MEND SWAPO WITH SWAP NUM The LAMON ET 5 DEFEND TU.
DIALITA wait for anybody. Do it yourself.
portant scale. al any noucable lever only come to life when short term results.
point of the ballots.
devastating.
philosophy.
trouted to workers and other unions.
USOS tually provide political education.
Wilson an embar assment.
an embarassment for him — -do unions were all party.
happened.
That, without recreate the courageous, it was respected.
never have unionists. through.
is fighting, Manpower Service the Scheme.
forces. tion and its demands must be supported. The Labour Campaign for Lesnian ane as so use be laker forward. Women Against Pit Closures showed the way for everybody. Don't I think all these are an investment in a future change in Britain on a very imThere has also been a renewal of political trade unionism linked to this.
The campaigns that went on quietly about the political ballot were extremely important. There has been a renewal down the line which hasn't penetrated the TUC general council. It is waiting, but it will people think that there is a prospect of it producing This is important because. there was a headlong retreat always among many trade unions up to the You can go back to 1959. Then the emphasis was on Gaitskell and Clause 4 being abandoned. But actually nonunionism was The argument was that we didn't want any connection between politics and trade unionism. If there is an industrial dispute keep out, that was the We don't want Members of Parliament, Labour people, interfering in our disputes. In the end that conthe defeat of the steel In the end I fear some of the trade leaders did become generals without troops because they didn't acWith In Place of Strife Wilson tried to separate Labour and the unions. Woodcock both felt that the other was and Tue general secretary orities, Wilson felt the trade union link was mer. as he was now the leader of the 'natural party of government'. Woodcock regarded the Labour Party as nothing whatever to unionism, the trade That philosophy of trade unionism has been exposed and found wanting. So the TUC general council have been hundreds of meetings, weakened - automaticity in election to the general council weakened them still further politically. But then two things First you had the miners strike.
Many doubt, began to old trade unionism. It didn't extend to everybody but you could see what it meant and there was a non-sectarian. real example of it. This consolidated other groups. It was political, it was Then you had the political ballots. all the left. The outcome was staggering. I would thought a year back that there would have been the prospects of the results we have seen. Underneath SU VIA there is a new awareness among trade Look at the teachers - who are not They affiliated to the Labour Party. They're fighting a very tough and successful battle, and there is a realisation that it is Then in the trade unions there are the broad lefts. Of course they represent different groups. But I do see a new wave of political leadership coming through the trade union movement which is more democratic in character, which is more radical in thought. I think that wave has to work its way We have to work with everyone who and the party has to be built up from the bottom. It cannot trickle down from the top any longer. There is a vacuum at the top of the general council as, for example with their ex- ed. traordinarily uncritical support for the Training Scheme. demands You've got to do it from the bottom up - and working with the new social The second area of my work is Socialism' in the Campaign group. The Campaign group is not sectarian, nor is it trying to line people up according to one ideology. We are based on ing. the idea that the Labour Party has believed there parliamentary aspect of its work, and we are trying to do that.
We work with people outside, we have people in, we operate with them.
We've got the miners to start with. There will be a huge miners meeting held in the Albert Hall on 2 March. We're doing all we can there. . We're helping the tin miners. We're helping the Murdoch workers fight the struggle at Wapping for example.
Campaign group members went to about We've had Sean Geraghty come to talk to us about it.
We are also preparing a series of Bills. Later this year there will be a book published called Legislating for Socialism containing the texts of the Bills we've been working on.
We've done one on nuclear bases, we've done one on justice for the miners, we've got one on local auth- thought.
we've got one on the land ve ve got one on sexual equality, ther is the Reform Bill introduced last sum These are all Bills which show simply and modestly, without oversimplication, what structural changes would be needed if the labour movement was to have a Commons majority.
I think that work is useful. The annual report of the Campaign group, which will be published shortly, lists hundreds of delegations, all of which we've been at.
Local Campaign groups are grow. ing. The annual report will publish the CISt *Aims and Objectives' of the Campaign which will be very similar to those of the Chesterfield ones.
We're saying two things about these groups. We want them to be open and We don't want one group to capture a Campaign group in a particular area and use it for its own purpose. It must be genuinely open to Secondly they must be genuinely democratic with proper elections and On that basis, local Campaign groups as an open and democratic part of the network of the left, will grow.
growing. They non-sectarian. They are active. They do fill the gap and the vacuum. I think anyone who does those things has got a potential audience - I don't think there is any group that can do it by itself You can see the way things grow at the bottom, are expressed in some way actively at the parliamentary level, and are spreading out into the trade unions.
It's not just that the Labour Party failed, the left failed too. The left went off in its own way with some of its sectarian excesses. It failed to do the work. It thought perhaps it was all too easy. It thought it could all be dealt with by disposing of individuals and replacing them with other individuals. There was a vacuum in the left that had to be fillWhen you look ahead to this years conference we ought to be beginning to put forward with determination the we make, not focussing everything on what we can persuade the leadership to put into the manifesto when i came to your Allance Tol conference I emphasised that we shouldn't be too worried about the promises made. What we should be clear about is the demands we are mak.
Promises depend tWisting somebody else's arm to get them to say what you want them to say. Demands are what we want and those who make them not working by proxy. We are doing it ourselves. I think these demands will be building by conference Though I have never played any part in what is loosely termed sectarianism', espect for people who sit and thin about socialism, because I think the future belongs to socialism. Therefore anybody who's got anything to socialism, a principled position, I'm interested in.
The so-called realignment of 1985 was painful personally because a lot of people I'd worked with closely were explicitly involved with it.
But when I looked very hard at what it was about, and at the people who were declaring for that, I found that there wasn't as much substance in it as I First of all they tended to justify it on the grounds that you had to relate to the new eader. he whole thine wa about your atitude to the new leader.
But I've never thought that that was what politics was about. Once you start positioning yourself politically in relaHot to somerouy eise who Havucus u occupy a particular position, you have in some deep and fundamental sense abandoned real analysis.
You say 'well I'm more critical than he or she is', 'he or she is more critical than I am', but despite my criticism I stand in this relationship to someone That is really lining up in a sup porting actor's role, which I don't think is what we're about.
Also, having seen all this happen before over many years, I came to the COnCUSIOl inal people who realign themselves on that basis tend ver quickly to find that they haven't got a lot to say. I can't say that out of th so-called realigned left of 1985 I've seen much substance emerging I've seen a lot of substance from Chesterfield, I ve seen SOE substance from the Campaign group I've seen a lot of work going on by teachers, hospital workers, miners and so on but I haven't seen a lot come out of the realigned left. Inal was, their part, a false step.
Some may want to think/again. I don't think that personal rows at any stage have got anything whatever to do with creating a winning alliance. If you want an alliance you've got to work with all sorts of people and I believe that you should.
At the same time there will have to be some rethinking. Because I don't believe that the so called realigned left has actually been in a position to offer very much except pages of evidence against Militant. If that's what they want that's up to them but I don't think its a very positive contribution perRemember that at the moment the major factor in British politics is fear and hopelessness. It is encouraged by Thatcher and by some of the left who argue that Labour will always betray.
The only way LU defeat these arguments is to present some real vision of the future and fight for it consistentposition on South Africa THE STRUGGLE in Africa given rise wide ranging debate, and taking of positions, throughout the entire international labour ment.
ed by Leon Trotsky. We are printing below the resolution adopted by the United Secretariat of the Fourth on Africa. Articles by Party, the ANC, COSATU, and other organisations have been carried in previous issues Socialist Action.
1. The new rise in struggles in South Africa falls into the framework of the general crisis of imperialist domination, opening a new front which could increase the difficulties of the imperialist counter offensive including Central America. The African mass movement had already been stimulated by the defeat of Portuguese colonialism in Mozambique. 1 oday une against apartheid constitute the most advanced form of the anti-imperialist struggles the whole of Africa. The new wave of mobilisations in South Atrica stitute an element of first importance for all anti-imperialist throughout the world. The imperialist governments and big capital have all recognised the danger and are each seeking to close the breach that is opening in South Africa.
The place of South Africa in the counter-revolutionary system of imperialism is considerable, as are imperialism's economic interests in this The South African regime coull y remains the strong arm of imperialism in Southern Africa, and has even contributed to arming the dictatorships in Latin America. The important place that a revolutionary upsurge in South Africa could hold in the future is the product of all these factors.
2. There has been an change in the political situation in South Africa with the explosion of the over a year ago, with first the educa- SI CoCull revolt. ine process tion boycotts by high-school and university students, the boycott of the sham elections proposed by Botha for the Indian Coloured munities, the miners September 1984, stayaway (general Transvaal in November 1984.
This period has been marked by workplace conflicts, workers going into struggle on wage demands, demands for improvement in working conditions or in defence of trade-union rights against ings.
The present upsurge of activity and radicalisation more and more direct link between a series of struggles different social sectors of the oppressed masses: youth, workers, township areless.
This same tendency towards unity is also noted at the level to which the struggle has broken through ethnic compartmentalisation that the regime nas striven to establish through apartheid laws, introducing divisions among the oppressed by them into distinct racial categories.
This desire for unity on the part of the oppressed population is not yet however sufficient to overcome all the racial and ethnic prejudices that the apartheid system has succeeded in introducing among the masses.
remains the product of a division of the population in social and working life, and in their place of residence.
But the process represents a considerable political advance ana seriously aestabilises uc organisation of racial segregation, the basis of the present regime. In the framework of the new relationship of Socialist Action 14 February 1986 South to moveSouth the Labour South Angola and struggles Black popular Colstruggles important the stayaway Colllin then the including the in the portance of the workers' through its trade unions, unitary sackmarked by a working class. each involve All Inis organisation the Tendence. a substantial section classifying.
(non-white) working class.
Droven
Station with the regime.
This movement underway taken on this question, forces, the reform proposals put forward by Botha in the end satisfied neither the masses nor imperialism.
One of the key moments of this surge, tendency towards unity in action was the Transvaal pend, November 1984, where among other things a united front was established, unions and the UDF. This strike particularly showed up the growing immovement without which no action of such a scale would of as siniary federation oration federation bringing together the majority of the independent unions will be an event of con- divide siderable importance which can only encourage the activity of the Black illustrates the level of development already attained by the mass movement. Two main forms of particularly developed since 1980 on complementary fronts: community associations organising people in their place of non-racial indepenaent trade umons walen now organise of the Black It is the of combining these two forms of organisation of the movement that must be resolved in order to pass to a higher stage in the confronLine rear ano aclive. effective unification of the different forms of organisation in the popular been able to realised either in the UDF or ANC.
The present level of popular struggle poses urgently the question of self defence of the masses, and initiatives so that the potential for offensive combat by the mass movement can emerge. The present lack of response to these questions is already a problem for the Fourth International development of mass mobilisations.
The struggle for emancipation, which has just experienced a new upwill theretore be a long complex struggle. Its outcome will deamong things, result of the political orientations on tactical and strategic questions which will be adopted on the basis of the present experiences.
3. In fact, the radicalisation of the mass movement and the political obthat it is taking brought to the forefront the political differences and strategic debates that Line different currents organisations within it. On tactical questions, as on the long-term objectives. there are ditterent orientations within the mass movement.
Among the currents existing, there is first of all the ANC which has mass support in certain sectors of the mass particularly in the civic associations, and which enjoys a wide audience beyond its organisationa network. There is also Black sciousness, and particularly AZAPO. Among the main organised currents one should also include certain churches, members of the World Council of Reformed Churches, that have a specific political practice and have an base. Finally, leaderships of certain of the principal unions act independently mobilisations by following their own perspectives and appear as political forces in their own right in the present political diversity.
The South African workers' movement is the product of modifications in the social structure of the country following the industrialisation process of the 1960s. The importance of the industrial proletariat. in the struggles ahead is thus first of all the and its degree of concentration, that is its social weight in South African society. During lie Black working class has capacity to introduce its own methods of action and organisation into the struggle against the apartheid system, having forged its first weapons in the struggle around and for trade-union rights.
4. The present struggle in many ways have started on democratic and national demands, but not exclusively. The oppressed masses want to get out from under the yoke of the racist state, they want an egalitarian, non-racial slalc. universal discrimination of any sort, under the slogan one person immense majority of the layers of the oppressed Black terested in the realisation of these democratic demands. But already, at this stage Con- demands have come forward in the workers' struggles bosses and the state that clearly link the question of apartheid to that of capitalist domination lies in the the capitalism and racist institutions in this country. ment of racial domination but it is also a way of guaranteeing a specific exploitation of the workforce. Apartheid is capitalist exploitation has taken in this country. And that has immediate consequences in the way in which the workers' movement identifies its class enemies, including in the democratic and national struggles.
(limited on troduction the imperialism South currents CaDilal theid product of its numerical reality last period the proved its land question.
economic demands ment democratic and They demand suffrage without one vote. The population is in mobilisation, Ine directed lne The reason for this combination interwoven history Apartheid is an instruspecific form that appeared It is true that from a certain point January. of view apartheid is full of contradictions for certain sectors of capitalism domestic market, lack of qualified workforces, etc.) But today it is the direct danger of revolutionary explosion that has forced a section of the South African ruling class to try to introduce reforms. The liberals, who are essentially supported by a section of the South African finance and industrial capital, have thus embarked the course of trying to find a political solution by meeting the ANC or trying to moderate the UDF. , But precisely because of the link between capitalism and apartheid they are incapable of proposing the abolition of all discriminatory laws and the in.
of universal suffrage.
Their attempt at reform will not for the moment go beyond the federative proposals that deliberately ignore the popular hope for a single non-racial nation. In the last instance, ine rea compromise that the liberals will have to make will be that which they will make with the rest of their class, that reactionary sectors today represented by the National Party.
The new situation in South Africa has a worldwide importance, given the strategic importance of this coun try for imperialism and the scope of the economic interests. Up until now, ported the racist regime. The new situation requires certain political rectifications in order to find a solution to the present crisis. Certain sectors of the banks and multinationals have undertaken to put pressure on the African regime through number of financial and commercial mechanisms. The immediate scope of these sanctions should not hide the fact that the imperialist countries fundamentally seek the stability of the capitalist regime in South Africa, and want to avoid a radicalisation of the present movement. To achieve this they rely more and more on the liberal •South big 5. For all these reasons, the South African revolutionary process will be in line with the social, economic and political reality of the country, that is, the reality of its class structure, which gives the industrial proletariat a central role in unifying the oppressed masses in the struggle against aparThe popular movement strives above everything else to liquidate the apartheid regime through the formasingle non-racial nation. through the question of equal civil and political rights, and through the While we must pay the greatest attention to the immediate struggle for these demands which are in the interests of all the ooppressed, it is nevertheless decisive that the workers' movement should furnish the mass movement with its leadership. The strengthening of the workers' moveconstruction of recognised revolutionary proletarian leadership are thus necessary tasks to prevent the present struggles ending in stalemate or dead end, without even having been able to meet the main democratic demands. A proletarian leadership will be the only guarantee that the democratic and national questions are fully resolved The real, complete solution to these questions can only be carried out by the dictatorship of the proletariat as the decisive point in a process of permanent revolution. Even if certain socialist tasks must wait for later, only the dictatorship of the proletariat is capable of fulfilling and defending demands of the national democratic revolution. This is possible in South Africa because the social and political relations existing in the country are ready to bring the proletariat to power at the head of the oppressed and exploited masses.
Politics and trade unions in In our next issue DODIE WEP PLER takes issue with the article "The politics of COSATU which in Socialist Action
Socialist Action 14 February 1986
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KEEP FIGHTING Defend
DEFEND TU. RIGHTS
One organisation which has taken a position on this struggle is international organisation found-