Memorandum on Strategy - Marxist Workers Party

Originally published in Inqaba ya Basebenzi No. 16/17 (February 1986).

Circulated to some activists in South Africa by the Inqaba Editorial Board on 11 November 1985.

1. In evaluating strategy, beginning with the general situation, it is essential to recognise that a turning point has taken place. Despite the continued explosions of heroic resistance by the youth in many townships, despite the supreme tenacity, e.g. of the rent strikes and boycotts in many areas, we have passed the peak of the present cycle of the mass movement against the state.

The South African revolution will develop through a series of such cycles, extending over five, ten, or more years – and involving civil war — before the necessary conditions for the overthrow of the state have fully matured.

Now the movement has come up against the apparently ‘immovable’ obstacle of the formidably powerful white-based state machine, and finds that even a generalised insurrectionary movement in the townships virtually countrywide is not enough to shift it. The regime for its part stakes its authority ever more clearly on brute state violence, giving at this moment an entirely subsidiary role to so-called ‘reforms’ among its armoury of weapons and devices designed for taming the black working class.

Because there is no short-term prospect of a breakthrough against the state by the revolutionary forces, and as the reality of the stalemate between the opposing forces (of the masses and the state) sinks into the consciousness of the working class, inevitably there will be a relative cooling of the movement for a period and thus the advance of reaction (however temporary, unstable and ridden with contradictions that may be).

Temporarily, the ruling class will regain the upper hand. However, the phase of reaction now opening is unlikely to be severe enough to crush and devastate the movement or have in any way a parallel effect to the 1960s.

This is above all because of the enormously deep, widespread and sustained revolutionary ferment that has taken place and because of the strength of workers’ and youth organisations that have been built-up — now reflected in the creation of Cosatu, a huge achievement.

It is also because of the weakness of the black middle class and of forces of potential reaction among the blacks; because of the virtual elimination of the state’s collaborator and informer network in the black communities; because, in short, of the racial polarisation of South Africa overlapping the deep class polarisation; because of the crisis and divisions among the whites; and because of South Africa’s problems in international relations.

All these conditions also ensure that the very ebb of the revolutionary class movement and the relative hardening of reaction will be accompanied by further mass eruptions in the next period. However, these alone would not alter our general characterisation of the period itself.

Undoubtedly, probably within a year or two, the relative lull now setting in will be cut across by a new revolutionary upsurge, at a much higher level than the present cycle.

In the future, when conditions of outright civil war characterise South Africa, it is not at all to be ruled-out that a really savage reaction, systematically aimed to burn down to the ground all the organisations of the black working people, including the trade unions, could be set in motion. At that point the stark alternatives presented will be the conquest of power by the working class, or the plunging of the country into unrestrained and enormously destructive racial war.

In the present phase, the full might of the state has not been unleashed. Far from it: we have seen only a fraction so far of its ruthless killing powers.

Nonetheless, now it should be possible not only for the democratic trade unions to consolidate and grow, but for the youth and community organisations to survive and cement their roots at local level, combining open and underground methods with the necessary flexibility. This will lay the basis for them rising again — and rising more strongly the more that scientific political ideas and perspectives are absorbed.

Bosses’ Reformist Bleating

2. The anti-government and reformist bleating of the ‘liberal’ bosses does not reflect any willingness to give up the protective shield of the state’s armed forces, for these alone in the last analysis can be relied on to defend their power, property and right to grind the workers in servitude. But they see that, in the long term, repressive force will not be enough. By their search for an agreement with the ANC they hope to snare the Congress leadership into undertaking the defence of capitalism and the control of the working class movement on their behalf.

However, the diseased character of the economic system has an ever more shattering effect on living standards especially of black workers, youth and unemployed people in the urban and rural areas. It is now hitting even the white workers and lower middle class.

The incurable crisis of capitalism means that the scope for democratic reforms is and will remain hopelessly too limited. The refusal of even the most ‘liberal’ bosses to consider one-person-one-vote in an undivided South Africa, i.e. majority rule, results from their awareness that their system cannot afford the concessions in wages, houses, transport, education, health and all other conditions which the black working people demand and for the sake of which they so vigorously carry on the struggle for national liberation and democracy. Therefore it requires a revolution to solve the democratic questions.

The most intelligent of the liberal bourgeois know full well that, even were the ANC leadership to agree with them to come openly to the defence of capitalism, that would not suffice to hold the workers back. The bosses need the state, with all its murderous capacities, for this purpose.

But how can they retain this state and reach agreement with the ANC at the same time? Only a complete and naked sell-out agreement would be possible in SA conditions — but for that very reason, the ANC leadership will be unable to enter into it. To do so would be to lose their popular base and render themselves impotent. It is the strength which the mass movement has achieved which compels the ‘liberal’ bosses into “talking” with the ANC leaders; but it is equally the strength of the movement which prevents the ANC leaders from reaching agreement with the bosses.

In reality, moreover, the liberal bourgeoisie is not a free agent in the process. Depending as it does on the state (although it tries to hide that fact), it is inevitably held back also by the bourgeois and white reactionary forces grouped round the state. When confronted by a stark choice between the black workers’ revolution on the one hand and ferocious white reaction on the other, the entire boss class must choose that force which defends capitalism. The liberals will let the racists do the dirty work, while trying to disclaim responsibility at every step.

That has been the relationship of the big capitalists with the apartheid state hitherto. That will remain the relationship at least in its essentials.

For these reasons, while there will be constant moves and efforts to reach agreement with the ANC, an actual negotiated settlement of the democratic question in South Africa (on the lines, for example of Lancaster House in the case of Zimbabwe) is ruled-out.

Nevertheless, time and again, in the turbulent period ahead, the efforts to reach agreement between the ANC and the ruling class will temporarily create confusion, and even division within the mass movement.

The workers’ movement must base itself, not on the false perspective of such a settlement that is so much talked of now, but on the necessity of preparing the forces for a victorious workers’ revolution if the horrible slaughter and destruction of a racial civil war is to be cut through.

Cosatu – a Milestone

3. The formation of Cosatu is a milestone in the development of the workers’ movement. Bringing together the heavy battalions of organised workers, it is the most powerful instrument ever created by the South African working class.

In itself, its birth is a sign of the enormous urge among the workers and the youth to build organisation capable of confronting the power of the whole ruling class and the state.

Within the democratic unions a polarisation has taken place under the impact of the past twelve months of crisis and revolutionary struggles all over the country. There has, for example, been pressure from the rank-and-file over the past months for the calling of a two-day national general strike by the union leaders in order to establish the central role of the organised workers in the political struggle.

We see a process of differentiation between right and left, between reformists who have hoped for a stable accommodation and steady progress of the unions within the framework of capitalism and the state, and revolutionaries who see the need for workers’ power in industry, society and the state.

The past period has seen a partial, but nevertheless clear, shift against the reformists and in favour of revolutionary ideas among trade union workers. The clearest indications of this are shown and will be shown in the launching of Cosatu.

However this same period has seen a dangerous split develop between the most advanced revolutionary sections of the township youth, on the one hand, and trade union leaders, shop stewards and rank-and-file union members on the other.

Absence of Workers’ Party

Every incident will have its own immediate cause and explanation. But the underlying reason is the absence of a mass revolutionary workers’ party capable of giving clear direction, perspectives and programme to workers and youth alike, and a coherent strategy and tactics which alone can provide the basis for revolutionary self-discipline.

Such a party, based on the one hand on the workplace organisations of the workers and, on the other hand, on the organised youth movement, is the only instrument which would be able to link the unions and the revolutionary youth in a solid bond of united action against the bosses and the state, bridging and resolving the conflicts that inevitably rise between these different forces of our struggle.

The youth now, as they face the bitter frustration of being unable to develop their movement beyond the townships into an effective battering ram against the state, cry out in desperate rage against the failure of the unions to come to their aid and ‘solve’ this problem with them. They see only the reformist vacillation of many union leaders and tend to turn their anger against trade unionists as such.

But the trade unionists, even the most conscious revolutionaries among them, who oppose and combat the reformists, and who sympathise with the mood of the youth, know that a union cannot undertake all the tasks of the revolution. They know that while the unions must engage in struggle against the state they are by their nature organisations of the daily battle with the employers for better wages and conditions and the protection of jobs.

The struggle of the workers for a decent life cannot in the long term be victorious without the revolutionary transformation of society. Therefore no union can fully do its job while turning its back on political struggle. Nevertheless the essential character of the unions as organisations centring on the daily industrial battle has to be preserved if they are to remain effective. A trade union, in other words, cannot itself be a revolutionary party.

The inability of trade union organisation to be a substitute for a revolutionary party will be brought to a head in practice as a result of the emergence of Cosatu itself. From the organised and unorganised workers, from the youth, the women, the unemployed, etc., huge expectations will be invested in Cosatu’s potential. The demands that will be placed on Cosatu will themselves bring out more insistently and urgently the need for a mass revolutionary workers’ party.

Inevitably, the relationship between the youth organisations and the unions will remain a changing and elastic one. The youth will be driven again and again by the limits of their own strength to seek the aid of the unions; the unions will link with or support the youth in this or that common action. But only the creation of a mass revolutionary workers’ party on firm foundations can bind the youth and workers’ movements together into a single revolutionary force.

More than this: only by means of such a party can the stalemate of forces in South Africa be fundamentally broken, and the white reaction be defeated. Only the power of the black working class, with the unions proving their strength against the bosses, with the organised workers and youth proving their strength politically against the ruling class and with a programme for workers’ democracy and a socialist policy to end poverty, unemployment and crisis — only this can split the whites on class lines, divide the armed forces, and prepare the way for a victorious armed insurrection of the mass movement against the state.

Orientation to the ANC

4. It is not enough, however, to understand the necessity of the mass revolutionary workers’ party. It is necessary to understand how it can be built. Today it is impossible in South African conditions to bring such a party into being simply by the common agreement of the unions, or the unions and the youth organisations together. The formidable obstacles standing in the way of such a development will be appreciated by the activists once they have been fully thought through. It will be impossible to create such a party other than through a clear orientation to the banner of the ANC.

What the last months have shown conclusively is how, with the entry of the masses into a struggle for control of their lives, they have turned overwhelmingly to what is seen as the most effective banner of unity in the freedom struggle. Irrespective of the policies of the ANC leadership, mass support for the ANC is in order to go “Forward to Socialism!”, in the words of the funerals etc. slogan.

The task is for the organised workers and youth to work together to build a mass ANC on a socialist programme. This strategy alone can maintain the unity of the working class in struggle against the enemy while at the same time deliberately opposing and breaking the hold of middle class Stalinist and reformist leaders who exercise such a retarding influence on workers in the name of Congress.

The ANC must be seen not as something outside South Africa, belonging simply to its established exiled or imprisoned leaders.

The ANC must be seen as something for the workers to build, to make their own, to control by their democratic methods, and to proclaim a clear revolutionary programme of workers’ power, democracy and socialism.

Who can doubt that, once the advanced workers and youth take up this idea and understand its point, it would be possible very rapidly and with a minimum of division to construct the workers’ party under the colours of the ANC? That would at once provide a nationwide mass following for a workers’ programme, and swiftly permit the establishment of effective workers’ leadership over the entire movement now dominated at national level by the petty bourgeoisie.

Ideas of Marxism

5. The ideas which alone, in our view, can provide a guide in the tackling of these tasks, and in the leadership of a revolutionary workers’ movement, are the ideas of Marxism — the ideas in fact which have been put forward and are now put forward by the Marxist Workers Tendency of the ANC and by the Marxist tendency internationally.

But for the first steps to be taken towards the building of a revolutionary workers’ party in South Africa under ANC colours, it is not necessary that the advanced workers and youth should first be won to all the ideas of, or become conscious supporters of, the Marxist Workers Tendency itself. It will be sufficient at the outset for a layer of workers and youth, in the unions and the townships, to understand the essential tasks. In the course of building the necessary organisation and in facing up to all the problems that will arise, we are confident that Marxist ideas and methods will come to the fore once they are clearly explained.

The workers and youth capable of tackling the task will be those who today understand or can be convinced:

— that workers’ power and the overthrow of apartheid and capitalism together are necessary to solve the problems of black working people;

— that any political compromise struck with the capitalists will be designed to weaken and hold back the struggle of working people;

— that the working class needs its own revolutionary political organisation, uniting workers with youth, trade unionists with struggles in the communities, and democratically controlled and led by the black working class itself;

— that the mass of black working people look, and will continue to look to, the ANC for revolutionary leadership;

— THAT, THEREFORE, the task is for organised workers and youth themselves to build the ANC on a socialist programme, to ensure the paramountcy of workers’ interests, working class leadership, and no compromise with the bosses in the political struggle.

6. The creation of such a workers’ party, of course, will not be an overnight achievement. But it needs to begin now. The way to begin it is to encourage, within the framework of the unions and the youth movement, under the protection of the strongest and most militant unions within Cosatu, careful work of a political nature by which the most conscious and trusted comrades group together in an organised network for political education and discussion of issues and tasks.

In this work, it is likely to be youth and active trade unionists without heavy union responsibilities who will be the most active force. But what will be indispensable will be a commitment to encouraging it — with care but determination — by revolutionary trade unionists.

The links that have been built up between the NUM and youth organisations in the Free State are an example of the kind of environment which can assist this work to go forward.

Inevitably within Cosatu various political tendencies will contend. There will be the reformists; there will be those who simply follow the line of the Congress and ‘Communist’ Party leadership abroad; and there will be black consciousness elements as well — to name only the most obvious. ‘Political’ organisation of one form or another will be going on. The mistaken ideas and methods of all those tendencies, as well as their rivalries, if not effectively challenged, will weaken and divide the forces of organised workers in the trade unions and throughout society.

Mass Force

Therefore it is a matter of urgency to promote among the advanced workers and youth the political tasks we have identified — to build the foundations of a workers’ ANC, thus laying the groundwork for the eventual rise of Marxism as a mass force at the head of the SA working class.

Approached in this way there is no contradiction with trade unionism, but instead both political and trade union work will reinforce each other.

7. Previously, we put forward the argument for organised entry of the unions into the UDF, to build and transform it. In the main, the unions have not entered the UDF, and those which have entered have not at all transformed it — although this could easily have been done. The UDF, while remaining viable and vigorous in many local areas, has now been crippled at the top by state attacks. Its ability to sustain or develop open structures of national co-ordination and leadership in the present conditions of mounting repression is thus in doubt. We have to amend our tactical approach and slogans to take account of new realities.

At present we would not press for ‘entry’ of the unions as such into the UDF, for this will not be seen to be realistic or practical by most trade union workers. This would not rule out a return to our former tactical slogan if conditions change. Now, however, we call for united action on specific issues between the unions and the UDF organisations — for a united front, i.e. of the unions and the UDF.

An action campaign to cripple now the entire operation of the pass laws; a campaign for a national minimum wage, for jobs for all, in defence of the accused in political trials, for the release of detainees and political prisoners — these are some of the many issues which could be taken-up.

The issue of the “workers’ party” we approach in this way:

“Workers and youth build a mass ANC on a socialist programme. This will be the work of years, but we can lay the foundations now, carefully and securely. Study Marxist ideas and by democratic argument convince your comrades in union branches, shop stewards councils and youth organisations of the need for Marxist policies to make our struggle victorious. Group together the most conscious and trusted comrades, especially in the workplaces, but also in the townships and in the schools. Where this can be done safely, build workplace branches of the ANC. Link yourselves together, from factory to factory, area to area, and eventually region to region. Demand of the ANC leadership: No retreat from the Freedom Charter. No compromise over democracy or workers’ rights. For workers’ power, national liberation and socialism.”