LATIN AMERICA / SOUTH AFRICA ence of the M-19 in Colombia, an exguerilla organization whose presidential candidate Navarro Wolf has accepted the post of Minister of Health in the new government of Gaviria.
Question of armed struggle reassessed
Others saw a more profound meaning - the Left had come to the end of a time when it saw the revolution as a confrontation between two camps or blocs. The collapse of the "socialist camp" has affected not only the Left's strategy bu also its vision of practical politics as well. Nobody wants to be identified any more with the bureaucratic deviations of the so-called countries of "really-existing socialism." The question of armed strug gle — in many respects a reaction to the militarism of the state - has also been approached differently; such a decision cannot be the authoritarian decision of a small group of courageous militants, it must have legitimacy based on the democratic sentiments of the population.
The turn of the wheel has also affected organizations that are not engaged in armed struggle. The Brazilian PT, the Peruvian United Mariateguist Party (PUM), the Uruguayan Tupamaros and the Mexican PRT are at a crossroads. How to combine the the struggle in the institutional framework and a revolutionary strategy for social transformation?
The question of the development of people's power is a fundamental part of a resolution of this contradiction, since it rejects neither institutional participation nor the development of armed struggle. Popular power is a school of revolutionary strategy, taking up the struggle for reforms as a way of preparing for power; it struggles for a model of democratic socialism while educating the masses in democratic participation in the capitalist framework. There are some dangers in this line - including the confusion of popular power and charity — a traditional mistake on the Latin American Left.
Some present compared the Sao Paolo meeting to the experience of the Latin American Organization of Solidarity (OLAS - An anti-imperialist front founded in the 1960s under Cuban influence)..
However there are two very important differences. Firstly, the Left does not today have a model, such as Cuba was at the time, which dominates its political and theoretical considerations. Furthermore this meeting reflected the pluralism of a revolutionary thought that wants now to break with all dogmatism. This is the consequence of the appearance of a New Left on our continent. The gathering was thus a rejuvenating experience in the middle of the crisis of the international socialist left. *
Defend Mexican Trotskylsts — and free elections!
FOUR MEMBERS of the Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores (Revolutionary Workers' Party, PRT, the Mexican section of the Fourth
International) were murdered on August 18 in Jolalpan in the state of Puebla, while defending the Jolalpan town hall. Those directly responsible for these killings are armed groups of the Partido Revolucionarlo
Institutional (PRI), the party that has ruled Mexico for 70 years.
The town council of Jolalpan was won in the local elections by a slate Including members of the PRT. The new council took over on February 15. This victory was formally recognized by the Electoral College of the Local Chamber of Deputles, as well as by the state government author!ties, Since the day the new council took office, which was carried out in a peaceful and legal way, a group of PRI members stationed themselves at the entrances to the townhall, trying to block the town council from functioning Throughout this time, they have been mounting all sorts of provocations, which culminated in the August 16 clash.
For their part, the authoritles of the state of Puebla have not only not apprehended those responsible for the PRI attack, but have arrested other PRT comrades, who at at this writing remain in prison. The clash was not, as the Puebla government represents It, the result of a conflict of armed groups of both partles (the PRI and PRT), but an attack by an armed PRI group against the legally constituted municipal authoritles. Its purpose, therefore, is to oust the people 's elected representatives by maneuvers clothed in a false appearance of legality overriding the will of the people of Jolalpan. We appeal to all democratic and progressive forces to send telegrams of protest and support for the Mexican PRT. They should be sent to Marlano Pina Olaya, Constitutional Government of the State of Puebla, Palacio de Gobierno, Puebla, Puebla, Mexico. Coples should be sent to 14 the PRT via Edgardo Sánchez Ramírez, Avenida Xola 181, Colonia Ala-
Gmos, C.P. 03400, Mexico, DF, Mexico. International Viewpoint #190 • September 17, 1990
South
Africa and socialism
WOSA (Workers Organization for Socialist Action) was founded a few months ago by the fusion of several groups of the socialist left (see IV
184). It has a national
Implantation and intervenes in the mass movement in a variety of ways. We publish below extracts of a "self-interview" in which the
WOSA leadership explains Its views. The interview is taken from Workers Voice, WOSA's theoretical review.
SWOSA a vanguard party of the working class that seeks to rival the South African Communist Party (SACP)?
We don't believe that organizations can proclaim themselves as the leaders and vanguard of the working class. This is earned in the struggle itself. WOSA hopes that it can gain influence in the workers movement not by substituting for the working class. We do not proclaim that we have all the answers and denounce those we disagree with.
We will patiently but resolutely argue our politics before the workers, defend their struggles and attempt to lead them in a direction that strengthens them. It is inevitable that WOSA and SACP will compete for the allegiance of the working class to their different policies and programmes. The SACP has, as a result of its alliance with the African National Congress (ANC), its support (material as well as moral) for the armed struggle and its relationship with the heirs of the great Russian Revolution, won tremendous popular support. As such the SACP plays an important role in our struggle. WOSA will support the SACP where it strengthens the position of the working class and will join it in a united front manner to build the unity of the working class. • Is the formation of the WOSA not a
potentially divisive step? No! The idea that political pluralism equals division is nonsense and thankfully now completely discredited with the collapse of Stalinism. Since 1928 when the Communist Party of South Africa, as it was called then, adopted the slogan of a Native Republic and developed the two stage theory, there have been essentially two traditions in the workers movement. On the one hand, was the Stalinist view, held by the SACP, that our struggle is firstly directed against national oppres sion or apartheid and that only once apartheid has been destroyed can we begin a struggle for socialism. On the other hand was the view that capitalism has been built on the foundations of national oppression. Therefore in order to secure national liberation a combined, permanent struggle against national oppression and capitalism is needed. This will put in place a workers state. WOSA seeks to represent the second view.... • What is WOSA's position on negotiations?
We believe that these negotiations between the government and sections of the liberation movement will not succeed in delivering the central demand of our struggle, i.e. full and equal democratic rights for all. This will amount to a handing over of power to the majority, which the government is dead against.
For the government, the strategy of negotiations represents a decisive initiative to win time and space to extract itself from the economic, social and political crisis that the system of apartheid is in.
Although the regime faces a deep economic crisis which makes it vulnerable to international pressure, power is firmly entrenched in their hands. State institutions rest on the military, police and the electoral support of the majority of the whites. This the government is still able to rely on.
While the government is prepared to get rid of most of the racial laws on the statute books, such as the Group Areas Act and even the Populations Registration Act, they are not ready to hand over power to the majority. The government could reintegrate the bantustans into South Africa and may even formally introduce some form of universal franchise. However the government will not grant majority rule.
They will insist on some form of minority rights or veto for the whites. This is necessary to ensure not only that economic wealth remains in the hands of the small minority of whites, but also that material privileges are maintained for whites as a whole.
If the ruling white National Party (NP)
is not going to break its pact with the white electorate, it follows that negotiations between the ANC and the government will not deliver a unitary, non-racial democratic South Africa in the current period.
SOUTH AFRICA The township war and the negotiations WITHIN a few days the civil war in Natal, which has been going on now for several years, has spread to a whole serles of black townships in the suburbs of Johannesburg. Groups of Zulus organized in the Inkatha party have been clashing with sections of the population, primarily young people, who support the progressive movements. above all the African National Congress (ANC). The government has profited from these clashes to impose a state of emergency on the black townships of Transvaal. These terrible events are the fruit of a long process of deterioration of the political scene, and implicate all its major actors
Firstly Inkatha, the single party led by Chief Buthelezi which rules over the Bantustan of Kwazulu In Natal. This movement appears as a reactionary "tribal" force, But it also expresses the specific political and social interests of the Zulu elites, who are in favour of a liberal desegregation of the country. Inkatha manipulates a significant proportion of the Zulu population in inter-ethnic conflicts, but also wants to play on the national scene. This is why Buthelezi has been regularly received abroad as a national political leader, notably by Thatcher and the American administration.
The South African government for its part has used Buthelezi for a long time. But since the opening of the negotiations with the ANC It has had an additional Interest in showing that the blacks are divided among themselves, according to the logic of the racial ideology. The permanent complicity of the South African police with the Inkatha armed groups Is an open secret. But now the situation has got so out of control that the government Itself needs to cool things down. Its oblective is to engage in constitutional negotlations not only with the ANC but also with the representatives of the Bantustans, such as Buthelezl. Mandela's movement has been visibly taken by surprise by the turn of events, when it had been expecting a slow process of negotlation and compromise. Their new strategy seems now to have been dictated by a certain Impatience — the shortcut of negotlations for a "post-apartheid South Africa" has been revealed as a trap and a dead-end. The regime is increasing Its pressure and using the threat of repression as blackmail. in these conditions the ANC will have to choose between remobilization and increasingly risky compromises
This Is amply demonstrated when we see how personalities created by the racial system have found themselves pushed to the front. Not only Buthelezi, but also General Holomisa, the "progressive" leader of the Transkel bantustan, speaking in the name of the Xhosa population.
The present confusion is also partly caused by the ANC's recent policy of unreserved entente with the authorities, to the point where it has been putting Itself forward as co-responsible for the reform process. The township youth, which is not very politicized, but has become used to hearing that liberation would be achieved through armed struggle, is in no way ready to appreclate the finer points of understand what Mandela is up to when he demands that the white army should Intervene to stop the Inkatha attacks, or when the ANC meets officers of the army to discuss the army's future. It is thus not at all certain that the ANC today has the means to control parts of the township youth.
All this will not strengthen the workers' movement. It has already been subjected to important pressures to line up behind the secret negotiations, and there is a risk of deepening internal divisions.
Many militants are expecting the South African Communist Party - which Is centrally Involved in the ANC — to provide an alternative policy. A sign of this is the fact that leaders of the trade union left such as Moses Mayekiso have joined the CP. But the CP Is going to have a hard job reconciling Its soclalist professions of falth with its unconditional defence of the ANC's current line and its sectarian 15
Polloyee towards other currents on the left. * reflexes towaras otner citerts on te eu September 17, 1990 • #190 International Viewpoint
SOUTH AFRICA
WOSA absolutely rejects any settlement which offers "universal franchise" (as proposed by De Klerk) whilst still maintaining white privilege in any form. We support unconditionally the demand for one person one vote in a unitary non-racial South Africa/Azania.
Further than that, only when ownership and democratic control of the wealth of our society is in the hands of the majority, can we tackle the fundamental problems of poverty and social inequality for all. But historical experience shows that the owners and controllers of wealth do not "negotiate" away their ruling position. The majority must seize back the wealth they have created. We stand a long way from this situation and therefore believe in maximum discussion and debate and a democratic process of decision-making on all items negotiated in the name of the people of South Africa to ensure that the struggles of the people are not compromised.
As part of this process of democratic debate, we call for a Constituent Assembly based on universal franchise. Before that happens, NO organization can claim the right to negotiate with the government on OUR behalf and speak in the name of ALL of us. • In the light of what has happened in Eastern Europe how does WOSA see the future of socialism?
A view of the strike wave
SOME 1.2 million working days were lost during the first half of 1990, almost three times the number of days lost in the same period in 1989 (463,864), and five times the figure for the second half of 1988(226,614). These figures do not include the approximately 3 million workers who stayed away on July 2 to protest against the violence in Natal.... • Workers are using the new political space to organize themselves, even in completely new sectors. New areas of organization are usually militant....
• All the sectors that have had protracted legal wage strikes are low-wage sectors....
• Employers generally seem more cautious than in previous years, particularly of dismissals in national strikes. However, they are sitting out strikes, and workers are coming out of protracted strikes with little or no material gain.
In the new political climate, unions are already under pressure from employers and the media to negotiate "reasonably" and to take responsibility for the state of the economy.
• The level of unemployment is growing, as is the gap between the unemployed on the one hand and the employed, organized working class on the other. This is one of the root causes of the violence in Natal and elsewhere.
Employers are using scabs, and often along racial/ethnic lines.....
From the unions' perspective, there are enormous new organizational tasks in a situation of growing unemployment and economic stagnation. On the one hand, the possibilities of making inroads into the prerogatives of capital, and of deepening the imprint of the working class on the struggle for democracy, have increased enormously.
While COSATU is best placed to take advantage of this new situation, its left critics are sceptical. They argue that a national general strike to further both economic and political demands of workers is now on the cards, but that
COSATU is holding workers back, given their desire not to upset the ANC's plans for a peaceful, negotiated settlement.
(from an article by Renée Roux in South African Labour Bulletin, August
1990).
As a political tendency we always warned against equating socialism with what existed in Eastern Europe, China and the USA. We stood by the understanding that socialism meant an even more democratic society than what exists in the most democratic of capitalist states.
You see, we believe that it is necessary to renew the concept of socialism. There cannot be the slightest doubt that for more than 150 years there was a consistent definition of socialism, among the overwhelming majority of Marxist and non-Marxist socialists alike, which did not equate socialism with the disappearance of private ownership of the means of production.
Socialism meant for all these scholars and political agitators a society qualitatively superior to capitalism in terms of average standard of living, of social equality, of human freedom (including political freedom and civil rights), of pluralistic democracy and cultural diversity and of the weakening of institutic- alized authority (the state, the bureaucracy and its "secular arm"'). For Marxists that implied a withering away of commodity production, of market economy, of social classes and of the state, in short it meant a classless society.
Only in the late twenties and early thirties was that consensus broken in favour of a radically reductionist definition of socialism, identifying that new social sys16 in the mean abo product pi. thatopert tem with the abolition of private property tionist definition was produced by Stalin.
In Eastern Europe (and in China to a more limited extent) what occurred were indeed mass uprisings of the workers and youth. That they have taken on a direction of restoring capitalism can be understood when one examines the consequence of 40 years of Stalinist rule that has led to these economies being wrecked, to them lagging far behind the West European economies and to the continued fall in the living standards of the people. It is understandable therefore that the masses identify prosperity with the market.
If we take this together with the way the Communist regimes acted to depoliticize the people as a means of retaining their control (as can be seen by the ease with which the Hungarians have embraced South Africa) then we can realize the extent to which the cause of socialism has been damaged in the short term. However in the medium term we believe that the future of socialism is assured. This is not simply because of the continued existence of revolutionary socialist organizations in most parts of the world. It is mainly because of the continued class struggle that arises out of the inherent contradictions of capitalism, [including] the periodic attacks on wages, the sackings of millions of workers in the interests of profits, [and] the growth of social inequality to the point that it provokes mass revolts.
• What are the major challenges and tasks confronting WOSA?
We believe that our first task is to elaborate an alternative strategy to that of negotiations. It is not enough to denounce those who seek to resolve the conflict in South Africa if we are unable to chart a clear alternative. For us this means putting perspectives forward that aim at strengthening the strategic position of the working class. To take the question of the education crisis, for example, it means not only encouraging the students to go back to school, as all now agree. But it also means winning in the school the space for the operation of democratic SRCs and PTSAs (bodies representative of students, teachers and the community) that can campaign against all the inequities of bantu education and can put forward alternative methods of education - non-racist and non-sexist education.
Of course all this is meaningless if we are unable to develop strong roots in the working class. For us this means not only proclaiming that we defend working class politics but to be an organization of the workers. We see that the only means of establishing an influence amongst the working class is by defending their mass organizations and supporting their struggles.
Here, we see defending the independence of the trade union movement as crucial. The decision by the COSATU
International Viewpoint #190 • September 17, 1990
(Congress of South African Trade Unions)
leadership to form a strategic alliance much like the relationship between the
Congress Alliance and the SACTU (South
African Congress of Trade Unions)
presents a great danger. Again we don't see defending the independence of the trade union movement by denouncing the leadership of COSATU, NACT (National Congress of Trade Unions) and so on.
We will attempt to do this by supporting