Communist Party that South
Africa had set out on a course which could lead only to civil war
of the most vicious kind...Algeria provided the perfect histor-
ical example of that. I believed, moreover, and still believe that
such a civil war can never be won by the Whites of this country.
They might win some initial rounds. In the long run the balance
of forces is against them, both inside and outside the country....
. But win or lose, the consequences of civil war would be horrifying
and permanent. Clearly it is imperative that an alternative ‘'solu-
tion' be found, for in truth civil war is no 'solution' at all."
-~ Abram Fischer
He who wants to change the old society, but recoils from the only effective methods of doing so, ends up by accommodating himself to that society. He thereby. accepts the values and class morality of the old society, the services of whose rulers and supporters he frantically seeks to enlist in order to effect social change. In the result, he enters into concubinage with them, and embarks upon a course of action which, far from bringing about the desired social change, merely leads to proposed surface modifications of the old society. We call such a person a reformist, or "a left-wing fellow traveler of the status quo," in whose eyes the cause of liberation is not compelling enough to permit the use of all means to attain it. But when a person, having set himself the goal of radical social change, is prepared to use the swiftest and boldest methods to achieve it, means and ends are in complete unity; and we call him a revolutionary.
We have before us the speech which Abram Fischer, leader of the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA), delivered from the dock in the South African Supreme Court, which sentenced him shortly thereafter to life imprisonment. It is called What I Did Was Right and was brought out by Mayibuye Publications, London. An introduction to it says that he was sentenced in Pretoria in March, 1966, "for preparing to overthrow the Verwoerd Government by violence." This stands in sharp contradiction to the theme of his statement which expressed the traditional policy of the CPSA: to avert a popular revolution by seeking the cooperation of the government, through mass pressures and individual acts of bloodless sabotage, to undertake certain political changes in a democratic direction.
Our comments on his speech are therefore virtually an analysis of the policies of the CPSA who saw to it that it was widely circulated and did so with acclamation. Hence we often refer to excerpts from Fischer's speech as CPSA statements.
But first of all, it is necessary to record that Fischer embarked upon his course of action with deep personal conviction and a_ remarkable display of valour. This evokes our admiration and solidarity with him against the rulers of the country. To be sure, his speech from the dock is a touching document of great personal courage and sincerity.
Having said that, there are many who will disagree with the methods his party adopted to achieve their professed aim of democratic change. They are methods which the CP have doggedly followed for a number of years in our country, methods which lead further and further away from the goal of liberation and which tend to set back the struggle each time that they are employed. Fischer's speech summarises these CP methods, and in taking it as the point of departure for another criticism of them, we do so in the hope that the wiser counsels of revolutionary socialism will finally prevail throughout the Azanian movement for the effective prosecution of the struggle.
What I Did Was Right is certainly not cast in the mould of Fidel Castro's History Will Absolve Me. Whereas the former sought an accommodation with the rulers, the latter defiantly stated the revolutionary objective of liquidating the ruling class and doing
so by following Danton's prescription of "audacity, more audacity, and once again audac-— ity." Fischer's speech is an abstract "criticism of weapons," while Castro assailed his rulers by combining “criticism with weapons."
Did Fischer's own end -- a crushing life sentence by the rulers -- justify the faith he had in them that they would play the game according to the rules and finally sit down with his party in perfect amity to listen to the voice of reason and then make provision for a peaceful transition to democratic rule? More concretely, did the ends of his party justify the means? Did those means not lead further and further away from the ends they had in mind? It is the complete dislocation between ends and means, as expressed in his court speech, that is the essential tragedy of the Fischer story. For running like a red thread through CP policy is their willingness to accommodate the rulers at every turn, to the extent of watering down the liberation programme, so that they might become amenable to the idea of sharing power with the oppressed. By accepting the assumptions and presuppositions of the ruling class, he met them unarmed on their battlefield -- their own "reasoning" in the teeth of opposition -- and became a captive of their special morality. In consequence, his political ends receded and became more obscure as the means of attaining them became more ineffectual.
CP "Marxism" as Old-Fashioned Liberalism
The CP make their retreat from Marxism under cover of Marxism. This is due to the fact that Marxism, as a doctrine and method of securing power, has come to grip the imagination of the oppressed everywhere. A political party that openly scraps this ideology therefore do so at the risk of losing its popular support. The CP change themselves from professed Marxists to old-fashioned liberals, but can do so only by changing Marxism itself into a liberal doctrine.
Poor Marx! He is not here to defend himself. Yet the CP are merely following in the wake of the Kremlin bureaucracy who are trying to make Marxism "peactful" and "respectable" in order to justify their collaboration with imperialism to stave off world revolution in general and colonial revolutions in particular.
The CP regard Marxism simply as a "social science" which enables one to understand the world.... Thus, according to them, "...most of the Marxist principles...are today accepted by many historians and economists who are by no means themselves Marxists." This observation by Fischer is an attempt to give Marxism a liberal respectability. It is true of course that many bourgeois scholars have come to recognise the law of class struggle and use the method of historical materialism in their studies. But the crux of Marxism, which the CP openly reject, is armed revolution to seize state power and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, or the rule of the majority over the minority. Marx was very clear on the kernel of his doctrine. In a letter to G. Weydemeyer (1852) he writes:
',..no credit is due to me for discovering the existence of classes in modern society nor yet the struggle between them. Long before me bourgeois historians had described the historical development of this class struggle and bourgeois economists the economic anatomy of the classes. What I did that was new was to prove: (1) that the existence of classes is only bound up with particular, historic phases in the development of production; (2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat; (43) that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society." [Emphasis in original. ]
The CP do not subscribe to this pith of Marxism, because it conflicts with their concern over the fate of the privileged whites and their current collaboration with imperialism. They say: "Marxism is not something violent or subversive" and add: "We have never aimed at a despotic system of government. Nor were efforts ever directed to establishing a dictatorship of the proletariat in this country."
Whereas Marx says that "Force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one," the CP rule out force completely as well. This naturally flows from their abhorrence of the dictatorship of the proletariat which in Azania [South Africa] simply means an armed black majority cruShing the privileges of the whites in general and the imperialist owners of the means of production in particular.
Fischer is quite frank that he is more concerned over the fate of the whites in a war of liberation than he is over the blacks. "I...believe," he says, "that...a civil war can never be won by the whites of this country" and that, in any event, "the consequences of civil war would be horrifying and permanent."
What the “horrifying" and "permanent" consequences are, he does not spell out,
but it is clear that he regards the impress of a black proletariat on the state, result-— ing from a revolution, as more menacing then the retention of white minority rule by force of arms. It is precisely this fear for the future of the whites and their place as a special group in a new society that leads the CP to rule out revolution. For they say:
"The sole questions for the future of all of us...are not whether the change will come but only whether the change can be brought about peacefully and without bloodshed; and what_the position of the white man is going to be in the period immediately following on the establishment of democracy." [Emphasis added. ]
In essence this means that they are prepared to witness for an indefinite period the perpetuation of white domination by the ruthless persecution and slow mass murder of the black majority rather than to opt for a swift revolutionary way out that can put an end to three hundred years of race wars and genocide. They cannot agree to spill a little blood now in order to save a lot more blood later, because the blood of the white minority might be involved.
And so they have to emasculate Marxism of its revolutionary core and relegate socialism to the Hereafter. In consequence, concession after concession is made to the status quo. "Neither at that stage (1950) nor at any stage since then has a socialist revolution been on the agenda in South Africa," the CP assure us. Of course not, when the CP always had a vested interest in certain aspects of the status quo and when their collaboration with imperialism rules out any action that threatens the expropriation of imperialist interests in Azania, like the mines and private manufacturing.
"T...believe (says Fischer) that socialism in the long term has an answer to the problem of race relations -- that is, a socialist state. But by negotiations, other immediate solutions can be found. They must, however, not be imposed but worked out in cooperation, and that is what the Communist Party has stood for."
Having placed socialism into cold storage, the CP proceed to water down even the minimum democratic programme with their emphasis on change by negotiations between the oppressor and the oppressed, exploiter and exploited. The type of state the CP call for is neither fish nor fowl. What they want is a state embracing all the classes and the old race groups. They feel that "immediate dangers (of armed revolution, naturally) can be avoided by what we always refer to as a national democratic revolution." The "immediate proposals" of the CP "are put forward within the framework of the Freedom Charter for urgent discussion by a National Convention not in order to establish a socialist state but for the building of a national democratic state."
It is hard to believe, but it is true that in this day and age the CP still see a dichotomy between democracy and socialism, when it has been proved by life itself that democracy can be consolidated only by introducing socialist measures as soon as the revolution is victorious. To limit the programme of the democratic revolution to the framework of capitalism is not to guarantee the success of democracy but to repudiate it. History testifies that a democratic revolution must either grow over into socialism or suffer defeat at the hands of those against whom wholesale expropriatory measures are not taken in good time. "He who would strengthen democracy," says Rosa Luxemburg, "should want to strengthen and not weaken’ the socialist movement."
Thus the CP whittle down even the democratic programme by their insistence that a National Convention of the oppressors and the oppressed should meet to form a national democratic state. So that where the imperialist mining magnates and manufacturers, Afrikaaner land barons and industrialists, should agree to meet the unarmed black workers and poor peasants for a peaceful transition to democracy, even a simpleton knows who will hold the whip hand and with whom effective political and economic power will really lie in this national democratic state.
The Marxian conception of the state is that it is the organ of rule of the dominant class which oppresses other classes. It consists of an ensemble of coercive institutions like the standing army, a permanent bureaucracy, courts of law, prisons and a parliament. Today that state is either the dictatorship of the proletariat or the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, even where the power of the latter is screened by the institution of parliamentary democracy based on universal suffrage. The CP envisage a type of hybrid state in which the blacks are brought into the councils of the nation at a purely parliamentary level, while real power is wielded outside by the bankers, the stock exchange and the owners of the means of production backed by the standing army.
This type of state has been established peacefully in a number of African countries by imperialism for the purpose of gaining local support for the further entrenchment of the foreign monopolists whose power hides behind the fagade of parliamentary
government. This parliament is just a talking shop and acts as a safety vaive for the grievances of the people as well as a clearing house for imperialist stooges. It can in no way pass laws aimed at breaking the imperialist grip on the country. "Law," says Marx, “cannot be higher than the economic structure of society or the cultural development conditioned by that structure.
What the CP are asking, therefore, is the usual "neocolonialist" solution to Azania's problems so as to keep intact white and foreign economic and military power, while the blacks dissipate their energies in a parliamentary fowl run. This is precisely the motive of the CP proposed national convention.
of course, it has never happened in history for the propertied classes to sit in conference with the people they oppress so as to hand over peacefully and voluntarily a part of their power. Marx mercilessly ridiculed the German liberals who in 1849 called a parliament to draw up a constitution for a united Germany and then present it to the Austrian overlords for ratification. This parliament or convention of democratic nannies and bourgeois lawyers deliberated for weeks on constitutional niceties, gloriously unconcerned with the question of effective power to enfore their constitutional decisionmaking. When, therefore, the Austrian rulers had crushed the revolts that had broken out in various parts of their empire, they could turn their attention to this assembly of "old women" -- as Marx called them -- and disperse them without any trouble.
Together with the ANC [African National Congress], the "communists" called an “all-in Conference" in March 1961 "and decided," according to Fischer, "to make one more peaceful call on the Government to hold a Convention, at least to discuss the constitution for the new Republic of South Africa failing which there should be a three-day ~ stay-at-home at the end of May." This Conference was really "all-in" in the sense that the agents of imperialism were also called upon to lend their support to the idea of a national convention. And if the government still remained intransigent, there was to be a strictly controlled "strike" of limited duration so as not to estrange and jeopardise the interests of imperialism whose cooperation the CP wanted for an Oppenheimer-Luthuli coalition within the framework of neocolonialisn.
To be sure, it has been the traditional policy of the CP to give electoral support to the so-called progressive wing of capitalism as represented first by the United party and latterly by the Progressive party through both of which imperialism is contriving to promote its interests. The CP did this on the spurious grounds of preferring the lesser evil. In reality it was calculated to bring about a popular front between imperialism and the more moderate and "responsible" African leadership with the object of ousting the Nationalist regime and establishing a multiracialist imperialist semicolony in which an aspirant African bourgeoisie could have a vested interest.
It is fair to say that, in view of the counterrevolution that has gripped Africa for almost two years now, The African Communist (No. 26, 1966) is doing some rethinking on the uncritical support it has hitherto given to the so-called "noncapitalist" path which neocolonialist "national democratic states" have followed in Africa. The author of "Crisis in Africa," published in this number of the theoretical organ of the CPSA, calls for the formation of revolutionary Marxist parties in the African states to struggle for the complete liquidation of imperialism and the formation of workers states to open the way to socialist reconstruction on the lines of scientific principles laid down by Bolshevik-Leninism. But it is obvious that the CP cannot wear one face in the African states and a. completely different one in Azania whose more advanced industrialization makes her riper for the ideas the CP now advocate in the countries to the north. It is time for ideological stocktaking!
The "all-in Conference" was held in Pietermaritzburg. The Congress Alliance and the CP "forget" that effective democratic constitutions are the result of the conquest of power, not a prelude to it; that they are the epilogue of successful revolutionary battles, not a prologue to them. Not that the CP had any plans for a revolution. They were merely applying their traditional policy of class collaboration with the rulers in order to secure some inconsequential reforms. They thereby sowed, with cool calculation, the illusion in the minds of the masses that they could achieve liberation, not by relying on an independent revolutionary struggle, but_on the goodwill of the rulers. This~ had the effect of diminishing mass awareness of their organised might to settle their destiny according to their own lights.
What the CP wanted was what Marx called "a partial, merely political revolution" which, with the backing of the forces of law and order, could be achieved peacefully, without arousing the most downtrodden masses who have more “radical chains" to break. Every Communist party worth its salt bases itself squarely on the most exploited sections of the people. The CP stood in dread of the most exploited sections of Azania, because they feared a thorough renovation of society.
The CPSA Fear of a Revolution by the Black Masses
Several times in the course of his speech Fischer proudly pointed to the CP record of warning the rulers that unless they altered their policy a revolution would be unavoidable. In fact the CP willingly and knowingly acted as the barometer of the political pressures building up among the masses so that the rulers could either take measures in good time to deal with an impending political storm or heed the advice of the CP to introduce such reforms as would stabilise the situation in the country. Fischer says that it was his duty to be active in the CP "in view of...the dangerous circumstances which have been created in South Africa." He speaks of the "extremely dangerous situation into. which South Africa is being led" by the policies of the government; of "...the present dangers in South Africa which would impel people to act." "The situation created," he warns, “would immediately be explosive and lead overnight to extreme unrest and violence." "South Africa," he continues in the same vein, "had set out ona course which could lead to a civil war of the most vicious kind," and concludes: "Had our White political leaders...preached the possibility of inter-racial cooperation...we might already have reached a position of safety."
What kind of language is this, coming as it does from "communists"? It amounts to this: the CP perspire doubly in fear at the prospects of armed revolution and find it more “horrifying" than the continued race violence and genocide committed by the rulers. There is no other interpretation one can place on these remarks.
The CP were exhorting the government to act at once before the liberation struggle came under the influence of a leadership that aimed at nothing less than a radical social overturn by methods of armed struggle. In this connection they refer to their services to the rulers. Fischer cites the Umkhonto Manifesto which says:
"We of Umkhonto we Sizwe have always sought to achieve liberation without bloodshed and civil clash. We hope, even at this late hour, that our first actions will awake everyone to a realisation of the disastrous situation to which Nationalist policy is leading. We hope that we will bring the Government and its supporters to their senses before it is too late, so that both the Government and its policies can be changed before matters reach the desperate stage of civil war." [Emphasis added. ]
The "first actions" which Umkhonto (the military wing of the Congress | Alliance ) undertook to "bring the Government and its supporters to their senses" were "some. highly controlled and restricted sabotage" against “carefully selected targets, targets which could be attacked without endangering life and limb...(and) which, if successfully attacked, would disrupt the process of governing."
The CP do not tell us that these futile methods not only increased the intransigence of the whites but exacerbated their race prejudice, compelling the government at the time to strengthen their armed forces and arm the whites more effectively. Earlier, Fischer had made reference to the Defiance Campaign against "Unjust Laws" in 1950. It was a peaceful demonstration, "but...violence was used against the protestors, violence in the form of arrests of innocent people and actual violence in the way of shootings." Yet even this natural reaction by the rulers against those who wanted to change the system of oppression did not deter the CP from using the black masses more than ten years later in an attempt to bring about reform in order precisely to forestall a revolution. That the use of the black masses to champion the lost causes of the CP led to their ruthless persecution and death in many instances, does not apparently worry the "communists" as long as a revolutionary upsurge could be averted.
What is significant here is that, while the CP irrevocably rule out force and revolutionary violence by the masses, the race violence of the ruling classes is simply deplored each time it occurs, and this in response to the peaceful methods of the CP and the Congress Alliance. This is a double standard of morality which naturally flows from their concern over the white voters and the existing property relations. Thus the CP acted in order to prevent a recurrence of the "Paarl riots" and the "Bashee murders" which led to the loss of white lives. Their action was calculated "to have the effect of deterring extremists, whose numbers and influence were growing at_an alarming rate, from undertaking precisely that kind of terrorism which we have always fought to prevent. [Emphasis added. ]
Equally damning is the CP view of the Azanian revolution as nothing else than the beginning of a race war. The calculated race wars of the rulers down the centuries hold less terror for them. But as soon as the black masses undertake some sort of concerted action to counter the race wars of the whites in order to protect themselves and improve their conditions of life, then the CP view this as the beginning and aggravation of racial strife. Listen to this:
...there had been grave unrest in many parts of the country due to. the application of “apanthowa laws -- in Zeerust and Sekhukhuniland, in Durban and Warmbaths, in Zululand and Pondoland.
"All these pointed to ‘the almost inevitable outbreak of violence in its most dangerous form, i.e., indiscriminate violence purely on racial grounds.'
. . Thus the steps taken by the poor peasants in these areas to resist the measures of the rulers to destroy their crops, cull their cattle and destroy their villages in order to force them to work for starvation wages, are called by the CP "violence in its most dangerous form"; more dangerous, that'is, than the violence of the state against defenceless people, ine CP are more concerned over those organised , actions by the masses which “stimulate race antagonisms" and lead to loss of white lives.than they are over the actions of the state which-increase race antagonisms and the loss of black lives a hundred times.
[To be continued. ]
_ CORRECTION
In the interview with Peng Shu-tse appearing in the February 10 issue of World Outlook, the sentence on page 145 reading, "As I stated earlier, the leaders in the Northwest, Southwest and East Bureaus can be considered to stand pretty firmly in the camp of the opposition," should read: "As I stated earlier, the leaders in the Northwest, Southwest and Northeast bureaus can be considered to stand "pretty firmly in the camp of the opposition.’