The 'unity' Fraud

Scan page 5

Militant is not the only left wing paper to make the deceptive call for 'unity' against the Tories and evade the fundamental problem of working class leadership.

Socialist Challenge, the paper of the International Marxist Group, has echoed the McLennan Militant's vague deciaration that "socialist policies are the way: unite to fight the Tories" (front page, May 10).

IMG spokesman Rich Paiser actually declares that:

... the fight to unite the labour movement in action against the Tories requires a political fight against the right wing." (31 May).

And in an extensive uncritical interview with newly elected Labour 'left' Ernie Roberts, Socialist Challenge revels in his call for unity of "all those on the left."

How far this "left" extends towards the right wing can be seen from the fact that Tony Chater, editor of the Stalinist Morning Star, was given extensive space in the supposedly Trotskyist' Socialist Challenge (May 17) to present a tarted-up "left' face for the Communist Yet the Stalinists' real policy for 'unity' against the Tories was spelled out more honestly by CP General Secretary Gordon McLennan in the Morning Star. He looks enthus¡astically to an all class popular front-style mobilisation:

"millions well outside the normal compass of the labour movement can be brought into action, including many who voted for the Tories."

The Star goes on to advocate: + "A broad alliance of democratic anti-Tory forces", as the mears of resisting Thatcher's attacks.

The Stalinists have, of course, uncritically supported Benn in his opportunist moves to reconstruct his 'left' image in preparation for a bid for the Labour leadership.

But the real content of CP policy has emerged in the National Union of Studentswhere the Broad Left has now given way to a common front including the Young Liberalsand in ASTMS, where a sizable CP presence was mobilised at the union's conference in 'support of a package of right wing policies handed down by the NEC.

Unity in class action against the Tories will not be achieved through cuddling up to the Stalinists or capitulation to left' talking social democrats: it can only be achieved through the struggle against such forces for a principled programme of action in defence of jobs, wages and democratic rights.

This is the lesson that the IMG, like Militant, is unable to grasp.

Jenkins major struggles of the working class only as embarassing details to be explained away.

Our article went on to point out that:

"Militant says nothing of the importance of these strikes in preparing the basis of a fight against Tory attacks.

"Indeed it is back to the parliamentary arena and the inner-party debate, rather than political developments from such mass struggles, that Militant looks for hope in the future...

Indisputable

Brother Sheir does not challenge this indisputable fact. Nor does he try to refute our criticism that Militant has consistently covered up for the capitulations. of the Parliamentary lefts' including Tony Benn and remains opposed to the demand for the kicking out of Callaghan and the right wing leaders.

Indeed he himself demonstrates exactly the same approach when in his letter he urges us. to "concentrate" our attacks on the Tories and the Labour right wing rather than the fake 'lefts' whose role is so crucial to the preservation of the Callaghan-Healey leadership.

Scan page 6

capitalism has forced family.

working class in an which the largest falling rate of profit. Africa.

what the capitalist-apartheid fully collaborationist'Bantustans' and which are, was to out African The current acute Since 1960, over 1½ phase of the world- million people have been removed from white' rural wide crisis of decaying areas, and over 2 million from the cities. the bourgeoisie in all They have been forced countries to attack the into the Bantustans where the shortage of land, miniliving standards of the mal social services and unemployment are effort to restore the worsened by the corruption of the black bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie which In South Africa the effec 'governs' them. effects of the crisis and the capitalist attack have been Life there has become felt with fullest force literally untenable: at least 85% of families live below state calls 'homelands' the breadline and a third of all children die before fact, poverty-stricken they are fite years old. black labour reservoirs for One result of this has 'white' capitalist industry. been a continuous moveThe bare land of the ment of thousands of Bantustans is totally unable people from the misery of to support the overcrowded the reserves into the cities, and unemployed masses cast in a desperate attempt to. out by the capitalist system. evade starvation.

Legally, only workers already recruited through government agencies are allowed to work in the cities as migrant contract labour, living in segregated hostels and going 'home' for a few weeks each year to see their families and renew their contracts.

All wives, old people and unemployed workers are required to remain in the Bantustans, largely dependent for their survival on the inadequate wages of those in the cities.

For various reasons the Western Cape region, . of which Cape Town is the industrial heart, has been most convulsed by this symptom of apartheid capitalism.

In Cape Town itself there is a chronic housing shortage. Even according to official figures, in 1975 Bantustan death-camps and there was a shortage of become "illegal immigrants' 1,440 houses for even the to live black families legally in the area.

Yet in the past ten years no housing has been built capitalist apartheid slalc for Africans, even those declared its intention to qualified to live legally in 'de-Africanise' the area, the area. In addition to this coloured (ie mixed race) coloured workforce in workers and their families have suffered mass removals from 'white' areas. class strategy to divide the About 250,000 black working class and to squatters, mostly coloured, create privileged-hopehave built their shacks around Cape Town. sector within it, the scheme The largest squatter workers by forcemtict any camp, Crossroads, consists ruthless entorcemenil of black (African) families influx control and job reserwho have left the over- vation, leaving only crowded township ghettoes, coloured and white workers. together with the wives and children of contract workers who have abandoned the SOCIALIST PRESS. a =3 conditions Soweto-the ma and the number of black contract workers in the Western Cape has, in fact, member of their vastly increased over the past ten years.

In fact, in 1966 the Many of them were forced, by the lack of housing and the illegal status of their families, into the 'squatter camps'.

Intimidation As part of the ruling Of the 3,000 families at Crossroads only 100 are legally in the area: They have been subjected to continual police intimidationraids under the notorious 'pass laws'. evictions and the demolition of the shacks that are their homes.

Some Crossroads residents have had their homes demolished on as many as The plan proved a fiasco eight occasions. Africans poured the By June 1976 when area seeking employment; Crossroads was declared an

Scan page 7

: SOCIALIST PRESS. Hednesdas 5 June 1979 ErA brief chronology of the struggle for Crossroads basis for kers emergency camp and no more structures could be built there were over 3,000 hovels crammed together under intolerable conditions.

In those 3,000 dwellings lived 22,000 people-something under one tenth of the estimated number of squatters in the area around Cape Town.

The services provided by the Cape Divisional Council after Crossroads • was declared an emergency camp consisted of eight sources of running water, the removal of nightsoil and rubbish, and visiting clinics.

• In the wake of the black uprisings of 1976, which sent a chill death-wind through the palaces of the bourgeoisie; the state intensified its campaign of mass terror against Crossroads and the other working class squatter communities.

First Modderdam (in August 1977) and then Unibel and Werkgenot (in January 1978) were razed to the ground, leaving at least 25,000 blacks homeless. Most of these moved back into the overcrowded official townships, others moved to other camps built new dwellings.

Some were forced to return to the Bantustans and even more desperate poverty.

The attack of the bourgeois state foccussed then on Crossroads, the remaining major bastion of workers' resistance.

Back down

Un April 5th this year, against the background of a concerted state onslaught against those squatter communities where the level of working class organisation was low, and a general tightening up of the implementation of the pass law, came a surprise announcement by the South African government that it had decided to back down from its repeatedly declared intention to destroy Crossroads.

Cabinet Minister &. Piet Koornhof stressed that this climb down was a onceoft, ad hoc, solution to a "delicate human problem' to be accompanied by measures to prevent similar ones from arising in the future.' FEBRUARY 1975: The first shanties are built in the areato become known as Crossroads. MARCH 1975: Officials of the Bantu Affairs Adminstration Board (BAAB) serve eviction orders on residents.

MAY 1975: The first of a series of raids on Crossroads; 142 people are arrested on charges of trespass and the 'harbouring of wives' JUNE 1975: Some demolitions in terms of the March eviction orders takes place. Squatters obtain Supreme Court interdict that court orders are required before any demolition, but a subsequent amendment to the Act removes the necessity for this.

AUGUST 1975: Wives of men legally employed in Cape Town sent back to homelands' JUNE 1976: Residents appeal to have Crossroads declared an "emergency camp' in opposition to an attempt to have it demolished as a 'health hazard'. As a result of their success, minimal water facilities, refuse removal and sanitation are laid on-for which a montly levy of R10 (£5.00) is imposed on the squatters. The size of the camp is frozen. A school; built by the Crossroads residents, is opened.

In reality, the government was forced to back down in the face of persistent and united opposition from the workers of Crossroads, and fearing above all else not the international pressure of telegrams and resolutions, but the extension and development of struggle throughout the country which an all but assault on Crossroads might provoke.

With the extremely vigorous collusion of liberal' sections of the ruling class and its black petty bourgeois allies, the government has now announced proposals for the consolidation of a New Crossroads' The government concessions represent an important step forward in the Crossroads struggle, but that struggle is far from won.

For the plans announced in no way meet the central demand of the Crossroads workers-the demand for all residents to be given legal rights to remain at Crossroads.

Koornhof has announced that 2,575 homes are to be built at New Crossroadsclearly inadequate for the more than 20,000 officially recorded residents.

And no housing will be provided for those men and their families who fall into one of the two extremely broad categories:

(i) those with criminal records (fines exceeding about £300, or prison sentences exceeding 6 months)

(ii) those who have no means of support In addition, the government will continue in its vigorous endeavours to "persuade' people to return to the Bantustans.

Material needs

While the plans are totally inadequate for Crossroads workers, on the issue of the right to live in the area, they do nothing at all to meet the other objective material needs of workers-in relation to wages, unemployment, cheap and adequate housing, abolition of the pass laws, and the provision of a system of social services and education.

The Workers Socialist League has consistently AUGUST 1977: The nearby Modderdam Road squatters camp housing 10,000 people is demolished.

JANUARY 1978: The shacks of 10,000 squatters: are destroyed at Werkgenot and Unibel.

FEBRUARY 1978: All residents warned that if they do not shortly pay the rent levy their homes will be demolished. The Deputy Minister of Plural Relations and Development promises that 'every method available to the government will be used to make them move' and it is announced that Crossroads will definitely be demolished before the winter. APRIL 1978: The first Urban Foundation newsletter appears in the camps.

MAY 1978: Crossroads residents receive notices ordering them to break down their homes and return to the reserves. Some shacks are demolished.

JUNE 1978: Hundreds of people arrested during continuing police 'pass law' raids and harassment, and the police fire shots to disperse stonethrowing crowds. A reprieve is announced on demolition until after winter.

AUGUST 1978: The indepenpointed to the fact that underlying the mass movement of opposition which erupted in Soweto in June 1976 and took the form of opposition to apartheid, was the struggle of workers in pursuit of working class interests.

Spontaneous mass struggles which develop in South Africa can only be properly understood when it is recognised that they rest upon the partial economic demands • of workers in an industrialised capitalist country.

| Not abstract What gave such force and strength to the struggle which developed from Soweto was not essentially questions about Bantu education, autonomy for black capitalists to notisoweto, or abstract MOTORS human dignity and formal political rights.

Soweto and the rest of South Africa erupted essentially because of opposition on the material issues of • housing, unemployment, wages and conditions, the pass laws the absence of satisfactory education and the lack of control by the masses over any of the decision which directly affect their material existence.

Now the gains of Soweto stand in danger as a result of the inability of the working class to develop of its own accord beyond spontaneous militancy.

The lack of leadership is compounded by the diversion of the opposition movement by the reformist capitalists and professional people who make up the 'Soweto 10', as well as the failure of the traditional nationalist movements to provide any way forward to the masses in struggle.

But despite the assault of the state, struggles around these underlying issues still persist throughout the country.

Stalemate

In this situation of temporary political s alemate, where the state has been unable to smash the førward movement of the working class, and the working class lacks the leadership and programme dent' Transkei reserve refuses to accept 'so-called Transkeians' expelled from the squatter camps. The Cape Town City Council and local capitalists, and lawyers support appeal for Crossroads not to be demolished until alternative accommodation is found. SEPTEMBER 1978: A series of the most vicious attacks thus far is launched against Crossroads. Four people are killed and over a thousand arrested during the raids, carried out by nearly 1,000 armed police and BAAB officials with dogs, teargas etc. The police chief blames the loss of life on the squatter organisations and their 'spirit of resistance'. The government says it is determined to clear Crossroads of people by the end of do this: Time will determine deterant what method we will use'.

OCTOBER 1978: The Cape Divisional Council announces its intention to repeal the 1976 provision of 'essential services' and to demolish the homes of those more than three months in arrears. The SA Council of Churches promises aid in paying these arrears. Hundreds of to defend, develop, and carry through the gains it has made, specific, apparently localised struggles may assume a particular importance as national focusses of Since the dissipation of the Soweto eruption, Crossroads has come to assume such a national significance.

It is not simply because of the level of open and mass confrontation with the state that Crossroads represents an important continuity with the Soweto rebellion.

Indeed in a situation like South Africa where the enormity of repression can obscure the level of combativity ready to erupt, open confrontation and levels of organisation can not be relied upon as indicators of the political mood and movement of the working class.

Crossroads is so important because above all else it represents a continuity with the underlying objective political content of the Soweto rebellion-the struggle by workers to assert working class demands and a class independence.

The task facing revolutionaries is the defence and development, through the struggle to build a revolutionary leadership, of the level of class independence expressed in the struggles of Soweto and Crossroads.

As soon as it became clear to them that the workers of Crossroads were in fact relying on their own strength and a national working class solidarity to pursue their demands, the South African government was forced to shift its Seeing that behind the strength of the Crossroads workers is the level of class independence which they have attained, sections of the ruling class have persistently aimed, not at the physical destruction of the community and its organisations, but at the political destruction of their independence.

Throughout the history of the Crossroads struggle squatters arrested in a camp near the constal city of East London, NOVEMBER 1978: Thousands arrested at Winterveld la squatters' camp near Pretoria) by the police of Bophutatswana (another 'independent' black "homeland'); 500 houses demolished near Durban; 30 houses demolished at Germiston; 60 people arrested at Jabulani, a coloured-African camp at Cape Town.

JAN 1979: J: The Urban Foundation la group of black and white capitalists with black petty bourgeois lackeys) raises R40 million (£20million), one fifth of which to be allocated to the Cape Peninsular. A government statement that Crossroads is to be demolished 'any day now' APRIL 1979: The Minister of Plural Relations and Development Piet Koornhof, announces that 2,575 homes are to be built for Crossroads in a township to be designed by the Urban Foundation-which will nominate two out of three members of a board deciding on who will be allowed to be rehoused from Crossroads. Moves to get greater private sector involvement in housing.

therefore, state attacks have been coupled with a persistent campaign by liberals and reformists to pose as the allies of the people of Crossroads.

What all sections of the ruling class have feared is the possible national extension of working class struggle that an all-out assault on Crossroads might provoke.

Divisions within the ruling class have revolved around one central question -how best. to stem the forward movement of black workers, and resolve the political crisis of control in the interests of capital.

It is testimony to the national strength of the working class that those favouring an all out assault have been unable to carry their position.

In this situation, the white liberals, black capitalists and reformists play an increasingly vital role in the efforts of the state to head off and destroy working class struggle.

Strenuous efforts are now being made by the liberals to foster the illusion that the concessions, actually forced by the mobilised. and underlying strength of workers, were in fact the product of cooperation with 'good' capitalists.

Making great use of their black capitalist and black petty bourgeois lackeys, the white capitalists of the Urban Foundation are struggling to present themselves as the allies of black workers in their struggle against "bad', , openly racist capitalists.

Danger

The danger facing workers at Crossroads and throughout the country is that the significant, but totally inadequate concessions which have been won from the state will now be used, under the management of the liberals, to do what police attacks, government legislation and church conciliationism have all failed to do-divide, demobilise and destroy the Crossroads struggle.

Scan page 8

Peter McIntyre reviews the new TUC Report on technology and the CIS Report, The New Technology, (available from CIS, 9, Poland St., London W1. Price 75p).