rural proletarians, the poverished peasants of the bantustans - must weld around themselves every oppressed layer of black society The middle bourgeoisie swinging behind big capital is the typical formula military dictatorship etc.
The middle classes/petty swinging. decisively leftwards behind the working class is on the contrary, Trotsky pointed out, necessary conditions for successful proletarian revolution.
The revolutionary struggle against apartheid struggle bourgeoisie. If there were a significant black bourgeoisie in South Africa, and to the degree that a black bourgeoisie exists, there has to be a relentless struggle against it against the inevitable attempts such a cass makes, make, to compromise with the apartheid state.
But the petty bourgeoisie whether the peasants or the urban petty bourgeoisie — is a completely different matter to the monopolists capitalists. Far from expropriating the petty bourgeoisie, either in the town or the countryside, the working guarantees the property of the bourgeoisie even in a workers state.
The most familiar example of this is the guarantee given by socialist peasants 'the petty bourgeoisie of the village' as Trotsky reminded us against forced expropriation and collectivisation. But the principle is exactly the same with the petty bourgeoise of the town as well.
A bloc of the black working class black rural urban bourgeoisie, under the leadership of the working class a bloc against the (massively white) bourgeoisie - that is the force that must overthrow apartheid in South Africa. Comprising the vast majority of the population South Africa it also has the power to smash apartheid to pieces.
THE WEIGHT classes/petty rightwards is overwhelming.
bourgeoise as of the against the democratic right would oleces the towards revolution today.
and big They will also continue to will grow out petty struggle tor democracy passing that struggle.
grammes of revolutionary ward in South Africa -attitude to the various petty fighting against apartheid.
The Freedom of. be ine of democratic demands, and democratic tasks, in the struggle today in South Africa full To establish a one person one vote constitution in a unitary state, to end the situation where the white minority gramme holds 87 per cent of the land and instead transfer it to the black population; to forge indissolubly the South African nation against the attempts of Charter the white supremacists and their puppets to shatter that nation into purely racial and tribal groups; to establish the gle.
of the black South African working class to organise itself throughout the economy; to end the inhuman barbarity of apartheid's super South exploitation of black workers; to smash segregation: these are the decisive im- sysleili of residential mediate tasks propelling the great mass of South Africa's black population do so given the nature of the apartheid state The socialist revolution in South Atnca of the revolutionary against the apartheid state, and not develop by by- the This reality also determines the attitude of Marxists to the various proand revolutionary nationalism put for- most famously the Freedom Charter supported by the ANC. It determines also the practical Charter.
: organisations famous Charter any similar document of the type of which it is easily the most important is not a socialist programme — and nor could it • programme. or a revolu tionary marxist organisation, in South Africa. Such a programme would go beyond the revolutionary nation and revolutionary democratic dem of the Freedom Charter to take up tasks of socialist revolutior But a revolutionary socialist for South Africa definitely includes, and centrally, e single one of the crucial democratic nationalist demands of the Free - and in South Africa democratic and nationalist dem can only be won by revolutionary st Socialist Socialist revolution in a country Sonary nationalise and revolutes Africa Devolle democratic demands. But it does n the slightest negate them. The soci revolution in country like Africa will centrally develop on the rain of the revolutionary struggk democratic and national demands For revolutio socialists proclaim that they favou plementing every demand Freedom Charter — and as we sha revolutionary nationalist revolutionary democratic demand the Freedom Charter can only be power into the hands of the wor niemenicu by transferring pol For exactly that reason the re tionary nationalist and revolutic democratic demands of the Fres which is by far the democratic programm South Africa, are a genuine, vital central part of the programme revolutionary Marxist organisati The central demands of Freedom Charter those thorough going bourgeois demo revolution in South Africa. An
struggle for socialism in South Africa, as earlier in this century in Russia, will grow out of the struggle for a bourgeois democratic revolution, and not develop by skipping over it. secialists drive through to the utmost the revolutionary nationalist ademocratic demands of the Freedom Charter.
Russia the Bolsheviks
IT IS pirsatilé OI MElretinuti"
the intel suth ardirzi way resolution.
tion as developed by itself.
Africa. 4 and wilk necessar.
ressfut conclusion this democ:
ing cla ot the working 20 -c-zir 5. — ..S the working class.
o s{el l} ul ıssed black) working majority, MECAOS expropriating land to the black population.
As there Revolutionary farmers in transformation ( im. necessity, revolution on the basis of a number of iteuretical positions to haré agrement on the concrete line for ihe South African Howerer Socialist Acton ae 22s dilear view on what is most the retna iramework for undersandioz the events unfolding in Africa. and pointing. the forward. This teoretical framework is provided by Trotsky's theory of permanent The siraggle in South Africa, the revalurion dereloping in that state, illusirates with great clarity the correctness of the theory of permanent revoluTrotsky.
This is not a matter of theory in books but of understanding the material reality of the class struggle in South Africa Theyavds of the struggle in South for democratic demands continue to be so. The force to carry through to a sucstruggle for täs a bloc of the black work*Social the town and the countryside, dind the black rural and urban petty bourgeoisie under the leadership This struggle agains apartheid must be carried on :: 27: irocg imara: :e dianior in South Airica blaii staie power must pass into the hands of Without state power class the democratic revolution itself will be aborted. To understand why it is simply necessary to look at the material reality of the class To transfer the land to the black to end the situation where less than 18 per cent of the population who are white own 87 per cent of the land can only be achieved in one way. It setties the white capitalist farmers and transferring their tion.
black capitalist South Africa such means. the esssential elimination of an entire social class. The white capitalist farmers will, literally fight to the death ethnic divisions, and the reactionarie: who defend this, would involve a gigantic social upheaval.
Any NUT eC, sm mation in Sortt Aitia = Si. dian unleast. avoora: =2 z w --_*—'-' , sta an' Se taii arile nan s populaiion agricultural workers, the inhabitants of Bantustans, the black bourgeoisie middle casse. black unemployed — would be thrown into a frontal confrontation with the entire social structure created by apartheid - which is of course exactly the dynamic of the struggle itself It would be democratic reform, a little tinkering, but a literal revolution that would be necessary to smash apartheid to pieces This finally not merely raises but what type of state can carry through this vast democratic revoluThe white capitalist farmers will not accept being expropriated peacefulsituation might be. - no matter what the constitutional Their resistance must be crushed by force - or the certainty that if they resist they will be crushed by overwhelming armed force.
To expropriate the white residential =:=Dz20 PETN MR CICI ПnLTI:
TATTE I7P 1 IVE-ZAT AI DEDE DI T TE II*: fend io ie deat ise sece prepa of the whites in South Aittes ster: petty- They would resist, gun in hand, ary the democratic, let transformation of South Africa.
the white supremacists would abandon Enel armed detence of South Africa would under which they knew they would lose because of the tional relation of forces. This is why the support given to Pretoria by Britain, United States, and the other imperialist states Is SO courages the white racists to continue their frenzied armed defence of their privileges.
The sole means thorough going destruction theid, and democratic revolution, South Africa can be carried through, is by the destruction of the entire armed TI AILE I ==a0 :22 alone socialist, Probiem apartheid in be conditions ception internal and interna without power.
crimial. It enwhereby any abal' Rastar REdAKOr Nane cnapier In of Nationalities: 'Only the working class standing at the head of the nation can carry either a national o an agrarian revolution clear through.' ЛА АНА Х in the same work: 'By "Trotskyism" was the meant that revolutionary con according to which the bourgeois revolution in Russia would be able to solve its problems placing the proletariat
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struggle in South Africa. Land
Smash The only conditions under which