The South African Working Class

and the

National Democratic Revolution

1988

By Joe Slovo,

General Secretary South African Communist Party

Umsebenzi Discussion Pamphlet

Published by the South African Communist Party

1. Introduction

The increased tempo of struggle in our country in the last few years has stimulated a
great deal of theoretical debate and political discussion among those in the very front
line of the upsurge. Workers in the factories, youth in the townships, mass and
underground activists, radical intellectuals, cadres of Umkhonto we Sizwe, militants at
all levels are seeking answers to the pressing strategic, tactical and organisational
questions of the day. Increasing numbers of our people understand the essence of Lenin's
political maxim: Without revolutionary theory, there can be no real revolutionary
movement.

These discussions and debates keep coming back, in one way or another, to certain
fundamentals: class struggle and national struggle, the question of stages of struggle,
inter-class alliances, and the role of our working class in the liberation front. Many of
these debates are between people who share common starting points; a belief that national
domination is linked to capitalism and an acceptance of the goal of a socialist South
Africa. But there is not always clarity on the most effective tactical road towards this
goal.

A tendency, loosely described as 'workerism', denies that the main content of the
immediate conflict is national liberation which it regards as a diversion from the class
struggle. Even if it admits the relevance of national domination in the exploitative
processes, 'workerism' insists on a perspective of an immediate struggle for
socialism.

A transitional stage of struggle, involving inter-class alliances, is alleged to lead
to an abandonment of socialist perspectives and to a surrender of working class
leadership. The economic struggles between workers and bosses at the point of production
(which inevitably spill over into the broader political arena) is claimed to be the 'class
struggle'. This is sometimes coupled with a view that the trade union movement is the main
political representative of the working class.

A more sophisticated version of the left-workerist position has recently surfaced among
union-linked academics. This version concedes the need for inter-class alliances but puts
forward a view of working class political organisation more appropriate to a trade union
than a revolutionary political vanguard.

At the other end of this debate there are views which tend to erect a chinese wall
between the struggle for national liberation and social emancipation. Our struggle is
seen as 'bourgeois-democratic' in character so that the immediate agenda should not go
beyond the objective of a kind of 'de-raced' capitalism. According to this view there
will be time enough after apartheid is destroyed to then turn our attention to the
struggle for socialism. Hence there should be little talk of our ultimate socialist
objectives. The working class should not insist on the inclusion of radical social
measures as part of the immediate agenda because that would risk frightening away
potential allies against apartheid.

Topical interest in the political shape and content of post-apartheid society has also
brought into focus the question of group rights as opposed, or additional, to individual
rights. The racists, of course, exploit 'group rights' and 'multi-nationalism' as a
lifeline to their continued domination. But this does not dispose of the question as to
whether there is a legitimate basis for a multinational framework in a future people's
South Africa.

The existence of cultural and ethnic diversity side by side with unifying
processes, has aroused friendly queries on our approach to the national question. Do we
believe that our peoples already constitute one nation? If not, are they (or should they
be) moving towards single or separate nationhood? What is the future of the cultural and
linguistic diversity and how do we cater for this diversity within the framework of a
unitary state?

From some of our left-wing critics comes the charge that our thesis of colonialism of a
special type necessarily implies that there are two nations in South Africa - the
oppressor (white) and the oppressed (black). A variant of this critique is that the
Freedom Charter hints at the existence of four nations when it talks of 'equal status' for
'all national groups and races'.

For South African communists the questions and debates we have mentioned above have not
arisen for the first time. For over 66 years we have attempted to find the answers and to
apply them in the actual arena of struggle. We do not claim that we have a monopoly of
wisdom. But, equipped with the theoretical tool of Marxism-Leninism and the inheritance of
an unmatched wealth of revolutionary experience, it is not immodest for us to assert that
our Party is uniquely qualified to help illuminate the correct analytical path. This is a
process which calls for both creativity and intellectual openness. It also requires a
continuing exchange of ideas not only within the ranks of the Party but also between us
and all non-Party serious revolutionary activists.

Genuine worries about some of our approaches and formulations (whether from a 'right'
or 'left' position) must be debated and not merely dismissed. In this spirit, then, we
proceed to consider the following:

• Class struggle and national struggle
• The stages of struggle
• Working class leadership
• The building of the South African nation

We hope that this pamphlet will help expand the discussion of the theoretical basis of
our revolutionary practice in the present phase of the struggle.

2. Class Struggle and National Struggle

The South African Communist Party, in its 1984 constitution, declares that its aim is
to lead the working class towards the strategic goal of establishing a socialist
republic 'and the more immediate aim of winning the objectives of the national
democratic revolution which is inseparably linked to it'.The constitution describes
the main content of the national democratic revolution as

'...the national liberation of the African people in particular, and the black people
in general, the destruction of the economic and political power of the racist ruling
class, and the establishment of one united state of people's power in which the working
class will be the dominant force and which will move uninterruptedly towards social
emancipation and the total abolition of exploitation of man by man'.

The national democratic revolution - the present stage of struggle in our country is a
revolution of the whole oppressed people. This does not mean that the oppressed
'people' can be regarded as a single or homogeneous entity. The main revolutionary camp in
the immediate struggle is made up of different classes and strata (overwhelmingly black)
which suffer varying forms and degrees of national oppression and economic exploitation.
The camp of those who benefit from, and support, national domination is also divided into
classes.

Some 'learned theorists' are continuously warning workers against talk of a 'revolution
of the whole oppressed people', accusing those who use such formulations of being
'populists' rather than revolutionaries. Let us hear Lenin on this question since he was
also in the habit of using the same words to describe the upsurge in Russia:

'Yes, the people's revolution. Social Democracy ... demands that this word shall
not be used to cover up failure to understand class antagonisms within the people ... However,
it does not divide the "people" into "classes" so that the advanced
class becomes locked up within itself ... the advanced class ... should fight with all the
greater energy and enthusiasm for the cause of the whole people, at the head of the whole
people' (Selected Works, Volume 1, p.503).

Of course, the long-term interests of the diverse classes and strata of the
revolutionary camp do not necessarily coincide. They do not have the same consistency and
commitment even to the immediate objectives of the democratic revolution. It is obviously
from within the ranks of the black middle and upper strata that the enemy will look for
sources of collaboration. We will return to this question.

But, in general, it remains true that our National Democratic Revolution expresses
the broad objective interests not only of the working class but also of most of the other
classes within the nationally-dominated majority, including the black petit- bourgeoisie
and significant strata of the emergent black bourgeoisie. This reality provides the
foundation for a struggle which aims to mobilise to its side all the oppressed classes and
strata as participants in the national liberation alliance.

We believe that the working class is both an indispensable part and the leading force
of such a liberation alliance. But its relations with other classes and strata cannot be
conditional on the acceptance by them of socialist aims. The historic programme which has
evolved to express the common immediate aspirations of all the classes of the oppressed
people is the Freedom Charter. This document is not, in itself, a programme for socialism,
even though (as we argue later) it can provide a basis for uninterrupted advance to a
socialist future.

The recent surge in workers' organisation and socialist thinking has highlighted some
important questions.

• Does the immediate emphasis on the national democratic revolution imply that the working
  class should abandon class struggle in favour of national struggle?
• Are socialist objectives being shelved in favour of a struggle for so-called bourgeois
  democracy?
• Which class must play the vanguard role in our democratic revolution?
• Above all, how can the independent class role of the working class be safeguarded
  in a period demanding inter-class alliances?

The answer to these questions and the key to a correct determination of strategy and
tactics in our present situation requires a correct grasp of the relationship between
class and national struggle.

If we pose the question by asking only whether our struggle is a national struggle or a
class struggle, we will inevitably get a wrong answer. The right question is: what is the relationship
between these two categories. A failure to understand the class content of the
national struggle and the national content of the class struggle in existing
conditions can hold back the advance of both the democratic and socialist transformations
which we seek.

The immediate primacy of the struggle against race tyranny flows from the concrete
realities of our existing situation. The concept of national domination is not a
mystification to divert us from class approaches; it infects every level of class
exploitation. Indeed, it divides our working class into colour compartments. Therefore,
unusual categories such as 'white working class' and 'black working class' are not
'unscientific' but simply describe the facts.

National domination is maintained by a ruling class whose state apparatus protects the
economic interests and social privileges of all classes among the white minority. It
denies the aspiration of the African people towards a single nationhood and, in its place,
attempts to perpetuate tribalism and ethnicity. These, and a host of related practices,
are the visible daily manifestations of national domination. These practices affect the
status and life of every black in every class. It is, however, the black working class
which, in practice, suffers the most intense form of national domination. And those who
dismiss the fight against national domination as the key immediate mobilising factor of
our working class are living in an unreal world of their own.

It is encouraging to observe the recent spread of an understanding of the link between
national domination and class exploitation among organised sectors of the working class.
This spread is due primarily to the heightened experiences of the struggle against race
domination in the recent period.

Socialist ideas take root not just through book knowledge but through struggle around
day-to-day issues. And, for those who have to live the hourly realities and humiliations
of race tyranny (at the point of production, in the townships, in the street, etc.) there
is no issue more immediate and relevant than the experience of national oppression. This
is certainly the starting point of political consciousness for every black worker.

It is mainly in the actual struggle against national oppression that its class roots
can be grasped most effectively. It is that struggle which illuminates most brightly the
underlying relationship in our country between capitalism and national domination.

Those who would like to restrict the meaning of class struggle to a trade union
struggle against the bosses, and who see political struggle only through narrow
economistic spectacles, would do well to heed Lenin's words on these questions:

'Is it true that, in general, the economic struggle is "the most widely applicable
means" of drawing the masses in to political struggle? It is entirely untrue. Any and
every manifestation of police tyranny and autocratic outrage, not only in connection with
the economic struggle, is not one whit less "widely applicable" as a means of
drawing in the masses ... Of the sum total of cases in which the workers suffer (either on
their own account or on account of those closely connected with them) from tyranny,
violence and lack of rights, undoubtedly only a small minority represent cases of police
tyranny in the trade union struggle as such' (Selected Works, Volume 1, p.136).

Class struggle in a period of capitalist hegemony is, in the long run, a political
struggle for the ultimate winning of power by the working people. But the content of this
class struggle does not remain fixed for all time; it is dictated by the concrete
situation at a given historical moment. We cannot confine the meaning of class struggle to
those rare moments when the immediate winning of socialist power is on the agenda. When
workers engage in the national struggle to destroy race domination they are surely, at the
same time, engaging in class struggle.

Class struggle does not fade into the background when workers forge alliances with
other class forces on commonly agreed minimum programmes. The history of all struggles
consists mainly of such interim phases. What is the essence of conflict during such phases
if not class struggle? There is no such thing as 'pure' class struggle and those who seek
it can only do so from the isolating comfort of a library arm-chair. The idea that social
revolutions involve two neatly-labelled armies was dealt with by Lenin with bitter irony:

'So one army lines up in one place and says "we are for socialism" and
another, somewhere else and says, "we are for imperialism", and that will be a
social revolution! ... Whoever expects a "pure" social revolution will never
live to see it. Such a person pays lip-service to revolution without understanding what
revolution is'. (Collected Works, Volume 22, pp.355-6).

The workers in Vietnam were not abandoning the class struggle when they concentrated
their main energies, in alliance with other class forces, on defeating Japanese militarist
occupation, French colonialism, and finally US imperialism and its puppet forces. When
Hitler unleashed world war, the main content of the workers' class struggle correctly
became the defeat of fascism. This task necessitated the most 'popular' of Fronts which
brought together both pro- and anti-socialist forces. It is a matter of historical record
that the anti-fascist victory made possible, among other things, the greatest extension of
the socialist world since the October Revolution and opened the road to successful
anti-imperialist, anti-colonial revolutions.

When we exhort our working class to devote its main energies (in alliance with the
other nationally oppressed classes) to the immediate task of winning national liberation,
we are certainly not diluting the class struggle or retreating from it. On the contrary,
we are advancing and reinforcing it in the only manner which is practicable at the present
time.

Nor are we putting off the socialist revolution by an emphasis on the National
Democratic objectives of the immediate phase of struggle. In the words of Lenin, answering
critics of Bolshevik policy on the primacy of the democratic revolution, 'we are not
putting (the socialist revolution) off but are taking the first steps towards it in the
only possible way, along with the correct path, namely the path of a democratic republic'
(Selected Works, Volume 1, p.435). Our immediate emphasis on the struggle for
democracy and 'People's Power' is an essential prerequisite for the longer-term advance
towards a socialist transformation.

But national liberation is, at the same time, a short-term class imperative for the
working people. Because the tyranny of national oppression weighs more heavily on South
Africa's doubly- exploited working class than on any other working class, its destruction
by the shortest route possible is, in itself, in the deepest class interests of our
proletariat. Both immediately and in the long-term, our working class stands to gain more
from the ending of national domination than any other class among the oppressed.

These realities help define the main form and content of the workers' class struggle at
the present historical moment and the kind of alliances necessary to advance working class
objectives. A 'class struggle' which ignores these truths can only be fought out in the
lecture-room and not in the actual arena of struggle.

But the need to concentrate on the present does not imply an abandonment or disregard
for the future. We shall argue more fully in a later section that participation by the
working class in the democratic revolution (involving alliances, minimum programmes, etc.)
does not imply a dilution of its independent class positions.

There is, moreover, no need for the spread of socialist awareness among the working
people to be postponed during the phase emphasising the democratic transformation a belief
falsely attributed to our Party by some of its left-wing critics. During this period it is
vital to maintain and deepen working class understanding of the interdependence between
national liberation and social emancipation. This task cannot be postponed until the ANC
flag flies over Pretoria.

It follows from the above that the participation of our working class and its political
vanguard in the liberation alliance is both a long-term and short-term class necessity.
The SACP's involvement in such an alliance is not, as our left-wing critics allege, a form
of 'tailism' or 'populism'. Nor, as our right-wing detractors would have it, is it an
opportunistic ploy to camouflage our so-called 'hidden agenda' and to use the ANC merely
as a stepping stone to socialism.

We have never made a secret of our belief that the shortest route to socialism is via a
democratic state. But, as already mentioned, the SACP takes part in the alliance for yet
another extremely cogent reason; our belief that the elimination of national domination
(which is the prime objective of the Alliance) is, at the same time, the most immediate
class concern of our proletariat.

But it is also the concern of the other main classes within the dominated majority.
Bearing in mind their class positions, is there an objective basis for a programme which
can attract these classes to the side of the liberation front and do so without
compromising the fundamental interests of the working class?

The Black Middle Strata and the Emerging Black Bourgeoisie

We have said that the national democratic revolution expresses the broad objective
interests of the working class and most of the other classes which make up the
nationally-dominated minority. We will return to the special position of the bureaucratic
bourgeoisie in the bantustans and in the townships, whose very existence depends upon
collaboration with race domination.

Our approach to the multi-class content of the present phase of our struggle has
received a great deal of attention from some of our 'left' critics. But because they have
distorted our approach by knocking down skittles which they themselves have put up, we
need to devote a few words to the obvious.

It is obvious that the black capitalist class favours capitalism and that it
will do its best to influence the post-apartheid society in this direction.

It is obvious that the black middle and upper classes who take part in a broad
liberation alliance will jostle for hegemony and attempt to represent their interests as
the interests of all Africans.

It is obvious that (like their counterparts in every part of the world) the
black middle and upper strata, who find themselves on the side of the people's struggle,
are often inconsistent and vacillating. They are usually the enemy's softest targets for
achieving a reformist, rather than a revolutionary, outcome.

All this is pretty obvious. But it is equally obvious that if the working class and its
vanguard and mass organisations were to get locked up with themselves, the greatest harm
would be done to the cause of both national liberation and social emancipation. By
rejecting class alliances and going it alone, the working class would in fact be
surrendering the leadership of the national struggle to the upper and middle strata.
This would become the shortest route towards a sell-out reformist solution and a purely
capitalist post-apartheid South Africa under the hegemony of a bourgeois-dominated black
national movement. Along this path, 'class purity' will surely lead to class suicide and
'socialist'- sounding slogans will actually hold back the achievement of socialism.

The black middle and upper strata constitute a relatively significant political force,
particularly in community struggles. Whether we like it or not they will participate and,
often, take a leading part in such struggles. They are usually among the most vocal
articulators of demands and (as we have experienced with black consciousness) they are
sometimes the pioneers of new variants of purely nationalist ideology.

The question, therefore, is not whether they are participants in the struggle. The real
question is whether the working class, by refusing to establish a common trench, helps
push them right into the enemy's lap. On the other hand, by engaging with them on common
minimum platforms, the working class is able to forge a stronger opposition and also to
neutralise some of the negative potential of the middle class.

It is, in any case, a basic maxim of working class revolutionary strategy that, at
every stage, it is necessary to maximise the forces which can be mobilised against the
ruling class around a principled common immediate programme. But this does not depend
just on an appeal to the individual conscience which occasionally (as we have recently
witnessed among a small minority of the white community) rebels against its class roots
and group interests.

When, however, it comes to the behaviour pattern of class entities, experience has
shown that, in general, they are motivated primarily by a desire to protect their economic
interests. It follows that to determine which social force can, at a specific moment, be
won over to the side of the revolution (without compromising its main objectives)
requires, in the first place, an analysis of basic economic factors which will influence
their participation. In other words, a shared opposition to race domination at the social
level may not, on its own, be sufficient to cement an inter-class alliance.

Is there an objective basis (having its roots in economic class interests) for drawing
the black middle and upper classes into an inter-class alliance in the immediate struggle
to destroy national domination? We believe that the answer is clearly yes. Let us take
note of more recent ruling class activities in this area.

In the last decade the size of the black upper and middle classes has increased. The
state has relaxed a few obstacles to class mobility. Some sectors of white business have
selectively encouraged black entry into previously forbidden territory. Neither the state
nor business have hidden their motivation for these measures. They are designed to create
a more significant black social force with a vested interest in the status quo and
capitalism; a force which, they hope, will distance itself from the liberation struggle
or, perhaps, even take it over.

Despite the 'reforms' and peripheral concessions of the last decade, the immediate
fate of the black middle and upper classes remains linked much more with that of the black
working people than with their equivalents across the colour line. For reasons of
colour their class mobility cannot proceed beyond a certain point. They are still hemmed
in by national disabilities economic, cultural, social and political which separate them
from their white class counterparts.

At the economic level, reforms notwithstanding, national oppression continues to affect
black capitalists in the accumulation process. With some exceptions, they cannot own land
or property in the central business districts. They are disadvantaged when it comes to
access to credit and loan capital, etc. And, at the social and cultural levels, a black
capitalist continues to share with a black worker most of the humiliations of inferior
colour status.

A few black capitalists may now be able to rub shoulders with tycoons like Oppenheimer
at some board-room meetings as a symbol of 'black advancement', but they cannot leave
their ghettoes to live next door to their fellow directors, sit in a common parliament,
assert a right for their immediate family from rural areas to resettle in their home
towns, and so on. It is only the most vulgar and deterministic forms of economism which
can underplay the impact of these, and so many other, ravages of national domination which
do not exempt a single class or group within the black community.

But, as we have already argued, ultimately it is the economic factor which plays the
primary role in determining class alignments. Conflicting class approaches to the nature
of the immediate post-apartheid society may well, in practice, overshadow existing
economic discrimination and the common black aversion to white rule. A Motsuenyane is more
likely to opt for remaining a capitalist in a race-dominated society if the alternative is
that he will become a worker in a people's South Africa. In addition, therefore, to the
social impact of race practices which variously affect all black classes and strata, is
there an objective economic foundation for an inter-class black alliance?

There is such an objective foundation. It is grounded in a perspective of an
interim phase in the post-apartheid period which neither threatens the immediate economic
aspirations of the other nationally-dominated classes nor militates against the
fundamental interests of the workers. This perspective is not (as our 'left'
detractors allege) tailored merely to suck broad elements into the liberation front.(1)

Nor does it, in any way, constitute a retreat from a commitment to end all forms of
exploitation of man by man.

We have never hidden our conviction, which we continue to proclaim, that true national
liberation is ultimately impossible without social liberation. The Freedom Charter and our
Party Programme do not, however, project socialism as the immediate consequence of a
people's victory. During this phase a vital role, under specified conditions, will
undoubtedly be required of a private sector.(2)

Even where the socialist transformation is directly on the agenda, the role of the
private sector cannot be dismissed. Leaving aside the lunatic excesses of Pol Pot's
Kampuchea, many hard lessons in this area have been learnt by some of the established
socialist states and, more recently, by African parties dedicated to a socialist advance.
The transition period to socialism may well demand a maintenance of selective parts of the
private sector. A mechanical and generalised elimination of this sector for the sake of
satisfying sloganised orthodoxy, has often served to undermine the faith of the working
people in the capacity of socialism to 'deliver the goods'.

We will come back to the need for immediate steps to be taken in the post-apartheid
period to break the economic stranglehold of the monopolies and to transform a major
portion of wealth from private into social property. Suffice it to say that such
measures will, of necessity, result in an immediate sizeable contraction of the private
sector. Ninety nine per cent of this sector is presently owned and controlled by white
capitalists; a race monopoly which constitutes the key instrument of national domination.

At the same time it would be harmful demagogy and a recipe for chaos to proclaim that
the post-apartheid state will be able, at a stroke, to do away completely with the market
economy, to eliminate the whole private sector and to dispense with the accumulated
business experiences and management skills of this sector. With the lifting of the race
barriers, those black businessmen who have been the victims of race-stunted growth, will
certainly find more immediate room for expansion than they were ever permitted under
apartheid rule. The anti-monopoly provisions of the Freedom Charter will also open up
avenues for the relative growth of black business in the post-apartheid phase.

In other words, under a people's government the black middle and upper classes will
be better off economically (and in every other aspect of their lives) than they are now.
In this sense the national democratic revolution represents their immediate interests as a
class; it provides a legitimate and principled basis for the kind of inter-class alliance
which is projected by our liberation front.(3)

Those who fear that all this amounts to the expansion of capitalism in the
post-colonial state would do well to remember that we are talking about a minute group
(the black middle and upper strata) which just about produces two per cent of the gross
national product, mainly in the tertiary sector. In any case, the expansion of its growth
as a result of the lifting of racial barriers in trade and manufacture will, in terms of
the Freedom Charter, be controlled 'to assist the well-being of the people'.

In the context of a severe clipping of the wings of the overwhelming mass of existing
private capital, it is sheer ultra- leftist demagogy to describe this approach as a
commitment to a capitalist road in the state.(4) It cannot
be denied that a private sector of whatever size will inevitably help to generate negative
social and ideological tendencies. But social control over the main means of production
and distribution by a political power in which the working class is dominant should more
than counter- balance such tendencies.

What we have said about the black middle and upper classes does not apply to all its
segments. We have always been careful to treat the emergent black bureaucratic
bourgeoisie as a special category even though there is a degree of interchangeability
between it and other strata.

The bureaucratic bourgeoisie is a stratum that depends for its capital
accumulation more or less entirely on its position within the collaborative structures of
apartheid bantustan 'governments', community councils, management committees, etc. It
enriches itself often through fraud and corruption, and uses access to the collaborative
structures to allocate to itself land, trading premises and other resources. Its genesis
and demise depend solely on the survival of race domination and (individual defections
aside) it will share a trench with the enemy.

The allegiance of the other middle and upper black strata to the immediate objectives
of the liberation struggle cannot be taken for granted; it has to be fought for on the
ground. The ruling class can be expected to contend with the liberation alliance for the
political soul of these strata, exploiting their class potential for vacillation and their
preference for reformist, rather than revolutionary, transformation.

The alliance of the working class with forces which reject its long-term socialist
aspirations is never unproblematic and without tension. It requires constant vigilance
and, above all, the safeguarding of the independence of the vanguard and mass class organs
of the workers. The question of the inter-class alliance brings us to a related issue -
the so-called two-stage theory of the South African revolution.

3. Stages of Struggle

The concept of stages in struggle is not an unusual one for any political activist.
Those engaged in revolutionary practice, whether in a trade union or in a political party,
do not require a seminar to be convinced that struggle goes through stages. Even the most
localised struggles, for example the struggle for an annual wage increase in a particular
industry or factory, or a struggle against high rents in a particular township, go through
stages. The same applies to the overall struggle.

Our belief that the immediate content of our struggle is the national liberation of our
whole people and that this process cannot ultimately be completed without social
emancipation at once poses a perspective of stages in our revolution. This perspective has
generated a great deal of criticism from 'leftist' circles.

We do indeed see the current stage of struggle the national democratic phase as the
most direct route of advance, in our particular conditions, to a second stage, socialist
development. Looking even further ahead, it is valid to describe socialism itself as a
major transitional stage on the road to communism.

There is, however, both a distinction and a continuity between the
national democratic and socialist revolutions; they can neither be completely
telescoped nor completely compartmentalised. The vulgar Marxists are unable to
understand this. They claim that our immediate emphasis on the objectives of the national
democratic revolution implies that we are unnecessarily postponing or even abandoning the
socialist revolution, as if the two revolutions have no connection with one another. They
have a mechanical approach to the stages of our revolution, treating them simply as
water-tight compartments.(5)

It should, however, be conceded that our own formulations have sometimes been
imprecise, and have invited the charge that we treat stages as compartments, as
'things-in-themselves'.

It is necessary at once to state a rather obvious proposition, namely, that it is
implied in the very concept of stages that they can never be considered in isolation; they
are steps in development. A stage which has no relation to a destination in itself not
final and constituting a stage for yet another destination is a linguistic and logical
absurdity. The concept 'stage' implies that it is at one and the same time a point of
arrival and a point of departure.

The real question is how to reach a stage without blocking the route onwards to the
next destination. This depends (mainly) on revolutionary practice. On balance we can
justly claim that our own revolutionary practice has not departed from the 'continuity'
concept of stages.

We reiterate that when we talk of stages we are talking simultaneously about distinct
phases and a continuous journey. At the same time revolutionary practice demands that
within each distinct stage there should be a selective concentration on those objectives
which are most pertinent to its completion. This is no way detracts from the need to
plant, within its womb, the seeds which will ensure a continuity towards the next stage.

There is thus no Chinese wall between stages. Lenin emphasised this point when he said:

'We all categorise bourgeois revolution and socialist revolution, we all insist on the
absolute necessity of strictly distinguishing between them. However, can it be denied that
in the course of history individual particular elements of the two revolutions become
interwoven?' (Selected Works, Volume 1, p.482, pp.511-2)

We, for our part, insist on the need to understand the distinct characteristics of the
present stage of our revolution, and also the ideological and organisational bridge
between this stage and the socialist aspirations of our working class.

It is not inevitable that final destinations follow from particular preceding stages.
We have, for example, always believed that under South African conditions the national
democratic revolution has great prospects of proceeding at once to socialist solutions.
This is because no significant national demand can be completely fulfilled without the
eventual destruction of the existing capitalist structure. But this outcome is inevitable
only in the abstract sense. Its translation into a reality must be dependent on a number
of vital subjective factors. Among the most important of these is the extent to which the
most revolutionary class the proletariat is politicised and participates as a leading
force in the coming struggles and in the state forms which are constructed in place of the
old.

We will come back to the question of the way our working class must assert its role
both for itself and as a leading force in the broader revolutionary line-up. For the
moment, let us look a little more closely at the terminology we use to define the main
features of the immediate phase of our revolution.

Bourgeois-democratic or National-democratic?

The terminology we use to describe the stages of a revolution can either illuminate or
obscure its main objectives. The use of a wrong (albeit analogous) descriptive label to
characterise a stage can, and often does, lead to wrong thinking about its content. We can
easily be misled by images which are conjured up by descriptive labels which have their
origin in a different historical period and which refer to a different moment in a
different struggle.

In this connection let us examine the descriptive label - 'bourgeois democratic' -
which has, now and then, been used to describe the present phase of our revolution. We
believe this is a misleading description which obscures the true content of the present
stage of our struggle. For a start it invokes quite a wrong analogy with the Russian 1905
and February 1917 revolutions.

It could, of course, be said that we are struggling at this stage for some of those
political rights which were articulated by the ideologists of the rising bourgeoisie at
the dawn of capitalism (the franchise for all, civil equality, national unity, self-
determination, etc.). These have become traditionally labelled 'bourgeois-democratic
rights'. The banner of 'democracy' helped the emerging bourgeoisie to mobilise the working
people in the towns and the serfs in the countryside against the old feudal order and to
establish its own hegemony.

Today, in general, it has become an anachronism to link democratic aspirations with the
bourgeoisie. A struggle for democracy in the modern era has little, if anything, to do
with the 'bourgeois-democratic revolution'. Wherever democracy threatens the basis of
capitalist economic exploitation the bourgeoisie are the first to abandon it. The Fascist
experience exemplifies this point.(6) But, in any case, in
regard to our own situation, there are even more compelling reasons for rejecting the
label bourgeois-democratic to describe the content of our liberation struggle.

In South Africa, in contrast to 1905 and 1917, it is our bourgeoisie (and not a
feudally-based autocracy) which wields economic and political power. Our bourgeoisie is
the ruling class in every sense of the term. It has achieved and maintained its hegemony
precisely through the mechanism of denying 'bourgeois-democratic rights' to the majority
of the population. The specific route which capitalism took in South Africa has led to the
creation of a virtually inseparable bond between capitalist exploitation and race
domination.

With the exception of a very tiny and economically weak black bourgeoisie, our
capitalist ruling class in general continues to be opposed to the universal extension of
democracy (as normally understood) to the majority. On the main issues our capitalist
class as a whole is, and can be expected to remain, on the side of the retention of race
hegemony, albeit by mechanisms which involve some forms of power-sharing.

This conclusion is not negated by the speeches that we hear from some of our tycoons
like the Rellys and the Oppenheimers. A few are undoubtedly stirred by a liberal
conscience reinforced, perhaps, by the fact that certain aspects of race domination are no
longer as profitable as they used to be. There are undoubtedly significant differences at
the top on the choice of strategies for coping with the present political and economic
crisis. This fact calls for the use of all means, including dialogue, to weaken the unity
of the ruling class and to isolate its most reactionary sector; it does not imply that
they can become part of the revolutionary camp.

This reality makes a special imprint on the content of the immediate phase of our
revolution. For example, it cannot be said of our revolution, as Lenin was able to say of
pre-October Russia, that 'the revolution expresses the interests of the entire bourgeoisie
as well'. It certainly does not do so in our case. We therefore believe that it is
misleading to use the words 'bourgeois-democratic' to describe the present stage. The
words National Democratic are closer to our reality. We will return to this question when
we touch on the specific social content of our national democratic revolution.

The analytical path along which we have journeyed has been the target of attacks by
critics from different positions. Our enemies on the right (including Botha) allege that
we control the ANC and that our hidden agenda is the immediate capture of fully- fledged
socialist power. Our detractors on the ultra-left accuse us of the very opposite sins;
that we are being dragged in the tail of nationalism and that we have abandoned our
socialist goals.

But even among some of our close friends and supporters there is a need to share a
better understanding of the real content of the immediate social transformation that we
seek. For example, in a recent interview Dr V Goncharov(7)
is reported to have said that he detected an attempt by some ANC members 'to put before
the national liberation movement now the tasks of the socialist revolution' and that this
approach poses the danger that they will lose allies in the population'.

Neither the SACP nor the ANC nor any of their authoritative spokespersons have advanced
socialism as the immediate objective. Perhaps Dr Goncharov's fears are fertilised by the
fact that our National Democratic Revolution has a special content, necessitating
immediate social measures (especially in the economic sphere) which appear to have a
socialist flavour. The Freedom Charter (which is not a socialist document) contains such
elements. If, analytically speaking, we look at the first stage of our revolution through
bourgeois-democratic spectacles, we risk confusing (as, I fear, Goncharov does) some of
the essential radical changes with socialist transformation.

In other words, there is a distinction between the social content of our National
Democratic Revolution and socialist transformation. For reasons which are special to our
own situation, the present phase of our revolution contains elements of both national and
social emancipation; it is not the classic bourgeois-democratic revolution nor is it yet
the socialist revolution. This is so because of the unique relationship between capitalist
exploitation and national domination in South Africa.

In the world as a whole, capitalist exploitation does not necessarily involve race
domination. But the historically-evolved connection between capitalist exploitation and
race domination in South Africa creates a link between national liberation and social
emancipation. In our conditions you don't have to be a doctrinaire Marxist to conclude
that a liberation which deals only with a rearrangement of the voting system and leaves
undisturbed the race monopoly of 99% of our wealth, is no liberation at all. Any honest
black nationalist understands that white political privilege has been the device to create
and protect white economic privilege.

It is therefore impossible to imagine any real form of national liberation which does
not, at the same time, involve a fundamental rearrangement of the ownership and
distribution of wealth. Even Gavin Relly, the current boss of Anglo-American, was forced
to declare:

'In the economic field, whilst I as a businessman would want the freest environment for
the private sector to pursue its interests, I accept that some form of mixed economy is
likely ... This is so because there is quite justifiable emphasis on the part of black
South Africans on a more equitable distribution of wealth, to compensate for the errors of
omission and commission of apartheid'(sic). (Sunday Times 1.6.86)

It is precisely our Party's emphasis on the economic content of our National Democratic
Revolution which has contributed so much towards the spread of revolutionary nationalism.
And it is for the same reason that the Party has won such an important place in the
liberation alliance and gained so much popularity among the workers and youth as an
independent vanguard.

It is, of course, imperative (as we have already stressed) that we mobilise the widest
democratic unity around a programme of immediate assault on the racist tyranny. However,
the economic content of our National Democratic Revolution has to be guarded even at the
risk of losing some 'potential allies'. If we retreat too far on this aspect we may entice
more 'allies' but, in the process, we would also risk losing our mass revolutionary
following. Compared to analogous phases (the Russian 1905 and February 1917 revolutions)
certain of the key elements of our democratic revolution are, therefore, much more closely
'interwoven' with the longer-term socialist transformation.

The shortest route to socialism in our country is via a democratic state. But it will
be a democratic state which will at once be required to implement economic measures which
go far beyond bourgeois-democracy. These economic measures, dictated by the most
elementary objectives of our national liberation struggle, will erect a favourable
framework for a socialist transformation but will not, in themselves, create, or
necessarily lead to, socialism.

A speedy advance towards socialism will depend, primarily, on the place which the
working class has won for itself as a leader of society.

4. Working Class Leadership

If the working class emerges as the dominant social force in a truly democratic
post-apartheid state, the possibility is clearly opened up of a peaceful progression
towards socialism. Those 'revolutionaries' who may throw up their hands in horror at the
suggestion that conditions might open up the possibility of a peaceful transition towards
socialism should take note of Lenin's words:

'To become a power the class-conscious workers must win the majority to their side. As
long as no violence is used against the people there is no other road to power. We are not
Blanquists, we do not stand for the seizure of power by a minority' (Selected Works,
Vol.2, p.36).

To eventually win the majority of our people for a socialist South Africa, we must
spread socialist awareness and socialist consciousness now, mainly among the workers but
also among the rural poor and the middle strata. We must also ensure that the working
class emerges as the politically-dominant social class in the post-apartheid state. This
can only be achieved if the working class wins a place now as the leading social force in
the inter-class liberation alliance.

But, it is not only to ensure a post-apartheid advance towards socialism that the role
of the working class is crucial. The immediate objectives of real national liberation as
envisaged by the ANC and SACP and whose goals are embodied in the Freedom Charter cannot
be effectively fulfilled without the organised strength and leadership of the working
class. We emphasise again that if the working class isolates itself from the alliance the
result would be to dilute the content of the national democratic revolution, to hand over
its direction to the other class forces and, in the long term, to hold back socialist
advance.(8)

The working class cannot play the key role by merely leading itself and sloganising
about its historic mission. It must win popular acceptance on the ground as the most
effective champion of the democratic aspirations of all the racially-oppressed groupings.
It must work with, and provide leadership to, our youth, women, intellectuals, small
traders, peasants, the rural poor and - yes - even the racially-dominated black
bourgeoisie, all of whom are a necessary part of the broad front of our liberation
struggle.

It is, however, sometimes alleged that an alliance will tie the hands of the working
class and erode its independence. Such an outcome is certainly not inevitable.

The Vietnamese leader, Le Duan, described an alliance as a 'unity of opposites'. The
classes and strata which come together in a front of struggle usually have different
long-term interests and, often, even contradictory expectations from the immediate phase.
The search for agreement usually leads to a minimum platform which excludes some of the
positions of the participating classes or strata. It follows that an alliance can only be
created if these diverse forces are prepared to enter into a compromise. And it can only
survive and flourish if it is governed by a democratic relationship between the groupings
which have come together.

But when a front is created the working class does not just melt into it. It does not
abandon its independent class objectives or independent class organisation. On the
contrary, the strengthening of workers' independent mass and vanguard structures is even
more imperative in periods demanding organised relations with other class forces. This
brings us directly to the organisational instruments of working class leadership.

The Instruments of Working Class Leadership

In general, workers must be active wherever people come together in struggle, whether
at national, regional or local levels. The whole mass democratic movement the UDF, youth
organisations, women's organisations, civics, street committees, students, church-goers,
etc., must feel the influence of workers' militancy and dedication. The majority of most
of these categories are, in any case, workers who should ensure, through democratic
participation, that their interests are not swamped by the other social groupings.

The independent role of the working class and the way it relates to other classes of
our society, at once raises important questions connected with the character and role of
three key worker-related sectors of our struggle the national movement, the trade union
movement and the political party of the working class. It also raises questions about the
way in which these sectors relate to one another. Let us say a few words about each of
these sectors.

Trade Unions and the Working Class

A trade union is the prime mass organisation of the working class. To fulfil its
purpose, it must be as broad as possible and fight to maintain its legal status. It must
attempt, in the first place, to unite, on an industrial basis, all workers (at whatever
level of political consciousness) who understand the elementary need to come together and
defend and advance their economic conditions. It cannot demand more as a condition of
membership. But because the state and its political and repressive apparatus is an
instrument of the dominant economic classes, it is impossible for trade unions in any part
of the world to keep out of the broader political conflict.

Especially in our country, where racist domination and capitalist exploitation are two
sides of the same coin, it is even more clear that a trade union cannot stand aside from
the liberation struggle. Indeed, the trade union movement is the most important mass
contingent of the working class. Its organised involvement in struggle, both as an
independent force and as part of the broad liberation alliance, undoubtedly reinforces the
dominant role of the workers as a class. In addition, trade unions' and workers'
experience of struggle in unions provide the most fertile field in which to school masses
of workers in socialist understanding and political consciousness.

The very fact that the workers' economic struggle cannot be separated from the struggle
against national domination has helped to blur the border-line between trade unionism and
the political leadership of the working class as a whole. It is, however, vital to
maintain the distinction between trade union politics and overall revolutionary
leadership. A trade union cannot carry out this dual role; if it attempted to do so it
would have to change its basic character and risk committing suicide as a mass legal
force. In addition, the very nature and purpose of trade unionism disqualifies it from
carrying out the tasks of a revolutionary vanguard.(9)

The syndicalist notion that trade unions should act as political parties is so
discredited that it has few, if any, open adherents. But, from time to time, the notion is
introduced through the back door in the shape of policies which would, in practice,
allocate such a role to the trade union movement.

An example of one such tendency is the premature attempt to formally incorporate the
objective of socialism into trade unions and the federation to which they belong. Such a
move would narrow the mass character of the trade union movement by demanding an unreal
level of political consciousness from its members or affiliates as a condition for
joining. It would also, incidentally, give the enemy the very excuse it needs to deal with
one of its most formidable foes.

Another example, at the level of the mass democratic movement, is a recent suggestion
that new grassroots United Front structures should be set up at national, regional and
local community levels.(10) These structures would be
restricted to sectors which are predominantly of working class origin unemployed,
organised workers, rural poor, youth and students, working women, etc. The effect of this
approach would be to downgrade the UDF as the umbrella of the broad legal liberation front
and to replace it with a narrower front run by the trade union movement(11).

The tendency to mechanically apply the principles of trade union politics and
organisation to the broader political struggle is also evident in some of the debates
around questions of the democratic content of popular and working class political
structures. Using the trade union movement as a model, critics of the UDF allege an
absence of democratic control from below. They also express concern that the mass of the
workers have very little democratic control over their revolutionary parties which claim a
vanguard role. All this is contrasted with the trade union movement which, by virtue of
its democratic traditions and practices, is claimed to be better equipped to represent the
working class.

These positions (advanced mainly by some union-linked academics, contain a mixture of
legitimate concerns relating to the defence of some fundamental principles of trade union
organisation and erroneous notions about political organisation. Trade unionism in our
country has been guided by appropriate organisational forms and democratic processes.
Without open public elections, complete participation of the mass of the membership in all
decision-making, day-to-day accountability of officials, etc., trade unionism would lose
its effectiveness.

But these very organisational forms and practices (which must be defended and deepened
in the trade union movement) would become a paralysing extravagance if transplanted to a
working class political party or if applied mechanically to political structures of the
mass democratic movement, operating under emergency rule.

Unlike a trade union, a worker's vanguard does not, and should not, have the character
of a mass movement. It cannot hope to survive in illegal conditions without clandestine
methods which often, unavoidably, conflict with democratic practices. A worker's political
vanguard is guided by the Leninist principles of democracy and centralism a combination
whose precise mixture is dictated by the actual conditions of revolutionary struggle. An
attempt to apply trade union organisational practices to such a vanguard would spell the
end of revolutionary political leadership in our conditions. Equally, the trade union
movement would be doomed if it attempted to act like a Communist Party.

Even a mass political movement like the UDF would be disabled politically if, before
each mass action, it were obliged to go through the same kind of democratic procedures
which are so vital and appropriate for workers in economic struggle against the bosses. A
strike ballot in a labour dispute is a necessity; its rationale cannot be extended to a
political struggle situation. The guiding core of a political mass front would paralyse
itself by the continuous need for mandates and referenda from its rank and file.

Intensified repression in the recent period has, for example, imposed methods of
semi-clandestinity on the UDF, unavoidably affecting some of its consultative and
collective practices; a fact unjustly exploited by some of the detractors of the UDF.

We do not claim that the necessary democratic practices have always been implemented
within the mass democratic movement, or that Communist Parties have never abused democracy
on the excuse of centralism. But such illegitimate departures from the norms must be dealt
with as a separate problem; they should not become the excuse for insisting on syndicalist
practices which, in the case of the political leadership of the struggle, would lead to
organisational constipation.

The ANC and the Working Class

The main core of the whole democratic struggle illegal and legal is the ANC which
stands at the head of the liberation alliance. As head of this alliance and prime
representative of all the oppressed, it welcomes within its ranks all from whatever class
they come who support and are ready to fight for the aims of the Freedom Charter. It is a
revolutionary nationalist organisation with popular roots. It is not, however, 'populist'.
The ANC's Strategy and Tactics recognises that there are different classes among the
people with different long-term aspirations.

The overwhelming majority of the people are working class. This explains why the ANC's
composition and policies show a strong bias towards the working class. It also considers
it proper and necessary for socialist ideology to be discussed and understood in its
ranks. But, despite the fact that the ANC has an understandable bias towards the working
class it does not, and clearly should not, adopt a socialist platform which the so- called
Marxist Workers' Tendency (expelled from the ANC) would like it to do. If it adopted such
a platform it would destroy its character as the prime representative of all the classes
among the oppressed black majority.

At the same time, for reasons already outlined, its revolutionary nationalism does, of
necessity, contain a social content which reflects our specific national liberation
aspirations a content which will ultimately facilitate the socialist transformation but is
not premised on it. Worker participation in the ANC is one of the important ways in which
our working class plays its role in the democratic revolution. But, above all, the
tripartite alliance, moulded in the revolutionary underground, between the ANC, the South
African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU), and our SACP, represents a framework which
expresses the political interests of our working class in the broad front of struggle.

The SACP and the Working Class

Workers' political leadership must represent the working class not just in economic
struggles against the bosses but, more so, in its relation to all classes of society and
to the state as an organised force. We stress again that a trade union cannot carry out
this role. Only a political vanguard of the working class can do so.

A vanguard party, representing the historic aspirations of the working class, cannot
(like a trade union) have a mass character. It must attract the most advanced
representatives of the working class; mainly professional revolutionaries with an
understanding of Marxist theory and practice, an unconditional dedication to the worker's
cause, and a readiness, if need be, to sacrifice their very lives in the cause of freedom
and socialism. Our SACP is such a Party.

We have made a unique contribution to the ideological and organisational strengthening
of the national movement. Today our Party is described as one of the two main pillars of
the liberation alliance led by the ANC. As an independent Party, we have devoted our main
energies to strengthen workers' organisations, to spread socialist awareness and to
provide working class political leadership.

There is no organised force in our country's history which has matched our Party's
contribution to the spread of genuine workers' organisation at the point of production. We
can truly claim to be the parent of black trade unionism.

A strong trade union movement and a workers' political vanguard such as ours are
essential conditions for the kind of victory in the democratic revolution which will find
a working class equipped organisationally and ideologically to assert its historic role.
But we emphasise again that there is both a distinction and a harmony in the character and
roles of these two vital sectors. Each has a specific role to play in advancing the
interests of our working class as an independent social force and as the leading class in
the immediate struggle to build a united, non-racial and democratic South Africa.

This brings us directly to the next related section which touches on the theoretical
basis of our approach to the building of the South African nation.

5. The Building of the Nation

At its founding conference in 1912, the ANC issued a clarion call for African unity
under the slogan, We Are One People. As head of the liberation alliance, it is
committed to working for the creation of one South Africa which, in the words of the
Freedom Charter, 'belongs to all its inhabitants, black and white'.

Are we already 'one people' or are we, as yet, only a nation in the making? In the
light of the undoubted existence of ethnic differences, is the cementing of our diverse
communities into a single South African nation both desirable and realisable? Does the
colonial status of the dominated blacks lead us to the conclusion that there are already
two nations in our country - the oppressed and the oppressor? What is the role of the
working class in the struggle to constitute our nation? These are issues which go to the
very root of our struggle against the racist autocracy. The national question (including
the question of what constitutes a nation) perhaps more than any other, illustrates the
profound truth of Lenin's remarks to the Communist Organisations of the Peoples of the
East that 'you will not find the (complete) answer in any communist book'. (National
Liberation and Social Emancipation, Progress Publishers. 1986, p.269).

Indeed, the Marxist theory of the National Question is perhaps the least developed in
our revolutionary science. It offers few propositions which can be used as starting points
for an analysis of concrete situations. This is especially so for the developing world
where, as we shall show, attempts to invoke European models and analogies completely fail
to meet the needs of the real situation.

Stalin's Contribution

The basic Marxist-Leninist approach to the question of what constitutes a nation was,
for many years, guided generally by Stalin's well-known definition. Stalin defined the
nation as a community of language, culture, territory and economy. Unfortunately, there
have been tendencies to treat these categories (language, culture, etc.) as a mechanical
set of criteria.

As a result, in defining 'nations', questions of mother-tongue or of long-established
traditional cultures have sometimes come to dominate and even displace the more
significant class political and economic issues. This post-Leninist tendency gave pride of
place to cultural-linguistic (or ethnic) factors at the expense of a class approach. It
infected some of our own earlier debates on the national question and came dangerously
close to providing (albeit unintentionally) a rationale for ethnic separatism.

For example the Comintern, in 1932, called on the Communist Party of South Africa,
inter alia to advance the slogans: 'Complete and immediate national independence for the
people of South Africa. For the right of the Zulu, Basuto, etc., nations to form their
own independent republics. For the voluntary uniting of the African nations in
a Federation of Independent Native Republics. The establishment of a workers' and
peasants' government. Full guarantee of the rights of all national minorities, for the
coloured, Indian and white toiling masses'.

In the early 50's Lionel Forman, with a bias in favour of Stalin's thesis, opened up an
interesting debate on the national question which, after his untimely death, was never
really followed up in the ranks of the Party.

In a symposium in Cape Town in 1954, he spoke in favour of the long-term aim of 'one
single, united South African nation'. But he insisted that 'the only correct path towards
(it) is through the creation of conditions by which the different national cultures in
South Africa may first flower and then merge ...' And he posed the possibility of
self-determination for the different ethnic communities.

'I think', he said, 'the majority of communities which have common language and
psychology In South Africa are not full nations, but national groups. That is, I think
they are aspirant nations, lacking their own territory and economic cohesion, but aspiring
to achieve these' (my emphasis).

Before returning to our own country let us touch on the general question of the genesis
of Nations and the problem as viewed from the African perspective.

The Nation and the Colonial Situation

Stalin's thesis on the National Question may have had validity in the concrete reality
of a Europe in the aftermath of the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the
national realignments which followed. It was obviously also of great relevance to the
post-October advance in the solution of the National Question in the Soviet Union. But
its application to our conditions or, even, to most parts of the continent of Africa is,
at best, questionable.

Using Stalin's formula as a starting point, we would have great difficulty to find in
our continent many state entities that could be described as 'nations'. Applying the
formula mechanically we might even be tended to lend theoretical respectability to
neo-colonial inspired secessionary tendencies and (as in the case of South Africa) play
about with ethnic constitutional 'solutions' which would, in effect, perpetuate minority
domination.

The coming into being of an entity which can be described as a nation has a variety of
historic roots. Its genesis is not necessarily connected with a single class. The modern
Nation-State is not always the creation of the bourgeoisie. Nor can it be claimed, as a universal
proposition that 'a nation is a historical category belonging (only) to the epoch of
rising capitalism' (Stalin). In the post-October period some national entities (e.g.
Mongolia which skipped the capitalist stage altogether) have only come into being under
socialist power. Most of the world's nation-states emerged in the post-war period and
it cannot be argued that they all had their origins in a new wave of rising capitalism.

In the colonial world generally, nation-formation was deliberately stilted, retarded
and under-developed by imperial policy. But, despite this policy, the very spread of the
capitalist mode of production made for objective tendencies towards the breaking down of
ethnic, cultural and tribal divisions. This process was also subjectively advanced by the
need for the dominated people to create a common front in the struggle against a common
colonial oppression.

FRELIMO's approach to the question of nation-formation is illustrated by Marcelino dos
Santos in an interview in 1973. We must bear in mind that Mozambique is a vast country
with a multitude of diverse tribal and cultural groupings. Even today it could be said
that the Makonde in Cabo Delgado have more in common with the Makonde of Southern Tanzania
than with the Shangaans of Gaza Province who, in turn, have a close affinity to the
Shangaan people of the Eastern Transvaal. Dos Santos said:

The main conditions for (the) successful rejection (of tribalism) are present. On the
general point of whether we have already moulded a nation in the true sense of the word, I
want to say that a nation is based on concrete realities. And the most important reality
in the present stage in Mozambique is the fight against Portuguese colonialism. It is
our common fight against our common oppressor which plays an outstanding role in creating
a national bond between all the diverse groups and cultures... Of course a nation is a
product of history and its formation goes through different phases. In this sense the
work for the final achievement of nationhood will continue even after independence
although the fundamental elements of nationhood are already in existence and in the
process of being further developed in Mozambique' . (African Communist, 4th
Quarter 1973).

There is no absolute moral test about nation formation. The consolidation or
fragmentation of disparate ethnic groups into one or into several sovereign entities
cannot be judged by any universal formulas as to what constitutes a nation. The
answer for a revolutionary is influenced by far more complex political considerations than
can be contained in an enumeration of catalogues of common 'national' qualities.

In Africa (more especially below the Sahara) the concrete realities were dominated by a
specific form of colonialism. Administrative entities were created which had little, if
anything, to do with a common culture, language, economy and so on. The colonial units
which imperialism created were, in most cases, determined solely by inter-imperialist
power relationships and were made up of an arbitrary mixture of completely distinct
socio-economic formations. The 1885 Berlin Conference was one of the high points of this
process.

These administrative entities gradually acquired distinct economies. Meanwhile,
however, the imperialist powers employed various mechanisms to deliberately perpetuate
regional and ethnic differences in the interests of more effective control. Tribalism,
indirect rule, playing off one region against the other, and preventing the emergence of a
national consciousness or cohesion; these were the prime weapons in the armoury of
imperialist domination.

In other words, whereas the economic functions of the nation-state created at the dawn
of the capitalist era were served by the breaking down of ethnic, regional, language and
cultural divisions, in most of Africa the colonial masters were served by a very opposite
process. Colonial control for purposes of economic exploitation demanded ethnic
fragmentation and inter-ethnic hostility.

The encouragement of a national awareness and cohesion became the major response from
the colonised peoples. Beginning with the ANC in 1912, the creation of a national, rather
than an ethnic or tribal consciousness, became a key rallying cry of virtually every
liberation movement in Africa. Where a sizeable working class emerged, its work and living
conditions helped undermine rural ethnic exclusiveness.

In summary, it could be said that the historic process of spreading a national (as
opposed to ethnic or tribal) consciousness and the national consolidation of existing
state entities is, in the modern African era, generally a weapon of liberation and social
advance. Conversely, the emphasis on regional and cultural exceptionalism (including
claims to secession of ethnic regions from existing state entities) is generally designed
to serve both Internal and international reaction and is, in most cases, an instrument of
colonial, neo-colonial or minority domination.

The struggle for national cohesion in multi-ethnic communities does not imply the
imposition of cultural uniformity. Cultural diversity does not stand in contradiction
to a national unity. Such a unity can be made up of a totality of both distinct and
intermingling cultures which 'in their totality constitute the culture of the... people as
a whole' . (Interview with Lucio Lara, African Communist, Third Quarter, 1978).

National self-determination correctly remains part of the Holy Grail of Marxist
learning. But, for most parts of Africa, the invocation of this right for regional or
ethnic entities (either for secessionary purposes or for creating ethnically-defined
political groupings) usually serves to undermine rather than to advance the right to
national self-determination. And nowhere is this more so than in the context of the South
African struggle.

The South African Case

In the South African case it is certainly the emerging proletariat which has become the
key class force for nation-building. As the most politically conscious and advanced social
force in our revolution, our black working class is, at the same time, the most
internationalist and the most committed to national cohesion.

Despite the existence of cultural and racial diversity, South Africa is not a
multi-national country. It is a nation in the making; a process which is increasingly
being advanced in struggle and one which can only be finally completed after the racist
tyranny is defeated. The concept of one united nation, embracing all our ethnic
communities, remains the virtually undisputed liberation objective.

Conversely, colonial domination in our country has, throughout its history, employed
political and administrative devices to facilitate its policy of 'divide and rule' by
impeding the process of nation formation. Apartheid is only the most recent and
ideologically developed variant of a policy which has been practised from the very
beginning of conquest. It was preceded by the British colonial strategies of Reserves and
Segregation.

The pre-apartheid strategies failed to stem the tendencies towards the emergence and
continued growth of an African national consciousness. Economic imperatives (including the
very important factor of permanent urbanisation), and revolutionary nationalist activity
combined to undermine these strategies.

The threat posed to race domination by the growing unity within the liberation camp was
becoming more evident in the late 40s. To ensure its survival the ruling class sought a
way of turning the clock back. Against the background of a heightened level of terror
against the people and their organisations, they declared themselves to be the new
champions of 'national self-determination' and launched their bantustan programme.

Twelve 'homelands' were proclaimed and offered 'independent' statehood. South Africa,
so it was claimed, was now following Europe and proceeding apace with its own
'decolonisation' process. But (as the regime itself has been forced to concede) this
Verwoerdian plunge into the 'final solution' has demonstrably failed. Irreversible
economic processes and mass struggle and resistance once again dashed the hopes of those
who plotted to reverse the nation-building momentum of the Liberation Alliance.

Despite the substantial failure of its bantustan strategy, our ruling class continues
to cling to the rationale which underpinned it. The growing demand for democracy and
majority rule in a united South African continues to be met by the diabolically simple
answer that 'South Africa is a multi-racial country'. There is no majority. There are only
minorities, all of whom must retain their economic, geographic and cultural 'heritage'.
RSA radio made all this very plain in a BBC-monitored broadcast on the 28th of January,
1987:

'The government's preparation for power-sharing is a clear indication of post-apartheid
South Africa. Majority rule is nonsense in South Africa as there h no majority. The
key issue is the protection of minority rights. There are ten African nations plus
whites, coloureds and Indians, and all insist on their right to self-determination. Negotiations
for such power-sharing are under way'.

We know what this kind of 'multi-nationalism' implies. It is the prime device for
continued national domination. Presented in its crude form, this 'multi-national' approach
has little chance of misleading our people. But we must be on our guard against some of
its more sophisticated variants.

Among these variants are the Buthelezi-backed Kwa-Natal proposals, the Tri-cameral
parliament (with a possible extension of a fourth Chamber to represent Africans), and
federal arrangements which give constitutional recognition to ethnic entities and
'traditional' ethnic leaders. We can expect a host of other devices designed to provide
group (as opposed to individual) rights and to give veto right to ethnic communities in
multi-racial legislative organs claiming to represent 'national' entities. These are
all nuances of the same recipe; power-sharing without giving up control.

The more recent models of 'multi-nationalism' are based on four broad 'racial' or
'national' categories: African, White, Coloured and Indian. It can hardly be disputed
that, at present, the members of each category (to whatever class they belong) share a
definable position as a colour group on the political and economic ladder, with the
Africans occupying its lowest rung.

The three black groups suffer varying degrees of discrimination; a reality which,
ironically enough, is continually exploited by the very perpetrators of the crime of
discrimination. Endless attempts are made to persuade the Coloured and Indian communities
to cling to their more 'privileged' position in the league table of oppression and
discrimination. Fear is spread among them of majority African 'domination', in the hope
that they will opt for 'the devil they know'.

But, on the whole, these minority black communities have not been taken in. The word
'black' is increasingly adopted by them to describe their political and national affinity
with Africans. The massive rejection of the Tri-cameral parliament and joint participation
in the major struggles against racism are among the signs of togetherness. Thus, although
the process is by no means complete, the national bond among the three black groups is
growing closer and closer.

The White Community

A combination of economic factors, common responses to domination and ideological
activity, have taken the process of nation formation some distance among the dominated.
However, the national bonds which are being cemented in our country have not yet greatly
affected the whites. The overwhelming majority regard themselves as a national entity not
only completely separate from the blacks but also superior to them. And the Afrikaner
stands out as the most hard-line partisan of this approach.

This is not the place to trace the complex factors (cultural, ideological, religious,
etc.) which have served to entrench white chauvinism and Herrenvolkism deeply into the
psyche of this community. But, essentially, the process had its main roots in the economic
privileges built on the foundation of the intense exploitation of black (especially
African) labour. These privileges accrue, in different degrees, to all members of the
white community, to whatever class they belong.

The basic objectives of liberation cannot be achieved without undermining the
accumulated political, social, cultural and economic white privileges. The moulding of our
nation will be advanced in direct proportion to the elimination of these accumulated
privileges. The winning over of an increasing number of whites to the side of democracy is
an essential part of our policy. We cannot, however, accept constitutional schemes
which are designed or calculated to perpetuate a 'multi-national' framework h order to
retain the separate national identity and, therefore, the power of white racism.

Our approach is clear and we must spread it ever more widely. The cultures and
languages of the white group (like the cultures and languages of all the other groups)
will have a safe haven in South Africa which, in the words of the Freedom Charter,
'belongs to all its people, black and white'; a South Africa which will ultimately realise
the idea of common nationhood in its full meaning.

Colonialism of a Special Type and 'Two-Nations' Thesis

Neville Alexander believes that our Party's thesis of 'colonialism of a special type'
(CST) obstructs the drive towards single nationhood. He maintains that it necessarily
implies a two-nations thesis (white and black) which 'holds within it the twin dangers of
anti-white black chauvinism and ethnic separatism'.(12)
The thesis has also been criticised on the related ground that it allegedly encourages an
approach which underplays or ignores class divisions within the black and white
communities and tends to place 'populist' rather than class objectives before the working
class.

CST does not imply a two-nations thesis, nor does it ignore the class divisions within
the communities. The CST thesis correctly describes the reality that, in the post- 1910
period, the substance of the colonial status of the blacks has remained intact, even
though its form may have altered. It is this reality which provides a correct starting
point for grappling with the complex problem of the relationship between national and
class struggle. It is obvious that until the colonial status of blacks is ended the
process of building one nation cannot be completed.

The CST thesis neither ignores class divisions within the dominant and dominated
communities, nor does it postulate the existence of two fully-formed 'nations' - white and
black. It does not define the ruling class as consisting of the whole white population.

It is not the CST thesis which fuels the danger of anti-white black chauvinism; it is
the fact that the overwhelming majority of the white community (irrespective of class)
benefits from and, therefore, supports race rule. Alexander speculates that the liberation
struggle can become 'ideologically insulated' against the dangers of black anti-white
chauvinism and ethnic separatism if 'the revolutionary classes accept that they are part
and parcel of a single nation'. But even 'revolutionary classes' would surely find it
difficult (and the masses on whom they rely even more so) to accept that this is already
so.

Anti-white chauvinism cannot be mitigated by spreading an idea based on a myth. The
'revolutionary classes' can best advance the struggle for the achievement of single
nationhood if they recognise (and act on) the reality that we are not yet one nation. The
strategy and tactics of the struggle to create one united South African nation can neither
ignore the significance of the present white-black divide nor the different levels of
oppression to which the dominated majority are subjected.

Organisational structures of the constituents of the ANC-led liberation camp and the
shape of its alliances at specific historical moments, have always been guided by such
factors. For example, the Congress Alliance of the late 40s and 50s consisted of the
separate historically-evolved organisations representing the African, Coloured and Indian
people and, later, white democrats.

This approach laid the foundation for inter-black unity in action which, more than any
other factor, helped to erode ethnic political separatism. It also prepared the conditions
which made it possible for the ANC to open its ranks to the other groups. In sharp
contrast, the former Unity Movement acted with ostrich-like disregard of ethnic factors.
In the process, it may have insulated its own small band against the dangers to which
Alexander refers, but it also succeeded in insulating them from advancing the process of
unity in the real world.

Group Rights

The very strength of racist state power, the deeply-ingrained nature of white national
exclusiveness, and the occasional outbreaks of inter-ethnic strife, have influenced some
external academic circles, sympathetic to our cause, to raise the possibility of the
liberation movement's agreeing to constitutional provisions for group rights is the
post-apartheid phase. This thinking is also partly influenced by the belief that there is,
in any case, no great prospect of welding South Africa's diverse ethnic groups into one
nation.

For example, Dr Gleb Starushenko, a member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, told the
1986 Soviet-African conference that, in his personal opinion, a parliament which
accommodated group rights should be considered for the post-apartheid period. This
parliament would consist of two chambers; one on the basis of proportional representation
and the other 'possessing the right of minority veto', which could operate on the
basis of 'equal representation of the four communities'. Dr Starushenko (whose
pro-liberation intentions are not in dispute) would also like to see the ANC work out 'comprehensive
guarantees for the white population' and 'programmes' which give our 'bourgeoisie the
... guarantee' that there will be no broad nationalisation of capitalist property.(13)

If this package is motivated by a search for the kind of compromise which would tempt
the racists to come to the negotiating table, it is certainly not an acceptable starting
point for a negotiating agenda for our liberation movement. Apart from other
considerations, the racists' own insistence on 'group rights' is undoubtedly linked to the
preservation of control over the means of production. If this control is maintained,
through the granting of minority veto powers, the most fundamental features of race
domination would be perpetuated, a result which Dr Starushenko would clearly find
unacceptable.

The idea of ethnic parliaments may have an additional rationale - a belief that South
Africa is, and is likely to remain, a multi-national country, and that future
constitutional arrangements must make provision for this reality. In this connection, the
Soviet experience of the solution of the national question in the post-Czarist period,
understandably informs the thinking of Soviet scholars. But to be guided by this
experience in our conditions is in fact to risk bringing about the very opposite results
to those which were achieved in the Soviet Union.

In the Soviet Union a recognition of multi-nationalism was the very foundation of
national liberation and self-determination; it led to the creation of autonomous and
self-governing national republics originally linked to each other in a federation and
later in a union.

In our case multi-nationalism, whether in the form of independent ethnic 'homelands'
or parliaments based on colour-group rights constitutes the main racist recipe for the
continuation of national domination by other means.

This is not to say that all traces of ethnic exclusiveness have already been
effectively erased from the political arena and that we have already become one nation.
The battle is still joined to prevent ethnic separatism from making advances from
positions it continues to hold under government patronage.

In particular we must not allow the regime to get away with its claims to be the main
champion of ethnic languages and cultures under the guise of its 'homelands' policies and
its dishonest brand of 'multi-nationalism'. It is our duty not only to proclaim, but also
to ensure that in a unitary democratic South Africa the language and other positive
cultural heritages of the diverse groups will really flower and find effective expression.

We stand for one united, democratic South Africa based on universal adult suffrage.
This strategic approach is inviolable. We cannot, at this stage, allow ourselves to be
diverted by speculation about future justifiable compromises in the interests of
revolutionary advance. It is clearly in struggle that we will succeed in forging our one
South African nation which is already in the making.

Forging one sovereign South African nation is an integral part of the objectives of the
national democratic revolution. Our national liberation movement, welding together
millions of South Africans in every corner of our country, is already a major dynamising
factor in the struggle to build a unified South Africa.

The winning of the objectives of the national democratic revolution will, in turn,
lay the basis for a steady advance in the direction of deepening our national unity on all
fronts - economic, political and cultural - and towards a socialist transformation. For
our working class nation-building means, among other things, unifying themselves
nationally as the leading class whose developing culture, aspirations and economic
interests become increasingly those of the overwhelming majority of our people.

Notes:

. A rather snide example of this is an article
in Africa Perspectives (June 1987), 'The Ideology and Politics of African
Capitalists' by Mike Sarakinsky. Sarakinsky relies on journalistic reports of
NAFCOC's accounts of its meeting with the ANC to suggest that its claim that
there was 'total agreement' with the ANC on many issues implied that the vision
of 'total liberation' which was presented by the ANC was tailored for the occasion.
The main body of his article was written before the ANC-NAFCOC meeting and draws
on NAFCOC pronouncements over a decade old. In an attempt to explain away NAFCOC's
more radical postures in the recent period, which tend to contradict Sarakinsky's
rather mechanical characterisations, he makes these unscholastic additions in
a postscript.

2.Even where the socialist transformation is
directly on the agenda, the role of the private sector cannot be dismissed.
Leaving aside the lunatic excesses of Pol Pot's Kampuchea, many hard lessons
in this area have been learnt by some of the established socialist states and,
more recently, by African parties dedicated to a socialist advance. The transition
period to socialism may well demand a maintenance of selective parts
of the private sector. A mechanical and generalised elimination of this sector
for the sake of satisfying sloganised orthodoxy, has often served to undermine
the faith of the working people in the capacity of socialism to 'deliver the
goods'.

3. In general, the class interests of the
white capitalist class are not served by the objectives of the national democratic
revolution. The survival of non-monopoly white business in the post-apartheid
state does not provide a basis for regarding it as a potential part of the revolutionary
liberation camp. White business is generally helped and not impeded by race
practices. In the post-apartheid state those who merit being allowed to continue
business activities will have to conduct their operations under the more restrictive
conditions specified in the Freedom Charter. However, sectors of white business
can be (and have been) drawn into pressing for the abandonment of the worst
excesses of apartheid; a process which helps to fragment the unity of the ruling
class.

4. See eg. P. Hudson, 'The Freedom Charter
and the Theory of the National Democratic Revolution', Transformation
(1) 1986.

5. It should, however, be conceded that our
own formulations have sometimes been imprecise, and have invited the charge
that we treat stages as compartments, as 'things-in-themselves'.

6. Not to speak of imperialism's unending
pattern (in Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East) of imposing and
helping to sustain brutal tyrannies in the name of 'democracy' and 'human rights'.

7. Deputy Director of the Institute of African
Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences, interviewed in Work in Progress
no. 48 by Howard Barrell.

8. Even when the construction of socialism
is directly on the agenda, class alliances remain in place, more immediately
to maintain socialism in the face of imperialist-supported counter- revolution
and, in the long term, to move to a higher stage.

9. In addition, the most basic purpose of
a trade union to force genuine reforms in the work situation within the existing
economic framework tends generally to nurture reformist rather than revolutionary
political tendencies. This perhaps explains why working class parties that have
been fathered by a trade union movement and continue to be dominated by it (as
in Great Britain) usually pursue social-democratic rather than revolutionary
objectives.

0. This proposal is a distorted follow-up
of the perfectly correct NUM-sponsored COSATU congress resolution that called
for close alliances between the trade union movement and militant sectors of
the community; an approach which was adopted by the Congress as a counter to
the NUMSA-sponsored resolution which explicitly stressed a front dominated by
'socialist' elements.

1. The relationship between a trade union
federation and organisations such as the UDF still needs to be worked out more
precisely. A case can be made out for the view that direct affiliation of a
trade union federation (as opposed to individual unions) is not the immediate
answer. But it is vital that institutionalised links be mutually agreed upon
between two such key actors in the democratic struggle. This approach appears
from the February 1988 UDF circular which defines the United Front as '... a
close working relationship between UDF, COSATU, NECC and the Churches ... There
is a need for COSATU and the UDF to create permanent structures at national
and regional levels'.

2. 'Approaches to the National Question
in South Africa', in Transformation 1(1986) p.83. Alexander also suggests that
the wording of the Freedom Charter suggests a four nation thesis.

3. Weekly Mail January 9-15, 1987