IN SOUTH Africa one of the greatest revolutions of the twentieth century is misunderstood by large sections of the left in Britain. So much so that it is worth devoting an According to much of the left, echoed by such papers as Socialist Worker or Socialist Organiser, locked in a double dead end. On the one side are frican National Congress and its supporters meant many of the leading forces which created the non-racial trade unions FOSATU (Federation According to this analysis disastrous political problems exist as, evidently, neither 'populists', 'workerists' can lead the working class, or the South African revolution, forward.
Fortunately the masses of South Africa are wayh increasing success, with the ing ot dULCoO destroying apartheid. Far from diverging, 'populists' are more and more converging.
Already the creation of COSATU saw the ANC and the forces from the independent non-racial trade unions converging to create the largest trade union federation in South African history: That coming together reached an even higher level in the general strikes of 1 May and 16 June greatest crisis in the history of the apartheid Forms of organisation going even beyond mass strikes, above all the street committees alternative state power to that of the apartheid All the riddles to which analysis of the South African revolution is subjected, counterposition of 'workerists' and made both in Britain and by parts of the white left in South Africa, are however resolved once the nature of the revolution South understood.
The incredible power of the mass movement in South Africa comes from the fact that the black South African working class is increasingly leading the entire mass of the oppressed population against the apartheid regime. It is doing so overwhelmingly on the demands of a national democratic revolution — to distribute the landto the black majority, to forge a non-racial South African nation, to achieve political liberty. Every one of these tasks is blocked by apartheid and its state.
When these tasks are understood then what would constitute real 'workerism' populism is to deny the leading role of the working class in the national democratic revolution -to fail to organise the dependently and to dissolve it into an amorphous, purely democratic mean to abandon COSATU, Dul• d Maryist party in workerism is for the working class to refuse to lead the entire oppressed population in the national democratic revolution against apartheid. It would mean to keep isolation' - to fail to unite with the ANC in the struggle against apartheid.
But it is not what is occurring. workerist formulas, that should not seek to lead the revolution to overthrow apartheid, were at one time expressed in FOSATÚ. But today the COSATU leaders stress correctly: the working class and the alliances it must make • lead the overthrow of apartheid. The ANC j ot seeking to dissolve CÓSATU but more an more closely working with it create it. That alliance of the ANC and COSATU explains the depth of the struggle in South Africa in the last two months. to spelling out the lessons of that all the false 'populists' Africa is populism' real Real working class inmovement. It would to fail to seek to South Africa. Real COSATU in 'splendid Genuinely the working both the independent organisation of and helped to
Socialist Action 27 June 1986