle the differences of interest between the black working class and their age-old exploiters!

Neither should there be any misunderstanding about what kind of "settlement' the South African bosses would need to negotiate. Like the PFP and all the other 'liberals', these 'allies' would seek to foist onto the leaders of the movement a 'compromise' that abandons one-person-one-vote in a unitary South Africa and the socialist aims of the Freedom Charter, in favour of the preservation of capitalism and guarantees for

white control of the state.

These 'compromises' - representing no

more than a new formula for maintaining the old regime - are in fact those being touted by the Russian bureaucracy.

As reported in the Weekly Mail, 15

January 1987, Gleb Starushenko of the

USSR Academy of Sciences, suggested

the idea of a settlement based on capitalist

relations and a white veto. The ANC, he

said, should "not advance plans for a

broad nationalisation of capitalist proper-

, and should be "willing to give the

bourgeoisie the corresponding

guarantee."

But what the capitalists, the SACP and

the Kremlin overlook is the fact that what

they regard as a 'compromise' would

never be accepted by the mass of black

workers and youth. It is for that reason

that such a 'settlement' is ruled out.

Ironically, the swing to the right in the

elections will have dealt a severe blow to

the ideas peddled by the SACP, as much

as to the utopian ideas of the white

liberals. With the white workers and mid-

dle class moving to the right, and with the

NP in danger of losing ever more votes

to the Conservative Party opposition, Joe

Slovo's chimera of a negotiated settle-

ment looks even more remote.

The mass of the working class want

socialism. What better reason could there

be, therefore, for the leaders of the move-

ment to openly proclaim and advance the

15

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On election day black workers and youth outnumbered those voting by three to one. Subscribe to Inqaba Ya Basebenzi. An appeal to all readers from Alan Woods, Editor, MIR programme of socialist revolution? A socialist South Africa, as part of a federation of Southern African socialist states, is the only way out of the nightmare facing the sub-continent. On the basis of a socialist programme, the leadership could not only provide the basis for the unification and organisation of black workers, but could also appeal to the white work- No concessions to white ing class.

privilege would be necessary, but because there is no other way out for the whites, and because a socialist South Africa would be able to raise all living standards, enough white workers could be split away from the white state.

The huge social convulsions facing South Africa will put all past struggles and uprisings in the shade. But there can be no way out for the black working class that does not involve splitting white workers away and thereby undermining the powerful racist state.

The apartheid regime has appeared to stand for decades like an impregnable white fortress. But the beleaguered occupants are beginning to realise that it is built in an 'earthquake zone', and the first tremors of the black revolution have already opened up cracks in the walls. As each earthquake follows the next, as they surely will, the walls will be breached wide open and eventually the white stronghold will be razed to the ground.

May 1987 •The magnificent revolutionary upsurge of the black workers and youth of South Africa since 1984 has captured the imagination and inspired workers in struggle the world over.

The South African revolution is of crucial importance for the working class internationally. The overthrow of the apartheid regime and the working class taking power in South Africa would be an inspiration to workers everywhere and would enhance the struggle for socialism worldwide.

That is why the Marxist analysis of South Africa and the international To receive the next four issues, fill in the form below: I would like to receive Inqaba for the next four issues. Name.

Address 16 workers movement put forward by Inqaba is so important. At a time when, tragically, the Stalinist leadership of the South African Communist Party uses its influence within the African National Congress to urge compromises with 'liberal' bosses and opposes fighting for socialism in South Africa, the clear Marxist analysis and perspectives put forward by Inqaba are even more vital for activists in the labour movement internationally to study.

The Militant and Militant International Review cannot offer the same detailed analysis and news of events in Southern Africa as Inqaba, written and produced by activists within the South African trade union and youtk movements.

A clear understanding of the unfolding of the South African revolution is vital for workers involved in building solidarity action and direct links with the South African working class. Support for the miners, the BTR strikers and other sections of the working class involved in industrial action is of key importance. Inqaba provides the analysis necessary to help build sucessful solidarity action. Every Marxist active in the labour movement should read Inqaba."

• I enclose E......and £......as a ronation. Please arrange payment in sterling. Subscription rates: Surface £4.00; Airmail £7.90 Send to Inqaba Ya Basebenzi, BM Box 1719, London WCIN 3XX, Britain.

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