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 counteroffensive including in Central America.
The South African mass movement had already been stimulated by the defeat of Portuguese colonialism in Angola and Mozambique. Today the struggles against apartheid constitute the most advanced form of the anti-imperialist struggles in the whole of Black Africa.
The new wave of popular mobilizations in South Africa constitutes an element of first importance for all anti-imperialist struggles throughout the world. The imperialist governments and big capital have all recognized the danger and are each seeking to close the breach that is opening in South Africa.
The place of South Africa in the counterrevolutionary system of imperialism is considerable, as are imperialism's economic interests in this country. The South African regime 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 important change in the political situation in South Africa with the explosion of the present revolt. The process began over a year ago, with first the education boycotts by high school and university students, the boycott of the sham elections proposed by Botha for the Indian and Coloured communities, the miners' strike in September 1984, and then the stay away (general strike) in the Transvaal in November 1984.
This period has been marked by many workplace conflicts, the workers going into struggle on wage demands, demands for improvement in working conditions, or in defense of trade union rights or against sackings.
The present upsurge of activity and radicalization is marked by a more and more direct link between a series of struggles that each involve different social sectors of the oppressed masses: youth, workers, township dwellers.
This same tendency toward unity is also noted at the level to which the struggle has broken through the ethnic compartmentalization that the regime has striven to establish through the apartheid laws, introducing divisions among the oppressed by classifying 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. This situation remains the product of a division of the population in social and working life, and in their place of residence.
But the process under way represents a considerable political advance and seriously destabilizes the organization of racial segregation, the basis of the present regime. In the framework of the new relationship of forces, the reform proposals put forward by Botha in the end satisfied neither the masses nor imperialism.
One of the key moments of this tendency toward unity in action was the stay away in the Transvaal in November 1984, where among other things a united front was established including the independent trade unions and the United Democratic Front (UDF).
This strike particularly showed the growing importance of the workers' movement through its trade unions, without which no action of such scale would be possible. The imminent formation of a unitary federation bringing together the majority of the independent unions will be an event of considerable importance which can only encourage the activity of the Black working class.
All this illustrates the level of development already attained by the mass movement. Two main forms of organization have particularly developed since 1980 on complementary fronts: community associations organizing people in their place of residence; and non-racial independent trade unions which now organize a substantial section of the Black (non-white) working class.
It is the problem of combining these two forms of organization of the movement that must be resolved in order to pass to a higher stage in the confrontation with the regime. The real and effective unification of the different forms of organization in the popular movement has not been able to be realized either in the UDF or in the African National Congress (ANC).
The present level of popular struggle poses urgently the question of self-defense of the masses and initiatives taken on this question, 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 development of mass mobilizations.
The struggle for emancipation, which has just experienced a new upsurge, will therefore be a long and complex struggle. Its outcome will depend, among other things, on the 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 radicalization of the mass movement and the political objectives that it is taking on have brought to the forefront the political differences and strategic debates that divide the different currents and organizations within it. On tactical questions, as on the long-term objectives, there are different 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 movement, particularly in the civic associations, and which enjoys a wide audience beyond its organizational network.
There is also the Black Consciousness movement, and particularly the Azanian People's Organisation (Azapo). Among the main organized currents one should also include certain churches, members of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, that have a specific political practice and have an active militant base.
Finally the leaderships of certain of the principal unions act independently in the mobilizations 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 industrialization process of the 1960s. The importance of the industrial proletariat in the struggles ahead is thus first of all the product of its numerical reality and its degree of concentration, that is, its social weight in South African society.
During the last period the Black working class has proved its capacity to introduce its own methods of action and organization into the struggle against the apartheid system, having forged its first weapons in the struggle around economic demands and for trade union rights.
4. The present struggle in many ways 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, democratic, and non-racial state. They demand universal suffrage without discrimination of any sort, under the slogan "one person, one vote."
The immense majority of the layers of the oppressed Black population is interested in the realization of these democratic and national demands. But already, at this stage of the mobilization, demands have come forward in the workers' struggles directed to the bosses and the state that clearly link the question of apartheid to that of capitalist domination.
The reason for this combination lies in the interwoven history of capitalism and racist institutions in this country. Apartheid is an instrument of racial domination but it is also a way of guaranteeing a specific exploitation of the work force. Apartheid is the specific form that 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.
It is true that from a certain point of view apartheid is full of contradictions for certain sectors of capitalism (limited domestic market, lack of qualified work forces, 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 South African finance and industrial capital, have thus embarked on 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 introduction 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, the real compromise that the liberals will have to make will be that which they will make with the rest of their class, that is, the reactionary sectors today represented by the National Party.
The new situation in South Africa has a worldwide importance, given the strategic importance of this country for imperialism and the scope of the economic interests.
Up until now, imperialism had unflinchingly supported 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 South African regime through a 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 radicalization of the present movement. To achieve this, they rely more and more on the liberal currents and South African big capital.
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 apartheid.
The popular movement strives above everything else to liquidate the apartheid regime through the formation of a single, non-racial nation, through the question of equal civil and political rights, and through the land question.
While we must pay the greatest attention to the immediate struggle for these demands which are in the interests of all the oppressed, it is nevertheless decisive that the workers' movement should furnish the mass movement with its leadership.
The strengthening of the workers' movement and the construction of a recognized 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 the 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.