An article in the latest issue of the Conference of Socialist Economists journal 'Capital and Class", entitled *Trade Unionism and the struggle for Liberation in South Africa', raises questions of the greatest importance to tne possibity or social revolution in South JOHN HUNT discusses it.
The author David Hemson, a former official of the Textile Workers Industrial Union of South Africa who is now in exile in Britain. He is a leading activist in SACTU, the trade federation, which aloned with underground African National COOLICSS The AN has long been dominated by the South African Communist Party -one of the most pro-Moscow Crs. Ine SACP leadersnip or the ANC has advocated a blind reliance on a strategy of guerilla warfare as the answer to all political problems of the South African revolution.
Socialist Challenge 4 January 1979 Page 12 This the energies being concentrated on military preparations expense of developing strategy of mass action against the regime.
The SACP even denied that such mass action was possible armed struggle Neither strikes by tens of thousands of workers in 1973, nor the strike! and demonstrations by millions of blacks in 1976, ACP away from this strateg his failure by the ANC elecuve leadersmip to assess the importance of these events is among militants and sympathe thisers of the ANC. CRITICAL Hemson's article is the product of such hinking. He does not directly attack the policy of the ANC or SACP leadership. turns his considerable polemical skills against an article on David Davis, ANC's appeared journal African Communist, and which extends the logic of the SACP's politics into this field.
DaVIS argues
semi-legal 'unregistered' black unions in South Africa are at was best militantly economistic, SACTU representative of African working class' moved the He claims they played no significant role in organising and raising 1973-74 strikes.
To back up this approach he has argued movement' either that the trade unions are productive consciousness or revolutionary action and therefore obstruc critical South African state is so strong that all trade union activity useless and that Rather he advanced workers should leave to training Hemson refutes the charges which against the unregistered unions the SACP's by showing working For workers).' the South history TOT struggle in South have at times demands in *within the insurrections.
Hemson says CLASSICAL of socialist together with armed therefore has been seek military possible form that In fact *Independent trade unions have deepened the struggles of the black working class by raising he wales.
class issues and *Lenin SP ORS SOUPIED P10101135 struggle for union recognition, against shop steward victimisa tion, in defence of strikers, and the permanent organisation of workers Through an analysis of the working class Africa he demonstrates that mass suikes paralysed state the repression and have shown the potential of developing into should unions, *These strikes are not the complete expression of resistance to apartheid (the problem of developing mass struggles struggle faced by TOT InC underground since 1961) but no argues decisive challenge to the state is without this prole"The disorganise production and the Hemson's position is both clear and classically Marxist.
argued that trade unions should be organised by industry, that they should be broad organisations, as open as possible in order to mobilise the effectively.
"The aim of the unions is enci directly connected to their mass character their obiect would be unobtainable if they failed to unite all those who understand necessity of struggling against the employers and the It is for this reason that Lenin argued that Communists support non-party and distinguish party from the trade union even extreme *Lenin describes trade unions as a "tremendous step forward working class" and that the proletariat cannot develop without trade union organisation.
work trade unions is to educate and give all-round political development and a mink to workers ind and when workers organised Lenin argues it is fundamentally incorrect "even criminal" to be "critical" and disparaging. "The task revolutionaries is to convince backward elements, work among them, and not to thense ves artificial and childish 'Left' When revolutionaries are forced through repression not declare their intentions openly, work in open and legal (even "downright reactionary") organisations lutely necessary...
The task of revolutionaries is not to adopt one form of struggle and to reject the other, but to combine illegal forms of struggle with every form of legal struggle..
*Both the party and the trade are integral development of a revolutionary working class movement.
of those of the bureaucracy.
What are the main features of the present political ferment?
present ruling faction consists chieflv of two kinds of cadres of the Chinese One is the beneficiaries of the cultural revolution, with Hua Kuo-feng at its head. the omer is unc victims of it, represented by Teng Hsiao-ping. GRAVITY At the beginning the specific gravity of the "beneficiaries" within the Comolaton much greater than that of the Gradually, however, MOre HUTC victims' rehabilitated and with the ever-increasing pressure from below for more democracy legality, the relation of strength within ine ruling party Peking has changed in favour Hence the epipolica Hence political in China. larly in Peking.
Now we see that the Teng faction has become so strong that it has reversed the decision on the Tien An Men incident on 5 April 1976: revolutionary it now becomes revolutionary.
It has begun to challenge the authority of Mao and re-evaluate the meaning or the cultural revolution.
Will that lead to the downfall of Hua Kuo-feng and his group and whole scare Maoisation?
I don't think so. Although I GOT!
kind of reshuffle will be made, I do believe that the Hua group can easily and willingly Withune group.
As for the Teng group, in spite 0aV1g victimised at the hands of Mao and his crones. all rehabilitated old cadres are Neither politically nor ideocan they afford to TopIcal break with Mao- - much less So their Russian counter narts the Khrushchev s Brezhnevs, did in relatión to Stalin.
establishment of since use the People's Republic of China all policies adopted by the CCP have OCCH aimed modernisation of China. And pontical and ideologica ditterences among une lcaders of the CCP can be reduced to now to acmeve une moochnisaAs the supreme leader of the CCr Mao nad tougnt our ang put into effect nearly tion. foreign affairs, one-sided reliance USSR, then self-reliance and nnally making mrienos witn the Western world, especially with In domestic affairs Mao tried was a long series of methods, from the rather liberal ones to the most tvrannical. Each phase his policy was another because of failure.
and to exactly Teng DCCI these CanO PUTTING up a wall poster in China.
Now the Teng and his modernisation is nothing but either the direct continuation of Mao's (in foreign policy) or a return to one phase of Mao's old policies (in domestic affairs reminder of the hundred all remind flowers davs).
Therefore there is no reason first 'orthodox on Iner represented by Hua Kuo-feng not to comply with Teng's line. Ane Were Is aso no reason lor the "dissident' Maoists headed DY ICHE LO UCLaCE LCHISCIYCS from Mao That is to say, there will be no so-called though there will be a campaign by to disclose and confirm the mistakes Mao made during the adopted by last years of his life. group for Wil these circle 'hundred extremity to versa.
Maoists reason here country'.
CAPITULATION "de-Maoisation', ever-increasing world capitalism In spite of Maoists, especially between Stance.
in China.
socialist cause.
down on tae new suppressed.
policies of particularly the regime and gives WILL Mao be consigned to the dustbins of history?
policies WHICH DOSLCES failed in their own time succeed Besides, Over 26 or 27 years Mao's policy went in a sort of viciou jumping •anoiner ultra-left to ultra-right and vice most measures was also his position of 'socialism in a single As Stalinists and democratic Maoists on the fundamental question, Teng and Hua will definitely repeat Mao's failure.
it serves the And the result of the present will be either in the same vicious circle or capitulation before the ourcauciacy pressure of This all this, the struggle between the so-called and the old bureaucrats of the CCP and the people (youth in particular), is of great impor- tradition It represents a new phase of the development of revolution country It offers a new opening to the working people and all genuine revolutionaries the CCP structure ol Will the Teng-Hua bloc clamy 'hundred flowers' movement as quickly as happened 20 years ago?
It depends on the scope of the country. movement and how indepen dent it is from the Teng faction which has benefited from it and therefore more or less supports сасу Once this movement opposes the bureaucracy in general it is quite probable that it will be of China.
internatonal What is your assessment of the 'China Youth' article?
Its primary aim is to provide the the Leacerns : Teng group, with a theoretical basis. important, compact form popular dissatisfaction with the bureaucratic systematic expression to the feelings and in the ideas which up to now were only vaguely expressed in Tien foredoomed.
using пен reneers ping, Qing This nation past.
An Men Square poems and wall serious and bold arismts trace out the origins of the bureaucratic and even autocratic opperssions China has suffered under the 'socialist It also proposes a number of AILS believe might help China advance onto a socialist anc Broad. respect it is a very brilliant and important document.
it is mainly official, but partly unofficial. That is to sa!
interests of one group or une bureaucracy, out let the samed me it hammie or DassCO limits criticism set down by the 'unofficial' element represents the genuine and bureaucratic and even autocratic oppressions China has out the objective reason for bureaucratisation and tyranny. the extremely long and unique of autocial China and the economic and cultural backwardness of the IDEOLOGY But it fails to point out that Stalinist ideology and the Stalinist-type the state also constitute an important reason for its bureaucratic distortion And ine lalal Taun or tas article is the authors' position SHILLIO They want to fight against all those evils simply by 'extensively developing demoand strengthening legal system', and think that this struggle alone IS quite enough to construct healthy socialism within the boundaries To construct socialism is an task. The idea that it is impossible to construct healthy socialism in a single country is absolutely foreign to the two young authors.
To develop democracy anc strengthen the legal system is which the Chinese revolutionaries should fight with all their strength.
But this strug le can bear fruit only if it is properly placed for Otherwise it is Farewell Teng THE article on this page will be the last to appear in this paper old Wade-Giles system of transliteration of Chinese names.
alphabet, now being used by Reuters and the Agency, old friends unrecognisable: Deng ХіаоGuoteng, Other names, however, wil not change: Mao Tse-tung and Peking for example. We will also be spared the confusion of the Chinese word for China: Zhongguo, meaning the Middle Kingdom.
week article WaS written and typeset before the changes were released - but take extra care when reading future coverage on Zhongguo.
Charter 77 THE Charter 77 opposition group in Czechoslovakia has recently pubisned a documen condemning official discrimiagainst travellers 'gipsies".
It blames the authorities for the 30 percent illiteracy rate among travellers and for the policy of forced sterilisation of traveller women in some areas The document compares the racism towards travellers with that shown towards Jews in the Czech mates STILL in Czechoslovakia and • still on the subiect of racism recent visitors to the country were four former SS members, including Hauptsturmfuhrer Werner Kalleis. One of the places of interest they was the site of the Terezin concentration camp.
The whole affair was, of course, an oversight on the part of the Czechoslovak authorities DUS HaraSSINE oppositionists, no doubt.
Petrol prices Our Coals to Newcastle correspondent writes:
Airways has been shipping petrol from Heathrow to Iran, apparently to fuel its own planes. Thursday, for example, it transported over S00 gallons in passenger planes Safety regulations demand that the petrol must be put into one litre containers - which pushes the price up to f30 a gallon!
IP/Inprecor ntercontinenfal Pre 2 8: 1978 Year in Review THE special review of the yea in Intercontinental Press/Inprecor has become an eagerl awaited feature — as well as the index of the year's issues which accompanies it.
This extra-large issue (Vol No 49) is still only 30p.
Subseriptions are f9 for vear, £5 for six months or £2.50 for an introductory offer of 10 issues Write now to Intercontinental Press /Inprecor, PO Box 50, London 2XP. Cheques payable - Intercontinental Press/Inprecor Socialist Challenge 4 January 1979 Page 13
mineony Clarions classes, minCIS.
South Wales -theatre attended by 250 rank and file members. Pete knows this very well It is, of course, true that socialists
----- pull-quotes -----
slogans." (Lenin) COMBINE
fascinating contributions such as the 'China Youth' article reprinted in a recent 'Socialist Challenge' raises the problems of how far the bureaucracy is prepared to go in overturning Mao's heritage — and how far the intentions of the masses are independent Chinese Marxist living in Hong Kong.