The Transition in South Africa, by Carl Brecker

by Charlie van Gelderen · International Viewpoint No. 279, July 1996 · p 35 · 332 words

Where this article begins and ends was corrected by hand; the text itself is still machine-read: on 3 November 2026 the rest of this note on Carl Brecker's The Transition in South Africa, which the split had put at the top of News Reports, was brought back. Signed '[CvG, JD]' (read from the scan 3 Nov 2026, p.35), with the pamphlet 'from C. Van Gelderen, 40 St. Vincent's Close, Girton'; CvG is Charlie van Gelderen; JD, the co-signer, is not identified and is not credited. Retitled 4 November 2026: one review under the generic heading 'book notes'; the review's own heading is 'The Transition in South Africa by Carl Brecker (1996)'

book notes

The Transition in South Africa by Carl Brecker (1996)

Brecker proposes a Marxist analysis of the current situation in post-apartheid South Africa, just over a year after the historic election which gave the African National Congress (ANC) and its allies 82% of the vote and made former Robben Island prisoner, Nelson Mandela, President.

Why have things gone wrong?, Brecker asks. "Why is it that a government which contains leading members of the Communist Party the COSATU trade union federation is not able to satisfy the elementary needs of the masses, like decent housing and education?"

Brecker places the blame for the failure of the ANC-led revolution on the compromise with the former whites-only goverment and other bourgeois parties, including Buthelezi's Inkatha Freedom Party. This compromise was brokered principally by the late SACP leader Joe Slovo.

The SACP's strategy, Brecker argues, flows from its subservience to the idea that the national democratic revolution was a necessary first step which could not be stepped over but, if enforced by a revolutionary subject, could create a "revolutionary democracy" somewhere between a bourgeois state and a more egalitarian society. In reality, the "non-capitalist" monster in southern Africa looks suspıciously like... unbridled capitalism.

Brecker re-states the revolutionary left argument for "permanent revolution." *Although the struggle would begin on the terrain of democratic revolution it would, of necessity, in order to achieve its democratic goals against an intransigent bourgeoisie transform into socialist revolution. Given the underdevelopment character of Apartheid capitalism, and the urgent social needs of the black majority, the mass demand for immediate solutions to their urgent problems land, health, housing, jobs, etc.) could not be met without dispossessing the bourgeoisie. This would be a combined and uninterrupted revolution." The struggle for socialism was, in this sense, very much on the agenda at the moment of "transition."

[CvG, JD] Cost: $2.50 (plus 10% postage and packing for orders of less than five copies.) from. Van Gelderen, 40 St. Vincent's Close, Girton, Cambridge CB3 OPE, Britain.