South African Bosses Shrink from Mass Confrontation

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Bosses have voiced surprise ruptcy of the established nationat the determination and solid- alist movements, the reformism arity of the boycott, despite of trade union leaders, and the vigorous attempts to divide the militant popular frontism of workers. Black Consciousness, recently For revolutionaries, these revived under the banner of the features reflect the underlying Azanian People's Organisation.

forces, and are based on African revolution in the comthe degree of political indepen- ing period of struggle depends dence achieved by the class as a crucially on the outcome of the whole. battle for leadership of the Revolutionary intervention working class. throughout the world is strong and increasingly ready to fight. But it still faces the obstacle of a leadership that is incapable of mobilising its strength in independent mass struggles against the capitalist class.

Nowhere is this more sharply demonstrated than in the struggle of the super-exploited black working class of South Africa.

In particular, the recent developments in the struggle being waged by workers and their families in the Crossroads squatter camp give concrete form to the lessons of Trotskyism.

In April of this year, the South African state, retreating from its intention to bulldoze Crossroads and expel the community to the homeland' labour reservoirs, announced that the squatters would be rehoused in Cape Town's African ghettoes.

Concession

A committee was set up, drawn from the state bureaucracy and the league of capitalists known as the Urban Foundation, to decide which of the people qualified for the concession, and which were conlemned to the poverty and disease of the 'homelands' In Socialist Press 153, this concession, which in no way met the full demands of the workers, was correctly shown to be a partial victory won by the working class community.

It was forced on the state not only by the high level of organisation and unity forged during the struggle, but also by the threat of widespread solidarity action by the working class in the event of a frontal attack by the state.

Class forces

This situation reflected the balance of class forces in South Africa.

Within an overall forward movement of the working class, which began in the massive strikes of 1973 and reached its high point in the 1976 uprising, a crisis of leadership has given rise to a temporary lull in the proletarian upsurge.

The impasse now reached by workers in struggle represents the limits of spontaneous militancy and is an unstable stuation which carries the threat of setbacks.

Yet those within the ruling class who opt for a strategy of head-on attack, have been unable to carry their position, a clear indication that they recognise the persisting strength of the proletariat.

The state has been forced to turn more to ways of eroding the political independence won by the working class.

In this it relies heavily on liberal white capitalists and their black bourgeois and petty bourgeois lackeys.

When the bourgeois state is forced to retreat before a forward moving working class, it will of course try to turn any concession into a noose around the neck of the proletariat.

The only firm defence for the working class, is the development of a leadership basing itself on the independence i of the class and the strategy of permanent revolution (in which the mass strength of the working class must be brought to the forefront of the Botha struggles of the oppressed black masses, and •democratic demands obtained and secured through socialist revolution). • The.crisis of leadership however means that gains won in struggle, such as the Crossroads concession, can be transformed into reversals, or even more serious setbacks for the class.

The state, in announcing this month its decision to re-house only 6,000 of the estimated 24,000 Crossroads clearly feels that the errors st the Urban roundation and its agents have had some success in weakening the independence attained by the community and its organised committees.

No bulldozing At the same time, recognising the continuing • level of strength displayed nationally by the proletariat, the state still holds back from all-out assault, declaring that there will be no bulldozing of the 3,000 shacks.

The question of re-housing ahd with stand question ost whether a partial victory is consolidated or weakened, will of course be decided by a struggle, and not simply by the proclamation of a state official.

There are clear signs of parallel struggles being waged throughout the country in response to the increases in physical and economic attacks battle for leadership of the proletariat, which will also come launched on the masses by a battles with riot police. up against the political bankdecaying bourgeoisie.

Most recently, these struggles have included the important month-old bus boycott in the Durban industrial area.

This now involves about 15,000 workers walking tens of reliance of the workers on their The fate of the South miles daily in protest against the bus fare increases.

In some ghettoes, streets have been barricaded to stop buses, and there have been Police violence against blacks

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SOCIALIST PRESS, H'ednesda: 24 Ocrober 19-9 DUSTRIAL zge METES The report concludes:

"In many ways the argument of Cowley Road Hospital is not an argument over this or that scheme for how geriatric patients should be looked after.

"It is a choice between saving one of the most precious resources in Oxford, or making a drastic irreversible change which has potentially disastrous results.