covered in the ether two essays are best dealt with in another context, but a few remarks might usefully be made concerning aspects of the new politics' in these countries.
It should be noted that none of the articles adopts a critical approach to the subiect: or the most part tney simply attempt to tell it exactly as it was. The result is that one is given a lot of facts - which is of course useful - but very little pertinent analysis. However, Slovo's article is on a different plane from the other two; it also benefits from the fact that Slovo is himself a participant in the struggle. ceeded in consolidating its hold over the party, with the expulsion (or worse) of left CrIaCS.
Dissidents In such a situation there is no possible check on the activities of the party by the masses. Even if people begin to join the party in an attempt to break down this dichotomy, it is unlikely that known dissidents are going to be allowed to join. The problem is clearly related to the balance of forces at the time of the decisive showdown, In its more sophisticated forms this analysis describes the reserves as a pre-capitalist mode of production co-existing alongside the capitalist mode of produc tion. This is not the place to enter into a theoretical discourse as to the validity of this conception. Interested readers are referred to the work of Michael Williams in the Bulletin of the Conference of Socialist Economists, Vol IV, No. 1, where he develops the correct view that in South Africa the capitalist mode of production is dominant and that capitalist relations of production permeate every aspect of life. What flows from this is obviously a very difference analysis of the tasks facing militants in South Africa from that flowing from the theory of internal colonialism Slovo does realise, however, that it is not possible to carry out the national democratic revolution without carrying out the socialist revolution - in other words, he recognises the combined nature of the revolution in South Africa. He comments correctly that no significant national demand can be successfully won without the destruction of the existing capitalist structure'. But he then goes on to say that "there is objective ground for the belief that under South African conditions the national democratic revolution has great prospects of proceeding at once to socialist solutions. This gives the game away.
What follows from this conception of the South African revolution is the following. First of all pressure is built up on the South African regime through guerilla warfare, sabotage, strikes, boycotts etc; it capitulates not to the socialist revolution but to some combination of "progressive' forces. This alliance of forces, though initially dominated by bourgeois elements, is then too weak to carry out the national democranic revo lution, the socialist forces begin to gain the leadership of the social layers involved, and SO OLL The forces involved in this alliance with the CP would undoubtedly include If one believes that apartheid is simply a deformation of capitalism which can be put right, as does the South African CP, then everything is perfectly in order: apartheid is abolished, and the next step is to win the nationalists to socialism. However. if one conceives of apartheid as being inseparably linked with South African capitalism, then to challenge the one is to challenge the other.
If one believes that what is key is the relationship between the capitalist mode of production and the (alleged) pre-capitalist mode of production, then no problems develop in the schema. However, if one correctly conceives of the South African economic and social structure as being dominated by the capitalist mode of production, then all the relations of production are capitalist ones. Hence to challenge the apartheid system is to challenge capitalism itself in South Africa.
Thus what is central is not to separate out the immediate national tasks of the revolution but to grasp the essential unity of the struggle against apartheid and the struggle against capitalist exploitation. Instead of