SOUTH AFRICA Negotiations and Reorientations THINGS are changing very quickly in South Africa. Although nobody can say precisely how the accumulating contradictions will be resolved, the negotiations between the ANC and the government are continuing and becoming more serious. We have previously explained in these columns the national and international reasons for the sudden turnaround. The new policy of the Soviet Union combined with the rise in the mass movement, the government's desire and need to profoundly change social relations, and, finally, the ANC's decision to accept the given framework, are the main factors in the making of the new situation. PETER BLUMER part of the ANC leadership. In Europe, Nelson Mandela demanded the continuation of economic sanctions to put pressure on the regime. At the same time he appealed for offers of investment and aid to help the development of a new South Africa and a redistribution of wealth in favour of the blacks, as an alternative to state intervention. It is said that inside South Africa he is playing the card of social appeasement. . Does it still have to be proved that what the AN is interested in today is political rights and institutions rather than socio-economic transformations — as the Freedom Charter itself states??
We are thus seeing a new political development within the liberation movement — the social project is kept vague and fluid at the very moment when full-scale constitutional negotiations are underway. This situation is evidently not due to chance. The discussions in course are in no way the last step before the "victory" as we might be led to believe by a number of declarations from the leadership of the mass movement. Thus far all of the compromises have been made by the ANC rather than the government -whose hand did not have to be forced to suppress petty apartheid. Reforms accelerated by new world situation
As De Klerk made quite clear in his speech of February 2, the acceleration of the reforms is permitted by a number of guarantees, including the new world situation. Thus what is at hand is a very profound reform of the state and the forms of social control, and not the transformation of South African socio-economic relations. Apartheid may disappear, but the mechanisms of "racial capitalism" will remain, guaranteeing the white community its control of the means of production, and maintaining something very similar to the present racial and social divisions through inequalities of income.
Negotiations will centre on electoral system
The negotiations between the regime and the ANC will be over the electoral system and its possible projection in parliamentary and governmental terms. A possible solution would be a stage by stage transition (the principle of an interim government has already been accepted by the ANC) and a very complicated electoral system that would satisfy both the ANC's demand for "one person, one vote" and the concer of the regime to weight the "white vote" in relation to the "black vote"
There are several unknown factors remaining. The first is the radicalization of the fascist extreme right, around the Movement of Afrikaner Resistance (AWB), led by Eugene Terreblanche, and the Conservative Party, currently the main opposition party in parliament. We will 1. One of apartheid's grand plans was to make all the Bantustans into "independent" states, giving a definitive justification to the theory of the separate development of the races. 2. A strike at a brewery in the Cape at the end of 1989 saw the MDM (the COSATU and United Democratic Front leaderships) intervene to negotiate over the heads of the union in the plant. More recently, Nelson Mandela intervened in a healthworkers union (NEHAVU) to bring a strike to an end. And the MDM intervened during the Welkom events in favour of an end to a consumer boycott of white businesses. 3. The Freedom Charter, the ANC's historic programme, contains a proposal for sweeping nationalization under the title "the people shall share in the country's wealth." July 2, 1990 • #188 International Viewpoint
SOUTH AFRICA have to wait and see up to what point the government compromises with these forces and whether it will be ready to repress them. The events in the mining town of
Welkom, where, on May 16, murderous clashes took place between black miners and white supervisors, give some indications of what the future may hold. In this town, the far right, which is very organized and well established, has set up a
4,000 strong armed militia, which the government has been unable to dissolve.
There has been no attempt to bring the leaders of this fascist underworld to justice. The Broederbond, a sort of Afrikaner freemasonry, which is very influential, was won over to reformism several years ago. It is now proposing an
"Afrikaner conference" to calm things down. This shows that, whatever the openings to the ANC, the regime still has to respond to the pressure from the far right in one way or another. The government will men workers' rights find it hard to keep its balance.
Civil war in Natal continues
The other big problem is
The other big problem is
Worr that of the civil war in Natal between the supporters of the reactionary Zulu movement,
TWE d recreation rights
Inkatha, and youth sympathetic to the ANC. Nelson
Mandela's appeals for an end to this endless and murderous confrontation have had no effect. The government is hoping to gain some purhoping to gain some pur-
Parental and chase on the situation by presenting the army as a pacifying element and using the Inkatha leader Buthelezi as a firm link in the negotiaand even among whites. The Congress is capable of drawing support from a very wide social spectrum, which will present new problems in terms of leadership and where the social centre of gravity should be. The ANC is today in a position to build a real implantation amongst the non-white employers, throughout the middle classes and among the traditional African notables. This will provide a counter pressure to that coming from the workers and popular layers.
In the shadow of the ANC, the Communist Party is set to strengthen its influence in the union movement and among youth. The SACP hopes to combine its "agreement" with the rest of the ANC leadership
• Rights for economic planning FORWARD TO TH WORKERS' CHARTEL
WORKERS DECIDE YOUR FUTURE! WE DEMAND BARGAININ TO WOMEN STRIKE WORKERS ORGANIZ
WIll DEMAND
LIVING WAGE tions.
A final and decisive aspect
QUESTIONNAIRE.
to the burning problems or changes going on within the liberation movement. The strike movement is still at a high level and the new conjuncture has without doubt given renewed vigour to the political debate in the mass organizations. The direction of the negotiations, the autonomy of the ANC in relation to them, the future of the workers' struggles, and trade union independence are at the heart of the debates. In this framework strategies and programmes are being rediscussed and redefined, giving glimpses of the rapid changes in the political profiles of various currents and organizations.
The present opening is allowing all the currents to massively increase their direct influence. This means first of all the ANC, 22 which is going to pick up support among black workers and the petit bourgeoisie, International Viewpoint #188 • July 2, 1990
• Basic worker rights • Trade union rights with a specific appeal to the workers and unions. The party is well aware that it is going to get increasingly difficult to keep a balance between support for the line of the ANC, which is today openly reformist, and its own professions of faith in favour of socialism. Its leader, Joe Slovo, recently gave an even more explicit than usual description of the ANC-CP schema:
"We need now to build an ANC of massive strength and every party militant must help to make this a reality. In the building of a mass-based ANC it is inevitable that some strata with their own agenda will flock into its ranks and will, consciously or otherwise, seek to steer it away from its working class bias. We should be ready for an inevitable sharpening of inter-class ideological conflict in the run-up to victory and its immediate aftermath. This is not an argument for narrowing the base of the ANC. It is an argument for consolidating and massively extending our party and the trade union movement as independent forces and part of the liberation alliance."
For its part, the Pan Africanist Congress has benefited somewhat from the doubts and resentments aroused by the ANC/ government negotiations. The PAC has publicly opposed these discussions, but has shown itself incapable of presenting a clear strategic alternative in terms of building a mass movement. The
PAC, which has little understanding of how to enter into debate and joint work with the large layers under ANC influence, finds itself reduced to denunciations.
Far left could expand
Basic worker rights influence
The far left may find space to grow if it can avoid the PAC's mistakes and take into account the fact that the majority of the unions and popular movements unions and popular movements today controlled by the are
ANC and the SACP. The scale
Tra
THE rade union rights of the debates inside these latter as well as the continuation of a high level of struggle provide the opportunity for the far left to go beyond propaganda and act as a new component of the political scene, giving answers to the burning problems of the
Political rights day.
The debates in the union movement as well as in the
Communist Party vividly show the stakes and their relation to the new international situation.
The SACP leader Joe Slovo has been giving many interviews both in South Africa and abroad. The variation in what he says, depending on who he is speaking to, shows that the party has also decided to address a very wide range of audiences. It is also notable that, overall, the interviews that he has given in Britain are less radical than those in which he addresses the militant currents in South Africa. However let us begin by looking at Slovo in his most
4. See /V 179.
5. South African Labour Bulletin, Johannesburg, May
1990.
6. See notably Marxism Today, London, March 1990.
7. The SACP remains faithful to its old Stalinist positions on the necessary stage of a "democratic state"
before the struggle for socialism is posed. For several years, faced with the rise of socialist ideas amongst young people and the union movement, Joe Slovo evoked the absence of a "Chinese wall" between the two revolutions.
RIGHT TO COLLECT
PUT YOUR DEMANDS ON THE
CONTACT YOUR
UNION OFFICE.
SACP leader assesses Stalinism
JOE SLOVO has published a sell-critical balance sheet of Stalinism entitled "Has socialism failed?" It has been presented as a personal contribution "approved for publication" by the party. It is a very important text, since the communist leader returns to the past errors of his party with regard to the USSR, the balance-sheet of the crimes of Stalinism and the complicity of those who did not see or want to see. One part of the text is dedicated to the defence of socialism.
This pamphlet is worth a few remarks. In his balance-sheet, Slovo talka of "distortions" in the functioning of socialism. Although he describes the extent and horror of these "defarmations", he does not draw any conclusions about the existence of a particular political and social regime in the USSR, that is, the rule of the bureaucracy. This affects the analysis of the present events in the Soviet
Union as well as a thorough balance-sheet of Stalinism.
He also leaves out any reference to the world Stalinist movement, in which his own organization had fully participated. This leads him to a total silence on the political theories of Stalinism which parties such as his own are reproducing to this day. Finally, he gives much space to the acceptance of multi-partyism in a socialist society....However this is done to show that he is not opposed to other social classes having their own political representation. As for the working class, however, it has only one party - the Communist
Party, led by Joe Slovo! This is a really important document. It recognizes many truths that the SACP has denounced with violence for years, If thus offers a good basis for discussing with the militants of this party, It can also be tested against what actually happens on the ground, now that Slovo has announced that it is necessary to end the sectarianism and exclusions of the past. *
SOUTH AFRICA order that the fruits of its liberation are not confiscated by an exploiting class of another colour."
Ambiguity in Slovo's ideas
One of the main ambiguities of Joe Slovo's often contradictory ideas is that he uses the current experience of the application of market mechanisms in the Soviet economy to justify his position on the mixed economy. But whatever opinion one has on the reforms in the USSR there is an immense difference on this point between a country where there is no bourgeoisie, nor a capital nor a labour market, and a country like South Africa, where the economy is dominated by six or seven big companies and a big bourgeoisie. What comparison can there be between these two situations in a theoretical debate?
Via such confusions, the SACP is in the process of carrying through a fundamental political reorientation within the leadership of COSATU, in particular in the trade union left. A type of new realism is progressively winning over some leading circles in the unions, notably those who, a short while ago, were calling for class independence and socialism. The confusion reaches its height when, in these circles, the idea that access to "power" is coming shortly fuses with the acceptance of the given framework of negotiations and compromises, or when a critique of command planning (confused with any sort of national and centralized planning) mingles with a slide towards forms of co-management in the minds of currents who have traditionally fought for workers' control.®
Rapprochement between
COSATU left and SACP
The spectacular rapprochement between the COSATU left and the SACP is often presented as the result of the destalinization of the latter. In reality what is involved is a much more complex evolution, through which certain of the main metalworkers union leaders seem to have rendered the impasse in which they have found themselves into a grand theory.? Confronted by the ANC's hegemony and the deterioration in the level of activity of 8. For example, Bernie Fanaroff, one of the metalworkers' leaders, explained that, taking account of the failure of "command planning" in Eastem Europe "the workers in factories and businesses [in South Africa]...can push their bosses to give subsidies and grants to improve the housing and education system; they can also push businessmen to put pressure on the state to spend more resources in these areas." Weekly Mail, Johannesburg March 9, 1990. 9. Alec Erwin, one of the main leaders of the metalworkers and of COSATU writes: "Command planning can achieve structural change but causes stagnation in productivity and living standards; the market imposes an efficiency discipline on producers and increases variety and quality if carefully managed". . "Finally, economic restructuring will have to go hand-in-hand with building a new democratic state in South Afri-
23 ca...Our democratic future depends on our own perestroika." Weekly Mail, Johannesburg, March 30, 1990. July 2; 1990 • #188 International Viewpoint developed and left-wing guise. An interview in South Africa Labour Bulletin of May 1990 gives the flavour. In this review, which is basically aimed at very politicized left-wing circles, Joe Slovo presents the current political processes as constituting the phase of the "national democratic revolution"? The way in which he approaches present tasks implies the idea that a "victory" is on the order of the day, echoing declarations made in the union movement and parts of the ANC explaining that "we must prepare ourselves to govern". Thus all the themes treated, from democracy to economic reforms are dealt with as if there was a debate on the tasks of the national democratic revolution - in total contrast with what Mandela has been saying and the explicit content of the official negotiations. The ideas of the communist leader must thus remain extremely abstract since they do not seem in any way to start from the real relation of forces and the concrete situation.
Slovo refers to "People's
State"
Like all the COSATU (Confederation of South African Trade Unions) leaders, Slovo uses the term "post-apartheid state". At the same time, he spells out that this state could and should be a "People's State" -something very rarely made public by the SACP. He then embarks on an interesting description of an uninterrupted transition to socialism.
When the journalist takes up the question of nationalization Slovo first takes the precaution of correctly pointing out that a simple transfer of property is not the end of the matter. But he adds: "It must be able to achieve effective control over the direction of the economy, for the purpose of beginning to redistribute wealth." Further on, he returns to the point: "If capital says: 'right, we are no longer prepared to invest because of the social direction you are following,' we can neither ignore the fact, nor can we allow it to dominate our policies."
This, it appears, should convince those who have, for a long time, been asking the SACP to spell out the social and political content of the transition and what the party calls the national democratic stage....The problem is that Slovo also has another set of proposals, which amount to a new theory of the "mixed economy". Thus in the British eurocommunist journal, Marxism Today he says: "We must accept an historic truth, which was ignored in many of the socialist countries, that there is no Chinese wall between systems which succeed one another...." And in the French daily Libération: "There are a lot of clichés about the question of nationalization. It is necessary to redistribute the riches in our countries. But there can be no policy on redistribution without compensation. Even with regard to the sectors of the public economy that are privatized. The important thing is that the working class reinforces itself in an organized way in
SOUTH AFRICA / AROUND THE the unions, they are tending to pass from understandable tactical preoccupations to political convictions largely similar to those of the CP.
These ideas are going to run up against two problems. The first is that of the real - as opposed to pretended - political line of the CP with regard to the ANC. The CP explains, in effect, that in its struggle for a socialist society it is first necessary to go through a stage during which the big democratic and national questions are resolved. It is in the name of this stage that it is engaging through and alongside the ANC, and taking full responsibility for, the course of the negotiations.
Now, there will very quickly arise a contradiction between the theory of the full and complete resolution of the democratic and national tasks by a "post-apartheid state" and the coming compromise with the existing regime. Without radically reducing the concept of democracy it is hard to see how the current discussions can lead to an authentic solution to the big democratic and national demands, including putting an end to racial discrimination and exclusion through poverty.
Problems of democracy in workers' movement
The other problem which will confront the COSATU union leaderships is the growing deficit in democracy inside the workers' movement itself. There has been a progressive withering away of the system of control from below and of shop stewards' organization. The financial independence of COSATU is very limited in this respect. And the more political or strategic a decision is, the more certain it is that it will be taken at the top. This was where the decision was taken that the union leaderships should take part in the official negotiations and situate itself in a "strategic alliance" with the AN and SACP.
This raises a very serious problem of union independence, and it is thus a further contradiction for the CP who claim that their raison d'etre is to defend the independence of the working class in the political battles underway.
In general the width of the gulf between the professions of faith in the imminent victory of the liberation movement and the extreme realism of the concrete proposals is astonishing. This is the case, for example, with the unions' project for a Workers' Charter. This debate will reach its culmination in September with a congress bringing together the two main confederations, COSATU and NACTU.
In COSATU today the debate with the rank-and-file over the elaboration of the Workers' Charter amounts to a five-part questionnaire concerning questions 24 to do with any project for a different soci- which, however important, have nothing International Viewpoint #188 • July 2, 1990
WORLD ety.1° At the start it was the union left that put forward this project in order to enter into a debate on the perspective of an independent workers struggle against capitalism.
Political break with capitalism not posed
All this has nothing to do with the idea of equipping the working class with a programme starting from immediate demands and going on to sketch out an anti-capitalist project. It is rather a question of drafting a labour code — a very democratic one, but without posing any political break with the capitalist organization of the enterprises and labour market.
Finally even the content of the Freedom Charter is being called into question. The debate on nationalization, in which Mandela himself took part, is indicative. On May 23, in front of several hundred businessmen he stated in substance that "nationalization and redistribution" are not the only economic words in the ANC's vocabulary.
According to him, the country should draw its inspiration from the anti-trust laws in force in the United States and Britain to avoid concentrations of economic power. Participation in the administrative councils of the enterprises by directors named by the government would also be a possible option for the state.
The perspective of a sweeping nationalization of the big trusts has thus been abandoned. For the ANC leader the problem bears less on the economic mechanisms than on the composition of the government. The principle of a government where the AN and De Klerk's National Party would openly cohabit is now openly accepted.
How, in this case, can one imagine the near future in terms of the "transition" and victory of the "national democratic revolution"? *
N INJURY ONE ALL INJURY TO 10. The questionnaire sent to the rank-and-file to formulate this Charter talks of the rights of the workers (conditions of work, social security and so on), union rights (negotiations and strikes), the rights and protection of women, family assistance and political rights, essentially the independence of the unions from the state. Of 24 questions, only one asks, in a very general manner, "What political rights should workers have?"
ARGENTINA Mayday against Menem THE Argentinian left has just scored a success against Peronism, through the organization of a united demonstration which brought 100,000 people together in Buenos Aires on May 1, at the appeal of the United Left coalition (whose components include in particular the Movement Towards Socialism — MAS, an organization of Morenist origin which had two deputies elected at the last elections in 1989 — and the Revolutionary Front of National Liberation — FRAL, a Communist Party front), with the participation of organizations of the independent left.
Despite the criticisms made of the government's policy by certain bureaucrats of the General Confederation of Workers (CGT, led by the Peronists), the latter did not appeal to their supporters to demonstrate on May 1, for fear of being dwarfed by the mobilization of the left.
Since the end of the dictatorship, Argentina has experienced an unprecedented crisis. There are now 2 million unemployed, 45% of the inhabitants of the capital are living in a state of poverty, and 1.2 million children are suffering from malnutrition. Successive devaluations have not arrested inflation. After having pardoned all soldiers guilty of violations of human rights under the dictatorship, Menem, a good pupil of the International Monetary Fund, has undertaken a sweeping privatization program (including railways and telecommunications) and has threatened to forbid strikes in the public sector.
On May 1, however the left showed that it was capable of competing with Peronism in the workers' movement, and it has taken a big step forward.* FRANCE The deconcentration of capital? LONG term changes in the structure of employment in numerous European coun tries underline certain problems of organization for the workers' movement. Industrial restructuring and changes in the labour market are favouring an erosion of the workforce in the big industrial and commercial workplaces. In other words, the growth of employment in small firms rather than big leads to a greater dispersion of the workforce, and often to a lowering of collective consciousness and means of organization.