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UTH AFRICA
Workers flex their muscles
BY CHRIS
JAMES
At first glance, South Africa appears to be some kind of Orwellian world. This is the country where the secret police are actually called BOSS (Bureau of State Security). The former head of the S. Africa Broadcasting Company and tember of the Broderbund, Meyer, called his son Izan (it has to be spelt backwards to see its significance). In South Africa, those of mixed race, the Coloureds, are positively defined in government regulations as "not a white person nor a native" . The present Prime Minister, who was interned during the war for Nazi sympathies, declared in the aftermath of the Sharpeville massacre, whilst he was Minister of Justice: "rights are getting out of hand."
Yet the apartheid system is not some kind of mental aberration by a small group of whites, but is built upon the economic interests of different classes in S. African society, Recently there have been signs of a changing situation, inside and outside the Republic of South Africa. In the Republic, some of the formerly tame Bantustan leaders are making radical noises. Amongst the youth, especially Coloured youth, Black Consciousness is having a growing appeal. Most important of all, the black working class has engaged in a whole series of militant strikes culminating in February 1973 with a strike-wave in Durban. In the rest of southern Africa, resistance to minority rule has had increasing success. In Mozambique, FRELIMO has extended its rural guerrilla war to the country's central province. In N.E. Rhodesia, ZANU's success has meant that the Rhodesian Army now concentrate on the north-east, leaving S.African 'police' to man Rhodesia's border with Zambia. In Namibia, SWAPO's activities combine both guerrilla warfare and industrial agitation in the mines.
All these developments are inter-related, and are affecting the development of the class struggle and the battle for national liberation in southern Africa. The key to the whole area is South Africa itself. It is the economic giant, not just of southern Africa, but of the whole of Africa. With only 6% of Africa's population, South Africa produces and uses over 50% of the continent's electricity, The wealth of South Africa is immense. In the 100 years since minerals were discovered, over £700 m worth of diamonds and £6, 000 m worth of gold has been found The price of gold enabled South Africa to ward off many aspects of the pre-war depression. From 1933 to 1965, net national income. the country had an average real growth rate of 5% per annum. From 1940 to 1965, there was a 600% increase in
Yet all this wealth has not helped the black population of South Africa very much. According to Professor Wilson of Cape Town University. African miner s' real wages are worse now than they were in 1911! Life expe tancy for South Africa's black population is far below that for the whites. On average, people of mixed race (ie, Coloureds) will live 15 years less than a white person; there are no reliable statistics for African life expectancy but all the indications are that it is below that of the Coloureds. Of 750,000 black children born every year, 110,000 will die before they are one year old. Sample surveys in rural areas have shown that 50% of African
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children wili die before they are five. A survey by UNESCO in 1960 stated that 70% of African children suffer When he becomes 16, an African must register as a 'work-seeker' with his tribal bureau, unless he is a full-time student or declared to be unfit. He must register in a particular category and will remain in that category for the rest of his life, unless he obtains permission to change it. If he puts a foot wrong, whilst under contract, he can be sent to his "Bantustan' -his government-proclaimed "homeland', which he may never have seen before. The Bantustans are nothing more than a labour reserve. They have virtually no industry and provide only 2% of South "homelands" for 75% of South Africa's people, consist of only 17% of the country's land surface, divided into over 1,200 different pieces. Most of the land is useless for agriculture; a former Deputy Minister of Bantu Development admitted that only 29% of the Bantustans was good farming land. The Bantustan policy was ne: er intended to provide any means of real economic independence for the African people. The majority of Africans live in towns in the white areas. To supervise them, there are the notorious Pass Laws, contravention of which resulted in over 600,000 prosecutions lastyear. There are also strict regulations which state that Africans (legally) are only temporarily in the towns. These laws operate directly in the interests of the employers, eg under regulation 10 (1) (b) of the Bantu (Urban Areas Consolidation Act, an African must work for one and the same employer for ten years, before he can qualify for urban residence. Vorster put the position thus in 1968: "It is true that there are blacks working for us. They will continue to work for us for generations, in spite of the ideal that we have to separate them completely... The fact of the matter is this, we need them because they work for us... But the fact they work for us can never entitle them to claim political rights. Not now, nor in the future... under no circumstances."
Yet the situation in South Africa is not a simplistic white-black confrontation, but involves the conflicts of five 1. MINING AND FINANCE SECTION OF RULING CLASS Mining and agriculture were the backbone of the South African economy until the post-war years. The former was traditionally the area of the economy owned by the British capitalists in South Africa. Recently, with the help of the Nationalist government, Afrikaaner influence has grown. Afrikaaners now control one of the nine The aim of the mining financiers has always been to reduce labour costs to an absolute minimum. The Chamber of Mines was founded in 1889 "to bring native wages down to a realistic level" and it had considerable success; whilst in 1889, the average African miners' monthly wage was £3.3.6d, by 1902 (partly due to the Boer War) it had been cut to 21.6.8d. In the diamond mines, African wages were stabilised for 30 years. The mineowners have proved to be ruthless employers, whatever the 'liberal' pretensions of Oppenheimer, boss of Anglo-American. They have crushed the strikes of white miners (1922) and Africans (1946). Their rewards have been high. In 1972, gold mine profits alone rose by £106 m (ie 63%) to £280 m. The rise in profits alone was more than double the total amount of wages paid to African miners. This trend has been continuing. Anglo- American's report for the first half of 1973 has seen a 17% increase in profit, allowing it to distribute £4,400,000 The recent rise in mining profits is largely explained by the 300% rise in the price of gold over the past two years. This has enabled the mine-owners to give a miserly 33% rise in African miners' wages. Yet African miners' wages are still far less than can be earned in the manufacturing sector, and the black-white wage differential of Because of the above situation, the 'mining houses' recruit most of their Airican workforce from outside South South Africa come from Malawi, Mozambique, Lesotho and Botswana. They are 'housed' in barrack-style compounds and are not allowed to bring their families with them. The mine-owners have never shown themselves over-zealous regarding safety conditions. In the past 40 years over 20,000 Africans The 'new breed' of mine-owners are worthy successors to the old. On February 2, 1973, the president of the Chamber of Mines, R.C.J.Goode, Goode, said that although, black wages were below *»pururty line, the mines could not had gone up by 16% in 1972, whilst productivity had not, and (iii) if productivity did not inupege, a wage increase from malnutrition.
Africa's GNP. These main groupings.
1: 20 is far higher.
Table 1 Africa: 75% of African miners in have been killed in mining accidents.
pay more because: (i) the miners was inflationary.
14 as an interim dividend (18% increase on Jan-June 1972).
Mining Manufacturing Average monthly earnings 1973 African White R 25 R 400 R60 R 360 were not really workers but only peasants • BIHHI (R 1.95 - £1.00) ountry; (ii) wage.
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Yet despite the absolute growth of the gold mining industry in recent years, the mining industry as a whole is likely to play a less dominant role in the future. Manufacturing is the leading growth sector of the economy and already some mining interests have diversified into manufacturing, eg. Anglo-American assets are distributed as follows: 38% gold production, 24% diamonds, 19% industrial, 6% copper, 5% coal, 8% others. 2. MANUFACTURING & COMMERCIAL RULING CLASS The paramount position of manufacturing in the post-war South African economy is clearly shown oy Table 2. Manufacturing is now equal in importance in the South African economy to mining and agriculture combined. Besides a desire to maximise profits, the manufacturers have an interest in a high consumption'market (not necessarily limited to the internal South African market) and an efficient, skilled, stable working-class. In their latter interest, they have triumphed over those 'verkrampte' (hard-line, narrow) interpreters of apartheid, who believed in a purely migratory system for African workers. Manufacturers' interests have also conflicted with and defeated the interests of the rural bourgeoisie, who are not interested in higher wages for their African workforce. Whilst manufacturers as a whole have an interest in seeing higher wages help the creation of a high consumption market, (as long as it does not cut into profit), individual manufacturers have no interest in raising their own workforce's as yet crucial to the market's development; eg, the motor industry is one of the lowest paid areas in the manufac- Yet whilst black wages may rise, the black/white differential also rises, and as this colour bar floats upwards, there is an increasing tendency to invest in capital-intensive plants. The manufacturing class, although having a different emphasis than the mine-owners, are every bit as committed to the structure of exploitation in South Africa. Their demands have, however, led to some internal modifications of the system, eg. statutory job reservation by colour, which only applied to 3% of industry, has declined in recent years (although de facto discrimination still The clearest example of the changed view of the South African ruling class was shown in the 1973 Budget. The proposals included (i) Special committee to train pre-service and in-service African workers in White areas, to "promote healthy growth". (This is anathema to apartheid doctrine, which states that Africans are only temporar- (iii) Upgrade white workers, in co-operation with white trade unions, so black workers fill the (iv) To help manufacturing industry expand, the government would investigate the problem of (v) Further increase in defence expenditure by 33%. (Just to show they were not becoming soft). The manufacturers are facing certain problems at present. Although production rose by 5% in 1972-3, investment fell. Investment might rise in the future, due to some of the mining profits being diverted, but if there is continued stagnation, there would be an attempt to not only keep down black wages, but also to tackle some white workers. 1972 was the first time in the post-war years when white living standards did not rise. In February 1973 the government was given an indication that it might have to reduce white workers' standards, when the Economic Advisory Council to the Department of Planning reported that investment was decreasing because of the high Yet there will be no peaceful overthrow of apartheid by the "liberal, progressive" manufacturers. Economic necessity might alter some of the minor barriers to growth, but che essential structure of exploitation will remain. The manufacturers are no more interested in the independent action of the working class than the mine-owners. eg. in the mid-60's, British Leyland (SA) called in the police to break up a mass meeting of 2,000 Coloured workers discussing the formation of a union. The conflicting interests of the capitalist and the workers are as irreconcil- This class, together with sections of white workers, gave a mass basis to the Afrikaaner Nationalist movement before 1948. Table 2 illustrates agriculture's waning portion of the GNP. The agricultural bourgeoisie is also declining in political importance. In 1968, only 16% of the white population were engaged in agriculture (although it still accounted for nearly one-third of exports). White farming interests lie in paying low wages and in getting high food prices, by means of the continuing monopoly pricing policy of the government's marketing boards. The declining political weight of the farming interests can be seen in a statement by a former Deputy Minister Table 2.
1910 1940 1966 wages. Also, many of the goods produced turing sector.
continues).
ily in the white towns).
lower places.
investment and encourage exports.
wages paid to the white workers.
able in South Africa as elsewhere.
% G.N.P.
Manufacturing Mining 4% 27% 11% 11% 22% 12% (ii) Increase black productivity and pay more attention to black education.
3. AGRICULTURAL BOURGEOISIE Agriculture 22% 18% 10% are orientated towards the white market and thus African wages are not 15
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of Bantu Development: "I make so bold to say that if the farmer would revise the conditions of service, especially in the light of the increased cost of living, he would find that, even though the wage structure might still not he competitive with that applicable in industry, he could still nevertheless attract the black farm labourer. Eventually the farmer will of necessity have to do so." This was not the traditional voice of rural Afrikaanerdom, and the failure of the right-wing split from the Nationalists to pick up any support, illustrates the changing class basis of Twenty per cent of South Africa's workers are white and for the most part are in skilled or supervising jobs. Like craft unions of the nineteenth century, most white trade unions have had the attitude of a labour aristocracy and a caste-like exclusion of black workers. They have tended to see their interests as both opposed to the capitalist owners and to black workers undercutting their position. They have sought to exclude black workers The white working class has had quite a militant history, eg 1913 saw a General Strike by white workers in But concerned by the influx of black workers (by 1918, 83% of the working class was Coloured or African), white workers tried to push up their wages as scarcity value. This is clearly seen in the strike of 1922, "the Red Revolt". In 1922, the mining magnates wanted to cut down the wage differential and let Africans do some skilled jobs. The white miners correctly saw this as an attempt to undercut them but instead of linking up with African workers for better wages, they campaigned alone. They carried portraits of Marx and Lenin, sang "the Internationale' and marched under the banner of "Workers of the World Unite for a White South Africa." They were ruthlessly crushed by Smuts and the mine-owners, who sent in tanks and planes, killing over 200 white the Nationalist Party, the party of the Afrikaaner bourgeoisie. This resulted in the Pact government and the introduction of more racial measures. In the following years, many white workers were won over to the Nationalists, workers core osly resided this send in eat olas program ves tered to the In the 1930's, many Afrikaaners became industrial workers and the Nationalist Party played up two enemies - British imperialism and the black worker. Diederichs (who is now Chancellor of the Exchequer) explained in 1939 that the main ain of the Nationalist Party was to prevent the Afrikaaner worker from developing a class conscious- Since 1948, we have seen the virtual destruction of the only attempt to create a multi-racial Trade Union movement (the South African Congress of Trade Unions) and the increasing polarisation by colour of the workforce. Both the major Trade Union organisations in the Republic are racist; the Confederationof Trades Unions is a whites-only body, and the paternalistic Trade Union Council excludes Africans, allows Coloureds and Asian members, wnilst ensuring that the overall leadership is white. Since the 1930's, the overall growth of the economy has enabled the capitalists to give considerable concessions to the white workers, so that most of them have a life-style that is vastly different from African workers. The freedom of organisation allowed to white workers gives the lie to those who argue that South Africa is a complete Fascist state. Fascism means the crushing of every independent organisation of the working-class and whilst this has been viciously done in regards to the the wage gap has increased by up to 20% in all sections, except electricity.
Yet not all white workers are prosperous salary earners. Sections of them still have very low wages. In OK Bazaars (South Africa's equivalent of Woolworth's) white shop assistants earn only R 90 a month. (African workers who are not allowed to be shop assistants, earn R 50 a month). Whilst this is clearly a high differential, it is stil not of the 20:1 scale in mining, or 6:1 in manufacturing. The class nature of South African society is shown by the fact that OK Bazaars, with a profit last year of £4m, is owned by just four families. In September 1973, these the South African regime.
from skilled positions.
Johannesburg.
miners.
reformism and ultra-leftism.
ness.
Table 3 In the past seven years, 16 4. WHITE WORKING CLASS black workers, white workers still have certain freedoms remaining.
The wage-gap differential in 1971 is shown in Table 3.
Electricity Mining Construction Manufacturing Banking Local Authorities Central Govt.
Provincial Admin.
families agreed to a take-over bid by South African Breweries.
and £11 m in shares in the new combine.
White R 369 360 325 307 298 293 282 224 Average monthly earnings 1971 African R55 18 49 52 67 45 14 35 As compensation, the families got £ 13 m in cash
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White workers have no long-term interest in maintaining such a system. But the long history of racialism in South Africa, the different standards of living and the colour divide in the workers' movements are barriers to class unity. The leadership and the main force to overthrow capitalism in South Africa will be the black working class. But groups of white workers, especially the poorer sections, could possibly be won to a united struggle, if they saw the likelihood of a change in the situation.
African miners, passes in hand, on the way to work.
5. BLACK WORKING CLASS Eighty per cent of workers in South Africa are black (about 66 % African, 10% Coloured and about 4% Asian). Despite some differences within the black labour force, its overall interests lie opposed to the mining, manufacturing and farming class and in opposition to caste-like attitudes amongst white workers. They are the most exploited section of the population of South Africa. A survey conducted between March 1972 and March 1973 found that 13% of Africans earned below £5 a week, 50% below £8 a week and only 16% above the princely sum of £10 a week.
They are herded into townships outside the main cities, townships which can have power, communications and fnod supplies cut off if there is any industrial trouble. Denied decent education, despised and feared by apartheid ideology, the black population of South Africa face daily discrimination on account of their colour. Black workers are doubly oppressed, by colour and by class.
The black workers have a history of great militancy, stronger than any other working class on the continent of Africa. Almost every industry has a history of working class battles. In the docks, there have been six actual strikes and two threatened since 1910. The first strike in 1919 saw the general labour rates increased. During the 1940 strike, the police brought the dockers' leader, Phungula, from jail on condition he spoke against the strike; instead he urged them to continue. The 1958 strike against special rates for the tribal chiefs' representa- But this did not prove sufficient and the following year, the whole of the Durban dock force was dismissed, sent "back" to "their" Bantustan, anu a new one recruited. This did not prevent further militancy and ten years later another 942 were sent "home". In 1971, the dockers at Durban just had to threaten a strike to get a 30% increase and in 1972, a one-day strike gained a further 30% wage rise. This history of struggle can be repeated in almost all other areas of South African history.
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During the 1920's, the Industrial and Commercial Union created one of the greatest African mass movements seen in South Africa. Founded in 1919 with only 24 members, by 1928 it claimed 250,000 members and an annual income of £15,000. But it refused to link the industrial struggle with one for political rights. In 1926, it expelled communists from its organisation and although ICU's leader, Kadalie, was a good orator, this did not make up for the lack ot political programme, an action programme or organisation. Gradually the ICU disintegrated. Despite the collapse of the ICU, strikes still broke out. In 1946, 50,000 Africans miners struck under the leadership of the African Mineworkers' Union. The 1950's saw a whole series of workers' struggles, both economic and political and although the 1960's saw a lull (due primarily to the suppression of the African nationalist movements) the past two years have seen a great upsurge in industrial struggles.
Strikes have occurred in all the main industrial centres of South Africa. It is still far from being a revolutionary situation at present, more a flexing of unused muscles. But it has given the ruling class its greatest shock for over a decade. Following a successful African busdrivers' strike in Johannesburg in May 1972 and a dockers' oneday strike in Durban in October, wholesale strikes broke out in Durban in February 1973. During February, 50,000 Africans (ie. one-third Durban's African workers) were out at some time or another. It affected all sections of industry: textiles, chemicals, shipbuilding, the City Council, Métal Box, Pepsi-Cola etc. Police were flown in; there were baton charges, tear gas, but although the buses were ready to take troublemakers "home', wage increases were hurriedly given. Since then, strikes have broken out all over South Africa and a protest by migrant foreign mineworkers resulted in the death of 12 Africans. The regime is prepared to use both the carrot and the stick. The reaction of the ruling class shows the potential power of the black working class. The spokesman of the manufacturing 'liberal' capitalists, the Rand Daily Mail, worried that the strikes would spread to the Rand, the heartland of South African capitalism. Under a heading "If it happened here" they quoted the opposition leader, de Villiers Graaf, who (correctly) pointed out that the strikes were "a greater threat than guerrilla warfare" The Rand Daily Mail argued that higher wages should be given as "that is the only way to save South Africa and to safeguard its future profits" (10/2/73). Suzman, spokesman for the 'progressive" capitalists, said that African Trade Unions should be created as a safety-valve as "orderly trade unionism is far less dangerous than wildcat strikes". Vorster, modestly admitting that he had learnt from the strikes, is investigating the possibility of allowing more useful forums of African opinion than the present Works Councils, so that he can intervene before a situation reaches crisis proportions. He is clearly considering allowing some forr of black trade unionism. But it will be carefully supervised and any independent attempt by black workers themselves to organise and mobilise (eg. Black Allied Workers Union) will be stamped upon.
Yet all the regime's careful preparations will be as nothing when the black working class resumes the struggle. The regime's defence will rest upon the strength of its armed forces. To counter this threat and the existing repression, economic militancy will not be enough; a revolutionary party is required. The limits of spontaneity can be seen in the recent strikewave. A syndicalist approach cannot topple the vicious South African ruling class. As the revolutionary party would be built primarily upon the black workers, it is to a discussion of the resistance movements that we now turn.
LIBERATION MOVEMENTS It is instructive to look at the former leading mass African movement, the African National Congress. In the ANC there have been, and still are, many of the very best militants, some of whom have been greatly persecuted for their beliefs and activities. . Some have been killed, others imprisoned or confined to the helplessness and despair of house arrest, or seen their families suffer. Yet it is not enough to have people who are prepared to suffer for their ideals in order for a movement to succeed. It also requires correct analysis and actions which flow from that analysis.
Founded in 1912, up until the 1940's, the ANC was mainly a middle-class organisation, petitioning the government grievances. In 1944, the Youth League pressure group was formed in the ANC. It included in its membership Oliver Tambo, Nelson Mandela and Robert Sobakwe. The ANC adopted its Programme of Action in 1949, which included an implication that Africans were oppressed purely as a nation and not at all as a class. The 1949 programme envisaged large-scale protest, but had no firm ideological base on how its demands would be realised; they would come apparently by mass pressure from below". The 1952 civil defiance campaign attracted many Africans to the ANC and its membership rose that year to 100,000. Yet the passive resistance campaigns were broken by the police, despite heroic struggle. In 1955, the ANC joined with the Coloured People's Congress, the Indian National Congress and the (white) Congress of Democrats, to produce the Freedom Charter. This charter was strongly influenced by the banned "Communist" Party.
It was a mixture of socialism, liberalism, social welfare, and did not please some Africanists as it did not include a clear demand for 'one man one vote or link up the struggle with that of the liberation of all Africa. But the Freedom Charter did include the revolutionary demand for the nationalisation of the banks, minerals, monopoly industry and government control of all industry and trade. Unfortunately there was no clear conception of how these demands would be realised. The CP and the ANC played down the class issues in favour of liberal reforms. Luthuli, then leader of ANC, was a Christian and explained that his conception of the ANC was an organisation which would impress, by fear, the white population, or a section of them, on the need for change. He claimed he had never read Marx and that his politics were left-wing of the British Labour Party (in the 1950's !). 18
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Life in the townships.
ANC lacked a clear ideology, a worked-out perspective, on how they would achieve their aims and a tight organisation. Even by the end of the 1950's, it was a loose organisation, more of a mobilisation group than a revolutionary political party.
In 1959, the Pan-Africanist Congress broke away on the Africanist issues for which it criticised the Freedom Charter, It proclaimed that South Africa would be independent by 1963, but declarations were no substitute for a planned strategy to take power. It was the PAC, in fact, who led another peaceful protest, which resulted in the police massacre at Sharpeville in 1960. The regime promptly banned both PAC and ANC. But from a campaign of protest by demonstration, the African movements turned to one of protest by sabotage. Realising that there was no peaceful road in South Africa, they substituted themselves for the mass movements and tried to set off a spontaneous revolution. It was very heroic, but it was doomed. Instead of patiently rebuilding their forces amongst the African working class and building a revolutionary party, the leaders of ANC, together with members of the CP, went in for a bomb campaign, under its armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe. PAC launched its armed wing, Poqo, a year later, in 1962. The result was a disaster. The movement never gained mass support (how could it, in a non-civil war situation?) and the leaders of ANC were arrested and sentenced to life imprison- Since then, the movements have been attracted to the idea of guerrilla warfare, or even of utilising the 'Bantustans' to challenge the regime. They have been attracted by the success of liberation movements to the north, 19
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especially FRELIMO. But a rural guerrilla war in Mozambique, which is the only real possibility in a country which lacks any substantial industry, is a vastly different from that of one in South Africa. South Africa is the most urban of all African countries and it is where the majority of Africans actually live in the urban areas. Clearly, a successful revolution would require the armed support of the peasantry. But the crucial area is in the towns, amongst the black working class. The African peasantry have no independent chance of success. All the main liberation movements have had a basically rural orientation in the 1960's. They postponed organisation in the townships, or gave it a minor role. Unity movement, which claims to have a Marxist analysis, helped organise rural uprisings in Pondoland, 1957-62. The PAC tried to send an advance guard through Mozambique, in order to set up a rural liberated area; most of the group, under G.K. Kondlo, were killed by the Portuguese before they even reached South Africa. ANC sent armed militants, together with ZAPU fighters, into Rhodesia, in 1968. The idea was to fight with ZAPU whilst in Rhodesia, and then infiltrate into South Africa. They were located by the Smith regime whilst in the Wankie Game Reserve, and despite inflicting severe losses on the Rhodesian troops in the subsequent fighting, the operation proved an abortion and has not been repeated. Much of ANC's rural orientation can be ascribed to the CP, who are the dominant tendency in the ANC at present, eg. at the Conference in Moroforo (Tanzania) in 1969, the ANC pruised Russia against China and supported the invasion of Czechoslovakia.
Some people in the resistance movements have also argued that the Bantustans are the Achilles heel of apartheid. Yet the Bantustans would never be allowed to develop into a viable economic socialist alternative to South African industry. Their "political independence" (as fragmented units) may even be allowed, but not economic independence, or their use as a revolutionary base. Some Bantustan leaders are against the apartheid system and have made strong criticisms of it. They have linked up with some of the manufacturing class, the "Progressive" capitalists, in asking for alterations. But as the preceding analysis has shown, the manufacturing class are committed to the basic exploitative system in South Africa. There is no short cut to a democratic South Africa for all the people, by way of the Bantustans.
However much resistance movements refuse to recognise the fact, the leading force in the revolution and in the revolutionary party, in South Africa, will be the black working class in the cities. It may begin as a struggle for basic democratic rights or a wage increase. But in fighting for these demands, they will come up against the whole capitalise class. One cannot separate the democratic from the socialist struggle, for there is no possibility of a democratic South Africa without overthrowing capitalism.
This was best put by an American, ex-Assistant Secretary of State, George Ball: "Even if q multi-racial society could be brought about by either military or economic coercion, would that be in our interest or in the interest of anyone else? Would we like to see the white entrepreneurial class in South Africa driven out of society?" Quite correctly, Ball sees a multiracial democratic society as being incompatible with the continuation of capitalism. To talk just in terms of anti-apartheid or anti-imperialism is to mis-interpret the nature of South African society. The road to democracy is also the socialist road. A socialist South Africa would have enormous repercussions on the Bonapartist states north and south of the Zambesi. The wealth of South Africa could be harnessed to the potential wealth of all Africa in the common fight against poverty, disease and exploitation. It would open up for the first time, the possible formation of a Socialist United States of Africa.
After the 1973 strike wave in Durban, the Mayor announced that he was making arrangements with private enterprise for them to take over gravedigging. It will be the task of those in the struggle in South Africa and internationally, to make sure that private enterprise's grave is well and truly dug in South Africa and throughout the world. Black workers hold the key to South Africa's future.
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