THE BLACK population of South Africa is not merely the majority numerically. It is today the decisive section of the population in terms of production and the economy.
That black working class in turn is becoming more and more organised. While 15 per workforce are members of trade unions by 1983 nearly 900,000 black workers -545,000 oureds and asians - were unionised.
Unions The main black union federations are engaged in unity talks which, if successful, would powerful organisation of black workers ever seen in South African history, and the organisation on the African continent. 11USL important But rapidly organising black working class, black population, faces political conditions which seem amost to belong lo the European middle ages — although fact they were produced by modern development of South African capitalism itself. This political structure in turn reacts back on and crushes every social relation in the South state - not simply those of the black industrial working class but black agricultural workers, of the impoverished peasants on the bantustans, the black service workers, the black petty-bourgeoisie and every black society. That apartheid state is becoming less and less viable.
Society The fact that the whole of South African society and politics is in crisis - that white big business is demanding at least some changes in apartheid for IS own purposes. that organisation of black workers is taking place, that not simply the black working class but ever widening layers of the entire black population thrown into violent conflict with the apartheid state — has caused enormous confusion on the British lett.
In order to see the way through the and to settle the detailed confusion, and crucial tactical questions of the atorganisations Democratic Front, the South cent of the ticular.
col- being a danger in themselves impossible.
has been the most growing rule in the old way.' Cosmetic African of the South Atrican economy sector of Wing into deeper crisis. for revolution.
Trotsky, being LUIL social crisis to besides titude to the black trade unions, to such the United the African National Congress, the National Forum, and other issues it is necessary to go back to the fundamental class alliances involved in a revolution in general and African revolution in par- black Firstly, far from a crisis in the white ruling class, and proposals for reform, them a revolutionary struggle to overthrow apartheid would be completely In his Left Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder Lenin outlined 'The fundamental law of revolution, which confirmed by all revolutions...is as follows: for a revolution to take place it is not enough for the exploited and oppressed masses to realise the impossibility of living in the old way and demand changes: for a revolution to take place it is essential that the exploiters should not be able to live and It is therefore fundamental that the apartheid regime is manifestly unable to go on in exactly the old way. The continued efforts at cosmetic reform by Botha, the deep contradictions in the , the demands for change in aspects of apartheid by big business, all testify that the whole of South African society and politics -including ruling class politics — is movThe second striking feature of the situation, the mobilisation not simply of the black working class but of virtually every strata of the black population against apartheid, is also not a problem of the involvement of the 'middle classes' but an indispensible condition following Lenin, noted that not even a crisis of the ruling class, and a refusal of the masses to go on in the old way, constituted by itself a sufficient condition for successful revolu'As Trotsky wrote in The Turn in the Communist International: 'For the bring about the proletarian revolution, it is necessary that, other conditions, decisive shift of the petty-bourgeois class occur will give the proletariat a chance to place itself at the head of the nation as As Trotsky wrote: "To approach the peasants and the petty bourgeoisie of the cities, to draw them to our side, is the necessary condition for... the conquest of power.' The black toilers of South Africa -the industrial and service workers, the im-